Discovering Yourself In Tragedy: Steph Catudal On Love, Grief, Healing & Finding Meaning in Life’s Profound Moments

Your darkest moments will either break you beyond repair—or make you stronger. This was the choice faced by Steph Catudal as she navigated mortality, motherhood, and the search for self while her husband—beloved ultra-runner Tommy Rivs—battled a rare form of lung cancer that nearly took his life. Beautiful and heart-wrenching, Steph relates the intimacies of this experience in her New York Times bestselling memoir, Everything All At Once—an arresting, must-read perspective on trauma, rebellion, faith, tragedy and the painful struggle to identify one’s place in the world. If you count yourself among the millions deeply impacted by Tommy Rivs’ brush with death and return to life—one of the most beloved episodes the history of this podcast—then today’s conversation is non-negotiable. This is a conversation about the big things in life: trauma, death, grief, pain, identity and faith. An artist with words, Steph shares the details of her complicated upbringing, the loss of faith that catalyzed a decade of rebellion, her journey with substance abuse, and the experience of very nearly losing her husband Tommy—juxtaposed agains the mirrored trauma of losing her father to lung cancer during her adolescence. This is about seeing healing as a never-ending journey—and the importance of assigning meaning to life’s profound moments. It’s also about how to cultivate gratitude—how to recognize love and beauty amid tragedy, while also holding space for pain, anger, and sorrow. In other words, how to allow everything all at once. I was very moved by Steph’s vulnerability—and the power with which she owns her story. May you find this conversation equally impactful. Show notes + MORE Watch on YouTube Newsletter Sign-Up Today’s Sponsors: On: On.com Momentous: LiveMomentous.com/RICHROLL BetterHelp: BetterHelp.com/RICHROLL Babbel: Babbel.com/RICHROLL Squarespace: Squarespace.com/RICHROLL Seed: Seed.com/RICHROLL Plant Power Meal Planner: https://meals.richroll.com Peace + Plants, Rich Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Rich Roll?

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• 0:44Rich Roll?

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• 1:04Speaker 01

  Healing is an unending process, and that's okay. You're not alone. You can come back from anything. You know, you can hit rock bottom and still make something beautiful out of it. We are given a choice in those dark moments, in the moments of tragedy. Will you choose to allow it to make you stronger, or will you choose to allow it to break you beyond repair?

• 1:29Rich Roll?

  One of the most beloved guests in the history of this podcast is ultra-runner Tommy Rives. What he learned from a near-fatal brush with a rare form of lung cancer and his remarkable return to both life and sport has and continues to touch millions of people.

• 1:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, just stoked that I'm just still around, you know?

• 1:49Rich Roll?

  If you count yourself among those impacted by his powerful story, so beautifully told, then you are gonna love Steph Kochdahl, an equally soulful, gifted writer who shares her life and the experience of almost losing her husband Tommy in her stunning and very intimate New York Times bestselling memoir, Everything All at Once. This conversation is really about all the big things. It's about trauma, and grief, and suffering. It's about faith. It's about rebellion. But it's also about how to recognize gratitude, love, and beauty amid the tragedy.

• 2:26Rich Roll?

  While also holding space for emotions like pain, anger, and sorrow. In other words, how to allow everything all at once. I was very moved by Steph's book. Her openness and vulnerability in this conversation is powerful. I think you'll find it quite impactful. And it's all coming up. So here we go. This is me and Steph Kochdahl.

• 2:55Rich Roll?

  Steph, it's so nice to meet you. I've been looking forward to this for such a long time. So, welcome to the show. I can't wait to get into your life. This fantastic new book that is now a New York Times bestseller. Congratulations.

• 3:06Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 3:08Rich Roll?

  Everything All at Once. The process of writing it, I'm interested in what that was like for you. And if you had any additional sort of discoveries about yourself in life as a result of doing that, that perhaps you wouldn't have had short of the writing itself.

• 3:26Speaker 01

  Yeah. Writing this book was really, really difficult for me. I had to heal, well, it's an ongoing process. I was healing from the trauma of what happened to me in real time as I was writing. So I think that's why the book is so raw. And because I was still in that emotionally raw state when I was writing it. I was deeply depressed when I was writing it as well. I feel like it was the come down from this post-traumatic stress, you know, experience that I was having. And I think that comes out in the pages. And even when I read it now, I can't access that same depth of emotion.

• 4:06Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 4:06Speaker 01

  And I think I had to write it in that state for it to be as true as it was when I was writing it.

• 4:14Rich Roll?

  Yeah. I would suspect five years from now, 10 years from now, you may reflect back on it and have a different relationship with it or experience. And I think The process of then putting a book out into the world means that you sit down with people like me and you talk a lot about what's in the book. And I think that in and of itself then continues to inform your own kind of journey of self-understanding. Like, it will continue to reveal newer and newer layers of that.

• 4:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, what I'm, one of the most important things that I'm learning and learned throughout writing the book is is that healing is never-ending. It's an unending process and that's okay. And, and there's no finality in my book because I was realizing there's no finality to grief. Or, and, and I'm sure I'll look back on this book, like you said, in five and 10 years and kind of look back on myself with almost like a childlike fondness, you know, that I was, that I was so new in my healing.

• 5:18Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 5:19Speaker 01

  And I think that's a beautiful thing to accept that we're just all on this healing journey. And there's no, there's no final destination, you know, it's just ongoing.

• 5:28Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I think it's a beautiful and healthy response to it. This book is actually an extrapolation of an earlier book that you were writing about you confronting and, and making peace with and healing the experience of losing your father to lung cancer. A story that you thought was complete at the time and it was only through what happened with Riz that you realized, like, that was just, you know, sort of pre-intermission, right? And the story still had, had, you know, much to tell you. I think if you had put that book out prior, you would have missed the magic and all the messiness and the pain, of course, of what you, of what you experienced

• 6:13Rich Roll?

  that now gives you kind of a gravitas to share from a new level. And the narrative of the book is structured such that you toggle back and forth between that original story, which is kind of a linear chronology of your life, peppered in between with chapters about what is going on with Riz and how that reflects upon experiences you had as a younger person.

• 6:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, that first half of the book, so all of the even chapters are the roughly the book that I wrote from one the past decade. And I actually finished that version of the book and I called it, This is Where I Leave You. Because I actually thought that I was leaving my grief behind, that that grief was something that could be left behind. And I felt like as though I had finished grieving the death of my father, which now to me is just really interesting or even comical that I thought that you can finish grieving. And when Rives got sick, that narrative obviously got cracked wide open. And one of the most impactful things that I learned about myself is that

• 7:21Speaker 01

  I hadn't finished grieving the death of my father, because you never finish grieving. And, and in order to truly accept the wholeness of myself, I had to accept that that void left by my father's death would always be there. And, and that's okay. And, and then it became, what tools do you use to, to fill that void that are not self-destructive? And that's, that's the journey I'm on now currently. I'm still real time. I'm, that's where I'm at, because I, I learned that to accept that, that hole or that void inside of me. And now I'm trying to figure out ways to, to not fill it, but to just deal with

• 8:03Speaker 01

  it in, in, in more productive ways.

• 8:07Rich Roll?

  Yeah. You're a seeker. You know, you're somebody who at a very early age was looking for answers in lots of different ways, not all, not always so healthy, right? You know, ran away from home at 16. There's drugs and alcohol involved. You grappling with your relationship to being raised Mormon and what does spirituality mean? What does prayer mean? Things like this.

• 8:30Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 8:30Rich Roll?

  You were always looking for answers. And I think part of this narrative is that

• 8:39Rich Roll?

  You're running away in the searching, right? You think you're running towards answers, but you're actually running away from what's right in front of you, which is confronting the truth of your father's passing and what that meant to you and how that affected you. And trying to figure out, you know, what does God mean? And what is my purpose? And all these sort of unprogramming, you know, some of the dogma that was instilled in you from a religious perspective as a young person. And it required what happened to RIVS in order for you to stop because you couldn't turn away

• 9:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:17Rich Roll?

  for the first time in your life. And you had to confront it. And it's just fucking crazy because your dad passes from lung cancer and then RIVS gets lung cancer. I mean, you cannot script this or make this up.

• 9:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:31Rich Roll?

  It's like this insane, like, collision of, you know, truth that the universe conspired to put in your path in order for your own self-discovery and growth.

• 9:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, there's a part in my book where we, I think it'd been two days since we got RIVS's final diagnosis, which was the lung cancer. And I was with my sister and we were just floating in an Airbnb pool, kind of in this purgatory of waiting for me to be able to visit RIVS in the hospital. And I said the words aloud. I said, "My husband has fucking lung cancer." And we just laughed and laughed and laughed. It was just this cathartic, just recognizing this cruel irony that, like you said, just almost like the universe just shaking me, saying, "You need to learn this lesson." And I don't necessarily think that things happen for a reason. I don't like to think that my dad died for a reason or that RIVS got sick for a reason.

• 10:31Speaker 01

  I think that's dangerous territory for me personally. But looking back, I can assign meaning to what happened for my own self.

• 10:40Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that's a choice.

• 10:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's the choice I made was to say, my dad died. That was just purely tragic, but from his passing and from the response that his grief made me feel in the ways that I acted, taught me better and equipped me to better deal with my husband's diagnosis. And then my husband's diagnosis, in turn, in the cyclical nature, helped me heal from my father's passing.

• 11:09Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 11:10Speaker 01

  And so it was this in very, very, it felt like this cosmic. I felt like I was on a train and everything that was happening during that year and a half was a stop that I was supposed to get off at and then get back on the train. That's how it felt.

• 11:25Rich Roll?

  Right, with the question, where is the opportunity for my own personal evolution and all of this in the midst of the chaos and the pain and everything else?

• 11:34Speaker 01

  And I think also what we talked about, me searching for, for answers and searching for meaning, I, during my adolescence and everything, in the wake of my father's death, what I came to find was that I had been searching outside myself for this placation or for the answers. I mean, of course, but, and especially because I was raised Mormon. And so I was taught that power lives outside of us, that we submit to the power. And I think that's good in some ways because it brings humility and, you know, lessening of the ego. But, but what I found was that I held the power inside of me and that I could find the healing and it wasn't an outside source. It was, it was innate in me.

• 12:19Speaker 01

  I was born with that power and it was just learning how to access it. And it was love that taught me that.

• 12:27Rich Roll?

  Yeah, the first stop being Mormonism and the final stop on that train tour being RIVS, thinking that the answers that you were seeking could be found in this relationship with this extraordinary human being. And not until the kind of frailness, you know, of his physical self became evident, were you able to understand that he was not your solution either, right? That it was, it's between you and you.

• 12:57Speaker 01

  Yeah. And that was, that was a really sad reckoning because it wasn't until he was sedated and in a coma, essentially, that I realized that I had been blaming him for a lot of my deficiencies because he didn't heal me. He didn't make me whole. Therefore, there was something wrong with him. And I only, as I was sitting by his bed, was I realizing how many, how many moments and events I had blamed him for when it was really all my responsibility. My happiness was only mine. He couldn't give me that happiness, that wholeness. And I had been blaming him. And, and part of this urgency of wanting him to wake up was for me to apologize for saying, I'm sorry, I expected you to heal

• 13:40Speaker 01

  me. What an untenable demand, you know, like how? But I think a lot of us do that. And I think that came from the wound of my father's death of this, of this, you know, feeling like you need to stay here because you're going to replace my dad, you know?

• 13:56Rich Roll?

  Right. And thinking that you had resolved that grief and overcome that trauma only to discover that you hadn't, right?

• 14:04Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 14:04Rich Roll?

  I've been thinking a lot about that. That's beautifully said. And I, again, I made some notes that I, that I want to share, so I'm going to refer to them. I was thinking about what you just said, and also reflecting on a recent personal experience that I had. And I posted this thing on social media yesterday about trauma. And I said, I'm convinced that one of, if not the most important keys to living well, requires redress and healing of past or childhood traumas. Basically arresting the dysfunctional behaviors that we've inherited by our ancestry that recur unconsciously and reactively. Adopting new healthier ways of living and instilling these more adaptive patterns

• 14:46Rich Roll?

  as default settings in the next generation is a most worthy and esteemable pursuit and the path to freedom. And as I think about your story and thinking about the many ways in which you were kind of running away from yourself and your pain through religion, prayer, geographics, drugs, you're dabbling with sobriety and AA and psychedelics. But the truth and ultimately the lie is that this solace that you end up experiencing and believing that everything you were looking for, you end up finding in rips, right? This empath, to use your own phrase, this very sensitive human being,

• 15:29Rich Roll?

  who's kind of like, from an outsider's perspective, almost like a Bodhisattva-like figure. You know, he's incredibly charismatic, he's larger than life, he's very strong and seemingly invincible, this protector. But he also exudes this really beautiful quality of love and benevolence and kindness that ends up not just comforting you, but comforting a lot of people. But that is very bright sunlight, right? That ends up, that power ends up eclipsing your own power and ultimately works at cross purposes with your own growth. It prevents and delays you from confronting yourself, confronting your past. It arrests your healing, it keeps you disconnected.

• 16:14Rich Roll?

  And you can choose to believe or perceive in this whole experience that on some level...

• 16:27Rich Roll?

  His disease is this gift that he's giving you for your own evolution. Because finally, like I said earlier, you can't, for the first time, you can't run away. You're compelled to confront your past and heal it and ultimately become whole. And in the telling of this story in this book, you are passing this on. You're not only passing it on in the way that you're parenting your daughters so that they don't sort of inherit the same behavior response to trauma that you did, but by sharing it with your words, you have this vehicle to empower other people, which is just, you know, like, that's it, man. Like, that's the shit, right? That's what we're here to do. We're here to grow, evolve, and then share what we learned along the way.

• 17:09Speaker 01

  Yeah. It's still a daily practice, though. It's not as though I figured it out because I wrote this book and therefore I am now healed from codependency and, you know, all of these things. But I still have to make a conscious choice to not let the trauma child inside me act out because she's still there. We never get rid of our trauma selves, I don't think. But accepting and recognizing that that's what's causing us to act out in certain ways is liberating for me because then I can, I can feel her yelling and being insecure. And then I can recognize her rather than just pretend it's someone else's problem.

• 17:54Speaker 01

  And, and so that's, that's a daily practice that I'm trying to work at, is hearing my trauma self and then acting in a way that's not blaming or destructive.

• 18:06Rich Roll?

  But that's part of everything, you know, all at once, right? It's the, it's the full spectrum of emotions and learning how to be in a place of self-acceptance with those rather than trying to hold yourself up to some perfectionist standard of how you're supposed to respond to a difficult situation.

• 18:23Speaker 01

  Absolutely. And not fighting against it. I think I felt, I, I tried so hard in my whole life to fight against depression, fight against anxiety, to, to battle it and push it away. And it isn't until I'm beginning now to just allow it and accept it and almost make it my friend and, and my teacher and my companion, that I'm able to move forward rather than staying stuck in the same patterns.

• 18:47Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 18:48Speaker 01

  And

• 18:48Rich Roll?

  That might have come across in some of those AA meetings you went to when you were in your early twenties or whatever.

• 18:55Rich Roll?

  Surrender.

• 18:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, surrender. I mean, but that's the thing is, and also what I'm learning is that truth is found everywhere. You know, truth is found in the Mormon religion and in AA and in psychedelics. It's found everywhere. It's just you find your avenue that resonates most with you. And but we're all saying the same thing. We're all saying the same thing, you know, and and I think that's, that's beautiful when you can recognize that we're all just little trauma kids trying to, trying to heal in this life.

• 19:24Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's, your story is unique to you, and yet it's kind of the oldest story. It's like, I ran around the world looking for answers, only to arrive back home and realize that they were within me all the time.

• 19:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, it is. And that's what it's, I feel like pain is universal, but we experience it so personally, and it feels so personal to us. And part of the reason I wrote this book was, I wanted people to know that you're not alone. Like, I gave every greedy detail to let people know that whatever they're doing to cope with their, their tragedy or their trauma, that if, if they could use it as a vehicle to self-improvement, then you can come back from anything, you know, you can hit rock bottom, like I more or less did, and, and still make something beautiful out of it.

• 20:14Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm. It's one thing to, you know, navigate the challenges of a loved one who's succumbing to cancer. And it's another thing entirely to do that under the public eye. Like, you're both, you and your husband are both people who are well-known. And I'm wondering how that impacted how you were dealing with it privately, and then realizing, like, there's a public out there that wants to be apprised of what's happening moment by moment, and the tension between trying to protect your family and, and, you know, navigate a very personal thing. With the demands of people that are in some kind of parasocial relationship with you that you've never met.

• 20:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, and I think that was heightened by the fact that it was COVID. So everyone was isolated and lonely and living virtually. So everyone was in these parasocial relationships at the time. And so I think that just heightened and intensified the connection people felt with our story.

• 21:17Speaker 01

  There was, it was double edged, I would say, for on one hand, the, the love and support that we got from people around the world really was a saving grace. It really did make me feel far less lonely in a very lonely time when I was quarantining and away from my friends.

• 21:35Speaker 01

  And at the same time, there was this, this expectation that, that their, their love bought a ticket to our lives. And, and I wasn't willing to share everything because some things were too sacred to share. And also RIVS is a very, very private person. And I knew, even though he was unconscious, I knew he wouldn't want me to be taking pictures and sharing them online. I never once took, shared a picture of him sick. I knew that when, and if he woke up, he could tell the story how he wanted to. And that's why I chose to tell it only from my emotional self. I didn't really give many medical updates. I mostly gave emotional updates because that felt, that felt respectful.

• 22:15Rich Roll?

  Right. And the writing that you share on Instagram predates RIVS illness. I mean, this is something you've been doing for a long time. And, you know, there's lots of people out there who fell in love with you simply for your way with words. So the book in many ways is just an extrapolation of that talent. It was only a matter of time before you wrote a book, whatever it was going to be about.

• 22:39Speaker 01

  I was already writing one, but yeah.

• 22:41Rich Roll?

  Yeah. And, and, and there's a, you know, there's a, a Zen koan like sort of flair to some of your posts, but they're always very sort of layered and deep and thoughtful and honest. But I'm wondering, you know, I think there's this. Before Rives got sick, there's this sort of perception of an idealized life, right? He's got this extraordinary physique. He's super handsome. He's just an athletic machine. You're very beautiful. You have these beautiful daughters. And the projection is one of, maybe not perfection, but an aspirational life.

• 23:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:20Rich Roll?

  And then suddenly, you know, that crashes into a wall and you're faced with, you know, I don't know if this is anything you even think about, but I'm just wondering, you know, as somebody, as an outsider looking in, like, wow, people are projecting onto you a version of your life that isn't reality.

• 23:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:37Rich Roll?

  Then do you feel a responsibility to disabuse people of that? Or to try to communicate with people in a way that still is providing them with something like teachable moments or something aspirational out of what you are enduring in real time?

• 23:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, the truth is, the couple of years before Rives got sick were probably some of the hardest years for us personally and in our marriage. He was injured in the Houston Marathon. He, so he couldn't run. And when Rives can't run, he gets very dark.

• 24:11Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 24:11Speaker 01

  And, and as, I mean, we're just a normal married couple. We got married when I was 22 years old and he was 23. We were just babies. And so we had to learn to grow up together. And we did not do it perfectly. And I think people have this idea that we've figured it out because he's able to, he was able to, you know, reach his goal of being a career athlete. And I was able to reach my goal of being a writer. But it did not come without many struggles and many fights and many resentments that we still work through now.

• 24:46Speaker 01

  And so to hear people say that, you know, we seem like we're the ideal couple or that we're couple goals. We hate, we cringe when people say couple goals only because we're not, we're definitely not. Like we've, but what we do well is we encourage each other's independence. And we've always done that. And I think that for us is really important because we are both very lone wolf, independent people. And I think that's what brought us together in the first place.

• 25:16Speaker 01

  But I never felt a sense of duty to the public to...

• 25:22Speaker 01

  To give off any particular, I don't know, like, image of who we were. I just, I'm sorry if we gave off the image that we were perfect because we're definitely not.

• 25:33Rich Roll?

  No, I'm not saying it was intentional on your part.

• 25:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 25:36Rich Roll?

  But I think it's easy to sort of like extrapolate from that.

• 25:40Speaker 01

  Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. And Riz especially really, really doesn't like that. I, I'm very passive. Like, I don't dwell on, on things as much as he does. He is definitely a deep, deep thinker, as you know. And, and he's always thinking about what will people garner from this? And, and so we're trying to now kind of deconstruct the notion that, that we are this, I don't know, perfect couple that have it figured out.

• 26:11Rich Roll?

  On an almost sort of mythic level, though, when I think about Riz and, you know, to your point of him being this empath and being a very sensitive person. And even you write about this in the book, the fact that he, you know, he needs to go out into nature and, and engage with solitude so that he can ground himself and, you know, process like all the energy that he takes on from, from everyone around him. It's almost like he's a, he's a cleanser for others, right?

• 26:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:39Rich Roll?

  And I can't help but think, like, in this sort of archetypal way, you know, the illness, the illness that, that, that he got, like, is, was this because, like, he reached his max in his ability to kind of

• 26:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:57Rich Roll?

  process, you know, other people's toxicity? And he was, he was doing it, you know, in a selfless way for others?

• 27:03Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, he always talks about it as a gift and a curse, and mostly a curse, that his ability to absorb other people's emotions. Because to the person that he's helping, obviously it's a gift, but he doesn't know how to metabolize that emotion other than running. And so when he doesn't get to run, again, it just sits in him and he always says, I feel like I'm rotting. And

• 27:29Speaker 01

  And I think that's really, really heavy for him. And, and then to be partnered with someone like that, you, you do need to understand their need to be alone for hours and hours at a time. And that was part of my learning experience as a 22 year old newly married to say, why does my husband want to be gone six or seven hours a day? And it took me a long time to realize that that, he needs that because he is, like you said, this archetypal figure that he is quite literally healing himself and others. And when he got sick, I, I felt this acute just realization that the sickness was not purely pathological.

• 28:09Speaker 01

  There was an element of the, the stress and the emotion that he had been absorbing was, was making him sick and his inability to run was causing that. And I, I don't know, I'm not saying with certitude that, you know, stress made, gave him cancer, but I think there was a component to that. And so a lot of times when he was in the coma, I would try to tell him as best I could to just let it go, just to release what he could because it wasn't his to bear. And I think that was all part of his healing.

• 28:43Rich Roll?

  Yeah, the healing being multifaceted. On the one hand, you know, what is the opportunity for him, right? Perhaps there are other ways for him to process all of this outside of running and there's an opportunity for him to explore some other modalities. There's an opportunity for him to figure out how to have some healthy boundaries. So he's not, you know, in this osmosis where he's just, you know, like a sponge for everybody else's bullshit.

• 29:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 29:15Rich Roll?

  You know, I think there's something interesting there, you know?

• 29:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:18Rich Roll?

  And that, that's probably really uncomfortable for him, I would think. Cause like running is, you know?

• 29:23Speaker 01

  Well, especially now that he can't.

• 29:25Rich Roll?

  And he can't do, yeah, he can't. So he's, he's, he's now he can't run away from this. And he has to figure out other ways.

• 29:32Speaker 01

  Yeah. And that's, I mean, he still does go out for, you know, a couple of hours a day, but it's not the same. He can't, there's not that catharsis of just. Endless, like just rigorous miles and glycogen depletion and all of that. So he's, yeah, we're both figuring out these new selves that we find ourselves in. The post illness. So, and we're also getting to know each other in that way, you know? We're both very different people now, so.

• 29:58Rich Roll?

  Yeah, who is he without being a professional runner? And yeah, you have to, you have to redefine what those roles look like and how you're interacting with each other.

• 30:07Speaker 01

  And learning how to just be, which for both of us is very hard.

• 30:13Speaker 01

  You know, just to be, and I think that.

• 30:14Rich Roll?

  It's the worst.

• 30:15Speaker 01

  I'm, we're both, he especially, and, and in reading your book, you and RIVS are quite similar in, in a lot of ways. In, in self-discipline, self-determination, extremism. And, and he has a hard time not pushing the limits and not just having a goal and reaching the goal. And then what's the next goal? And so we're realizing that one of the hardest parts of being alive is to just be. And that doesn't mean being stagnant and just sitting around and doing nothing, but feeling fulfilled being. And, and I, that's, that's where we're, what I'm trying to do right now is this book didn't make me happier.

• 30:58Speaker 01

  You know, and, and I think in some part of my mind, I thought that reaching this goal would make me happier. And, and realizing that accomplishments don't do much, but stroke our egos, you know? And then we're left with that kind of not crash, but just realizing, okay, I'm still me. I'm still a mom, I'm still, you know, I'm still Steph with all of my problems and issues, even though I accomplished this goal. And so my next goal is just be. It's a hard one.

• 31:31Rich Roll?

  To be goalless.

• 31:32Speaker 01

  To be goalless, yeah.

• 31:33Rich Roll?

  That's terrifying.

• 31:34Speaker 01

  It is, and for RIVS too. And, and we're both in the same place where we're just really trying to just be. It's hard.

• 31:42Rich Roll?

  I had my friend Light Watkins on the podcast the other day, he's a meditation teacher, and he said something along the lines of, you know, the happiness that you will experience when you summit Everest is the happiness that you brought to the summit, right?

• 31:56Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 31:57Rich Roll?

  It's not gonna change, right? Like, that's between you and you, outside of any kind of externalities.

• 32:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:03Rich Roll?

  And that's, that is the Mount Everest to climb, right?

• 32:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 32:07Rich Roll?

  The whole thing.

• 32:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:09Rich Roll?

  How is, I mean, how is his health now? How is he doing?

• 32:12Speaker 01

  He's good, yeah. I mean, other than the lung damage, which is what more or less irreparable. I mean, I think they can have, see small improvements, but he basically has COPD from the tumor damage. But he's doing what he can and, and he's healthy, he's cancer-free. So that's all we can ask for, you know? Yeah.

• 32:37Rich Roll?

  I want to go back and explore your background a little bit and your kind of relationship with religion and spirituality. Growing up in a Mormon household and being this sort of rebellious youth, like, walk me through the salient aspects of that.

• 32:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I was raised in the LDS religion. My mom had converted when she was 14 years old and met and married my dad, who was not Mormon, which in itself is kind of an anomaly, was, if you know Mormons, you know that you're, you're taught to more, to marry other Mormons. But, so I was already raised in a household that wasn't 100% culturally Mormon, or, or even genetically Mormon, you know? And still, I had this firm belief in, in the faith. And when my father got sick, I truly believed that my faith could heal him, that if I prayed enough and that if I was obedient enough, that he would be healed, because that's what

• 33:36Speaker 01

  I was taught, both, like, really overtly, actually. If you have a perfect faith, miracles will be granted. And so when that didn't happen, when my father finally passed away a few days after my 14th birthday, I completely dispelled any notion of not only religion, but of spirituality and inspiration and any notion of hope, because I felt so deeply betrayed by those notions. And, and so if God and faith weren't real, then nothing was. And so I could do whatever I want. And, and, and so I, I drank, I think I was four days after my 14th birthday and I got drunk at a house party and I cried.

• 34:21Speaker 01

  I spent the night crying under a dining room table. It was, my big brother brought me home. And, and I feel like that was it. And I didn't ever realize that I was drinking because I was grieving. I really thought I was just making a normal teenage decision.

• 34:39Speaker 01

  It really took me maybe five or six years to realize that the path I was on, the destructive path I was on, maybe was a result of my father's death. And that's how, how disconnected I was from myself.

• 34:51Rich Roll?

  Right, you're unconsciously reacting and responding to this trauma without really understanding why you're doing what you're doing and thinking it's for other reasons. This is the, this is the point. This lives within you. It's an entity until you heal it.

• 35:07Speaker 01

  Yep, yep, absolutely. And so I, I went down, I kept, I also feel as though, and again, this is something I read in your book, which I appreciated, that there was something bigger than myself always looking out for me. And even though I didn't believe in that thing, I could have, should have been dead or in jail or, you know, so many things should have happened to me that didn't. And I felt like there was always something stopping me from going over, pushing the limit, just that last little bit. And and now I wonder if that was my dad, which was something I would have never, ever even entertained that thought up until Ribs got sick.

• 35:51Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 35:53Speaker 01

  And I don't know. I still don't know, but I wonder.

• 35:56Rich Roll?

  Was there a conscious impulse to like numb the pain? Or was this just, I'm partying like everyone else? And or was there a sensibility of of searching for some kind of answers that would replace that fall from grace that you had with Mormonism?

• 36:15Speaker 01

  I think it was this feedback loop where I I drank because I wanted to, because I was angry and I wanted to feel. And it was only when I was drunk was the only time I allowed myself to cry. And it was the only time that I kind of allowed myself to feel anything at all. And so I was doing it, but then I was feeling guilty because I was raised Mormon and raised to believe that, you know, any kind of drinking or any kind of partying was a sin. And then that made me feel guilty. So then I would drink more because I felt guilty. And so I was just in this just downward spiral and obviously none of it worked.

• 36:54Rich Roll?

  Yeah. And when you were able to emote when you were under the influence, like, I'm curious about what the relationship in your household growing up as a kid was with kind of sharing your emotions openly. I mean, how was that?

• 37:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, we didn't do that.

• 37:09Rich Roll?

  Yeah, not a lot of that, right?

• 37:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, we didn't really do that. I mean,

• 37:13Rich Roll?

  Shocking.

• 37:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, and I talk to my mom about it now, who, you know, I portray her in this book as this British Stoic, which she was. She was very, very stoic and beautifully so. I think that her strength and her lack of showing emotion actually just carried us through. And then it was our responsibility later to learn how to grieve. And and I feel like for me, that was the perfect way to do it. I know that people could say, yeah, you weren't able to show your emotions. It wasn't that we weren't able to. It's just we didn't know how.

• 37:50Rich Roll?

  And when your father passed away, how was that explained to you by your mother? And and what is the emotional residue of that experience?

• 38:00Speaker 01

  She, we didn't ever talk. We didn't talk about it. We didn't talk about it was, you know, I came home. He had passed away while I was out at Walmart. And, you know, she looked at me, said dad died. We were expecting it. It wasn't a shock. And, and that was kind of, that was that.

• 38:17Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 38:18Speaker 01

  You know, there was no, there was, and I think now, and this is one of the wonderful parts of writing this book, is I realized why she did that. And because talking to your children about grief is an impossible task and one that I was having to confront. And it wasn't until I had to confront it for myself that I realized that she did it perfectly because there's no way to do it. You're grieving and you're trying to tenure the pain of your own children. It's impossible. And you do whatever you do, and that's the right way to do it.

• 38:53Rich Roll?

  Right. It's another example of the universe lining up to, you know, infer an opportunity out of this. Dad lung cancer, Riv's lung cancer. This is how my mom dealt with it and communicated to me when I was a kid. Now I'm in that position and I have this very difficult choice and I now appreciate more deeply how difficult it was for my mother. So I can forgive her, have more empathy for her, maybe make different choices, but heal whatever wounding existed over the way in which she parented you and communicated with you.

• 39:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely. And that, I didn't actually realize the depth of that healing until I was writing the book. And, and a lot of times, writing is how I make sense of the world. And it wasn't until I was writing all that she did for me and the parallels between our lives at really around the same age, when my dad was sick, she was quite young too. And, and it was just kind of this aha moment that, oh my goodness, I am in my mother's position and I am. Doing pretty much the same thing that she did. I'm not able to talk to my kids very well about the possibility that RIVS might die because I don't know how to say these words to them. It's impossible. And I did show more emotion to my kids.

• 40:13Speaker 01

  But again, I don't think I did it perfectly. I'm sure in 10 years, they're going to turn around and criticize the way that I led them through that tragedy and I'm expecting it.

• 40:22Rich Roll?

  It's rigged that way.

• 40:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, it is.

• 40:24Rich Roll?

  It wouldn't matter, whatever choice you made, they're going to have their issues with it and they can talk to their therapist about it.

• 40:29Speaker 01

  Write a book about it.

• 40:30Rich Roll?

  You know what I mean? And be mad about how you didn't do X, Y, or Z. And that's the way it should be, right? This is how the species evolves.

• 40:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:39Rich Roll?

  But it is, again, one of those dualities. Like you want to be strong, make sure that your kids feel safe and protected and that, you know, everything is going to be okay. But you also want to have that open channel of communication. You want to be able to model, you know, vulnerability and, and, you know, what it, what it looks like to go through something hard imperfectly. I think that's an important lesson as well. And those two things are in tension with each other. And I think probably every parent who's had to deal with some kind of difficult issue and how to communicate to their kids about it, you know, butts up against that.

• 41:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, it is. It's an impossible task and a lot of people, actually, one of the most asked questions I get is what advice do you give to a parent going through something similar? And I don't have any. I wish I had advice. I wish I could write out a formula for the perfect way to lead a child through tragedy, but there isn't one. And, and also each child is so different. Each of my children have dealt with RIVS illness so differently. And it's not one size fits all, you know? And, and so it's, you just do your best and, and, and they'll, they'll be fucked up no matter what.

• 41:54Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I know, right? But I think that the other, yes, like it's important to not just give blanket advice for this kind of thing, but one thing that you make clear in the book is you had to overcome, like you were sort of operating under like, you know, like I'm protecting them, like they don't need to know the details. And then, you know, the, the, just the overwhelm of all of it leads you to a certain kind of breakdown and you end up opening up to your kids, you know, somewhat in a vulnerable way. And that was received well.

• 42:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:28Rich Roll?

  Like it was received with empathy. And I think what I take from that is when in doubt, like, don't underestimate your children's ability to appreciate the humanness. And I think that they will end up respecting you more if you're transparent with them. If you're hiding something because, and even if you're doing it for the right reasons, like you want to protect them, that's what leads to, you know, distrust and all kinds of other stuff. And that doesn't mean that you're just, you know, unfiltered in all of it. You have to be responsible. But I think there's a lot of wisdom in understanding, even if they're young, and obviously what age they are is important, that kids are resilient.

• 43:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:07Rich Roll?

  And maybe they can't handle everything, but they can probably handle more than you might suspect.

• 43:14Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I guess that that's a good thing to point out was I was keeping from them some of the, the details of what was happening and the severity of those really details that Ribs could probably die. And that's what I was keeping from them. But I was not holding back with my emotion with, especially with Harper, you're referencing my, me breaking down in Harper's arms. She was 10 at the time and she pulled me in and she comforted me. And I hope that that was a beautiful moment for her, probably really tragic and sad, but also just realizing that my mom is human. Cause growing up, my mom never felt completely human. She was just this cra- like incredibly strong, powerful,

• 43:57Speaker 01

  like just unmovable person. And, and I tried to emulate that.

• 44:03Rich Roll?

  It's hard to connect with someone like that.

• 44:04Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. And I think that I hope that Harper. Can learn from me sadness, it's okay to be sad. That's something I never knew was it's okay to be sad. And and I'm trying to model for my children that sadness isn't a negative emotion. I mean,

• 44:23Rich Roll?

  It's an appropriate response to a very difficult situation.

• 44:26Speaker 01

  Yeah. And that we can feel like, you know, as the premise of this book, everything all at once, we can feel sadness and fear and love and joy all in the same moment. We don't have to choose and and that was that was huge for me to learn.

• 44:41Rich Roll?

  It's also an expansive definition of strength. We think of strength in a very in very narrow terms. Like to be strong is to be taciturn and to like, keep your shit together or whatever. But I think it's a different kind of strength to allow yourself to experience difficult emotions and to do it with people you care about because you have to trust them. And it takes a certain strength to do that, even if they're your your children.

• 45:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And Harper, for better or worse, is also an empath. She is RIV's incarnate. She is, I see it in her. And I think that's also why I felt comfortable breaking down in her arms because it was almost as though she was the wiser one in that moment. I felt like she she could feel the the vastness of all of it and she could take it. And so.

• 45:30Rich Roll?

  As long as, the only caveat I would add to that, as long as she doesn't feel, she isn't made to feel that it's her responsibility.

• 45:39Speaker 01

  Absolutely. Yep. And that's kind of how I ended that chapter was hoping that they knew that my sadness wasn't something that they would ever have to carry because someone else's sadness, you can't carry it. You can't take it upon yourself and you can just comfort them in those times.

• 45:55Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Back to the sex, drugs and rock and roll.

• 45:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:59Rich Roll?

  So I, you know, I love stories like this where, oh, yeah, let's get into it.

• 46:07Rich Roll?

  Despite your adventures, you know, with errant boyfriends and vans and, you know, trolling around the valley in Los Angeles, et cetera. I never, I never got the sense that you really had a problem with drugs and alcohol. I felt like you're being, you're in, you're in weird codependent relationships with boyfriends who had problems. So you're going to AA meetings because that's what they need?

• 46:31Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. I mean, well, but then the problem is that because I don't, I don't have, well, this is going to sound weird with how many tattoos I have, but I actually don't have an addictive personality. Like, Ribs and I are different in that Ribs is extreme and it's all or nothing. I am actually quite moderate in a lot of ways that I am able to-

• 46:52Rich Roll?

  But you like the extreme dudes.

• 46:54Speaker 01

  I do. And obviously-

• 46:56Rich Roll?

  This is your addiction.

• 46:57Speaker 01

  This is the addiction, yeah. And the problem is, is that I can do things moderately and they can't. And so, a lot of the guilt in my adolescence was I'm leading all of these people away from sobriety. Cause I did it on a few occasions, just in my book.

• 47:12Rich Roll?

  Right. You're the temptress.

• 47:14Speaker 01

  I'm the temptress. And I don't mean to be, I just, I like to have a good time and I could do it within parameters, you know?

• 47:20Rich Roll?

  Without peril, yeah. But what is it, you think, inside of you that leads you to be attracted to these extreme personalities?

• 47:27Speaker 01

  Yeah. Good question. I don't know. I'll get back to you on that. But I, I think that there's something extreme about me. I mean, obviously, I'm covered in tattoos and somehow I am able to do moderation. Or, or something is keeping me from going over the edge. And I still haven't figured that out. That's still, what I'm trying to figure out is, why am I not-

• 47:59Speaker 01

  Going over the edge. And so I'm still figuring all of this out. It's quite new. It's still new to me.

• 48:03Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Well, you got lucky in picking an extreme dude in the form of RIVS because typically, like, they don't come in such a healthy package, right?

• 48:12Speaker 01

  He's extremely healthy. That's the extremism. Yeah. But I mean, he has a tendency toward, I know he spoke with you about this, the addiction of the opiates. He is, and he's sober now. And that's, that's huge for him and for me, too. Because it kind of, it helps me to, I feel like it's going to be a long path, but I feel like I'll get there.

• 48:38Rich Roll?

  Interesting. Yeah. I think it's tangled up in this ongoing reckoning with spirituality.

• 48:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:45Rich Roll?

  At the core of your searching.

• 48:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:48Rich Roll?

  And in thinking about the inflection points along that timeline, there's another interesting one, which is when you decide to go to BYU in Hawaii, and you have this encounter with this bishop, and you make this choice to be kind of more honest than perhaps that guy was used to.

• 49:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, or wanted.

• 49:06Rich Roll?

  And getting a surprising response from him.

• 49:08Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. I, so part of being admitted to BYU Hawaii, which is a Mormon, obviously, institution, is you need to go through an ecclesiastical endorsement. And so basically, there's a checklist that they ask you. Do you abstain from drugs, sex, alcohol? It's like, no, no, no. And I knew I was going to quote unquote, fail.

• 49:29Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 49:29Speaker 01

  And when he, when I told him everything, I divulged everything. And really, at the time, it did feel like a fuck you to God. It felt like, you know?

• 49:36Rich Roll?

  Because everyone else is just saying yes to pass the test, and they're checking boxes.

• 49:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. And you can easily lie.

• 49:42Rich Roll?

  Do you drink coffee? No.

• 49:43Speaker 01

  No, no, never. And so that, I also added that into my story, him saying, you know, those things don't really matter. You're a good person. And I added that in, that true story in, because I kind of, you know, doggone Mormonism a bit in my book. But I also wanted to show that there's good people there. There's good people everywhere. And just because that religion didn't resonate with me, it doesn't mean that it's all full of self-righteous bigots, you know? There are good people in those religions.

• 50:16Rich Roll?

  And he gave you kind of a surprisingly capacious response that allowed you to reframe

• 50:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:22Rich Roll?

  that resentment.

• 50:23Speaker 01

  Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. But it didn't stop me from partying at BYU Hawaii. Also, the question is, why did I, it's almost like I, why did I choose a Mormon college?

• 50:35Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 50:35Speaker 01

  You know, it's almost like I'd like to push.

• 50:37Rich Roll?

  You'd already rejected that. So that was a question that I had. Like, how did you end up there?

• 50:42Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I think the answer is, and maybe going back to why am I, I, I think that I want so badly to be so, I don't know, I wanted so badly to be good. And I just didn't know how to do it. And I didn't know what good meant. And all I knew was good was what was taught to me in my religion, which, which is abstinence. And obviously, it's so much more than just that. And that's something I'm still, still learning.

• 51:07Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Yeah. And that, but it's a search for, it's not, maybe not necessarily a search for goodness, but a search for somebody to tell you that you're good, right? Or to make you feel okay with who you are. And that's exactly what that bishop did.

• 51:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

• 51:24Rich Roll?

  Yeah. It's, it is fascinating that you ended up going there.

• 51:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, I still wonder.

• 51:28Rich Roll?

  All the places, right? And so what does that look like now? I mean, everything all at once. This is a, you know, non-dogmatic, expansive, you know, concept of, of spiritual energy and the way that the universe works. That you can't quite put a name on it. You don't attempt to do that.

• 51:50Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 51:51Rich Roll?

  It seems that the overarching energy here is, is love. But like, how do you define your relationship with the unseen?

• 51:58Speaker 01

  Yeah. It's, it's ongoing. It's evolving. It's different from even when I wrote the book. When I wrote the book, I felt very certain about what I had felt and seen. And now, as I get farther away from that experience, I question more and more. I'm, I'm a cynic, so I will question no matter what. But I, when I reread the book, I realized that it was very true to me. The, the spirituality of, of it all. And I can't deny, as much as I want to deny, that there was a strong spiritual component to everything that happened. Yeah, it was. When I walked into Riv's room, when he was sedated.

• 52:41Speaker 01

  I felt more connected to the universe than I ever had in my entire life. And in a moment, a moments that should have been terrifying and tragic and sad were some of the most love-filled moments I'd ever experienced in my life. Sitting next to my sedated husband on two different life support machines. And the only way I was able to explain that, well, try to explain that, is that it was this otherworldly love that was just in the room. And it was palpable. You walk in there. And I even talked to the nurses and the doctors and, you know, the therapists that were in the room, and they agree.

• 53:24Speaker 01

  There was something transcendental happening in our room. And I couldn't deny it, and they can't deny it. Even the doctors were like, there was some miracle and magic going on in this room. And I can't explain it, and I don't know what it was. I like to believe it was part of my dad that was there. I love to believe that. Some form of god goddess, but it was love. No matter what you call it, it was love.

• 53:53Rich Roll?

  The doctors recounting their version of that story being unique to RIVS.

• 53:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:59Rich Roll?

  Because they're in that scenario every single day with different people, right?

• 54:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:04Rich Roll?

  So what is it about RIVS that helped co-create that type of shared experience, do you think?

• 54:12Speaker 01

  Well, interestingly, what they said was it wasn't necessarily him, but it was the bond between us.

• 54:20Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 54:21Speaker 01

  That was felt transformative, which shocked me. One of his first nurses wrote me a letter about how she had never met him awake. She had never seen us interact, but somehow the palpable love that she could feel.

• 54:36Speaker 01

  Changed her whole idea of love. And I wasn't trying to do anything and he was asleep. But I think it was, it was a beautiful connection that not only between me and him, but the love that I was bringing from the world and almost as though I was a conduit and, and kind of transferring that love into him. And it was, it was incredible and it was crazy. It felt like, I felt like a lot of times I would leave that hospital room and I felt like nauseous as though I, I was the empath all of a sudden, like I was absorbing and transferring, which is something I had never, ever experienced before, but I'd heard Ribs talk about it a bunch. And it's almost like we switched roles and I was able to do for him what he had been

• 55:21Speaker 01

  doing for other people.

• 55:22Rich Roll?

  Right, well, you're also for the first time shouldering responsibility for your own growth and personal wellbeing, right? This transition from thinking Ribs is going to take care of it, he's all powerful to suddenly, oh shit, like I have to do this for myself and then I have to go home and figure out how to do it with these kids in private while I'm suffering and grieving all at the same time. And then on top of that, the doctors, or it was one doctor, I think, who said to you, listen, you know, a huge part of whether or not he's going to make it is up to you. You're a part of this healing process. Like what are you bringing to this equation? Which speaks to exactly what you just shared. Are you contributing to his improvement?

• 56:06Rich Roll?

  Or are you, you know, sucking life out from underneath him because you're dealing with too much already and you're upset because he's not going to fix you anymore?

• 56:15Speaker 01

  Right, exactly. And that's, well, that's what I found is every day that I went in there, it was, I think 101 days and he was sedated for 50 of those days and I went in every, I didn't miss a single day. And every day that I went in, I felt more and more alive and connected to myself.

• 56:36Speaker 01

  In a time where I should have been falling apart and part of me was, but recognizing that the fullness of me is falling apart, that's okay. It's okay to feel strong and completely weak at the same time. It's okay to feel anger and gratitude at the same time. And the more that I accepted the, really the monism, not even duality, like how complimentary these feelings were, not contradictory. And the more I allowed those complimentary emotions, the more powerful I felt. And as I get farther away from that, I don't feel it as much now. And I think that a lot of times we are, we have the choice to become our best selves

• 57:21Speaker 01

  in the worst times. And somehow I became my best self in the worst time of my life. I don't know how, again, I wish I had a guidebook, but it was just recognizing the power that had always been inside of me. And it wasn't in Ribs, you know, and realizing that I was more powerful, not necessarily on my own, but in this moment where I didn't depend on him.

• 57:46Rich Roll?

  Yeah, you had a capacity that was latent within you. And pain and challenge is the crucible for connecting with that and sort of bringing it forth into the world. So it was, that's the opportunity, right? The interesting thing is if you, if you co-sign to the idea that all of us have capacity and potential that we're walking around with, that we're just not aware of, or we haven't really brought forth in our own lives, do we really need to be in that kind of a tragic event? Or to suffer extreme pain in order to manifest it? It's a choice. It just rarely happens.

• 58:30Rich Roll?

  It rarely happens unless. You know, basically being boxed into a corner in that kind of a way.

• 58:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, similarly, Ribs and I are.

• 58:39Speaker 01

  For lack of a better word, happier together than we've ever been. And people are like, how are you so happy? I'm like, ah, just make him almost die and then you'll, you know what I mean? You'll go through together this recognition of how much you love each other and how important you are to each other. And things that we take for granted that are sometimes only shown to us in the depths of despair sadly. How do you access that feeling of gratitude and awareness? When you're not in the depths? And I'm struggling with that now even.

• 59:11Rich Roll?

  Please tell me how to do that.

• 59:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, right. Oh, you don't know? Cause I'm now even, I want to maintain the lessons I learned. Be present. There's no better moment than this moment right now. And all the love you ever need is inside of you. All of these truths, I know them, but it's harder to feel them when life is good.

• 59:31Rich Roll?

  Right. And imagine your rives where your whole life is oriented around connecting with suffering as a vehicle for growth and truth and self-understanding and appreciation. And suddenly that preferred voluntary version of suffering is replaced with a different type of challenge, overcoming this illness. And then on the heels of that, stillness. The suffering is not being able to engage with your chosen version of suffering. It's a passive suffering. And I'm sure that is much more uncomfortable for him. It would be for me.

• 1:00:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. Well, and also there's, I think there's a physiological component to the metabolizing energy. That alone, I mean, he literally was using the energy that he absorbed from other people to metabolize his runs.

• 1:00:22Rich Roll?

  Yeah, you had to transmute it.

• 1:00:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. And now that he can't do that, it's, he has a hard time being around people. That's the truth. Because he can't absorb, well, he absorbs what he can't metabolize.

• 1:00:34Rich Roll?

  Is he actively searching for alternative ways of doing that?

• 1:00:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, yep. I think he's, he's, yeah, figuring it out. We, yeah, but it's, yeah, it's a, it's a journey for sure. Yeah.

• 1:00:49Rich Roll?

  I want to talk about the time malleability stuff, this sort of quantum idea. I mean, obviously, if you're Rives and you're in a coma, and you come out of it, you're going to have a unique relationship with time.

• 1:01:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:05Rich Roll?

  But time is a bendable concept that is influenced by the extremity of what you're experiencing. Time slows down, time speeds up, et cetera. But in this quantum sense, this idea that like, there is no past and there is no future. We're on this sort of recursive loop where everything is happening all the time in some dimension is a fascinating one.

• 1:01:35Rich Roll?

  I'm curious as to whether that was initially prompted by your psychedelic experiences.

• 1:01:40Speaker 01

  I was going to say, yeah.

• 1:01:41Rich Roll?

  And it's something that I'm dealing with right now. In a different way, I've got a family member who's suffering from dementia. And to just observe that person, you know, their relationship with time is complete. You know, like, they could be, one minute, they're living 10 years ago, and then they're... So that's got to be scary, but also, you know, it's bizarre because then you have to visit that timeline. And, you know, memory is an anchor for time, right? And our relationship to memory is a way of time traveling, I guess, on some level. So walk me through this whole concept that is really the whisper in the background on every page of this book.

• 1:02:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, and that's even why I wrote, "The memories that tethered me to myself throughout my life are written in present tense." Because what I learned, and what I'm learning, is that memory is the cursor to things that are always happening. These memories are actually ever-present, and we can access them and go back to that time in a moment.

• 1:02:46Rich Roll?

  Well, they're consciously or unconsciously impacting every decision that we make. So they do live in the present.

• 1:02:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, they do, absolutely. And, I mean, the most, like, the darkest example of this was when Rives was at the end of his life. And I went in there to say goodbye, is what they told me to do. And I rested my head on his chest, and in a moment, we were dancing together, and we were living that moment together.

• 1:03:17Speaker 01

  In the present and nobody could tell me that didn't happen, that I was not metaphysically there, because I was, my body was here, but I was there with him and we were dancing together. And that, that memory, I feel, drew us back together into this world and called him back to this life. And I think that example was why I wanted to weave the malleability of time into, into my whole book. Because I realized that it was memory that was saving me over and over again, mostly the memory of love. And, and that's what I feel kept

• 1:03:57Speaker 01

  me my whole life from going over the edge. These, these ever-present moments of presence that I was called back to. And, and on the other hand, RIVS, he lived lifetimes in his coma. He was, I mean, he has some incredible stories about where he was and where he went and how many different families he had. And, and who's to say that those weren't real, that those weren't really occurring lives, you know? I'm not, I would never say, he says some of those memories of when he was in the coma feel more real than this life memory, you know?

• 1:04:35Rich Roll?

  Wow.

• 1:04:35Speaker 01

  So I'm really, really interested in the quantum aspect that I don't, I wish I understood on a physics level.

• 1:04:45Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:47Speaker 01

  But I, all I know is my experience with, with time. And, um, yeah.

• 1:04:52Rich Roll?

  So what do we take from that? How are we supposed to interpret that? Or how is that meant to, from your perspective,

• 1:04:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:05:00Rich Roll?

  inform our lives?

• 1:05:02Speaker 01

  I mean, really, it's that love is woven into every aspect of our lives in, in the form of memory. And that in the most tragic moments, love or the memory of love is still there. And I like to think of my father, whether he exists in a spiritual realm or just in a memory, I think that the memory of his love is the same as saying that he lives in some spirit world and that that love is entwined in in every aspect of my life and and it's in all of our lives. And if one of the most pivotal moments of of my life to date was

• 1:05:46Speaker 01

  recognizing how that love had been in in everything, absolutely everything, when I was drunk, crying under a table, when I was hitchhiking through Guatemala, when I was, you know, everything that I did, love was there. I just, I just didn't recognize it in myself. So I couldn't recognize it in other people.

• 1:06:06Rich Roll?

  How do we tap into that? Do we have to, you know, do psilocybin? Like, can we, can I, how do I, I want, I want some of that juice, Steph?

• 1:06:16Speaker 01

  Have you ever done psychedelics?

• 1:06:18Rich Roll?

  I haven't.

• 1:06:19Speaker 01

  Okay. And I know, okay, so that's probably touchy because psychedelics-

• 1:06:22Rich Roll?

  It comes up all the time on the podcast. We talk about it a lot.

• 1:06:25Speaker 01

  Because you've had Gabor Maté here, right?

• 1:06:27Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I've had lots of people, you know, you know, explored this extensively and I won't bore the listeners with my perspective on it, you know, only to say that because I'm sober, I have trepidation around it, but I also can't dismiss or deny the efficacious, you know, benefits that I've seen many people have and the interesting science that's coming out about how it's helpful for people with depression and PTSD. But on a purely, you know, kind of spiritual plane, I'm interested in the epiphanies and the truths that then seem to persist well beyond that experience. And in your case, clearly, you know, have informed- Your entire worldview.

• 1:07:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, I, I really do credit psychedelics with my ability to handle RIV's illness the way I did. It was only six months before he got sick that I did my hero mushroom journey. And that's what cracked me open to the possibility of spirituality. And I think had I not had that experience, I might not have been open to even the idea that RIV's existed somewhere other than in his body. Maybe I wouldn't be open to the fact that I could conduct love into him through some spiritual cosmic channel. And I really think had I not had that mushroom experience, I wouldn't have been able to do the things that I did with and for him. But that being said, I, I know some people who are kind of militant about

• 1:07:55Speaker 01

  psilocybin or about psychedelics and think it's the only way. I think it's the quickest way to get there, but I do believe there are other channels. My sister-in-law is a quantum healer and she does like the holotropic breathing, meditation, but of course, that takes a lot more time and mental energy than just drinking a tea and going right there, you know?

• 1:08:19Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Although holotropic breathing will bring you there pretty quick.

• 1:08:21Speaker 01

  I've never done it. I'm terrified. I don't-

• 1:08:23Rich Roll?

  We do these retreats and Julie, my wife, takes people through holotropic breathing exercises. And, and, and in our past retreat, our most recent one, she took everyone through it like on day one, like, let's just cut through the shit right now. And like, people were having insane experiences. And everyone would go around the room and share afterwards. And like, I was an eagle and I was flying, you know?

• 1:08:45Speaker 01

  What's really cool and what I love about-

• 1:08:47Rich Roll?

  Just the breath.

• 1:08:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, my mom is, you know, she's Mormon still. And she's on this whole journey where she went to Thailand. She, she's mostly vegan. She did a vegan cleanse and did a holotropic breathing experience. And, you know, coming from a really like Puritan religion, that's not accepted really, this, you know, outside spirituality. But she did it and she said she saw Jesus and Buddha and they were both equally important. I'm like, there you go. And, and for her to-

• 1:09:14Rich Roll?

  The expansiveness.

• 1:09:15Speaker 01

  Just, I love, I love that, you know, that that's what she saw and they were both equally important. So I do think that psilocybin is wonderful. For me, it worked. I haven't done another hero trip since because- What I needed at the time-

• 1:09:29Rich Roll?

  What does that mean, hero trip?

• 1:09:30Speaker 01

  Well, you take like, shit, like five grams-

• 1:09:32Rich Roll?

  Oh, like a massive dose?

• 1:09:33Speaker 01

  Like a massive dose, where you complete dissolution of ego. Like, I didn't know who I was, where I was. But I needed to do that because I was so dissociated from myself. So I needed something to, and this was only, you know, four years ago. I need something to crack me open and to show me I had been compartmentalizing my grief. I'd been compartmentalizing my feelings. I wasn't fully healed. You never really are. It's okay to feel everything all at once. I needed that shaking. But I don't need that now. I was shook. You know, Riv's illness cracked me even wider open. I don't need it right now.

• 1:10:13Speaker 01

  And I think it's recognizing when and if you need that rewiring or that, you know, restructuring of your brain and your thought patterns. And I'm recognizing that I'm still on the trip. You know what I mean? I'm still going. And I know they recommend doing it something like every six months, but I cannot fathom-

• 1:10:34Rich Roll?

  Who's they?

• 1:10:35Speaker 01

  They.

• 1:10:35Rich Roll?

  Yeah, who is that?

• 1:10:36Speaker 01

  Those mushroom people. This can't imagine.

• 1:10:38Rich Roll?

  My brain's like, can I do it every day?

• 1:10:40Speaker 01

  Well, you can microdose. But that doesn't do it for me. That didn't ever do it for me. Although it did help me get out of depression once, the microdosing. But anyways, I don't think it's a blanket. I think some people use it as the be all, end all answer. I don't think anything is, you know? I think you gotta see what works.

• 1:11:00Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I mean, the way I think about it is it's a portal into a state of consciousness that would otherwise be difficult to access. Not impossible.

• 1:11:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:11:12Rich Roll?

  And for some people, that's just enough to shift them and get them interested in a different way of navigating the world that otherwise they would never have, you know, been open to, I guess.

• 1:11:26Speaker 01

  And I got there- When Ribs was sick, every day, without the need for any substance, I got there. Every time I was in his room, felt like that kind of transcendental experience. But like we've been saying, do you have to go there? Do you have to suffer to feel it?

• 1:11:43Rich Roll?

  Right, maybe you do.

• 1:11:44Speaker 01

  Maybe you do.

• 1:11:45Rich Roll?

  I don't know.

• 1:11:45Speaker 01

  Maybe you do.

• 1:11:46Rich Roll?

  It is a very hero's journey kind of architecture to this story. I'm sure when you're in the middle of it, like anybody who's challenged by life, you're thinking, why is this happening to me? I finally had this life and I worked so hard and I did all these things and suffered and explored and now I'm happy and then all of this is happening. Why? And what? But when you look in the rearview mirror, it's like everything's lining up perfectly for this experience. Obviously, you're choosing events and moments and imbuing them with meaning to create a narrative, which is not any more real than some other, if you had chosen a whole bunch of other events to imbue them with meaning. So there's a lot of human imposed ingenuity on top of it.

• 1:12:31Rich Roll?

  But when I look at, first of all, your dad wasn't the first person in your life to suffer from cancer. You had a brother. Like you met that at, how old were you? Four, 13 or something like that?

• 1:12:43Speaker 01

  I was six when my brother.

• 1:12:44Rich Roll?

  You were super young, right?

• 1:12:45Speaker 01

  He was three, I was six.

• 1:12:46Rich Roll?

  So that was your first, universe is knocking. Hey, here's a little thing. How are you going to deal with this? Oh, wasn't enough here. Well, let's throw your dad into the mix and see what happens here. I guess she's got to have some more adventures. And then, okay, well, I'm going to drop an anvil on this person's head in the form of Ribs and a rare form of lung cancer. And also, six months prior to that, you go off and do this psilocybin thing, which is sort of seeding you or preparing you to have a different experience this time with a new lens that would allow you to navigate it with an expanded perception of meaning.

• 1:13:28Speaker 01

  I'm, man, I'm really weary. I don't like saying that. I see.

• 1:13:33Rich Roll?

  But it is, I know what you're saying.

• 1:13:34Speaker 01

  But I do see it.

• 1:13:35Rich Roll?

  The universe didn't decide to do all of these things for you.

• 1:13:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, right.

• 1:13:38Rich Roll?

  I understand that.

• 1:13:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:13:39Rich Roll?

  But can you find meaning in them?

• 1:13:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:13:42Rich Roll?

  And extract that meaning to, you know, to kind of, you know, to grow and evolve?

• 1:13:47Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, and more than that, how could I look back and not see how it was a little eerily, not predestined, but everything, like you said, lined up so perfectly. I can't, I hate it, but I can't deny that it did feel very meant to be in some ways.

• 1:14:07Rich Roll?

  Right, you're like Luke Skywalker in your own movie.

• 1:14:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, right. You know what? I don't ask, why did these bad things happen to me? Because far worse things happen to people and I'm very aware of that. And I really am. And I, I don't think I've had some tragedy filled. I've had a very beautiful life. I chose to tell the tragedy side of my life, but I've had a pretty good life.

• 1:14:28Rich Roll?

  Well, first of all, you're, you're, you're being careful to not portray yourself or be perceived in any way as a victim.

• 1:14:36Speaker 01

  Right, well, yeah.

• 1:14:37Rich Roll?

  And also that you're not the main character in some grand, you know, architecture of a universe conspiring just for you.

• 1:14:44Speaker 01

  Right, yeah.

• 1:14:44Rich Roll?

  Right? You're just a person living your life. Things happen.

• 1:14:47Speaker 01

  Yeah. I never asked, why did these bad things happen to me? I really never have. But I ask, why, why did all these good things happen around these bad things? Why did I get so much guidance and love and assistance throughout my life when so many people are left alone? And, and I think that's where, that's the why that I ask. It's almost like a survivor's guilt. Like, why was I so lucky to have so much love in my life when I know a lot of people don't have that? And, and so in some way. That's why I wrote the book as this tribute to love itself because I've had so

• 1:15:29Speaker 01

  much of it and, and wanting to honor that is the thing that kept me alive my whole life. And, but that is the why that I ask. Why, why me? Why, why am I so lucky to have that help?

• 1:15:42Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:15:43Rich Roll?

  You were talking about goals earlier and certainly, you know, you had a goal of writing a book and having people enjoy it. I'm sure you've set other goals in your life, but at the same time, you don't strike me as like a plotter and a planner. You, you strike me as somebody who is living your life based on gut instinct and you're making spontaneous decisions and you're not really thinking that far ahead.

• 1:16:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:16:05Rich Roll?

  Right? And, and, and life has worked out, um, which maybe mystifies you because you didn't plan it or you're not thinking ahead. You're just, this is what my heart is telling me. I'm going to jump and go here, which I think is a really beautiful way to live. I know some other people that live that way. They're just like, I never worry about, as long as I'm connected to my heart and it feels right to me, I do it and I have faith and trust and I can make a leap.

• 1:16:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:16:36Rich Roll?

  But that requires like a level of trust in your own instincts to guide you.

• 1:16:43Speaker 01

  That's spot on. Ribs and I always joke that he, that I'm, I'm just the ultimate coaster and I always have been. I've just, I've just allowed life to happen, you know, and I allow it to happen and I'm just there for the ride and bad things have happened along the way, but somehow it's always worked out for me. But there's, and then there's someone like Ribs that plans every moment of every day and knows what five years from now is going to look like. And I don't even think about today. I don't know what I'm going to do this afternoon.

• 1:17:15Rich Roll?

  But when you're not thinking ahead like that and things go well and you're surrounded by love. It's impossible to not believe that on some level you're being guided and taken care of.

• 1:17:24Speaker 01

  But you also can't prescribe that to other people because I think it's also could be dangerous to live that way.

• 1:17:29Rich Roll?

  What's interesting is that it worked out, given your level of disconnection from self.

• 1:17:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:17:33Rich Roll?

  I would, I would say to somebody who operates that way, make sure you're really connected with who you are. Otherwise, that gut instinct is just some weird memory that you're being prompted by and you don't know why. And that can all go terribly

• 1:17:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:17:49Rich Roll?

  Wrong, and often it does.

• 1:17:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, and that's why I do attribute some of my earlier life survival, really, to something I can't explain. Because I wasn't connected to myself and I was extremely reckless and, and still it all worked out. As a 22 year old, I chose to marry Rives, who I was partying at the time and I was reckless and wild. And he was just off his mission, like a really sweet Mormon boy. And somehow, he finds me.

• 1:18:20Rich Roll?

  Where did he go on his mission?

• 1:18:21Speaker 01

  Brazil.

• 1:18:22Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:18:23Rich Roll?

  Did he have a beard at 22?

• 1:18:24Speaker 01

  No, you're not allowed.

• 1:18:25Rich Roll?

  I can't even imagine what he looked like.

• 1:18:26Speaker 01

  You can't, he was really, well, he was handsome, but he has like a really good jawline. But, but again, I like, why, how, how did that?

• 1:18:34Rich Roll?

  Yeah, what was it about him?

• 1:18:35Speaker 01

  Again, well, what about him? I mean, what wasn't it about? But I mean, what was it about me? I feel like we just knew and I, I, as I write in my book, when I saw him, it was almost like another one of those memories. Like, I know you. It doesn't make sense, but I know you somehow. And kind of like how you said in your book that you said you were going to marry your wife, right? That day, it's, and I'd never felt that way before. I didn't even think I was going to get married. I thought I was just going to coast my whole life and be a beach bum. And, and then I, he walked into class and it was just, oh my gosh, there you are, you know?

• 1:19:12Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that's some past life shit.

• 1:19:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:19:14Rich Roll?

  Or just this cyclical nature of time and the bleeding of past and future together into an interesting present.

• 1:19:23Speaker 01

  Present for now. And, and again, like, yeah, that malleability of time, it's, we, this isn't, my friend Vanessa in Flagstaff says, this isn't your first rodeo, Steph, you know? The things, the way that life has lined up for you. It's not your first time. You dove into this knowing exactly what you were gonna do and who you were gonna meet. And I, when she used to say that, I was like, oh, my gosh, that's such bullshit, you know? And now I'm seeing it unfold and it's truer every day.

• 1:19:51Rich Roll?

  Wow. Have you seen the movie Arrival?

• 1:19:54Speaker 01

  Yeah? No. No, I don't think so.

• 1:19:57Rich Roll?

  Oh, this is your homework stuff.

• 1:19:59Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:20:00Rich Roll?

  I'm assigning this movie to you.

• 1:20:01Speaker 01

  Wait, Arrival?

• 1:20:02Rich Roll?

  Denis Villeneuve. It's a science fiction movie.

• 1:20:03Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:20:04Rich Roll?

  Aliens come. But it's really about our relationship with and our perception of time. That's, that's really what the movie is about. And I think it's gonna blow your mind.

• 1:20:16Speaker 01

  Okay, alright.

• 1:20:17Rich Roll?

  So you're gonna watch that.

• 1:20:18Speaker 01

  That's what I'll do tonight. Now I have a plan for the first time in my life.

• 1:20:21Rich Roll?

  In addition to the quantum time, past, present stuff and the, you know, the duality themes, there's also, I guess this is sort of a cousin to, to the non-dualism aspects of the story, but the story's also about what's, what lives in the between spaces, you know, the liminal spaces between, between death and life, right? Between day and night, between religion and spirituality and, and, and what lives in between anger and happiness,

• 1:21:01Rich Roll?

  gratitude, et cetera, or the mundane and the sacred.

• 1:21:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:21:08Rich Roll?

  So how do you think about that? Or how did you kind of plant your flag in that murkiness?

• 1:21:13Speaker 01

  Well, that was a huge theme I wanted to explore because I was raised to believe in polarity, in, you know, good and evil and in obedience. And that damaged me so much as a child because I believed that perfection was the goal. And, and if I wasn't perfect in living on that end of the spectrum, then I wasn't doing it right. And time and time again, life taught me that. Life exists between the extremes. It's not good or evil. It's not right and wrong. It's everything all at once, really, essentially. And when I came to accept that the best of life exists in the gray areas,

• 1:21:54Speaker 01

  in the liminal areas, then I was almost able to accept the wholeness of myself because I am good and bad and happy and angry. And I always tried to give moral weight to my emotions, you know, that gratitude was a positive emotion and anger was a negative emotion. And I truly believed I had to choose between them. And then recognizing that there is no moral weight to emotion. They just are and they're necessary. You know, anger is equally as necessary as gratitude in a lot of cases. That was shown to me by recognizing how anger in my adolescence actually fueled me and kept me alive.

• 1:22:39Speaker 01

  When I think, had I not had anger kind of fueling me forward, I probably would have been far more self-destructive and just kind of desolate. And it wasn't until RIVS got sick that I learned to appreciate that side of myself, the rageful, angry side, that was really essential to who I am. And then on the spiritual side of that, RIVS' room was the in-between. It was that, it wasn't life and it wasn't death. And it was a place that I still don't have words for, but it was like a sanctuary. And I felt more alive in that space between life and death

• 1:23:24Speaker 01

  and more connected than I ever had. And I think part of it is, again, going back to time. Time didn't exist in that room, other than the monitors, you know, beeping and kind of like bringing me back to the present. There, time kind of suspended when I was with him. And we could be in Hawaii together and we could be caught up in all these memories or past lives, whatever you want to call them. And time ceased to exist and it was a really sacred, sacred space. But again, all of this happened in between.

• 1:23:57Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I'm just wondering how I can connect with something, some semblance of that into my, into my life. You know, it's just, it's, it's a, it's a peak experience.

• 1:24:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:24:09Rich Roll?

  And then it's about the judgments that we attach to it in thinking about your, your Mormon background, a very binary

• 1:24:20Rich Roll?

  structure, right? Good, bad, evil, whatever. And then realizing, to use your words, that actually there's a fluidity to truth.

• 1:24:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:24:31Rich Roll?

  And anger is not necessarily bad or being sad. It's a story that we attach to certain emotions. But to your point, these emotions are neutral. Can we embrace those aspects of ourselves with the same, you know, level of, of compassion that we would embrace the, the aspirational emotions that we're all seeking, right? Meaning, purpose, happiness, love, et cetera.

• 1:24:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:24:59Rich Roll?

  And that's a challenge because we have these, this programming, you know? We're supposed to be like this and if we're not like that, then there's something wrong with us. And that judgment that we levy upon ourselves, that punishment is the antithesis of the compassion that we're striving to import to others and yet are incapable of, of providing for ourselves.

• 1:25:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely. And, and what's interesting is it's, it is a Christian notion that duality, you know, light can exist without darkness. But what I found was it's not contradictory, it's complementary. And, and that's a more eastern Buddhist way of looking at things that it's not light versus dark. It's light and dark together and, and just like it is. Gratitude and anger together, they complement each other. And if they're complementary, why should we shun one or exclude one? Or favor one over the other?

• 1:25:55Rich Roll?

  I don't know. Why do we do that?

• 1:25:57Speaker 01

  Why do we do it?

• 1:25:58Rich Roll?

  You know? I wish we, I wish we didn't. There would be, there's so much freedom on the other side of that, right?

• 1:26:04Speaker 01

  Absolutely. And I felt it when Ribs was sick, that love for my brokenness that, you know, I'm not feeling it as much anymore. During that time, I really, I was like, that's why I am who I am today is because I went through that and I was reckless and that built me to the person I am today. How could I regret those things if they've taught me what I know now, you know?

• 1:26:30Rich Roll?

  Right. And those broken pieces, those fractured, splintered aspects of ourselves, ultimately, you know, on the other side of healing, become the most beautiful pieces, right? What is that Japanese art where when the china breaks or, you know, they piece it back together with beautiful glue and it becomes a much more prized cherished possession as a result of it because of its flaws?

• 1:26:53Speaker 01

  Yep. That was in my head a lot as, as Ribs was sick, that I, this, I just had this feeling that something, no matter the outcome, this was gonna, I was gonna choose to make this to make me stronger, but I knew it was a choice, you know? And I was going to choose to make it make me stronger. But it was, it was obviously a conscious and still is a conscious choice that I have to make.

• 1:27:17Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Is it going to be a crucible for your growth? Or are you going to allow it to destroy you or define you in some unhealthy way? Or are you going to become a victim? The narrative that you associate with it becomes very powerful because it reinforces meaning and that meaning can be fluid, just like everything else that you speak about in the book, right? And that's a choice, just like anything else. And I think my favorite, this is, you know, on a similar vein, like my favorite quote out of the entire book is when you say, "Human frailty is the great mason of becoming." To me, that like says it all.

• 1:27:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:28:00Rich Roll?

  So explain, explain, you know, what's behind that for you?

• 1:28:04Speaker 01

  Well, and again, it comes back to the, the danger of not wanting to say that.

• 1:28:11Speaker 01

  Being broken makes us stronger because it doesn't everyone. But it is, we are given a choice in those dark moments, in the moments of tragedy. Will you choose to make, like, allow this to make you stronger? Or will you choose to allow it to break you beyond repair? And I think that it's a choice we can make 10 years down the road. Because I think that my father's death, the narrative I told myself about my response to grief in my adolescence was that it broke me and I was reckless and I allowed it to break me. And, and now I look back and I say, wow, that was building me the whole time.

• 1:28:51Speaker 01

  And even though for over a decade, I told myself that I had been broken, really now I reframe and say, I was being built that whole, that whole time. All of the recklessness was building me to the wisdom that I have today. And, and so it really is, that tragedy is, is a mason and we're building, or we can choose to build ourselves stronger. But it's again, it's, it's a tricky and it's a tight rope to walk. And that choice has to be made daily. It's not a choice that we make and then it's everlasting, you know?

• 1:29:28Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Uh, looming over this whole thing is this non-dualistic idea of love. It's all about love. Love permeates everything. There's a little bit of like, give me a fucking break. You know what I mean? Like, so, you know, it's like, you're, you're exposing yourself as an easy target for somebody who is maybe woke up on the wrong side of the bed.

• 1:29:50Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:29:51Rich Roll?

  So, help me understand what you're really getting at here. Because when I think about love, I mean, I agree with you, but I also think of love showing up in different ways and in different forms. Some love is conditional, some love is temporal. Certain relationships aren't meant to last forever. They, they come together, a beautiful thing happens and then, and then time passes and that relationship is complete. And then there's the eternal love. Julie, my wife, likes to describe it as the sun that is shining. The sun is not discerning. If the sun is emitting rays of light, which are love, it's not discerning.

• 1:30:34Rich Roll?

  Where those rays are shining, it shines equally upon everyone without judgment, right? That's a different type of love. I suspect that's really what you're getting at here, but walk me through this for the skeptical naysayer, you know, brain that's listening to this right now.

• 1:30:52Speaker 01

  Well, me, had I read this book five years ago, I would have been like, wow, okay. Really, I mean, the universal love, this ineffable love that is everywhere and unconditional, and how that exists.

• 1:31:09Rich Roll?

  Easy for you to say.

• 1:31:10Speaker 01

  Well.

• 1:31:11Rich Roll?

  With your beautiful kids and you're like, yeah.

• 1:31:13Speaker 01

  I know, exactly. But it is there if, but I didn't see it. I didn't recognize it until just a few years ago because I didn't have it inside myself. And I think that it's just a reflection of what we have to give ourselves. And like I said earlier, I was searching for that love outside of myself over and over again. And I was trying to fight it in drugs and alcohol and men and countries. And it was an insatiable thing because it didn't have a receptacle inside of me. And so the love that I'm talking about is just a reflection of what we can give ourselves. Because it really is all around us all the time. You can see it in anyone

• 1:31:58Speaker 01

  walking by the street if you choose to see it, but you're not going to see it if you don't have that self-love inside of you. And again, it's a daily decision that I make to love myself and therefore feel more love for humanity and more love from humanity.

• 1:32:16Rich Roll?

  Is there a structure or a modality for practicing that? Like, what does that actually look like?

• 1:32:21Speaker 01

  You're asking me. I have no, no. My agent expert outline to my book.

• 1:32:26Rich Roll?

  Here's my list of, here's how I do this every single day.

• 1:32:28Speaker 01

  I never wrote an outline for my book. It was just gonna happen, but.

• 1:32:32Rich Roll?

  That's why it took you 10 years.

• 1:32:34Speaker 01

  Well, yeah, exactly. Yeah, it's true. But I thank God it did because it would have been a different book, you know, five years ago, of course. Again, that timing, that cosmic timing thing, but.

• 1:32:47Speaker 01

  I don't, again, yeah, you're right. People are gonna say, yeah, easy for you to say. You've had love throughout your life, but I also chose, I'm choosing to see in retrospect, the love throughout my life. It's another choice that I'm making to say, I could also look back on my life and say, wow, I had a really tragedy-filled life. All I knew was hospitals when I was a little kid. My dad died when I was 14. 20 years later, the love of my life almost dies. I could choose that narrative. I could tell that. But I'm choosing to see the love woven in and out of all of those stories. And it's a choice I make. And it is easy for me to say, but it's also not. I could tell a very different

• 1:33:29Speaker 01

  story. And I'm choosing in my book, I choose to show that universal love through the actions of other people, you know. But it didn't really matter who it was coming from, because I do believe that the source is the same. It's just our human interconnectedness. It's this love that in psychedelics, you see very tangibly that God is love, and that's the current that's connecting us all. And so you can, you just, it's a choice to see it or not see it. But there's no framework. Maybe there is, but not in my mind.

• 1:34:03Rich Roll?

  Yeah. The truth that everything is one, like, all the atoms are connected, you know, the, we're mostly open space, this table, our bodies, the energy that we share, it's all a common singular thing. Despite that truth, it's impossible for me to maintain that sensibility in a practical sense throughout my day.

• 1:34:27Speaker 01

  Oh, me too.

• 1:34:28Rich Roll?

  Maybe psychedelics help get you there on some level.

• 1:34:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:34:32Rich Roll?

  Certainly, we'd probably be in a better place as a planet and a culture and whatever if we could, if we could really grok that. But I'm wondering about, and I know, like, advice, like, when people ask you for advice, you start to cringe a little bit, like, you have a discomfort with, like, telling anyone what to do, which I respect and appreciate.

• 1:34:54Rich Roll?

  But the person who's suffering, who needs that healing and that message the most, is the most difficult person to connect with because they're encased in that shell with a certain narrative and a pain body that makes it very difficult. That's the person who will be the first to dismiss anything that you would have to say about this.

• 1:35:20Speaker 01

  Yeah. And, but I've also been that person.

• 1:35:24Rich Roll?

  And so have I.

• 1:35:25Speaker 01

  Yeah. And that's the thing is I wrote this with old me in mind because I knew what I would say had I read certain lines in this book, you know, only four or five years ago.

• 1:35:41Speaker 01

  But I couldn't deny that that was the truth that I found. And I wasn't going to filter myself because old me would have torn it apart. And, and I know that my book isn't for everyone because I know it's not going to resonate with everyone. But someone who is suffering and without love and lonely,

• 1:36:03Speaker 01

  first of all, can you find that love inside yourself? Yeah, right. I mean, in moments of despair, you can't. And I know that because I've been that person. But as the, like the malleability of time, can you remember a memory of love? Is there something that tethers you to love a moment, even if it's a stranger? And what did that feel like? And where did that come from? And, and as a practice, choosing to recognize or remember those memories maybe can lead you more to seeing how love is all around us. But, or just do a hero dose of solace.

• 1:36:39Rich Roll?

  And then you're like, you're like shirking.

• 1:36:43Rich Roll?

  Just own it, Steph. That was beautiful. Just like, this is about you standing in your power.

• 1:36:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, I know. Yeah.

• 1:36:50Rich Roll?

  That's what the book is about. Don't shy away from it.

• 1:36:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:36:54Rich Roll?

  That was great.

• 1:36:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, thank you. I just, why, I, I, well, on my way here, actually, I was having some self-talk about why do I have such a hard time, why do I have such a hard time with advice? I don't know. I'm working on that. I'll let you know.

• 1:37:08Rich Roll?

  I, I do too. Like, I like to have conversations with other people and ask them for advice.

• 1:37:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:37:14Rich Roll?

  But then when people ask me for advice, I'm like, why are you asking me?

• 1:37:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, right. Yeah, it's, it's uncomfortable for me and I'm trying to figure out why, but...

• 1:37:20Rich Roll?

  Well, I think a charitable interpretation is it doesn't feel right to tell another person what they should or they shouldn't do. You know, that feels like a close cousin to taking someone's inventory.

• 1:37:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:37:35Rich Roll?

  But the tension in the duality here is that you've had a certain set of life experiences that have taught you a few things that can be helpful to others.

• 1:37:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:37:45Rich Roll?

  When imparted in the right way, and you're a vehicle for that.

• 1:37:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:37:49Rich Roll?

  The book does it. It's not outright saying, do this, don't do this.

• 1:37:53Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:37:53Rich Roll?

  But it's saying, here is an experience, take from it what you will. And my hope is that this will improve your life, or maybe give you a few things to think about that can change your relationship with whatever your experience is.

• 1:38:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 1:38:07Rich Roll?

  But it's doing it in, it's doing it, and this is like an AA thing. It's like, we don't, we don't tell people what to do. We don't give advice. We share our experience.

• 1:38:15Speaker 01

  Right, yeah.

• 1:38:15Rich Roll?

  This book is you sharing your experience. So you're comfortable doing that.

• 1:38:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm very comfortable.

• 1:38:20Rich Roll?

  And so I think that's healthy, and maybe that's just because this is the way I see it too, and I want to feel like, you know, we got it right.

• 1:38:27Speaker 01

  That it's not a deficiency, yeah.

• 1:38:28Rich Roll?

  Yeah, especially when you're online and you're scrolling on Instagram or whatever, and people are like looking to camera and they're telling you what to do. There's something very powerful about that that people respond to.

• 1:38:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:38:38Rich Roll?

  But it also makes me very, like, I don't think I'm the right person to be like that.

• 1:38:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. Well, and also, because I believe so firmly that most truths are relative to our own personal experiences. So who am I to say that this is...

• 1:38:55Rich Roll?

  My partner has cancer, which I tell my kids.

• 1:38:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, a lot of people...

• 1:38:58Rich Roll?

  There's supposed to be some general, I'm sure you get asked that question a lot, right?

• 1:39:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, I do. And I, I don't respond because I, or I just stammer through some kind of, you know, blanket statement because I...

• 1:39:09Rich Roll?

  Nobody wants to hear, it depends.

• 1:39:10Speaker 01

  It depends. Do what you think is right. I mean, no, but I... Yeah, it's just everything and part of what I write in my book is that truth is so, it's like a kaleidoscope. It's just a twist of the risk depending on your perspective and your experiences. And my truth has changed so much throughout my life. And again, me reading this book I wrote five years ago wouldn't have resonated. So I think I just have to understand and accept that my book, this book isn't for everyone, you know? It's

• 1:39:44Rich Roll?

  Who is it for?

• 1:39:45Speaker 01

  Well, really for me. And the truth is

• 1:39:48Rich Roll?

  That's what an artist does.

• 1:39:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, I wrote it for me. And even now, reading it back, I see how a lot of what it will be criticized for is because I wrote it for me. And I didn't really think much about other people reading it. And actually, the night before it came out, I had a total meltdown because I was like, oh, shit, people are gonna read it.

• 1:40:11Rich Roll?

  But if, yeah, if you had thought about that while you were writing, you would have edited yourself. You can't do that.

• 1:40:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's true. And so I'm glad it is raw the way it is because that's what I, that's the story I had to tell myself for myself. That was me making sense of my life for me. And if other people can gain something from that, great. But if not, then I just have to be okay with it being me bearing my soul for myself.

• 1:40:38Rich Roll?

  Nothing great is for everybody.

• 1:40:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, let's, yeah.

• 1:40:41Rich Roll?

  You know, it's a big world out there, as Seth Godin says.

• 1:40:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:40:45Rich Roll?

  And my hope for you is that 10 years from now, you'll revisit this book, you'll read it, and in in perfect nonduality, or a duality here, there'll be part of you who's really proud of you for having the courage to tell this story and being able to like recognize the beauty in it. And another part of you is going to cringe and say, oh, my God, I can't believe like I wrote that.

• 1:41:10Speaker 01

  I already know I will because I'm already starting to be like, wow, I really did it.

• 1:41:14Rich Roll?

  Because you have grown, you have continued to grow. And so you've transcended, you know, some of the ideas that you were struggling with when you wrote it.

• 1:41:22Speaker 01

  Absolutely. Yeah. Yep. I hope that for me, too.

• 1:41:24Rich Roll?

  Yeah. I guess as a final thing, is there, we covered a lot, but like, I guess I feel responsible in asking you, like, is there a core idea beyond what we've already discussed today that you were trying to express in this book that we didn't cover?

• 1:41:42Speaker 01

  I mean, I think we covered it just between the lines, but just self-acceptance. And, and, and that was what I was really trying to do was accept myself throughout this book is, is write for me a narrative that would allow myself to accept and make sense of all of the recklessness and all of the craziness and, and accept it all as the beauty that makes me me now. And that that couldn't have happened had I not gone down all of the, the dead ends that I thought were dead ends, which were really now looking at it, were probably like bridges to myself.

• 1:42:25Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:25Speaker 01

  And, and so really it's just that self-love and self-acceptance.

• 1:42:30Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Again, it's that rear view thing. Like, well, when I went to Guatemala, you know, all these things that probably in the moment, you're like, why am I doing this? Or what am I doing with my life now seem integral in, you know, building the person that you are today.

• 1:42:45Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:42:46Rich Roll?

  I think the final thing I wanted to ask you also was that your relationship with shame, you know, coming out of, of the strictures of, of a religious upbringing and, and then being a rebel, right? Like there, there has to be some residue of like, in that department of self-love, the other side of that is like the deep shame and unworthiness because you're a bad person. That, that seeking inside of you, like, just tell me I'm a good person.

• 1:43:15Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:43:15Rich Roll?

  Or how do I become a good person?

• 1:43:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 1:43:18Rich Roll?

  Is a shame, is a response to that shame, right? An antidote to that.

• 1:43:21Speaker 01

  Yeah. I try really hard not to dwell in shame because shame is something I want my children to rarely feel. I know they can't come out unscathed, but shame is such a large part of Christianity, really. And I've seen how it, it crippled me for a long time and a lot of the people that I love. And, and I really try not to embody shame because I don't want my children, especially as three girls, um, to grow up. And trying to emulate that. I do think, I think it's Brene Brown that said the difference between guilt and shame. And that guilt is actually actionable. And, and I do have guilt, like when I read my book back, I feel guilty for

• 1:44:04Speaker 01

  poor Jane and she was sober for six months and then she got drunk with me. And I feel guilt for that. And, and I think guilt is just taking responsibility. But shame, I feel like is just a dead end. There's no purpose for shame. It's just, um, yeah, there's no actionable purpose for it. And so I, I think I want to teach my kids the difference between those two.

• 1:44:28Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I think the ripple to that is guilt. I think this is what Brene said. Guilt is an emotion around something you did. And shame is an emotion around who you are.

• 1:44:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, but, but in religion, they're so tightly entwined. I mean, you're taught that your actions are who, who you are, you know? That drinking makes you a bad person in the Mormon religion. And, and you really are taught that and it's really ingrained. And so trying to separate those two, um, those two things being, you know, what I do isn't necessarily who I am. And I think that was also exemplified by that, um, the bishop who told me, you know, I hear you list off all of these quote unquote sins, but you're still a good person. And that right there, I think that's the split between, you know, the action.

• 1:45:16Rich Roll?

  What you do.

• 1:45:17Speaker 01

  And who you are, exactly.

• 1:45:18Rich Roll?

  And he wasn't exonerating you from taking responsibility for it.

• 1:45:22Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:45:22Rich Roll?

  But he was distinguishing behavior from identity.

• 1:45:25Speaker 01

  Absolutely, yeah, yeah.

• 1:45:27Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Beautiful.

• 1:45:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:45:29Rich Roll?

  I think we did it.

• 1:45:30Speaker 01

  I think we did it.

• 1:45:33Rich Roll?

  The book is fantastic. You're inspiring. Tommy is inspiring. You together is, is truly a, you know, one plus one equals 10 equation. Uh, and, uh, I just, you know, I wish you guys the best and.

• 1:45:47Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 1:45:49Rich Roll?

  Tommy's continued recovery, and I hope to see both of you in the future.

• 1:45:53Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 1:45:53Rich Roll?

  What's coming next for you? Are you into another book? Or is it day to day, going from the gut? Is it going to take 10 years for another book?

• 1:46:00Speaker 01

  Well, who knows? I don't know. I'm, I am already, of course, I already started writing another book, but it's not a memoir. It's not a memoir. It's a novel. So we'll see where that goes. Yeah, I think I'm done with the memoir.

• 1:46:12Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Well, you, I think you got a little bit more life. You know, it's like one year later, my next memoir.

• 1:46:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, no. Yeah, but in the interim, yeah. And then also, like I said, just being, just learning, just to be. And maybe it's okay not to have another project on the table. I don't know. We'll see.

• 1:46:28Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:46:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:46:29Rich Roll?

  I can, you're like, your, your skin is crawling. Right? As somebody who lives out of their gut instinct, you should be okay with that.

• 1:46:38Speaker 01

  I will. We'll see what happens. Yeah.

• 1:46:40Rich Roll?

  Well, absolute delight and pleasure to talk to you.

• 1:46:43Speaker 01

  Thank you so much.

• 1:46:43Rich Roll?

  Thank you so much. Everybody pick up the book, Everything All at Once, at your favorite bookseller, independent bookstores, hopefully, if not Amazon.

• 1:46:51Speaker 01

  They should be everywhere.

• 1:46:52Rich Roll?

  Your website. I'll link up all that stuff in the show notes. And come back and talk to me again.

• 1:46:57Speaker 01

  Awesome. Thank you so much.

• 1:46:58Rich Roll?

  Cheers. Peace.

• 1:47:03Rich Roll?

  That's it for today. Thank you for listening. I truly hope you enjoyed the conversation. To learn more about today's guests, including links and resources related to everything discussed today, visit the episode page at richroll.com, where you can find the entire podcast archive, as well as podcast merch, my books, Finding Ultra, Voicing Change, and The Plant Power Way, as well as the Plant Power Meal Planner at meals.richroll.com. If you'd like to support the podcast, the easiest and most impactful thing you can do is to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, and on YouTube, and leave a review and/or comment.

• 1:47:48Rich Roll?

  Supporting the sponsors who support the show is also important and appreciated. And sharing the show or your favorite episode with friends or on social media is of course awesome and very helpful. And finally, for podcast updates, special offers on books, the meal planner, and other subjects, please subscribe to our newsletter, which you can find on the footer of any page at richroll.com. Today's show was produced and engineered by Jason Camiolo with additional audio engineering by Cale Curtis. The video edition of the podcast was created by Blake Curtis with assistance by our creative director, Dan Drake. Portraits by Davy Greenberg. Graphic and social media assets courtesy of Daniel Salis.

• 1:48:32Rich Roll?

  Thank you Georgia Whaley for copywriting and website management. And of course, our theme music was created by Tyler Pyatt, Tractor Pyatt, and Harry Mathis. Appreciate the love, love the support. See you back here soon. Peace. Plants. Namaste. [music]