0:00

If you're used to tuning out things

0:02

you don't like, it starts to creep into things

0:04

that you do like. Welcome

0:14

to the one you feed Throughout

0:16

time, great thinkers have recognized the

0:18

importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes

0:20

like garbage in, garbage out,

0:22

or you are what you think ring

0:25

true. And yet for many of

0:27

us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower

0:29

us. We tend toward negativity, self

0:32

pity, jealousy, or fear.

0:35

We see what we don't have instead of what we

0:37

do. We think things that hold us

0:39

back and dampen our spirit. But

0:41

it's not just about thinking. Our

0:43

actions matter. It takes conscious,

0:45

consistent, and creative effort to make

0:47

a life worth living. This podcast

0:50

is about how other people keep themselves moving

0:52

in the right direction, how they feed

0:55

their good wolf m

1:10

Thanks for joining us. Our guest on this episode

1:12

is Miguel Chen. He is a meditation

1:15

practitioner, a yoga instructor,

1:17

and the owner of Blossom Yoga Studio

1:19

in Lara May and Cheyenne, Wyoming. Miguel

1:22

is also the bass player for punk band

1:24

Teenage Bottle Rocket, who I may

1:26

have done sound for at Bernie's in Columbus,

1:28

Ohio in the early two thousand's.

1:31

His book is I Want to Be Well,

1:33

How a Punk Found Peace and You Can

1:35

Too. Hi Miguel, Welcome to the show.

1:38

Hi Eric, thanks for having me. I

1:40

am excited to have you on and

1:42

we'll talk about your book I Want to Be Well,

1:45

How a Punk Found Peace and You Can

1:47

too. And we'll cover that in just a

1:49

moment. But let's start like we always do, with the parable.

1:52

There's a grandfather who's talking with his grandson.

1:54

He says, in life, there are two wolves

1:57

inside of us that are always at battle. One

2:00

is a good wolf, which represents things like

2:02

kindness and bravery and love, and

2:05

the other is a bad wolf, which represents

2:07

things like greed and hatred and fear. And

2:10

the grandson stops and thinks about it for a second

2:12

and looks up at his grandfather and he says, well, grandfather,

2:14

which one wins? And the grandfather

2:17

says, the one you feed. So

2:19

I'd like to start off by asking you what that parable

2:22

means to you in your life and in the

2:24

work that you do. You know, I think

2:26

your life ends up being the

2:29

sum of of minutes and moments

2:31

and hours, and it all adds up to days

2:33

and years, and eventually that's

2:35

the life you lived, right, And really

2:38

what we spend our moments thinking

2:40

about or or doing, it

2:42

adds up. It's a nice little parable,

2:45

I think to sort of sum that up, like if

2:48

you spend a lot

2:50

of moments angry or

2:53

frustrated instead

2:55

of appreciative or happy

2:58

or joyful, you know, it adds

3:00

up and and that ends up being your life,

3:02

right. So so the Wolves, I

3:05

think, are a nice little summary of that.

3:07

Excellent. So, in addition to writing

3:09

this book, you also own

3:11

a yoga studio as well

3:14

as you play bass in a punk rock

3:16

band named Teenage Bottle Rocket. So

3:19

talk to me about how you get from

3:21

being a bass player

3:24

in a punk rock band to a

3:26

yoga studio and writing

3:28

a book about finding inner

3:30

peace. I'll do my best to kind of loop

3:33

this back around to this idea of the Wolves. But

3:35

for a long time, all I would think about

3:37

is like, like punk rock music,

3:40

and I just kind of want to party and

3:42

and travel and be with my friends, and

3:45

and this whole scene and this whole

3:47

idea sort of represents like that kind

3:50

of freedom. And so that's

3:52

where my attention was, and

3:54

and sure enough. That's what my life

3:56

manifested. And yeah, I

3:58

was in this band, and I still

4:01

am in this band, I should say, But we started

4:03

to do really well, and we got to go

4:05

a lot of places and do

4:07

records and tour with a lot of bands

4:10

that we really looked up to. And in

4:12

the one sense I was I was kind of, you

4:14

know, living living out all of my teenage

4:17

punk rock dreams. But in the other

4:19

sense, my attention kind of got

4:21

lost at some point and it kind

4:23

of shifted away from like, this is a really

4:26

fun, cool thing I want to do with

4:28

my life to a little bit more

4:30

like I'm tired because I've

4:32

party too hard, or you know, we're

4:35

stuck in this van, and and I

4:37

found myself a little bit,

4:39

I guess, feeding the bad wolf, and

4:42

I got kind of miserable. And it really

4:45

took a moment of clarity to

4:47

be like, why why am I miserable right

4:49

now? Like I'm doing all this stuff

4:52

that I always wanted to do, So what's

4:55

the problem here. It's kind of startling

4:57

when that happens, when everything you thought you wanted

4:59

to have happen happens, and

5:01

you're like, but wait, I'm still not happy, You're

5:03

like what now? Absolutely,

5:06

you know, it's it's a little it's startling,

5:08

and it certainly can be a turning point most

5:11

definitely. And if you read the book,

5:13

you know, you'll learn about like some deaths I

5:15

had in my life that I kind of wasn't really

5:17

dealing with that stuff, but

5:19

but it was, it was down there, and it was underneath

5:22

and sort of suppressing that the

5:24

opposite of just like feeding into like

5:26

oh and you know I've got these dead

5:28

relatives. It was really like,

5:31

oh, I'm not going to deal with that at all, so

5:33

like just suppress and suppress and suppress it. And

5:36

that kind of started to manifest two,

5:39

I think, and by not dealing with

5:41

these things, I always kind of had this like negative

5:44

frequency going on, and

5:47

and it did sort of manifest itself in like these

5:49

like deep depressions

5:51

and you know, like substance abuse.

5:54

And that's kind of where I like dove

5:56

in and like started to focus my energy like I'm

5:58

just gonna be kind of this like not realistic like

6:00

punk rock star, I'm just gonna like party myself

6:03

to death. And that wasn't really working

6:05

and and so I had to uh, kind

6:07

of kind of this place where you know, what's

6:09

not working and and why am

6:11

I not happy? And I think, like most things

6:14

in life, it was kind of in the middle. It was

6:16

like some of it was outside

6:18

of me, like these external things

6:20

I was I was bringing into my life. But

6:23

the the underlying problem was it

6:25

was really like an internal almost an

6:27

attitude, and you found I guess

6:29

it was a book by Noah Levine, who we've

6:31

had on the show before. But was it

6:34

his writing that sort of first

6:36

got you interested in, you

6:38

know, for lack of a better word, the spiritual path

6:40

or or was there some was there something before

6:43

that that started you down that path. When

6:45

I was young, my my mother was

6:47

really like deeply spiritual

6:49

person, and um, I think, like

6:52

a lot of teenagers, you know, my mom

6:54

thought that this stuff was cool. So I thought it

6:56

was totally lame and wanted wanted

6:59

nothing to do with right. And my

7:01

mother passed away from cancer and it was like

7:04

a several year thing.

7:08

I did shortly after that in

7:10

in a car accident. But um,

7:13

I think the first kind of inkling

7:16

that I had that like maybe my mom is like

7:18

kind of onto something. It was like watching

7:21

like watching her die in a weird

7:23

way, like it was such like a painful, awful

7:26

thing, but she was like with

7:29

it, and and she was still

7:31

like a joyful person, which I

7:33

couldn't quite wrap my head around, like how

7:35

how can you be joyful like you're you're dying.

7:38

So that seed was planted, and

7:40

then I just kind of buried it, like

7:43

really deep, like I'm not going to deal

7:45

with any of that. And

7:47

then a few years after that, we

7:49

were on tour with this band called the Epoxies,

7:52

and and their singer was the one who

7:54

ended up giving me that No Levine book, which

7:56

I think it was It was a lot of

7:58

stuff all just like the right

8:01

place at the right time, and and these

8:03

talks I would have with her, I

8:06

was just open, you know, I

8:08

would listen to her, and

8:10

so she thought that this book might help me, maybe

8:13

it was worth checking out, and that kind

8:15

of like open these floodgates that like all

8:18

of a sudden, all this like stuff

8:20

with my mom that I'd like buried really deep,

8:22

it's all kind of came pouring out. And

8:25

and that was the first time I kind of realized,

8:27

like the reason I'm miserable, even though I'm

8:29

living out like my dreams, is has

8:32

nothing to do with like this anything

8:34

outside of myself. It's all it's

8:36

all inside of me, and I have like a

8:38

power and an ability to

8:40

change this. So so that started along

8:43

dedicated journey down trying

8:46

to discover more.

8:48

I always think it's interesting when punk

8:50

rockers become spiritual.

8:53

I mean, I grew up in the eighties and was

8:55

in the very early punk scene and had

8:57

bands and and all that kind of stuff,

8:59

and I think it. I always think about like it

9:01

seems like such a far transition, but I

9:03

actually don't think it is. I actually think

9:05

that at least my experience was punk rock.

9:08

For me and for a lot of the people I know, it was about

9:10

finding some meaning. You know, life

9:12

looked kind of meaningless, the culture as

9:14

we saw it looked meaningless, and so here was this

9:16

thing that had meaning. And that's

9:19

not a very far step from spirituality,

9:22

which is really at its most basic

9:24

is a question about what matters. Punk

9:26

rockers are looking for something really real and

9:29

and anything that's kind of shitty

9:32

or not like quite the real thing. Should

9:35

I watch my language, by the way, if you can.

9:38

If not, we'll just market as explicit

9:40

on iTunes um and it'll be that's

9:42

the way it'll be, so don't don't sweat it

9:44

cool. I think a lot of punk rockers like

9:47

are sick of like just fake

9:50

stuff, and so we quest

9:52

out to look for something a little

9:54

more real. And it's the next

9:56

door neighbor I think of,

9:59

like yoga or

10:01

Buddhism, you know, because

10:03

here's other people who, you

10:06

know, maybe they don't like dress

10:08

like punk rockers are listening to the same music

10:10

as us, but they they too are

10:13

on this quest where like the fake

10:15

stuff isn't working for them anymore,

10:17

and so they need something real. Right.

10:20

Yeah, there's a line in the book I really

10:22

liked you say we all get to choose

10:24

our reactions because we all get to choose

10:26

our attitude. To me, that's very

10:28

punk rock way more than having green

10:31

hair, putting safety pins through your face,

10:33

or obsessively listening to the ramans, all

10:35

the things I do or have done, by the way,

10:38

And I love that because I do think you nailed

10:40

to me a lot of what the punk ethos

10:43

was or is for me. Most definitely,

10:45

you're Columbus, Is that right,

10:47

I am? Yeah. We we used to play a place

10:49

out there called Bernie's. Ye

10:52

Oh, I remember Bernie. I

10:54

used to play there, and interestingly, my

10:57

my partner who does the show does the editing,

10:59

used to run sound at Bernie's for years. That's

11:02

awesome. Yeah. I definitely

11:04

remember like a show

11:06

and some kids have let off some

11:09

fireworks and started like a dumpster fire

11:11

or something. I was like, this is a pretty this

11:13

is a pretty punk rocktown. But not to

11:15

get to sidetracks. Sorry, no,

11:17

no, it's a good little Yeah. Definitely

11:20

Columbus and Bernie's. It's gone, but

11:22

it was an institution for a long time.

11:24

Definitely. So let's dive

11:26

into some of the pieces in

11:28

the book in a little bit more detail. And one

11:31

of the things you talk about is coming

11:33

to an understanding of who we actually

11:36

are. You know, we talked about the punk piece

11:38

about what's really real and

11:41

um and you say I've come to a semblance

11:43

of understanding. It goes something

11:45

like this, we are all everyone

11:47

and everything part of one thing.

11:50

We're interconnected. Can you elaborate

11:53

on that a little bit? Yeah, So I'm

11:55

super in the like Alan Watts, I think

11:57

was one of like the greatest my

12:00

and like one of the best people explain this. But

12:03

he would always talk a lot about like

12:05

this whole thing is kind of a game, and that's

12:08

stuck with me like a lot, Like um,

12:10

of course it's not like original to him,

12:13

like if you go back into like Hinduism,

12:15

like it's really kind of there where.

12:17

Here's this one thing and we can call

12:20

it God if we have no other word for

12:22

it. But like if if you're this thing

12:24

that can do anything,

12:27

like at some point, it's boring, right

12:30

like at some point over like millions of

12:32

years or however long, like you

12:34

have to find a way to like exist

12:36

without just being bored out of your mind. So you

12:39

set up a game and you're like, I'm

12:41

just gonna manifest as

12:43

as billions of different things,

12:46

and I'm just going to kind of play these

12:48

games just just to pass the

12:50

time or just to have experiences. And

12:53

the game only works if I don't

12:55

know that it's me playing. If you take this like

12:58

God thing and it's like a, well,

13:00

I want to experience what it's like to be Eric

13:03

and In in two thousand

13:05

eighteen and to have the one You Feed

13:08

podcast, So I'm

13:10

hoping God can do better than that. But yeah,

13:13

well I mean yeah,

13:15

yeah, so so there you are. And then it's

13:17

like, well, I want to know what it's like to be Miguel

13:21

and so on and so forth, and

13:23

here we are just kind of existing, but

13:26

you know, we don't know that

13:28

that's what we really are. And I think at the moment

13:31

of death, like that's when we really

13:33

are like, oh, this is

13:35

Eric that I thought wasn't

13:37

me. It was me. It was just me

13:39

playing a different role. It's one

13:42

way of looking at it that

13:44

that gives me like a lot of comfort

13:46

because it it kind of solves a lot

13:48

of problems in the human realm if you kind of accept

13:50

that, like at least as a possibility

13:53

that guy like cut

13:55

me off in traffic and I'm

13:58

so mad it,

14:00

then you kind of take a

14:02

step back and you're like, that's me. It's

14:05

just me in a different incarnation,

14:07

and it's forgotten that it's it's

14:10

me or um

14:13

like let's just say, like the most evil,

14:16

awful person in the world and and I'll

14:18

just leave that up to imagination. But

14:21

it helps you build compassion for

14:23

that person when you're like, that person is not actually

14:25

evil and awful, they're just really

14:28

deep in the game and they've really forgotten,

14:31

truly like who they are. Because

14:35

the moment they come back to the truth of like

14:38

we are this like one

14:40

connected thing. All of a sudden, they're

14:43

like, oh man, I shouldn't continue to

14:45

hurt people. You

15:21

talk a lot in the book about interconnection.

15:25

We're all interconnected, we're all part of one thing,

15:27

And you talk a lot about disconnect.

15:29

You say, disconnect is a real problem.

15:32

It's the single biggest obstacle between

15:34

us and the truth. So we need to see it

15:37

in all its forms, past, present,

15:40

and future. So talk about disconnection,

15:43

And for you, what do you do

15:45

when disconnection rears its head, Because you

15:47

know, at least happens to me, you

15:50

know pretty regularly that happens to

15:52

all of us, like thousands of times a day.

15:54

I think let's go back to

15:57

like this idea, like if this

15:59

is all a game and it's spent to

16:01

be like joyful and

16:03

and and fun, the more time we

16:05

like spend not connected

16:08

to that, the more we're just robbing ourselves

16:10

of whatever. Like beauty is in

16:12

front of us, and even if it looks like something

16:15

awful, there's there's something really beautiful and

16:17

powerful, like in anything. Theoretically,

16:20

so if we're just

16:23

kind of like mindlessly like

16:25

brushing our teeth and

16:29

like getting dressed for work, like checking

16:32

Facebook and like doing eight things at time. We're

16:34

missing like this innate beauty where

16:37

if we had done just say

16:39

one of those things mindfully. I

16:41

had a teacher in India who would would

16:44

tell me, like, we get hungry our

16:46

immediate impulses like just shoved food in your

16:48

face, and and you've missed

16:51

not only like the joy of enjoying

16:54

this food and like being present with

16:57

him, being mindful with it, and like grateful

16:59

for the nurturing

17:01

that it gives you to keep existing, but

17:04

you also missed the joy

17:06

of of feeling hungry,

17:09

which was a weird thing

17:11

for me to think about it. He's like the

17:13

actual feeling of being hungry,

17:15

Like if you take the connotation away

17:17

from it is an interesting experience,

17:20

you know, among like another thousand things. That guy

17:22

told me, Like it kind of blew my mind,

17:25

and I was like he's

17:27

right, Like, no matter what's going on

17:29

around us, like there's something we can connect

17:31

to about it, it's going to kind

17:33

of like raise us up a little and

17:35

like help us feel something

17:38

right. And the problem is like when something

17:41

is seemingly

17:43

unpleasant, like of course we're

17:46

trying to disconnect to it. Like I think about

17:48

it, like if I'm getting a tattoo and it feels

17:51

awful and I hate it, you know, like

17:53

my mind's immediately like let's play some music

17:56

or let's talk to the artist, and let's like do whatever

17:58

we can to not feel this knee little stabbing

18:00

into my skin a thousand times.

18:03

But whatever, I've like taken a moment to kind

18:05

of try and be present with it, like there's there's

18:08

something there, and that's just what we do with like

18:10

unpleasant stuff like we don't even realize,

18:13

like stuff that we like, we're

18:16

not present with it, stuff that is

18:18

seemingly like what we want

18:20

in our lives, Like we don't even

18:22

pay attention, like our friends

18:24

are around, we're just on our phones,

18:28

or like we're traveling

18:30

around and like we all

18:33

just have like our nose is buried in a

18:35

video gamers, you know, like the things

18:37

we like we disconnect

18:39

from. Made me think of a couple of things. One with

18:41

hunger. I've been playing this little game lately

18:43

where when my brain says

18:45

something like I'm hungry

18:48

or I'm tired or I'm

18:50

whatever, I try and ask myself, like how

18:52

do I know that there's a series of steps that

18:54

gets to the thought in my brain I'm

18:57

hungry, and so if I can

18:59

stop and go, how do I know that? What is

19:01

it that's telling me that? Let me get you know,

19:03

the sensation itself or the the thing

19:05

itself. I found it to be an interesting

19:07

way to be a little bit more mindful

19:10

and try and understand a little bit more like, well,

19:12

what does hungary really feel like?

19:14

You know, what is it? What is it like? And

19:17

so I think, uh, you know, it's a very

19:19

very similar idea and the other ideas

19:21

you were talking about eating mindfully. I'm always amazed

19:23

by how I'm perfectly capable

19:26

of doing this, and so are a lot of people. Like I'm

19:28

gonna go eat something that should be a treat

19:31

for me. I generally gonna eat good and now I'm gonna

19:33

go get, you know, a blizzard from dairy

19:35

Queen, And how mindlessly I

19:37

will eat that often. You know, I'm

19:39

not even really enjoying it. I'm

19:42

always a little bit like, well, well that was a real waste,

19:45

Like not only did I eat something

19:47

that you know isn't good for me, and all the various

19:49

pieces of that, like I didn't even really enjoy it.

19:51

To boot you know, I might as well have had nutritious

19:54

cardboard for as much as I paid attention to

19:56

it. It adds up again like these these

19:58

moments, and if you're used

20:00

to tuning out to things you don't like,

20:03

it starts to creep into things that you

20:05

do like, and before you know it, these

20:07

series of moments, like you've lived a life

20:09

where you are just disconnected, like

20:11

a decade goes back and like maybe

20:14

a handful of times you were actually

20:17

really present for what was going

20:19

on. Where we're bored

20:21

with this ability to to connect,

20:24

like like in a perfect

20:26

world, to everything

20:28

every single moment. And but

20:31

you know, like realistically definitely

20:34

a a lot more than we actually

20:36

do. And I think those moments

20:38

of like pure connection are precious.

20:41

We can cultivate so much more of it, Like

20:43

you were saying, just slow down, right

20:46

stop and take a moment and be like, well, where

20:48

is this coming from? And investigate a little bit,

20:50

and like retrain the mind

20:53

to activate and to work

20:55

that way and less to just like shut up

20:57

and mindlessly do

21:00

what you do. Right. And in the book,

21:02

you talk a fair amount about being in the present

21:05

moment, and I'm kind of curious, how do you do

21:07

that. That's not a theoretical question,

21:09

that's more of a question about like how do you do

21:12

it? Because it's one of those things that my experience has

21:14

often been like, Okay, I need to be in the present moment,

21:16

and I come to the present moment for about a

21:18

fraction of a second and then I'm

21:20

gone again. Different people have different

21:22

ways that sort of helped them to reconnect

21:26

or to remain present. Any any that

21:28

worked well for you. The first step

21:30

in any problem is realizing that it's

21:32

there, right, So it's kind

21:34

of an over and over thing, Like the

21:36

moment you realize you're really lost,

21:38

like you're on the moon and not present.

21:41

That helps, and you have to like train

21:44

yourself to notice more.

21:46

There's definitely things for me

21:48

in my life that that help a lot, and some

21:50

of them are like get up early

21:52

in the morning and and do

21:55

do my practice, do do yoga, do

21:58

meditation, and like that sort sets

22:01

the pace for the rest of my day. Like all

22:03

right, I'm I'm starting the day connected

22:05

to my body and I'm starting the day connected to my

22:07

breathing, so it gives me

22:09

a leg up. But it certainly isn't this like,

22:11

oh I did yoga today, Like today,

22:14

I'm just present. It helps start

22:16

the day on the right foot. But inevitably,

22:19

like anybody else, all of a sudden, I'm just

22:21

lost and I'm gone, and it is just

22:24

inch by inch and step by step.

22:27

If you notice, deep breath in, deep

22:31

breath out, and

22:33

come back, and then it

22:36

will happen again and again, and

22:38

it will keep happening for the rest of your life, every

22:40

every time you notice, like if I enjoy

22:42

in hah, I noticed cool.

22:45

Yeah. The one that I have been having

22:47

a lot of success with when I remember

22:49

to do it, which you're right, that is the key

22:52

piece is the remembering is

22:54

just this idea of I think I've heard it referred

22:56

to as like grounding yourself in your senses.

22:59

I think of like, all right, what are five things

23:01

I can see right now? And

23:03

then what are five things that I can hear? And

23:05

then what are five things that I can feel

23:07

physically? You know, like I feel the

23:10

backpack strap on me, or a breeze

23:12

or a boy I could feel my my knee

23:14

hurts a little bit, or it's just for

23:17

me. That's a really useful way to do

23:19

it, because anything like that that

23:21

gives my brain a little something to do

23:24

while it's being present really helps

23:26

me from that like I'm present, I'm gone, gone,

23:29

gone, gone, I'm present for half a second, I'm gone.

23:31

It gives me something. It's just the

23:33

word I always uses. It makes the moment a little

23:35

stickier for me in some way. And

23:37

that's one that like I've really really

23:40

been trying to do a lot over the last

23:42

several months and really find it to be when

23:45

I remember, I

23:47

find it to be really really helpful for me.

23:49

That's awesomes Like you say, your your

23:52

mind has to kind of be

23:54

trained, right and and you see it like Buddhism

23:57

a lot you see like like monkey mind

24:00

call it and it's just it's been running wild

24:02

forever. So now to

24:04

kind of like reel it back in is

24:07

a big task. And you

24:09

know a lot of people think yoga like definition

24:12

is like union or connection, and I

24:14

think about they go for

24:17

that, but like if if you go to the yoga

24:19

suitras, like the practice of yoga

24:21

is defined as they say, yoga

24:24

cheeta, ruti, neurota, and

24:26

that just means yoga

24:29

calms the fluctuations

24:31

of mind and

24:33

and so all this stuff we're doing like

24:36

with our bodies where we're like training ourselves

24:39

to like, okay, notice your right

24:41

foot, notice your spine,

24:43

notice your posture, Like it

24:45

is all just a

24:48

process to trade

24:50

our mind to be still. And

24:52

do you find that you have both a

24:55

sitting meditation practice and

24:57

a yoga practice for you? Are those both

25:00

equally important? Absolutely? If

25:02

you go from a yoga system, there's like lots

25:04

of steps, and one of the

25:06

later steps his meditation. But it's

25:09

like first like body and

25:11

breathing, and then like senses,

25:14

and it's all just from like really

25:17

external stuff two

25:20

internal and so once

25:22

you're connected with your body, you

25:25

can go deeper and connect with your breathing.

25:27

Then you can like notice the

25:29

subtle aspects of your senses, and

25:32

from there you can go to like

25:34

a seated meditation practice. And I

25:36

didn't even like consider yoga

25:39

like real thing I would ever think about

25:41

doing like it was just a seated

25:44

meditation practice. All

25:46

of a sudden, when I when I started doing

25:48

like a physical yoga practice, I was like, this makes

25:50

my meditation so much

25:52

easier. Do you do yoga and then sit down

25:55

and meditate? Are they part of at the same time?

25:57

You do the physical first, and then you find

25:59

that helps your seated practice. My

26:01

morning routine, depending

26:04

on how much time I have, is usually

26:06

an hour hour and a half of yoga

26:09

followed by like minutes of

26:12

seated meditation. So

26:14

if I'm lucky, I have two hours a day. But

26:17

yeah, what I'm not lucky. You

26:19

know, condense and do what

26:21

I can as I As

26:23

we say on the show all the time, a little bit of something

26:26

is better than a lot of nothing. And you say

26:28

that in the book. If you get nothing else from this book,

26:30

sit down for five minutes a day

26:32

and start a practice.

27:03

A question for you around your

27:06

life in the punk rock world.

27:08

How open have bandmates

27:10

been, other bands, people that you've

27:12

met to kind of what you're doing. And has

27:15

this been something that you've feel sort of isolated

27:17

in when you're out on the road or is it something you

27:19

feel really supported in when you're out on the road.

27:21

It's the full spectrum. I have friends

27:24

who I'm like really close to, and people I look

27:27

up to a lot that like do not even

27:29

pretend to try and understand.

27:32

They just kind of, you know, rip

27:34

on me and think it's it's a

27:37

complete waste of time, which is fine.

27:40

And and then I have friends

27:42

and people I look up to and like strangers

27:46

who talk to me about

27:49

like this, I think

27:51

you're onto something, you know, And the thing

27:53

I have to keep coming back to is not

27:56

attaching to either of them too

27:58

much, like connect whichever one is in

28:00

front of me, and then let it go when it's done,

28:03

because it's easy to like if someone

28:05

comes up and it's like, oh, your book, like

28:07

it got me started out meditation

28:10

and did this, this and this, Like it's easy to be

28:12

like I'm awesome, you know,

28:14

like impat yourself

28:16

on the back and and all that. But

28:19

then but then you're also like really

28:21

kind of disconnecting from something by

28:24

being that way. And it is also easy when

28:26

it's like someone you

28:28

really look up to is kind of like, dude,

28:31

this is stupid. This is like the least

28:33

punk thing you could possibly do. Like, you

28:36

know, it's hard to not like take

28:39

that personally and like feel really sad. But

28:41

like that's also part of the practice.

28:43

That's not necessarily true. And this isn't

28:45

necessarily true. Like what's true

28:47

is it is in the middle, and it's

28:49

it's like I'm just I'm just doing my

28:52

best and you're doing your thing,

28:54

which is pretty punk rock as we talked

28:56

about before doing your thing.

28:58

Yeah, man, you find it easier

29:01

to practice when

29:03

you're home, stationed at home or

29:06

on the road or is there not much of a difference for

29:08

you in that Again, it's kind of twofold. Like at

29:11

home, it's it's so easy.

29:13

I'm at one of my two studios every day

29:15

of the week. It's easier for me to have a

29:18

normal schedule and a normal routine. But

29:20

there is also the aspect of like I'm home

29:23

and I'm comfortable. I'm like, it's harder

29:25

to stay motivated to practice

29:27

all the time when you're comfortable.

29:30

Right on tour, like there's no schedule,

29:33

it's it's always just chaos,

29:35

and a lot of times it's hard to find like a place

29:38

or time to like get this in,

29:41

so that can be difficult. But there

29:43

is also a lot of times like I'm struggling

29:46

out there, and that motivates

29:48

me to find time and make

29:50

time and make a place. So it's both.

29:53

Yeah, I was thinking about what

29:55

you said there at the end earlier this week

29:58

about that at sense

30:01

of like you said, so when I'm struggling, I

30:03

go to my yoga practice,

30:05

or I go to my meditation practice,

30:08

and I was thinking about, like, it seems

30:10

like there's this point where for a lot of us, something

30:13

changes. We realize like suffering

30:15

means that there's some actions we can take

30:17

to feel better, and so we suffer

30:20

that that is a motivator towards

30:22

practice for me that I'm

30:24

so glad that that happened with me. I

30:26

try to be motivated when there's not only by

30:28

pain. But I know some people who suffering

30:31

and pain and all that does not motivate them

30:34

forward really in any significant

30:36

way. And I was just thinking about how grateful

30:38

I am that that happened for me. Again,

30:40

I'm not quite sure how, but that somehow

30:43

the idea of I'm uncomfortable,

30:45

I'm in pain, here are some things that I know

30:48

that are good for me to do, and that pushes

30:50

me towards them. I'm just grateful for that that somehow

30:52

that connection happened in my brain.

30:55

And the people I think who

30:57

you see them, and it seems like all the suffering and this pain

31:00

doesn't motivate them to

31:02

to find something else. I think it's

31:04

more of a question of time, like it just doesn't

31:07

motivate them yet. And

31:09

and people have a tremendous, ungodly

31:12

capacity to endure

31:14

suffering and pain, and

31:16

like everyone's got the like

31:19

different tipping points,

31:21

and some people's is like wait wait, wait, wait

31:24

up here, And but I do like to think

31:26

that like at some point everyone

31:28

wakes up a little bit and it's like, oh, I

31:30

have to suffer and and this idea

31:32

you have of of

31:36

feeling gratitude and feeling grateful

31:38

for for like the pain

31:40

and the suffering that kind of lead you to

31:42

do something about it, like absolutely,

31:45

but a thousand percent I think

31:47

about that, like, Okay, if

31:50

if my mom and my sister are

31:52

dead, Okay, everyone who

31:54

has a mom and a sister you

31:56

know they're going to lose them eventually, and

31:59

and it's just part of it. And like

32:01

given a choice, like of course, my

32:03

mom would be about to become a

32:05

grandma, my sister would be about

32:08

to become an aunt. They'd be in my life. Then

32:11

I am, we're having a kid next month. Congratulations,

32:14

that's that's wonderful. Your first thing. It

32:17

is. We're super excited.

32:19

But you know, like it's

32:22

there, like absolutely

32:26

I would have them here for these

32:28

moments in my life. And but that's

32:30

not the truth of it. So so if I have

32:32

to look at it and and find something

32:34

to be grateful about, you know, outside of like

32:36

I still feel their presence and I know that

32:39

they're here with me in one sense. But the more

32:42

tangible thing is that had

32:44

I not had that happened when

32:46

it happened at such a young age, I

32:50

I wouldn't have woken up the

32:52

way I did and when I did, so

32:55

hopefully I get to

32:57

spend most of my life like

32:59

a little bit more awake and a little bit

33:02

more connected than I would have otherwise.

33:05

You know, like if they were just around

33:07

and I took them for granted the whole time,

33:09

and and it wasn't until like

33:11

I was almost dead that

33:13

I had to wake up. You know,

33:16

it feels like like a waste

33:18

to what if you don't wake up till you're

33:21

like eighty yep, and

33:23

then you die, and you think

33:26

I just wasted like eighty years relatively

33:28

young, like I was sixteen seventeen when

33:31

when they passed away, and maybe

33:34

five or six years later when I

33:36

started to really deal

33:38

with it. And thanks to

33:40

that, I've had

33:43

many years of a really connected

33:46

life where I get to do really a lot of

33:48

a lot of cool stuff. My version

33:50

or variation of that was becoming a Heroin

33:52

addict at like

33:54

that. I'm so grateful that it

33:57

got that bad that fast. You

33:59

know, I'm pretty certain I could have kept drinking

34:02

or smoking weed, I mean

34:04

for a long time. You know.

34:06

I'm just really glad that, like I just got

34:08

my ass handed to me so

34:11

early and so hard. I mean, it was

34:13

just, you know, it's such a At the time,

34:15

it seemed terrible, but in retrospect

34:17

was a total benefit. Absolutely, And

34:21

I I kind of see now with like

34:23

that information what you were saying about, like, what

34:25

is it about you that

34:27

that led you to want to wake up and

34:30

and change something? Where

34:32

like others are because

34:34

obviously like Heroin like, there are

34:36

a lot of people who like no matter how much

34:39

they suffer because of that stuff, it

34:42

isn't the motivator they need

34:44

to get out of it. I would say that's

34:46

one of the great mysteries of my life, is

34:48

why are some people able to do it and others

34:50

that not. I've been around so many people

34:53

that have and so many people that haven't. You

34:55

could look and say, well, the people that get sober, the

34:57

people that do the following actions that help

34:59

them miss days over which I get, but it's like, where

35:01

did the motivation for that come from? Like,

35:04

it's just it's a mystery. If somebody could

35:06

crack that nut, they have quite something on their hands

35:08

there, if someone could solve that problem. Well,

35:11

thank you so much for for taking the time

35:13

to come on. We're going to wrap up here because we're out

35:15

of time. Thanks so much. We're gonna do a little

35:17

post show conversation like we always do,

35:19

so listeners, if you're interested, you

35:21

can go to one you feed dot net slash

35:23

support and learn more about that. It's a it's

35:26

a gift we give to people who support the show

35:28

and one of the things we're going to talk about our favorite

35:30

punk rock bands and our post show conversation.

35:32

So thanks so much for taking the time to come

35:34

on. It's been a real pleasure. Eric, it's been

35:37

wonderful to be here. Man. All right, bye.

35:56

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