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In this episode, Luke Burgis explores the question, “Are your desires really yours?” and how to recognize and reclaim what you truly want. He discusses how to tell the difference between “thin desires (fleeting, imitated wants) and “thick desires” (the deeper longings that bring lasting fulfillment), and why discerning between the two can change the direction of your life. Luke also shares practices for uncovering your true hierarchy of values, creating alignment between what you want and who you want to be. Explore how to pivot from “I don’t want to” to “I do want to, I just dono’t feel like it” and how to feed the desires that lead to meaning instead of comparison or regret.

Key Takeaways:

• Exploration of the concept of mimetic desire and its origins in the work of René Girard.
• Discussion on how desires are often imitative and influenced by others rather than being inherently personal.
• The importance of discerning between beneficial and harmful desires in one’s life.
• The parable of the two wolves as a metaphor for the internal conflict between positive and negative desires.
• Differentiation between “thin desires” (fleeting and influenced by external factors) and “thick desires” (deeply rooted in personal values and identity).
• The role of self-reflection and narrative in understanding one’s desires and motivations.
• The significance of establishing a hierarchy of values to guide decision-making and desire cultivation.
• The impact of social interactions on shaping desires and the responsibility individuals have in influencing others.
• The concept of “stalking your greatest desire” as a means to align personal desires with one’s life mission.
• The importance of having a trusted partner for exploring and communicating desires, emphasizing the value of attentive listening.

Luke Burgis is an entrepreneur who has founded and led multiple companies.  He is currently Director of Programs at The Center for Principled Entrepreneurship at the Catholic University of America.  He is also the founder and Director of Fourth Wall Ventures, an incubator that he started to build, train, and invest in people and companies that contribute to a healthy human ecology. 

Connect with Luke Burgis: Website | Instagram

If you enjoyed this conversation with Luke Burgis, check out these other episodes:

How to Find Zest in Life with Dr. John Kaag

Finding Zen in the Ordinary with Christopher Keevil

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Episode Transcript:

Luke Burgis 00:00:00  I think there’s a typical attitude that people want what they want, and whatever they want is fine. Well, that’s true, but not everything we want, not everything we desire, is going to be good for us.

Chris Forbes 00:00:17  Welcome to the one you feed. Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes like garbage in, garbage out or you are what you think ring true. And yet, for many of us, our thoughts don’t strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self-pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don’t have instead of what we do. We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it’s not just about thinking our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their good Wolf.

Eric Zimmer 00:01:02  I used to think my desires were mine, that they arose from some authentic core of who I am. Turns out I mostly learned them from other people. Luke Burgess wrote the book wanting about mimetic desire. The idea that we want what other people want because they want it. We’re wired to look around and copy what seems valuable, which means many of us are pursuing things we never consciously chose to pursue. We just saw someone else going after and thought, well, that must be worth wanting. As a former heroin addict, this concept fascinates me because I know what it’s like when desire takes over completely, when the strength of wanting something feels like proof that it’s the right thing to want and it’s not. We talk about fulfillment stories, thick versus thin desires, and the pivot that I often use daily. I do want to do this. I just don’t feel like it right now. That distinction has got me in motion countless times. I’m Eric Zimmer and this is the one you feed. Hi, Luke. Welcome to the show.

Luke Burgis 00:02:08  Hey, Eric, thanks for having me on.

Eric Zimmer 00:02:09  I am really excited to talk with you about your book, which is called Wanting the Power of Mimetic Desire and Everyday Life.

Eric Zimmer 00:02:18  I think the concept of what we desire and why is so fascinating and so important. So we’ll get into that in just a second. But let’s start like we always do with the parable. In the parable there is a grandfather who’s talking with his grandson. He says, in life there are two wolves inside of us that are always at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And the grandson stops and he thinks about it for a second, and he looks up at his grandfather and he says, well, grandfather, which one wins? And the grandfather says the one you feed. So I’d like to start off by asking you what that parable means to you in your life and in the work that you do.

Luke Burgis 00:03:03  I’ve thought about this parable for many years, and I’ve come to understand it on three different levels. But all of those different levels have to do with desire.

Luke Burgis 00:03:14  So for me, the parable is about which desires we should starve and which desires we should feed. So the first layer of that for me, I would call it just a basic relational level, how I’m in relationship with other people. Sometimes I have the desire to right my perceived wrongs to own somebody in some kind of an argument. I for an I kind of desires. And those are unhealthy. And those are the kinds of desires that I want to starve. And I want to feed empathy and compassion and understanding, the desire to listen, the desire to, understand somebody else’s perspective. That might be different from mine. And of course, you know, on that basic level, there’s fleeting, ephemeral desires. The desire, you know, to indulge myself with, you know, alcohol or little fleeting instant gratifications that I know are not going to lead to long term fulfillment for me. So those are the kind I want to starve. The second layer I would call a spiritual layer, maybe even a theological layer.

Luke Burgis 00:04:23  You know, and I’m a Christian, so I would understand certain desires as being sinful, which is really a source of alienation, and then other desires being the ones that lead to fulfillment or love. And those are the kind of desires that lead to to union and to healthy relationships. And the third layer is a mission oriented layer. So I believe I have a mission in life. I think that everybody does. And certain desires arise in me that are not aligned with my mission, their desires that, if pursued, will take me off track. And very relevant example of this is some desires that arose in me just during the pandemic, during the course of the pandemic, especially last year, early 2020. I hadn’t even finished writing my book yet, and I was dealing with, you know, trying to keep my elderly parents safe. I’m trying to plan a wedding. which, you know, has been moved. And, you know, we’re married now, but that was a whole story in itself and focused on writing this book and communicating these ideas.

Luke Burgis 00:05:27  And everywhere I looked, different desires were being modeled to me. Now, you know, the desire to move to upstate New York, the desire to start trading in the markets hardcore, you know, from crypto to getting in and the on the bull market last year. And I have a background in finance and investing. So it was incredibly tempting for me to want to get in on that. And you hear about, you know, the success that other people are having. Even earlier this year with some of the meme stocks, and there was an incredible desire to allocate a lot of my time and effort into doing that. I’m also a very competitive person, so I was incredibly attracted to the idea of getting into that, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But for me, that was a desire that I had to starve. Why? Because in this particular season of my life, I had a mission very clear. you know, taking care of my family. finishing writing a book as well as I possibly could.

Luke Burgis 00:06:21  I had to pour into that particular task and evaluating my desires based on that sort of vocation or mission throughout the various seasons of my life and throughout my life. Taken as a whole is really important to me, and I noticed that that wasn’t aligned. Maybe someday it will be. But I had to starve. That I had to feed and cultivate the desire to want to do other things more, you know, to to want to be with my family and, you know, my my now wife to want it so into my, you know, creative side and to right and to get better at that. So fundamentally that parable for me is is about desires. You know, my own desires are like two wolves fighting inside of me. And I know that some of my desires, you know, if I feed them, are going to make me miserable or are certainly not going to lead to fulfillment, and then others are. And the key for me is just discerning the difference between the two. And that’s not always easy.

Eric Zimmer 00:07:17  There is so much in what you just said there that I could unpack, and I think we’ll probably spend the rest of this conversation sort of doing that. But I think you summarize so much of what I loved in your book in that answer, and instead of responding to it directly, I want to back up a second and make sure that we talk about this idea of mimetic desire, because I think this is a really important idea. Obviously you do too, because you wrote an entire book about it. But what do we mean by mimetic desire? What does that mean?

Luke Burgis 00:07:52  The word mimetic comes from a Greek word that simply means to imitate. So mimetic desire is imitative desire. It means that humans tend to imitate the desires of other people, that we want what other people want because they want it. So not coincidentally, we happen to want the same thing that somebody else wants. When somebody else wants it, that thing becomes more desirable to us. That’s the key to understanding mimetic desire. So we’re social creatures, and we take our cues about what’s valuable, about what’s desirable from other people.

Luke Burgis 00:08:29  And the source of this term, mimetic desire, is a French thinker named René Girard, who taught at Stanford for many years and some other universities, and he noticed this key feature of human nature. Now, scientists have known, classical philosophers like Aristotle and Plato knew that imitation played a central role in human behavior. Aristotle said that humans are the most imitative creatures in the world. It’s one of the things that separates us from from animals. We have incredibly complex and powerful faculties of imitation. But imitation was always understood on a external level. So the imitation of art, of language, facial expressions, of styles of dress. And Girard realized that our powers of imitation go under the surface of all of the external things, and that we have this ability to read the intentions of other people, or to read their desires, and to desire what other people want. And this is part of what it means to be human. It’s not necessarily a good thing or a bad thing, it’s just the way that we are.

Luke Burgis 00:09:40  We’re incredibly mimetic when it comes to more abstract things like, you know, the kinds of lifestyles we pursue or careers or hobbies or things that we’re interested in. We may not lean on mimetic desire as much with fulfilling our basic needs. Like, If I’m thirsty, I want something to drink. I don’t necessarily need anybody to model the desire for water to me, but once we move into the world of what I would call desires that are things that are less need based and more desire based. Humans are types of creatures that require models for their desire. So according to Gerard, we require models for for almost everything in this so-called universe of desire. And that’s incredibly important to understand for me, because we typically think of desire as arising just independently and autonomously, and we never think very seriously about how or why we’ve come to want something in the first place. And we typically don’t acknowledge the other people or the other social forces that have caused us, you know, to desire something. And that could be like, you know, to be a political revolutionary, or it could mean to pursue a career path.

Luke Burgis 00:10:57  If we don’t understand the forces that are acting on us and specifically on our desires, we’ll just sort of be at the mercy of them. And worse yet, we can even be manipulated, whether that’s by, you know, companies or people that want us to want something that is in their best interest but might not necessarily be in ours.

Eric Zimmer 00:11:18  Right. What I think is so interesting about that is that, as you said, we tend to think that our desires, they feel like they’re part of us. They feel so intrinsic to who we are. An example I often use, I’m talking about in a slightly different context, but I’m talking about it in the sense of sort of the Buddhist idea of everything is conditioned, right? Is I’ll say. You might say something like. And you could be a man or woman doing this, right. This is not a one sex or the other thing. But you might say I prefer people who look like x, I prefer blondes. Let’s just take that as an example, right? That may feel so unquestionable.

Eric Zimmer 00:12:01  It just arises and it’s very obvious and it’s very strong. But the reality is there’s something that occurred in my life that would have caused that to be the way it is. Maybe I saw a Marilyn Monroe movie at a particularly impressionable age. Maybe my mother was blonde or brunette, or as you said, I learned this desire from somewhere else. And so I just think this is a really interesting idea that everything that we desire, again, beyond the basic needs is somehow, again, to use the Buddhist term, conditioned in that it Arose as a result of conditions. And the conditions that you’re saying are imitative. It was modeled for us, right?

Luke Burgis 00:12:46  And if we look hard enough and we become aware of this feature of human desire, we can usually always find a hidden model for something that we desire. And to your point, Eric. You know, when I look back in my life, I have been attracted to different partners for different reasons, and they’ve changed as I go throughout my life.

Luke Burgis 00:13:12  So, I mean, it would seem to indicate that there’s not merely some kind of a physiological reason for that. Like, why would it change through different years and not only in a physical level? Has my attraction changed, my preferences have changed, but also, you know, in the kind of person that I’m attracted to, you know, like there was a point where, you know, some incredibly A professional, you know, kind of investment banker career, you know. Woman was was kind of like something that I was, you know, really attracted to and not so much anymore. Why is that so even that, you know, was probably conditioned by what the other people in my life desired or were attracted to. And I can’t really be explained through financial means or through through purely biological answers. It’s a wide and sweeping topic that applies to so many different areas of life. My goal really is, is just to get us thinking as individuals and also as a society, how this is affecting our behavior.

Eric Zimmer 00:14:16  You say that desire is memetic. We learn it. In essence, someone else wants it. So we then think it’s something that’s worth wanting. The question that I don’t really understand is what causes certain things, certain models, to be the thing that we click in on, right? Because there’s a bunch of different desires, right? If I just think about high school as an example, there were some people who were really into sports could have had that model, right? And other people were really into academics and I could have seen that modeled. You know, so what is it that causes us to choose a particular model? Do you have any insight into that?

Luke Burgis 00:15:00  Well, the thinker that inspired my book certainly did. And, you know, his answer was is essentially that it’s always because of a sense of lack that we feel we have, and we perceive that the model might have whatever it is we think that we lack. So he says that all desire is a desire for being. It’s a desire to be somebody else, or a desire to have maybe more freedom and control over our desires.

Luke Burgis 00:15:35  So oftentimes an incredibly confident person that seems as if they know exactly what they want or what is wanted at all times is an incredibly attractive and powerful model to most people, because most of us secretly are not really sure what to want. So I look back to my high school days. I grew up on the west side of Michigan, in a town called Grand Rapids, and early days of the internet. You know, I was hanging out in AOL chat rooms and stuff like that, and I got it in my head that the kids my age that lived in New York City had something that I didn’t have, whatever that was. Okay, maybe a level of coolness or street smarts or something like that. And I quickly adopted them as models. And part of that came from a sense of, you know, lack, you know, or insecurity that I had. And of course, this all happened without me knowing it. And you know, I had my heart set and going to college in New York City, and I did, and I got there.

Luke Burgis 00:16:39  And it turns out that all the kids my age are exactly just like me. They’re all they all have their own, you know, kind of they’re all looking into their own models. This kind of dynamic is extremely powerful. And adolescence, you know, everybody’s like trying to figure out who they are and kind of like latching on to the first thing or group or person that might give them, you know, a sense of identity. It’s like, if I could just if I could just be a little bit more like them than, you know, X, Y, and Z would happen, you know? C.S. Lewis calls this the desire to always be in the inner ring, and he sort of describes it as a process of there’s always a ring that’s more inner that we’re never in, and we always go through life thinking it might not even be true, that there’s an inner ring, an inner circle that we’re not part of. And we decide that certain people are and, you know, that fuels our desire.

Luke Burgis 00:17:35  And he says, you know, obviously that onion can be peeled to infinity, basically. And, you know, that I think is a large part of the reason why we adopt different models and very importantly, why people’s models change as they go through life.

Eric Zimmer 00:18:07  So why is this important for us to try and understand that our desires are driven by imitation? Why is this important.

Luke Burgis 00:18:19  If we don’t see the things that are driving our desires? At best it can make us pretty miserable because There’s always another model modeling a different desire for us, and we can just kind of float through life like a dilettante, you know, or feeling like we have whiplash and pursuing new desires, perhaps getting new things, buying new things, entering into new relationships, changing careers, and, you know, never understanding why we’re so unsatisfied because we’re just, you know, we just simply have new models. Typically, though, it leads to conflict between people and resentment and, and, you know, jealousy or envy, you know, without us really understanding why that happens.

Luke Burgis 00:19:05  I mean, just to give you an example, most authors that have published a book have all kinds of desires modeled to them to want certain things. So, you know, you want to be a New York Times bestseller. You want X, Y, and Z award. You want to be recognized in certain ways. And I think few people ask themselves why that thing is wanted. I mean, sure, you might sell more books, but like, the desire ends up taking over everything and you know, you forget why you set out on a certain path in the first place. It was it really so that you could, you know, get a michelin star for your restaurant or, you know, get on a make a certain list for your book. And these desires are mathematically given to us. And part of the process, I think, of maturing and understanding the way that this works is being able to see that and calling it, you know, for what it is and being able to exercise a little more freedom in what we desire.

Luke Burgis 00:20:03  So it’s not to say like we can just do away with this altogether because we’re social creatures, but what we can do is have the self-possession and the agency and the freedom to make these things more or less our own, rather than just sort of unconsciously accepting these things as the things that I’m supposed to want. I grew up in a home with two doctors. I’m supposed to want to be a doctor or whatever. And, you know, this is a really important thing. It’s maybe I do adopt the desire to be recognized in a certain way for my book, but if I do, at least I’m doing it with intentionality. At least I’m realizing what I’m doing rather than just following. and we have a lot of followers in our culture. We have a lot, you know, people, I think, uncritically accept both thinking and ideas and desires. And then five, ten, 15 years later, it might be that they’re in a career that they’re miserable in or a relationship that they’re miserable in, and they don’t realize how they got to be in that place in the first place.

Luke Burgis 00:21:07  And chances are, if we if we dig deep enough, it may be that there was a desire or the desire for some object that they, you know, they had pursued without really ever having made it their own and chosen to pursue that thing.

Eric Zimmer 00:21:23  You say that being anti mimetic is having the ability, the freedom to counteract destructive forces of desire. So given that all this is modeled, how do we start to find what our real desire is or our deeper desire is? What are some of the ways we can start to unravel this unspoken, understood forces that are driving us? Because desire is what drives us.

Luke Burgis 00:21:55  It is what drives us. It’s what moves us. I think of desire like an energy of movement that draws us towards certain people or certain things, and we’re always moving towards something or away from something. We’re never standing still. You know, it’s a bit old saying if you’re not going forwards, you’re going backwards. And that’s desire. So when I say being anti mimetic, I certainly don’t mean just be a contrarian and just sort of do the opposite of what everybody else is doing or what everybody else wants.

Luke Burgis 00:22:25  That, in fact, is mimetic behavior, because you’re just modeling your behavior on what the other people want. there are positive and negative mimetic desires and positive mimetic desire. The kind that I would want to feed to go back to the fable would be if I see some noble, good, virtuous trait in somebody that I admire and I want to be infected with the desire, I want to feed the desire to be, to be more like that person. And that’s good, as long as I don’t end up seeing that person as a rival or a threat to me, as long as they remain, that relationship remains healthy. There are other cases where I want to be anti mimetic when I see, you know, sort of radical political polarization and rhetoric. I want to have the freedom, I want to have the ability to not engage the way that other people are engaging. It’s possible, you know, when somebody hates me, when somebody, you know, wrongs me. The memetic response is to do the same thing back, right? It’s treat people the way that they treat me.

Luke Burgis 00:23:27  I think there’s a there’s a higher way. And I think that that’s to step back and respond in freedom and medically and to treat them the way that I would have liked to have been treated. I mean, this is old, ancient wisdom, but, you know, this is just a new way to kind of think about this. One of the ways, I think to uncover and reveal the difference between what I would call thin desires and what I would call thick desires, is to kind of you have to step back and kind of look, look at life with a little more perspective. A thin desire is highly mimetic. You know, here today, gone tomorrow. It’s like my desire to sort of like go headfirst into crypto that summer. Definitely a mimetic desire. There was no kind of solid foundation that that rested on. you know, if the market had crashed, if all none of my friends cared about it the next week, then it would have been gone for me too, you know.

Luke Burgis 00:24:19  It was completely dependent on what everybody else was doing. You know, there was nothing intrinsic about it. There was nothing that I had made my own. It was just following the FOMO, you know, the fear of being left out. All my friends are getting rich. Right. And, you know, I noticed that, you know, I’m not that old, but I’m old enough to have learned. You know, when I’m feeling that and I pursue something and how it can leave me empty because I’ve made a lot of money, and, you know, it just didn’t do for me what I thought it was going to do. And I sacrificed a lot to make that money. It doesn’t bring me any fulfillment today. And that’s one of the signs that it was kind of a fleeting, sort of mimetic desires that it was. There was nothing enduring about the satisfaction that it brought me. What I would call a thick desire is the kind of desire that’s cultivated, the kind of desire that you feed over a very long period of time.

Luke Burgis 00:25:09  So you could begin to put your finger on what some of those thicker desires are. You know, by looking back at your life and what you desired as a child, what you desired as as an adolescent or at an earlier time in your life. Good and bad, but specifically trying to identify the kinds of wants that that we had that did bring us a tremendous sense of satisfaction and joy and sense of self, the kinds of experiences where we were in flow, where we really just felt like our like most like ourselves. And, you know, for me, I had that experience in sports a little bit. I had that experience in certain subjects in school and certain relationships that I was in, certain projects that I undertook after college. And I think it’s possible to begin to see a pattern in those kinds of desires, and you begin to see the kinds of desires that you want to feed. And with perspective, you know, I look back on my life and I see which ones ended up leaving me empty.

Luke Burgis 00:26:09  And when I see those arising in me again today, I know that those are the kinds of desires that I want to starve. So in a way, doing that, let’s call it a history of our desires, sort of a narrative, psychological and narrative psychology gives us a hermeneutic, an interpretive key to understand a little bit better what’s going on inside of us, to be able to kind of spot it before it metastasize and grows into this overwhelming desire, because there are some that we need to just pivot from and realize, you know what? I do want this, but not everything I want is necessarily going to make me happy. And this is just a fundamental realization. I think there’s a typical attitude that people want what they want, and whatever they want is fine. What’s true? But not everything we want, not everything we desire, is going to be good for us. And, you know, we have to have the self-reflection to, to to recognize that and to not convince ourselves in the brightness, you know, of our own desires.

Luke Burgis 00:27:08  We justify everything that we want. You know, we’re really good at justifying what we want and pursuing it.

Eric Zimmer 00:27:35  Hey, friend, before we dive back in, I want you to take a second and think about what you’ve been listening to. What’s one thing that really landed, and what’s one tiny action you could take today to live it out? Those little moments of reflection. That’s exactly why I started good wolf reminders. Short, free text messages that land in your phone once or twice a week. Nearly 5000 people already get them and say the quick bursts of insight help them shift out of autopilot and stay intentional in their lives. If that sounds like your kind of thing, head to one you feed, net, SMS and sign up. It’s free. No spam and easy to opt out of any time. Again, that’s one you feel. Tiny nudges, real change. All right, back to the show. Strength of desire does not equate to the value of that desire. As a former heroin addict, I obviously took that to a far extreme.

Eric Zimmer 00:28:35  But I mean, boy, did I want it. You know, I wanted it to the extent that I was willing to burn everything in my life down. Obviously, it’s easy to see how destructive that was, but so many things in life, I think strength of desire is really confused for the right thing to want, or that it’s sort of, as we said earlier, that it’s who I am, you know, it’s intrinsic to me. I feel it so strongly it must be who I am. And that’s just not the case. A question for you is how does this idea of thick desire correlate to the idea of having values. Are they aligned or are they similar, or are they the same? You know, because one of the things that say something like acceptance and commitment therapy talks about, which is a type of therapy I think is a is a brilliant type is you find out what you value and then you commit your life to it, you know. So this sounds similar. Are those saying the same thing?

Luke Burgis 00:29:35  There’s a paradox here.

Luke Burgis 00:29:36  And the fundamental question is do we desire what we value or do we value what we desire? And yes, I think that it’s an iterative process because I think it’s very important to step back and establish values and not just values, but a hierarchy of values. And I talk about that in the book. And some of those values should be objective if you believe in objective values, right. Things like beauty and truth that are not merely determined through sort of cultural circumstances. You know, step back because that’s solid ground. But if I would have done that when I was 18, the values that I would have chosen would have been different than the values that I that I have today. There’s an iterative process where if we just value what we desire, then we get ourselves into big trouble. That’s like the default mode, right? Like we totally we desire things, therefore we value them. If we’re able to step back a little bit and establish, like concrete values that are not merely the product of our mimetic desire, of the culture of what other people are showing us as valuable.

Luke Burgis 00:30:53  Right. Like a lot of my values are simply not aligned with what I see in the world, and it’s taken me a long time to arrive at those values. And that is a way of being a little bit more anti mimetic. Like, I have these values and my understanding of them might change over the next decade. They will for sure, but at least I have like some solid ground. I have a true north and my desires begin to form around my values, right? I’ve decided that irrespective of how I feel right now, I know that one of my values is to love and serve my wife and my family and take care of my mother and father. Okay, who are you who are older right now? And that’s that’s a responsibility and a duty that I feel like I have. I might not wake up every morning and feel like I want to do that, but I know that that’s a desire that I want to feed. So this is an example of my values that I feel pretty confident in.

Luke Burgis 00:31:47  And my desires then are formed around those values. And if there’s a misalignment there that, you know, we all have our days. But, you know, if I find myself with a real misalignment, then I need to figure out what the heck is going on.

Eric Zimmer 00:32:00  Yeah. And I think the corollary to that is to sometimes Remember the desire. So as you talk about taking care of parents. Right. I’m in that stage of life, too. My partner and I both have mothers who are not well, father who’s not well. And so a lot of our time goes into that. And, you know, when I find myself and listeners of the show have heard me talk about this before, but when I find myself in the mode of, I have to do this, I kind of get well. I don’t like it when I stop and I go, oh, wait a second, I have a value of doing this, and thus I want to do it because it’s important to me.

Eric Zimmer 00:32:40  Then it reoriented me towards the whole experience, you know. So sort of going back and reflecting on the fact that I do want to do this, it is a want. It is a desire of mine. And I love what you said about sort of this hierarchy of values or desires, because I think that’s another piece that is so challenging to work through is what do I want? When the number of things I can actually have or devote time to is very limited, right?

Luke Burgis 00:33:11  Well, you know, the hierarchy is important because our values sometimes come into conflict with one another. Right. And if there’s no hierarchy, then how do you choose? And the most memetic value at the time typically wins out, you know. So like to give you an example.

Eric Zimmer 00:33:25  The thing that provokes the strongest desire. Is that what you mean by that?

Luke Burgis 00:33:28  Exactly. Exactly. The thing that provokes the strongest desire. And that could be determined by like, just what I saw in the news that morning. You know, and that desire could change tomorrow.

Luke Burgis 00:33:40  So we have to have a bit more grounding than that. I mean, just to give you an example. You know, this this really happened to me. You know, my my father has Alzheimer’s. And, you know, neither one of my parents are doing that well. And, you know, something came up. One of my parents was in the hospital. I’m an only child. And one of my good, good friends at a bachelor party in Vegas. You know, So both values. Right? Take care of my parents. Like love. My friends want to be there for my friends. But it was pretty clear which one went out for me in the hierarchy of values. Right? It wasn’t that hard of a decision to make, but if I hadn’t established that in my mind, that could have really been a difficult situation, right? How do I make it to Michigan and the out to Vegas and back to Michigan in 48 hours? And, you know, I decided to go to Michigan and take care of my parents.

Luke Burgis 00:34:29  But things like that happen all the time. They happen in companies where people have different ideas of which of the company values are more important than others, and everybody could have a different idea of which ones are more important. And then this is where problems happen.

Eric Zimmer 00:34:43  Yep, yep. I feel you on the parents thing. My father has Alzheimer’s and my partner’s mother has Alzheimer’s. And so we are deep in that world. I feel you.

Luke Burgis 00:34:53  It’s a brutal disease, you know, and there are times when he’s speaking about desires. You know, there are times with somebody who has Alzheimer’s. You know, it’s heartbreaking. And, you know, it’s I don’t necessarily always want to hang out with my dad for a couple of hours, you know, because he asked me the same question, you know, 120 times. Right. And, you know, it can get exasperating and exhausting, you know. And, you know, it’s been a few years now, and I’ve learned to want to spend time with him more than I did in the beginning.

Luke Burgis 00:35:26  In a certain sense, I’ve learned new ways of loving him, new ways of spending time. It’s been a process. You know, all I want to say is like, it’s tough, thank God. It sounds like we both have help.

Eric Zimmer 00:35:38  I have this little pivot I do with myself and with coaching clients. And for some people, it really makes a difference. And other people it’s just semantics. But it really is like what you were just saying, you know, about going to be with your dad and we’ll find ourselves saying, like, I don’t want to. I don’t want to, you know. And for me, I just sort of will do a quick connection back to what matters. And I’ll go. Oh, I do want to. I just don’t feel like it. And for me, that pivot all of a sudden sort of separates for me my values, what I want most from my mood. Once I make that separation, it’s easier for me. I go, oh, I don’t feel like it in two hours.

Eric Zimmer 00:36:17  I might feel like it in two hours. After that, I might not feel like it. Like that’s constantly changing my moods. You know? I’m hungry, so I feel like it. I recognize the changing ness that I don’t want to build my life on my mood. I’ve done that before. I know it’s a disaster. So that pivot from, you know, sort of I don’t want to to I do want to, but I don’t feel like it is often a powerful one.

Luke Burgis 00:36:39  Yeah. I couldn’t agree more.

Eric Zimmer 00:36:40  So sort of along this idea of hierarchy of wants or hierarchy of values, you have a section in the book where you talk about stalking your greatest desire. When you find it, all of your lesser desires be transformed. So they serve the greatest one. Say a little bit more about that.

Luke Burgis 00:36:57  So this is directly related to the hierarchy of values. And you know I believe I have a purpose and that everybody has a has a mission, something unique to them. And because of the circumstances that, you know, you’re born into and, and your family and the unique situation that each one of us is in, in life, we have a perspective that nobody else has, which gives us the ability to, to to do something, you know, truly unique or communicate something.

Luke Burgis 00:37:26  And I think that, you know, part one of the purpose of life, you know, part of it is trying to figure out what that unique thing is. And one of the ways to build a hierarchy of values and desires is to understand your mission, or your purpose or your vocation. So knowing what it is, and this goes back to that layer that I spoke about in the very beginning with the fable. If I know what that is, I’m able to evaluate the various desires that I have, and see whether they take me closer or further away from whatever that mission is. That thing that I feel that I’m supposed to do, that I’m called to do, and without sort of an ultimate purpose. That is a value, first of all, you know, and it’s it’s the most important one, in my opinion. You know, what is it that I’m meant to be doing here? What am I put here to do? And all of the other desires kind of are seen in the light of that one and, and, and sort of serve that one in some way.

Luke Burgis 00:38:27  So thinking about, you know, just a basic way to just evaluate them, you know, like is this desire that I have to, you know, travel around the world over the next year because I’m so antsy. I’ve been locked up in my house. Is that desire in any way? Like furthering sort of what I feel to be like my mission and my vocation in life. And it makes it a lot easier to evaluate in that, in that light. Right. So I think that when you find your mission or your purpose? I call that in the book your Single greatest Desire. All of the other desires begin to take shape around it, and hopefully sort of fit into an ecology of desire in some respect.

Eric Zimmer 00:39:07  One of the ways that you talk about getting clearer on these thicker desires, you sort of reference this a little bit earlier, but I’m going to put a slightly finer point on it, which is what you call a fulfillment story. Say a little bit more about what a fulfillment story is and what are the key pieces to have in one.

Luke Burgis 00:39:26  A fulfillment story is simply you recounting a story, preferably to somebody else, because there’s the element of this that’s dialogical and interpersonal, and there’s no substitute for communicating to another human being and having that person deeply listen to you and then be in dialogue with you. It’s more powerful if you do this exercise than I’m describing with another person, and then they can do it back to you. So it’s you communicating a story about a time in your life when you feel like you took some action and you accomplished something, you did it well. You did it with excellence. And most importantly, it brought you a deep sense of satisfaction and fulfillment that lasted okay, that that endured. And this that final point is the most important point. So it gave you some enduring satisfaction and joy to the point where if you think about whatever that thing is that you did today, even if it was 20 years ago, you rekindle that sense of satisfaction and joy just telling the story. Many of us have forgotten some of those times, and part of the beauty of the exercise is drumming them up, right? Like these forgotten memories, these forgotten experiences, and sharing them with another person.

Luke Burgis 00:41:00  You know, until I was 30 years old, nobody had ever asked me to share one of these kind of stories. So I’d worked in a few different companies. Nobody had ever asked me, hey, Luke, tell me about a time in your life when you undertook some action and it was incredibly fulfilling to you. It seems to be something that’s very important for people to know. I mean, because it expresses something that’s like essential to understanding who I am. You can understand that. I’m from Grand Rapids, Michigan, that my favorite pasta is what my favorite sports teams are. All of those things do not communicate to you anything essential about and unique to me. You know, a lot of people are, you know, fans of the same football team and like the same pasta. But the fulfillment story communicates something personal and something essential that none of those attributes can ever communicate. And I think that’s incredibly important for us to understand about ourselves in terms of understanding our essence, our thick desires, and who we are.

Luke Burgis 00:41:58  And it’s important for other people to understand that about us, too. You know, how beautiful would it be to work in a company where people knew this kind of thing about the people that they work with? So there’s a level of intimacy involved in that, which I’ve found incredibly powerful. And these fulfillment stories what what I call fulfillment stories, they don’t have to be a story about you doing anything particularly impressive to anybody else but you. That’s part of why this is such a personal exercise. You don’t have to have, you know, knocked some work presentation out of the park. It could just be, you know, I learned how to make a fantastic homemade, you know, pizza. The key is understanding what it is about these fulfillment stories. And if you find five, six, seven of these kinds of stories from from our lives, a pattern tends to emerge and you begin to see, well. So what is it specifically about these kinds of things that are so satisfying to me? Three different people could have the same experience from the outside looking in, want to state championship in their high school sport or something like that.

Luke Burgis 00:43:06  But those three people could find the satisfaction from that accomplishment could come from three totally separate things. Right. So, you know, for one of them, it could be their individual performance. The other one, it could be the camaraderie that was formed in the locker room. And, you know, the third one could have found so much satisfaction in the little sort of nudge that, you know, they gave a teammate at a critical moment in the game. So three different things, you know, so it’s not the win that was important. It’s why. And understanding the why is, for me key to opening up a world of understanding ourselves and the people that we are with better. And it’s a clue to what. Some of those thick desires might be.

Eric Zimmer 00:43:52  I found two parts of that section really interesting. One was, as you said, doing this in dialogue with somebody else. How important that is, because most of the time when we take on activities of this sort, we’re off doing it on our own, writing in a journal.

Eric Zimmer 00:44:11  Filling out a form. You know, there’s a lot of values and desire exercises, but they tend to be done by ourselves. So that was the first thing I thought was really interesting about this idea of a fulfillment story is, as you said, how important the dialogue element is. The second thing I found interesting was you said once you started telling them, you started remembering a whole bunch of other ones. And my initial thought when I was reading that was like, I think I can think of like one, which I’m sure is not true. And so I found it really interesting to think that if I embarked on this process, more would start to come up. You said as you did it. It was just like boom, boom. They just kept showing up to you. You know, once you sort of understood the pattern.

Luke Burgis 00:44:52  Sure. And it’s true. And, you know, that’s why the challenge I kind of issue to readers is try because the sort of the nature of the memory is that, you know, one thing can kind of lead to another.

Luke Burgis 00:45:03  And it’s also why the partner is really important, why being able to communicate this to somebody who’s truly listening is really important. And that’s a key. This is just as much an exercise in listening as it is in telling the stories. Because if you find somebody who’s a good partner to be having this conversation with, they will hear and see things in the stories that you might not even realize, you know, they might notice that you continue to use certain kinds of verbs as you’re telling the story. You know, the verb might be, I organized or I took control of this thing and it’s like, well, that’s interesting. It seems like the kinds of action that you’re describing that seems to be so satisfying to you is bringing order to chaos. You know, a good listener will just pick up on little things like that, you know, and then ask the right questions to draw out more. I find is human beings. Certain people can close us up and other people can open us up. You know, when you’re sort of in front of somebody that you don’t trust or that doesn’t make you feel like you want to speak to them, you just shut down and you don’t reveal a lot about yourself.

Luke Burgis 00:46:14  On the flip side, there are some people that you know, because they they seem to be, you know, approaching us with in love and compassion and understanding makes us want to communicate even more. And the right interlocutor in this exercise is, I think, critical for bringing out the second and third and fourth and fifth stories is we have that effect on one another in the right context. So choose your conversation partner carefully.

Eric Zimmer 00:46:42  Having this sort of conversation with another person points to another thing you say late in the book, which is, try and live as if you have a responsibility for what other people want. Say more about that.

Luke Burgis 00:46:54  This speaks to the social nature of our desires and what it means to be human. I think we live in a very individualistic age where, you know, if somebody has chosen a path that, you know, we never would have chosen or, you know, has voted for a candidate that we wouldn’t vote for or has ideas or is hostile to something that’s important to us.

Luke Burgis 00:47:20  We often don’t realize the very role that we ourselves had to play in them arriving at that point, and especially people that are close to us in our lives. Right. I don’t I don’t mean to say that we’re responsible for what everybody else wants. I mean to say that we’re social. We are in some sense a brother’s keeper and our sister’s keeper, and we have a responsibility to other people rather than just seeing them as different or other or threats as if they are walking their path on their own, because nobody is. And, you know, the idea is derivative from C.S. Lewis, who wrote about this in an essay of his called The Weight of Glory. And he just says, you know, think of everybody that you encounter as, you know, as having this responsibility. There’s no neutral encounter with another human being. There’s no such thing as a neutral encounter. Even the small ones, like, you know, the people that are in the self-checkout section of the grocery store that I go to practically every day, they’ve been there since the start of the pandemic.

Luke Burgis 00:48:20  One particular guy who’s always there, you know, seeing myself as having a responsibility to, you know, affect him in a positive way. You try to make him laugh when I go there because I know, you know, a lot of people are not in the best mood when they’re trying to get through the line at the self-checkout place, right? Trying to just. It’s kind of a habit of mind. A habit of spirit of, you know, just realizing that I could make in that very encounter, make him sort of completely affect his mood, for sure. But even his desire to serve other people in a way. So, I mean, this is incredibly important when it comes to our families and our friends. And I just think thinking of ourselves as not wholly cut off or independent from the way that other people are, or think and thinking of ourselves as having some degree of responsibility for that, based on the way that we relate to them, is been important for me in my life, in sort of stepping back and before I label anybody anything thinking about, well, what role do I have to play? How can I positively enter into this relationship so that both of us come away a little bit better than we started.

Eric Zimmer 00:49:32  As we wrap up? Take one thing from today and ask yourself, how will I practice this before the end of the day? For another gentle nudge, join Good Wolf Reminders text list. It’s a short message or two each week, packed with guest wisdom and a soft push towards action. Nearly 5000 listeners are already loving it. Sign up free at once. You feed us. No noise, no spam, just steady encouragement to feed your good wolf. I love that idea of no neutral interaction with another person. That’s a really beautiful idea.

Luke Burgis 00:50:10  Thank you.

Eric Zimmer 00:50:10  Well, Luke, you and I are at the end of our time here. We’re going to continue in the post-show conversation where we are going to talk about the difference between calculating thought and meditative thought. And by meditative, in this case, we don’t mean what we normally think of as meditating. But I found this a really great part of the book calculating thought, meditative thought. We’ll talk about that in the post-show conversation. Listeners, you can get access to that as well as ad free episodes.

Eric Zimmer 00:50:38  Other post-show conversations. A special episode I do every week called Teaching Song and a poem, and the joy of supporting something that matters to you by going to one you. Net. Luke, thanks again so much for coming on. I have really enjoyed this conversation and I really enjoyed the book.

Luke Burgis 00:50:55  Oh, thanks so much for having me on Eric. I feel the same. Thank you.

Eric Zimmer 00:50:58  Thank you so much for listening to the show. If you found this conversation helpful, inspiring, or thought provoking, I’d love for you to share it with a friend. Share it from one person to another is the lifeblood of what we do. We don’t have a big budget, and I’m certainly not a celebrity, but we have something even better. And that’s you just hit the share button on your podcast app, or send a quick text with the episode link to someone who might enjoy it. Your support means the world, and together we can spread wisdom one episode at a time. Thank you for being part of the One You Feed community.

In this episode, Daria Burke discusses the non-linear path to healing and how to find wholeness after trauma. She shares her experiences growing up in Detroit with parents struggling with addiction, the impact of adversity, and her path toward self-discovery and integration. Daria also explores the complexities of healing, the importance of embracing all parts of oneself, and the power of nature and personal growth as metaphors for transformation and hope.

Key Takeaways:

• Exploration of trauma and its impact on personal development.
• Discussion on resilience and the capacity to heal from past experiences.
• The concept of integration as a means of reconciling different aspects of oneself.
• The role of inherited legacies and environmental factors in shaping identity.
• Examination of coping mechanisms, including dissociation and adaptive avoidance.
• The nonlinear nature of healing and the importance of self-compassion.
• Insights into various therapeutic modalities, including somatic therapies.
• The significance of control and surrender in the healing process.
• Metaphors illustrating the journey of healing, such as the growth of hydrangeas.
• Emphasis on the ongoing nature of personal growth and the importance of community support.

Daria Burke is an award-winning business leader, board director, investor, speaker, and advisor. Her creativity and impact have been recognized by Women’s Wear Daily, AdWeek, Forbes, Vogue, Teen Vogue, the CFDA, Town & Country, the Cut, and NYLON Magazine. She has written for Fast Company, The Huffington Post, Black Enterprise, and has appeared on The Melissa Harris-Perry Show on MSNBC, Philly Speaks, and numerous podcasts. Her new book is Of My Own Making: A Memoir.

Connect with Daria Burke: Website | Instagram

If you enjoyed this conversation with Daria Burke, check out these other episodes:

Healing Painful Patterns and Finding Freedom with Radhule Weininger

What Brings Healing, Strength, and Connection with Dani Shapiro

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Episode Transcript:

Daria Burke 00:00:00  I think I always knew that I could survive things. I had proven that to myself. I was highly confident in my ability to navigate difficult things, but I think rather than chiding myself, I could say, what is this here to teach me? What am I supposed to be getting from this moment?

Chris Forbes 00:00:26  Welcome to the one you feed. Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts. We have quotes like garbage in, garbage out or you are what you think ring true. And yet for many of us, our thoughts don’t strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self-pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don’t have instead of what we do. We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it’s not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their good wolf.

Eric Zimmer 00:01:10  Sometimes growth depends less on sheer effort and more on where we’re planted.  Daria Burke tells a story of hydrangeas she thought were ruined, chewed down, wrapped in burlap until she replanted them in new soil, where they eventually bloomed. Even more beautifully, it’s a perfect metaphor for her own life. In her memoir of My Own Making, she shares a journey through trauma, resilience, and self-discovery, reminding us that no matter how deep the damage, with time and care, we can still flourish. I’m Eric Zimmer and this is the one you feed. Hi, Daria, welcome to the show.

Daria Burke 00:01:49  Hi, Eric. Thanks for having me.

Eric Zimmer 00:01:51  I’m happy to talk with you about your book, which is called Of My Own Making a memoir. And it’s wonderful on so many levels, and we’ll get into it in just a second. But we’ll start like we always do, with a parable. And in the parable, there’s a grandparent who’s talking with their grandchild and they say, in life there are two roles inside of us that are always at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear.

Eric Zimmer 00:02:20  And the grandchild stopped. They thought about for a second. They looked up at their grandparent. They said, well, which one wins? And the grandparent said, the one you feed. So I’d like to start off by asking you what that parable means to you in your life and in the work that you do.

Daria Burke 00:02:36  That is such a rich way to start and to think about so much of what I’ve written about, which is nature and nurture. And I think we’ll get more into that in a moment, in that I hear choice, that there is a decision that we get to make. We may not choose to stay with the parable and the metaphor. We may not choose the wolves that exist. The way our lives begin is not up to us, but we get to choose who we become. But it makes me think a lot about and I don’t see it as a binary. Honestly, I see it as and so much of my my own personal work and to some degree, professional work.

Daria Burke 00:03:24  The ideas that I explore and what the science of healing teaches us, is that integration is the goal, that we have to find a way to coexist with the truth of what we’ve inherited. Maybe it’s our psychic inheritance, our emotional inheritance, the the ways in which legacies have been left in us or on us in the form of footprints. And sometimes those are traumatic and threaten to debilitate our sense of self or or destabilized the ways in which we might develop, but that if we can pull it in and hold it close, that we can get to know it, befriend it to some degree, at least create conditions for the courage to tolerate it in closer proximity that actually you can feel more integrated and feel more whole. And so that also, I would say it leads me to think a lot about epigenetics, right? This study that suggests that our environment, our behaviors, the conditions that we create and find ourselves in play a meaningful role in the ways in which our genes get expressed. Our propensity towards something may or may make manifest. But all of that is rooted in choice. And so I love the way that it ends, even though I don’t see it as a binary. I think of it very much in the integration, but that it’s a choice to do so.

Eric Zimmer 00:04:49  Yeah, that’s wonderful. As I was reading it to you, it occurred to me that it’s a story that has grandparents in it. And your grandmother is a big piece of your story, and I’d like to get to her in just a second. I’m wondering if you could just. However you do it, give people the basics that they need to kind of understand what this book about and who you are. Before we go into more specific pieces, let’s set the general stage.

Daria Burke 00:05:19  Sure. Well, the context in which I was born was Detroit in the 1980s. I was born in 1980. And so at a macro cultural systemic level, to some degree, that looked like coming into a city that had fallen from favor, it had been the richest, most powerful, arguably American city in just the generation before me, when my parents were born, it was the richest, fourth largest from a population standpoint.

Daria Burke 00:05:50  And by the time I arrived, it was at threat of bankruptcy and had sort of collapsed under industrial conditions that it moved. You know, moved a lot of automotive manufacturing out of Detroit, but also. The blast radius of the poverty that existed when those jobs left. And we saw heroin and crack really ravaged a lot of the neighborhoods in the city. So that was the greater context in which I was born and the specific context with my family. I was born to parents who struggled with addiction. I’ve since learned, since reading the book, actually, particularly with my mother, that her addiction began before I was born and continued to plague our family and really be leading sort of factor for what my early experiences were like as a child. They were young when they got married, 18 and 21, and I was born three years after that. And I should add, in deep poverty. I grew up, my parents split up when I was two years old. And so my front row seat to my mother’s addiction, I had greater proximity to that.

Daria Burke 00:07:01  Although my father struggled with heroin, it really sets the stage for a lot of early years that were conditioned by loss. And my grandmother, who you alluded to, I think to to an extent that I can’t even fully articulate because I was seven when she passed away, was the scaffolding that upheld some semblance of normalcy. She kept a roof over our heads. We actually lived in a home that she owned. My mother didn’t work. And so my grandmother was the financial, the emotional, the spiritual. Yeah, the structural support of our family. But it was a really tumultuous upbringing and one that I think caused a lot of trauma. You know, I didn’t use the word abuse really, until I started to write the book. It was very hard for me to use that word for some reason, for many reasons. And but it was, it was it was deeply a lot of neglect and abuse took place, particularly after she passed away.

Eric Zimmer 00:08:06  Yeah. You talk in the book about something called the Ace test. Adverse childhood experience test? Yes. And it’s enough to say for right now, you you scored very high on it. Right. You know, you were you were a nine out of a ten, which means you were dealing with a lot. And coming out of that, you became very successful. And part of what I’d like to explore with you, and I think the book explores a lot, is it seems like you had to do two contradictory things throughout your whole life. One was you had to completely ignore where you came from, the messages that put in you, the messages your mom put in you. You had to be like, just no. This is a different world that I’m going to create, and I’m going to just laser focus on it. And eventually you also had to integrate to use the word that you just used a minute ago. These old wounds had to be dealt with. And I just as the book goes on, I was sort of noticing again and again how you even once it became time to sort of start healing the trauma, there was still that first part of you that was the coping mechanism that was also still really valuable.

Eric Zimmer 00:09:33  And I think sometimes we get mired in we can get mired in trauma work, right, where just everything is about that. Or we can be get mired in just shut it all out and work mode. And I think you eventually found a place where you did both.

Daria Burke 00:09:53  Yes. Dissociation is sort of this extreme flight response. And as a child, it absolutely helped create that laser focus. It allowed me to sort of float above those circumstances and detach from them enough to be able to imagine something else, something different, that I didn’t get so lost and swept up in it that I couldn’t function, and it kept me detached from myself as I got older, and I could appreciate the ways in which I was so deeply disconnected from feeling all of those things. And so it is. I’m constantly, even to this day, I think healing is very much a practice, and I’m always interrogating the ways in which I’m being able to disconnect from something, have perspective. Therefore, I can have a different relationship with the the emotions that are arising from it, and it feels that it can function in a healthy way.

Daria Burke 00:10:58  However, it was definitely, I think, in the ways that triggers were disruptive, the ways in which I could get sort of knocked off my star or off balance and be disoriented by things that were resonant with or rhymed with my childhood. And I couldn’t figure out why those things were happening. And it was because, oh, well, you haven’t dealt with them. You haven’t allowed yourself to feel them. You haven’t. You haven’t created space and the conditions for that interrogation to happen and to do it knowing that you’re safe. And so it is this really interesting sort of thing. I describe it in the book as, as a warm blanket with a glass of wine by the fire, because if there’s comfort in that, but and there’s strength and power in that, but there’s also I think we all have to know our own limits and bound our emotional boundaries for when we’re hiding from ourselves, when we’re so deeply disconnected from ourselves that we can’t move forward.

Eric Zimmer 00:12:23  I interviewed a therapist yesterday, and he had a term that I had not heard this exact phrase before. Adaptive avoidance. That avoidance sometimes is a very adaptive trait. Yeah, there are times where that is the right approach.

Daria Burke 00:12:39  That is so good.

Eric Zimmer 00:12:40  And as we know, anything you do too much of becomes a problem. That avoidance can then become maladaptive. And I actually think what I’ve seen just for, you know, a decade kind of talking to people about all this is that people can go a long way on that, like fuel of getting away from where they were.

Daria Burke 00:13:03  Yes.

Eric Zimmer 00:13:03  And the ambition that that can drive, they can go a long way on that. And then sometime 30s or 40s, it starts to break down. It’s like that worked. And now it no longer does. You know, and I think about it like your parents, I’m an addict. I was a heroin addict. It got sober at 24. There was a period of time where my use was sort of adaptive, meaning it solved all sorts of problems in me that I had not had the resources to solve. And then, right. It became extraordinarily maladaptive over time. But I was just struck by reading your book, how the balance of that with you has been really interesting.

Daria Burke 00:13:52  Thank you. We all find ways to quiet the noise in our minds. I happened to be fueled, for better and for worse, by work, by achievement, and more than anything, by the awe that I received from others. The applause that came when I did something that people thought, damn, that’s impressive. And it was enough to keep me going. That hedonic treadmill was driven both by the brain’s need the dopamine dopamine hit that I would get every time I achieved a goal, but also whatever sort of oxytocin I could sort of generate, too, from what came from others when I did those things. And it’s a dangerous cycle to be in. My mother’s was crack, right? She tried to quiet that noise with crack and she couldn’t figure out how to how to quiet it enough. Right. And so then you tip over to yeah, full blown addiction where everything is, is stunted.

Daria Burke 00:14:58  But yes, it is. It’s an adaptive avoidance. I love that term. It’s such a great way to describe it. And I think the work of our life is to figure out where the line is 

Eric Zimmer 00:15:10  100%.. And I think that’s the other thing that really struck me in your book, was the nature of a healing journey, because there’s a whole lot of you sort of move forward. You think, yeah, okay. I think I’ve got I think I’ve covered all this, like you move on and then boom, something else happens and you’re like, oh, wait a second. I clearly maybe have more work to do here. And then you do that work and you’re like, oh, things are right. And it it kind of comes up and that can seem discouraging. So tell me how for you, you didn’t get discouraged by that, because what is really easy to do in that situation is to say, I did all this work. It must not have done any good, because here I am again.

Eric Zimmer 00:15:55  How do you think about that? And how did you encourage yourself when you found those moments?

Daria Burke 00:16:01  I think I’ve come to think of them as moments of information, right? Those triggers, those setbacks, the things that challenge your sanity, where you say, how do I feel like I’m reliving this all over again? How is it that I’ve changed the set? My wardrobe is different, the cast of characters is different, and somehow this feels like the same script I just read five years ago. Ten years ago. Oh, it’s the story that I’ve told myself about those events. I’m recreating them. And I think choosing to see healing as a conscious intervention to disrupt despair. To disrupt the instinct for the brain. To sort of predict where it’s going to go next, what the outcome is going to be, how this is supposed to end. But it’s a conscious intervention. And I think trying to be kind first to myself and to say that if a child were learning how to do something, that they were going through the repetition, you get your reps in enough where you can learn to tie your shoe, and then you can remember not to touch the hot stove.

Daria Burke 00:17:15  And oh, this other thing is not the hot stove, but it’s hot as well. I mean, all those things that seem really obvious when we’re dealing with vulnerable beings and creatures are the same practices that we have to give to ourselves. And when you didn’t have that growing up in particular, I think being so willing to find and create some kind of space for that compassion Passion and to know that it’s okay. That you can survive those feelings. I think I always knew that I could survive things. I had proven that to myself. I was highly confident in my ability to navigate difficult things. But I think rather than chiding myself, I could say, what is this here to teach me? What am I supposed to be getting from this moment? Why does this rhyme with this other thing? There’s clearly something I’ve not looked at. And typically when that happens and when it’s really earth shattering, it’s because you’ve spent a long time avoiding it and not looking at it. And it’s sort of telling yourself the story that I told myself was I was healed, and I had spent a decade in talk therapy and everything was great.

Daria Burke 00:18:29  And then I see this photo of the accident that took my grandmother’s life, and I lose. I lose it, and I’m sent back in 30 years. Oh, there’s a lot I haven’t been doing. And I could only in that in that instance in particular, I could. I could very clearly just say, oh, there’s something that needs to be held here. I’ve not made a home for this grief.

Eric Zimmer 00:18:54  Yeah. And you’ve worked closely with therapists. I think they can help us center that. A couple years ago, I had a couple of things happen in my life that re triggered for me. I’m careful with words because I don’t necessarily want to say re triggered because I, you know, I think maybe if I had trauma, it was more of a complex kind of trauma. And anyway, it brought a whole bunch of stuff back that I’d not felt in a long time. And I was a little freaked out, and I was a little discouraged because I thought, But I’ve done all this work, I’ve done all of this work, and my therapist put it in a way that I thought was really helpful.

Eric Zimmer 00:19:33  He said, what your work has done is it has allowed you to be able to deal with that stuff in more and more and more and more situations.

Speaker 4 00:19:44  That’s right.

Eric Zimmer 00:19:45  And put under sufficient stress that will come back. It’s there. It’s not going away. Right. You’re not going to just unearth it and throw it out. It’s there. And to your point about how there’s an integration, his point was it just doesn’t get triggered for you 98% of the time now. And that’s a huge accomplishment. And there are going to be times and, you know, this was one of those times. And the way it was, it was it was just custom built to do it. Right. It just was the right, right exact button. And but that really helped me think about what the work of healing often is. And I think you may have had I might be mixing this up, but the idea that I get from your work, and I don’t know if you said it explicitly, is we become bigger and bigger around the thing that’s the problem.

Eric Zimmer 00:20:40  It’s not that it’s gone. It’s not that we erase it. You were talking to Elena Brower and talked about, like, footsteps in cement, right? It’s not that that engraving in the cement is going to go away. It’s just that there’s so much more space around it.

Daria Burke 00:20:52  That’s right. Gosh, you’ve said so much, right? Judith Herman talks about about healing and trauma in that way, that it’s not an exorcism. You don’t get to just exorcise it and it’s gone. You do have those footprints. You do carry them with you. And and yes, I love that you referenced my conversation with Elena. We were talking about her partner, who had very similar childhood experiences to mine, a parent who struggled with crack addiction. He had grown up in New York City. But this idea that a tree that grows next to a fence doesn’t stop growing. It grows differently. It grows around the fence and it finds its way around it. And that it’s such a beautiful metaphor for how, if we can imagine our lives working in that way.

Daria Burke 00:21:41  We can do that. You know, Eric, I do SoulCycle, and I’m sure some of your listeners will be familiar with this idea. But there’s a part in the ride where you’re holding weights and you pick up weights, and you’re doing weights like a song worth of lifting, essentially. Right. Couple minutes and, you know, they’ll inevitably have you hold the weights out away from your body. Just hold it. Maybe you pulse, but you just hold it.

Speaker 5 00:22:09  You’re like God.

Daria Burke 00:22:10  These £3 weights are really, really heavy. I’m now feeling it in my shoulders and my elbows and even maybe in my in my lower back a little bit. And the moment that you get to pull it closer, the moment that you get to release and come back and bring those weights and you’re like, gosh, I could hold them differently now.

Eric Zimmer 00:22:25  Totally. Yeah, that’s a great that’s a great example.

Daria Burke 00:22:28  Differently with them now right. That’s what it looks like. And so the triggers change. They’re not the same as the ones before.

Daria Burke 00:22:37  And the stimuli will change and and hopefully healing is, is that your relationship with what comes up starts to change. Not that it goes away.

Eric Zimmer 00:23:11  Hey, friend, before we dive back in, I want you to take a second and think about what you’ve been listening to. What’s one thing that really landed, and what’s one tiny action you could take today to live it out? Those little moments of reflection? That’s exactly why I started good wolf reminders. Short, free text messages that land in your phone once or twice a week. Nearly 5000 people already get them and say the quick bursts of insight, help them shift out of autopilot and stay intentional in their lives. If that sounds like your kind of thing, head to one Eufy net and sign up. It’s free. No spam, and easy to opt out of any time. Again, that’s one Eufy net tiny nudges, real change. All right, back to the show. There’s one other metaphor that I find helpful with this, which is the idea of a spiral staircase.

Eric Zimmer 00:24:07  And if you think of a spiral staircase, imagine there’s like pictures hanging on the wall. You keep coming around and seeing that picture again. The picture doesn’t go away, but each time you’re seeing it from a slightly higher level. And I often think that’s how this process works too. You know, your mom just keeps reappearing, reappearing, reappearing, reappearing. Right. It’s not that that’s not going to happen, but when she does, you are at a different place than you were before. You know you’re higher up that spiral so you are able to engage with her. And I don’t even mean with her personally. I mean the idea of her differently.

Daria Burke 00:24:47  Yes. You’re rinsing the sponge as my very first therapist said. Right.

Eric Zimmer 00:24:52  Share that analogy.

Daria Burke 00:24:53  Yeah. I remember just questioning, am I am I always going to feel like this? Is it always going to be like this? Is it always going to be this hard? Well, I always be doing this work. And she said, think of it like rinsing a sponge when you wash the dishes, or you clean something soapy and you run it, you put it under water and you rinse some of that soap out and gosh, okay, you think it’s rinsed and then you squeeze it again, you wet it again and the soap comes back.

Daria Burke 00:25:21  You sort of think about healing as rinsing the sponge. It’s a slow release over time, and there will be moments where you think you’ve got it. And don’t be alarmed. Something will be there, remnants will be there. And so, yeah, I think that whether it’s the a different elevation than you. Elevation on the staircase, the bringing of the weights back into you to hold them differently. The rinsing of the sponge, right. These are all metaphors for how it feels and looks and to not be surprised, but it really creates a different strength, really that we’re talking about that, that you can have for how to hold it, how to live with it and to not let it completely disorient you.

Eric Zimmer 00:26:03  Yeah. And I think the other piece that’s important in that is not to focus on like that. You’ve got to get to the end of some process before it starts to yield benefit. Right, right. Like even though for me, I continue to as I think all humans are doing this right.

Eric Zimmer 00:26:21  We’re always trying to sort life out. Right? Because as soon as we get one thing sorted, something else happens, right? That’s right. You know, it’s just life. But there’s this idea that we’re going to get somewhere and then suddenly it’s all going to be fine. And and I think that that is an illusion. But I also think if we look at it healing that way, we’re not cognizant of the very real benefits that are occurring as we go. Now, sometimes in those moments, as you’re working on it, it doesn’t feel like a benefit, but you don’t have to get to the end of some long journey before life starts to improve.

Daria Burke 00:26:57  I don’t think there is an end. Yeah, I really don’t know. And I think that’s why I’ve always tried to use the word integration. I know Elise Lunin, who’s been a guest on your show. I’m a huge fan of hers, and she talks about wholeness. It’s the same idea. Yeah, yeah. It’s just it’s all the same idea.

Daria Burke 00:27:14  It’s like, can I be whole with all of the holes that have been left in me? Can I find a way to feel complete? So much of this book I’ve described as a reassembly of all of these selves that I sort of shed along this journey of survival, feeling like this part of me was too innocent to move forward in the journey. This part of me doesn’t belong here because her narrative doesn’t fit the environment that I’m in, right? All of these selves that I had to let go of and to see this as a knitting together, a reassembly, a re dash membrane right of all of these parts of myself and saying they all have a room somewhere in the house, that is me. They all have the same amount of space, but they all live here. And that’s okay. That’s okay. They all belong here.

Eric Zimmer 00:28:07  Yeah. You share in the book about how you did ten years of talk therapy, and then still had a place where you realized that you needed to go sort of deeper into the experience, the felt sense, the emotion.

Eric Zimmer 00:28:23  And I think that mirrors a lot of people’s journeys for me. I don’t feel like all that cognitive work was like, misplaced And that I you know, what I really need to do is to get to this other work. It feels to me like that had to happen. Yes. For me to get to that place, say a little bit more about what I’m describing, how it showed up in your life, and how you think about it.

Daria Burke 00:28:46  Well, I integrate by speaking, so it gave me a place to do that. I think to some degree I integrate when I say that I mean ideas. I can start to piece things together in a way that I say, oh, that makes sense to me now. I’ve heard myself articulate in a way that once it was out of my mind and sort of it got some air, it could land in a way that I could make sense of it in a different way. Right. And to your point, we are seekers and we are meaning makers.

Daria Burke 00:29:12  And there will always be things that will push us to to do that kind of work. And talk therapy allowed me to do that. I think, first of all, it allowed me to just surface everything that I swallowed and pretend it didn’t exist. And so I went into therapy at 26, thinking that I was troubleshooting a very specific acute problem of how do I tell my classmates when I graduate from business school that no one in my family will be there, right? That was my impetus for going to therapy. It wasn’t. Oh, hi. I’m 26 years old. I’ve spent my entire life traumatized by my drug addicted, abusive, neglectful parents.

Speaker 4 00:29:53  And I need help.

Daria Burke 00:29:55  Parsing that because, you know, I’m an MBA student at NYU and I’m about to go launch this beauty career. Not at all. So when I went into therapy, it was with that one intention and what that experience allowed me to do for the very first time in my life was say it out loud and then start to say, oh gosh, that did happen.

Daria Burke 00:30:17  And, you know, for better and for worse, the more you remember, the more you remember. And so I sort of flipped the cap off of all of these things that came flooding. Now. What was great about that was that I started to try to create containers for it. What was not great about it was that I did not have modalities that allowed me to deal with the feelings when they emerged, so I could name things and I could label things and I could go, oh, that was this, oh, this thing happened. And then it sort of just that was where it ended. That’s where the work sort of ended. And I was doing that week over week for basically ten years, not with the same therapist and a little bit off and on, but largely for that period of time. It was important. And it was, I think, step one, and I think it laid the foundation for a kind of resilience that would allow me to when I saw that image of grandma’s car accident in the article that I wrote about, about was it was tragic and it was brutal.

Daria Burke 00:31:22  And so it made the news. And so in finding that and reading it and remembering that and being carried back to that time when I was seven years old, I did have some support in the work that I had done in talk therapy. Even though I felt ill equipped in other ways, I wasn’t. My psyche could only allow me to go there because of the work that I had done.

Speaker 4 00:31:48  Yeah.

Eric Zimmer 00:31:49  And so then what did the work? Moving from a more intellectual understanding of what happened to you, being able to put it into different cognitive frames, all these things that were really helpful. What then prompted you to try different approaches, and what did you do then?

Daria Burke 00:32:11  First it was learning about neuroplasticity. It was just the term that kind of was this light bulb moment, this idea that our brains are not fixed, that we are not just who we are. That you sort of get baked and you arrive and that’s it, that we will continue to grow and change and form new neural connections with experience and information, and that our brains could could adapt to accommodate a new paradigm.

Daria Burke 00:32:41  And I thought, that explains a lot. But also, what does that mean for what healing might actually then look like in my life? I learned about it in the context of Norman Deutsch’s work, amongst others, but he was really kind of the person who, through a podcast interview, introduced me to that term in 2017 and was sharing it in talking about people who had experienced Parkinson’s and debilitating neurodegenerative diseases. And I thought, well, if they can do that, what does that look like for other kinds of emotional trauma? And then it was during that time that somatic healing in many forms began to kind of fill in my understanding of what that might mean, that it wasn’t just talking about it, that you had to actually do something with it. And for some people, that was in how they could physically get it out of their bodies through movement. And that could be dance, it could be exercise, it could be jumping and shaking and tapping. And, you know, there are lots of ways that we do that.

Daria Burke 00:33:47  But that was really kind of what cracked it open for me and starting to more actively research ways in which I might do that for myself. And so that has looked like at you name it in the ways that I’ve tried to test that it’s looked like eMDR therapy and actually trying to resurrect those memories and emotions tied to those memories, the stories that I created related to certain events in my life, but it has also been extremely physical in nature. Breathwork is a really, really big one for me. I meditate, I find all the ways to feel it in my body to recognize, and a lot of it honestly. Eric was the pattern spotting of oh, when I was really nauseous. This was happening when I was feeling like this. This was so a lot of it too, was really kind of going back and figuring out when my body was telling me something. I just wasn’t paying attention to it and thinking about how it was moving through me physically and what I might do to to respond to that.

Daria Burke 00:34:56  And so for me, it always starts in my in my gut and my tummy. And so I tend to get very nauseous and then sometimes very sick. And so just that awareness that it was not just my mind that needed to do some work, that I needed to figure out how it was showing up physically in myself.

Eric Zimmer 00:35:17  We were talking about how we cope. And one of the things that you used as a real tool early on is you said something to the effect of a relentless pursuit of control. To what extent have you been able to lessen control? And how do you tell useful control from not useful. Right. You’ve been very successful in a lot of different ways, and that’s not a bad thing. Right. And and control is part of a control of yourself. And I don’t want to say control of others because that sounds bad, but like guidance, like there is a place where thinking about what’s going to happen and trying to shape the way it happens is a back to our maladaptive and adaptive strategies.

Eric Zimmer 00:36:05  This seems to have been one of your big ones. So I’m curious how have you lessened and how do you tell when you are sort of in. All right. I’m in a maladaptive control mode versus I’m just doing what kind of what needs to get done here to move this thing forward.

Daria Burke 00:36:22  Sure. It looks like hypervigilance for me when I feel like I have to be hypervigilant around the environment or what I say, or how something is presented, or that I am over architecting and solving for circumstances that, first of all, aren’t my business, that I don’t need to be managing, or that I actually have no real influence over. That’s when I know that it is not serving me well. And when my thoughts are consumed with trying to manufacture something that is just either I don’t want to say not there, but that doesn’t need that level of attention from me. That is not my work to do. And I find myself often actually one of the questions that I sort of ask of myself and I suppose to the universe, to God is, is this mine to do? And that shows up for me that question a lot, whether it’s an idea that I’m noodling on or.

Daria Burke 00:37:26  in real time, some problem that needs to get solved. And I’m like, it’s mine to do. And it allows me to just take a minute and say, okay, who’s showing up in this moment? Because it could be this protective part of yourself that feels like if you have all the knowledge that you can gather, that information is control, right? That if you know everything, then you can you can thwart off whatever threat you’re you’re trying to anticipate. Or if it’s just am I trying to create a set of conditions that I will never fully be able to? I’m not singularly responsible for these conditions. I think that’s typically how it shows up for me. And so that awareness is step one for sure. I think that’s the step one for any kind of change, any kind of of evolution. I think the second thing typically is that question of is this mind to do? And what do I do with what I what comes up for me in that moment, right? Sometimes it’s the reframe.

Daria Burke 00:38:27  You’re safe. You’re fine. There’s nothing for you to do. Be there. Be present. Lots of things can inspire what I call a psychic surrender. Right? Which is just the like. Take your hands off the steering wheel. Because this is not mine. And I say that without any sort of religious context, but this deep faith in knowing that I’m held and that I have the tools that I need to actually handle something if it comes up. But this isn’t something to manage right now. And knowing the difference. But I think that interrogation and slowing down and not operating from this place that feels, you know, we like to call it instinct. And I think, I think even about success in the same way. But we want to call it. Oh, gosh. Well, I’m just driven. I’m ambitious. You’re like, is that ambition or anxiety? Yeah, that’s my instinct. Well, sure. Is that your instinct and is that coming from an intuitive place or is that coming from fear? And I think having the courage to actually ask yourself that question, determine what the answer is and then say, okay, this I need to I need to stop here.

Daria Burke 00:39:32  This is a moment to pause.

Eric Zimmer 00:39:34  Yeah. I want to come back to intuition and fear for a second, but I want to stay with this a little bit longer. You and I, before we started, we’re talking about book covers, and I was sharing. You know, I’ve had quite a journey with my publisher on getting to the book cover that we want. And I was talking about how wonderful your book cover was, and it sounds like we had a very similar sort of journey. Like you, you exercised a certain amount of control or will to get the book cover. Right. And what I always think is interesting is in something like that, how do we know when, like we’ve done what’s the right thing to do for the situation or when have I tipped over? And for me, that’s kind of how I think about it. Like, yeah, book covers are important. Right. I put all this time into writing a book covers one of the most important parts of it. I want it to be right.

Eric Zimmer 00:40:29  Yes. And there’s a place at which point I need to set it down and put it back into a bigger global context. And and I’m curious how, you know, for those things where you kind of have to do it to a certain degree. I think it’s easier when we’re like, that’s just not mine at all. Yeah, it’s harder when it is ours. We are responsible, but we don’t want to become obsessed.

Daria Burke 00:40:54  Yes. That’s such a great example. And thank you for saying that. I’ll thank you on air as well, because I do love the cover and how it turned out, and I don’t feel like I needed to control that situation so much as I was demonstrating my own agency in that part of the process and having the vision that I had for the book. This is a very deeply personal story that I’m sharing, and having the clarity to bring forward how my story would exist in the title, in the cover and in the text, those things that were all mine to do.

Daria Burke 00:41:38  And they were things that to some degree were co-creative.  I think where I try to hold the line is when I felt fully out of alignment in trying to get to a good place. So as long as I was in a good place, even if I meant another round, another round, another round, right? Another. But when I found myself like losing my shit where I was like, oh my God, I’m going to lose it.  It’s like, okay, Daria.

Daria Burke 00:42:07  What is happening right now? Is it that you’re not feeling cared for in this moment? Is that you’re not feeling understood? Is it that you’re feeling somehow neglected? What wound is being scratched.

Daria Burke 00:42:21  Here and I could be very clear and.

Speaker 4 00:42:24  Usually.

Daria Burke 00:42:24  Quickly I could say this is scratching something and I know what’s coming up in this moment. And also, I think I could rely on my professional experience as a career marketer. I have great taste. I have a great eye. I know the vision, and I.

Speaker 4 00:42:39  Knew that we had a shared vision, too.

Daria Burke 00:42:41  So, I could also come back to the good intentions that we all had. And to say, I know I’m pushing for something that right now we’re not all aligned with. We’ve got to keep going, though. We can do better. I know that we can. And then knowing again when, when to take your foot off the gas and when you’re not going to fight, you know, fight the fight. But I think I did I did have that, try to hold the space for those, those two things to be true, to coexist, and also to realize when I was being completely sort of taken out of my own kind of alignment, where I felt so upset by how difficult it was. And I was like, okay, this is good information. What is this telling me? And then in some cases I was like, okay, got it. I’ve captured what it’s telling me. I’m still going to push because it means that much, and I’m not going to be told that it doesn’t matter as much to me as I as it does.

Daria Burke 00:43:37  Right. And I think to me, I just I see that as agency more than anything. And sometimes it’s okay to really, really fucking care. Excuse my language, but like, sometimes things really matter and I think we have to allow ourselves to feel and know and recognize and name those moments to let that desire be a teacher. Now, how I handled it all the time, I think that’s a different yeah, that’s a different conversation. I think I handled it largely pretty well. But, you know, I had moments where I was like screaming into the void when I was alone.

Eric Zimmer 00:44:11  One of the things that we’re not capturing as we go through this very well is how beautifully written the book is, And I want to give listeners just a small flavor of like a paragraph that jumped out to me, although there are so many of them. I mean, it is so beautifully rendered, but if you would read the bottom of page 176 for us, because I think it kind of sums up a lot of what we’ve been talking about up to this point.

Daria Burke 00:44:38  Thank you. Yes. Integration, then, means knitting together these detailed observations and broad understandings into a coherent sense of self. It is about acknowledging the contradictions, holding the complexities and finding clarity in the confusion. It is a series of ongoing negotiations between the past and the present, the self and the other, the details and the bigger picture. It is delicate work, one that requires patience and the courage to face the world as it is, not as we wish it to be, and the courage to do the same with ourselves.

Eric Zimmer 00:45:15  That’s a beautiful section. Is there anything you would like to add to that, or is it just stand alone?

Daria Burke 00:45:20  Thank you. I think it stands alone because of what we’ve been talking about. Yeah. And it’s that simply stated and that hard to do at the same time.

Eric Zimmer 00:45:31  So where I would like for us to wrap up here is to have you tell us the story that ends the book about the hydrangeas. And I may ask you to read something else from that also, but set us up.

Daria Burke 00:45:45  Yes. Well, I bought a house, so I’m here now, a little house in East Hampton, out in the woods, and I’d have this fantasy of planting hydrangea bushes in the front of my house. I found all these pictures, and I have a little cedar shingle, gray cedar shingle house. And so I could imagine these big blooming white hydrangeas in the front of the house, under the windows, under the two front windows. And so I finally got into a place where I was ready to do that kind of work, and I bring in my, my landscaper, and we make the plan And even in talking about the kind of hydrangeas I wanted, I said, well, I want yeah, I want white hydrangeas. And he says, well, you know, he calls me Miss Daria. He says, area. The, the soil is really what determines the color, right? You have to actually have the right conditions for it to turn out that way. There are some that are bred that way.

Daria Burke 00:46:37  Yes. The pH in the soil helps dictate the color. So funny story, which I’ll get to, but mine have actually changed color as the season has gone on. But so I say okay, interesting. Well this is my aspiration. And so maybe it’s this breed and this variety, this variety. So we plant them. And at the time I was in Los Angeles and so he had done the work. And I come back maybe a month later. And they had been ravaged like the leaves were chewed, it looked like lace, and the deer had gotten to them. They had started to bloom and they were apparently quite lovely. I didn’t get to see them because they had been ravaged by deer. And I’m like what is happening?

Daria Burke 00:47:18  So I call him. He comes over and we try to figure out what to do next. And I was so beside myself, forget the expense. It was like the emotional investment that I had made in them. And so I said, well, can we just cover them with burlap for now? I don’t know what to do with them.

Daria Burke 00:47:33  I don’t know what else we can do to save them and leaving them like this. They’ll only continue to be eaten. So we cover them in burlap, and a whole year goes by before I decide to relocate them, to repot them, to change their environment. So one by one and I had a dozen of them, six on either side. I dig them up myself really gently and try to protect the roots, and I repotted each of them in planters on my deck, which is fenced in. And as you can imagine, when I first replant them, they looked kind of quite sad, actually. But as the season goes on and months go by, and then eventually, especially the next summer, they began to bloom. And they were stunning and beautiful. And they had they were just sprigs when I had replanted them. So I was terrified that nothing would happen. And they began to bloom these big green, leafy leaves and flowers. And it was such a beautiful articulation of the pain that we go through sometimes in certain environments, and the ways in which if we can just reframe and reimagine, get creative.

Daria Burke 00:48:44  And sometimes it takes time to figure out what that looks like. But we can move to a new space and find flourishing again. And that’s exactly what happened. And I can actually see them right now. And what’s really funny, I’ll add, is that they started this season white and now they’re bright pink.

Eric Zimmer 00:49:03  Really? That is so interesting.

Daria Burke 00:49:05  And I’m deeply invested in what happened over the course of the summer because I’ve never seen them like this. And so the soil clearly has something, has found its way in there and has changed the color. But it’s such a sometimes obvious but beautiful I think metaphor for how this all works. We’re not unlike them in many ways.

Eric Zimmer 00:49:29  As we wrap up, take one thing from today and ask yourself, how will I practice this before the end of the day? For another gentle nudge, join good Wolf Reminders text list. It’s a short message or two each week, packed with guest wisdom and a soft push towards action. Nearly 5000 listeners are already loving it. Sign up free at oneyoufeed.net/sms. No noise, no spam, just steady encouragement to feed your good wolf. 

I’m going to say something. I’m going to ask you to read something to wrap up, and I can’t. I just can’t go without saying it. There’s a book I’ve been reading called The Light Eaters, and it’s all about plant intelligence, for lack of a better word. Although a lot of people in the plant world tread carefully around that term, it will blow your mind. All these things that that plants can do. It really is like what it shows just how embodied into nature is this incredible intelligence, resilience, change, evolution, all of these things. Yes. So I would love you to read the last two paragraphs of the book. Thinking of that idea and of those hydrangeas in mind.

Daria Burke 00:50:48  They stood there, lush and quiet, their fullness a far cry from the brittle beginnings of the year before. And there, amid the green, the first white blooms unfurled, delicate and resilient proof that life could return even after what felt like a devastating ending.

We carry that same power in us to rise again, to transform to flourish. Against all odds. To stretch toward the light. Even after being buried, we can still grow. Still we become. And in those quiet moments when new life finally breaks through, we remember that we were always meant to be.

Eric Zimmer 00:51:28  That’s so lovely. Thank you so much for joining us on this show. This has been wonderful.

Daria Burke 00:51:33  The pleasure has been mine. Thank you so much.

Eric Zimmer 00:51:36  Thank you so much for listening to the show. If you found this conversation helpful, inspiring, or thought provoking, I’d love for you to share it with a friend. Share it from one person to another is the lifeblood of what we do. We don’t have a big budget, and I’m certainly not a celebrity. But we have something even better. And that’s you just hit the share button on your podcast app, or send a quick text with the episode link to someone who might enjoy it. Your support means the world, and together we can spread wisdom one episode at a time.  Thank you for being part of the One You Feed community.

In this episode, Pete Holmes explains his practice of saying “Yes, Thank You” and how he practices non-resistance, a way of letting life be what it is instead of fighting it. Pete is well known from his long running podcast, You Made It Weird, and his book Comedy, Sex, God. Both mix humor with deep spiritual reflection, and this conversation explores that very same space. He discusses letting go of willpower-driven faith, embracing mystery, and finding joy in the very moments we usually resist.

Key Takeaways:

• Spiritual journey and personal growth
• The nature of sin as unconsciousness
• The balance between being and doing
• Practicing non-resistance and acceptance
• The impact of modern culture on pleasure and satisfaction
• The evolution of beliefs from evangelical Christianity to a broader spirituality
• Understanding the importance of presence and mindfulness in everyday life
• The concept of the “false self” versus the “real self”
• Embracing curiosity and mystery in spiritual exploration

Pete Holmes is an American comedian, actor, writer, producer, and podcaster. He is both a hilarious comedian and a deeply contemplative, spiritual person. In this episode, Eric and Pete discuss his book, Comedy Sex God where they go into detail about how Pete views and experiences the world. From how he has learned to deal with frustrations to the way he returns to the present moment and experiences God in his daily life, this interview explores his direct experience with so much spiritual wisdom. You will laugh and also be deeply touched and inspired by this engaging, thoughtful conversation about discovering spiritual truths.

Connect with Pete Holmes: Website | Instagram

If you enjoyed this conversation with Pete Holmes, check out these other episodes:

A Soul Boom Discussion on Mental Health, Spirituality, and Connection with Rainn Wilson

Spiritual Journeys with Rainn Wilson & Reza Aslan

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Episode Transcript:

Pete Holmes 00:00:00  Shouldn’t I have learned this in Sunday school? Why am I learning this from the road manager for AC, DC?

Chris Forbes  00:00:14  Welcome to the one you feed. Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes like garbage in, garbage out or you are what you think ring true. And yet for many of us, our thoughts don’t strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self-pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don’t have instead of what we do. We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it’s not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their good wolf.

Eric Zimmer 00:00:59  There’s a phrase Pete Holmes leans on when life feels hard. Yes. Thank you. Even in traffic or on a delayed flight or in the middle of self-doubt, it’s. Yes. Thank you. It’s his way of practicing non-resistance, of letting life be what it is.

Eric Zimmer 00:01:18  Instead of fighting it, you probably know Pete from his long running podcast, You Made It Weird, or from his book comedy Sex God. Both mix humor with deep spiritual reflection, and in our conversation we explore that very same space. We talk about letting go of willpower driven faith, embracing mystery, and finding joy in the very moments we usually resist. I’m Eric Zimmer and this is the one you feed. Hi, Pete, welcome to the show.

Pete Holmes 00:01:49  Hi. Thanks for having.

Eric Zimmer 00:01:50  Me. I’m excited to have you on. We’re going to discuss your book, comedy, sex, God, as well as some of the things I’ve heard you say on your podcast. But before we do that, let’s start like we always do with the parable. There is a grandfather who’s talking with his granddaughter, and he says, in life there are two souls inside of us that are always at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear.

Eric Zimmer 00:02:21  And the granddaughter stops and she thinks about it for a second, and she looks up at her grandfather. She says, well, grandfather, which one wins? And the grandfather says, the one you feed. So I’d like to start off by asking you what that parable means to you and your life and in the work that you do.

Pete Holmes 00:02:36  Well, it’s funny, I knew that you were going to ask me that, but I hadn’t thought about it until just now. But I was just driving in my car. I was thinking about how I would never get a bumper sticker, because there’s no way that I feel all of the time, if that makes sense. It’s it’s the same reason I wouldn’t want to get a tattoo.

Eric Zimmer 00:02:54  Yeah.

Pete Holmes 00:02:55  Me too. There’s so many pizzas. I’m sure there’s so many. Eric’s. There’s just so many of us in there to sort of add on to the parable. A lot of the art that I enjoy, and certainly the art that I try to make, is trying to honor the idea that there are so many of us in there.

Pete Holmes 00:03:12  And I think it’s preposterous when people speak with such authority on who they are, or even how they feel, without acknowledging that it’s just who they are in the moment or how they feel in the moment. But I was literally just thinking that like I was once tempted to get the bumper sticker, don’t believe everything you think, right? And I was like, that’s fine, but I don’t always feel that way, and I don’t want to be the car that represents that idiom, you know what I mean? What if I cut somebody off or something like, then they’re embittered towards that perspective because I was driving poorly that day. Because as much as I’d like to be a person who drives courteously, sometimes I’m not like, I like to delete those files from my memory so I can feel good about myself. But the truth is, is sometimes I make bad choices on the road, and I don’t want a beautiful thought like that stapled to my bad behavior. So I was just kind of thinking about that.

Pete Holmes 00:03:57  And I was also just talking to somebody just this morning about the way that the brain works. And there’s the oldest part of our brain, which is the lizard brain, which is what’s responsible for eating, killing and mating. And then there’s the newest part of our brain, which is unique to humans. A smarter person would know what these parts are called, or somebody with a better memory, maybe. But that’s the part that’s responsible for, like, communal thinking and spirituality. And not just like, should I eat it, have sex with it, or kill it, but it goes, is it good for the community to take this, or to save it, or to nurture it, or to grow it or to harvest it, all these things. So this parable is very wise, and it’s certainly worthy of having a podcast as you do, because there clearly are literally different impulses coming from the same brain. So that’s what that means to me is even when it comes to something like alcohol or pornography or binge eating, just eating a whole bag of Doritos or something, it’s very helpful for me to consider that those things are coming from my brain stem.

Pete Holmes 00:05:07  That’s very scared, sort of fearful horde mentality. Part of me that was installed to keep us alive. It’s one of the reasons why we evolved and stuff, but it just sort of wants to light up the pleasure centers as much as it can. But, it’s not a thoughtful part. It’s not a wise part. It’s not the best part of humanity. It’s just sort of like the base part of humanity. And that is the Bad Wolf or whatever. Although I’m sure I can’t be the first person that takes issue with bad and good in that parable.

Eric Zimmer 00:05:40  No you’re.

Pete Holmes 00:05:41  Not. You know, sometimes we need simple language like that. So another part of me is okay with it. So that is the bad part. And the good part definitely needs conscious attention. That’s why I think it’s so interesting that something like Compassion meditation works. Just taking a moment to consider the people that you love, or the people that you forgive, or the people that have loved or forgiven you, and how that can broaden your scope and the way that you behave in the world and the world that you live in, literally the way that you perceive the world.

Pete Holmes 00:06:15  That’s how I take that. I mean, we can, especially these days, have pretty much any food delivered. We can have any sexual fantasy acted out in front of us on a computer we can drink, and weed is legal. So many places we can we can stimulate our pleasure centers. But that is not the point of life. In fact, it’s it’s really a passion of mine to try and point out that that’s a fool’s errand is to try and just be on a beach eating ice cream is is an example I’ve used before because I was on a beach eating ice cream and you think like, that’s it, right? I mean, you’ve done it. You’re in Hawaii. You’re eating an ice cream sundae. But that is not what life is. This is me paraphrasing Ramdas basically is you finish the ice cream and now you want water, and then you have the water, and then you have to go to the bathroom, and then you go to the bathroom, and then you’re bored and you watch TV, and then you’re tired, and then you sleep and you wake up and you’re groggy and you have coffee and you’re perky, but now you need food.

Pete Holmes 00:07:15  It’s this endless hedonic, mind numbing treadmill. That is not what life is. Life is the fundamental, unchanging, unborn energy that’s observing those changes in you. But so many of us have lost sight of the joy and the bliss and the equanimity of being that we get really obsessed with just lighting up our pleasure centers and doing stuff which is stupid. You just do it, and then you die one day and you go, well, well, that was fun, I guess, right?

Eric Zimmer 00:07:45  And the problem is, the more we light up those pleasure centers, in a lot of cases, the less we’re able to appreciate even those smaller things. I was having to talk with a Zen teacher earlier today, and we were talking about how being able to find some pleasure, enjoyment, value and oneness in every day is really important, but that comes by looking at really ordinary things. But pleasure centers don’t focus on ordinary things. Typically.

Pete Holmes 00:08:11  That’s exactly right. They turn the volume down on ordinary things I recently.

Pete Holmes 00:08:16  Well, not that recently. It’s been a couple of years, but stopped looking at pornography and I noticed that the scintillating and I don’t just mean sexually, just the vibrancy of everyday life got turned up, extremely high. And that is the best. Like stopping pornography because it’s bad is not appealing. Stopping any sort of disruption because it’s bad doesn’t work. It’s willpower. It’s what Richard Roark calls willpower. Christianity. It’s stupid. It’s like a ego trip and it’s beating yourself up. But stopping something like pornography, because it brings the juice back to your life that is compelling. And the more we get addicted to whatever it might be that, lights up those centers, the more we’re dulled to what I think Christ was referring to as the kingdom of heaven being here, the fullness of life, the eternal moment, being here and now that gets turned down, the more you just sort of rub the fun parts. I’m not even being crude. I just mean in your brain to rubbing those parts. Just like, here’s the sugar one, here’s the booze one, here’s the weed one, here’s the movie one.

Pete Holmes 00:09:24  Just constantly doing that. And that’s what so many of us are doing, because that’s what’s being offered to us. When really, as maybe this Zen person was saying, finding the immediacy and the joy in traffic or in a delayed flight or in a bad meal, a date that isn’t clicking if you can still get in touch with the light inside of you with your base consciousness. That’s where the only joy worth pursuing rests. That’s not to say that I don’t try and achieve things and make things and have relationships, but all of the things that I make and achieve and the relationships that I have, hopefully are in the service of me becoming more in tune with what it is that I really am and what it is we really are.

Eric Zimmer 00:10:09  Yeah. Let’s pivot for a second, although not very far, because you come from a sort of I don’t know if you’d use the word born again Christian, but certainly evangelical Christian background. And you’ve really grown a long way out of that. In your new book, you say something that I really like and you are talking about sin, and you spent a lot of your life being obsessed, as you were saying earlier, with things being bad.

Eric Zimmer 00:10:34  Don’t do that because it’s bad. Don’t do that because God will be mad. God will pull his love away. But ultimately, that’s transformed you to a point where you look at it as sin isn’t a bad thing. It’s about being unconscious.

Pete Holmes 00:10:47  That’s right. Yeah, and that’s Eckhart Tolle says that sin is unconsciousness. I can’t remember if I say it in the book, but the way that I look at it now is that it’s just static on the radio. It’s something that’s disrupting your connection and your connection to consciousness, which is God, which is life itself. So sins, whether they be stealing from your neighbor or being jealous or petty or lying, these are things that have been reduced to like, you’re upsetting a God who’s going to torch you for those things later. I actually think it can happen a lot more immediately that you’re you’re sort of you’re only hurting yourself, basically. And when you start to, as Ramdas says, when you start to clean up your game, you notice that you can lean into that connection that’s available to you here and now, as opposed to waiting until you die, which was what I was taught.

Pete Holmes 00:11:41  So sin used to make my skin crawl. And now when I think about sin, I just think of it as static on the radio. You just want the signal to be coming in clean, because that’s where the juice and the life and the vitality and the excitement and the joy and the equanimity and the peace are. It’s not so much, for it’s not at all for an afterlife reward or even to be perceived as a good person. It’s just it’s something that pays out immediately.

Eric Zimmer 00:12:12  Right. Yeah. No, I love that idea. Static on the radio is a is a really good way to think of it. Makes me think of a song by a guy named Jim White who’s really an amazing musician. He’s written another hilarious song I think you would appreciate called God Was Drunk When He Made Me, but he deeply spiritual artist. Beautiful but static on the radio. Yeah, I’ve always heard of it, as you know, sin missing the mark?

Pete Holmes 00:12:34  Yep. I think that’s a literal definition. Yeah, missing the mark, I like that.

Eric Zimmer 00:12:37  So let me ask you a question. you you referenced a minute ago, you use these words, but I want to kind of bring them up. And it’s the the tension between being and doing. You’re somebody who does a lot. Right. You’ve got a podcast, you’ve got HBO specials, you go on tour, you create and produce a lot. And yet being is also really important for you. And I’m curious how in your own life you look at how to sort of balance those two things or how to integrate those two things maybe is a different way to look at it, but I’m interested in that tension for you.

Pete Holmes 00:13:13  Yeah, it’s a great question. It’s a lifelong question, I suppose. Ramdas wrote a book about meditation. I forget what it’s called. It has the word meditation in the title, but there are all these quotes in it. It’s more of a handbook than it is necessarily like an original work. There’s a lot of quotes in there, and one of them that I like, and I’m badly paraphrasing it is they’re like when there’s a task to do, doing the task is one tenth of the task, and maintaining your center is 9/10 of the task.

Pete Holmes 00:13:41  And I was like, I think that’s right on. So that’s why I was trying to be careful when I was like, I’m not against doing things. I’m an achiever. I come alive when I achieve. I’ve tried to clean up psychologically why it feels so good for me to achieve. It used to be a little bit more egocentric and a little bit more selfish, but I still enjoy it. I still like making things. I believe that, the creative energy behind everything that we call God is creative and therefore creating a sort of mirroring, creation and mirroring the creator. I think it can be really beautiful. But that being said, you know, I’m sorry to keep quoting Randolph so much. He’s on my mind today, you know, knowledge, but you are wise. So I think that’s such a key thing is you can know a lot of facts, you can know a lot of theology. It’s sort of like comedy. You can understand why something is funny and how to write a joke or how to write a script.

Pete Holmes 00:14:38  But like, you have to be funny. That’s that’s actually the advice that Ramdas gave me about comedy was like, just be funny, don’t do funny, be funny. And I actually think that’s why people enjoy the live shows when they when they do is because I’m trying to be something with them. We’re trying to create something together. It’s also similar to lovemaking, I suppose, like people can know what the mechanics of sex are, but like the nuance of being present in that act is what makes it truly can make it truly wonderful and divine. So I think we’re a very obsessed with doing and achieving and letting people see what we’re doing. You know, you can’t go to the beach without Instagramming it so people can validate that you were at the beach and that you look so happy. But, I mean, everybody knows that actually being happy at the beach or they should know is so much more important than if a thousand people like a photo of you looking like you were happy at the beach.

Eric Zimmer 00:15:41  I’m not sure.

Eric Zimmer 00:15:41  Most people do know that a lot of time anymore.

Pete Holmes 00:15:44  No, I don’t think they do. And I know maybe we sound like old men, but we were just on the beach a couple days ago, and my wife and I were doing our best without judgment. I mean, to watch this young woman who, for maybe no exaggeration, 30 minutes, kept getting up and then going back to a blanket, getting up, going back to her blanket for 30 minutes because she was taking a photo with the timer of herself. And we just watched her with a mix of, you know, fascination. There was some judgment there from being honest and also humor. Just like, look at what we’ve become is, you know, she was trying, oh, maybe I’ll turn my butt out, maybe I’ll kneel, maybe I’ll mess my hair up. And then watching her go back and then clearly not like the photo and then do it again like she’d make a displeasure face. And I was like, it doesn’t even matter.

Pete Holmes 00:16:36  Like, you know, in the 80s, that would have been the most embarrassing thing you could have done that would have drawn a crowd of someone was doing that. But now so much of reality is just doing life. It’s non-resistance basically is trying to see the value and the juice and the life in everything. That’s what I was saying. Traffic or a delayed flight? Most people are waiting. They’re postponing their happiness. They’re postponing their equanimity until things are going their way. But you know this. The spiritual practice is trying to have that non-resistance. The way that I phrase it in the book is no matter what’s happening, you say, yes, thank you to it, I think. Yes. Thank you is it’s for me personally, one of my favorite mantras. It’s obviously it’s in English. It’s not esoteric, it’s not strange. But when, when you are suffering your brain, your lizard brain has absolutely no idea what to do when you don’t participate with the misery. When you just say yes, thank you.

Pete Holmes 00:17:37  This too. This too will be the sacrifice that I make to hopefully being on a higher state. Even this discomfort, even this pain, even this frustration, even this depression, whatever it might be, you sort of sacrifice it through. You don’t hold on to it. I literally picture myself as a as like a cosmic tube, and I’m feeling this angst and I pass it through and I go, this too. I’ll put this on the on the serving tray for the universe as well. And I go, there am a human being really feeling torment right now, and I say thank you to this as well. Not just ice cream on the beach because it’s melting and it and you’re lactose intolerant. You know, it’s not it’s not working. Just just being here and saying yes to this right now, no matter what you’re doing, is the kingdom of heaven, as far as I can tell.

Eric Zimmer 00:18:31  Yeah, I think that is in some ways the deepest teaching. Right? Is to say, you know, I love that.

Eric Zimmer 00:18:37  Yes, thanks. How to allow everything to be exactly the way it is. And the moments in my life that have blown my head off are when I somehow managed to truly wander into that neighborhood where I just kept saying, yes, yes, yes, yes for the life of me, I still, you know, I can only find my way back there occasionally, but it is by somehow just truly letting go.

Pete Holmes 00:18:59  And it’s also this is Sharon Salzberg says it’s the return. We all lose it. That’s important to point out. We all lose it. And sometimes you even have to fake it. You know, sometimes I’ll be touring around and I’ll be doing press or something, and sometimes you have to get up really early for some morning show or something. And so it’s like 430 and you went to bed at 12 the night before and you’re so exhausted. This sounds a little Tony Robbins. I don’t mean it to be like, kind of sounding like just just get psyched. You know, I don’t mean that.

Pete Holmes 00:19:30  I just mean even in that time when I’m not feeling it, it can be even more powerful. And that’s my point, is you’re saying yes, thank you. Even to your not believing in the power of yes, thank you. You’re like I am a person not even believing that this will help me and I’m grateful for even that J Krishnamurti, who was a great Indian saint. He never really gave teachings until the end of his life. I heard this from Eckhart Tolle, but he he said, do you want to know my secret? And all of these followers were like, yeah, we want to know your secret. We’ve been following you for 40 years waiting for you to give us a teaching. And he said, my secret is I don’t mind what happens. And I was like, that’s kind of the whole thing. That’s what I think Jesus is saying when he says, look at the birds of the air. They’re not worried about what they’re going to eat or what they’re going to do.

Pete Holmes 00:20:23  I know human beings obviously have to do some planning, but there’s a way to plan and be present while you’re planning. Just plan while you’re planning and stop planning when you’re not planning. Easier said than done. But I mean, there’s something to non-resistance, but your ego, for whatever reason, loves to exist. And when I say your ego, I mean the story of you. I mean your likes, your dislikes, where you’re from, your sports teams, your favorite foods, all of these thoughts that build this mosaic that you think is you and that mosaic wants you for some reason, wants you to think that that is you. So it sort of possesses you, and it’s always trying to trick you. One of the techniques that it does is it tries to keep you upset, because when you’re upset, you exist. Like, that’s what I see when people are fighting about some asinine garbage. You know, I was just at a baggage claim and and the bags were coming around, and then they started coming out on the other side, and this guy was like, now I gotta go to the other side.

Pete Holmes 00:21:24  I was like, it’s a carousel. They go around like you can just stand where you are, but what’s going on there? That’s the ego going like get mad. Now they’re coming out on the other side because when you when you’re mad, you’re Gary, and when you’re Gary, you exist. And that’s what the ego wants. It wants to be real and wants to convince you that you’re real, and it wants to convince you that you do need that next thing, or you need the new iPhone, or you need the new, maybe that new movie or that new book that’s going to get you where you need to be. it was Muji, I think. That said, given the choice between the journey and the destination, the ego will always choose the journey. And that’s why we’re constantly postponing. Maybe not full enlightenment, but just a taste. How about just a taste? Can we just have a taste? Can we just have a moment? Literally just a moment. Let’s not even time it.

Pete Holmes 00:22:16  Can you just see what it feels like? Try to stop thinking and stop believing your thoughts. And stop believing the story just for a moment. And be nothing, and be free and be spacious. But we’ll always go. Maybe if I read that book, then I’ll be free. Even though. And I do this too, even though I know the book is just going to say what I already know, and it’s going to say what the last one said. And at a certain point, I think this is Trungpa Rinpoche is like at a certain point, you have to stop reading the menu and just eat the meal. It’s like my friend Michael Munger said, it’s not the feather that makes Dumbo fly, you know? At a certain point, he loses the feather and he can still fly at a certain point. We need to put these things down and go, I am it, I am it. What’s looking at your eyes is ultimate reality is ultimate truth is the indwelling of God is the Spirit of God.

Pete Holmes 00:23:04  You are it. Being can only recognize being. God is being and you are being, noticing, being. That’s a little. I’m not saying you’re God. I’m saying you have the indwelling of God. And when you rest there, all of those things I just mentioned new iPhone, new movie, new book. They’re all fine. You can do it. You just don’t get lost in it as much. It’s not static on the radio. It’s just a dance you’re doing. It’s just play. It’s just passing show. I think it was Kebir that that said, I walked through the marketplace. But I’m not a purchaser. You can do it. That’s what Christ means when he’s in the world, not of the world. You can still do it. I love movies, I love books, I have the new iPhone, but like, I’m not as lost as I used to be in thinking, boy, when people see that I have the new iPhone, they’ll know that I’m a fancy showbiz guy.

Pete Holmes 00:23:52  They’ll probably think that I’m doing well, and then I’m going to use the new iPhone to take a picture of me at the beach, and then they’ll really know that I’m a special guy that goes to the beach. I don’t know, that stuff becomes less important, right?

Eric Zimmer 00:24:04  I’d rather read a spiritual book than sit down and do a spiritual practice because it’s hard. The brain just sort of takes over and I know how to do that. I can read and I get a taste of what that piece is like versus when I’m just sort of running wild, but actually stopping and spending some of the time in trying to be is hard. It’s these minds and these egos. They have a momentum at this point. So yes, thank you is a great phrase for sort of bringing yourself back. Do you have any others for when you’re kind of lost in ego and in self to help bring you back to a deeper place?

Pete Holmes 00:25:03  Yeah. I mean, first of all, I wanted to say that because I’m like you and I love reading and I even love writing about this stuff.

Pete Holmes 00:25:11  I’ve sort of come to identify that as part of the practice, meaning I’m not a great for whatever that means. I’m not a great meditator. I do like meditating. It just so happens I meditated this morning. Sure. Great. See, that’s sometimes that’s the full benefit is getting to tell someone you did it. Hey, I meditated this morning. So that’s my point is, it’s like sometimes it’s what Ramdas taught me about karma yoga. Meaning using your life. Karma. Just meaning the happenings of your life as your yoga, not stretching, but as your practice. So my friend again, Michael Junger, who wrote an incredible book called this which Really Changed My Life, which talks about a lot of this stuff. He was like, I don’t really meditate, but I’m practicing all the time. And I was like, I, I relate more to that. Is that like, what is this moment have to tell me about the fundamental nature of the universe? And Ramdas also says, you know, the next teaching is always exactly right where you are.

Pete Holmes 00:26:09  So whereas I can hear maybe I’m wrong, but I can hear you doing something that I do too, which is like, boy, instead of just reading this stuff, maybe I should just go on a contemplative walk or meditate or whatever. But that’s sort of the yes, thank you of it. It’s like, well, this is what’s happening, and I’m going to do this consciously and for better or worse, the mind. I think it’s called Yana yoga. Using the mind to beat the mind. That’s that’s sort of my jam, I like it. I don’t, enjoy as much disavowing the mind directly. I like sort of using the mind to diffuse itself. So the more that I study, the more that I talk about it to and the more that I write about it, that sort of has become a bigger part of my practice than just stillness. My my life can. Your life can have plenty of stillness. Just being on a plane and hearing the symphony of the present moment can be a very profound practice.

Pete Holmes 00:27:10  It’s just not as direct or as noticeable as sitting on a cushion with your eyes closed, which obviously is wonderful as well, but I just wanted to offer that just in case it made you feel better because it makes me feel better.

Eric Zimmer 00:27:23  It is an interesting thing that I am challenged with is that I mean Zen, which is where I primarily study, is very much about, hey, like intellectual ideas just won’t get you there. That said, what I’ve always really appreciated about the Hindu faith is how they do talk about. There are different ways to this ultimate reality. And, you know, for some people it’s it’s like you said, it’s love. Some people, it’s service, some people, it’s the mind. I really like that idea of there being different ways to the same place depending on your temperament.

Pete Holmes 00:27:52  Right? Yeah. You know, depending how you’re wired and for better or worse, I enjoy reading about it. I really enjoy listening to talks about it, and that’ll bring me there.

Pete Holmes 00:28:04  I’m happy to say over the years, it really does sort of infuse into your life and become a program that’s just running in the background all the time. And then when I do meditate, it is deeper. But that’s just because my life is more still. And that stillness came from a lot of study, and that changed the way that I look at the world and made it a more contemplative mindset, which which is just saying yes to everything, by the way. I mean, that’s that’s a pretty quick, maybe not full explanation of what contemplation is, but Richard Rohr says, if you can allow anything, it will convert you. If you look at a rock and completely allow the rock, it will convert you, because why should anything exist? But you’re saying a deep, profound yes to a rock. He also says something really beautiful where he’s like people all run around claiming that they love Jesus, but it’s like, try loving a tree first before you, before you jump.

Eric Zimmer 00:28:58  Right.

Pete Holmes 00:28:59  To the King of Kings.

Pete Holmes 00:29:00  Can you love, as I just said, a delayed flight? Can you love that? We’re so fast to just be like, I’ve done it, I love Christ, really? How? Like I get that you. Maybe you do in your way. But there’s a ways to deepen our love, and there’s ways to give it more fullness. And the ways that I’ve found that are trying to love everything. Love literally everything.

Eric Zimmer 00:29:24  I couldn’t agree more. I’ve been doing this, this other approach. There’s a Zen saying that I won’t get it right, but you know that something like Zen in Motion is a million times more valuable than Zen. You know, sitting on a cushion, right? It’s that idea of like, how do you bring it into the world? And there’s this idea in Zen, it’s called Samu. It’s called work practice. So if you go on a Zen retreat or you live in a monastery, you’re going to meditate part of the time, but then part of your day is you’re going to do basic manual labor.

Eric Zimmer 00:29:52  And the goal is you do it with your whole heart, your whole presence, everything. Yeah. And that Samu is seen as a bridge. It’s a way to go from all right, I when I sit down and close my eyes, I can keep these ideas in mind. And when I’m going 100 miles an hour, I lose them. But this Samu this work practice, these simpler things like Newton would talk about washing the dishes. When you’re washing the dishes, wash dishes. Those are a bridge. They’re a way to sort of bridge the sitting down, and then we get so busy we forget kind of thing. And I’ve really been exploring different parts of my life, as Samu is a way to to try and bring that consciousness more into all the parts of my life, because I do think that’s ultimately where life gets transformed. Meditating for 30 minutes a day is a great practice, and it’s important, but there’s still 23.5 other hours. And so how do we bring it into more and more of the day? So it actually has a chance to transform as at a deeper level.

Pete Holmes 00:30:52  Yeah, I think that’s right on. And that’s what I would call karma yoga. That’s the idea. And you know Eckhart Tolle is on that tip too, where it’s like when you do things not as a means to an end. And this will change your life today if you’d like it to. I hate brushing my teeth. I just I don’t like that I’m in a meat suit that requires me to to. As my friend Chris Thayer says, polish the bones people can see. He has this great joke about that. But I was like, so I don’t like brushing my teeth. I’m a grown man. I don’t feel like I should have to do it if I don’t want to do it. But if I can get into that space, which sometimes I can, where you’re really being present and watching just this bulbous, you know, dab of toothpaste coming out of this tube with your pressure onto these bristles, and you smell the spearmint and you feel the warm water and and you feel them just on the tooth that you’re brushing, not thinking, well, I have to do this part.

Pete Holmes 00:31:50  Then I have to do that part. Then I’ll rinse, then I can go to bed. Then I’ll be happy if you can. Just as tick not on would say just brush your teeth when you’re brushing your teeth. And this is the key to love, by the way to. I’m happy to share this, even though it might sound like a brag. Eric, as I called you, I was running late to this, so I was running late and I came in and I caught myself just kissing Val and sort of rushing to the back, and then I was like, fuck that shit. I stopped and we do this all the time. That and that’s why I’m sharing it. I think people would get value out of it, just kind of. We just stared at each other. We just gazed at each other, just lovingly gazed at each other for, what, seven seconds? You know what I mean? When you’re really looking at somebody, those seconds count. It doesn’t have to be very long.

Pete Holmes 00:32:36  And you’re just taking a moment to look. When you’re looking at Val, look at Val. You know what I mean? And you’re giving someone witness and you’re giving them respect. Literally. That’s what Richard Roy taught me. Respect your re looking. You’re looking again. So the first time I was looking at her, I was respecting her. Then I respected her, you know what I’m saying? And. And you just have that moment of love. Because I knew she was going to leave after this. When I’m done with this, she’s going to be out running errands or whatever. And that was my moment. And I do that with my daughter and I do that with the friends of mine that are comfortable with that sort of thing. You’re just taking a moment to be mindful. And in that moment, that’s my meditation, which is another practice I encourage. If you are not just you, Eric, but the people that are listening, if you have somebody that you feel comfortable with, just setting a timer for chimes, something gentle, for like 3 or 4 minutes and just gazing at their eyes.

Pete Holmes 00:33:36  There’s no way your ego can survive that. The first 30s it’ll be so uncomfortable to your ego it’ll take off. And then you’re just being looking at being. You’re just consciousness looking at itself. And it’s trippy. Even if you’ve never done a psychedelic, if you stare at somebody and just kind of breathe mindfully while you do it, you’re not thinking about how you love them. You’re not thinking about how special they are. You don’t have to think anything. You can just compassionately Gaze at someone. You’ll have a mild and sometimes not so mild, hallucinogenic experience in my. In my experience. because the the the part of your brain that constructs reality doesn’t really know what to do.

Eric Zimmer 00:34:24  Yeah, right.

Pete Holmes 00:34:25  And their face is going to change. I write about that in my book. Ramdas. His face turned into my father’s face, turned into him as a kid. But when I do it with Val, obviously the juice with Ramdas is a little bit special. I would say the intensity is, is, you know, a lot higher.

Pete Holmes 00:34:43  But with Val or my friends, it gets trippy, man. So I sometimes catch myself always telling people to try, you know, if they’re open to it or if they want to, if they feel the desire to try psychedelics. But then I’m like, you don’t have to at all. You can just stare at someone for four minutes. Unfortunately, in our society, people are more likely to take a pill or something because staring at someone is so weird. But it’s there. It’s there for the taking.

Eric Zimmer 00:35:15  Before we dive back into the conversation, let me ask you something. What’s one thing that has been holding you back lately? You know that it’s there. You’ve tried to push past it, but somehow it keeps getting in the way. You’re not alone in this. And I’ve identified six major saboteurs of self-control. Things like autopilot behavior, self-doubt, emotional escapism that quietly derail our best intentions. But here’s the good news you can outsmart them. And I’ve put together a free guide to help you spot these hidden obstacles and give you simple, actionable strategies that you can use to regain control.

Eric Zimmer 00:35:55  Download the free guide Now at once. And take the first step towards getting back on track. There was a crazy scientific study about that, where they put people together who didn’t know each other and had them stare at each other like that, and some crazy proportion of them fell in love with each other. Wow. It brought this intimacy that was just so, so strong.

Pete Holmes 00:36:18  Yeah, I’ve seen it where they have Derren Brown. He did that thing on Netflix. It was a he had a guy who was very, very anti-immigrant, staring with a, illegal Mexican American immigrant. And they just, they didn’t tell them anything. They just had them look at each other for five minutes or so, and at the end, they were both crying and hugging each other. It’s a profound thing, but that’s my point. And, you know, Jack Kornfield had us do that. I was just at the Ram Dass retreat. He had us do that and everybody’s blown away. And he said something that was very profound.

Pete Holmes 00:36:53  He was like, you know, you don’t have to go to India because that’s what I’m saying. The ego would rather say when I go to India, you know, right. when I go to the ashram, when I go to the monastery, then I’ll be spiritual. And the heart keeps saying, the part of you that’s saying then I’ll be spiritual is spirit. You know, the part of you that’s noticing you saying, Then I’ll be spiritual is spirit. It couldn’t be any closer. It’s what you are. I like to say I believe it’s a paraphrase of Richard Rohr. I’m not sure so much of what I say is a paraphrase of Richard Rohr. But he said, God doesn’t love you. You are God’s love. It’s a very different perspective.

Eric Zimmer 00:37:35  Yes.

Pete Holmes 00:37:36  It goes back to what we were saying of like, I’ve earned it. You know, God was my father figure, just like my real dad, who’s a great dad. I’m not saying he did this more than normal. If I do well, he likes me.

Pete Holmes 00:37:49  If I do bad, he might be frustrated or whatever. it’s so much more liberal. I actually think God’s love is so liberal. It would offend any ego. It’s too much for anybody’s ego to even consider when you consider the the loving. Yes, that’s what love is. It’s a yes. It’s this undulating. Yes animates everything. The good, the bad and the ugly. It’s not. It’s not as pleasing as we’d like it to be. We want it to be, you know, Captain America beating the bad guy. But the truth is, the whole thing is one thing. It’s lawful. It’s unfolding. It’s figuring itself out. It’s playing. There’s no flaw in the system. I don’t want to get out of my pay grade here. But I’m saying suffering itself is in the plan. It’s in the plan.

Eric Zimmer 00:38:54  As I was preparing for this interview, I was also learning about something. I don’t know if you’re familiar with something called process theology by Alfred North Whitehead. It’s basically what you’re saying.

Eric Zimmer 00:39:03  First, it says there aren’t things in the universe. There’s just verbs. There’s being there’s becoming, you know, and and it sort of says that, like, God is sort of a novelty junkie, like, that’s what God is doing, always trying to sort of hold the balance between chaos and stability to produce the most novelty. But when you said earlier, this idea of creation, when we’re creating it can feel like we are in touch with the energy of the universe, because that feels very fundamental to the energy of the universe for me. Like, the universe just seems to want to be and create and make and grow.

Pete Holmes 00:39:38  Yeah, well, that’s in Michael Gunter’s book. He’s like, which is called this. Again, he sort of likens the universe to a child being thrown up in the sky by its father going again, again, again. And what’s weird is you see this quality in human beings, even the horrible bits. We’re sort of Fascinated with all of it. We’re sort of endlessly intrigued with figuring out the limits of ourselves.

Pete Holmes 00:40:05  And obviously, there’s mourning and we and compassion and love and kindness and service is the point of life. That’s the one you feed, right? But every bit of it. Look, look at our fascination with, you know, murder documentaries, all these things. Like my point is, is like, as a thought experiment, I’ve been thinking what my heaven would be. And, you know, one of the heavens would be just kind of God mode in this universe. Meaning I can swipe to any time, any place, past, present, future, and I can experience what it feels like to be anything. Meaning I could feel what it feels like to be a field of wheat or the ocean. I mean, imagine how much time you would spend just being the ocean. I think that would be pretty incredible. Or the cosmos or Saturn, right? Or what it would feel like to be Trump, or what it would feel like to be a neglected housewife. I want it all. When I’m in that place, I want it all.

Pete Holmes 00:41:03  Given enough time, if it’s eternal, there’s not a situation that I wouldn’t want to slip into and just go, whoa, that’s what that was. That’s what that was. That’s what that was. And again, I don’t want I don’t want to sound like a nihilist or somebody that’s just like, we need to work to bring peace. We need to work to bring compassion. And I can have a part of me, not Pete, necessarily, but my base still, consciousness can understand, given eternal time and eternal possibilities, infinite possibilities. There isn’t a game that I wouldn’t play. Think about that. That’s in Michael Gunther’s book. If you were infinite, what game wouldn’t you play? Right? And that’s actually pretty trippy, because it actually includes even the the things that I’ve dismissed as ridiculous. Because I said that to Michael, I was like, well, that means that there is a heaven where we are all just in robes with wings. You know, even that’s so silly. I’m like, if I have infinite time and infinite everything and infinite possibilities, then that’ll be one too.

Pete Holmes 00:42:08  We’ll play that game too. Which one wouldn’t we play? Would play them all. Would play them all.

Eric Zimmer 00:42:12  I love that idea. I agree with you too. If I could have, like, one superpower, I think that’s the one. I would have to be able to inhabit anything and see what it’s like. And I think it points to a really useful tool. And we talk about like, how do I say yes to this moment or how do I inhabit it? I think curiosity is like one of the the most potent tools we have. Like, what’s this like if we can become curious about what a state is like now again, there only are states that we usually can experience. But curiosity for me is a great way to move from my small, contracted, emotionally suffering self to a broader perspective. What’s this actually like?

Pete Holmes 00:42:52  That’s right. Well, if God is creative, then God is certainly curious, which is interesting because, you know, growing up, I used to like to play those games.

Pete Holmes 00:42:59  Like, if God’s all knowing, right? I guess if you had to put it in those terms, I think God is outside of time. The concept of God, which we can’t possibly house in our brains, is obviously outside of time, so there’s not necessarily a deficit in this energy. but if we were to make it linear, I would be like, God is finding out. God is figuring. Yeah, God is relationship. God is adventure. God is pain. God is pleasure. God is loneliness. God is ecstasy. And that is the best superpower. That is the one that we seem to have chosen. We’ve we’ve decided, as Alan Watts would say, to play hide and seek with ourselves. I’m going to pretend to be this comedian in Hollywood, and you’ll pretend to be a podcast host. And you right now, Eric, you know what it’s like to be you. And I know what it’s like to be me. So we can only do it one at a time right now.

Pete Holmes 00:43:53  But the the whole thing is, is dipping in and out of everything so it knows what a field of wheat feels like. It knows what a mother whale feels like. It knows what a star feels like. It knows what a black hole feels like. That is what I think is going on here.

Eric Zimmer 00:44:10  Yeah, yeah. That makes me think of another phrase that you’ve used that I wanted to ask about, which is, when in doubt, zoom out. Because I think this is such a really powerful little phrase to use spiritually. And, and, you know, even on a more rote emotional basis.

Pete Holmes 00:44:29  Yeah. You asked earlier what the little mantras I have are, and that’s certainly one of them. Let me think of something I was frustrated at recently. It was probably something travel related, like, we’re at the airport. They didn’t print a boarding pass for our baby, so we didn’t have one. So they were stopping us at the gate. Right. And that that can be frustrating because you’re already back.

Pete Holmes 00:44:51  All these bags and a baby and stuff, right? And now they’re stopping you. And it’s easy to get caught in that moment and be frustrated. But when you zoom out. So when in doubt, zoom out. You’re zooming out and looking at the planet, and you’re like, there’s two smaller than ants on this rock, and they’re mad about getting on a tube to go to another part. Like nothing makes sense. Nothing. Nothing is valid when you look at the whole, yeah, like your little story. That’s the Indian idea. That’s it’s the passing show. It’s it’s my daughter’s name is Lila, which means the play of the universe. It’s all play. And it actually goes back to what I was saying. The task is one tenths and maintaining your center is 9/10. So in that element of karma yoga, getting my daughter, which we did, it was no problem. On the plane is one tenth. Me not getting lost in the illusion is 9/10. It’s so much more important for me to go like we are on a planet and some of us forget, like the concept of infinity is not just in holy books.

Pete Holmes 00:45:54  It’s it’s around us. It’s where we’re swimming. It’s where we’re floating. It’s what’s happening around us. It’s expanding infinity, which is a paradox. And that is a paradox confirmed by science. We are in a paradox, expanding infinity, and that when you consider it makes your delayed flight or your traffic or even your heart break or whatever it might be, I’m not saying it doesn’t matter. I’m saying give yourself the gift of looking at it from a cosmic perspective and not in a sad way. Not in like, who cares? I’m going to die. I’m just an ant on a rock in the freeway. Let it liberate you and go. Even though my story is small and doesn’t deserve my full attention, what I am is what I’m looking at when I zoom out. You are home. You are born into this world. That’s an Alan Watts quote. You don’t come into this world. You actually come out of this world just like an apple comes off a tree. You were born home.

Pete Holmes 00:46:58  You’re not a visitor here. So you are being. And your story is not the point. The ice cream on the beach isn’t the point. Your frustration isn’t the point. Look at everything that’s happening and know that you are a dignified, inherent part of it. And that’s a peaceful thought.

Eric Zimmer 00:47:16  That is. I love that perspective. Elsewhere in the book, you quote this. This made me laugh. Lots of parts of the book made me laugh. It is a it’s a great book. Okay, listeners, I mean, it’s it’s funny, it’s deep, it’s profound. But you’re talking about Joseph Campbell and you’re talking about this idea that God is a metaphor for a mystery that transcends all categories of human thought, which is one of my favorite quotes. But then you go on to quote something that the road manager for AC, DC told you. Yeah. Which it makes me laugh that this is where you heard it. God is the name of the blanket. We throw over the mystery to give it shape.

Pete Holmes 00:47:52  Yeah, and when I read that or said this on stage, it gets a big laugh as I go. Shouldn’t I have learned this in Sunday school? Why am I learning this from the road manager for AC, DC? The idea that God is without a concept, God is beyond language. As Joseph Campbell said, God is a mystery that’s beyond the categories of even being and non-being. It’s beyond language. It’s not something you can know. It’s it’s that by which you know anything. That which does the knowing is the peace of God that’s inside of you right now. Right. That that does the hearing. This is the Upanishad. It’s not that which the eye can see, but that whereby the eye can see. No, this to be Brahman, the eternal right know that to be God. So it’s the mechanism by which you can hear me, not what you can hear. The mechanism that is hearing that is eternal, that is God. But as Richard Rohr says, we can’t fall in love with an energy.

Pete Holmes 00:48:53  You can try and maybe you can, but most of us need a symbol. So God created man. Man returns the favor. Man closes the circle and makes God. I’m not saying God doesn’t exist. I’m saying the symbols that we have pointing to God aren’t God. They’re their road signs pointing to a destination. And as Richard Rohr says, we’re also busy worshipping the road signs instead of going to where the signs are pointing and experiencing, where the signs are pointing and becoming one, and feeling and intuiting where the signs are pointing, you can’t necessarily know it or write it down, but you can quiet down to a point where you where your boundary sort of disappears and you become one with it. Right. That’s that’s the only game in town. Nailing it down. It’s it’s not going to happen. That was a line, a joke I cut from the book. I was like, you can try and nail your God down, but it has a tendency to die and resurrect on you like it’s going to go away, like you can’t do it.

Pete Holmes 00:49:49  Your ego wants to know and know that it knows, right? You can’t know that you know, but you can experience it. That’s the good news. You can experience it and you can be it. But when it comes to explaining it, it’s always going to be, it’s going to come up short. But the idea that God is a blanket, we put over a mystery to give it shape. Now we have something to talk about. Now you and I can meet and we can talk about God. And unfortunately, people can abuse God. People can, rape and kill and and control and suppress and shame and embarrass and humiliate and restrict people in the name of this thing. But what we’re trying to do, it sounds like, is we’re trying to say what we’re talking about is a metaphor for a mystery, and we all can agree on a mystery. We don’t have to debate the existence of a mystery because we are steeped in a mystery. And if God is not a being, but God is being itself, we don’t have to debate the existence of God, because here we are.

Pete Holmes 00:50:48  We are being. So we we can. We can skip the part where we go. Do you believe in this symbol or do you believe in this symbol? Do you believe in this blanket or do you believe in this blanket? As Eckhart Tolle says, no one can own the concept of being. It’s a freer way to discuss God. And, you know, doing my podcast for 400 some episodes, no one wants to talk about God for the most part, but everybody wants to talk about being if you if you can change the vocabulary slightly and just be like, what are we doing here? How are you experiencing being in that one? Because I’m in this one and and we’re all a little bit confused. We’re all a little bit lonely. We can all get a little bit scared. We need to we need to come together and figure it out. And we don’t ever need to agree on a blanket. But it’s nice to agree that there is something to put the blanket on.

Eric Zimmer 00:51:40  Yeah, I agree 100%.

Eric Zimmer 00:51:42  I think those are ways of talking about these things that are so much more inclusive and just easy to, you know, it’s a bigger tent. I feel like I’ve been quoting Zen things all episode, which I don’t normally do, but there’s a Zen saying, like, if you’re trying to control a cow, like, give it a bigger pasture, you know, is it a similar idea? Like, you know, this is a big tent that everybody can find their way into and hopefully have a discussion. Another metaphor for God that I know you you love, Richard Rohr. We’ve had him on the show a couple times from his latest book. He said, anything that draws you out of yourself in a positive way, for all practical purposes, is operating as God for you at that moment. And that has been so powerful for me as an idea and this idea that expansion versus contraction feeling like for me as a very simple feeling metaphor for where am I? If everything feels like it’s contracting and closing down, I’m usually moving away from God if we want to use that word.

Eric Zimmer 00:52:39  And as I open and expand, I feel like I’m moving towards God. It’s a I feel it very viscerally.

Pete Holmes 00:52:45  Yeah. That’s right. Well, Richard is a big Thomas Merton fan, and they’re both very good at pointing people away from what Merton called the false self or the small self. And to your real self. I make this point in the book that everybody always says that the most important question you can ask is who am I? And I always took that to mean like, no, your preferences. no. Your favorite films? No. Your favorite car? No. Your favorite clothes. So when you die and this is the joke I make in the book, you can be satisfied. Like everyone knew how I took my coffee. Like that’s who you were. Like that is. That is such a lie. That is. That’s such a disappointing interpretation of what is the most important question, which is who am I? But it’s not. Who are your thoughts? That’s why I was tempted with that bumper sticker.

Pete Holmes 00:53:35  Don’t believe everything you think, right? That’s a that is a good bumper sticker, but I’d rather just say it on podcasts than have it on my car. But like, who is observing you ask the question, and that’s the real you. And anything that draws you away from the construct and from the story. And if we want to use kind of salacious language or crazy language or bold language, you can say the lie, the lie that you feel it like a burden, like bags you have to carry, who you’re supposed to be, who you’re expected to be, who you want to be. Even evolutionarily, I want to be nice. So people give me resources and give me love and food, and I keep my job. It’s the story that we have to perpetuate and we all perpetuate. And some stories are helpful, you know, being kind or whatever. But behind them there’s always the unborn, never born, never dies, impartial witness, which is what I’m trying to draw people to in the book, not just because it’s a fun thought experiment, or it’s not because it’s a fun belief.

Pete Holmes 00:54:38  That’s sort of the point of the book, is I don’t really give a crap what you believe. Like my whole life it was. What do you believe? What do you believe? Now I’m like, who is it that does the believing? Who is watching you believe this? When I was a kid, when I was a teenager, I was a Republican. I was this, I was that whatever. And now I’m a more liberal. Okay, so who watched the change? You know what I’m saying? Like, that’s the only game in town, right? What didn’t change? What didn’t change.

Eric Zimmer 00:55:07  That question is such a powerful question. What stays the same? That’s it. You know what stays the same?

Pete Holmes 00:55:12  And that’s the indwelling of God. Yeah. That’s why we say Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever. I would change it to say Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever. I don’t just me personally. We’ll never know if this is true or not.

Pete Holmes 00:55:25  I like to think that Christ Jesus was fully human and that he did change, that he did grow, that he did learn, that, you know, No, that’s just how that story has. The most juice for me was that he evolved, that he changed and grew and learned because that’s what it is to be human. And then he made the swap to Christ. He became realized. He realized that the whole time he wasn’t sweet baby Jesus of Nazareth, learning carpentry or learning how to speak Aramaic, you know, he was the witness. And the witness is the witness is the witness. My witness is your witness. Mine is just in this one. And yours isn’t that one? And that one’s in a bird and that one’s in a stone. Like different levels of consciousness, I’ve come to realize that people are either interested in talking about molecules or they’re not. But when you realize that science is sort of backing the idea that everything is just made of these tiny little bits, you see that everything really is one thing, that it is really just television static.

Pete Holmes 00:56:27  And this pattern of television static thinks it’s peat, but really, the television static that’s making me is the television static making the desk and the computer and the microphone, and it’s making you and it’s making my dog, and it’s making my baby. And it is one thing, and that’s what Christ consciousness is, and that’s why he says what you do for the least of these, you do for me. He’s saying there’s no one in the other boat, as Ramdas would say, it’s just us. It’s just us.

Eric Zimmer 00:56:55  Before we wrap up, I want you to think about this. Have you ever ended the day feeling like your choices didn’t quite match the person you wanted to be? Maybe it was autopilot mode or self-doubt that made it harder to stick to your goals. And that’s exactly why I created The Six Saboteurs of Self-control. It’s a free guide to help you recognize the hidden patterns that hold you back and give you simple, effective strategies to break through them. If you’re ready to take back control and start making lasting changes.

Eric Zimmer 00:57:27  Download your copy now at one. Net book. Let’s make those shifts happen starting today. When you feed net book, here I go with another Zen phrase. But I love the Zen phrase that says not one, but not two. It’s like, well, yeah, we are separate. Yes, I am not you. And yet we’re also not two. You know, we’re not one, but we’re not too. I love that idea. And I guess it kind of comes back to, and this maybe is a place for us to kind of wrap up with something else that you quote Joseph Campbell saying, which I think is a is a nice analogy or a metaphor, which is when the light bulb stops identifying with the bulb and starts identifying with the light.

Pete Holmes 00:58:09  Yeah, I love that because we should. I’m a believer in my own path that we should honor our incarnation. That’s what Ramdas would say. Honor your incarnation. It’s like we can get a little bit lost in pushing away my Pete ness, right? And now I enjoy my Pete ness.

Pete Holmes 00:58:28  I’m just less attached to it. Yeah. Which is what freedom is. That’s being so, Richard. Richard Rohr is so good at showing us that mystical Christianity has been saying what a lot of people think is so new agey the whole time. The whole idea of being fully human and fully God isn’t just a pledge for Christ, for us to just go like, wow, there was one guy who did it. And and our job is to make sure other people believe that he did it. And the point that I’m trying to make in the book is go and do likewise. When I grew up, that would have sounded like blasphemy. I do have humility. Richard Rohr says the most important things you can have in spirituality are humility and patience. And another mantra that I use every day is I am willing. Meaning when I have a bad thought, like a small minded thought. If I’m judging, if I’m being nasty, I just say I am willing because sometimes I just need, I need intercession, I need something bigger than me to help me with that.

Pete Holmes 00:59:32  But my willingness and my patience and my humility, I think, are the ingredients that hopefully can lead to change other alongside my me trying my damnedest. But let’s be honest, me trying my damnedest doesn’t really work. I sometimes just need, patience and humility. but that being said, I don’t think that’s, blasphemy at all. I think Jesus was saying, let’s go. Let’s let’s do this. You know, he’s he’s trying to wake you up to the idea of not one, not two. Yep. You can play the story of Jesus, but you should know that you’re the Christ and you can play the story of Eric. And I can play the story. Pete, it’s all fine. We don’t have to be Renaissance. We can. We can play the game. But as Alan Watts says, when it’s all done, we’re going to take off our masks and we’re going to go backstage and we’re going to love the hero for being a good hero. We’re going to love the villain for being a good villain.

Pete Holmes 01:00:33  And we’re going to say, what a relief. Like it was just a show.

Eric Zimmer 01:00:38  Right. Right. Well, I think that is a great place for us to wrap up. Thank you so much for taking the time to come on. It’s been a real pleasure talking with you.

Pete Holmes 01:00:47  My pleasure. I love this talk. Thank you. Yes.

Eric Zimmer 01:00:50  Thank you so much for listening to the show. If you found this conversation helpful, inspiring, or thought provoking, I’d love for you to share it with a friend. Share it from one person to another is the lifeblood of what we do. We don’t have a big budget, and I’m certainly not a celebrity, but we have something even better. And that’s you just hit the share button on your podcast app, or send a quick text with the episode link to someone who might enjoy it. Your support means the world, and together we can spread wisdom one episode at a time. Thank you for being part of the One You Feed community.

In this episode, Emma Gannon explores the idea of choosing love over fear and how to find joy, confidence, and self-trust. She talks about her new novel, “Table for One” that includes themes of the inner battle between positive and negative thoughts, the healing power of love, and the importance of choosing joy. Emma shares how writing fiction is therapeutic and reflects on her personal growth, confidence, and the grief of changing identities.

Key Takeaways:

• The power of love over fear and hatred in personal and societal contexts.
• The importance of choosing joy and hope amidst life’s challenges.
• Writing fiction as a therapeutic tool for self-exploration and personal growth.
• The dialogue between different stages of life, particularly between one’s younger and older selves.
• The complexities of mental health and the impact of age on confidence and self-perception.
• The concept of grief associated with personal transformation and the loss of previous identities.
• The significance of self-acceptance and understanding one’s own needs and limitations.
• The role of intergenerational relationships and support in personal development.
• The idea of recognizing and supporting the complexities of individuals in a judgmental world.

Emma Gannon is a Sunday Times bestselling and award-winning author. Her newsletter, The Hyphen, is the #5th most popular literature substack globally reaching 50k readers every week and one of the first newsletters in the UK to have thousands of paid subscribers. Alongside writing, she hosts creativity retreats in the UK and globally. Her latest book is A Table for One.

Connect with Emma Gannon: Website | Instagram

If you enjoyed this conversation with Emma Gannon, check out these other episodes:

How to Cope with Burnout with Emma Gannon

Beyond Anxiety: How Curiosity Turns Fear Into Fuel with Martha Beck

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Episode Transcript:

Emma Gannon 00:00:00  I shouldn’t be this person. I should be the person in Italy with the cocktails. I shouldn’t be this person in bed at 9 p.m., and the minute I just go, I’m out of spoons. That’s what my body is saying. And I’m going to protect myself and take myself to bed.

Chris Forbes 00:00:23  Welcome to the one you feed. Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts. We have quotes like garbage in, garbage out or you are what you think ring true. And yet for many of us, our thoughts don’t strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self-pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don’t have instead of what we do. We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it’s not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their good wolf.

Eric Zimmer 00:01:08  There’s a question I ask myself sometimes would my younger self be proud of the life I’m living today? Emma Gannon’s new novel, table for one, is, in a way, that very conversation her 36 year old self speaking with her 20 something self through her characters. In our conversation, we explored how writing fiction can be therapy in disguise, how confident shifts with age, and how every stage of life brings its own kind of wisdom and its own grief. This is a conversation about complexity, creativity, and learning to trust yourself. I’m Eric Zimmer and this is the one you feed. Hi, Emma, welcome to the show.

Emma Gannon 00:01:49  Thank you. Eric, I’m so glad to be back.

Eric Zimmer 00:01:51  Yeah, I was contemplating this morning. How many times have we talked? I know I was on your podcast once. I think this is at least your second, possibly third. I think it’s actually your third visit on our show, if I recall.

Emma Gannon 00:02:04  Yeah, maybe.

Eric Zimmer 00:02:05  I think so.

Emma Gannon 00:02:06  I love that, though, about you because I think we you have people back.

Eric Zimmer 00:02:11  Yeah, I well, I like doing that. You know, I like connecting with people that I have good conversations with and enjoy being with. It’s part of the joy of doing the show.

Emma Gannon 00:02:20  So yeah, no, totally.

Eric Zimmer 00:02:21  We’re going to talk about all sorts of different things. One of the things we’ll talk about maybe more than others is your latest novel called table for One. But we’ll get into all that and your Substack here in a moment, because you know how we’re going to start, which is with the parable. And in the parable there’s a grandparent who’s talking with their grandchild, and they say, in life there are two roles inside of us that are always at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And the grandchild stops and they think about it for a second. They look up at their grandparent and they say, well, which one wins? And the grandparent says, the one you feed. So I’d like to start off by asking you what that parable means to you in your life and in the work that you do.

Emma Gannon 00:03:09  I have been thinking a lot recently about, and this is going to sound really corny, I think, but just how love is, I believe so much stronger than the hatred, the fear or that side of things.

Emma Gannon 00:03:23  And we’re in such a crazy time at the moment where you would be very valid to think that the hatred and the fear are trumping, no pun intended, the other things. But I still don’t believe that. I still believe love is more powerful. I still believe that it’s like the stronger emotion, or at least the one that holds the most weight and has the most power to change things, and in the end is like what life is all about. So I think with the feeding of the wolves, It’s like no matter how terrible things are, choosing to love something I think is like the most powerful thing you can do.

Eric Zimmer 00:04:01  I love that idea of just choosing something to love. There’s a great Jason Isbell song says. Basically, the idea is, I hope you find something to love. You know, he’s talking about, for him its music, how it’s carried him through his life. But you know that everybody finds something, something someone that can love. And I tend to agree with you about there being more love than hate, because if we look at most people, the vast majority of people, they have people they love that they are good to, that they are decent to every day.

Eric Zimmer 00:04:33  There’s every parent taking care of their child. There’s billions of acts of love every day, over and over and over and over. We don’t see them, we don’t think about them, but they’re there. And to me, that always feels like if you were to put it all on a scale, if you were actually able to put it all on a scale, you’d see, oh, yeah, there’s more of it out there.

Emma Gannon 00:04:53  Yeah. And I think for me, like, sometimes it feels rebellious to have that point of view to be like, I’m going to go and find something I like today. I’m going to go and feel joy. Today I’m going to go on a walk and like, think the trees just look really lovely and I’m going to take photos of them and feel some sort of love for the planet, I think. I don’t know, it feels like that’s the hard route to take sometimes because you can get sucked into all the negativity. But I like the idea of being like a contrarian who, like, wants to push against something.

Emma Gannon 00:05:24  And I feel like pushing against what’s going on in the world is like going and finding joy and like, not being ashamed of that, I think.

Eric Zimmer 00:05:33  Yeah, I agree, I feel like I’m always a little bit of a contrarian. Also, in pushing back on the narrative that things are worse than they’ve ever been and that we’re in a uniquely horrible time, because if you go to any time in human history, the amount of suffering that’s on the planet is more than one person could calculate or handle. It’s there, along with all that love. And there’s always been difficulty in human life. There’s always been battles over power and money winning out over less money. I mean, all this stuff just feels to me you just look at history enough and you’re like, this just keeps happening.

Emma Gannon 00:06:06  Yeah.

Eric Zimmer 00:06:07  And it’s not that the suffering isn’t real. It’s not that, like today, there aren’t people suffering because of the policies in the United States. I, I’m not trying to take that away as being meaningful and really important.

Eric Zimmer 00:06:19  But I think when we move into a things are worse than they’ve ever been mentality, that’s hard to for me. That’s not a place I operate very well out of.

Emma Gannon 00:06:30  Yeah, I agree, and you know, if you read a lot of books from, you know, hundreds of years ago, 50 years ago, I tend to read things that are kind of from the past to remind myself that things have always been bad, or at least the same cycles, the same destruction. Like, you know, it’s not new. All of the stuff that’s happening. And I think that is a good reminder. And also the fact that I don’t know if, like with you, I, I agree that I don’t think it’s necessarily true. There are many things that are much better right now than they than they have.

Eric Zimmer 00:07:03  Been, certainly. I mean, if you gave me the choice, like, you can go back any time in history and drop down and live, I don’t think I’d go anywhere.

Eric Zimmer 00:07:12  I mean, curiosity. Sure. Drop me in for a couple of days. Yeah, let me see what it’s like. But as far as, like anytime in the past, I’m like, as a relatively average human, I mean, life was, you know, my friend AJ Jacobs always says, you know, he had to remind himself of how good life is today. He goes, surgery without anesthetic.

Emma Gannon 00:07:32  Yeah, like any modern medicine. Yeah.

Eric Zimmer 00:07:36  You just immediately are like, oh, yeah. Okay. Hang on a second. It it’s definitely better because God that’s all full of contemplate.

Emma Gannon 00:07:43  Yeah, exactly. And I think, you know, I don’t have much to complain about and probably coming from a certain lens on it, but I don’t know. I look around and some things are good and I’m okay with changing my lens occasionally. You know, the news is real, we know it’s happening, but there’s also a lot of other things happening outside of the news. And I just the world is very big, and I think we forget that.

Eric Zimmer 00:08:08  It is very big. It is very big. Okay. Let’s shift gears here a little bit. I want to talk about the novel for a second. And, and I heard you on a podcast that was a podcast about writing. I don’t remember what it was called. And you talked about this idea that the joy of a creative life is that it changes you as you do it. That by the end of the project you’ve morphed in a certain way. And in that conversation she asked you that question in what way has this novel changed you? And you talked about the fact that it was very hard to write that you overcame the real difficulty of writing that book, which I think is a great answer, but I’m going to ask it from a slightly different perspective. What in writing about the characters in this book, did you see or change or feel different about after you had written them, like the characters in the book? How did they impact you?

Emma Gannon 00:09:06  Well, I think everyone’s different, especially with writing fiction, but I find it really funny how I write a book and then afterwards it’s in hindsight that I can see I’ve just been like having some therapy essentially through the characters.

Emma Gannon 00:09:17  Like that for me, is all it is, and I’m fine with that. You know, it’s a thinly disguised subconscious journey of Alice in Wonderland working stuff out on the page, essentially. And I think that’s what we do all through our lives, like when we’re kids and we have dolls and we’re like making them talk to each other. We’re just figuring out our own psyche at the end of the day, and hopefully making it entertaining and having the reader in mind. I don’t want anyone being bored with me, just like going into my own stuff. But yeah, at the end of the book, I realized that it’s a story about Willow, who’s the protagonist, who’s figuring out how to be alone for the first time. She’s like a serial monogamist. She’s never been alone, and she’s also meeting a younger woman who is going through something, and she’s learning from someone ten years younger than her. So it’s like intergenerational friendship is happening. And I realized at the end of the book that it was like my 36 year old self was talking to my twentysomething self, and they were having a conversation.

Emma Gannon 00:10:18  So it was like everyone, well, not everyone, but a lot of people say that they’re characters. Every single character in a novel is is you essentially look at different parts of you. And I think that’s the case with mine.

Eric Zimmer 00:10:29  Yeah, it’s interesting because on one hand, it’s the 36 year old you talking to the 25 year old you, but it’s not in, at least in broad terms. It’s not the 36 year old explaining to the 25 year old all the ways, you know. Here is I’m wise because I’m 11 years older. It’s actually that person trying to take the wisdom of the 25 year old.

Emma Gannon 00:10:51  Yes. I’m so glad you spotted that, because I know we’ve spoken about, like my burnout episode that I had, and I think I came on your show to talk about it, but honestly, it was a crisis of confidence. It was. I was so confident in my 20s, and I had a great time in my 20s, like I did some really cool stuff and my career went really well.

Emma Gannon 00:11:13  And as I got older, everything’s been harder and I really had to try and tap into that 2528 year old who just didn’t care and got stuff done and really believed in herself. And I keep being told that, like the older you get, the more confident you get and the more you know yourself. And I’m like this, the opposite is happening to me. So how do I how do I like tap into that kind of confident young person that didn’t know everything, but she knew some stuff.

Eric Zimmer 00:11:45  Yeah, I think about this a lot also. I mean, I’m older than you. You’re in your 30s. I’m in my 50s, so I’ve got 20 years on you. So we’ve got a different, different, sort of perspective. And when my age, I’m starting to really think about, okay, like, I know what life looks like for people 50 and on because I’ve watched my parents do it. I’ve watched their friends do it. I see that thing. And there’s this element in which I want to embody the wisdom and the good things that can come with that without losing that younger energy.

Eric Zimmer 00:12:20  And and then I’m like, well, okay. In the same way that it’s like, am I trying to put off like if I, you know, if you go get a lot of Botox, right? You’re trying to you’re trying to continue to look young, maybe in a way that doesn’t make sense. I don’t know. I’ve got no judgment on any of that. Am I doing the same thing? Saying, am I trying to stave off aging by by embracing this younger self? And when I let it all out, I feel like I’m finding the right balance for me. You know, and for some reason, there’s a concept that I carry around in my mind which is, would that young self be proud of me?

Emma Gannon 00:12:57  That’s nice.

Eric Zimmer 00:12:58  Would that young self look at me and go, yes, great. And I don’t know why I put that young. Like it’s usually like a 17 year old, you know with my 17 year old self. And it’s interesting that that’s one of the ways in which I try and that I end up sort of unconsciously.

Eric Zimmer 00:13:17  I don’t want to use the word judging myself, but, you know, looking at my life through, would that person be happy? And so why did I think a 17 year old is the person that I want to keep happy? I just think there are interesting questions that your book raises a lot of.

Emma Gannon 00:13:30  I love that, and I think there’s something to be said for like a certain age, whether it’s 10 or 17 or how old they that inner you is kind of like running the show in terms of wants to be creative or wants to be free, or wants to go and play outside or wants to, you know, do you know, I think we channel that that younger self in all that we do sometimes. But I think for me it’s less about like I don’t really have an issue with like looking older. I actually kind of love that. I can like go into that phase of like not caring as much and like changing up my style and like enjoying like later in life. That will be fun.

Emma Gannon 00:14:06  I think it’s more the energy and like I go for walks with my twentysomething friends and they’re really excited about the world. And that’s, I think what I lost for a bit during my burnout was like, I don’t feel as excited, and I don’t feel like I can change the world anymore. And I think it’s wanting to tap into that hopefulness I think I had in my 20s.

Eric Zimmer 00:14:31  Yeah. I also think that is a question about. When I think about energy and fired up this right. Like 20 year olds are pretty fired up, right? They are. They have an energy that I don’t. They have a they have an element to them. And some of me wants to recapture that. And then some of me is working on like is age the reason I’m not that way. And I’m sort of in an age appropriate phase, or have I lost something and I don’t know the answer to that question.

Emma Gannon 00:15:01  Yeah. That’s interesting. I mean, the real fundamental message, I guess, of the novel is, is all this stuff is like being in that middle ground, I think, where you’re looking to the future and then you’ve got a lot that’s gone behind you and you’re figuring out who you’re going to be.

Emma Gannon 00:15:17  And I think the 30s is quite interesting for that.

Eric Zimmer 00:15:43  I loved the book, by the way. I really enjoyed reading it. You said you didn’t want it to be boring. It wasn’t. I enjoyed it all the way through, and I felt like I could untangle a lot of this deeper questions underneath of it that was there. And I and I really liked it. And I love the fact that it ultimately is, to me, a reflection of reality in that it’s not simple. Actually, there’s a line in the book. There’s a there’s Willow’s the main character, but she also has an aunt who’s kind of been her mother in a way, and just always looked out for her. And they’re talking about Willow’s mother, who’s not present due to different issues. And you say it’s complicated. That was always Carla’s line, Carla being the animal. She always said, it’s complicated when they talked about her mom. And you say, and it’s true, depression and mental health are complicated. Those things are definitely complicated, but so is life, and I love that the complications didn’t resolve themselves in a tidy way in that book.

Eric Zimmer 00:16:43  It didn’t end on like a downer. It actually is very hopeful. But for me it was hope amongst the fact that life is complicated. Yeah, and that’s not going to go away.

Emma Gannon 00:16:52  Yeah. I feel like the ending for me felt like a dot, dot, dot. To be continued. Like her journey is not over in any way. And life is really complicated. And I guess also the theme, I suppose for me of the book is like feeling trapped. And how do you get out of that? So, like, Willow feels trapped in her relationship. She, you know, by the end. And then Naaz, who’s the 20 something, is trapped in this career where she has to perform as herself. And I like to think the main character unshackled herself a little bit.

Eric Zimmer 00:17:24  What’s really interesting about that is that she didn’t even consciously recognize she was trapped, I don’t think. Doesn’t sound like right. Reading her relationship from the outside, you can kind of be like, All right.

Eric Zimmer 00:17:40  You know, a little bit of a red flag there. Oh, okay. A little bit of a red flag there. But she’s in it and I don’t. I think she has these subterranean understandings, but she doesn’t really actually know it. And then she’s not the one who chooses to, to to get out of that relationship. It actually happens for her in the sense that the guy breaks up with her. And I think that’s also really interesting about how sometimes my experience has been, sometimes I need the other. I’ve needed the other person to blow the structure because I’m not good at it. Yeah, I’m, I’m, I, I’m loyal on the side of perhaps too much in many cases and so but I can look back and be like, oh thank God. You know, at first it was like very difficult. But later I’m like, oh, okay. Someone, you know, someone let me out of that cage. I wish I’d broken out of it myself. Yeah, but the end result is the same.

Eric Zimmer 00:18:33  Which is? I’m out.

Emma Gannon 00:18:34  Totally. And I feel like that’s everyone’s, like, character arc in real life. And in fiction is something happens to you, the inciting incident, and then you have to work with life to figure out the next step. And I think most people would look back on their life and think that the bad thing that happened turned into slightly better thing on the whole. And also, I guess, you know, for me, I’m the same. I try and make the thing happen over and over and again until like something, I’m not the one to break it off basically, which can be quite painful, but ultimately quite good.

Eric Zimmer 00:19:11  As you said. You know, there’s an idea that the novelist is every character in the book in some way. And I was curious, though, whether you have realized the degree to which you are like Nas’s now, and I mean the good version of Nazz now. Well, do you see yourself in that in that role? Because I do.

Emma Gannon 00:19:31  I did, I think, past past tense. I think I think that’s why I brought that side in, because I could write. I could write that character knowing it, knowing from the inside what that entails. Like having a career on the internet and performing as yourself, and also having a private self and having a team of people around you who are like basically profiting off you, being you. And I also know how it feels to leave all that behind and realize that nothing is worth it in terms of anything that affects your mental health that badly. So yeah, like, I’m I definitely could write that character from from experience.

Eric Zimmer 00:20:11  What I saw is and that’s why I said like a good version of Nas’s because to me, and everybody’s life is different on the inside than it is on the outside. I look at you as an influencer in the good sense of the word meaning like. I think lots of people look to you as someone who has figured out how to do this internet life thing in a way that is true to themselves and honors who they are.

Eric Zimmer 00:20:40  And I look and go, okay. That’s you in the way that Naaz is a role model for lots of young women. I think you are also for a different type of person, but I think without. I don’t know how much of the book we want to give away, but things with Nazz aren’t exactly as they seem. Yeah, but with you it feels like we had this conversation in our last time and I asked you we were talking about an Amazon tribe where they changed their name as they go through different stages in life. And I think I asked you like, what would be your name before your burnout episode, in your name after and before we got to a name, you said, well, I kind of think of it as like performative emo and real emo, and it seems to me that real Emma is kind of running the show to a greater degree than in the past.

Emma Gannon 00:21:29  Yes, 100%. And I think that’s why Noah’s hadn’t hasn’t figured that out in the book yet, because she’s she’s young and she takes everyone else’s advice all the time.

Emma Gannon 00:21:39  Because I think you do go through a phase of that, don’t you, where you’re you feel like you don’t know anything. So you’re learning from everyone. And I do feel like I’m coming to a point in my life where no one knows better than I do on certain things. I’m not saying I know everything. I just mean, like in terms of how I want to run my life. Like I’m the that I’m the expert on that and therefore I consult myself first in everything now. And that is a huge change. And it’s amazing what that does on like a, like a physical level, like my body and my energy and everything totally has changed leaning into that. And I find that fascinating, like just how you can carry yourself in the world can be so different depending on whether you are trusting yourself or not.

Eric Zimmer 00:22:23  It’s interesting because just a few minutes ago, you said that you partly miss the 25 year old that had all the confidence to go out and change everything. And yet I hear you talking about a different type of confidence right now, which is this confidence.

Eric Zimmer 00:22:40  Not that I’m going to put a dent in the universe and all that nonsense. The confidence in I know who I am and I know how to shape my life. So it fits me. And that seems to me the confidence that you haven’t lost confidence. It looks to me like it’s shifted now I’m playing psychologist here, so I probably should step out of that seat. But nonetheless.

Emma Gannon 00:23:00  I love that. I think that’s so true. And but I think it’s changed in terms of like, I believe that whenever we go through a big transformation in life that we have to grieve something and like it sounds really dramatic, but it is grief. It’s like I’m no longer that person and I no longer get to have those things. So I’ve, I’ve stepped into this new confidence of like knowing how to run my life a bit better and that is amazing. But I can no longer do a talk to 100 people on stage. Can’t do it. Sends me into like a panic attack. Need to go home.

Emma Gannon 00:23:31  Can no longer go to like a party and like drink cocktails. Can’t do that anymore. Can no longer, you know, be in a social situation. I don’t want to be in for longer than an hour.

Eric Zimmer 00:23:43  Like, yeah, I see.

Emma Gannon 00:23:44  I feel like there’s there’s kind of loss to that in a weird way, because I used to do all that stuff and really enjoy it. And the new version of me can’t do it, but I say I enjoyed it. I don’t think I did. Deep down.

Eric Zimmer 00:23:56  That’s the interesting, tricky part about all that is. And we talked about this also last time, to what extent do we see what looks attractive? I think we were talking about beautiful people on a beach in Italy, partying and drinking. Right. And and I see it and I’m like, I wish I was there. I want to be there. I want to be one of those people. I want to. And then I, you know, when I have a little bit more reflection.

Eric Zimmer 00:24:17  I’m like, I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t be happy there. Like I don’t fit there, right? I wish I did on maybe some level, but I but I don’t. But I hear what you’re saying about this grieving. I think that with me and drugs and alcohol in the beginning, the only perspective I could take was like, those things are bad. Get them out of here. I need to stop. I was dying. Over time, I’ve begun to become more honest about what I give up in order to live the life the way I do. And I do think there are things that I give up that I don’t have in life. That would be nice to have if I was able to, to do that in some degree of moderation. And so I definitely think there’s a grief and a and I, I also am a big believer that like every stage in life, almost everything that’s happening, you’re just playing a game of trade offs. You’re you’re playing a game of like, this is better, that’s worse, this is better, that’s worse.

Eric Zimmer 00:25:16  And you’re trying in, in, in our minds to do some sort of mental calculus of is this right for me?

Emma Gannon 00:25:23  I think that’s I think that’s so true. And I remember someone saying once that if you drink alcohol, that you and this isn’t even if you’re like addicted necessarily, just if you just have alcohol, you are taking something from the next day because there’s like an energy exchange there where like you’re going to bed later or your body is, you know, has toxins in it. Yeah. your the next day just, just isn’t going to be as good. And I always thought that was interesting because like you say that life is trade offs and that can be an extreme trade off. Or it could be like little trade offs. And I realize now, you know, I can’t even go for like loads of coffees with people who I’d love to go for a coffee with because I’ll be in bed for a week like I might. I just am such a highly sensitive introvert and, you know, realizing that means not drinking and accepting it.

Eric Zimmer 00:26:14  Yeah, I went with my friend. It’s funny, the way the roads sort of in some ways seems too narrow for me. It’s like the vices of just one by one continued to, to shrink down. I was saying to my friend Chris, we go like once a year to the horse races, and last night was the year that we went. And as we were driving down, it was like 7:00 ish. And I said the number of times that, particularly in early sobriety that I had about this hour, would drink a Red bull.

Speaker 4 00:26:43  Right, right. Is is amazing.

Eric Zimmer 00:26:45  Like that would not go well right now.

Speaker 4 00:26:48  Yeah.

Eric Zimmer 00:26:48  And you know, you talk about the, the the gifts and the loss of aging. I mean, that is one of them, right? Is my body just doesn’t withstand being treated poorly in the way it used to. Yeah.

Emma Gannon 00:26:59  Yeah. No, it’s so true. And I’m really into this topic. I feel like, you know, I’ve got so, so much to learn about it.

Emma Gannon 00:27:05  Like, I feel like I’m talking as if I’m like 95. Like I’m fine right now, but at the same time, I know what’s coming and like, what am I? One of my favorite podcasts is actually a podcast about women over 40, talking about menopause and talking about their bodies and talking about things that change. And I just, I like these conversations because I just think, why would you why would you pretend this is not happening? You know, like that’s what life is. Yeah, I agree, so many good things too.

Eric Zimmer 00:27:35  Along the lines of that of women having conversations. There’s a line late in the book where Willow says something and she’s talking about, I think Nas’s she’s talking about her mother, she’s talking about her Aunt Carla, and she says, I feel a strong duty to protect the women I love, even the idea of them women with complexities, with scars who find life difficult and need help. Talk to me about that feeling in you. Do you feel that a duty to protect the women you love? The idea of a complex woman whose multifaceted, good and.

Speaker 4 00:28:14  Bad.

Emma Gannon 00:28:15  Yeah, definitely. And honestly, I wouldn’t say just women like anyone. Complex, complex people, I think I think like everyone’s trying out new identities quite a lot, especially online. Like we have more freedom now to say this is the type of person I am or this is the new Substack I’ve just launched, or this is the new thing I’m into. And I just I think if someone’s trying out something and they are complicated, like, let’s support that and give people a bit of grace, I think I just, I just think we jump to conclusions very quickly about people and about people’s opinions and people’s politics. And I don’t know, I think it’s like the more interesting angle for me, as maybe it’s like a journalistic thing is to be like, oh, maybe that person’s going through something, or maybe they’re trying something out, or like maybe something’s going on there. I think that’s more an interesting thought to have than just like that person’s terrible or that person’s broken or whatever horrible word we want to use.

Eric Zimmer 00:29:15  Yeah, that’s one of the fascinating parts of the book for me was the character Willow being assigned to cover this younger woman as a journalist, and the journalistic way in which NASA’s story slowly comes out. Right in the beginning, there’s no there’s no depth to her, really. Right? She’s just a character of a certain idea. Not a bad idea, but but she’s she’s she’s playing that. But as time goes on, in a true journalistic fashion or in the way that you are saying, like, you just keep peeling layers of the onion on someone and then by the end you’re like, oh, I have a very I have a very complex person here. And I think it’s back to what that earlier line complicated.

Emma Gannon 00:29:57  Yeah. And I, I, I really like that sort of it’s a bit old school, I guess, like in terms of a narrative device, like journalist meets someone and covers what they really like. But those are my favorite types of things to watch. I’ve always been really interested as well in, you know, big interviewers like for the New York Times, and they meet a celebrity, and then they talk about that experience and what they’re really like versus what they appear to be.

Emma Gannon 00:30:22  I’ve always found that really interesting. Figuring out, trying to figure out what someone’s actually like and and also just knowing that that, you know, there’s so much more than the pixels we see. And yes, people can just be very good at presenting themselves. And there’s going to be someone behind the scenes. And I think the person behind the scenes is more interesting.

Eric Zimmer 00:30:44  My version of that, that I love is every time I judge someone, which I think, I think we’re all the same in this I see someone, I form an opinion. It just happens like that. There’s no like, conscious choice. It just happens all of a sudden. I’ve made an opinion and I have an idea of who I think this person is. And I love, love, love. When I’m dead wrong I just love is the process unfolds and then I can stand at one point and look back at what I thought and be like, yeah, you totally missed the mark. Almost always in a good way.

Speaker 4 00:31:21  Yeah, almost.

Eric Zimmer 00:31:22  Always. The person is better than I initially judge them. I don’t know what that says about my initial judgment, perhaps, I don’t know, but they’re almost always a better person and more there’s more depth to them. Yeah, than I thought in the beginning. And I love when I get to have that experience.

Emma Gannon 00:31:38  It’s probably a good way round. Instead of thinking someone’s just great straight away and then realizing.

Speaker 4 00:31:43  Yeah, but yeah.

Emma Gannon 00:31:44  Yeah, but I love that. And I and I do think like I think like like life is really hard for people like in general. Like I’ve touched would haven’t actually had that many things happen to me. But but from talking to people, people have had stuff happen like lives can be really brutal. And I think when you meet someone and they seem a bit strange or they’re a bit jittery or a bit nervous, or they’re a bit this or that or whatever. Like we’re all human and then you figure out what they’ve been through. I just think, yeah, that that has always interested me.

Emma Gannon 00:32:12  And I think with Nars, I wanted to show someone being very good at putting on a front and then realizing what they’ve been through behind the scenes.

Eric Zimmer 00:32:20  Before we dive back into the conversation, let me ask you something. What’s one thing that has been holding you back lately? You know that it’s there. You’ve tried to push past it, but somehow it keeps getting in the way. You’re not alone in this, and I’ve identified six major saboteurs of self-control. Things like autopilot behavior, self-doubt, emotional escapism that quietly derail our best intentions. But here’s the good news you can outsmart them. And I’ve put together a free guide to help you spot these hidden obstacles and give you simple, actionable strategies that you can use to regain control. Download the free guide now at one you And take the first step towards getting back on track. You told us on Substack about your special shelf, and yet I see many, many shelves. What’s going on here? Emma. Oh, this is investigative journalism.

Emma Gannon 00:33:18  So I, I made a shelf within the shelf.

Emma Gannon 00:33:21  Basically, there’s just there’s one shelf on that bookshelf that’s a special one. And I realized, why do I have all my favorites, like, scattered around? I just thought this one shelf I have that I wrote about on Substack, which has maybe about 20 books that really mean a lot to me, just having them all together in a row, like distilled. I guess what I want, what I want for myself as generally as well as a writer, like the quality, the themes, the authors and how much I admire them. And sometimes I get very lost in what I’m trying to achieve. Like, I’ll just be, like, doing it, and then I’ll wake up one day and go, what am I doing again? And I think just looking at that shelf is just such a reminder. And then I think I really recommend anyone do this in terms of like on your desk having like a mood board or a collage or a photo or a post-it note, like, what are you doing this for? And what has always inspired you?

Eric Zimmer 00:34:39  So your special shelf people can go to your Substack, which is called the hyphen, and they can become a subscriber and they can see this.

Eric Zimmer 00:34:46  You’ve got books on it. And as part of that you analyze like their categories, okay, there’s a biography, there’s four novels, there’s three self-help books, five writing guides, five collections of essays and 15 memoir. So that tells us something about the category of book you like, but a level deeper.

Speaker 4 00:35:05  What?

Eric Zimmer 00:35:05  Each book probably means something slightly different to you, but are you able to puzzle out other themes about you based on all the books that are on the shelf, more than just the category they’re in?

Emma Gannon 00:35:18  I think some of the books that are on the shelf are due to how they helped me through a certain time of my, in my life. So yeah, I think a lot of it is reminders like life moves so quickly and you know, there’s like thousands of photos on my iPhone and loads of emails in my inbox. Sometimes it’s just like that book helped me figure something huge out, and I would love to remind myself more often what that thing was that I learned so that I don’t have to keep learning it again.

Emma Gannon 00:35:50  I feel like I go, you know, go round and round in circles, and then I’ll be like, oh, yeah, I figured that one out once. I don’t think it’s going to happen, like it’s just going to stick forever. But just seeing the books all lined up. Yeah, just it just, like, condenses down something for me.

Eric Zimmer 00:36:06  What’s one good lesson from those books on that shelf that you don’t want to forget?

Emma Gannon 00:36:10  It’s really hard to pick one because they’re all so special. I mean, there’s big magic on there by Elizabeth Gilbert. I read that book in 2015. I met Elizabeth Gilbert that year because I went to the book launch, because I was working at a magazine at the time, and I’ve kind of written my version of Big Magic that’s coming out next year or ten, ten years later. you know, very different from that book. But my, my take on creativity and I think seeing that book, because I reread that book every time I start a new project, I listened to it on audiobook and I go on a long walk and I buy it for loads of people.

Emma Gannon 00:36:45  I think it’s just a reminder that, like, again, back to the conversation earlier, like 25 year old me is still there. She knew that I was interested in this topic.

Eric Zimmer 00:36:55  That glancing down was, that I following your thing just this morning? Thought what would be on my secret?

Speaker 4 00:37:03  Oh, yeah.

Eric Zimmer 00:37:03  And as you were, as you were talking, one just landed. I was like, okay, okay, I got to get that one.

Speaker 4 00:37:08  What would be on yours?

Eric Zimmer 00:37:09  Well, before I say what’s on it, here’s a couple of things I noticed. One was like, you, I can find categories. And the main categories seem to be spirituality in sort of a Buddhist eastern lens and novels to a large degree. And the other thing that I found is, at least at first glance, is that many of them, and this is maybe the test of something being on the secret shelf, as it has to have longevity to get there. There are books that came earlier in my life.

Eric Zimmer 00:37:40  There are much fewer books that I’ve discovered recently. Yeah, I think about why that is. I mean, part one of the great parts of my job that also, like any great thing has, it has a downside. I get to read amazing books by amazing authors on a very regular basis. The downside is that that happens with such regularity that it’s, you know, kind of one after the other, after the other, that things don’t stand out in the way that they normally are used to. Right. And I miss that. I also think some of it is ten years of reading these type of books. It’s very rare that I open a book and I read it and I go, oh my God, I never thought like, I never saw that. I never knew that. I never thought of that. I’m not saying I know everything, I’m just saying that I think for me, it’s all about not. And this is what my book is about to a certain degree. It’s not about the big epiphany anymore.

Eric Zimmer 00:38:37  It’s about just the the steady work of integration.

Speaker 4 00:38:40  Well, that’s.

Eric Zimmer 00:38:41  It’s taking what I know and continuing to live it more. However, with all that said, I’ll give you a couple books. One is, from a novel perspective. The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt and, A prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving. And then there’s books like Buddhism, Plain and Simple, which is a book that is about a Zen teacher who wrote years ago. There’s The World Religions by Huston Smith, which I think is one of the best books ever written. If you want to understand the gamut of faith, traditions and what they mean and what they say, it’s just it’s kind of a masterpiece. I do have a couple. Susan Cain’s book, bittersweet from a few years ago.

Speaker 4 00:39:22  And on there. Yeah, I.

Eric Zimmer 00:39:23  Mean, I that book I know quiet is the book she’s most known for and that most people love. I bittersweet was hit me a little bit more. so those are some.

Emma Gannon 00:39:33  Can I ask, do you remember where you were when you read them? Like, do you remember the time in your life or like, can visualize when it was.

Eric Zimmer 00:39:43  Some of them?

Speaker 4 00:39:44  Yes.

Eric Zimmer 00:39:44  For example, another newer novel that’s on there is Demon Copperhead, and I do remember where I read that book. I was in Mexico on vacation with my son and we both got colds, which turned out to be Covid. We didn’t know it at the time, and so I just remember being in my hotel room reading that book. Others, they definitely tied to a time and an era very, very clearly, but not necessarily a moment. But that’s indicative of my memory.

Speaker 4 00:40:14  As a whole.

Emma Gannon 00:40:14  That I think that is the case with the special shelf is like it’s about a feeling, it’s about a connection. And for me, I can remember pretty much where I was when I read each one. And I think that, like you just said, if it stands out to that extent in a sea of books and we both read so many books, and I think that’s important to pay attention to. Like, what do you like, what do you gravitate to? What’s your tastes? I think these are all the questions I have as a writer.

Emma Gannon 00:40:43  Going into my career as it unfolds is like reminding myself, what my standards are and what I like and what I want to be because there’s so many opportunities that come your way sometimes if you’re lucky enough to get them. And sometimes it’s a great opportunity on paper, but it’s like, is it going to get me closer to that special shelf?

Eric Zimmer 00:41:05  Maybe not. Yeah. Interestingly, we have a couple authors in common on the special shelf, but different books. So you’ve got Danny Shapiro on there. I think one of our books about writing, and I have her novel signifiers on there. I do remember that one. it was audiobook, and my partner Ginny and I were in a car listening to it, I remember it. The other one that we share in common, but we have a different person on is. I didn’t mention this one, but you have Hilary Mantel on there for, I believe, her memoir, and I have it on for Wolfe.

Emma Gannon 00:41:39  Oh, I love that. I mean, this is a hard exercise to do because I would put all those books on tape.

Emma Gannon 00:41:46  It’s it’s really hard. That whole like. What’s your favorite book? Sorry, I can’t do that.

Eric Zimmer 00:41:51  Yeah. I’m I’m a little bit concerned that this could become a 25 year project for me.

Emma Gannon 00:41:57  How many have you got on yours at the moment?

Eric Zimmer 00:41:59  0123456789 ten 1112. And that happened in about 20 minutes. You know, I have this dream someday I’m going to go through and like, pick my top 20 albums.

Emma Gannon 00:42:12  Yeah.

Eric Zimmer 00:42:13  But I don’t embark on that because I’m like, okay, that could consume years of my life if I’m not careful.

Emma Gannon 00:42:20  Yeah, well there’s something. Do you listen to Desert Island Discs? I have like a BBC show that is, I think, an exercise I want to do at some point and like, obviously. Yeah, you know, trying to manifest one day being invited on. But until then, just. I’ll make my own list.

Eric Zimmer 00:42:35  Well, I was in your country recently. England on vacation. And when I go somewhere, I try and make a playlist for Ginny and I for that place.

Emma Gannon 00:42:43  I did the same for California in a very standard way.

Eric Zimmer 00:42:46  Yeah, yeah, I went to make a London list because we were in London and we were in Cornwall, and I was like, I’m gonna make a London list. I did spend an inordinate amount of time on it, and I could have spent way more, because the amount of music that’s about London or Made in London or is just mind blowing.

Emma Gannon 00:43:03  I want to, I want to. Would you share the playlist publicly or is it private? Of course I would love to listen.

Eric Zimmer 00:43:09  No, no. Nothing private. Okay, I will, I will. And then I did one for Cornwall, which is more like she sea shanty type things, and then one for the English countryside, which was more like traditional English folk. I spent a lot of time on these, so I went way overboard this time. But I love doing it like that is, I’m in a really happy place when I’m doing that, or when I’m thinking about books to go on the secret shelf, or because it is an excavation of me in a way.

Emma Gannon 00:43:34  Yeah. And you’re adding such a cinematic experience to your trip. You know, listening to those songs while you’re there is just adding to it, I love that.

Eric Zimmer 00:43:41  And then there’s a general rule that I can’t just come back and keep listening to the playlist. Why not? Like, it’s not that. It’s not that it can never be listened to because I want it to anchor me back in that time.

Emma Gannon 00:43:53  But then, can’t you listen to it in your home and relive your memories?

Eric Zimmer 00:43:56  Yeah, yes, I can, but not all. I can’t do it a lot. Okay. Because if I do it a lot, then it starts the memory of what? It’s so. I don’t know if you’ve had this experience, but if I hear a song that I loved that I some, for some reason, haven’t heard in years, it takes me somewhere immediately, even with much more than a book does, a song will do it. But if I’ve listened to that song a hundred times in the intervening time, I mean, I can vaguely recall, oh yeah, that kind of was.

Eric Zimmer 00:44:24  But it doesn’t take me there in the same way it’s been. It’s sort of like seeing an old friend that reminds you of a time in your life versus like a friend that you walk alongside all the time. I have friends that I walk alongside all the time musically, and then I have some that I just kind of like. That old friend, like, takes me back to my these days. And so with the playlist, I try not to over listen to it because I want it to be able to transport me back to that place and that time.

Emma Gannon 00:44:49  That’s really powerful. Yeah. No, I love that.

Eric Zimmer 00:44:52  There’s a phrase that you used. I don’t remember where it came from, but you said at one point you were talking about kind of what you do now in general, and you said, I just love turning life experiences into life lessons. That’s what writing does for you. And I guess my question is, how does that process happen? Is it conscious or are you just like, tell me about how how that actually happens, how a life experience becomes a life lesson in your experience?

Emma Gannon 00:45:23  Well, I think I mean, firstly, it’s not a life lesson that I’m trying to force onto others.

Emma Gannon 00:45:28  It’s like a life lesson for me. And I think that’s why I write. I write a lot privately. I write a lot in my journal. I write a lot on my that’s on my laptop that no one will ever see. I write to process my life and the world around me like I find life really overwhelming. And I think just writing it down has always done something for me since I was like, you know, ten years old. So I think, yeah, like in a, in a smaller way, that’s just what I’m doing. I’m trying to take something that’s happened and kind of put a bow on it a little bit even even if it’s a really bad thing that’s happened to me. I genuinely feel like the perspective of being a writer is really empowering, because you can turn anything into something. There’s a there’s a phrase that’s like, you either have a good experience that’s great, or you have a bad experience that makes a good story. And I, I do believe that.

Emma Gannon 00:46:21  And I think when I wrote my memoir, A Year of Nothing, which I’m rereleasing actually next year in January, I was so burnt out I could not do anything practically for a whole year. And yet I’ve written this book that really didn’t take that much effort, and I’m really proud of it. And it just made me realize that, I don’t know, it feels like this mark of knowing that I am a writer because I can write through anything. It’s not like, oh, I’m a writer because I go to the gym at 6 a.m. and go to my desk. It’s like, no, I’m a writer because I write about the things that happen to me.

Eric Zimmer 00:46:57  That’s a very interesting distinction that I want to come back to that that writer distinction. I want to stay with the process a little bit more. So I know, like you, you follow to some degree Julia Cameron, who I think we we both are sort of friends with her, her morning pages, which is basically you just write, you know, complete stream of consciousness in the morning as you’re doing that.

Eric Zimmer 00:47:22  Are you are ideas popping out? Are you like, oh, I could I could take that and develop it more or like, I’m kind of curious when the lesson and the experience meet. Yeah, I think about this. I’m not good at this, by the way. Natively, I don’t think in the having a life experience and then connecting it consistently to a life lesson. I don’t know why I’m self-reflective. I don’t know why this doesn’t happen easier for me. So I’m intrigued by the process.

Emma Gannon 00:47:51  You know, when I wrote my book, The Success Myth in a bit of a fugue state, because it was like pre burnout and I had a deadline and I was really tired, and I wrote that book in a very unhealthy way. Like, I really pushed myself too hard and paid for it later. And I think the lesson was like trying to come out of me, you know, it was like the writing. And I know Julia Cameron, you know, does believe that to a certain extent, we’re channeling something the book was not really like, consciously, me.

Emma Gannon 00:48:22  It was me. Kind of. It’s going to make me sound bizarre, but like, I like blacked out whilst I was writing that book. Like it. I don’t know where it came from, but it came from somewhere. And then I got to reread it and be like, oh yeah, so I don’t know. The writing process is very mysterious, and I think sometimes we write things and then later we we’re like, oh yeah, I get that now. You know, the penny drops. That’s what happens for me anyway. Like my books are ahead of me in terms of like, psychologically, it takes me a while. Once, once the books come out for all to make sense.

Eric Zimmer 00:48:59  Yeah. Back to that distinction of being a writer. I have now written a book that will be published next year. So on on. By one definition, I am a writer, but on another I don’t think I am. Like I don’t gravitate towards sitting down and writing things down. I think it’s why I why this podcast was what worked well for me was because you just didn’t.

Eric Zimmer 00:49:21  I didn’t have to do that. I think it was still as a vehicle for me to talk about what I think and feel and how I view the world in conversation with somebody. But it wasn’t me just off writing. I’m really intrigued, though, because this book emerged from a program that I’ve taught a bunch of times. So the book was kind of all here already. I think I’m going to do another book, and what I’m sort of excited about is I don’t know where exactly will lead me. That sounds fun.

Emma Gannon 00:49:52  Yeah. I mean did you, did you enjoy writing your book.

Eric Zimmer 00:49:54  Yes and no. I mean there were times that I enjoyed it for sure. Like you, I felt that I really got something from the fact that I could sit down, go through what felt really difficult and emerge with something I felt really good about, like that I could do that. And I think I learned something about my capacity to create that is, there’s more to it than I thought. I can do more of it than I think.

Eric Zimmer 00:50:22  I mean, for example, when we got the book contract, I think it was for 55,000 words, and I went back to my agent, I said, can we negotiate that down to 45,000. I don’t think I have enough to say. I mean, this book was a monster by the time I was done. Even with me trying to cut it all the time, it was like 95,000 words. I was like, okay.

Emma Gannon 00:50:41  Apparently, apparently I have more.

Eric Zimmer 00:50:44  I’ve got more that’ll come out of me than I thought. So yes, I did like many parts of it. The early process of it for me was really, really difficult. The self-doubt was huge. The not knowing quite what the heck I was doing or how to even do it or think about it. I feel like I got better. I feel like the later chapters were much easier for me. I had learned something about writing a book which I had no experience in at all to start. And I think you don’t get good at things.

Eric Zimmer 00:51:17  You just. I mean, yeah, some people have talent, but talent is cultivated, craft is developed, and I haven’t spent my years developing that craft. So I think it took I think it took some time. But yes, I did like writing it. I liked the I like the focused nature of it. Yeah, I also really liked having a place for ideas to kind of go. I don’t know, I don’t know how else to say it, but I would get I would, you know, the book’s obviously turning in my head all the time, and I have an idea and I’m like, oh, that could go there. It doesn’t often, but it could. Normally when I’m out and about and I have an idea, it’s just it’s untethered, I don’t I what do I do with it? Now, the downside to that is now that the book is done, it’s painful because these ideas keep coming. And I’m like, well, I can’t I can’t change, you know, I can’t fix it.

Eric Zimmer 00:52:04  Do you, do you go through that?

Emma Gannon 00:52:05  I do, but I kind of honor the process of that’s that’s what it is. And it has to have an end point. You know, I don’t want to keep tinkering with it for years. I think something just needs to be done. But I always, you know, like this creativity book that I’ve just handed in, I know that I’m going to have more thoughts about creativity, of course. And I know that in like ten years time, I’m going to be much more wise on the topic than I am now. So I just think to myself, I can always write another one, right? I have like a very abundant mindset when it comes to creativity. I don’t think like I need to go back to past projects and I never feel like I’m going to run out. I always feel like I have new ideas. So and also in this world we live in, you know, having my Substack, for example, I have I have somewhere to put all my ideas whenever I want and it’s really exciting.

Eric Zimmer 00:52:54  Yeah, I agree, I do a special episode for people who support the show called Teaching Song, and a poem where I, you know, do a teaching and so on. And that that for me is if I record it as an idea, a teaching or an idea or I don’t necessarily love that word, I don’t know what else to call it. Then I’ve captured it. I’m like, okay, it lives somewhere. Now. I may choose to extrapolate upon it later, but but that’s sort of my version of putting something on Substack. All right. I want to spend a couple of minutes on 36 things I know about myself.

Emma Gannon 00:53:22  Ooh.

Eric Zimmer 00:53:23  As you turn 36. Yeah. One of the early ones I feel like I need to try, which is going to bed at 9 p.m.. Makes me feel like a superhero the next day. What time do you get up if you go to bed at 9 a.m.?

Emma Gannon 00:53:37  About seven. And it’s a lot of sleep.

Eric Zimmer 00:53:39  Okay. What if you went to bed at 11 and got up at nine? Does it have the same effect, or is there something about the nine?

Emma Gannon 00:53:44  I mean, if I’m being completely honest and we we are on this show.

Emma Gannon 00:53:48  Apparently it was when I gave up drinking I because that’s when I would stay up drinking. I’d go to bed at like midnight because I’d be having all my glasses of wine. So it gets to 9 p.m. and I’m like, you know what? I’m kind of done with today? and I’ll just go and read my book and then and then in the morning, I can make my coffee and start another day. And I’m really enjoying the mornings. I like getting up earlier. Now I like, like the ritual that me and my husband have. Like at 7 a.m. we go downstairs, we like have, you know, chats about the world. Like my life has just opened up in different ways. So, you know, back to what we were talking about, about losses and gains. You know, I lose those three hours of, like, drinking or whatever I used to do to numb out in the evenings, and then I gain the next day.

Eric Zimmer 00:54:33  Yeah. I heard somebody saying recently, I think it was semi tongue in cheek, but not completely.

Eric Zimmer 00:54:39  It was a conversation about aging and and one guy was saying that in the last couple of years he had just given up drinking. And so he felt younger all of a sudden because he had, you know, he had stopped doing that. And the lesson they came up with was don’t give up drinking or drugs too early in your life because you won’t get the late career bump from it. And I was like, well. I said, well, that ship has already sailed for me. but I just thought it was. That was funny how, different you can feel. All right. I loved this one. I don’t need to spend the whole day with someone. Even if you’re my best friend. Half a day of socializing is plenty for me, if that.

Emma Gannon 00:55:15  If if that. You know, half a day is quite long as well. I just don’t need, I don’t need a lot of time with someone. I just, I like, I like quality time with someone. but if I’m really close to someone, I can spend the whole day with them, because that will mean, like sitting in silence and doing what we want to do together and not having like, I can’t do like constant talking kind of all day.

Emma Gannon 00:55:40  And I think what’s so nice about getting older is you get to set these parameters, don’t you? You get to say, I don’t like doing that and you don’t have to explain yourself.

Eric Zimmer 00:55:50  So you are married. I can’t recall your husbands anymore. Yeah, nearly. All right. I got the I got the P, and I got the biblical reference. I was, I was, I was in I was in the neighborhood. Paul. So I’m assuming with Paul, you are able to have that some degree of that space while you’re together so that you don’t feel like you need to get away. I know you like to get time away and alone, but you don’t need to feel like I gotta get away from Paul every three hours.

Emma Gannon 00:56:18  No, it’s it’s, you know, one of those lovely kind of relationships, isn’t it? I suppose when you like. I would really struggle without him. He’s like the one person that sort of is just part of the furniture for me. Like, I love being around his energy.

Emma Gannon 00:56:34  There’s no there’s no like, he doesn’t take anything from me. And, you know, we laugh about it because I don’t know if you’ve heard of spoon theory. You know, that theory that people with chronic chronic fatigue, they say, like, how many spoons have you got? And most people have like 12 spoons and people with chronic fatigue have like three spoons. And they have to work out how to spend those spoons. And with Paul, it’s like he doesn’t take my spoons, he gives me spoons, but sometimes it’s neutral spoons like they. And so I can always be around him. And and I also need to go away. Sometimes I could go on my solo trips. I went away for a month last year on my own, because I just wanted to be completely alone for a month for no reason. And I don’t have children, so I can sort of do that. so yeah, I think the spoon thing has been really interesting for me. Like, does that person take my spoons?

Eric Zimmer 00:57:28  That’s a really great analogy.

Eric Zimmer 00:57:30  And there are people who I really do love who I probably think do take spoons. Not not that they’re not that they’re their personality or something about them drains them. It’s maybe just like anything, you know. But that’s what I love about my partner Jenny, is that I’ve never articulated it in that way, but that’s kind of it. She’s the first person ever, and I never I actually never believed this. I would have this that I’m not really wanting to get away from often. That’s a that says something about my previous relationships, probably says something about me also. But like, yes, I do like to be alone and I almost never feel like I crave it because somehow we exist in a space together in a way that it doesn’t. It it doesn’t demand something of me. Yeah.

Emma Gannon 00:58:20  That sucks.

Eric Zimmer 00:58:22  Yeah. It’s just there’s. And I still sort of marvel at it because it seems I feel so fortunate.

Emma Gannon 00:58:28  Yeah. And it is amazing. I mean, I met Paul when I was 22 and I’m 36 now, so we’ve been together like nearly 14 years, and that blows my mind.

Emma Gannon 00:58:38  but I think why I want to go away by myself is because I think it’s really important to remember who you are, kind of on your own. And being away. Being away for a month last year was just really just curiosity for me. I was like, what am I like on my own? What I what restaurants do I go on my own? What, like, you know, how do I feel when I’m on my own? How how do I want to spend my day on my own? And it’s like, if you’ve been in a relationship that long, I don’t get those opportunities, which is lovely. But also I’m curious. I’m curious.

Eric Zimmer 00:59:09  Yeah, my fantasy is and I got this from reading Jack Kerouac when I was like 17. Is that like he went away to like, you know. I don’t think they have these so much, but they used to have fire towers that would be out in the middle of, like some huge wilderness, and you would just be in this fire tower or at the cabin next to it by yourself for like, three months.

Eric Zimmer 00:59:31  Wow. And I’ve always been like, what would that be like? I’m just fascinated by the idea of just me and actually just me in a radically different set of circumstances.

Emma Gannon 00:59:42  Would you ever do that, like go to some sort of island on your own or.

Eric Zimmer 00:59:47  Yeah, I think I would, yeah, I actually think that I would, give that give that a try. I think I will. You know, I also want to do like a month long silent retreat, which I’ll probably do at some point.

Emma Gannon 01:00:00  I’m.

Eric Zimmer 01:00:00  Curious, which has a has a similar feel because of retreat setting is so different than your normal life. What I find is I like Ginny’s going to go away tomorrow and she’s going to be gone a week. But being in my normal household and my normal routine. Doing the normal things that I do is not the same as sort of like you did. Going somewhere totally new and and seeing how how I emerge.

Emma Gannon 01:00:23  Yeah. And the other part of it was when I was away for a month, I came back home with a lot of gratitude.

Emma Gannon 01:00:30  I, I just realized actually how great my, my relationship is and how great my life is. And sometimes you just need. I think it’s really good to have that reminder.

Eric Zimmer 01:00:40  Sometimes me to me to 100%. Like I just realized I always thought of myself as sort of a, to use the analogy, a bit of a lone wolf. And I realized, like, I’m just better as a person in, in nearly every way with Jenny in my life. Like, I just it makes it’s the best version of me emerges. There’s there’s something and that’s just that’s wonderful because I feel like in some of my older relationships, the worst version of me emerged. All right, back to our 36 life lessons. because we are. Oh, actually we are. We are out of time. We’re going to do one more. Sometimes my life isn’t falling apart. I just need to go for a walk and maybe have a biscuit.

Emma Gannon 01:01:21  I stand by that one.

Eric Zimmer 01:01:24  It’s self-explanatory, isn’t it?

Emma Gannon 01:01:26  Yeah, it really is.

Emma Gannon 01:01:28  And it actually harks back to the 9 p.m. because that’s the other. That’s part B. Have a cup of tea and a biscuit. If the world is really falling apart or go to bed early.

Eric Zimmer 01:01:37  Before we wrap up, I want you to think about this. Have you ever ended the day feeling like your choices didn’t quite match the person you wanted to be? Maybe it was autopilot mode or self-doubt that made it harder to stick to your goals. And that’s exactly why I created The Six Saboteurs of Self-control. It’s a free guide to help you recognize the hidden patterns that hold you back and give you simple, effective strategies to break through them. If you’re ready to take back control and start making lasting changes. Download your copy now at once. Let’s make those shifts happen starting today when you feed dot net book. I am struck by how often after a certain time at night, I just don’t feel good. I’m over tired and I’ve learned to just go. I’m tired. I used to call it depression because the two feel very similar to me.

Eric Zimmer 01:02:38  Yeah. And. Yeah. And so for me, it’s just like, okay, you’ve kind of I love the spoons thing. I’m going to be thinking about that because like, I’m out of spoons at that point.

Emma Gannon 01:02:48  Yeah. And it’s just reality. It’s just facts. Like there’s no need to I don’t overthink it. I don’t analyze myself. I’m not like, why? Why am I out of spoons and I shouldn’t be out of spoons. That’s a big one. I shouldn’t be this person. I should be the person in Italy with the cocktails. I shouldn’t be this person in bed at 9 p.m.. And the minute I just go, I’m out of spoons. That’s what my body is saying. And I’m going to protect myself and take myself to bed.

Eric Zimmer 01:03:13  Great life advice. Let’s wrap it up there. Emma, thank you so much.

Emma Gannon 01:03:16  Thank you so much.

Eric Zimmer 01:03:17  Your Substack called The Hyphen, is really wonderful. listeners can go there. And your book table for one is a lovely, hope filled but still psychologically complex and interesting novel.

Eric Zimmer 01:03:29  So thank you.

Emma Gannon 01:03:30  Thank you so much.

Eric Zimmer 01:03:31  Thank you so much for listening to the show. If you found this conversation helpful, inspiring, or thought provoking, I’d love for you to share it with a friend. Share it from one person to another is the lifeblood of what we do. We don’t have a big budget, and I’m certainly not a celebrity. But we have something even better. And that’s you just hit the share button on your podcast app, or send a quick text with the episode link to someone who might enjoy it. Your support means the world, and together we can spread wisdom one episode at a time. Thank you for being part of the One You Feed community.