Steven is a dynamic man who has turned early trauma into his superpower.
Steven and I discussed how we all must heal from wounds and the benefit of doing our shadow work. Founder of Mastering Change, Steven Twohig, has committed himself to mastering the art of transformation. While seeking to heal from trauma inflicted while just a toddler, Steven was introduced to the practice of shadow work in April of 2000, leading to a lifelong study and what he believes is a path to enlightenment. Steven spent a decade working for and studying under the world’s leading business and life strategist, Tony Robbins. He wanted to blend shadow work with business strategy, integration, and implementation. Tony commissioned him to interview over 10,000 business leaders worldwide to determine what made them successful and help thousands transform their businesses to be more productive and strategic.
Currently, he is studying the impact of shadow work on psychedelic integration. He focuses on bridging the gap between traditional plant medicine and the western mind, intending to bring the insights and innovation that plant medicine provides to everyone who wants more out of their lives. He believes we are finally on the cusp of proper mental healthcare, which will spur global innovation. He is an international speaker and has traveled worldwide, teaching a blend of strategy, shadow work, and spirituality.
He has extensive study in mindfulness, mindset, business optimization, shadow work and facilitation, Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), hypnotherapy, group dynamics, peak performance, leadership dynamics, and unconscious communication. Through this work, he has formulated a specific framework for understanding the human experience and is currently training other guides to spread the practice.
https://www.masteringchange.com
Transcript
Brian Smith 0:01
Now that you’re here at Grief 2 Growth, I like to ask you to do three things. The first thing is to make sure that you like click Notifications, and subscribe to make sure you get updates for my YouTube channel. Also, if you’d like to support me financially, you can support me through my tip jar at grief to growth.com. That’s grief, the number two growth.com/tip jar or look for tip jar at the very top of the page or buy me a coffee at the very bottom of the page, you can make a small financial contribution. The third thing I’d like to ask is to make sure you share this with a friend through all your social media, Facebook, Instagram, whatever. Thanks for being here. Close your eyes and imagine what are the things in life that causes the greatest pain, the things that bring us grief, or challenges, challenges designed to help us grow to ultimately become what we were always meant to be. We feel like we’ve been buried. But what if like a seed we’ve been planted, and having been planted would grow to become a mighty tree. Now, open your eyes. Open your eyes to this way of viewing life. Come with me as we explore your true infinite, eternal nature. This is grief to growth. And I am your host, Brian Smith. Hey everybody, this is Brian back with another episode of grief to growth today I’ve got with me a fascinating man. His name is Steven Twohig. And I know we’re gonna have an energetic conversation. It’s early on Monday morning. It’s nine o’clock on Monday. It’s it’s the day after Father’s Day Stephens also a father. So we’ve just been catching up on what it’s like to be a father and we’ll incorporate some of that in this too. But Stephen is the founder of mastering change, he’s committed himself to mastering the art of transformation. While he was seeking to heal from the trauma inflicted while he was just a toddler. He was interested introduced the practice of Shadow Work and April 23 2000, which led to a lifelong study what he believes is his path to enlightenment. He spent a decade working for and studying under the world’s leading business and life strategist Tony Robbins. He wanted to blend shadow work with business strategy, integration and implementation, Tony commissioned him to interview over 10,000 business leaders worldwide to determine what made them successful and helped 1000s transform the businesses to be more productive and strategic. He’s currently studying the impact of shadow work on psychedelic integration. He focuses on bridging the gap between traditional plant medicine and the Western mind, intending to bring insights and innovation that plant medicine provides to everyone who wants to be who wants more out of their lives. He believes that we’re finally on the cusp of proper mental health, which will spur global innovation and I hope he’s right about that. Stephen is an international speaker. He’s traveled worldwide teaching a blend of strategy, Shadow Work and spirituality. He has extensive study in mindfulness mindset, business optimization, Shadow Work and facilitation neuroleptics, Neuro Linguistic Programming, hypnotherapy, group dynamics, peak performance, leadership dynamics, and unconscious communications. And through his work, he’s forming a specific framework for understanding human experience. And he’s currently training other guides to spread the practice. So with that, I want to bring in Steven to it.
Steven Twohig 3:14
How’s it going, brother?
Brian Smith 3:16
Good, Steven, it’s great to it’s great to have you here I was, we were just catching up a little bit before we got started. I’m like, we need to hit the record button and catch us on the shirt. You’re a fan. Fantastic, dynamic person, I want to really pick your brain today for some of your wisdom. We were talking about traumatic experiences. And we you know, I’ve got their traumatic experience in my life much later than yours. But you under understanding had a traumatic experience early in your life. And so tell me how that influenced you to get into this work?
Steven Twohig 3:44
Well, it what I believe the way that the way that I’m understanding the mind works. It’s impacted everything that I’ve done after that, you know, when I was when I was three years old, my stepmother physically tortured me. And my mother was attempted rape on her while she was going to work and so that cut her hands open. She couldn’t take care of weight at that time. She had three kids. And so she she gave up my youngest sister for adoption to my uncle. And my sister and I went to go live with my dad who was married to another woman. And wow, this is so heavy. Listen, interesting. That’s chewy, Brian. So so on three o’clock at three years old is pre verbal. Right and, and, and, and I can remember my dad getting up in the morning. I distinctly remember this one moment where my dad got up and came out. I was excited. It was early morning. I remember it being dark, bright ish kind of thing. It was like one of those dark moments that I knew that the light was coming. He came out he was in a great mood. Give me a hug, buddy. Glad you’re here. I remember him complimenting me on the hugs. And then I remember him leaving. I can remember is in a basement apartment. Because he had to go up the stairs. I remember he was on a motorcycle, I thought that was really cool at the time because it was really loud. But it’s this, this contraption kind of thing. And, and then I remember leaving, I remember walking back in the screen door closing. And then everything kind of goes dark, I can remember the couch being about here to my waist or to my shoulder to my chest, I can remember visual images of this little one bedroom apartment that he seemed to be living in. And I don’t remember anything else. And that’s the way that most of my life, and just not remembering. And then I went through some work where I got in touch with what that was. And at three years old, I was physically tortured by my stepmother, she would pull my hair out, she would beat me, she would starve me. And then she would lock me in the basement, apparently, I look like my mom. And I would sit in there all day. And then she would let me out she say if you say anything, I’ll kill you and your sister, both my oldest sister who was was with me. And again, preverbal, three years old, this is free. I don’t have any language to explain, I can go to mom and say, Mom, I’m being locked in the basement, because I don’t want to talk. And oh, by the way, you’ll die if you do. So I’m completely frozen. When they finally got me away the prevailing theory at the time as a parent, and again, we’re all amateur parents. So the the prevailing, the prevailing idea at the time was, well, don’t just don’t say anything. And it’ll go away, you know what I mean? So now I’m pre verbal, so I can’t explain it. And I’m in a situation where the adults have been trained or have been programmed to not say anything. So now there’s this feeling of you at any given time, because at three years old mom and dad or God, at any given time, you could get locked into this basement. So what happens when when something like this happens when trauma comes on line, there’s just like, some people call it a split. Some people call it it’s kind of like when you go you know, when you go to the gym and you workout, and you get this kink in your muscle? Well, everything is fractal everything is a is a visual representation of something else. So you have your your your mental mind, and then you have your body mind your your physical mind, the physical bind, you get these? Yes. Okay, well, that would also happen in the mind. So there’s this moment in time that
you know, and I locked into it. I’m in the basement. Let me out, let me out, let me out, right. And so my mind what it does is it drops a pin right there, boom, this does not ever happen to this entity. And then I count your ego comes online and starts watching for this, like a record player just running in the background, always watching this point of reference. You know, when in the military, we always we were always taught when on the tank, you want three points of reference, you want your two feet, you always need that third thing just in case something moves. You’re safe, right on consciousness. It’s much the same way. I’ve got not at this point of reference, right? It can make decisions based on what could happen. And my mind seeing as a believing believing is seeing. So walk into a situation I go, okay, who’s trying to trap me? The only problem is, I’m a 40 year old man. I’m not in Florida. I’m a 40 year old man. I’m not in. I’m not in the basement. I’m a four year old man trapped in Florida that’s talking to his wife about taxes. But I feel like my three year old boy trapped in a basement. And I don’t know it. Yeah, right. This is how most of the world is walking around. They’re asleep at the wheel and they don’t even know they’re reliving trauma, that that they’ve unconsciously been programmed to avoid. And it’s in the recreating that same cycle. The National Science Foundation says 95% of your thoughts are repetitive you’re thinking thinking I mean just look at your life you’re thinking the same thoughts over and over and over? Well 80% of them thoughts are negative. Like they’re based upon off realizing attack thoughts negative bias, like there’s 24 cognitive biases that the mind deals with? Whenever it’s trying to process information. Most of them most of the time the mind the mind is built for meaning but it’s been hijacked for survival. So most of your thoughts are based upon trying to survive some T Rex that’s never going to come Yeah. And mine was based upon that being trapped in the basement. So if I told you right now Brian, just just look around the room like look around the room. Just for the couple of seconds. Look around the room, find a color red. See that if you’re on if you’re listening on this look, look around the room right now find the color red. Look, look look read read read read read read now keep looking. Keep looking at Close your eyes. How much stuff did you see that was blue? We didn’t see anything was blue because you weren’t looking for blue. And the mind sees what it Seeing is believing believing is seeing right? So your mind sees i Oh, where they try? Oh, this person is this and what’s wrong is always available. You know what I mean? So now I’ve got a hook to lay this thing. We call it a projection and shadow work. We got a hook the latest projection on and then I go well, you just think that so when I’m coaching a client would be like, well, you think this is going on? Oh, yeah. And they’ll give me the reason why they think this is happening. But yeah, the reason is true. Typically, it’s always true. Like there’s always a hook though What’s wrong is always available. But so is what’s right. Right, but I choose to look for the negative because that’s what the brain says survive. 3.5 million years of survive. I mean, most of our life as humans, we were food. Like on a good day, you got some extra berries on a bad day. Game over, you know, thanks for playing, right. That was a it was it was like that many many lifetimes like, you know 7080 90 lifetimes before you the mind that is that is in Brian that that version version 3,000,000,456 Whatever, whatever version of the mind you’re in, right? And somebody was grown and they had a baby and then they pass on that information that baby rose up and another baby, another baby all the way to you came up and then your bubble and the only place where this story exists of what the world is is for you is in your head. Nobody else has the same story. Everybody else has a completely different story where they are the hero of their journey. You think of the hero’s journey, and somehow I think what I think is really amazing, somehow your crazy story and you know, your your your your kids, your wife, your your co workers or whoever you come interact. You’re crazy story and they’re crazy stories somehow. I call it shadowboxing. It just lines right up. And we tell each other completely ever crazy stories, but somehow the crazy stories seem they just seem to line up in our minds. I think that’s God. I think it points to God. I’m like, There’s no way that my crazy story that I have because I’m crazy appear homeboys hoists it don’t go up there without a flashlight kind of thing. I’m crazy up there. And so it’s like I How did my crazy story and I know that you’re just as probably just as crazy as I am. And somehow our stories are just gonna line right up. And they’re gonna be Oh, yeah, that’s right. And I’m we got both could be just completely off. Yeah,
Brian Smith 11:49
yeah, we do. You know, I think you just gave a really good, great description of trauma. Have we locked in the trauma and how it’s typically subconscious. For most of us, we never go back and evaluate it. And so we live in this story, where that thing that happened was when we were three, or five or whatever, we’re constantly trying to avoid that. And we’re projecting it out into the world. And I think about this in relationships on men even now, you know, you go back to, you’re talking to your wife and your use, like you said, you’re coming out like your three year old and she’s like, looking at you like your 40 year old man.
Steven Twohig 12:26
I’ll give you a prime example. Because Because you people need to understand this other one, the one he thinks for those of your listeners that are actual Shadow Work practitioners, there’s a common misconception that once I solve the problem that solves I have a three year old that’s trapped in my body that is trapped in a basement. Period, right? That three year old could come out any time. At any time. You could, you could say that ended up going down the steps and that could trigger in me that feeling it’s a feeling of depression. It starts off it’s right here, my chest. It feels first off like I’ve lost I can’t breathe. Oh, ma’am. I can’t agree that why do I feel like my breath? That little boy is pushing up against me going to shut up, Stephen Shut up. You know, he’s starting to feel like he’s trapped. So he’ll come online and he’ll start putting pressure on me to just just get small, get tiny get small really quick, because you’re going into the basement. And so as a shadow guy, we need to remember that. Those are always in front of us. And my wife is she’s she’s, I call her the Angel of Death. Because she’s the age she’s a hospice nurse, right to give you clarification, she’s a hospice nurse. And she’s not a hospice nurse. She’s 15 years in the industry. She’s got his master’s degrees working on her PhD. We’re thinking about doing psychedelic assisted end of life care. Like she’s the hospice nurse like she’s the angel that you hope shows up when you’re dying. She’s when I say Angel of Death, there’s a reason I’m not just seeing my wife, you know, she’s the angel like like she’s an angel like and so she could she’s got this in a we’re constantly doing work constantly doing work. How’s he doing work? Well, she’s had the shadow that she’s been working on. She just could not get around it. And and a couple of weeks ago, she finally got it. It was terrible. It’s just that he’s terrible. And so imagine if everything in your life were just filtered with terrible it’s like you walk into a room you go house and as a nurse She’s addicted she’s she become addicted to the to be terrible because as a nurse, I got to understand what the worst case scenario is. So that I can keep that from happening. And so her mind had gotten programmed into what’s the worst that what can happen. What can happen what can happen? Well, we forget over time that we get locked in that and we just keep going out of it. Shadow Work isn’t about you going in and fixing it. Although you it could feel like that because when you when you come out of a when you come out of a point where you’re suffering, it feels much like a pop it’s like ah everything will make sense. No wonder why I did that. No wonder why this no wonder that like you get clarity. It’s it’s that aha moment we call Um, wow moments because people go, Wow. And like, you know, all of a sudden they’ll get it right. But then you have to do the integration on the back end. You got to continually maintain it. It’s not Shadow Work is in shadows gone. You got to keep your shadow out in front of you. Right. So it’s about finding out where am I trapped? And you said, one other thing you mentioned was you said, well, trauma. This isn’t just trauma. This is this is the way the mind works. Like trauma is like anybody that’s listening here say, Well, I don’t have any trauma, no, no trauma for us, those of us that have been traumatized those of us and I don’t know that there’s a plan, I haven’t run into one person that hasn’t got some form of trauma. But trauma trauma allowed me to do is it allowed me to see how my mind was coded. It’s it this, everybody’s mind operates like this. It’s not just the trauma as trauma folks, it’s everybody, as trauma folks are required. We’re not given an a path that my trauma is so great, my my lie is so great, that I’m forced to continually look at that line go, is it true? Yeah. Because the first rule of shadow work is that we lie to ourselves first. That’s the first rule, we lie to ourselves first,
Brian Smith 16:06
what you just said is beautiful. And I want to I want to just re emphasize that for people because you’re right, I think trauma is the thing that triggers us to have to change it. It drives us to the point where we can’t survive like this anymore. So we have to do something else. But we all have this. And I want to I want to make sure we normalize. We all have the shadow stuff, we all have these lies that we tell ourselves, we all have. It’s a normal part of me being a human being. And I think sometimes people feel guilty or like there’s something wrong with me. We all have it, some of us just hide it better than others people do.
Steven Twohig 16:41
Yeah, well, and here’s the interesting thing. So again, with my my wife, the word is terrible, right. And so it’s like you should get an A once the what the ego does the ego, it just expands it continually is an it’s an ever expanding, let’s call it a software application. Because that’s what it really is. It’s not real, you’re the you that you think is you is not really the you that you are, it’s just a small piece of you. It’s like the it’s like the bright light in the middle of this giant dark room, you’re the little bright area 1% of the room that’s lit up is what you think you are. And really there’s all there’s there’s a whole bunch more that you don’t even know is going on. Right? And so that part of you, it thinks it knows everything. So it runs around. And what happens is when you get a little bit those wild moments happen, it stretches that the lightness because really what we’re doing here is bringing the unconsciousness to the unconscious is what we’re doing. We’re bringing light to the darkness. That’s really all we’re doing. Because when you and your your life and really anything in your life, is it directly the quality of it is a direct reflection of the amount of consciousness that you bring to it. Most of your suffering is because of unconsciousness. Like if you go look at it, it’s like well, no, I did that consciously. Yeah, but why did you do it? Well, and then all sudden, you see this blind spot and you start shooting through this blind spot? And you find out? Oh, this is? Oh, I did it. Because creepy uncle Eddie Claire back here. Yes, exactly. See, I would have never known that that standard, I would have never known that. That’s still been years and years of therapy. I hear this all time, years and years of therapy. And I thought that I was over it. Well, here we are. And so what happens is the ego goes goes, she goes, Oh, I see what I’m doing. I’m looking at everything terrible. And then what happens with us folks that have been through, then all of a sudden, I become terrible about feeling terrible. Now I feel terrible, because I’m creating the very thing that I feel terrible about. And then I catch myself feeling terrible about feeling terrible. And that’s what it gets what to do. Now I’m terrible about being terrible about being terrible. And the mind just spirals I call the shame spiral. You just spine they just, it’s like the first the first thing I tell people is pull back and go, in your mind. Just say, isn’t that interesting? And to go to go to a go to a position of curiosity, it’s one of our as a as a human, it’s one of our superpowers is to get curious, you know, as monkeys, we go look at things. So the first thought when you find yourself in that shame spot, like right now, if you’re listening to this, and you’re going, Oh, that’s exactly what I’m doing. I’m beating myself about beating myself up about beating myself up, breathe. Isn’t that interesting? Instead of doing that instead of going, because most people don’t have thoughts, most people’s thoughts have them. And they’re caught in this train of thought and the train has left the station like a bullet train. And it’s headed straight to whatever worst case scenario that they create. And they’re living out of it over and over and over. And they don’t even know it. It’s subconscious. It’s just below the surface in there. It’s like this. This is the personal codecs. There’s this album that’s just playing this record playing in the background. That’s the worst song you’ve ever listened to in your life, but you can’t stop listening to it kind of thing. It’s like that’s what’s going on and they don’t even know it. Yeah,
Brian Smith 19:45
it’s absolutely true. That’s that’s been my experience too. And that the feeling terrible about to being terrible, feeling terrible. It’s like I was telling I deal with a lot of people in grief. And one of the big things about people Veteran grief, there’s always seems to be some level of guilt. Even when there’s really nothing objectively the guilty that from an outsider I look at them and say you’ve got you didn’t do anything wrong, but we shame ourselves. Yep. And we
Steven Twohig 20:13
shame ourselves first. Because we believe we believe that somehow the story that we’re living in, because we’re all living a hero’s journey, a subjective experience of if you think of every movie that’s ever been, every show every movie every there’s only been one frame, it’s called the hero’s journey. Just Campbell call that the monomyth. Right? Well, I think that’s just if you think about it since the beginning of time, every culture is same story. Yep. Every culture, same story, every human same story. Isn’t that interesting? Well, there’s got to be a definite like, that’s one of the first threads that there’s there’s no way that could be an accident. Like there’s just no way. And that because that’s what we’re living in our heads, we’re looking for this. We’ve got this groove developed in us. And so as soon as something happens, we go, what did I do? What did I do? And it’s got, it’s got to be about me, because everything we’re not we’re living in a narcissistic society. Paul Levy called it the Tico virus. We’re all living in this narcissistic environment. And I think it’s all because we’re all we’ve all been traumatized. We’re all living in grief. And we’re just managing most people don’t build the the or the ideal life, most people are just managing the circumstances of what been hit what has been handed to them, and other heads down. And if I’m focused on circumstances, because my brain is programmed, I’m working with this lady. She’s one of the top final financial advisors in our country. And she’s working, working, working. And she’s exiting the business. And as she as a business owner exits, it’s a different type of business. I mean, work with Tony, right, is the different types of business when you’re exiting. And this trauma point, it keeps us keeps us focused on we’re managing circumstances, managing circumstances, if I don’t look up and look down and look at the horizon, now I’m in suffering. And now I take that and I bleed that into the, to the to the my personal life as well. And so what she’s done, she’s just become enamored by looking right at the problem. Well, if I look at the problem, and I step over the problem, because my programming, what am I, what am I going to do next? What’s the next thing I focus on? What do I need to be looking for? If I’m problem focused? What am I going to look for? Problems? Right? And you get what you focus on. So because I’m focused on try and go into it like this is yeah, cute, haha, but actually go into your life into the subjective experience of your life and go, that’s exactly what I do. I go, Okay, now, what’s the next problem? And now what you’re doing is just jumping from problem to problem and your experiences. There’s nothing but problems, because that’s all you’re looking for. So consciousness bleeds right inside that smaller container. And now you feel like you’re stifled. You feel like you’re stuck. Let’s because you’re not building the ideal. You’re not building what you want to different parts of the brains that come online, when a managing circumstances were versus building the ideal.
Brian Smith 22:55
Yes, I love that what you just said. And we are and this goes back to that, that prehistoric brain, we are built to look for problems, that’s when we were in the jungle, you needed to see if a tiger was coming, you’re not you’re not looking at the flowers. And we still do that. And you can convince yourself that nothing is right in your life. And I’ve seen people that are that have done this.
Steven Twohig 23:16
I’ll convince myself of it. And then and then and then talk myself I’m I do this for a living like, I’ve been doing this for 22 years. And for me it was life and death, you’re locked in a basement, you have to figure it out kind of thing. Like for me it was a must to figure out what was going on, and I still get stuck in it. So people need to understand that the root word for human being in Arabic, is to forget, we forget we forget what we’re doing. We forget, I can remember. I remember I work with this medicine called Ayahuasca. It’s it’s the strongest psychedelic on the planet. It’s DMT. And I again, I’ve worked with Tony, I work with geniuses throughout the world, you get to Tony Robbins, who is arguably one of our time, one of the best in this field, arguably maybe one of the best ever in this field. Right. So I’m working next to him. I built his business. And I’ve reached the end that now what now what here I am still trapped in this basement. I’m getting I mean, I find ways to get out of it. I still find myself tripping into it. So I figured I still have it figured out quite what I haven’t got my hand on it yet. So like a monkey. Have you ever seen a trap monkeys in India?
No, I haven’t. Yeah, so in India, I got the video, you can go out to my YouTube page and check it out. But in India, what they do is they take they used to take this gorge and they would hollow it out and they would put a little hole in it like enough to fit your hand in it. And what they would do is they would put fruit in it and they walk into a field monkeys be watching and do this. And they just walk up and they tie this door to a tree and then they walk off and they don’t even leave. They just kind of sit off aways a little ways and they wait. Monkeys being what monkeys do and that’s what we are right? We’re just hairless monkeys. They’ll walk up and they’ll put their hand in the gourd and then grab the fruit and I gotta pull it out because they made a face As your hand doesn’t fit, it won’t pull out anymore. Well, the monkey doesn’t know that because the monkey can’t see that his hand is what’s catching. He thinks, as far as he knows his hand is still the same size. The monkey doesn’t have the mental. We’re kind of like that monkey, we go on and we get we’ve grabbed onto something. And now we’re caught. And you can see that they’ll come up, they’ll go to, there’ll be dawn on Biden on his arm trying to get you know, he’ll eat his arm off, he knew he’d get out. Let’s just walk up, grab the monkey, tie it up, put it on, and they’ll set that monkey, I get the video, set it right down two or three of the monkeys that just got caught doing exactly what he did. Right. That’s how that’s and we are, that’s what we are. So what we do is we catch on, I go somewhere down there, I caught on to this three year old trapped in a basement, in my exist inside my consciousness inside my mind. But if you miss by an inch by a mile, I knew it was there. Everybody told me it was there. But I didn’t know. I didn’t know. No. Right. Right. So so I’m on my I remember my, my journey with mother. I remember going down I remember coming up. And it was like my second ceremony. And I remember waking up. It’s like waking up from a dream that you’re not having that makes any sense. Like imagine right now if you woke up, just like how would it be if you woke up if you weren’t sleeping? That’s what it felt like, and not no longer standing in this grove. I’m standing sitting next to this female entity we call her if you’ve ever if you’ve ever had the opportunity to meet that we call her mother as I’m not the only one to see this lady, right. And so I looked over at her. I’m like, it’s it’s all a story. She’s like, Yeah, it’s all story. And she’s kind of smiling, like, yeah, yes, surprise, you know, and I remember going back going back to sleep, I’m using air quotes here going back to sleep because I really what was happening was it then I woke up again. And I was in the grove. I was in this drove his daytime ceremony and looked up and and I saw these little triangles, little eyeballs. And it was really weird. Oh, that’s weird. I close my eyes again. And now suddenly woke up, quote unquote, woke up again. Now I’m standing there next to mother a again. And I’m like, Well, if this is all a story, why don’t we Why don’t we forget? Why do we forget that we’re telling it she started laughing at me. She thought it was funny. And at that time, I didn’t like why is this? Why am I having a vision of some lady laughing at me? Because I’m asking her a question that I don’t know the answer to. And it took me 18 ceremonies deep to realize that, in my humble opinion, again, this is just my my story that I’m living out of in my head again, my story, your story never line up, right? The story that I’m living out of my head is the reason why we forget is because that’s what we were put here to do. We made the agreement to come here and forget what we’re here to do. And so the root word for human being is to forget. And so I’ve got my hand on this on this thing that says I’m trapped. But but I’ve forgotten that it’s back there. But there it is pulling me holding me down to this feeling. And I have to do that because the the the strongest force in our human condition is our identity. Like as humans, we will do anything to stay consistent and persistent, with how we identify ourselves. both good and bad. And so if I’ve got this feeling of being trapped, I load that down into my psyche and say, Okay, this is who I am. This is my existence. This is where I am like when you’re you boot the software that is the mind on online, the first thing he goes, Okay, where who am I? Who am I is where am I at on the map. So when you go to like, the mall, you’ve never been to a lot of us don’t go to malls anymore, right? But if you go to a mall, that you remember looking at the map, and there was always there was always we needed to know three things. Right? First, I needed to know where I was where you are here. That’s the identity. This is I am, here’s where I am. And now that I know where I’m at, I need to know where I’m going. There’s RadioShack for those of us that remember RadioShack, right RadioShack. If I’m hearing RadioShack is there now I can navigate a course to get where I’m going. Right? Without that I am here, doesn’t matter if I know where RadioShack is or not. There’s no way for me to create a strategy to get from where I am to where I’m going. This is just basic level stuff, right? Without a zero, you can’t get to one because you don’t know where you’re at. Right? So then I’m trapped in a basement is my it’s, it’s the way I make meaning of my world. It’s the way all of my decisions. All of my strategies, all of my information flows out of this basement that is trapped. Now if I get too far away from feeling trapped. Now I’m out in the ocean and I can’t see the coast. And I don’t know what’s where I don’t know which way to turn. I call it dark night of soul to the knots. Right? I don’t know whether to go left, right, straightforward. I don’t know. This is how you get sucked into a hurricane. So the mind doesn’t do that. What the mind does is it says up against the coast of the basement. So there are times that I go okay, well do you feel trapped? No, you’re not trapped. Okay, everything is good. But notice that even in that feeling of everything being good, I’m still holding it up against that feeling of being trapped in the basement. It’s it’s only going to be it’s either going to be you’re good or you’re not. It’s either good Good are keep doing this till you are good. Everything is based upon that crappy feeling. Yeah, right? The problem isn’t necessarily whether you do this, it’s how do you do this? And unraveling that. And in business, it’s a big deal. Like you can’t like, again, Sandy was a great example of that she you’ll you’ll recreate your life inside your business. But the other piece is that the velocity of change is sped up so great that just for humans, what’s happened to us in 100 years is now happening in 10. Like, stuff to speed up, what happened in 10 years is happening. And one is like, new problem, new problem, new problem, right? Like we can’t continue to operate out of the same software that we been operating out of, because that it didn’t work back there. It’s 75,000 years, like, we’ve only been society for 6003 point 5 million years of programming, this, this program, and that I think my judgment is this program that we have right now is the reason why we’re suffering. We’re going through this major shift in regards to our software.
Announcer 30:57
We’ll get back to grief to growth in just a few seconds. Did you know that Brian is an author and a life coach. If you’re grieving or know someone who is grieving his book, grief to growth is a best selling easy to read book that might help you or someone you know, people work with Brian as a life coach to break through barriers and live their best lives. You can find out more about Brian and what he offers at WWW dot grief to growth.com www.gr IE F the number two g rowth.com. Or text growth grow T H 231996. If you’d like to support this podcast, visit www.patreon.com/grief to growth www.patreon.com/g r i e f, the number two gr O W th to make a financial contribution. And now back to grief to growth.
Brian Smith 31:59
Yeah, that’s a that’s an excellent point. Because we do have these brains that were that were developed for a different world, we’re living in a completely different environment with this, this brain is developed for, for fear and for survival in the look for the worst. And it’s and it’s making a lot of us miserable. I think it’s what we feel the disconnect and the the lack of meaning in life. I love what you said earlier. Like it’s like we’re programmed for survival, but we seek meaning. That’s That’s what people want. We want meaning. Yep,
Steven Twohig 32:28
we that’s the thing. I think I think the mind is originally designed for meaning. So we come online, we go what does all this mean? What does this mean? But then the deeper that has been hijacked for survival again, over and over and over again, it’s like, well, you can’t get past this so that the mind goes okay, well, then we need to survive first. And then the third piece that becomes what I call BIOS level programming would be efficiency, right? Because the mind only has right now your mind takes about 20 to 25% of the caloric intake that you have goes to just processing thought, at some level, just to get the mind the organ, the organ is the brain to operate, you’re talking 20% of your caloric intake 20% of the food you eat every day goes to how much you think that’s the most energy intensive organ in the body. It’s more than any other organ in the body. And so to compensate for that to get more thought, the mind is created what’s called the default mode network dmn. And what the dmn does is it says, Okay, if this is the path to get there, it wants to go to overdrive, it’s kind of like a zip file, I go, Okay, I take the zip file, and I go, okay, trapped in a basement, we’ll just use my trauma point for an example. We go, okay, trapped in a basement, this is what that looks like, this is all the this is all that this is who you are. And that these are the words that you’ll use the way the plot that you’ll make out of that. Here’s the deep coding meaning that you’ve got, here’s all the blueprints around how the world operates in that situation, that scenario, here’s all the emotions and energy that comes along. Here’s what you can do can’t do. Here’s all your decision making options you got. And here’s what kind of rituals Do you have around that? That loads into what’s called the default mode network. And then I’m walking along and all of a sudden, something triggers me, as far as the triggers me means that the song that’s playing the radio station that’s playing in the background, right, what I find is when people are triggered, and they go, now I’m triggered, right? I go go into that trigger, and we go into the trigger. I go, is it? Is it that you’re just now feeling this? Or is that you’ve already we’re feeling it? It’s just that now you can’t tune it out. Right now like the radio, the refrigerator in the in the kitchen? Ever had a refrigerator in your kitchen that was humming. What happens after it your home’s a certain length of time? You don’t hear it anymore? You tune it out, right? So there’s this tune out that happens. But then all of a sudden somebody comes in and says refrigerator, and you go oh, and now you can hear the humming like it’s all of a sudden, now you can’t hear it. Oh, it’s like all of a sudden it just came on like, my right. That’s what happens. And so this default mode network says something around the trauma and all of that While that entire file comes forward from my default mode network and gets loaded into my nervous system, and now I am metaphorically inside that basement, but I don’t know it. Right, right. And the in the default, it’s kind of like, Have you ever driven, you’ve been driving somewhere and you’ve driven there 1000s of times, and then you wake up and you’re on you’re, you’re just there. Yeah, you don’t know how you got there. That’s because your default mode network, thank you, thank you mind, right for doing what you need to do. If that didn’t happen. If we didn’t have a default mode network, you’d get hit by a bus. And every time you walked out, it’s only a matter of time before he dies. Because your mind can’t process that much information. Like when you’re sitting in a room full of crowded people are like if say, you’re walking along the street in New York, and somebody you know, comes in the crowd, it takes like the computer program, it’s like, it’s like 1000 points that have to be taken into consideration for you to take that moving piece and process it and go oh, that Stephen? Yeah, right. That’s like 1000 points, like that’s massive computation, we’re talking quantum level, you know, your, your mind is unbelievably powerful. But that’s a lot of data. So the default mode network takes anything that’s automated, and it zips it up so that you don’t have to deal with it so that you can have this higher functioning thought. The problem is, is you’re standing on top of all that you don’t know it, nobody’s taught you to look through the looking glass, right? So you have this, this, this glass case that’s around you, that’s got all these patterns that have been etched in the glassing of what the world is. The problem is, is most people there’s only two types of thoughts you have the thoughts that you think. And then you have the thoughts that you’re hearing yourself think in other words, there are echoes of thoughts that have already been thought, right. Most people aren’t listening. Most people aren’t having new thoughts. What most people are doing is they’re listening to thoughts that have already been thought, I guess would be the past tense were to think right. Yeah. So so the past has they, they’ve already sunk those thoughts. And because they’ve already thought those thoughts and develop the pattern and meaning to it, that’s etching on the glass. Well, over time, what happens is, you start living out of that etching, thinking that not to pletely, unaware of the fact that you’re living out of your etching, and then that’s projecting the shadow onto the world. And you’re thinking that it’s the outside world, but it’s not. It’s the etching in your glass. And when we want to do what we do in shadow work, because we go okay, you see that? Yep. That’s you. Oh, and now you we call it owning your shadow. Now you can own it. That is me. Exactly. Now own it. And now that I own it, now I can see it. Now, I don’t have to step it out to the live out of it. Yeah. I don’t have to suffer out of it. Right. And I think that the world needs to do more and more of this.
Brian Smith 37:44
Yeah. And one thing I want to I want to interject here, because the word Shadow Work, sounds dark. Sounds sounds scary. It sounds like something I don’t want to do. So I can people, I think turn away from doing the shadow work. But what we need to help people understand is you’re miserable. Now, you think you’re avoiding it.
Steven Twohig 38:07
I was just having this conversation with somebody. Saturday, so we were, you know, I do have to past two years now. I’ve been doing psychedelic integration work with Shadow Work and just working with somebody that was just like, I don’t want to do this. I don’t I don’t want to go there. I don’t want to. But isn’t it like okay, well check your body though. Isn’t it true that you’re already going through it? I am. I am already go? All you’re doing now is facing it. That’s it. All you’re doing now is looking at it and owning what you’re already. I but I don’t want to do that. Isn’t that interesting? You’re still expending all this energy under underground. They’re expending more energy to maintain whatever it is. Yeah. Right. And they’re spending more energy maintaining it than they are just dealing with it and then moving it over. And then also the other pieces. So I’m working with somebody this Saturday and and he had something happened to him was young, where he was told not to have any any intimate relations. So there’s this party and that just terrified to be in a relationship, right? So now he can’t figure out why he can’t be in a relationship we’re now in and he’s now an adult. He’s, he’s, he’s exiting a relationship. And it’s like, it’s the same exit that he’s been taking his entire life. He’s like, I can’t figure out why I keep getting the same exit. Well, he was building it up. And he didn’t even know it. Right. Same guy was I don’t want to I don’t want to look at that. But isn’t it true that you’re suffering now? Well, yeah, okay. Well, how are you suffering now? Well, I always get this feeling like that. Okay, so you’re feeling as though you need to be quiet. You need to be separate. Yep. And how much of that energy? How much did you have to fight against that? Oh, what percentage of your mental power? Oh, 10%. Okay. And then this, it was like 30 30% of his energy was spent working his way out of the lie that he knew. No, you are good enough. No, you like leaning against the lie that I’m not good enough. It took 30% of his energy just to work his way out. out of the hole. So there’s 30% of his mental capacity that he doesn’t have. And then the goal that he had down in there, the reason why he had learned to be not in intimate relationships, because he felt so hard. He loved so deeply, that he felt he needed to stay safe because he didn’t want to hurt again. So now we have this beautiful heart, this deep, almost genius level of ability to connect with people. But he’s got the shadow that says, if you do that, you’re gonna hurt. So then he’s separate from that. So not only is he losing 30% of his mental capacity, he’s really missing his genius, which is the ability to connect, people will come in and they’ll say, Well, Shadow is dark. And I think honestly, Brian, I think that it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s very interesting to me, when people I got a client said, I thought it was I thought it was devil devil worshipping. What are you talking about? He’s like, Well, when you first mentioned shadow work, I almost didn’t sign up because it was like, I’m not doing any devil worshipping stuff. But I knew that you’d worked for Tony and in and I had this interaction with you. And I watch these videos. He said that’s so that’s the only reason I signed up for your, your course. Right? But now I know. Because it’s, it’s it’s you get this natural, like when you’re thinking of Shadow Work. Think of the aversion. Right? What is that aversion warn about shadow work? What if there was some part of you? That was unconsciously saying, Oh, no, don’t look there. Like part of you came online. As soon as you heard shadow work, there’s a part of you that came online and said, Wait a minute. You don’t want to go there? Right? Because the conscious mind does not want to go there. He wants. The first rule of shadow work is that we lie to ourselves first, there lies,
Brian Smith 41:42
those the shadow elements of ourselves, tell us I’m the one keeping you safe. I’m what’s keeping you safe. This is this is your coping mechanism. So when people hear this are like, you’re trying to take that away from me.
Steven Twohig 41:52
Exactly. Exactly an addict, you see the same thing with addiction. I’ll be working with somebody in addiction, and they’ll go, I’ll go, I need you to quit that. Well, this is how I managing my trauma of being abused. When I was three years old, you want me to get rid of my, the tool that I use that keeps me out of the basement? And again, like this, their their metaphorical basement, right? You want me to stop doing this for that? Oh, no, they’re not even willing. That’s why harm reduction is the thing because you can’t just take away somebody’s they’re going to have to have some kind of coping mechanisms to deal with whatever the thing is that that addiction is typically a symptom of a deeper rooted problem. Not that I’m doing therapy at no point do what would I do it to be clear? I don’t have any answers. Like, it sounds like I got a lot of answers. But the reality is, is I don’t I’ve got I’ve got what I’m really, really like a genius at is questions, get really, really curious really, really quick. And and I want to get you to the point to where you go, ah, that’s why I’m doing what I’m doing. And if I have an answer, even if I know the answer, if I give you the answer, Well, if you’ve got a neuron that’s firing, looking for the answer, it’s like reaching for an answer. And then the answer is on the other side somewhere and I jump you from one neuron to the other, you don’t make the connection yourself. Now, when you’re in the situation, you’re not going to get there because you’re going to need me to tell you what to do. So even though you know how to get there, I am in your strategy making process. You have to come through me now to get to your answer. And now I’ve hobbled you. Yeah, and most people most people are hobbled before they even know they can walk. And so good shadow guy doesn’t have any answers. But yes, Shadow is the part of you that you hide, repressed and denied. It’s not. That is not the dark aspects of you. Matter of fact, Marianne Williams said, Our deepest fear is not that were inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we’re powerful beyond measure. You’re afraid of just how powerful you are. You just don’t know it. Yeah,
Brian Smith 43:45
I think that’s an excellent point. I want to talk about, you mentioned ayahuasca, and you talked about Mother Ayahuasca and I it’s to me, it’s fascinating how psychedelics seem to have the ability to help people to heal. And what’s funny, I was just few weeks ago, saw an interview with Will Smith, with David Letterman interview, and he was talking about ayahuasca and you know, there’s just there’s just this perception that Oh, I can’t do drugs, because those are those are bad for you. But talk about psychedelics and talk about why you think that helps us to unlock some of this stuff.
Steven Twohig 44:16
Yeah, and I’m and understand that I’m a, I spent a long time and 12 STEP program I was Alan Todd, Allah Tino and not in a, like, you name it, if there was an AI behind it, I probably joined it. Like, you know what I mean, I was looking because again, I was looking for the answer, why am I why do I keep going to this unconscious, suffering, just keep creating the same suffering, same suffering over and over, right? And so the 12 step programs are really their transformational tool. But even the 12 step program, AAA itself was created by a gentleman by the name of Bill W. Bill W. When he first started a he did what was called the Bella Donna cure. The bill donnager was a psychedelic experience where they would put you through and he had this epiphany and that epiphany, then he then took The Oxford group and a couple other groups were putting together created the, the Alcoholics Anonymous, that we the program that we now know, it wasn’t meant to be a program that you kept coming to. But then he he then was still suffered from severe depression never did. And he ended up going and taking some LSD. And that and that, and he, at that point wanted to add psychedelics to the AAA program, because he was he was certain that that was going to be read the old timers like dude, like, Shut up, man, you’re gonna You don’t tell an alcoholic to take take a chemical to stop taking chemicals? That doesn’t make any sense, right? We need to understand the difference between drugs and medicine. Right? Right. That’s the difference. You’ll never see, in my humble opinion, you’ll never see they’ll never I don’t care how far down in the future you go, I don’t care how embedded it becomes into our culture. There’s never going to be a time where you go to a frat party, and you see a CAGR of Ayahuasca laying there, like people don’t go there just to drink the tea. You know, I’m saying it’s painful. You don’t go into that do not go into that blindly. Like you need an integration coach, you need somebody there sitting with you, you’re going to want integration of the background of the Western mind is not the amount of lies that we’ve been taught, unconsciously processed are amazing, right. And I don’t want to go to woo on us. Right. But what I found is psychedelics are a nonspecific focus enhancer, right? So whether I’m working with businesses that want to innovate, or whether I’m working with somebody like me that dealing with deep rooted trauma, or whether I’m dealing with a spiritual, somebody looking to be more spiritually enlightened, what I what I WASC I work specifically with plant medicine, because I have my own reasons for that. But psychedelics, what they do is they are nonspecific focus enhancers. So when you you set your intention, I want to help me understand help me, he’ll help me do, what happens is the medicine comes online. And it wherever your focus goes, your energy flows. This is like this, not just with psychedelics, just in general, wherever your focus goes, your energy flows. But when you bring in your focus, and you had you had the medicine, the medicine tends to be a focus enhancer, you go from being able to focus on at times to, to focus on at times 2000, and all sudden, all your entire brain lights up. And you can make connections in your mind that you could have never made. Because you have these deep rooted patterns of the way if again, if I told you to look around the room and find read you you wouldn’t, you wouldn’t get blue. But if I told you right now to look around the room again, let’s try this again. Look around the room and find the color red. I say Close your eyes. And I go how much stuff did you see now? That was blue? I saw a couple of things. Yes. Because your mindset Oh, there’s also this other thing that may come into play. And so now your mind is noticing more of it’s noticing the red and the blue and it might not be causing the pink so much right? That’s like that right there is adding psychedelics but times 2000 Because now you’re coming in and your mind and the mind is going now look all around you and you’re like, I didn’t even know any of this stuff was here, right? Psychedelics breaks us out of our, our rope programming, or helps us break out of this rope programming that we’ve been dealing with and focuses is inward and goes okay, how did you get there?
Brian Smith 48:12
Yeah. You know, it’s funny when you were talking to you just briefly that I’m gonna go to will to where we want this and I do because this is this is what I do. I my spiritual is a deep part of what I do when I work with people. And I believe one of the issues we have in the world is we have forgotten who we are we have forgotten we do this incredible powerful being we forgotten while we’re here and I could see Mother Ayahuasca like laughing at you like you signed up for this.
Steven Twohig 48:40
Exactly. It’s like your 18 ceremony it was like I got it. It was like the reason why was because you asked this was your idea. Like this wasn’t my idea. I’m just here helping you this was all you and every teacher that I’ve ever come to always points me back to that this is your this is you. This is you any teacher worth their salt, any teacher that and go in and check yourself and see if it’s true. Any teacher that’s ever been worth anything for you that’s ever helped you grow at all has always pointed you back into yourself? So we do this process called Shadow ceremony. It’s the shadow practitioner level one is what it is. And it’s what we do is we we go through the cave to touch your shadow what is the part of you you hide, repress and deny? But we’re not going into the shadow just to go there. We’re not going into the mind just to get to the mind. We’re shooting past the shadow to get to what I call your well. Right You’re there’s a part of you that stuff doesn’t come like like all the things that you have the genius that is Brian, it hasn’t come to you. sound like something out here came to you and now you have this gift. It’s not how things have done. They haven’t come from you. Brian is the genius No, if you go and look at the genius like the real genius stuff and you didn’t come from you didn’t come to you it came through you. And what we want to do is we want to connect to that well, and what that does is that redefine As we talked about the axis Monday, we were offline, the center of balance your center of the universe, most people are taking. There’s a book out called, it’s an audio called the erotic and the holy by Mark Gaffney. And it says, are you giving Are you taking Are you open to receive. And whenever I, whenever I go to a situation on tape, I go into the place where you’re suffering and and care what it is just going to the place where you’re suffering right now and think about that place and go okay, in that moment, am I giving? Or am I taking, and if you’re suffering 90% of the time you’re taking, and if you’re, if you’re not that other 10% will be well are you open to receive, I’m not open to receive, okay, well, then that’s why you’re not feeling this moment, you’re not open to receiving because you’re, you’re in a condensed, I call it a condensed state, that’s why you’re suffering, you’re never going to be able to receive, because you’re trying to take, as soon as I go to giving, then my natural reaction, my body then goes, it knows because at the core level that knows that that’s the only way to receive, I know by giving, then I become open to receive. So this is about shifting that. And when I say that, it’s, again, we talked about the Whoo, I come from Tony Robbins very strategic, if you do this, that will happen, right. And I kind of traveled down and started dealing with these plant medicine people. And it’s like, they came from the Whoo, and they’re coming this way. Like we kind of cross you probably run running in this right you kind of cross paths with them. So I’ve been very conscious to try to not get so far into the Whoo, that people that are in the still in the strategic end of life still in the you know, the construct, I want to be able to plug make sure that the to plug I want I try as hard as I can to stay right at that.
Brian Smith 51:36
Perfect Landsdale just saying and I’m actually taking a program right now a coaching program that’s very similar with what you’re doing with the shadow work and understanding our shadow, we call them a saboteurs. All these things that are part of our minds that tell us the lives and in the sage is like the true part of us. And it’s funny, because I’m like, Sid did a six week thing with him. And now I’m 12 weeks into the coaching aspect. I’m learning how to coach. And I keep looking at this guy. And I’m like, this is also deeply spiritual. This is this is Buddhism, you know, this is Hinduism. But he’s framing it in a scientific way. Because the Western mind doesn’t want to accept the woowoo. And when I hear people talk about like, Mother Ayahuasca and it was really interesting, I was interviewing a lady who did psychedelics, and I don’t think it was Ayahuasca it was somewhere in Brazil, she had done this thing. And she looks up in the mountains, she sees these beings, you know, going up and down the mountains, while you think, Okay, well, that’s right, because you’re having a subjective experience. And you’re seeing these in your head, and the guy goes, Oh, no, everybody sees them. And I find that fascinating that, you know, there’s there’s something objective about this, I believe,
Steven Twohig 52:39
Oh, yeah, I go in and out. Every Saturday morning, I’m going in, I’m working like I committed a certain length of time studying this stuff, right? Because it’s like, this stuff really were like it, it got me there, right. And it’s like, over and over. It’s like, I’m not going to tell you. And then on the back end, they all and they, everybody’s saying the same thing. They might not see the same thing. But whatever they’re seeing point seems to be pointing to the same might be a different definition. They were they were like this. And then over here, they’re like, No, they were like that. But there was still something there. Like something was there. Obviously, if we’re all seeing the same thing. There must be something like this there. Right? And yes, there are certain patterns. But the gentleman that you’re learning from I, I developed, it took 20 years I developed this framework called I call it the personal Codex, you’re talking about saboteur, that’s your identity. A saboteur cannot have a plot a narrative, they can’t have chattering, like right now, just in your mind, say hello. Like some dude up there just said, Hello, right? You’ve got a narrative right? Now that guy is always talking, right? And what he does is he tells himself a plot, and then it goes, what does that mean? And then creates a story, this is what happened. Right? Once that happens, then it gels down into the blueprint. This is what the world is that blueprint then gets loaded. And then I have an emotion over it that loads into my decision making process, my strategies, and then my behaviors, my actions, and then this goes underwater, and then we act out of it. Right? These are the this is you go into just about any any, again, any training worth its weight, we start to see these similarities, we start to see these like yes, we identity, you’re talking about the seven core archetypes you’re talking about like and I never taken this, whatever training you’re talking about never took it but here it is, right? We all have this common belief we might call it identity, we might call it this, I call it spiral dynamics, it’s at the identity level, this management sits at the identity level 16 levels of consciousness sits at the identity level, like this, obviously, this is we’re all agreeing that this is a thing. Let’s have a conversation about that. Like, you know what I mean? It’s like interesting, but if you go too far out there into the woowoo then those people that have shadows that their mind doesn’t want them to deal with that. That’s the excuse that they give themselves Yes, right to not lean into it. So I gotta be we got people like us, like I’m not gonna go so far out there that the people that could get help from me aren’t going to reach out because they’re going to use the excuse that I’m too Whoo.
Brian Smith 54:58
Yeah, no, I Yeah. Frequently understand, and I understand depends on who your audience is. And like I said that for me, I come from a religious background. So I come from fundamental Christianity. So I look at this stuff and I come from a spiritual belief. And I believe that we came here as beings to have this experience like, like Mother Ayahuasca told you. And I think that’s, for me, that’s really important to always keep in mind because, okay, so the story, my daughter passing away, you know, I could tell myself a story that I’m just a biological robot here by accident. And that’s it. And so when we die, we die, lights out, nothing, nothing more. That’s a story I can tell myself, which means my daughter’s death is a great tragedy, because I’ll never see her again. Or I could tell myself that we’re spiritual beings, you’re having a temporary experience, and that she’s still with me. And this is why her pictures behind me right now, and that I will see her again. And there’s evidence for both of those stories, right? There’s, you can choose which one you want to believe the latter one helps me a lot. And I believe and there’s a lot of evidence for as well. It’s not just, it’s not just I’m telling myself this story. So when I work with my clients, I’m like, you don’t have to believe this, but just just try it on to see if it works for you.
Steven Twohig 56:10
Yep. And, you know, here’s the reality at the end of the road, you’re gonna die. You know, I’m gonna die, you’re gonna die. Everybody on this call is gonna die. Like, Brian, nobody’s gonna remember your name, the country is going to fall, this, the sun is going to explode, the planet is going to die. Other planets are going to be formed, new civilizations are going to come up that don’t even No, the Earth was a thing. At the end of the road, nothing that you do here matters. And I tell that somebody’s like, oh, man, that’s really a really terrible way to look at life. I’m like, Well, why that’s the truth. Well, then why would we live? Okay? Well, just for a second time, fill the air on your skin. Feel the temperature, like feel your butt in the chair? If you’re driving down the road, notice that you’re driving like be where you are now? Are you in a house? How many people are in that house with you? Like just really allow yourself for a brief period of time be here now. And then allow the story of what happened? Daughter all that slip away? Let allow tomorrow, what you need to get done all that stuff slip away. And just allow yourself for just a moment to be here. Now. Feel that? Right there? What are you feeling? That’s all that’s important. Ever. At the end of the day, how do I feel? How do I make others feel? How do I do I bring light into the am I am I living out of love or my living out of fear. I call it a deep dark night. Most people that especially because of your what the the content that you offer is so profound for somebody that’s in or what I call a DE NADA dark night of the soul. It’s like a mic coming. I ask yourself when you’re that fear, and where you’re ruminating. Am I coming from fear right now? Is this I’m afraid of something. And then in your mind, just say, well, what would love say? Yeah. And listen? What was that answer? And you’ll find that it’s soft. Typically love does it, like fear comes in what fear does is fear bust through the doors does your rod like, like that? Right? It’s loud, it takes up space. And it demands that you get everything else out of the way. Love doesn’t do that it kind of walks in and it’s all soft. And it was like, just let everything be. And it’s so simple. And it’s so matter of fact that our mind goes that’s there’s no way that that’s the answer. But part of you knows that’s the truth. And it’s hard for us as humans to break out of the mind and into the truth. And so we look at that and we go, That’s too scary. That’s too dark. I’m not doing that shadow work. That’s devil work. It’s yours should stay away from it. And we go, oh, I trust that. That sounds right. And we continue to manage the circumstance, because we don’t want to deal better to deal with the demon that you know, than to raise the demon that what if I let go of this. And there’s something What if I let go of this, this, this meaning that I made about my daughter dying? If I let go of this to reach for something greater? I don’t know that I can take another pain that’s greater than this. I’d rather manage this fear than the pain the suffering that comes along. I can’t imagine. So that we’re clear, I can’t imagine I would I think that that would crush me. I really do. Like I know that we’ve crossed for a brief period of time. I know there’ll be no doubt, I don’t know that I would recover from it. That’s my fear. Right? So better to deal with that demon. We’re managing, managing that there’s no way that I would be able to deal with a bigger demon like in your, in your reality, again, in this subjective experience of it. There’s some part of you that goes, Oh, yeah, that’s true. That’s probably the most painful thing that you’ve ever had to go through. I can’t imagine anything even close to that. And so it’s like, why would I ever risk giving up whatever meaning and you’ve had to work through that part of you? And you go into your subjective experience? And you go yes, yes, yes, yes. Yes. Right. It’s like that piece right. There has been the piece for you. That’s the healing piece is letting go with that.
Brian Smith 59:49
And that’s, you know, it’s funny because so many times you were talking you were using the word letting go and that’s, that’s the hard part first human and it goes back to your monkey thing. We can’t let go of things. That’s what you What keeps people stuck in religion? That’s what keeps people stuck in a materialistic mindset, it just keep us stuck and everything because we’re like, Okay, well, this is, this is working for me, you know, and I’ve seen people, I post a lot of near death experiences on my channel, and you talked about ayahuasca and I think there’s a lot of similarities between those. But the Christians will come to me and say, This can’t be true. It’s not in the Bible, it can’t be true. They’re just so scared to even
Steven Twohig 1:00:24
consider. They’re not looking deep enough. First off, they’re not looking deep enough, because as a Christian, that it’s all there. It’s all there. It’s all there. You’re just looking at it in the way that your mind is telling you to look at it. You’re not looking at it in a way that it’s to Miller, typically a two millimeter shift, right? Because you mentioned you said that the letting go, that’s a core level, it’s if you go into the Bible, you’ll find it. It’s it’s deep level mother a in all hervor all of my work with her. That’s the answer. Letting go and love letting go and love. It’s always an opening up any area where you’re suffering something, you’re not opening up something, you’re not letting in something, you’re not accepting something, you’re not letting go of something you’re not. There’s some compression, there’s some holding down, there’s some pinching that’s happening in your life. And that’s what’s causing your suffering.
Brian Smith 1:01:11
Yeah, yeah. And you’re right, it is there in the Bible. It’s right. It’s, it’s all Jesus talked about loving and letting go just
Steven Twohig 1:01:17
yet, and yet we get wrapped up into the, and whatever we get wrapped up in. It’s like, that’s not what he was saying. Like, you know, that’s not what he was saying. While it was nobody saying over here, but over in this area here that it’s gonna be hard to actually implement it. That’s not really what he meant. No, he meant it, especially when it was hard. And typically, where it’s hard is this area here, where my suffering sits, because if I let go of that, I’m gonna have to trust I’m gonna have to have faith, real faith. Real People tell me I’m a Christian, I go if you believe in God, yes. But then why do you keep acting like you don’t believe in God. And the problem, I think, Brian is because our society as a societal level, I don’t go and get is sick. It’s not big brother, I don’t want to go into that we are programmed to disconnect, we are programmed for access money, like, the space that they put between commercials is called filler. The television show itself is called filler. They’re just going from space to space. And for me, to make you a consumer, you have to want something, you have to feel like you need something, you have to feel as though your access movie is out there not in your chest where it belongs. If I get this car, I’ll be good enough. If I have this drink, I’ll feel better if I do this, I have to feel as though I’m not something for me to feel like I need something. And then I’m taking, I’m reaching for something. And as soon as you see yourself reaching for something, well, that’s suffering. What is that about? And so we’ve been programmed as a society to run left, and our religion and our beliefs and everything in the core level that we know is say go right. And so we need to be able to disconnect from that long enough for all of us to wake up so we can Okay, can we change some of this? Can we change the channel here? And everybody goes, Yep, let’s change the channel. And then we can all change it together. It’s not the guy, the guy, not the Republicans shouting at the Democrats isn’t going to fix anything. The Democrats shouting at the Republicans isn’t going to fix anything. That’s just more of the same. It’s you projecting your demon on somebody else. They’re trying to eat me? No, they’re trying to ain’t no, they’re trying to be. And that’s the projection that again, I go down and I see it every time I can’t not see it. Now. It’s the projection that you’ve been taught. COVID is chasing us. And now we feel like we’re getting eating. So we have to find our mind has to find somebody that’s trying to eat us. And so we go our spot, when you learn about spiral dynamics, we go from Stryver driver, which is what most Americans down, we go down into the blues, which is the rules, the orders the tribal stuff, and we go, okay, if this is my tribe, then what’s the tribe trying? Oh, the Democrats are trying to eat me up the Republicans struggling, they’re trying to that we see racism, it’s done. It’s it’s all tied in to this shadow. And nobody wants to look at.
Brian Smith 1:03:52
Yeah, that’s why the work you’re doing is so important. I love it so much. I could talk to you all day. So we need to start to think about wrapping up. And I want to give you a chance to talk about what your offerings are. Because I know you’ve got an app. And I’m fascinated, I want to hear about that. And what about your other stuff as well? Yeah,
Steven Twohig 1:04:07
so I have I have an app if you go to your phone you go to right now it’s 30 a metal cleanse. Mastering change.com is my website mastering change that calm so we have an app right now that allow it will allow you the ability to go we have a 30 day Mental Cleanse process. It’s a 30 day cleanse where we wipe out at the plot level at the second influence point of your when I call your personal Codex, knowing how to grab the thread a thread turns into a string string turns into a rope rope attached to a chain, yank the chain anchor come up bow to leave the harbor, right? It’s a 30 day process where you can go in and practice Shadow Work on your own like you don’t need somebody. But if you want some support, we do we do weekly we have these weekly mastermind groups where you’ll check in on this Mental Cleanse process once a week. And it’s phenomenal. I’m adding some psychedelic integration stuff I’m adding an intro to shadow work stuff on the editing a relationship stuff like that’s where to go to get everything that I’m I’m loading right now. I I also have a, there’s a problem if you go to shadow ceremony.com, you need some deep, I’m gonna need some I need some support around this, go to shadow ceremony.com We only do 25 people at a time. So it’s a small group, but when we do it, it’s, we’re gonna go right to it like there’s no hiding, you could resist. That’s not why you kind of came kind of thing. We’re gonna go right down to the very core of your suffering and you’re gonna pull it up and you’re gonna deal with it in the room over a weekend, you will touch piece your shadow and then we’ll connect you to your core, you’re going to develop a mission and develop purpose, you’re going to develop insight you’re gonna understand what your superpower is, like, we’re going to do that over the course of three days. It’s a deep dive kind of thing. And then I do some one on one coaching as well. So mastering change that calm or you go to shadow ceremony that calm that’ll get you there.
Brian Smith 1:05:44
Awesome. Steven, it’s been really fascinating talk to you. I really appreciate your your energy, your your wisdom, your you’re just being so forthright about everything. So for people that sometimes people listen, they don’t see it. So it’s Steven Twohig, TW o h, I G. And the website, again, is mastering change.com where you can find out more information and Shadow ceremony.com. Anything you want to say as we wrap up today. No, man,
Steven Twohig 1:06:09
I appreciate what you’re doing. Most importantly, if you’re listening here and you’re suffering, just take a breath. Take a breath and give yourself permission just in this moment to just breathe. And you know, remember who you are. Remember that your God having a human experience right now? And what if everything in your universe happened for a reason and it served you?
Brian Smith 1:06:31
Yeah, awesome. Awesome. Have a great rest of your day.
Steven Twohig 1:06:34
You as well. Thank you brother.
Brian Smith 1:06:37
Don’t forget to like, hit that big red subscribe button and click the notify Bell. Thanks for being here.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
One Comment
Wow! This is one of the best if not the best episodes I’ve seen Brian. Steven is brilliant in communicating this, which 100% resonates with me. Trauma or not, this perfectly and clearly explains why we behave and react in our human form. Loved it all! Thankyou for sharing.