0:00

Even if I was stuck yesterday, tomorrow,

0:02

I may not be stuck. Or even I'm stuck

0:04

this morning. If I go for a walk, or

0:06

go for a run, maybe a bike ride, and come back, maybe

0:09

I'll be unstuck. Welcome

0:18

to the one you feed throughout

0:20

time. Great thinkers have recognized the

0:22

importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes

0:25

like garbage in, garbage out, or

0:27

you are what you think, ring true.

0:30

And yet for many of us, our thoughts

0:32

don't strengthen or empower us. We

0:34

tend toward negativity, self pity,

0:37

jealousy, or fear. We see

0:39

what we don't have instead of what we do.

0:42

We think things that hold us back and dampen

0:44

our spirit. But it's not just about

0:46

thinking. Our actions matter. It

0:49

takes conscious, consistent, and creative

0:51

effort to make a life worth living. This

0:54

podcast is about how other people keep

0:56

themselves moving in the right direction, how

0:58

they feed their good will. Thanks

1:14

for joining us. Our guest on this episode

1:16

is Albert Flynda Silver, an American

1:19

poet, memoirist, novelist,

1:21

speaker, and workshop leader. Albert

1:23

is the author of several books of poems, the

1:26

memoir Beamish Boy and the

1:28

book that him and Eric discussed here writing

1:30

as a path to awakening. Hi

1:33

Albert, welcome to the show. Hello, Hello

1:35

Eric, Thank you so much. It's a pleasure

1:37

to have you on. We are going

1:39

to be talking about your book writing

1:42

as a path to awakening a year

1:44

to becoming an excellent writer and

1:46

living and awakened life. So

1:49

we'll go into all those details here in

1:51

a moment, but let's start, like we always do,

1:53

with a parable. There is a grandmother

1:55

who's talking with her granddaughter and she says,

1:58

in life, there are two wolves inside tis

2:00

that are always at battle. One is

2:02

a good wolf, which represents things

2:04

like kindness, bravery, and love,

2:07

and the other is a bad wolf, which represents

2:09

things like greed and hatred and fear.

2:13

And the granddaughter stops and she thinks about

2:15

it for a second. She looks up at her grandmother and she said, well,

2:17

grandmother, which one wins? And the grandmother

2:19

says, the one you feed. So I'd

2:22

like to start off by asking you what that

2:24

parable means to you in your life

2:26

and in the work that you do. Wow, I

2:28

love the parable, and I love the fact

2:30

that you've created this whole podcast around

2:33

it. It's really beautiful, you know,

2:35

to me, it's so much about that

2:37

internal world. You know, the

2:39

wolves, this metaphor of

2:41

the wolves inside of us, you

2:44

know, the wolves of fear, the wolves of doubt,

2:47

the wolves of comparison,

2:51

the wolves of rage, and also we have

2:53

these wolves of hope and insight

2:55

and love and kindness.

2:57

And you know, the work I do is a

3:00

writer, and mindfulness

3:02

and meditation teacher is

3:05

really reminding us to feed what

3:08

nourishes us and what nourishes the world,

3:11

which is love and kindness and

3:13

generosity. And yet part

3:15

of being human, of course, is that

3:18

we do have these two wolves inside of us. And

3:20

it's very real to have

3:24

deep grief and deep uncertainty

3:26

and deep fear. And yet attention

3:30

is really this pivot point. You

3:32

know, we ultimately we have a choice. You know, sometimes

3:34

it feels like we don't have a choice, but you

3:37

know, mindfulness and contemplative

3:39

meditative practices teach us and remind

3:42

us that we do have a choice of where

3:44

we place our attention. We

3:46

can choose to place our attention on

3:49

the good wolf of the kindness, the love, of

3:51

the generosity, even in the

3:53

face of the bad wolf,

3:55

so to speak, rearing its

3:57

its head, and even if the good

4:00

wolf is sort of in the corner, you

4:02

know, looking its wound and having

4:04

its tail curled under itself. We

4:06

can still choose to to move

4:09

our attention towards that

4:11

which nourishes us and that which is

4:13

hopeful, in kind and generous

4:16

within ourselves and outward to the

4:18

world. I love that, and I love the idea

4:20

of attention being the pivot

4:22

point for so much of that, because I do think we

4:25

are making a decision a

4:27

lot. Where is my attention now? Our attention

4:29

may go certain places

4:31

habitually and unconsciously,

4:34

it has an orientation, but

4:37

ultimately we can be

4:40

or aware of that and go, Okay, well my attention,

4:42

my attention is over here again. Nope,

4:44

that's not the place that I think it's productive

4:47

for it to be. I want to move it over here. We launched

4:49

this spiritual Habits one on one program,

4:51

and one of the foundations of

4:53

it is really working with our intention

4:57

and then our attention right by work

5:00

can with both of those levers, we we

5:02

can make such a huge change in

5:04

our lives. And one of the important

5:07

intentions is you know, what do I intend

5:10

to do with my attention? What do

5:12

I want to pay attention to? What do I want to focus

5:14

on, because that, as you so

5:16

eloquently said, really determine so much

5:19

of the quality of our life. And

5:21

really which wolf for feeding, absolutely, and

5:23

the trick is the conditioning.

5:26

What are we conditioned into being? And

5:29

for any of us, which is probably most of us

5:31

who have experienced some form of trauma

5:34

or abuse or neglect or addiction, you

5:36

know, this is all part of the human experience.

5:39

So many things get so deeply imprinted

5:42

on a very deep psychic level and

5:45

even a bodily level, you know, to this

5:47

place where it gets like so interwoven

5:50

in our bones and our tissues and our

5:52

muscles literally, So it takes a lot

5:54

of work and attention

5:56

and action to

5:58

transcend that and to move

6:01

through that and to just keep coming

6:03

back. As a practice, you know, you almost

6:05

can't let your guard down certain

6:07

searching. I just know in my own experience, you

6:10

know, it has to be this regular daily

6:13

practice otherwise I will get swept

6:15

by my own conditioning, and of course

6:17

the influence influences

6:20

of a constant information stream

6:23

that's just more chronic

6:25

and reckless than ever these days.

6:28

Yeah, exactly, I think that's a really good point.

6:30

There's there's our own sort of habitual

6:33

conditioning, and then there is the

6:35

pull of everything else, and both

6:37

those things contribute. Let's turn

6:40

our attention a little bit to your book.

6:42

Writing is a path to awakening. So

6:45

I think it would probably be helpful for us

6:47

to start by defining

6:49

or talking about what do you mean

6:51

by awakening in this sense? Yeah,

6:56

Well, awakening really means just sort

6:59

of like we're talking about waking up

7:01

to the reality

7:03

of existence, of a fullness,

7:06

to a truth of unity,

7:09

truth of awareness that we are not our

7:12

minds. You know, that we're not separate.

7:14

You know, we were so conditioned to believe that we're

7:16

these separate individuals bumping

7:18

about and against other

7:21

individuals that are distinct

7:23

entities from us. And you

7:25

know, on a certain practical level, yes, that's true.

7:28

But on a larger level, what

7:30

happens when we enter into

7:32

a level of spaciousness that that

7:35

is inclusive, where we don't focus

7:37

so much on the differences, but

7:39

we focus on the similarities

7:42

and the inclusions and how

7:44

we're alike. You know, Awakening

7:46

to me means waking up from this dream

7:49

of separation into a more

7:51

holistic, unified, connective

7:54

space of consciousness.

7:57

And so You're using the word awakening

7:59

here in the spiritual sense of

8:01

waking up to what

8:04

people might call our true nature, are true

8:06

being, who we really are at

8:08

one point, you see, the practice of writing is an

8:10

exploration of consciousness,

8:13

a practice towards deeper self awareness

8:15

that moves us along the path of awakening

8:18

to our true nature. Yeah, because I

8:20

think there's the condition to nature, and

8:22

then there's the true nature. The journey

8:24

of life is sort of shedding all that conditioning

8:27

to wake up to this this higher

8:29

sense of ourselves and

8:31

our our full potentiality.

8:34

And in the context of this book that you know, I sort

8:36

of revolved around creativity,

8:38

but the writing piece is really just a metaphor.

8:41

It could be using any creative

8:43

act to wake up to that higher

8:45

truth dance or sculpture

8:48

or entrepreneurship or

8:50

you know, whatever it is that is an act of

8:53

unification and consciousness

8:55

expansion is what I'm

8:57

speaking to, is the tool for

8:59

that sense of clarity and insight, this

9:02

awakening that you're talking about, at least

9:04

my experience of it, as I've had

9:06

awakenings, and I've had these experiences

9:09

deep awakening to this vastness, this

9:11

underlying truth and this sort

9:14

of beyond thinking and

9:17

beyond the stories that

9:19

I create about who I am.

9:21

That's the direction that meditation often

9:23

takes us. Right. Often, meditation is

9:26

you know, letting go of thinking, trying to let

9:28

go of concepts, trying to drop into

9:30

some deeper, underlying reality,

9:32

whereas writing is

9:34

very often a thought based

9:37

process, a story based process.

9:39

It's calling on what's often thought

9:41

of as a different part of our mind.

9:44

And so I'm kind of curious because you're

9:46

really bringing writing

9:48

and meditation and contemplative practice

9:51

together. So how are

9:53

they complementary and not incompatible?

9:56

Yeah, such a beautiful question because

9:59

there's this reconciliation

10:01

we have to sort of deal with where artists

10:03

or writers were engaging the

10:05

mind in thought, engaging the

10:07

imagination and really

10:10

exploring that knowledge base

10:13

of experience to explore

10:15

story and to express story, you know,

10:17

and like you say, with meditation, it's more of

10:19

a process of letting all that stuff go. The

10:22

question becomes can we hold both realities

10:25

to be true? So, like even

10:27

in the wolf parable, is it like it's

10:30

all about having both those

10:32

wolves in our world, in our experience,

10:34

in our inner world, and can

10:36

we hold both things to be true? And not get too

10:39

sucked into either extreme,

10:42

right, because knowledge and the

10:45

mind of the imagination is

10:47

an important and rich and

10:50

amazing tool for

10:52

creativity and creation and technology

10:55

and knowledge expansion and all

10:57

of that stuff. And yet if we get two into

10:59

our heads, two into that extreme

11:02

place of thinking the mind,

11:04

then we neglect the spiritual

11:06

truth, the expanse of truth. We can get so sucked

11:09

into mind, so sucked into ego that

11:11

it becomes extremely violent, And

11:14

there's this underlying just disconnection

11:16

and over a kind of invention

11:19

of false realities. I

11:21

can think of no better example than

11:23

the current occupant of the White House,

11:26

who is an example of a human

11:28

mind gone so often an extreme

11:31

that it's like a complete invented

11:34

fantasy reality that just has no basis

11:36

in grounded connectivity,

11:39

love, support, unity, all the things

11:42

that are elemental to being human, you

11:44

know, And you think, on the other extreme, you

11:46

know, someone like the Dalai Lama or Mother

11:48

Teresa, or I don't know. There's many examples

11:50

out there of true spiritual beings

11:53

who have devoted themselves to love and compassion

11:56

and are just living expressions of that very

11:59

concept. And when you're around them,

12:01

you can feel this energy of inclusion

12:03

and of acceptance and of love. But

12:06

both those things are true, right,

12:09

and we all have elements of both

12:11

those things within us anyway,

12:13

So our lives become like again that question

12:15

of which one do we choose? So

12:19

for you, both these are contemplative

12:21

acts of meditation and writing,

12:23

and they support each other absolutely.

12:26

Now I begin all of my workshops,

12:28

I mean my own writing practice as

12:31

well, but all of my workshops, they begin with

12:34

contemplative meditative practice

12:36

before we get into the writing um.

12:38

That might be mindful movement, it

12:40

might be classic silent meditation

12:43

practice. It might be some sort of contemplative

12:46

energetic you know, body flow

12:48

and body scan kind of a thing. But

12:51

I found that that's the way

12:53

to enter into a more

12:55

expansive sense of possibility

12:58

and access to our creativity

13:01

that we don't necessarily have

13:03

an opportunity to connect with when we're sort

13:06

of stuck in our latest, greatest, big

13:08

idea. In your book, you've got a line

13:10

and idea that I really love. You talk

13:12

a lot about poetry in your book,

13:15

and you say that poetry is the language

13:18

of possibility. Tell me a little bit more about

13:20

that. Poetry is a

13:22

way to talk about that which can't

13:24

be spoken of. You

13:27

know, I think was it T. S. Eliott

13:29

who said poetry is a raid

13:32

on the inarticulate? Yeah,

13:35

I've always loved that. It's like, Okay,

13:37

you put this sort of thrust

13:39

of creativity and intention towards

13:42

that which can't be fully

13:45

expressed, you know, expressing the inexpressible.

13:48

I mean that's the ultimate journey of

13:50

the poet, I think, and really of any

13:52

great artist. And how do you do

13:54

that? What does that mean? You know, anyone

13:56

who's really read poetry

13:59

deeply and not just sort of scanned

14:01

through it has this experience

14:04

of that of knowing the unknowable,

14:06

of being sort of guided towards

14:09

some essence of

14:11

beauty, of wisdom,

14:14

of connection that you may not

14:16

be able to articulate

14:20

or connect with any knowledge base, but

14:22

there's just some kind of

14:24

inner knowing that's

14:26

that's being pointed to, that's being

14:29

expressed, and it's it's like this emotional

14:31

flowering that happens

14:34

when you read a great poem like that, and

14:37

that gives us a sense of possibility

14:40

in the world. Like it's not just language,

14:42

it's not just knowledge, it's not just names,

14:46

but there's something else going on. Here, I

14:48

think poetry for a lot of people is a

14:50

little inaccessible. So what are ways

14:52

to engage more deeply with

14:55

poetry? Because, as you said, it's pretty

14:57

easy to sort of pick it up if you just give it a

14:59

quick pass. It's is just like whatever,

15:02

like nothing right like. It

15:04

takes a deeper engagement. What are some techniques

15:06

that you suggest for people to engage with it

15:09

more deeply and more contemplatively. I

15:11

think the best way is to just

15:13

slow down and really be with

15:16

a poem, and in a different kind

15:19

of way than you would. It's

15:21

it's different kind of reading experience.

15:23

You know, you don't read a poem to consume

15:26

it in the same way you might a

15:28

great story or a short story or

15:31

a play or something. There's

15:33

something about a poem that is visceral

15:36

and has a bodily component to

15:38

it. I mean, really poetry originally

15:40

and comes out of the oral tradition, It comes

15:42

out of song, and so it's

15:45

it's a bodily expressed thing. You

15:47

know, it's only been in the last however many

15:49

thousand years that it's it's gotten onto

15:52

the page and gotten even further abstracted.

15:54

I would invite people to listen to

15:57

recite out loud and to listen,

16:00

listen to the silence of

16:02

no words coming back, and allow

16:05

the home to kind of land without

16:07

an agenda to kind of pin it

16:09

down with understanding, because

16:12

really it's about enjoyment. You know, someone

16:15

wants some interviewed Gertrude Stein.

16:17

He's the great modernist poet who was

16:19

an experimentalist, super abstract.

16:22

She wrote these poems that were so they

16:24

were just so wacky and and like all

16:27

this repetition and cadence,

16:29

it didn't make any sense. There was no narrative

16:32

sense to her works, but there

16:34

was a level of enjoyment and a level

16:37

of rhythm and a level

16:39

of musicality that was visceral

16:41

that when you read it out loud, you're just like, Wow,

16:43

this is cool. I don't know what's going on here, but

16:46

I love it. You encourage

16:48

people to do what they do poetically.

16:51

And I love this line with a kind

16:53

of grace and beauty woven

16:55

in. So it's not that everybody should be a

16:57

poet. Everybody should be writing poetry.

17:00

And how do we bring a sense

17:02

of doing more of our life

17:04

poetically? And like I said, I

17:06

love the last part of that, which is with a kind

17:08

of grace and beauty woven

17:10

into it. Well, I think that's where it comes

17:13

back to being mindful, being

17:15

intentional, slowing down,

17:17

you know, bringing this sense of awareness

17:20

and spaciousness, not just two

17:22

special acts that you like, but

17:25

even the difficult acts of life,

17:27

the difficult situations, even when

17:29

you're revved up, even when you're charged. Can

17:32

we become more spacious? Can

17:34

we weave in that grace and beauty

17:37

in a kind of poetic manner that helps

17:39

us navigate a potentially tumultuous

17:41

emotional situation or

17:44

emotional landscape. And that's where

17:46

the practice comes in, you know, the practice

17:48

of conscious breathing, the fact

17:50

of the practice of grounding yourself in the

17:52

earth and just being present, being

17:54

spacious. Let's

18:22

turn our attention to Okay,

18:25

I want to awakening is

18:27

something that's important to me. Most listeners of the show

18:29

have some sense of like, yes, I'd like to

18:31

awaken to my deeper nature,

18:33

my truer nature, a more accurate

18:36

view of reality. Call it what you want, right,

18:38

Let's talk about using writing to do that. In

18:41

general. What are some

18:43

ways to embark on this process?

18:46

I think the best way is just to

18:48

grab a notebook. Pick up a notebook, get

18:50

a pen, and meet the page

18:53

with a sense of curiosity and

18:56

exploration, an adventure.

18:59

Allow yourself just to to write

19:01

what's there and what's real for

19:03

you, to just sort of journal

19:05

and chart your experience, even

19:07

in a in a very basic way, of what's

19:10

going on in your your world about

19:12

externally and internally, and to kind

19:14

of keep track of that in a daily way.

19:16

One of the best ways to get

19:19

sort of beyond the overthinking

19:21

or the egoic mind is to do freewriting

19:24

exercises and stream of consciousness,

19:27

which is really kind of just sort

19:29

of setting yourself up intentionally to

19:32

to write what's there, what's really in

19:34

the immediate experience internally

19:37

and even externally. You know, I have my

19:39

students, will time, will time them for it

19:42

could be five minutes, could be ten minutes, could be fifteen

19:44

minutes, and there's just some constraints

19:46

that need to be put out. You just have to keep the bend moving.

19:49

You don't worry about spelling or punctuation.

19:53

You don't worry about if it's any good. You

19:55

let go of any sense that

19:58

you'll have to show this to anyone. This

20:00

can just be between you and

20:03

the great mystery and that it's just an

20:05

experiment, and you

20:07

just go and see what's there? What am I

20:09

thinking about? Who am I really? You

20:11

know? What are the some of the things that I've

20:14

thought about that I've never really

20:16

spent time investigating a

20:19

little further. And you just

20:21

start there with the page, or you start even

20:23

with reading. I'm reading a little bit

20:25

more deeply and letting yourself be inspired

20:28

to go to the page from there. That's

20:30

where I started. Someone sent me to a poetry

20:32

reading that I wasn't expecting

20:35

because I had no association or connection with

20:37

poetry. And there I was at this incredible

20:40

reading, hearing things like I've

20:42

never heard before, experiences

20:44

of poetry that totally redefined

20:46

the medium right before my eyes,

20:49

and I got inspired. I picked

20:51

up the book and I started reading it,

20:54

and I just left the language be

20:57

an inspiration for me to think

20:59

of about my own contribution. Like

21:02

I have thoughts, right, why

21:05

is this person's thoughts any more important than my thoughts?

21:08

I'd like to play this game, you know, I'd like to see

21:10

what's going on in my heart mind. Let's

21:13

see what's there. You've got a line that you say

21:15

that I thought was very helpful because I

21:18

struggle with free writing, and

21:20

you have alliances. A judgment about

21:23

the practice of free writing and whether or not it

21:25

works for you has already shaped your perception

21:27

and turned it into a belief before

21:29

you can shut off your mind for long enough to even

21:31

get some words down on paper. And

21:34

you know, I've heard of morning pages for years. Sit

21:36

down and just righte stream

21:38

of consciousness, and and I feel like

21:40

I sit down and I start, and I

21:43

do it for a little bit, and then all of a sudden,

21:45

like it just freezes up.

21:48

So what are your recommendations when that seems

21:50

to be the struggle? Like, put a blank piece

21:52

of paper in front of me, and it seems to all

21:54

of a sudden bring on early

21:56

stage dementia for me. I can't remember

21:59

anything. It's a challenge, absolutely

22:01

no, it's very real. So I want to honor the

22:03

truth of that and know that

22:06

there is a solution. And the

22:08

solution for me is always silence.

22:12

Taking time to just be in silence,

22:14

step away from the page and

22:16

just go and sit in silence and

22:19

try and just let that. Don't try,

22:21

but just let me let the

22:23

busy mind go, you know,

22:25

just focus on the breathing, focus on the

22:28

bodily sensations allow

22:30

things to just move through you in

22:32

their own time and come back

22:34

to the page later. Also another

22:36

thing that's really helpful for me is is walking

22:39

in nature, or if you live in the city, in the park

22:42

and just being in contact

22:45

with the non human world. I'm

22:47

having that distance because the non human world

22:49

is just filled with voices

22:52

and energy and information.

22:55

And when we open up to that and we get quiet

22:57

in ourselves, we have this resource

23:00

and we realize, oh, it's not just us

23:02

here. I'm in collaboration with

23:06

all these non human elements, you

23:08

know, the clouds and the rocks,

23:11

and the flowers and the bushes

23:13

and the blue jays and that

23:16

poem I read this morning on the

23:18

subway, and that novel

23:21

that I've been trying to get through for the last three

23:23

weeks. All of this is grist for the

23:25

mill. As my father used to say, it's

23:27

all part of like we we sort of think of

23:29

ourselves for condition to think of ourselves. It's like

23:32

the writer, the person who has to come up with all

23:34

the great ideas. But when

23:36

we see ourselves as more expansive, then

23:38

we realize we're really in collaboration with

23:41

all these other ideas that are happening and

23:44

going on around us. And it's not

23:46

that we have to invent something

23:49

totally precious and new and original,

23:51

but that we can collaborate in a way

23:54

with all that's around us energetically

23:57

and linguistically and

23:59

the genitively. One of the things that you talk

24:02

about and you encourage in the book is using prompts.

24:05

You say, the practice is simple. Set a time or

24:07

begin with a short time period, say five

24:09

minutes, and build up two longer periods

24:11

of time. Then follow a specific

24:13

prompt. So maybe you could give

24:16

listeners two or three prompts

24:18

that are good sort of initial

24:21

writing for awakening prompts if they want

24:23

to sit down and try this. This practice is sort

24:25

of free writing for five minutes, you

24:27

know, based on a prompt. What are some good

24:30

starting prompts. A couple of favorites

24:32

off the top of my head. One is

24:34

just the phrase the gateway.

24:37

Whatever that means to you go, you know, just

24:40

follow that phrase, those two

24:42

words, the gateway, and see where it

24:44

takes you. Another one that I

24:46

love is from what

24:48

Whitman the Song of Myself. A

24:51

prompt can be anything sometimes

24:53

for me, they're fill in the blank. Sometimes

24:55

they were just a phrase or a couple of words. The

24:58

what Whitman entry for

25:00

me, it is the song of myself is the song

25:02

of blank. You

25:04

just sort of fill in that line, just keep

25:07

going, And some

25:09

of these exercises are in the book. Another

25:11

favorite prompt for me is

25:14

simply writing a letter to

25:18

your current emotional state as

25:21

if it were an entity. So thinking

25:23

about, like what am I feeling

25:25

right now? So you're checking in internally,

25:29

and then you're animating that

25:32

emotional state, like whether it's fear or

25:34

joy, or confusion or

25:36

sadness or boredom.

25:39

What would you say to it, How would you interact

25:41

with it if you were really writing a letter to it,

25:43

if you're really asking the questions or

25:45

telling it how your day is going or whatever. And

25:48

just see where that takes you. And

25:50

it's extraordinary when you

25:53

know. I offer these prompts which are

25:55

very simple in the context of a

25:58

workshop or treat where people have had time

26:00

to kind of just settle down into

26:02

their bodies and open up to their

26:05

imaginative hearts, it's

26:07

just incredible what comes out. Those are some

26:09

good prompts. Yeah, they're fun and to

26:11

play around with them is a lot of fun, and you

26:13

can you can keep going back to the same prompts

26:16

because every day we're in a different

26:18

mood. We're you know, we're constantly changing,

26:20

as physical beings were constantly

26:22

evolving. You know, there's more informational

26:25

input, there's there's memory

26:28

that is changing, and you know, maybe

26:30

we're losing some of our old memories, and

26:32

so it's always new, it's always fresh,

26:35

and that's an exciting thing. That kind of changed my

26:37

perception around writing too.

26:39

It's like, oh, yeah, even if I was stuck

26:41

yesterday, tomorrow, I

26:43

may not be stuck. Or even I'm stuck

26:45

this morning, if I go for a walk or

26:47

go for a run, maybe a bike ride and come back, maybe

26:50

I'll be unstuck. Another prompt do you

26:52

have is a nice one was right for five minutes

26:54

about something being born. I can't remember

26:57

who at the time, you know, I mean as

26:59

writers and teachers a

27:01

morphous community that is the writing

27:03

and teaching community. There's a lot

27:05

of like overlap and sharing of ideas.

27:08

You know, nobody owns these ideas,

27:10

like nobody owns language. And I

27:12

know when I was first starting out as a writer, I used

27:15

to think I had to I had to create

27:17

this original thing that

27:19

nobody had ever seen before that was like completely

27:22

fresh and new and amazing. There's

27:24

a lot of pressure, you know, and

27:27

when I finally realized, like, there's nothing new

27:29

under the sun that I can

27:32

sort of work with what is already

27:34

out there. But as it's filtered through

27:36

my experience, what

27:39

would that be like? It's very free, very

27:42

free.

28:10

One of the parts of your journey is

28:12

you had a drinking problem. I don't know if you refer

28:15

to yourself alcoholic or not, but but you

28:17

drink for a long time

28:19

and you mentioned you said

28:21

this, uh somewhere I heard you talk about,

28:24

like, you know, the shame and drinking.

28:26

There's you know, you're drinking, and there's a shame you're drinking,

28:28

and there's a shame and it creates this

28:31

this cycle that drives the drinking

28:33

on. I want to take that and extend

28:36

it a little bit too, because I think a lot of people

28:38

when they try and write, or they

28:40

try and be creative and and what comes out

28:42

isn't really wonderful. There's a sense

28:45

of shame that comes with that too. There's

28:47

a sense of oh, you know, I'm

28:50

not any good at this, And the way that shame

28:52

does shame takes that one level deeper.

28:54

It's not oh, I'm not any good at this right

28:56

now, I might get better at it's I'm not good,

28:59

I'm not creative, I'm not artistic.

29:01

Right It drives into that slightly deeper

29:04

level. And so I just kind of wanted to talk about

29:06

dealing with that because that that does

29:08

come up with people around creativity

29:11

a lot. And when we start trying

29:13

to create, or we start trying to write, or we

29:15

start doing any of these things can come right

29:17

up absolutely now.

29:19

It's a huge issue. And

29:22

that's why meditation is such

29:24

a powerful tool, and

29:26

time walking in nature and

29:29

contemplative movement, all of these things help

29:31

give us perspective on

29:35

those voices in our head and

29:37

give us some distance over time

29:40

from those voices in our head and know that they're

29:42

not me. This is not who

29:44

I am. These are voices. They're

29:46

there. Okay, hello, I see

29:48

you, knowledge you, but

29:51

you're not invited to this party. Like

29:53

right now, the party is between me and the page,

29:56

and me and my creativity and me and my imagination,

29:59

and I don't welcome you.

30:02

You know, it's hard to be in conversation

30:04

with those voices if you don't

30:07

have a certain level of awareness

30:10

to know that they're even there, because other otherwise

30:12

then you just sort of get hurt and shame

30:14

written every time you sit down to

30:16

meet the page. You know, this

30:19

is why I do think it's so important to just come

30:21

back to the meditation over and over again. And

30:23

they're both practices, right. There's

30:25

the practice of mindfulness of showing

30:27

up for contemplative breathing,

30:30

which is not easy. Sounds pretty easy

30:32

to just sit there and do nothing, but it turns

30:34

out no, it's actually quite difficult to

30:37

actually stay there and stay with the

30:40

discomfort. But the beauty

30:42

of that is the revelation

30:44

of spaciousness and insight

30:46

and distance. And so when

30:48

when those voices of doubt,

30:51

shame and compareing mind they do

30:53

come up, then we can

30:55

let them go. We can put them

30:57

aside and sort of get

31:00

back to the work of being present

31:03

to the page. You Know. The other thing I'd

31:05

say about that is just keep showing up

31:08

and keep trusting in the process, because

31:11

you'll find the more that you show up

31:14

time after time after time, day after day

31:16

after day, you will see

31:20

some really interesting, amazing

31:22

work come out of you, and

31:24

you will be surprised and you will

31:27

be enchanted. Not all the time,

31:29

but it will happen over time

31:31

the more you stay with it. You know,

31:34

context is everything. Setting yourself up

31:37

for success with intentionality

31:39

and with spaciousness like we've begot and began this

31:41

conversation, it makes a huge,

31:44

huge difference. So if you can get out and

31:46

go to a writing workshop

31:48

or these days I'm

31:51

joining a writing workshop online, getting

31:53

support, making connections in community

31:55

goes a long way to assuage

31:59

those voice is of shame, doubt,

32:01

fear, worry. In comparison mind

32:04

excellent. That's really sound, sound

32:07

advice and and a good way to look

32:09

at an approach it. I want to end

32:11

here with something you wrote.

32:13

I love this line and it's something I have been thinking

32:16

about a lot lately, particularly in my spiritual

32:18

practice. And you're sort of talking about

32:21

this deeper level of

32:23

awakening, this deeper level of knowledge kind

32:25

of of who we are, and you say, you know you're

32:27

the greatest invention ever and

32:30

you are completely insignificant.

32:36

Yeah, that's just a total mind trip,

32:39

total mind trip. I love it though,

32:41

because I have had some fairly

32:43

deep spiritual experiences over the last

32:46

couple of months where I've had these things

32:48

where I've realized, like, as I'm thinking about

32:50

moments or things or events, it's it's

32:52

all like, this is utterly and

32:54

completely insignificant and

32:57

somehow, at the same exact time,

33:00

utterly sacred and beautiful

33:03

and wonderful. It's both those things,

33:05

which is that weird paradox that

33:08

doesn't make sense. But when I read that line of yours, I

33:10

just kind of lit me up because I was like, I have been

33:12

thinking a lot about this. You know, I'm the

33:14

greatest invention ever and completely

33:16

insignificant. Yeah, I mean you think

33:18

of the scale of the universe,

33:20

I mean the scale of planet Earth, the

33:23

number of people. It's inconceivable,

33:26

you know, you can't wrap your head around

33:28

it. And and yet

33:30

we take things so seriously, right, we

33:33

think of ourselves is so important, and

33:35

my poem is like the most important

33:37

poem, and it's got to be published, and da da

33:39

da da, and on the story goes,

33:42

and there is a there's a truth to the fact

33:44

that each person is

33:47

a unique expression of

33:49

divinity, of the great

33:51

mystery and should be honored

33:53

and loved. And it is this total

33:56

miracle of life that's

33:58

so true in yet at

34:00

the same time, we are temporary

34:03

beings. You know, we have our

34:06

time in this embodied

34:08

form for however long we

34:10

have it, and then we disappear

34:14

back into the great mystery. I

34:16

mean you think about, like, wow,

34:18

where did it go? Where

34:21

did they go? You know, I think about my parents who

34:23

both passed on, you know,

34:25

who were so solid. There was such

34:27

absolute, concrete, solid

34:30

people in my experience, and then they just

34:32

disappeared physically. But

34:35

I mean spiritually, there's

34:37

that that larger connection

34:40

that we can delve into. But I think

34:42

just just holding both of those possibilities

34:44

and both of those truths can be very liberating

34:47

and really put us at ease. Yeah, yeah,

34:50

I agree. It's being able to hold both

34:52

of them, because if you hold either of them only,

34:55

it either leads to sort of nihilism

34:58

of like nothing matters, I don't matter, nothing

35:00

matters, or this overly

35:02

inflated sense of self. And both of them together

35:05

even though they don't make any sense. And that's that deeper

35:09

part of spiritual life, deeper awakening,

35:11

is that these paradoxes seem to start showing

35:13

up and to allow ourselves

35:15

to to live with those. You've got

35:18

a line you say, how do you define God, truth,

35:20

emptiness, or even awakening? The

35:22

short answer is you don't. Instead, you right

35:24

around it, pointing in its general

35:27

direction. It's a beautifully futile

35:29

practice of yearning towards becoming

35:32

and arriving at where you already

35:34

are, which I think sort of summarizes

35:36

this whole paradox idea and this

35:38

whole ineffability ineffability idea.

35:41

Now it's fun to hear that red back

35:45

what sort of things like wow, who wrote

35:47

that? Which

35:49

is sort of part of the thing I was saying earlier,

35:51

like that. This is a

35:53

collaborative process, you

35:56

know, and this isn't just Albert

35:58

writing, you know, a profound

36:00

book about creativity

36:02

and spirituality. It's a collective

36:05

process. You know. I stand

36:08

on the shoulders of the giants that game

36:10

before me, you know, be that Natalie

36:13

Goldberg or Jack Corpuel or whoever.

36:15

I mean, not to compare myself that level

36:17

of expression, but you know, it's all

36:20

part of the collective creative

36:22

expression. And you

36:24

know, of course we assign individual

36:27

names to these books for just logistical

36:30

purposes. But ultimately, I think

36:32

more and more the older I get, the more. I think

36:35

of it as a collaborative process.

36:38

I think it totally is. Everything is

36:40

is much more collaborative, I think than we

36:42

give it credit for or realize it is. Is

36:45

much more interconnected than we ever assume.

36:47

Yeah, and there's a lot of baggage around the writer,

36:50

you know, and a lot of conditioned old

36:52

baggage sort of loan writer

36:54

scribbling away their little cabin,

36:57

you know, and being all tortured and would

37:00

it's like, Okay, that's an old paradigm that we

37:02

can let go of. And

37:04

you know, especially in this day and age, like this

37:06

last book project, there were so many different

37:09

people involved along the way. You

37:11

know. Yes, there were times when I was alone

37:13

in my studio or on my couch

37:15

working on the book and write in a way, but

37:18

it wasn't that long compared to how much

37:20

time also I spent with my editor

37:23

and us being in conversation and

37:25

working through sentences and paragraphs, and

37:28

and then going on to talk with my copy editor

37:30

and to tell you know, and on it goes,

37:33

like talking to my friends and and

37:35

my trusted readers along the way, and

37:38

all of that. Just it's like, ah,

37:40

this is such a relief. I don't have to do it all

37:42

on my own. Well, Albert, thank you

37:44

so much for taking the time to come

37:47

on the show. I think this is a great place to kind of wrap

37:49

up, but thank you so much for

37:52

sharing your ideas with our readers. Will have links

37:54

in the show notes to your book, to your

37:56

website, to all your events where people

37:58

can find out more about you. So thank you so much.

38:00

I really appreciate it and enjoyed this conversation.

38:03

Likewise, Eric has been an absolute

38:05

joy and I appreciate the opportunity. Thank

38:07

you so much. Bye.

38:26

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