there is something about the psyche. When we create a sense of expansion, the psyche will offer something into that space. Oh, now you have capacity. Now you have tolerance. It's time to look at this. And it offers something into that space quite quickly. Before you really have a chance to like luxuriate in the spaciousness. It offers something up from the subconscious. You have capacity now. It's time to look at this.
I'm Stephen Bradshaw, and this is Snowball Psychology.
_3_04-22-2024_091245:David, welcome to the podcast. So I was particularly interested to have you on because you've been very important in my journey, becoming a therapist and getting onto a path that has worked where the previous path I was on was not working. And you were an important person to me because you had this creative ethos I felt that drew on your time as a musician and working in the A& R business, working with artists, helping them develop their voice and integrating that into a commercial landscape. And I think that's what I needed. I needed guidance in terms of how to get my authenticity into gear and integrating into the world in a way that was gonna work. Because I think what I was doing was not working. I was very isolated and I was trying to perfect my art form away from the world. I'm interested in, your style of therapy, which I perceive as creativity based and drawing out someone's creativity. Certainly that's what it did for me. And I'm interested in the origins of that as they might have come through your time in the music world, and the way that you worked with artists. And I'm so I'm curious to hear a little bit more about your pre history to being a therapist when you worked with artists, what that was like, and how much of that work was on the creative side versus the business side.
squadcaster-2d7j_3_04-22-2024_171244:The creative side was the dominant in the first decade and the business side was the dominant in the following two decades, I much preferred being hands on, creative in the recording studio, in the rehearsal room, in pre production, et cetera, working closely with record producers and the artists. A& R is a strange job. You're in that no man's land between art and commerce. And you represent the band in meetings, in marketing meetings, promotion meetings. You represent the band to the corporation. And you represent the corporation to the band. So Either party sees you as beholden to the other and so neither fully accepts you. It's a strange place to be. It occupies a little bit of a no man's land. That doesn't mean to say it can't be rich and that deep connections can't be made. They were but it was tricky. And, Getting ready for market and being successful at market are not the same thing, obviously. There was that. There's a lot of tension in it. I think one of the things that I encountered a lot when I was working with brand new artists, so that would be an artist that maybe I'd scouted out and given a record deal to, so they might have, a small but, reasonable following in their hometown. Remember this was before internet in the eighties and eighties before the web, as we know it now. And and then all of a sudden they get signed to an international record label and there's fear, because now the dream is going to be tested against reality. And the possibility of failure becomes stark because now it's being tested. And if it doesn't work, then what? If your whole identity and your whole sense of authenticity and being in the world is aligned with your creativity, then it needs to support you at some point and that puts you into relationship with commerce. So the tension between art and commerce. And proof of concept. And there's some resistance. Despite that being the ambition, despite that being the dream, there's some resistance. There's a threshold there. And the other side of that threshold is an unknown. It's a very determinate threshold to cross with really significant consequences. And some artists I work with that, that critical moments in their career where they'd known significant success by the time I came to work with them, and there were, there was a little bit of paralysis because the fear of losing the status, the fear of remaining consistent and that fear leads to an, to a compression of consciousness. the creative forces, it leads to a rather a suppression. And as we know from therapy work, when people are caught in a fear response or a threat response, there's that sort of dimming of the sort of more executive and higher brain functions as we go into survival mode. And. I know more about that now, of course, but when I started to learn about it, I was like, Oh, that's what was happening in the recording studio when the red light went on to say recording. And there'd be that sense of whatever comes out of my mouth now will be on tape and it will be recorded forever. Give or take a few edits, give or take a few retakes, but it was limited because it was expensive. And the pressure, the pressure was there. And with that, there comes quite often a constriction and a contraction when exactly the opposite is needed. And again, you can see the parallel with the somatic work and the therapy work where there's this. realization of a change is about to take place and letting go of an idea or an image of the former self often is met with more reluctance, even though there's a stated ambition or stated intention of, I need to move out of these constrictive patterns. I need to move out of suffering. It means stepping into the unknown. And there's a great comfort in the known, even if the known is something that is uncomfortable, paradoxically.
_3_04-22-2024_091245:So it's sounding like you had a quasi therapist role in some ways. Did, were you helping the artists loosen up, find the creative flow again, get unstuck?
squadcaster-2d7j_3_04-22-2024_171244:it really depends. Sometimes it was being a provocateur. Sometimes it was being confrontational. Sometimes it was having the courage to say no, or do it again, or go deeper. Sometimes it was making a judgment call and it being the wrong one. Um, And that judgment call being expensive and then having to go to the corporation and say We need another hundred thousand dollars,
_3_04-22-2024_091245:huh? So we you like Rick Rubin at times helping pick between different sounds or different songs or hearing something at a show and saying that go with
squadcaster-2d7j_3_04-22-2024_171244:very much So yeah, that's very much what it was in the beginning that the role changed And now, it's more about artists and managers Having to do pretty much everything on their own and getting started on social media And the streaming channels themselves and hopefully going viral or finding a way of building momentum through relentless posting on TikTok and Instagram, etc. And then it's more about stats now where a lot of the major labels just look to see. whose stats are increasing or that provisional creative and artist development work tends to happen more outside of labels now than inside. That didn't used to be the case.
_3_04-22-2024_091245:There's a phrase in finance. Ben Graham said the market is a voting machine in the short run and a weighing machine in the long run. I'm curious if in the long run to stay relevant to stay interesting that someone needs to be accessing deep creativity and that the over time we churn out the artists who go to commercial or who aren't accessing creativity in the right way.
squadcaster-2d7j_3_04-22-2024_171244:I think some of those artists may find a new audience if they're lucky, if they're doing that, if it becomes too analytical, if it becomes too contrived they may find a new audience and lose their original base because they, sold out. You used to hear that a lot. But there are artists that, that have done it and it'd be aligned with authenticity. David Bowie springs to mind. Where he was constantly going through a process of creativity, establishing, vibrancy, success, deconstruction, composting, regrowth.
_3_04-22-2024_091245:And the audience doesn't necessarily ask for that, right? They there's the whole thing of
squadcaster-2d7j_3_04-22-2024_171244:Up to a point, up to a point. But, then repetition becomes predictable and dull. I think the audience is looking for quite often a voice and a way of expressing that they can't quite find their own way to and say, whatever that person said, that's how I feel. There's that part of it. There's also the escapism part where they might not be looking for depth of expression. They're just looking for release and relief. As a kid, I remember really cleaning. Growing up in a fairly deprived post industrial landscape, quite honestly, a bit of a wasteland. There was a lot of desperation, a lot of tension, and then seeing the transformative power of a song come on the radio whether that was at home or in a car or in a factory. it completely changed the energy and the space within, and the shared space. And that power touched me deeply. It was a, an awakening. And, um, without wanting to sound like I'm overstating it, it was a spiritual experience. And such a huge relief for me to find sanctuary in something. where otherwise no sanctuary existed. And again, I think there's a parallel with a therapeutic setting where hopefully we're providing that for an hour or so. Hopefully we're providing some sort of haven. some sense of safety for people to be able to connect to the difficulties.
_3_04-22-2024_091245:I feel that and I think you were interesting to me because I could feel you had kept the thread of your childhood passions alive and allowed them to keep evolving. You didn't close the door on that and turn into an adult, who was deadened and functional but had no life. And so you were able to hold
squadcaster-2d7j_3_04-22-2024_171244:Or that space held me. It wasn't that I worked to keep those interests or that connection alive. It was almost like that connection worked to keep me alive. So it was a constant presence and it remains. And it is it's the beauty that exists in harmony and the movement that exists in rhythm. So I feel that and I see it, I see it in, in systems in, in, in organic and natural systems as well. The rhythm and harmonizing and integration aspect.
_3_04-22-2024_091245:I feel you made a strong decision to protect that and to continue to nurture it. That ultimately has paid off. I think no one from the outside can do that. I think you're invited to give up your authenticity
squadcaster-2d7j_3_04-22-2024_171244:And I can remember some very clear moments where I was offered positions, very lucrative positions that would have necessitated me compromising that. necessitated me compromising my core values. to commodify them, to commodify what I held as sacred and to see it solely as a commodity. And I resisted that, at personal expense, financially, personal wealth, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. I think that was the compromise.
_3_04-22-2024_091245:Yeah, I've noticed if money is becomes an important value, it can very easily start to trample every other value, as everything is formatted into the money frame. So you, I think your value, would you say your highest value is something akin to authenticity or creativity?
squadcaster-2d7j_3_04-22-2024_171244:don't know if I've really cohered it into a creed as such. It's more, It's more, there's more a felt sense of it. And I can feel when that guiding principle is challenged, but it's almost a non verbal experience. And I think it stems from what I was saying before about beauty in a moment through music, which then opens your ears and eyes to beauty in other areas keenly. But it's also, from a period in my life where I had nothing. I had literally nothing, and lived by my wits, and there was an extraordinary freedom in having nothing to lose. Freedom of movement, freedom of thought, it was perilous, of course, but at the same time so very alive. And I felt quite quickly when I got my first job in the music industry, having been previously homeless the. the perils of the deadening of that celebration of each moment and the fragility in each moment because with with a steady income, especially as that income grew, the temptation to create safety through certainty uh, kicked in and I, and I, and I caught it. I caught it. And was able to sort of live from my new found material wealth, creatively and generously, which I don't regret.
_3_04-22-2024_091245:Yeah, there is a stultifying quality to money, and I think you see that in Children of, rich families that they often they isn't the right kind of healthy pressure. And Terrence McKenna said, Society is organized to pay you off right at the moment you become most dangerous to
squadcaster-2d7j_3_04-22-2024_171244:God, that sounds so true. That sounds so true. I, it really depends on what you do with the payoff, or the payouts or what you're being given to bring in your heart and soul to something. I felt extremely blessed and extremely fortunate to have had the opportunity and opportunities that I was given my background, which is working class Northern English with no formal education beyond the age of 15. And what existed before that was not really an education as we know it now. My education came much later in life when I, after I turned 50. my formal education. Prior to that I didn't even have as much as what in America is called a GED. And so lived by my wits and so somebody with my background, with my accent, With my educational background wouldn't ordinarily find their way into an executive position at Warner Brothers or Columbia Records or Capitol Records, all of which I did. And so I did feel, like the universe was smiling on me and that I needed to honor that. I needed to honor that supportive hand as best I could through allowing that generosity, that, that favor to, to move through me and out and to touch as many people as possible.
_3_04-22-2024_091245:The way you describe that and I, I know more of your story that you were picked up by an executive as a street musician. He, something was being transmitted that he could sense your potential and then being invited into that world. I'm curious, have you felt like an outsider? Like you were almost a kid in an adult world or someone holding on to something that others weren't?
squadcaster-2d7j_3_04-22-2024_171244:Definitely an outsider. In so many ways, poverty working class accent I could barely be understood by my own countrymen in the South coming from the North with a very distinctive working class accent. Outsider in as much as I had no access to anything because I had no money. Outsider by regional transplant. Outsider by feeling insecure and the lack of formal education. Outsider in as much as I had no sense of real belonging to a place. core family identity.
_3_04-22-2024_091245:Was that helpful, being an outsider in all those ways?
squadcaster-2d7j_3_04-22-2024_171244:it definitely encouraged a sort of swashbuckling attitude, I would say. I, I related heavily to Jack Sparrow from the Pirates of the Caribbean films when I saw them, later on, I said, Oh yeah, no, I can relate to that. Think it was, yeah, I think there was this living in the moment, living by my wits and attunement to the change in temperature of the moment. and seeing it for what it is and tracking it and being really aware of those changing weather patterns that existed within the industry, within a meeting, within another person, within an artist. I think I've really developed or honed a natural ability for attunement during that time because it was so closely aligned With living by my wits.
_3_04-22-2024_091245:I watched A Star is Born recently, again, and there's a moment where Bradley Cooper's character has just met Lady Gaga's character and they sing in the parking lot together and then he calls her to the show and he's turned that into a song and he ushers her forward and there's that moment of hesitation but then She goes with it and she, I think that what you're talking about, the air of desperation was helpful. She didn't really have a choice. She had to go for it. And she thrust herself into this very alive situation where she Greatness was called forth from her. You can feel it even in Lady Gaga's performance, I feel, in that movie. I'm sure something similar along the way probably happened for her, where she just decided to go for it at some key moment. And I heard about Elvis when he started that his leg shake was not a choice. He was so nervous and literally he was just thrown up on just rode that sympathetic wave and through his true passion into it. And so there's something about that air of desperation. I know you've called where you grew up the black country, Mordor, or because and Something about having come out of a desperate situation primed you to really walk through the gates when they appeared, right? I have a sense of you
squadcaster-2d7j_3_04-22-2024_171244:For sure. No, it definitely did. The tremble was there. The trepidation was there but to feel it as a thrill, The sort of risk taking aspect of it was just not optional. It was not optional. It was do it. And to have that sense of adventure. And I think I held that if I had any guiding principle, it was to honor a sense of adventure, I would say. And so to go with whatever invitation facilitated that. Adventure.
_3_04-22-2024_091245:Yes. And I feel it in your therapy. I was one of your earliest clients as you were discovering the material yourself and you kept a pretty good game face, I would say. And you. just put it back to me all the time and created a container where I was encouraged to grow and helped. And you went for it in a way that allowed me to go for it, I feel. And then I became what, I had no sense that I could be a therapist, but then through your guidance, I remember asking, could I be, could I do this? And You know, I think you just gave a sort of kind of brief, yes, you could but that was enough. And I could feel that you had just gone for it, and that enabled me to just go for it without decades of preparation, and there's so much aliveness in that, and I think we're so hungry for aliveness, that beats in my book, almost, the decades of preparation for this kind
squadcaster-2d7j_3_04-22-2024_171244:I would agree. I have no, nothing to compare it to but that feels right to me. My memory of you asking me that question was yes, and also that your background as an artist would stand you in good stead in the therapy work. I have a memory of saying that. I might have thought it and not said it out loud, but I'm pretty sure I said it to you. Because it's true. I think there is. It's being, it's the willingness to sit in the moment and to see what emerges without trying too much to control that process. You have to give some shape, some, the riverbanks, right? But to be willing to sit in the emergent field because there's a tension in that.
_3_04-22-2024_091245:Yeah, I could feel you looking over my broken fence to see the flowers. You were very tolerant of, I'm sure I had a lot of toxic masculinity at that point. I'm sure I was annoyingly focused on competition and status and showing that I was intelligent. And you held space for that. deeper part of me that I was not accessing properly. And I could, and then you helped to steward that more into being, I think my fear was, would I be a therapist from that shell, from the, the, my old way of doing things? I think I had a fear that I would just be a, obnoxious kind of therapist. And I think you encouraged, you helped me to see, oh no, that deeper thing actually can be supported and become the base of operations.
squadcaster-2d7j_3_04-22-2024_171244:and I had no concern. I had no such concern in regards to you because with all of your declarations that may have been aligned with the distorted masculine, there was a subtext that said, I am uncomfortable. I am uncomfortable inhabiting this. And it was really clear. And there was a part of you that so wanted to be free of it, even with the emphatic declaration. It was like you were saying, look at this sword and look at this shield and aren't they great? And then the bit that wasn't being said is I would love to know how to put them down but It was so clear. It was so clear that was a part of the communication That you were somehow burdened By the things you felt you needed to help you get through the world as a man
_3_04-22-2024_091245:So my discomfort was a gateway for you. That was a point that
squadcaster-2d7j_3_04-22-2024_171244:you wouldn't have been suffering if you would have been comfortable in the armor. You wouldn't have been suffering if you were comfortable with the idea that it's self above all else. and win at all costs, you were suffering. And so it's to,
_3_04-22-2024_091245:I was. It makes me think of the Banksy quote that he said art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable. And I feel that therapy, should do the same thing that the comfortable perhaps are not comfortable in the right.
squadcaster-2d7j_3_04-22-2024_171244:And then we have to rely on the provocateur a little bit to, to penetrate and to shake the the mechanism, the presentation, at least I do. And yeah, it's, the suffering was evidence that there was some alternate value, some aspect of yourself That was waiting to emerge, but just didn't know how. And I think that's all of our work, our work on ourselves and our workers, therapists, and our workers, clients of therapists is what is this emergent quality that is trying to be born? And I think the trick is that should we be fortunate enough to move into a relationship with these parts of ourselves that. We're looking to express and to expand and to be those parts of ourselves that are more aligned with our authenticity or our higher self, as people sometimes like to call it. To remember that they're not a destination. That part also is in flux. And the aspects of the higher self, there are different aspects of the higher self, some of it more aligned purely with the spiritual conversation, some of it more aligned to utilize the egoic self in a way that At least is representative of higher values and what we might think of as universal human values, which I would like to think still include kindness.
_3_04-22-2024_091245:This is making me think back to our earlier discussion around art and the role of the artist, and perhaps the role of the artist is to be an authenticity anchor for the rest of us. Someone who's allowed to go at that project and really discover who they are, so that we could, through them, get
squadcaster-2d7j_3_04-22-2024_171244:Right, and that doesn't presuppose that there's no suffering in the process. There is. For a lot, not to say, not to fall into the cliche tortured artist thing but just the process of connecting deeply to be able to express what it is we're experiencing quite often means coming into contact with things that have been previously difficult for us to feel. And so there's a vulnerability in that, there's an, there's a courage in it, but of course courage doesn't exist without fear. For all of the expansion and elevation can come from it. It's still rooted in the struggle and then we say it or we paint it or we articulate it in some way and then it's done. And then all we have to do is do it again. Um,
_3_04-22-2024_091245:I've wondered, is suffering a necessary part of the creative process? I've noticed it often is for me when I'm writing a paper. I've described it as I, I take on a mental illness and then work to cure myself of the illness.
squadcaster-2d7j_3_04-22-2024_171244:I do think it's inevitable whether it's at the beginning of the process or the end. That there's some suffering inherent because if you articulate something and you're like, wow, and everybody else is wow, that's amazing. There's that moment of exaltation. and then decline, right? Climax and anti climax. And now there is a yardstick by which to measure you. And all you have to do is keep hitting that, or excelling beyond it. Which is not sustainable. So there's suffering in that. I think sometimes you can write from humour, you can write from wit, you can write from a flow that has no suffering, that has no inhibition, that has no constriction or restraint. And quite often, you might look at that expression, whatever form it takes, a day later, a week later, a month later, and not recognize yourself as being the author of it. Because it came through in, what people often speak to as channeling. or a different part of the consciousness. And in the few occasions that's happened to me in my writing or as a musician, there's no suffering in it. I suffered later because I couldn't hit that every time. And so there's a disappointment and frustration that I wasn't, touching directly into the cosmic. But at the time It was I was very much at peace with myself. I do believe that we can access a voice, a sense of ourselves and inhabit a sense of ourselves. that is more free of coping mechanisms, that is freer of adaptations that we implemented to be able to navigate difficulty, complexity, challenges, etc. The authentic self versus the adaptive self. And I do think it's possible for us to experience the authentic self and to, to a degree where we can experience identify with it and have enough familiarity with it to know when we are not living from it. And so it's a, it's like a coordinate to return to when we get pulled out by trial, tribulation, or lack of sleep.
_3_04-22-2024_091245:I often get asked by clients if they can trust going all in on their authenticity, in a sense. One of my clients talks about it as accessing the river, if he, can he just, dive into the river. And I, in my head, I'm imagining Joseph Campbell's river that the the mystic swims in with delight where the psychotic drowns. I'm wondering. So if you do go all in on your authenticity, and you were to really live that channeling lifestyle and allow a very emergent process, how big is the Venn diagram between what you would create and what society would accept or need or support? Do you see how much should
squadcaster-2d7j_3_04-22-2024_171244:I think it's, I think it's self tempering because circumstance and environment inform the degree to some extent the degree that we can immerse ourselves. I think We have an inherent sense of give up my day job. I need to survive in, in the material world in a material way. But I will prioritize every waking hour and if every energetic hour, otherwise, to throwing paint. or to really deepening my relationship with the person or people that I love and that becoming our authenticity and our authentic experience, making an art form of everyday life without having a material result like a poem or a painting or a song to point to, but living in that full creative, authentic way. Will it touch people? Will it inspire? Will it momentarily offer some people sanctuary or relief? That's an art form. It's to bring something into existence that didn't previously exist. So if we accept that as a responsibility, remembering that chronic stress and trauma limit choice, we just become reactive, survivalist. And so the expansion of choice is trauma resolution. And if we choose to create to my mind. Perhaps that's the ultimate trauma resolution, because we've, in the trauma, we've lost something, and we've moved through, and not only are we no longer depleted, but we are in a place to offer out. So to me, that feels like a resolution in response to loss.
_3_04-22-2024_091245:Yeah, so this gets to creativity as the active ingredient of healing and trauma blocking creativity or causing a contraction which stops the flow of creative possibility. And then your role being to kick the boulder out of the stream to re enable flow. And then once that's done. The flow is going, the client can resolve things as they go. They have the creativity intact.
squadcaster-2d7j_3_04-22-2024_171244:I think so, but not to rush through it, because sometimes, we are forced into stillness because we refuse to accept the invitation prior. And there is something in that stillness, and there is something in being brought to ground. There is something in our old beliefs being tested to the point where they will either endure or collapse. That is a gift. It's a painful one. But if we are able to, to at some point see that, to mourn the loss of the former self, and to sit in that waiting space of, I know not, I'm no longer the thing I was, I am not yet what I will become, and can we sit in that? Can we sit in that unknown? And if we can make our peace with that, and our own fragility, And the fact that certainty is an illusion. There is extraordinary aliveness in it. To accept that our existence is fragile, and our existence exists within an infinite mystery. It absolutely does. You sit beneath an infinite sky, it's a fact. Let that in, letting that in, orientating to that largest possible context of we sit in the cloud of unknowing and yet constantly set ourselves to the task of making things certain.
_3_04-22-2024_091245:so they, the flow itself might be a traumatic pattern. It might be a manic energy or in SE terms you might be in a shallow energy well where there's, still some residue of past events in the way that
squadcaster-2d7j_3_04-22-2024_171244:Momentum and productivity gotta get on, the amount of people that have come to me And it's very pseudo militaristic, it's basically just patch me up enough so I can get back in the fight. The amount of people that come with that request, particularly here in the UK. I work with a lot of doctors and nurses and surgeons and paramedics through the COVID lockdown as an emotional support volunteer. And principally that's all they wanted. I can't cope. Fix me so that I can cope and get back on with my job,
_3_04-22-2024_091245:send me back into the dysfunction.
squadcaster-2d7j_3_04-22-2024_171244:Yeah.
_3_04-22-2024_091245:If they stayed with you longer, what else would happen?
squadcaster-2d7j_3_04-22-2024_171244:what happened every single time was that when we started to touch into what was actually happening within them that caused the dysfunction or the lack of productivity as it was sometimes very succinctly named they would realize it was the outer, it was the surface of something much deeper that wasn't always apparent. And so every single time I would hear something along the lines of, Oh, this touches into something really old or, Oh, this has always been there. This has been there since I was very young, and so then there's a realization that the lack of productivity or dysfunction may have much more far reaching consequences than their ability to do their immediate job well. And so the conversation would open up, but it was not a priority to look at because it was quite often so suppressed. People weren't aware how much space it was taking up within them. It's the normalizing of chronic stress and the normalizing of trauma.
_3_04-22-2024_091245:Yes, I get the sense that most of the my clients when they come in, don't realize how much could be possible for them. Their field of potential has reduced significantly so you're advocating a slowing and a stillness and a deeper process of discovery than the first narrow framing that
squadcaster-2d7j_3_04-22-2024_171244:It suggests it,
_3_04-22-2024_091245:not
squadcaster-2d7j_3_04-22-2024_171244:exactly, but it suggests itself. Ultimately, it suggests itself. Even if you respond to the initial request of, help me stabilize, help me stop panicking there's something about, If you're able to create a space where somebody feels held, it may be the first time that they have really felt that, even as 20, 30, 40 year old adults. They may never have really felt what it's like to be held, and for them to be able to let go. And in that letting go, there is an unexpected release. And what usually follows is, I have no idea where that came from. Or, I was not planning on that happening today. So just in the process of meeting and holding and being willing and non judgmental, unconditional compassion, it might be for some people the first time they've ever been held in that regard. And in that there is an opening.
_3_04-22-2024_091245:I love that. So something happens beyond your expectation. And if almost if that doesn't happen, what was done was not therapy a sense.
squadcaster-2d7j_3_04-22-2024_171244:about that. I do wonder about that. But it's hard to know because sometimes people just get, it can come in many forms. And sometimes people are having an explicit understanding of what's happening in their autonomic nervous system. Uh, Just the biological description is just a huge relief. You know, I Worked with a woman that had been in a really significant earthquake, loss of life, damage to property in Tibet. The big one that happened. And she was relieved to discover there was a form of therapy. that existed specifically for trauma. She had no idea. And she was like, you mean there's a thing that like actually addresses what I'm experiencing, which was post traumatic stress. There's a therapy that's specifically for that. And I was like, yeah. And just that brought us so much relief because if there was a modality that supported it, she wasn't the only one that was suffering it. And it's that fear that everybody else would have been able to cope with this. It's just me. And I better hide my struggle. Yeah. And so there, that might be a way of holding somebody in their attention and holding them just in that sharing of information that facilitates a release. Simple, really simple.
_3_04-22-2024_091245:Yes. So you're providing enough emotional holding that they can let go of some of the defensive protective strategies that they use to manage the trauma. And then something unexpected happens and some wider possibility available and
squadcaster-2d7j_3_04-22-2024_171244:exactly. And it's that release in the moment, and then For most people it's oh that was unexpected, and it felt good, and I should probably do that again. The dopamine hits etc, so So yeah, so it's that. And I think it's, I think it's just true of life as well. I was thinking about something you said a few moments ago. About how we review things, and I would like to think in a year's time, I would look back on this year, where I am now, and think that I've let go of any of more constrictive beliefs, of more constrictive self view beliefs that I've been able to facilitate movement and change in myself. I'm not free of suffering nor is it my life goal to be free of suffering. I think it's inevitable but how I respond to it isn't definitely an ongoing inquiry. And am I able to hold it and be with it with compassion and curiosity or does it spill out? That's, I think that's our responsibility as adults, that question.
_3_04-22-2024_091245:If that goes further, where does that lead? What's the, what is health? What is your full expression?
squadcaster-2d7j_3_04-22-2024_171244:Um, I think we can't. answer that question until the point of death, to be honest. I think it's ongoing until there is no more on to be going. And it keeps surprising, and it's just an unknown and an unknowable. And I think if we can meet that threshold, the threshold of, that exists between life and death, without tension, with curiosity with a way of being in relationship with our regrets, where we're not defined by them in that moment. Perhaps that's where it leads. Perhaps that's the point of arrival that we keep. Hungering for okay, I remember when I hit 30 as a young man and I was like, okay, I'm an adult now. It means all the struggle and confusion. I just thought there was some point of arrival, something that happened in the consciousness, in the brain chemistry, that relieved us from self doubt and worrying and ego struggles, etc. Just by virtue of having lived 30 years. I was shocked to find that there were some much harder times to come in that regard than anything I'd experienced in adolescence.
_3_04-22-2024_091245:There's a somewhat depressing idea that Freud had that the womb left an imprint in our mind, and we have this memory of the oceanic state being fully held and supported, being in flow, and that we never can attain that again. We're never going to get those conditions again so we're seeking something that can't happen.
squadcaster-2d7j_3_04-22-2024_171244:I disagree. I disagree. I think there have been times in my life I can remember them really clearly. Moments where I have stood. And experienced myself and the space that I occupied with absolute peace. With absolute peace around even my own disappearance. I remember standing on a beach in New Zealand. Looking south towards the Antarctic and the ocean was big and there was a wind blowing in and the beach was just vast and this sense of humbling by the proportions, and I remember thinking, Oh, this would be great place to die. There was something about the fertility in the soil. And the size of the sky, and the size of the ocean, and the power of it. The power of it that existed in an elementary, elemental form. That inevitably, through decomposition, you would be a part of. And I felt this absolute peace with that. And thought, oh yeah, it would be okay. It would be okay if it happened right now. And I wasn't seeking it, but nor was I afraid of it. And I've had that a few times. And I think that is, in a way, a return to a sense of, um, It's being supported through belonging to something that almost defies description. This idea that we need to be supported in a cocoon and kept safe, I, yeah, I'm not sure. I'm not sure, because for me, I found the piece in the opposite.
_3_04-22-2024_091245:yeah. I'm so with you. I'm glad you pushed back on Freud. I think he was a product of his times. He was a very traumatized person who never received therapy himself. And never went under analysis and all the cocaine he was taking. He was not a settled man,
squadcaster-2d7j_3_04-22-2024_171244:you had a fear, feeling that Jung was more perhaps aligned with Terence McKenna or something. You look at the paintings in the Red Book, he was a trippy dude. And so there's something, and again, extremely creative, so there's something I think to be said with trusting that aspect of our consciousness that puts us right on the edge of. Disintegration.
_3_04-22-2024_091245:Yeah, and your comments about stillness. I feel sometimes I feel this still point of a turning world, the, that I'm already occupying myself and similar to what you were describing there. I would say often sessions can feel like that with clients where there's nothing more to add. There's nowhere to be, there's a real sense of
squadcaster-2d7j_3_04-22-2024_171244:Yeah. Yeah. Right here. Right now. Yeah.
_3_04-22-2024_091245:And maybe some of the life project for myself is stabilizing that sense more and more.
squadcaster-2d7j_3_04-22-2024_171244:Yeah. This time last year I was in a dark room for six days and in a space entirely devoid of light for six days and nights and dark retreat it was in Southern France, in the mountains, in the Auvergne, and Southern part of France. And um, I remember entering the space and thinking, this is an entirely benign space. It is, it's a neutral space. Whatever I experience here in the darkness, I myself am creating. And so the absence of light showed with absolute clarity my inner workings, because I projected them all onto the darkness. And, uh, it was extremely difficult and also fascinating. And just to keep reminding myself, I am creating this, I am creating this. It's a neutral space. It's benign. If there are demons in here, they, I have summoned them from within myself.
_3_04-22-2024_091245:Were you able to find your way to that still point?
squadcaster-2d7j_3_04-22-2024_171244:end it's challenging because there's almost immediate, visual Disturbance because the neurons in the visual cortex are still firing and of course we experience that as a visual And so they're very subtle superimpositions on the darkness that are being caused by neurological activity. And then after about five days, brain chemicals start getting released that create very different types of hallucinations, including auditory, a lot of auditory hallucination. And your metabolism slows down. They serve food through this special hatch that they open, put the food in, close, and then you open the hatch, your side. You feel for the food and get it, and then find your way back to the table, and if you drop a fork and it bounces across the room, That's 25 minutes right there, just trying to find the fork. And the integrity in the serving of the food, the integrity of the darkness is maintained. And um, in the darkness, your metabolism slows right down. So they were serving some amazing food. And you, of course you want to eat it, and so there's that, the relationship to food, because I was seldom hungry. Because my metabolism, some hibernation thing kicked in or something. Everything slowed down. And so by day three, I was just saturated food and slow metabolism and sluggishness and it was tormenting. It was tormenting in what that was creating in my mind. So I had to, I'd practiced writing blindfold before, so I'd learned how to write in absolute darkness. And I just wrote saying, stop sending food. And then put it in the bowl and put the ball back in the hatch. It was, a stimulant and it was a comfort. I wasn't hungry and it showed me how much of my relationship to food. is actually based on comfort and not hunger. And boy, did I notice that,
_3_04-22-2024_091245:So the one thing you had, I find this so interesting. I feel like I might have gone the other way of just treasuring and, indulging in that comfort because it was the
squadcaster-2d7j_3_04-22-2024_171244:which is what I did. But there came a point where my, I was satiated. I just couldn't my body wasn't, my metabolism slowed down and my body wasn't processing. So it was, it almost, it's almost like eating a meal and then having another one presented immediately, even though four or five hours. It was almost like it was, because your body was like, I'm sure, like my body felt like I'd just eaten. I hadn't, it was five hours before, but there was no real physical hunger. There was no real need for physical food. It's not like you're exercising, remember, you're walking around. Banging your feet on desks and chairs and beds and bruising your shins and Banging your head on the wall and you know all of that stuff So so you're sedentary like really sedentary. I was trying to practice Qigong and standing form exercises and but, but the animation in uh, kinesthetic that would create these fireworks and bright lights that were just overwhelming. All happening inside my own head, of course, but. That it got to a point where I was, I just needed the light that was actually being created inside my own head to just stop. It was it got so bright at one point and there was no escaping from it. It was just this glare that, that was just being created and my own. And then all I could hear was church bells and then Han Zimmer's theme to Interstellar. But it was as clear as though it was playing on a stereo system. It was quite something.
_3_04-22-2024_091245:Incredible. What did you bring back from that? How's that changed how you live?
squadcaster-2d7j_3_04-22-2024_171244:my, my intention for it, first of all, was to see what I projected onto a neutral space, but also my intention was that there's a quote. I attribute it to Telly Ad, the Shaddam, but I've never actually been able to find this quote. So I'm not sure where it's from or if it's actually from my own mind But it is God exists in the silence between our thoughts And so I set that six days with the intention of can I find? silence in my own Experience of myself free of thought can I find God in that silence? and so that was my intention and I was able to You to tap into is momentarily on the day, sixth night. And then once I'd done it, I was able to do it again a couple of times. With very powerful transformative effect. And it's something that I call upon now as a meditative practice. And what I've perhaps one last thing to say about our work, what I've noticed in my own work as I've done it on myself and I've noticed consistently with my clients is there is something about the psyche. When we create a sense of expansion, the psyche will offer something into that space. Oh, now you have capacity. Now you have tolerance. It's time to look at this. And it offers something into that space quite quickly. Before you really have a chance to like luxuriate in the spaciousness. It offers something up from the subconscious. You have capacity now. It's time to look at this. And that's exactly what happened to me in the dark. And it's, and when I came out of the dark into the glorious dawn light and I walked up the mountain and as I was coming back down the mountain, I had absolute immersive recall of one of the most traumatizing experiences of my life emotionally from a relationship that was around the time I turned 40. And It came back and I felt it in exquisite, painful detail in exactly the same way as I experienced it 20 years before. And I'd suppressed it. I knew it was there. I thought I'd worked through it but I got to really fully experience and it, and it brought me down. I doubled over with the blow of it semantically, you know, and, and put the test, I was like, okay, I'm being tested. I'm being tested. Can I experience this? Can I be with this? Can I be with the mountain? Can I look down the valley? And can I find silence within myself despite this extraordinary uprising, this extraordinary turbulence? And so I was testing it against that and I was able to do it and the relief was almost as difficult to experience as the initial contraction. It was so ecstatic that it was almost like I thought my skeleton was gonna just liberate itself from, just walk straight out of my being
_3_04-22-2024_091245:Interesting. That reminds me of the Jung line that Transcendence is the psyche's reward for integrating shadow. So you first had to experience the darkness, the thing you had suppressed. Allow that. That
squadcaster-2d7j_3_04-22-2024_171244:with such force, and I knew what it was immediately.
_3_04-22-2024_091245:That makes me think that most of us are not holding enough space for those things to come through. It took you six days of darkness and silence. And we're probably all holding
squadcaster-2d7j_3_04-22-2024_171244:I think so. And I don't mean to suggest that I'm free of them. Either, there's more, there's always more. I think it's why there's such an enthusiasm for ayahuasca, etc. But the difference with the dark is that what what you experience in a visionary sense is free of intoxication. It's generated purely by your own bio. chemistry. So you haven't taken an extremely potent alkaloid into your system. And so there was something about it had a very different quality as a way to an altered consciousness or a hallucinatory state. It had a very different quality to anything I'd experienced before.
_3_04-22-2024_091245:I imagine it would integrate more easily into life.
squadcaster-2d7j_3_04-22-2024_171244:Correct. And there was no stress on my body because of the toxins, right? There was no stress, no stress on my digestive fractal.
_3_04-22-2024_091245:No hangover.
squadcaster-2d7j_3_04-22-2024_171244:And then I came home, back to London and apart from talking to Chloe, I couldn't really speak for about three days. Cause I knew I sounded ecstatic. And I knew for a lot of people, it would have felt manic. So I just, was conservative in my exposure to the world and conversation until I was able to
_3_04-22-2024_091245:Hmm, You warmed yourself on your own fire.
squadcaster-2d7j_3_04-22-2024_171244:yeah.
_3_04-22-2024_091245:And maybe that's what we can trust, the deeper processing when we create space. That when there's something bottom up to it and you have to let go, you don't know what's going to come, you don't know
squadcaster-2d7j_3_04-22-2024_171244:Which is pretty much where our conversation started, where, about the creative process. Can we trust in the emergent without overly trying to control it or contrive it? Can we trust it?
_3_04-22-2024_091245:And is the emergent the piece of the hole that's missing in a sense. Is it healing or holding?
squadcaster-2d7j_3_04-22-2024_171244:I think of it, if I understand your question correctly, I think it's healing, and I think it's fractal. I think it's something that's in a constant state of flow, flux, decay, and renewal. So I think it's ongoing, and in that way it is jumping into the stream. Because we are holding it in a way where it is also holding us, there's not that our temptation to control and possess beauty diminishes the relationship to the beauty, you know. So, um, it's that thing of really being prepared to let go. And I'm novice at it, but I'm getting to that age now where the the practice of it seems more important because I'm ever nearer the ultimate letting go. As we age we're brought more and more into that conversation if we're prepared to have it. Letting go of things that I once held precious, whether they're material or immaterial in nature.
_3_04-22-2024_091245:I want to come back to what you said about this. We're never done and even it might feel like sometimes something slots into place, but then it's going to need to fragment again and form again. And I, sometimes I think of this idea of it can be. assemble all the pieces of ourself into a whole and then it's functional and but then the world is changing all the time and they're often we need to fall apart again into fragments to put it back together again into something that fits the environment better or that takes into you know maybe there's been some increase in potential or there's there's new parts that we're not including that
squadcaster-2d7j_3_04-22-2024_171244:Right.
_3_04-22-2024_091245:structure
squadcaster-2d7j_3_04-22-2024_171244:I think so. And also not to force anything into the new, in the material aspect, in the societal, cultural, material aspect. We are constantly invited to conform. And there is a part of us that will resist that with ever increasing volume unless we find a creative way to comply without it feeling like we have lost something of ourselves in that compliance. So it's, it's It's, in that regard, it's the forming of a healthy ego and not an ego that's attached to presentation or association of hitting certain societal metrics, it seems to me what has become one of the new high value is to create envy in others. Which I think is quite tragic. I
_3_04-22-2024_091245:And the, this idea of reforming the ego, is there a place that you, that stays constant, that is a maybe somatic anchor or an identification that's deeper than the ego that
squadcaster-2d7j_3_04-22-2024_171244:think so. I can't say that it's constant in every moment, but I have enough of a reference point for it. To find it again should I be pulled too far away from it I can find it. And I think I was blessed to have that really early on. And I think that is the thing that I've protected. Back to your earlier point.
_3_04-22-2024_091245:That's the thing that helps you not take the ego too seriously
squadcaster-2d7j_3_04-22-2024_171244:Healthy sense of humor, man. It's the get out of jail free card. Healthy sense of humor.
_3_04-22-2024_091245:This has been very enriching for me. So thank you. for coming on this. Thank
squadcaster-2d7j_3_04-22-2024_171244:Bless you Steve. You too.
_3_04-22-2024_091245:I appreciate
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