E134 - Peter Crone: Finding Freedom From Ego & Subconscious Limiting Beliefs

This week renowned mindset coach Peter Crone comes back for a transformative discussion on breaking through the barriers of the subconscious mind. He explores how to unlock inner freedom and create lasting change in our lives. Peter delves into the intricacies of the subconscious mind, helping us define its role and influence on our daily experiences. Peter reveals the patterns that lie at the root of our suffering and how to rewire these problems at the source. He examines common limiting beliefs that hold many people back, guiding us through the process of unpacking these layers to uncover deeper truths. He also touches on the theme of transmuting the pain of loss and grief, and the concept of the spiritual ego. BonCharge Red light therapy: Go to https://BonCharge.com/KnowThyself and use code KNOWTHYSELF to save 15% André's Book Recommendations: https://www.knowthyself.one/books ___________ 0:00 Intro 2:08 The Problems Hidden in Your Subconscious 11:37 These Patterns are at the Root of our Suffering 18:21 Common Limiting Beliefs that Hold People Back 24:08 Unpacking the Layers of Limiting Beliefs 31:15 Ask Yourself This One Question 36:30 Transmuting the Pain of Loss/Grief 47:23 Ad: Boncharge Redlight Therapy 48:40 Relationships & Connecting from a Place of Love 1:00:06 The Power of Listening 1:05:37 Go from ‘Seeking’ to ‘Exploring’ 1:09:45 Why the Ego Fears Being Wrong 1:13:08 Stop Identifying with Your Problems 1:17:03 Freedom is Available Here and Now 1:28:05 Unpacking the Spiritual Ego 1:55:26 Reaching new Heights of Your Potenital 2:01:02 Conclusion ___________ Peter Crone is a thought leader in human potential and performance. He devotes his life to sharing insights and strategies to create an inspired life and find true freedom by awakening new levels of awareness. Peter helps redesign the subconscious mind that drives behavior and performance and uses the wisdom of Ayurveda to help people find balance through diet and lifestyle. He’s worked with entertainers, professional athletes, as well as global organizations. Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/petercrone/ Website: https://www.petercrone.com/ ___________ Know Thyself Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/knowthyself/ Website: https://www.knowthyself.one Clips Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJ4wglCWTJeWQC0exBalgKg Listen to all episodes on Audio: Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4FSiemtvZrWesGtO2MqTZ4?si=d389c8dee8fa4026 Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/know-thyself/id1633725927 André Duqum Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/andreduqum/

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

  People really are under the impression that the life they have is not the life they want. The thing that we're really up against is all our own perspective. That's it. We could just be perpetually chasing our tail, trying to perfect everything around us under the illusion that when I get everything exactly the way that my current perspective thinks it should be, then I'm going to experience peace. But you don't. When you live that way for decades, you also now have the accumulative effect of that perspective. The toxicity in the brain, the toxicity in the body, the toxicity in your relationships, the absence of abundance in your finances. My role is to help people discover what's beneath their woe. Because then you start to see that everything that anyone deals with as a problem exists only in perspective. People do end relationships.

• 0:44Speaker 00

  They leave careers because they realize that it wasn't actually an extension of their greatest self, because it's the freedom from the idea of oneself, which immediately, instantaneously, at the same time, gives an experience of newfound love for what is. And simultaneously, that's the present state. As it relates to my future, I see nothing but pure possibility.

• 1:07André Duqum?

  I've introduced you enough, my friend. I'm honestly getting quite tired of it.

• 1:12Speaker 00

  I just don't even like this guy. I can't keep making up nice things about him.

• 1:18André Duqum?

  Oh, man, well, welcome back for the trilogy.

• 1:20Speaker 00

  Oh, we're going.

• 1:21André Duqum?

  We're alive.

• 1:22Speaker 00

  Okay, hello.

• 1:25André Duqum?

  You and plus one, you brought Scooby Doo today.

• 1:29Speaker 00

  Yeah, he's one of my favorites. He's great. Reminder, you can't feed life too seriously, darling.

• 1:34André Duqum?

  Yeah.

• 1:35Speaker 00

  Am I your only three-peat?

• 1:37André Duqum?

  There might be one or two others.

• 1:38Speaker 00

  What? I'm so upset.

• 1:42André Duqum?

  But for good reason, you know, you obviously won, dear friend. And you happen to have cultivated quite an amazing perspective, understanding, and life. And there's a lot of ripe things that I'm excited to bring up with you in today's conversation. I feel like in my own personal evolution, the evolution of the show, and also the world.

• 2:04Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:05André Duqum?

  For just kind of definition's sake, I would love actually for you to just define what you feel the subconscious mind is. Because what's so fascinating to me is on the pursuit of discovering true freedom in our life.

• 2:20Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:21André Duqum?

  There are so many things beyond our current awareness that are holding us back from accessing our natural state of being.

• 2:29Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:29André Duqum?

  Which we both feel is is freedom.

• 2:32Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:32André Duqum?

  But it helps to get context for what the subconscious mind is and the patterns that are kind of outside of our realm of awareness. So what is that in your perspective?

• 2:41Speaker 00

  I mean, I don't know if it's so much a definition. I like to use analogies. I think it helps people to understand things that perhaps aren't so palatable. But like, if you imagine like the building we're in right now, it's going to be commensurate with the foundations, right? So this this existence that we live in as a space, or you live in as your home, it has to have the pillars that support it. So any building, any identity that we become associated with, in this case, our own personality, has got its own foundation. So for me, the subconscious represents that. So the things that we're aware of, it's really just as the word implies, that which is beneath, which is conscious, right? So it's just below, so we become oblivious to it, but nonetheless, it informs everything.

• 3:24Speaker 00

  So that when, you know, we're thinking about things, we're in the shower, we're going to bed, we're driving our car, whatever it is that you are aware of as a conscious thought, to me, is generated from a much deeper, and at times more insidious, doesn't have to be bad, but it's a much more well-formed idea. And so whilst people know, for example, that they shouldn't smoke cigarettes, or maybe they shouldn't drink so much alcohol, that's a conscious awareness, but they don't know why they still do it because of the subconscious foundation that supports the habit. So that's why it's so beautiful to be able to access, because really, it informs everything else. It's sort of that which is tucked away in the wings, but it's it's it's the genesis

• 4:06Speaker 00

  of everything that we're aware of, that we think about, that then creates all of our emotions and our actions, and then consequently, our results. So that's why, for me, I love delving into that. Space, because it's the only thing that's really going to make lasting change. I mean, you're going to see an expert of any kind, they're gonna, they're dabble in the realm of behavior, right? Like, you see someone who coaches you tennis, or someone who teaches you yoga, or someone who's a nutritionist, most of the conversation is going to be in the realm of action, like, do this, don't do that. But to me, that's way too far down the cascade of like, how things come into creation. So, prior to, you know, what we're aware of and we think about are these subconscious thoughts, and then we can access the realm of being and freedom.

• 4:48André Duqum?

  So let's reverse engineer it a little bit, going back to the root. Because, again, there is a large rhetoric, especially in the personal development space, to focus solely on the behaviors, and the discipline, and the willpower.

• 5:00Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 5:01André Duqum?

  And, we can see that, no matter how much praying, or effort, if you're, if you plant, let's say, a mango tree seed.

• 5:12Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 5:12André Duqum?

  You know, there's no way you're going to turn that into an avocado tree, you know, or, or you're, there's, there's no amount of willpower that will change what the confines of, you know, the, the genome that's in that seed to change it into something else.

• 5:26Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm.

• 5:26André Duqum?

  And so, likewise, I feel like at the root, there are these beliefs and identity structures, that then cascade down. And so, reverse engineering backwards, from the results, to the actions, the thoughts, the feelings.

• 5:41Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 5:41André Duqum?

  And the beliefs and the identity. When you take it down to the root of what something is, do you feel in the subconscious realm, like you said, that's kind of one level beneath our level of conscious awareness, are the identity and beliefs, is that how you see it?

• 5:54Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, that's the realm that I traffic in, that's what I'm always looking for, and, you know, in the book that I've been writing for like, the last seventy-eight years, that's eventually going to come out.

• 6:03André Duqum?

  Older than you.

• 6:05Speaker 00

  Yes. Um, it just feels like it's been there for a minute.

• 6:09André Duqum?

  It has been.

• 6:10Speaker 00

  But I, I delineate these ten primal prisons, that to me, are the foundation of the personality, so they sit in the subconscious. So that is, when I'm working with anyone, and you've seen me coach people.

• 6:21André Duqum?

  Even better than that, I've seen you coach myself at times.

• 6:24Speaker 00

  Exactly, you've experienced it.

• 6:25André Duqum?

  Peter, help me.

• 6:26Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's, it's so, I just feel very fortunate that, for whatever reasons, I'm able to, um... And I make analogies again, or it's akin to me like a magician, right? Who's who's in a form of entertainment, helping somebody see something that in this case could be miraculous or inspiring or or entertaining. And so for me, I when I'm hearing somebody's issues or whatever their problems are, because I know these primal prisons that everybody's identity is built upon, I can hear and reverse engineer, okay, if someone's dealing with fill in the blank. So my my role is to sort of through often compassion, kindness and patience and a lot of love, help people discover what's beneath their woes, right? So that is that reverse engineering.

• 7:11Speaker 00

  Because then you start to see that everything that anyone deals with as a problem is really exists only in perspective. And so when you shift that, as Wayne Dyer said, you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change, right? So really, that's why I love what I get to do, because I don't necessarily need to know how to resolve problems. I'm helping people see they don't have any, right? And that doesn't mean that circumstances aren't challenging. There's a lot of shit out there that people deal with, myself included. But it's it's to remove the suffering that's associated with the challenges and circumstances of life, right? And that, to me, is because of these subconscious constraints that we look through, that inform the way that we perceive the world, that we're coming from a perspective as a very benign example everyone can relate to is that we feel we're not enough.

• 7:56Speaker 00

  Where is that? Like, it's not part of your genome, right? That's software. And so I'm really like a coder, you know, I'm helping people see that the the identity that you have become misidentified with is based solely in language. It's just words. It's really stopping people. And when you see that, it's it's both liberating, but it's also almost comical to see that the things that you so crave are really on the other side of vibration and sound, that you think that you're not valuable, you're not loved. Like, it's it's not a truth, right? And so that's why that reverse engineering process is so profound. I mean, I just worked with someone as part of a free event to show people what they might experience in my mastermind program. And this guy, there's like 8,000 people signed up

• 8:40Speaker 00

  to witness this free, you know, sort of expose in terms of my philosophy and my work. And I work with a guy I've never met before, 46, 48, a guy from India. And he'd submitted a question, like a lot of people, and I just randomly picked. And he was struggling with self-esteem, anxiety and a lot of anger, particularly towards his loved ones, which tends to be, you know, sadly, the case when people struggle with that. And you could see, like even for me, the fatigue in his face, like the dark circles under his eyes, the sadness, the fatigue that is upon him, knowing he's a good guy and he doesn't want to hurt people that he loves. He even said that he'd just blown up at his oldest son and almost said to his son, "I hope you don't grow up to be like me." You know, and you can feel like the shame in that, right?

• 9:26Speaker 00

  There's a guy who wants to be a good dad, but he doesn't even know why he blows up. And so to be able to reverse engineer that and help him see that he fundamentally thought who he was was bad. Like, he's not walking around going, "I'm bad." He's walking around going, "I'm an asshole of a father because I just blew up on my kids," right? But the "I'm bad" was the foundation that allows that behavior to be perpetuated through every arena of his life. So once we, then we investigate the validity of that, like where did that come from? When he was slapped as a kid in a very traditional Indian family, where he was sort of, you know, seen and not heard and scolded and shamed and all the things he did was wrong. And, but then to see that it's not a truth, right? That's what you went through and it's hard for a kid. And I can understand why you thought you were a bad kid, but it's not an actual truth.

• 10:09Speaker 00

  And to see his face on the other side of that, realizing, as I ask everybody, is it true, whatever the constraint is, like in his case, is it true that you're bad? And he really got it, it's not a truth. But it becomes so part of him, it's not even a thought. People talk about limiting beliefs, that's also not it. It's a subconscious foundation of his whole identity. And when you pull that from beneath someone, I mean, the joy that was on his face was palpable. There wasn't a dry eye on the Zoom, you know, because people could feel, they can relate to like, wow, like he spent forty something years thinking that who he is as a person is bad. And, and that's, you know, that's how most people go through life. And then they have the myriad of forms of escape, right?

• 10:51Speaker 00

  Some street drugs, to medication, to food, to, you know, whatever it is that impacts their life, so. Yes, that's why I like what I get to do. If you're into freedom and not having suffering, yeah.

• 11:05André Duqum?

  Especially, as I'm sure you've experienced more and more life as it is. You witness the realm that this is, which is very beautiful, so joyous. And we were just talking about beforehand on this podcast, how vast this universe is, like this, the human predicament, like where we find ourself in this cosmos is so magnificent and awe inspiring. And for us to be living life in our own projections, is, it's just sad when we know what else is possible. And so, as you've seen and worked with people for decades, you've, like anybody who does anything for a while, you recognize patterns, right? You recognize that we're actually fairly predictable and that there's these patterns and limiting constraints

• 11:49André Duqum?

  that, you know, we share across the board throughout humanity. Now, you mentioned that we're essentially suffering a perspective that's rooted in words.

• 11:58Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 11:59André Duqum?

  When you go to the core of it, and especially when somebody like transmutes it and finds more freedom, is it not more than that? Like, there's gotta be, there's feelings attached in emotion that's energy stored physiologically. Like, how do you see what it's actually made up of? Because words lead to, I guess, a narrative around ourselves, which informs the perspective we have. But when you see the substance of what is actually making up our limitations, how would you kind of break that down?

• 12:31Speaker 00

  I still think at its core, it's still words, it's still sound, right? Like, we live in a vibratory universe. Tesla said, you want to understand the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency, and vibration, right? So, in the beginning was the word. No matter what sort of tenants you pull from, everything to me still comes back to that vibratory state that is what it is to have life. And so...

• 12:54Speaker 00

  Over time, because of the way that we perceive ourselves, like this forty-six-year-old that I'm working with in this free workshop, he's got four-plus decades of that particular form of conditioning. So there is more associated with it because of the accumulation over time, right? So the type of job he would have curated, the type of wife he would have attracted, even the way that he takes care or doesn't take care of his physiology, which then, over time, is going to accumulate whatever, you know, derogatory energies that he feels about himself, the dismissive energies he's accumulated with friends or loved ones, exes, the type of foods and things that he's drawn to.

• 13:37Speaker 00

  If he thinks he's a bad person, he's probably not being pulled towards the most clean, fresh, organic food because his value proposition of his own idea of himself doesn't afford that. So that's on top of, right? So in Ayurveda, we talk about these sort of three stages, which is you first of all have to remove the root cause of whatever it is that is the precursor to the pathology or the sickness. Then you want to balance the effects of the previous root cause. And then the third stage is you create a new paradigm for existence. So in his case, the root cause is, I would still assert based in vibration and language, I'm bad. And there were other ones, like there's something wrong with him because he was a pretty boy when he was young, he had very pretty eyes.

• 14:20Speaker 00

  And so as a little boy, he was told, oh, you look like a girl. Now, it's an innocent, almost compliment, really, because he's got these beautiful eyes. But the way he interpreted it is that there was something wrong with him. So that was another part of his constraint. So he's bad, there's something wrong with him. And then most people's relationship to the future is based in worst-case scenario. So that's the lens constraint of I'm not going to be okay. It's a survival proposition. So he had all three going, right? So those three, to me, are still the foundation that create the suffering. When you live that way for decades, then you also now have the accumulative effect of that perspective. So the toxicity in the brain, the toxicity in the body, the toxicity in your relationships,

• 15:02Speaker 00

  the absence of abundance in your finances, the kind of environment you live in.

• 15:08André Duqum?

  A lot of evidence to reinforce its existence.

• 15:10Speaker 00

  Exactly, yeah. So that's where we get to be right about the perspective, right? Which is why humans are, you know, so preoccupied with self-righteousness because it's a way that ego can perpetuate itself. So, once he saw that he's not bad, he's still gonna be left with, you know, the adrenal fatigue, right? That I could see based on the dark circles under his eyes, which is a reflection of somebody who's in fight or flight for the majority of their day. So, that now has to be balanced, right? So the previous root cause removed, which is awesome, but like someone who's been an alcoholic, for example, they got cirrhosis of the liver, right? You gotta, you, you, just because you stopped drinking, your liver isn't now like, you know, functioning like a brand-new baby, like it's clean. So you've got to balance the effects of living that way.

• 15:53Speaker 00

  So that, there is some practical things to do too, once I work with people. They also may find that they're in a toxic relationship that served their previous identity, but no longer is in alignment with their newfound sense of self-worth. Uh, which can be, you know, that can be tough. People, you know, do end relationships, they leave careers, um, because they realize that it wasn't actually an extension of their greater self, it was really what was sustaining their limited idea of themselves. So, there's a lot to it. Just removing the blanket is one thing, and the liberation and the freedom that people experience is just awe-inspiring, even to witness, let alone what they, the euphoria they feel. It's palpable to watch, right? Because as human beings, we can relate to all of these constraints, we all have them.

• 16:37Speaker 00

  So, it's why my mastermind's so beautiful, because people, even if I'm not working with them directly, they're vicariously getting whatever liberation they need through somebody else's trauma and story. Then we'd be responsible for like, holy shit, I've lived in the world of I'm not good enough for forty years. And as a result, I have, you know, kept myself small. I don't do, I don't pursue the projects I want. I don't take care of myself. I've, I've settled in a relationship that isn't passionate, whatever it is. And then it's like, now you, you see a new opportunity. So it's literally creating a new arena, which is then pulling you through inspiration to become literally a better version of yourself. So that's the cascade of the evolution, you know, we, we shed these skins, hopefully continually, we

• 17:21Speaker 00

  do it physiologically, just showering every day, you know, you're getting rid of dead cells. But why I love what I get to do is because people just, they, they don't upgrade their software usually, you know, oftentimes in an entire lifetime. So to keep dying to the, the version of yourself that no longer serves you is a form of being truly alive, which is why the subject of death is one of my favorites. Cause you know, to truly be alive, you have to constantly dive to the part of you that is, is redundant.

• 17:48André Duqum?

  Yeah.

• 17:50André Duqum?

  It's a gift to be able to see you work. And also you came and worked with my men's group one, one night.

• 17:57Speaker 00

  Yeah, that was fun.

• 17:58André Duqum?

  What's fascinating is when you see the process of you working with somebody, it becomes quite obvious to everybody except the person who's being worked on or, you know, because the nature of our blind spot is like, we can't see it. We're operating through the lens of it. And so we can't see ourselves because we're looking through it.

• 18:17Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 18:18André Duqum?

  I'm excited to unpack that a little bit, but when you look at the possible perspectives that, that you boil down, that are prisons of our own making.

• 18:27Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 18:28André Duqum?

  What would you say are the, are some of the most common ones? If you look at it from, you know, pattern perspective?

• 18:35Speaker 00

  Yeah. I think, you know, I often talk about the three main buckets, which sort of are catchall for the different ways that people perceive themselves. And it's not even, as I said, it's not a limiting belief, the way I phrase it, it's the you that you are for yourself, right? Which might seem like a weird statement, but it's accurate, right? The you that you are for yourself. So it's not that you think or have a belief that you're not enough. It's that who you are for yourself is you're not enough. And so that informs, that is the view of life that you look through. So I talk about like some sense of inadequacy, some sense of insecurity and some sense of scarcity as being the three main catchals, right, that everyone can relate to. Inadequacy is normally about ourselves and I'm not enough, I'm not loved, I'm not valuable. Insecurity is how I relate to my environment. So there's a fundamental feeling of like,

• 19:19Speaker 00

  we're not safe and particularly for the feminists, sadly, because of this patriarchal world we live in and that they've been abused for centuries, right? So a woman walking to her car at night has a totally different experience than a guy walking to his car at night. Right? You know, just because of the way that this society is sadly set up. So the not safe really is the feeling of insecurity for the way it manifests in a masculine. It might be insecurity in performance, right? So I've worked with high-end executives who are super well-informed about their industry. They've worked in a company for decades, but they're still scared shitless to get on stage and present, right? So insecurity and then scarcity is like where people have this misnomer that there isn't enough as it relates to the material world, right?

• 20:03Speaker 00

  So there's a relationship to ourself, there's a relationship to others and there's a relationship to the material world. And so they tend to be the default factory settings of the subconscious that we look through. Something wrong with me, I'm not fundamentally loved and accepted by society and I don't have enough. And then it's like slap on the ass and you know, go figure it out, have fun. Become who you think you should be as a compensation for your inadequacy. Do whatever you have to as a strategy to win love and favor from, you know, your fellow species. And then accumulate as much as you can to compensate for the scarcity. And those three right there, you start to see the idiosyncrasies that people deal with, right? People are exhausted, they are living in a pretense. They're trying to be who they think they should be in order to be loved and accepted.

• 20:47Speaker 00

  They are doing whatever they can as a strategy to compensate for their own shortcomings, whether they work harder, they become people pleasers, perfectionists. The social media game is obviously, you know, where this is replete with the attempts to, through filters and posters and positions and lights to look good, you know? And then the hoarding mentality that it is to be human, the holding on to things. As though anything exogenous to us has any value at all, it just doesn't. You know, so when you really start to see that, it's like, holy shit, no wonder people are just like sick and tired. They're they're playing this quintessential hamster wheel game of really trying to overcome their own blind spots of of lies. It's, you know, when you really see it, it's um.

• 21:33Speaker 00

  There's so much compassion. That's why, again, I love what I get to do, because as I tell people, I can't give you something you don't already have. I'm just helping you see what's in the way of you realizing that. And it's a dissolution process, right? And we live in a very solve, a solution oriented society.

• 21:49André Duqum?

  Yeah, where growth is perceived in the acquisition of more.

• 21:53Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 21:53André Duqum?

  And as opposed to addition by subtraction and actually the removal of things.

• 21:58Speaker 00

  Which is why I love Ayurveda. And when I, you know, became a practitioner of that, there were so many correlates between what I already intuitively understood in my own work and what this science of five, seven, six thousand years old was pointing to physiologically. And there's something called Samprapti, which is the six stages of disease. And it really talks about the physiology and the doshas, right? If you have too much pitta or vata or kapha, these different energies, then you eventually get sickness. And the first stage of disease is accumulation. And yet here we live psychologically in a world of scarcity. And so the impulse is to accumulate. So it's just so ironic that the very thing that's driving us to try and find some sense of solace from the

• 22:40Speaker 00

  deprogramming that there's not enough is itself the first stage to sickness.

• 22:45André Duqum?

  Yeah.

• 22:45Speaker 00

  And so it's this vicious cycle where until you realize that you are what you're looking for, like the seeker is the sword, the place we're looking from is the place we're looking for, right? It it's just so stunning when you get it, because we're playing this game of of illusion, right? That there's something missing, something wrong. And now I'm going to play this compensatory role where actually the means by which I'm trying to find that which I am is creating the obstacle and the sickness that then I have to deal with. This is nuts.

• 23:14André Duqum?

  Yeah, yeah, I know.

• 23:16Speaker 00

  Wonder why people fucking drink so much?

• 23:19André Duqum?

  It downloads pretty heavy and I want to kind of zoom in and slow down on this aspect because it's really important we hit this.

• 23:25Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, it's a lot. I know it's a lot to process. It's so obvious to me and I just spit it out. It's like, wait, I think he said something profound, but I don't know what the fuck he's in.

• 23:37André Duqum?

  You know, because, so there's the saying, you know, best time to plan a tree is 100 years ago. The best time is today.

• 23:42Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 23:42André Duqum?

  It would have been nice if we were raised in an environment that was loving from the get go, where we didn't develop these behavioral compensations. And yet now we have a lot of evidence and the accumulation and momentum for believing our own sense of inadequacy, for example, to present day. And the best time to realize its illusory is, is right now, whoever is listening to this.

• 24:04Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 24:05André Duqum?

  A couple of things I want to dive into here. First,

• 24:07Speaker 00

  Sure.

• 24:08André Duqum?

  Do you perceive, like from meta systemic thinking, are there patterns within a hierarchy of patterns? For example, we're speaking English within Los Angeles, which is within the context of America, which is in the context of the Milky Way galaxy, for example. Like there are nodes within nodes.

• 24:28Speaker 00

  Yeah, for sure.

• 24:29André Duqum?

  Are there patterns, limiting beliefs, subconscious patterns that exist within each other? Where you see kind of the ultimate one being the illusory of the self, I'm assuming. But like, how do you kind of see how, how they are nested within each other, so to speak?

• 24:45Speaker 00

  Yeah, that sort of Russian dollar effect. I mean, I think they're all sort of, they're all commensurate, they all sort of reinforce one another, but they all overlap, right? So somebody who thinks they're not enough could equally relate to somebody that they're over here talking about the fact that they can't find a good mate in Los Angeles, right? It's like, it's not necessarily I'm not enough, but it's sort of a correlate to, um, I'm not lovable, which is what the other person's experience might be. So they all overlap. I mean, it's not a distinct science in the way that I've created it, but it really speaks to, that's why those three main buckets, I think, kind of capture the human experience that everyone can release, relate to. Somebody out there, no matter how accomplished they are, could probably feel like, oh, I can see that sometimes I think I'm not enough, or that there's a feeling of inadequacy.

• 25:31Speaker 00

  So, um, I think they, they all, it, it's sort of like a domino effect. Like, once you start to see one for what it is, which is this sort of linguistic fortress, as I call it, so literally you're in a prison based on words or sound. Once you see that, then whatever else it is that you come across, even if it's a blind spot, there's a deeper knowing now, no SIS, it's not mind oriented, but like really systemic oriented, where it's like, oh, hang on a minute, whatever I'm feeling, I now know is self-referral based on the way that I have some perceived limitation. It's no longer circumstantial based, right? Most people think that they're a victim of circumstance. If, fill in the blank, right? Obviously, the number one is, you've had more money, I'd be fine. Then it usually differs to something in the family.

• 26:16Speaker 00

  If my wife, my husband were nicer, if my parents like appreciated me, then I'd be fine. If my workplace was nicer, like you can fill in the blank of the things that people complain about. But that's, that's the trap, right? Is if I think that I'm a victim of circumstance, then we lead into the world that we see, which is control, manipulation, domination. Because people are trying to manipulate the things around them under the illusion that that's what's going to garner my greater sense of joy. But that's, that's, that's not how it works. I mean, talk to a billionaire, right? It's like I've worked with, I don't know, a couple of dozen of them. They, they don't have white light shooting out their genitals and they're not like loving life, right? It's they didn't, they didn't crack the code. They're still usually trying to accumulate more because that's where they're still

• 27:01Speaker 00

  caught in the same rat race as most people that it's out there somewhere. So I think the overlap is good to see. The cascade of one to the next is good to see, but really it's the fundamentals of what is it we're up against. That's the thing to see is that, you know, as I said earlier, albeit in that sort of rapid download, we are what we're looking for. It's just we're looking through a lens of illusion that has us feel inadequate, insecure, scarce. And so, once you understand the mechanism of suffering, because otherwise it becomes sort of like the allopathic world, right? You go and see a gastroenterologist, a neurologist, a cardiologist. It's all this, this world of separation.

• 27:43Speaker 00

  So someone could go to see a therapist, or a psychiatrist, or a spiritual teacher, or a priest for some sort of council, and they're gonna talk about the different arenas of their life, right? And so you could go from department to department of your life. Okay, there's something to do in my relationships, of which there are many, romantic, friends, family. I could look in the arena of my wealth. So it could be my literal bank accounts, it could be my career. I could look in the arena of my body and my health. And so, we could just be perpetually chasing our tail, trying to perfect everything around us, under the illusion that when I get everything exactly the way that my current perspective thinks it should be, then I'm gonna experience peace. But you don't, because, guess what? The next day, you're scrolling on Instagram, and you saw the latest thing that you're

• 28:26Speaker 00

  supposed to be doing with your body now, and you're like, fuck, I just, I just thought I'd reached the crescendo of my physiological radiance. And now it's like, there's something else, or there's a new fashion, or there's a new thing to try. So, that's where I want people to understand, that the thing that we're really up against is all our own perspective. That's it. That's it. Then, then the world can be as it is. And it's not to say that it's ideal, and it's not to in any way dismiss that people have very challenging circumstances. They have families to raise, with maybe, you know, shortcomings in their income, and they have, certainly right now, with whatever happened in L.A., and people's houses have been burnt to the ground. Like, there's stuff to deal with, there's shit to handle. But the means by which we do it is what I'm interested in.

• 29:11Speaker 00

  Right? There's what we do, and then there's the how. We all do shit every day. I'm a busy guy, but am I doing it from a place of obligation, suffering, a feeling of lack? I'm trying to get away from something I'm trying to fix? Or am I doing it for the pure joy of creation and being alive?

• 29:28André Duqum?

  Yeah.

• 29:30Speaker 00

  Clearly, I'm doing the first one. Fucking miserable.

• 29:37Speaker 00

  Yeah, no, so that's, you know, a long winded answer to your question is is often the case with me. But it's like, it's just recognizing, listen, you're not up against circumstances, you're just not. And we want to make space for the challenges that it is to be human, right? Like this three dimensional carbon suit, I have, I take care of, right? It's, it needs to sleep, it needs food, it needs to get rid of waste products. So there's things that it needs in order for me to have this interface with you and everybody else. But that's not my challenge. My challenge isn't what's going on in life, it just isn't. None of that, that is the reflection, that is the, the mirror through which I can start to really investigate, what am I really up against, which is the limitations of my own perspective.

• 30:21Speaker 00

  Crack that code, forget about it.

• 30:26Speaker 00

  That's freedom.

• 30:27André Duqum?

  Yeah, that level of, of accepting and admitting that is an admission to taking immense and complete responsibility for your life.

• 30:37Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 30:37André Duqum?

  And as you've said before, we can't be held responsible to that which we're oblivious to.

• 30:44Speaker 00

  Correct, yeah.

• 30:44André Duqum?

  And so a lot of times, like these perspectives, even though we can say like, these are perspectives that I have, that I hold, but again, we're looking through them as them. And so it's, it is the blind spot.

• 30:56Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 30:56André Duqum?

  That we're, that we're looking through. And from that point, like self improvement is a project of the divided self. It is like a dog chase its own tail.

• 31:08Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 31:09André Duqum?

  Failing to recognize that we are the source of that which we seek, like you're, like you're referring to.

• 31:14Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 31:14André Duqum?

  For people that want to bring this from the philosophical and existential down to their own immediate life, what is a question that they can ask themselves to invite some awareness? Cause you're, you're, you know, you're talking about the process of awareness and integration. You have the insight.

• 31:31Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 31:31André Duqum?

  You live it. What is a question we can ask ourselves to become aware of what is our predominant limiting belief holding us back without our awareness right now?

• 31:39Speaker 00

  That's great. And I think just to address the one quote, you know, like, so I actually say you can't be held accountable for that which you're oblivious to. So, because you really understand this in a way that you live it, I think, is we are responsible. It's just we might not know. And so that's what then breeds the compassion, right? You go and see experts and they're like, you shouldn't do this. And it's sort of this more lecturing, high school, like derogatory way that people can be spoken to. So I think there's room for compassion. But the responsibility part is where the power lies, right? If I'm fully responsible for my life, even in the ways that I don't fully understand some of my behavior, I'm no longer a victim of circumstance. So that's the first thing for people to look at. In terms of the questions they can ask themselves, it really comes down to the predominant emotional state that people are in, which is fear, right?

• 32:22Speaker 00

  So whatever anyone is dealing with, you know, as best as you can, look at the circumstance, whatever it is, rent that can't be paid, a relationship that's seemingly coming to an end, a parent that is about to die.

• 32:35Speaker 00

  Wherever they're suffering, there's going to be some form of resistance. One of the biggest lenses that is illusory that people look through is that they're under the impression that the life they have right now just isn't it. And when you really understand the amount of energy and time that people put into trying not to be where they are, you start to see the futility of that particular perspective, right? Because it's completely illogical. But when you see it, it's so insidious, right? People really are under the impression that the life they have is not the life they want. And I understand that psychologically and emotionally, but it's futile because it is the life you have. So the degree to which you resist that is the degree to which you're saying that I'm not where I'm supposed to be,

• 33:18Speaker 00

  which is going to be based on some deeper feeling of inadequacy or insecurity. Inadequacy that I haven't fulfilled on my potential, you know, when I was a kid, everyone was like, oh, you're going to be pretty, or you're going to be amazing, or you're going to be so successful. And so these deep programs that got instilled from parents and family members that haven't become realized because you're in a middle management position and you live in a city in an apartment and you thought you'd be in the suburbs driving a Mercedes, or whatever it is. There's nothing inherently wrong with your life. What you're fighting is the life you have relative to the life you either think you're supposed to have, you want, or you should have. So I were to investigate suffering, where are you in resistance to yourself and life?

• 34:00Speaker 00

  What is it that you're saying about who you are and what you have that you're under the impression isn't right? And when you can really see that, it's like, holy shit. Like, I am in a constant, mild to severe state of fight or flight with the circumstances of my life, which in of themselves aren't threatening. Right? There's one of my more favorite quotes, I say, you know, it's either life threatening or it's ego threatening. For the most part, hopefully, most people's lives, there isn't much life threatening ever. You know, occasionally. But for the most part, it's all your own perspective that's being threatened. So fear is that precursor to resistance that I'm not going to be okay. This isn't the way it should be. What do people think about me?

• 34:43Speaker 00

  So to tap into that is where people can start to investigate. Okay, what is the deeper concern? What is it that I say about myself? What is it that I'm saying about my relationship to other people? What is it I'm saying about my relationship to the material world? That according to my subconscious program, because it's not a conscious process. It's based on some sort of, you know, imprints from childhood. Or I would say the constraints with which we arrived. Because otherwise, it's, you know, it becomes accusatory, right? It's because my dad said that I'm a loser, that I'm a loser. No, you arrived as a loser as a potentiality, the emotional epigenetics, right? Not literally, but you're for so.

• 35:19André Duqum?

  Quote that, I'm just cutting that out. Peter Crone, you arrived as a loser.

• 35:24Speaker 00

  You are a loser. Let's just call it what it is. You arrive with the perspective that that's who you are for yourself. And then you curated the events that helped to trigger that, right? So that is your opportunity as a soul to be able to transcend, to discover your true divine nature. So whilst we tend to blame people for the things that we struggle with today, that just leaves us powerless, right? And there's nothing, there's nothing then we can do other than to continue to try and manipulate our circumstances.

• 35:50André Duqum?

  The nature of insight is like, once we see something clearly.

• 35:53Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 35:54André Duqum?

  It becomes like an aha, like, of course, like, that's how it is. And there can be a self righteousness that's attached to it.

• 35:59Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 36:00André Duqum?

  To sidebar that, because that's another conversation we're going to dive into.

• 36:04Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 36:04André Duqum?

  When we're oblivious to it, and we're in the moment where it is a blind spot. Can you take us into an example of your life where you were living in a limitation that you weren't aware to, and then you had the insight of?

• 36:19Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 36:19André Duqum?

  Because from, from, from the perspective where you understand it, it seems so clear. And when you're not in it, it seems completely unclear.

• 36:27Speaker 00

  Yeah, totally.

• 36:28André Duqum?

  And I think, yeah, it just breathes in some humanity because I know you've had so many examples within your own life where it's been this, you know, hide and seek of yourself, so to speak.

• 36:36Speaker 00

  Absolutely, yeah. No, I mean, I feel I'm at the bow of the boat of this whole process, which allows me, you know, the really, the gift that it is to be able to see other peoples, right? Because I've had to go through it myself. I often say, you know, heaven is a place on earth, but you have to go through hell to get there, right? And so I've definitely been through hell. I think one of the first ones that we may even talked about on your first podcast that we did together was my story of loss, which obviously is part of the fabric of it, what it is to be human, like people talking about, I've lost my home, I've lost my possessions. And so what I recognize is that's also a story. There's no loss. Like in the world of energy that we live in, it's all, it's all just transferred, right? It's all conserved. It just goes from one form

• 37:17Speaker 00

  to a next. And so my parents dying, my mom dying when I was seven of cancer, and my dad going to work when I was seventeen and went, he worked on the boats and the boats capsized, and he was one of close to 200 people that died. So I, in ways that I didn't know, my oblivious state was because I'm hearing, oh my gosh, loss and loss and loss and loss. I lost my parents. And for years, in a really well-intended way, I was hearing that from people. I'm so sorry to hear about your loss. Or, oh, that must have been so hard to lose your parents at such a young age. And so that narrative continues to get reinforced. So it wasn't until 14 years after, 13 years after my dad died, that I fell in love, as best as I knew, at the ripe age of 29, and my, you know, very limited understanding of what love was.

• 38:02Speaker 00

  And so my, who I was for myself is who I am is somebody that loses things of value.

• 38:10Speaker 00

  I'm not walking around saying that. That's a bizarre thing to say, but my energetic signature is that. And so the way I related to this new girl was from the compensatory space of, well, I don't want to lose you because my way of relating to you is that I love you and you're amazing. So I'm going to compensate by being the perfect boyfriend. Right. So people can understand that.

• 38:29André Duqum?

  To ensure that I don't lose you, which I believe that's my inevitability in a way.

• 38:33Speaker 00

  But I didn't believe it because I'm not even, it's my blind spot.

• 38:36André Duqum?

  Yeah, yeah. Sub like subconscious identity belief, right?

• 38:38Speaker 00

  Exactly. So it's just who I was for myself is the anything of particular value, especially in the realm of relationships is going to disappear. Cause that's my trauma. That's my experience. Right? So that's my only frame of reference. So here now is somebody who for the first time, you know, dated other girls, but didn't have the same significant connection. So, but here this is, whoa, this is strong. This is love. Right? So now we get this energetic, these tender hooks that can get into her. You know, and my means of making sure that I don't experience the hurt that I actually haven't transmuted yet, that I'm still propagating is to make sure I don't lose her because that's too painful. Not realizing, because this is all happening beneath the surface, that I just still haven't reconciled the hurt that was my parents dying.

• 39:22Speaker 00

  And it's being reinforced by the narrative of loss, which I didn't lose them. They died. Right. So eventually I got to the post of, I didn't lose anything. My parents died. That's part of the human experience. That might sound cold or callous. I still miss the shit out of my dad. I mean, I, I think he would be blown away by what I've accomplished and, you know,

• 39:38André Duqum?

  He would have been, yeah.

• 39:39Speaker 00

  Yeah, the sense of pride that I know he just adored me as an only child, right? And especially as for 10 years there after he'd lost his own wife, you know, his mom, my mom had died and his wife had gone. You know, I was his entire world, right? So there's times where I just really feel like I, I would love to just sit down and get to know him, you know, because as a 17 year old, we're all so self preoccupied. But anyway, um, so in that relationship, I, you know, got to the point where, as I tell people, fear will break its own heart. Right? So I didn't know, but my fear of loss did eventually fulfill on itself, that self fulfilling prophecy where my behavior, because albeit well intended, and I really was a great fucking boyfriend, but my efforts were somewhat disingenuous.

• 40:23Speaker 00

  The, the underlying intent was pure, which is I love this person. I want to show up, whether it be poetry, flowers, kindness, attention, safety, all the things that you would assume any woman would just die for.

• 40:37Speaker 00

  Were nonetheless tainted with this little bit of inauthenticity because the energetic way that it's being represented is from fear.

• 40:45André Duqum?

  And even on the receiving end, in ways that we probably couldn't articulate, or she couldn't, she's, her body, her somatic experience is feeling the texture of the energy in which things are being given from, right?

• 40:56Speaker 00

  And she could feel it to the point that that's what she articulated when she left, right? Because I thought we were in such a great place. And we had, you know, like any couple, we had things to work on and communications to clear up, but there was so much joy and love between us. But when she did eventually say she's leaving, she said, your love is suffocating. And even in the moment she said that, it still didn't register, like, because I didn't know what I was up to. But it's like, you know, when you catch a kid and they, you know, you can tell as a parent, like, they just did something, you know, what are you up to? Nothing. You know, there's something going on systemically, energetically, at the subtlest level of who we be, that we're oblivious to, but you're up to something, right? And in this case, what I was up to was doing everything I could to avoid her

• 41:40Speaker 00

  leaving me, which was got nothing to do with her. It had everything to do with the hurt that had not yet been mitigated in my system because of the passing of my parents. So once I saw that, I mean, there was, she left, and there was, it was probably seven, eight weeks where she wasn't in my life. The first two or three, we're communicating this, you know, whatever logistics, she left this, or this, or how you, you know, we're staying in touch for a while. And I was, at that point, still hoping that there was, there was an opportunity to reconcile where, you know, she'd come back, or desperate, and doing desperate things. I was talking to all my buddies and, you know, what can I do? What can I say? How did I fuck this up? All the normal stuff that humans go through. And

• 42:23Speaker 00

  then there was a period of about six or seven weeks where, maybe five or six weeks, where there was no communication. So I hadn't heard a word from her. And my brain, because of this subconscious foundation of fear and loss, the conscious thoughts were

• 42:39Speaker 00

  Based in that scarcity and lack, right? Where is she? Is she dating someone else? Which would help to reinforce my feeling of inadequacy. Will I see her again? Which is the fear of like my life not working out. And so all of these questions kept ruminating around, you know, to the point of like, I woke up one night in the middle of the night and I actually screamed, "Shut up." I said, "Shut up." Because my mind just would not stop. It is an addiction, right? When we come from that place of suffering. So it was very humbling for me because back then I wasn't doing what I do now. I was just, you know, not just, but I was training people. So albeit transformative and it was beautiful, it didn't have this level of impact. So I sat there and then, you know, one day I was just sitting at my desk and these same questions were still, you know,

• 43:24Speaker 00

  permeating the corners of my skull. And I got the answer to all the questions. They were like, where is she? Is she dating someone? Will I see her again? And will I find love like that? And it was three words, which is, "I don't know." And the peace and freedom that cascaded through my body, I'd never had before. And to me, if there was a sartorial moment, some sort of moksha or enlightenment, that was it. That was it. I realized at that moment, all of it, right? In terms of my experience, which is, I'd never known what the fuck was going to happen. None of us do. You know, I didn't know I was going to have this conversation with you today. But the irony or the paradox of the human brain, which is designed to predict and protect, because the imperative of every organism is to survive.

• 44:09Speaker 00

  And so we've got this incredible piece of equipment that's always trying to calculate what's going to happen for its own self-preservation, which, you know, which is handy. We all want to stick around. But I realized it's futile. Because it doesn't matter how much you sit and try and think about what's going to happen. At best, you can speculate. I mean, people do it on the stock market. They do it with human behavior a little bit. But you still don't know. So that's where that pattern, to me, got revealed. And the truth was just so self-evident that it was undeniable and I never looked back, which is, I didn't know. I didn't know where she was. I didn't know who she's dating. I didn't know if I'd see her again. And the powerful part was not only the reconciliation of the futility of trying to work out life,

• 44:53Speaker 00

  but the actual nature of life is uncertainty. But then, secondly, for the first time in my life, I was totally okay with it. And that was peace. That to me was true success. Like, there was nothing more to figure out. There was nothing to control. There was nothing to manipulate or try and win or hold. It was, it was complete surrender. And because I know you love physics and the sort of the subtler bodies of this, this paradigm we're in. What was so profound for me is within 15 minutes of me having that revelation, my phone rings and at this point it was a landline showing my age. But I pick it up and it's her.

• 45:37Speaker 00

  And I haven't spoken to her for about six weeks. And the last time I spoke to her, I'm the desperate one, like trying to get her back, right? And now she's crying, saying, I miss you so much. I want to come back. I mean, again, tingles now, right? Because what I got at that moment was, in physics entanglement theory, right? But the unification of everything. She, and she was literally on the other side of the planet. She couldn't physically have been further. She was in New Zealand. Right? And this isn't a knowing, right? This is an energetic resonance that I would assert at that moment, I had become available for the first time in my life. Because I wasn't available. Most people in relationships aren't available.

• 46:20Speaker 00

  I know that's a bold statement to make, but because you're fighting your own feelings of constraint and then your partner is the mirror for hopefully for those things to obviously get transmuted. But at that moment, I no longer had anything to prove. I didn't need to hold on to her. I understood what love was. I recognized what freedom was. And albeit of course, over the last two plus decades, you know, there's been moments where I've still tried to figure shit out. But it wasn't from a place of fear. It wasn't from a place of worry. It wasn't from a place of, you know, desperation. So that was the insight that could not be unseen.

• 47:00André Duqum?

  Those moments where you see the interconnection of life is such a trip and a reminder of these chords that we really do create with people and how the energies we hold and beliefs are, you know, when they're, when they're collapsed, immediately in real time, you get that call. Like, that's just proof, right? There of the energy collapsing, but then also how it's connected with other people.

• 47:20Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 47:23André Duqum?

  We'll get right back to the episode, but first, a quick share from a brand that I love and use all of the time. I'm talking about Bon Charge Red Light Therapy, which, by the way, has over 4,000 peer-reviewed studies, many of which show how it helps with cellular healing, skin health by stimulating collagen, testosterone, sleep, mood, and so many other things. I personally can feel the benefits in real time, and I think it's a great way to get healthy light in the morning, especially during the colder months or where there's less sun outside. Just 10 to 20 minutes a day is enough. And yeah, Bon Charge is a great option for red light devices because they have the lowest EMF on the market. They can switch between both near infrared and red light in one device. There's no flicker,

• 48:07André Duqum?

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• 48:41André Duqum?

  I think this is a big theme. Thank you for sharing. You've shared with me that story in the past, and to me, it's such an important reminder of what is love and the mirrors that relationships serve in our life, and how we're constantly bringing in our past history with us into every dynamic. And actually, painfully, the realization is that we're relating to people through our own perspective of them and who we want them to be, and not actually them. Now, looking back on that, what does that reveal to you about what it means to actually relate to people from a true place of love without attachment of who we need them to be for us?

• 49:20Speaker 00

  It's such a beautiful question, and I feel so blessed that I got to see that, right? Because at one level, it could be embarrassing, right? But again, like I say, you can't be hard accountable for that, which you're oblivious to. So I didn't know any better. I was a great boyfriend. I was a great boyfriend, but I was nonetheless more in relationship with my fears and my constraints than I was with her. You know, when people really get that, it is, it hurts, you know, it stings because there was love and thankfully she came back around many years later. She's married happily and, you know, found me on Instagram and is like still super grateful for everything we went through, which is for me, peace in the way that, you know, it was a beautiful experience together, but nonetheless, to answer your question, what I really got was that

• 50:03Speaker 00

  most people don't relate to other people. The relating to other people through the lens of their own identity in the way that it serves them, for good or bad, you know, like it's the madness of the ego would, you know, you fight for your limitations, they're yours, right? Like, so sometimes we attract circumstances professionally, romantically, that help us to be right about the fact that we think that we're a horrible person or that we're not good enough. But at that moment, I really got, I think the greatest gift you can give another human being, which is, who can I be where I'm absent? The me that is me is absent.

• 50:45Speaker 00

  And that I'm so with you, it's almost as though I'm truly you. Like, that to me is the gift of real listening. To get someone's reality, and it doesn't mean you have to agree with it, condone with it, or go by whatever they're asking of you, but to really get their reality, to me, is the greatest gift of love you can afford somebody. And I got it. I was like, holy shit, I just wanted to be with her. Not, no agenda, no intention, no Peter Crone in the way, no fear of loss, no little boy that needed reassuring, none of that, just... And there's something so beautiful about it because it's almost like by virtue of truly being with another being, human,

• 51:29Speaker 00

  you get to see another facet of consciousness itself. It's almost like we're all different parts of a an eight billion faceted diamond, right? And we all have a slightly different perspective. And so in the absence of the I, you're left with the they. And it's beautiful for two reasons, because it's both...

• 51:52Speaker 00

  Liberating, because in the absence of the me, which tends to be founded in constraints, I feel free. But then it's the gift of presence to be with someone. And we see this with kids and parents, right? Like the number one thing that I ask or I hear from parents is, you know, how can I, how can I both help my kids to become better humans? But how can I get my kids to listen? Because they don't listen. And it's to teach them this, that you're not with them. You're superposing your view of who they should be, who you'd like them to be. Oftentimes, you're preoccupied with a device or cooking or doing something, which is understandable. But the kid doesn't have any of that. The kid is so present. And so it's the tugging of the panel legs for the 20th time. Mummy, mummy, daddy, daddy, daddy, daddy.

• 52:35Speaker 00

  Like, they don't yet feel heard or seen or held. And so in the absence of the idea of oneself, which I know can sound very esoteric, but it's a literal experience. You get to truly be, fully be with another person. And that, to me, is true intimacy. That's, that's the beautiful, pure line of connection that is always there underneath the static that is our egos trying to be right or connect. And, and that's what I experienced was the opportunity to be fully present with another being.

• 53:14André Duqum?

  Yeah, I remember actually calling you up in my last relationship because I had one of these examples where I was seeing her through the, you could even, you know, say in a good way, the potential of who she could be or behaviors that I know that would benefit her. And, and loving the version of her that would uphold that and being disappointed when she would fall short of that.

• 53:38Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 53:38André Duqum?

  Failing to recognize that I'm literally not relating with her and in that way, you know? And it's a painful thing to realize in the moment. But again, the

• 53:49André Duqum?

  To the degree there is a shadow, holds the other side of the light too. So the freedom that's experienced and the true love and depth of intimacy that it reveals on the other side of that is an amazing gift. So it's painful to go through in the moment. You know, it's a hell through that we get to get to heaven, like you said.

• 54:05Speaker 00

  No, it's beautiful because I think it also appeals to the fact that, again, without sounding too poetic, that our nature is to love, you know? And so when we see a part of us that's not doing that, it hurts because we're in denial of our true self.

• 54:18André Duqum?

  It's like we're disappointed in who we know we are, you know, who we can be.

• 54:22Speaker 00

  And that's, but it's such a, it's such a magical mechanism to discover more love, in this case of self-love, right? So compassion to self of like, oh, even though I was playing the role of the perfect boyfriend, which was my way of strategizing to not lose something that was of value to me, it was so well-intended and innocent, you know, even to the point where sometimes, okay, there's, there's really horrific things that happen in relationships that I don't condone. I mean, people go through horrible forms of harm and abuse. But, you know, underneath it all, I really feel there's just a little boy or a little girl that just wants to connect. You know, I always talk about these three qualities I feel every human being wants, which is to be seen, heard, and held.

• 55:01Speaker 00

  And in the absence of the idea of ourself, we get to join in union there, which ironically is not to join, but really to reveal, right? Like, I often joke with friends, as you know, because I can be a bit of a smartass, but when people say, oh, wow, dude, I really connected with this chick. I'm like, well, no shit, you're already connected. You just got rid of the illusion that you're not. So it's really just, it's that dissolution process again, right? It's the, the revelation of the fact that there is nothing but love and unity, but we have this sort of preconceived idea that has us think that we're in this dangerous world where we have to present ourself in a way so that we get loved and accepted. And it's, it's so convoluted and exhausting.

• 55:42Speaker 00

  And in the absence of all of that, you just get to truly be with another human.

• 55:49André Duqum?

  And there's something inherently like a candle in a dark room that illuminates wherever it goes, a presence of love, somebody who has realized themselves as that nature, where they they become an invitation for everybody around them to feel seen, heard, and held.

• 56:05Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 56:05André Duqum?

  And I just find it so amazing that in the embodiment of that, you become a walking invitation to that energy. And it's it's wild what unravels in front of that presence that is you.

• 56:16Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 56:16André Duqum?

  You know, because you are that safe space for people to to know that you genuinely are there for for somebody and you're actually there connecting with them and not through your own prism of who they are, you know?

• 56:29Speaker 00

  And that's why I feel so lucky that I get to do what I do, because even now my live events, which are growing, and I'm gonna do more around the world, you know, you're in a room with two hundred and three hundred people in this case, and somebody's sharing something that's so vulnerable and so intimate to them. But for whatever reasons, based on everything I just shared, they feel that they can, because because it's okay. You know, and this is why, like, having best friends, and I think women do this so well, like, there's the absence of judgment. Right, so we could say, like, in a sort of negatory way, like, love is really the absence of judgment, right? It's allowing someone to be fully who they are in this moment, knowing that everything's in constant flux anyway, right?

• 57:14Speaker 00

  So.

• 57:15André Duqum?

  There's even a deeper illusion, which is that it's ours to grant somebody that allowance, right?

• 57:19Speaker 00

  Absolutely. Yeah, that's that's a sort of the audacious perspective of the human, right? So in the absence of you, there is just whatever's going on for them, which is why I was saying earlier, like, to truly relate is to truly be in their reality, without the condoning of it, without the accepting of it, without the having to adhere to it, but it's just to get it, just really get it, like, wow. It it it's a gift both ways, right? Because to understand someone's perspective on life not only can be informative, it can be inspiring, it can be educational, but it's the ultimate form of generosity, which is why I feel so blessed, because people talk to me about everything. I mean, the number of times I've been on an airplane and sat next to a stranger who,

• 58:01Speaker 00

  at the end of the flight is like, I don't know who you are, but I I hadn't even told my wife that. You know, and it's like, and so it's sort of, to go back to that, what you're talking about with a girlfriend that I had, she could feel, right? Like, okay, there's this efferting that I'm trying to be a perfect boyfriend, it's a bit inauthentic.

• 58:19Speaker 00

  People feel the presence of safety where there is no judgment. There is listening. There is the ability to hear what they're saying and repeat it back. So they know that they can trust that you're paying attention, that you care. All of these things, whereas most people, and I've seen this, you know, with some friends of late, where we were talking about the energy of actual communication, how people speak. And she recognized one of her tendencies was to interrupt a lot. And she didn't even know she was doing it, right? But it's a form of like trying to get attention or, or, oh, look, I also know, or whatever it is, right? Which is on the top of the deeper foundation of feeling inadequate or not loved. And so when she saw that, it was both embarrassing, but also to our point earlier,

• 59:01Speaker 00

  like it denies the fact that she just wants to love and be part of something. And she went home and she's like, oh, my God, like I had dinner. You know, my parents and sibling and it's insane. Everybody's just sort of basically screaming at each other. Like no one's listening to anything. Like you hear what people say and there's some sort of semblance of a response, but really it's like, well, you just said something. I'm going to take time to say something. And for me, that's just sort of this, again, this accumulation, the remnants of a child that never actually got heard, seen or held. That's still, it's still trying to get, just love me, you know? And that's where we see often in the world, it's just a bit of a desperate energy where people are trying to be seen, you know?

• 59:43Speaker 00

  Whatever means we do, from surgery at the extremes to clothing and makeup and stuff, you know? And it's all okay. It's all okay. We have compassion for it, but it's exhausting. So to really relate is to ironically, you know, not, not be there in terms of the idea of yourself so that you could really be with whoever's in front of you, you know?

• 1:00:06André Duqum?

  Yeah, there's that saying, you know, one mouth, two ears, use them proportionately.

• 1:00:09Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:00:10André Duqum?

  And I think cultivating you being a presence who like truly listens is the most invaluable thing we can do in life, you know? And Both for ourself and others, because to the degree we're also truly listening to others when we're in the presence of them, we can be a catalyst for their change. But also, we can become more aware of the subtleties within our own psyche, you know? And that's where we, I think in the first podcast, we talked about how life gives us these reflections and mirrors. These first start out as whispers within our own narrative and talk, you know, that we have within our own, the conversation in our head, to where we see then maybe a more gross or dense example of somebody in a relationship in our life to the metaphorical

• 1:00:55André Duqum?

  cosmic two by four that smacks us in the face to wake up, you know, it's the scream of living out of alignment.

• 1:01:02Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:01:03André Duqum?

  So, anything you want to reflect on there about the power of listening?

• 1:01:06Speaker 00

  I mean, I need to reiterate what I said, which I think is the greatest gift we can afford ourselves and the person we're listening to, right? Because it's truly reciprocated in the way that I step aside the idea of myself that has any agenda, has any concern about how I occur to you, like that I want to look, you know, favorable, good, loved, cool, whatever it is, like all of that's put to one side, and I really get to just be with you and to hear what's going on without any judgment. It really is the demonstration of generosity in both directions, right?

• 1:01:47Speaker 00

  It's, I'm going to hold space for you in a way that is generous, but you're going to, for that reason, feel safe enough that you can express yourself fully, vulnerably, without any fear of judgment. And so that's equally a form of generosity, right? Because that's intimacy, inti-mi-se, like, I've often said, like, albeit like in a crass example, like, I'd much rather someone come up to me and say, hey, I think you're a bit of an asshole and that your work is, you know, it's bullshit. And we can have a conversation about it, versus somebody coming up to me and say, oh my god, you're amazing, and then they walk away and they tell their friend, you know, out of my earshot, that guy's just such a dick, you know? Like, there's no relationship there, right?

• 1:02:27André Duqum?

  And I'm sorry that you heard me say that.

• 1:02:29Speaker 00

  Well, we've cleared it up. We're good now. Because it's, do you want to truly connect and relate to somebody and...

• 1:02:40Speaker 00

  Really have that feeling of intimacy and affinity? Yeah. Or do you want to just keep dancing in the pretense and the facades of everything? It's like, there's no, there's no depth, there's no fulfillment there, there's no gratification. It's, it's every relationship that to me is worth its salt or has got some sort of inspirational story associated with it is littered with trials and tribulations that those people went through.

• 1:03:09Speaker 00

  Like, I once had this, uh, I, I, cause I always love to work on myself, so I worked with a coach about relationships and she said, "I don't trust any romantic relationship that hasn't been to the edge of annihilation."

• 1:03:24Speaker 00

  You know, and it really hit me, it's like, there's so much beauty in that, right? Like, because if everything has been so above, you know, the, the world of drama and, and heartache and suffering, because you kept it all together, that's just not real, it's just not human, right? It's like, you want to get into the dirt of a relationship, you know, and really feel what it is to be fully exposed. Like, as scary as that is, and as, as embarrassing as that can be, like, that's, that's to relate, you know? It's, otherwise, it's all just facade and everything's like, you know, it's this, what is that movie, Stepford Wives or whatever? It's like, everything's just perfect, you know, and it's, it's not.

• 1:04:06André Duqum?

  Glennon Doyle has that quote, that paraphrasing says, "We are alive to the degree in which we are willing to be annihilated."

• 1:04:12Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 1:04:13André Duqum?

  Which goes hand in hand with that, you know, and when we go back to like, how beautiful this life is and what a gift it means and what it really means to be human, which is to move beyond the limitations that nature has set upon, you know, all other life, you know, and animal and, um, and plant life, where we, we can go beyond our limitation of just survival. And yet, when we're in the energy of reactivity and reaction from these beliefs and perspectives, we are literally not living our life in a way, you know, which is painful to see, but then again... Is also how this realm is sort of set up, you know?

• 1:04:51Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, that's the self-preservation lens, right? That's the survival instinct. It's where everything is perceived as a threat. Which again, if you can just default to, even if it's the one thing you remember from this, if it's not life-threatening, it's just ego-threatening. And if it's ego-threatening, that's a gift, right? Because on the other side of that, there's freedom waiting to be discovered.

• 1:05:12André Duqum?

  Zooming in on how these things come up, again, without our awareness, we just perceive that it is ego-threatening and we react to it. You know, the fundamental thing is that our intellect defends our identity. And so, we are neurologically wired in a way to reinforce what we believe to be true, to reinforce that sense of self-righteousness. And this is where I have found in my own personal journey in the past, when I look at an expanded awareness or insight into something, you have, I've heard you share as well, there's none so self-righteous as the newly converted.

• 1:05:50Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 1:05:51André Duqum?

  And it's so true, man. It goes from the densest, you know, obvious religious examples, right? To our own perspective in this conversation where we see an insight about ourself. And it's an interesting dynamic because we can have this expanded awareness and then the ego insidiously uses it to reinforce itself.

• 1:06:13Speaker 00

  Yeah, it gets really slippery.

• 1:06:14André Duqum?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:15Speaker 00

  Yeah, it really is like new ammunition for the constraint, right? Yeah, no, I've seen that, I've seen that in myself. And that's why I go back to those three words that I discovered, you know, when you asked me to give an insight of my own life, which is, you know, I don't know. And so, that to me is also the beauty of the game. It's the paradox, right? Which is that we want to survive and therefore we want to know, which is really, I'm gonna be okay, but we don't know that. But it's also what creates the magic that is life, which is the curiosity that it is to be here. Like even this conversation to me sits in the realm of fascination. People tuning in right now, hoping, you know, that they are going to garner some insight, some inspiration that they wouldn't have known otherwise.

• 1:07:00Speaker 00

  Like, that's the exploration that it is to be human. And one of my favorite distinctions that hit me very early on is the difference between searching and exploring. And what I recognize is that the ego's predominant energy is searching.

• 1:07:13André Duqum?

  Would you say seeking is around like the same energy?

• 1:07:16Speaker 00

  Seeking to a certain degree, seeking is sort of like the highfalutin form of searching that, you know, is associated with spiritual people.

• 1:07:23André Duqum?

  It's a rebrand of searching.

• 1:07:24Speaker 00

  Yeah, it just sounds cool. I'm a seeker. No, you're not.

• 1:07:29André Duqum?

  Yeah, but now I think it's important because a lot of people are identified with that terminology too, seeker or searcher.

• 1:07:35Speaker 00

  Yeah, and so there is, there is a component of seeking, searching. But to me, when it's, it's shifted into exploring, there's a joy and a playfulness that comes with the same pursuit, right? So the adventurous spirit that is our nature, we see that just everywhere with children, right? Like, what is the number one word that most children use when they, when they start to use language is why? Right? Like, why daddy, why mommy? And so that to me speaks to one of the inherent qualities of the soul, which is curiosity.

• 1:08:11Speaker 00

  And so the smarter we become, the more successful we become, the more status that we develop in society, the more we tend to think we know shit. Which ironically is a form of decay, right? Because you've lost that fascination, that exploration, that adventure.

• 1:08:27André Duqum?

  Conclusions are like a death unto themselves, right? It closes the possibility of you exploring more.

• 1:08:32Speaker 00

  The knowing mind, you know, it's, it's limited, right? And so for me, I often joked early on in my career, I'm like, you know, I have all of these incredible humans around the world that seek my counsel, from sports to entertainment and business, you know, and I'm the first person to say, I don't know.

• 1:08:47Speaker 00

  That'll be a lot of money, please.

• 1:08:48André Duqum?

  Yeah, I'll send you an invoice for realizing that. I don't know, neither do you.

• 1:08:53Speaker 00

  Yeah, and they're like, oh my god, that's amazing. Obviously, there's a certain degree of knowing in there, but to have that underlying current of curiosity, fascination, adventure and exploration is, to me, the feeling of aliveness that we see in children, that to me is the vitality that is often lost when people start to know what's often not possible anymore, right? It's the loss of the imagination because you've got one too many forms of evidence as to why something's not going to work anymore. You know, the old adage of what is it, dance like no one's watching and love like you've never been hurt before, right? Like, these expressions resonate with people because it really appeals to that. Where we become resigned and cynical to life because we've got evidence that we're holding

• 1:09:36Speaker 00

  on to that now sort of squashes what was otherwise there beforehand, which was, it's just sheer fucking pure possibility.

• 1:09:45André Duqum?

  What is it about the ego that fears to be wrong fundamentally?

• 1:09:50Speaker 00

  Its own death.

• 1:09:51André Duqum?

  Something that is illusory to begin with is afraid of its own death.

• 1:09:54Speaker 00

  It has to be because it has no ground to stand on. There's no actual evidence other than the story. So that's why the self-righteousness is so pervasive because that's the ammunition that sustains the illusion, right? If I can find evidence for the fact that I'm undesirable as a person in a city because I don't have a partner or because I don't get paid enough money confirms the fact that I'm worthless, like, we're gonna seek the evidence to keep alive the illusion of ourselves because it's a pretense, it's made up. Truth doesn't need evidence. And so that's why we're always, you know, fighting for those limitations because otherwise

• 1:10:39Speaker 00

  it's just a death.

• 1:10:41André Duqum?

  For example, if somebody who does fundamentally believe they're undesirable.

• 1:10:45Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:10:46André Duqum?

  Their actions are going to be commensurate with proving that in ways that we're not fully aware to, right?

• 1:10:52Speaker 00

  That's the blind spot. Yeah, that's where the compassion comes in. Like I, I being the perfect boyfriend in my story to this girl who loved me and adored me. She didn't need me to be anything. She loved me, right? I was in a relationship with my own identity, which is what most people have, why most relationships don't work. So that was me unbeknownst to myself, trying to overcome that which I thought I was, which I wasn't. Right? So I'm looking for evidence, you know, for whatever it is, reinforcement, reassurance that like, oh, I'm a great boyfriend, right? It's like, okay, that would appease the hurt of feeling that I'm not enough somehow. So that's the addiction, right? Again, like, um, you know, I love quotes. So I say, there's no greater addiction than one's idea of oneself, right?

• 1:11:35Speaker 00

  That's the ultimate addiction. It's not the substance. It's not the behavior. It's the feeling of inadequacy and security or scarcity. We're addicted to that. Cause that's where we have become so familiar to ourselves and then we have all the evidence to support it, for good or bad.

• 1:11:48André Duqum?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:49Speaker 00

  You know, I working with a lot of athletes. I can remember even with Tiger Woods, when he wasn't a client, but I worked with a lot of people on the tour. Even if he was, say, five, six, seven shots back on a Sunday, the last day, he had created a personality. The, the millions of viewers behind TV screens and then the thousands of people watching at a golf course. Their view of him was he's going to come back and win.

• 1:12:12Speaker 00

  So in that case, it was sort of perhaps a, you know, a more positive form of identity that could pull his behavior in a way that way make him show up. But he'd, he'd created that. He'd built that foundation until such time you can sustain it. And then he fell apart too, because the pressure's too much. But most part, most, for the most part, people are reinforcing some limiting view of themselves. See, I, I told you that when, you know, that was too good to be true. I knew that wouldn't last.

• 1:12:41Speaker 00

  Right? These statements that are just, you know, tossed around like every day are nonetheless. They, they've got, they've got some insidious evidence behind them that is really reinforcing that you're not just this extraordinary timeless boundless being who's divinely gifted to tap into this extraordinary experience that it is to be alive.

• 1:13:03Speaker 00

  No, no, that's not for me, that's, you know. You know?

• 1:13:07André Duqum?

  With people that deal with addiction, I find that for people that have gone through recovery and maybe are 10, 20, 30 years down the road, I have wondered, often they still use the verbiage of like, I'm an addict.

• 1:13:20Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:13:21André Duqum?

  And I'm curious, like, the last gate seems to be like letting go of the story completely that, that I am an addict even. And like, there is this, and I understand it's a delicate situation and thing to balance, you know, because there is this, maybe fear of temptation around substance, or, you know, you wanna guard your behaviors or something. But I just wonder how much energy we use, like literally physiologically, to uphold these false assumptions about ourself, and how much free energy, like how much energy gets freed up and the dissolution of that.

• 1:13:59Speaker 00

  It's the number one thing I hear whenever I work with anyone, and it just happened last weekend, because it was module one of my mastermind. Every single person I work with says I feel lighter. As soon as they see something that was a constraint, because it pulls energy, as you said, to sustain an identity requires resources because it's fictitious. So even in the realm of addictions, and I get what you're saying, like, we, you know, we live around people and we know people who've, you know, struggled and it's hurtful and it can destroy lives and relationships. And so there is a sensitivity to that. But, you know, to be categorically honest, no one's a fucking addict. No one is. You know, the addiction is to the idea of yourself that's not you.

• 1:14:40Speaker 00

  Right? So in the absence of that, it comes back to, you know, know thyself. I am. That's about as far as we can go. I am. The consciousness that is self-aware is about as far as I can go. Anything on top of that is a delineation in any way in language that I am Peter. It's not a truth. I mean, it's convenient, you know, if you see me walking down the street like, hey, Pedro, I'll look around, you know, like. But I mean, I might as well be Tim, you know, it doesn't really matter. Right? It's a sound. It just locates me in time and space in this dimension that we're in, so it's helpful. But to be able to disassociate from that which is not true is where the liberation lies. And that's where the absence of addiction occurs, because the addiction is to the identity.

• 1:15:24Speaker 00

  The identity then has its behaviors that can lead to substance. But if I just know that I am and anything after that is not a truth, it's a story, convenient, helpful, may even be inspiring at levels, you know, like I'm the greatest, like Muhammad Ali, you know, like, I mean, the guy was like awesome, you know, but it's none of it was true, but he fulfilled on that because he believed it to the degree that he was able to actually manifest it. But equally, someone can say, oh, you know, I'll never meet anyone. Okay, well, you know, Henry Ford, right? Whether you believe you can or you can't, you're right. So that's the power of magic. This is why I love words and abracadabra as I speak, so I create. But we get to play with, co-create in this dimension where we're all artists.

• 1:16:08Speaker 00

  And the form, the medium in which we get to express ourselves and create these masterpieces, for good or bad, is through vibration and words.

• 1:16:17André Duqum?

  Yeah, it's so amazing when you get beyond the story of yourself that have been passed on quite literally, possibly from many people, for generations and generations and generations. And you discover the unique creative pulse that lives within you, that is like that one of the eight billion, you know, faces on the diamond. And then it's beautiful because you then get to be a true representation of your unique perspective in life and however that shows up, you know. And if you're an artist, that means that your music is going to be not recreatable because it's, it's, it's unique to what wants to come through you. You describe this energy when you work with people in your mastermind and they feel physiologically lighter.

• 1:17:00André Duqum?

  It reminded me of the section of this book I read, I don't know if you've heard, On Having No Head by Harding, but it's great. It's a book on non-duality, pretty thin. He describes in the recognition of one's true nature, some things that cascade. And I just want to kind of riff off, I'll just list these off and see how it resonates. So a complex of interrelated psychophysical changes, including whole-body alertness in place of the heady intermittent sort, a reduction of stress, particularly in the region of the eyes and mouth and neck, as if one were at last letting them go.

• 1:17:36Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:17:36André Duqum?

  A progressive lowering of one's center of gravity, as if losing one's head were finding one's heart and guts and feet, which are now rooted in the earth.

• 1:17:45Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:17:45André Duqum?

  A striking downward shift of one's breathing, as if it were a belly function. In fact, a general come-down, as if all the good things one had vainly strained after in the heights were awaiting one in the depths.

• 1:17:57Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:17:58André Duqum?

  And balancing this descent, a general uplift, including a sense of exaltation, an upsurge of creativity, a new childlike spontaneity and playfulness, above all, a lightness, and finally, perhaps, a calming of fears, a marked reduction of greed and anger, a smoothing out of personal relations, more capacity for selfless love, more joy.

• 1:18:18Speaker 00

  Amen.

• 1:18:19André Duqum?

  So these are like the fruits of the recognition.

• 1:18:22Speaker 00

  And it's so beautiful, and that's why I say life is revelatory, right? Those qualities that get listed there very articulately, they're there. So someone might hear that list that you just, you know, read, and they're like, "I want that." Well, now you're fucked.

• 1:18:38Speaker 00

  The wanting of that, yeah. The I that you think you are that doesn't have that is the suffering, is the barrier to those qualities that already exist. Like I tell people, freedom is there. Like, I really, really just connected with someone recently on Instagram. We're having some great conversations, and she's in this like really beautiful transition in her life, becoming a single mom, or she is a single mom, and wanting to find more stability financially. And so the way she said it is like, you know, "I'm really finding my divinity, my goddess nature, and I'm wanting to create abundance." Which all sounds beautiful, right? And I said, "If I could just, you know, help you with language, you can't create abundance." What that shows me is that you're reinforcing the fact that you're what you're dealing with, which is what she shared, is she doesn't have it.

• 1:19:23Speaker 00

  So it's like, "Oh, I don't have it, holding on to the scarcity, but I'm gonna create it." That's the work. That's the exhaustion. No, abundance is. So it reveals itself in the absence of the idea of me as somebody who doesn't deserve it, doesn't know how to get it, has never had it, money grows on trees, you know, whatever it is, or doesn't grow on trees, you know, like whatever people have as a form of programming, which is the obstacle to the richness of all of these qualities and characteristics that are already there. One of the things that I really loved, that I discovered in my work, that I see is ever-present, first of all, the breathing thing, it's one of the things that I will always say when I'm working with someone, say, that was a nice breath, they're like, oh, I just felt my whole system soften, right?

• 1:20:05Speaker 00

  So you've come out of this excitory sort of fight or flight state where you're like vigilante to like, oh, there's nothing to worry about. So immediately the physiology starts to mirror that. The absence of ease is dis-ease, right? So dis-ease eventually cascades into the physiology, this is why I'll always tell people, it's a bold statement, you cannot be healthy, no matter what you buy, hyperbarics, cryogenic chambers, red lights, all the peptides in the fucking world, unless you free your mind. You have to do that first if you want to access vitality.

• 1:20:36André Duqum?

  Because you're always then perpetuating a state of dis-ease where everywhere you go.

• 1:20:40Speaker 00

  You are in a prison. And if you're in a prison, you can't access what it means to be radiant, you're in a world of survival. And if you're in survival, then you have to be in a mild to severe state of tension, fight or flight, you're not going to digest food properly, you can't have the radiance that is available in connection with people because you're too busy trying to survive or not upset people, not get into trouble, all of the mechanisms that we talked about, right? So, but that list is so beautiful because that's what happens in the absence of you. You know, and this is where it's become so, it's so hard to articulate in language, right? The paradox of like, okay, well, the you that you're looking for is in the absence of the you that you think you are, you know, and it gets kind of complex, right? But it's really not, because when you start to see the illusion of how you've delineated

• 1:21:25Speaker 00

  yourself as some form of limitation in any arena, your worth, you know, your capacity to love or be loved, your value. Your safety, whatever it is, when all of that's gone, all of these qualities emerge because they've always been there. So for this girl, she really appreciated this woman singing. She was like, oh, my God, I never looked at it like that. You're right. If I'm trying to create abundance, I'm saying, one, I don't have it. So then my form of resistance to life right now is creating suffering. I'm creating time, right? Because it means something I have to do. That's the whole world of manifestation is incumbent upon me to do something to get what I want, which creates time, which creates stress. I'm not where I want to be. That creates urgency

• 1:22:06Speaker 00

  versus no, it's all there. And in the absence of me, it becomes revealed effortlessly. And my work, there's three main qualities that I always see. Freedom, that's, as you know, my main product, because it's the freedom from the idea of oneself, which is really relative in terms of time to history. We're letting go of that which has been, which has created the idea of myself, which is a loser. So it's freedom from everything that is my baggage, which immediately, instantaneously, at the same time, gives an experience of newfound love for what is, myself, my life, my family, my circumstances, even if they're not ideal. And simultaneously, that's the present state. As it relates to my future, I see nothing but pure possibility.

• 1:22:50André Duqum?

  It's so, so well said, man, so well articulated. And I really, it's so interesting, that paradox of striving for something that can only be recognized in the absence of striving.

• 1:23:02Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:23:03André Duqum?

  Like, we can never become free. We can only be free.

• 1:23:06Speaker 00

  Exactly.

• 1:23:06André Duqum?

  We can never become happy. We can only be happy.

• 1:23:09Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:23:10André Duqum?

  It is an interesting paradox, because even like for those that want to take up the practice of meditation, has beautiful benefits.

• 1:23:18Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 1:23:18André Duqum?

  And yet, to take up a practice that you are saying is going to one day lead to freedom is almost reinforcing the shackles and chains of you not being and recognizing that state in the, in the current present tense.

• 1:23:31Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:23:32André Duqum?

  So it's, it's, it is both yes and, like, we do live in this realm of duality, and yet, it's also, we, we are, we can recognize the non-dual state of our being.

• 1:23:43Speaker 00

  And that's the compassion part, right? Because to begin with, my self-righteousness, when I saw this, was like, it was so self-evident. I was like, like the smartest guy in the room all of a sudden, right? I had all the answers until I realized, no, that denied the fact that I previously didn't, right? So I wasn't making space for compassion. So I tell people, there's always somewhere to get to until you realize there isn't. And they're both appropriate, right? Because as long as you think there's someone to get to, that's where you're currently at. And so you can't force not getting somewhere because that would be the ego still trying to do it, you know, to look good in terms of like being spiritual or whatever. It's like, oh, no, no, kumbaya and I fucking meditate and I'm vegan raw or whatever. You know, that could be the ego's way of just like trying to still garner love that that person never felt as a child. It's still an addiction to some sort of constraint.

• 1:24:28Speaker 00

  So the compassion is to let everyone be, comes back to listening and love exactly where they're at right now. As I said before, like not knowing your path is your path right now. But there's a, there's a suffering that comes with like, no, but I should, or what's my purpose? Or what's my Dharma? I don't know, where are you at just right now? And can you be sufficiently big enough as a being to allow your current form of human iteration to be where it's at? Like, you know, I've had moments where I really feel like I just, I don't want to do anything. I just can't be bothered. You know, and it's like, like, I, I don't think anyone listening to this right now would be like, oh my God, like he's the only person that's ever felt that. Right?

• 1:25:13Speaker 00

  So that's space for my humanity too. Yeah. And the more that I kept making space for my imperfections, the less they impeded my joy and my freedom. It's, you know, working with so many athletes as I have. Jack Nicklaus, to me, still had one of the greatest quotes as it relates to accessing performance, which is he said, "One of the most important parts of winning is being okay losing." He didn't say, "I want to lose." He didn't say that I wouldn't be upset if I lose, but he's okay with it. And so the, the, the irony is as soon as we make space for the things that we don't want, they no longer impede what we do want. Cause we've incorporated that.

• 1:25:54Speaker 00

  One of my athletes, a golfer, he tripled his winnings. And one of the things that really resonated, and I said, "If you're okay with every outcome, you've got nothing to fear." Which is, you know, another way of saying what Jack said, right? Like, if you're okay losing, which is gonna happen, especially with my baseball players. I mean, the best in the world are still failing seven out of 10 times. So you really start to just recognize what it is to be a big enough human being that you're allowing for what it is to be a human being, which is to fuck up. I mean, my, my greatest athlete in terms of the longevity of our relationship, 15 plus years, seven All-Stars. He, he won the most valuable player, MVP of the National League. There's only one person does that and then won in the American League. So it's the biggest accolade you can get as an individual athlete in a team sport. And he won.

• 1:26:38Speaker 00

  And at the beginning of the season, you would think that this was completely counterintuitive to him becoming the best player, which is, I said, you have the capacity to suck. Like that, you have that available to you because he was getting really upset that he kept striking out. And I said, again, the best in the world, he knows these things mentally, but he hadn't allowed that to be part of the fabric of his humanity, plus his, his being an athlete, even though he's paid millions of dollars to perform. You know, it's, well, I can't do that because I'm, there's an expectation. But as soon as he allowed his system to relax and go, oh yeah, I can strike out many games in a row. Like,

• 1:27:19Speaker 00

  he no longer worried about it. And for that reason, his performance became so much more effortless because he wasn't trying to avoid something. And in the absence of either holding or avoiding, which is the way that we predominantly relate to time, past and future, right? Most people are holding on to a history they haven't yet accepted. And they're trying to avoid usually the replication of that in their future, which creates fear and stress and anxiety. In the absence of both of those, you're left with what is always there, which is presence.

• 1:27:46Speaker 00

  So even the whole adage of like, you know, be present or be in the now. It's a becoming instruction, which is reinforcing that you're not. So my method of working with people in terms of flow state is like, I'm not interested in you being in the present. That'll happen if we just clear out all the shit that you're carrying and all the stuff you're worried about. Then you're just here.

• 1:28:06André Duqum?

  This is great. And you brought up something that I'm actually, where I wanted to go next and actually ask you for like my own, my own personal process. I think you and I, we've always felt this like simpatico and like similarity of certain dynamics, I think, on our path and our journey, both what we love, what we find, you know, what we're passionate to. And then also I see on the, on the shadow side and some like previous limitations you've had that I, that I see in myself. So cool. If I ask you a couple of things here?

• 1:28:36Speaker 00

  And to podcast four.

• 1:28:37André Duqum?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:39Speaker 00

  To be continued. No, of course. I'd love to hear it.

• 1:28:42André Duqum?

  So, you know, as you were mentioning, the ego in insidious ways loves to reinforce itself.

• 1:28:49Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:28:50André Duqum?

  And I think, and hopefully this serves everybody who's tuning in, me sharing a little bit more of my own personal journey and I guess process as one grows and as I've grown on my own journey.

• 1:29:03Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:29:03André Duqum?

  Starting out with, you know, more personal development, kind of focused energies, you know, and self-improvement type energy to like 19, 20 years old, getting introduced to like meditation and more spiritual, you know?

• 1:29:15Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:29:16André Duqum?

  Ideas and concepts that has, you know, opened my eyes up to so much and up to launching this podcast, you know, and the genuine seed of wanting to support liberation and, and on the planet. I've just noticed and as I've cultivated, cultivated my own ability to listen, like my own inner narrative or where there's desire to change up any behaviors around this, what you could just, I would say categorized maybe for, for people as like a spiritual ego.

• 1:29:45Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:29:45André Duqum?

  And I think this is a really big theme right now. And I see it more and more, the more that I have awareness of it in, you know, in myself. And I would say, I had this conversation with this guy, Daniel Schmachtenberger, who's a friend and I would love to introduce you to him.

• 1:29:58Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:29:58André Duqum?

  Just incredible human being, but probably like about a year ago. And it was like a deep three hour late night conversation that just like super awe inspiring and.

• 1:30:11André Duqum?

  I left with this deepening of wanting to serve from the heart and in noticing the part of myself that has gotten caught up in the identification with being spiritual.

• 1:30:23Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:30:24André Duqum?

  Right? And I had this sort of, and you're my friend, so you can, you know, you've, you know me and you can, you know, see patterns in different things. So I'm curious to see what you pick up.

• 1:30:33Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:30:33André Duqum?

  As I continue speaking here.

• 1:30:36André Duqum?

  I had kind of an experience which I can share now or maybe at a later date in Brazil with my men's group, like maybe six months ago, where I had like a deepening of this like shedding and releasing of, um, I kind of felt like I'm like, I'm tired of being spiritual.

• 1:30:54Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:30:54André Duqum?

  And really what it is, is I'm, I'm tired of spending energy upholding a persona that desires to be perceived as spiritual.

• 1:31:01Speaker 00

  Exactly, much more accurate, yeah.

• 1:31:03André Duqum?

  And, and it's fascinating because like, of course, there's the genuine urge to, you know, serve people and I recognize myself as a spiritual being and I was just noticing more and more of the parts of myself that would, um, desire to be seen spiritual, attractive, bright, light, you know?

• 1:31:26Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:31:26André Duqum?

  And how that would show up maybe in the choice of wardrobe or like the many different behaviors that it would show up as, you know?

• 1:31:34Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:31:35André Duqum?

  And it's, you know, it's a subtlety, but it was, but to me, it felt like there is trapped energy there and, and more freedom to be had.

• 1:31:42Speaker 00

  Yeah, for sure.

• 1:31:43André Duqum?

  And so happy to work with you on my own internal process of this, but then, you know, it also leads into this, this larger process of spirituality, as it's discovered for many people and deepened, you know, on through podcasts and YouTube, there can very quickly become this identification with being spiritual. And if being, truly being spiritual is something, you know, to be approximating, not having an obnoxious ego, it's interesting how the ego uses that as well as, as yet another means to seem superior, attractive to other egos.

• 1:32:20Speaker 00

  Yeah, no, it's well said. And I've seen it in you for a while. And I think just because you alluded to it earlier, you know, when I helped you with your relationship, that was the same trap you were in. Right, like the superimposition of who you were relative to your girlfriend and who you thought she should be, that's you weren't related, right, because you weren't related to her, you were related to your spiritual ego's view of who she should be, or the things she's supposed to do, right? So I've seen that in you, I've had it myself, right? Like, so the way I said is spirituality is developed a face.

• 1:32:51André Duqum?

  Is developed face?

• 1:32:52Speaker 00

  It's developed a face. Spirituality now has a face. We know what spiritual looks like, you know, if you meditate, you do yoga, you wear some fucking yoga pants, and you definitely eat at some sort of raw vegan place, then you've got to be spiritual, right? But it goes back to what we said earlier, like you got, like you can't try and become free, you've just got to be free. So even the, it's preposterous, right? Like, if we had to think about it right now, and if I was to ask you, okay, if you could imagine everybody, dead or alive, as human beings on the planet, who would you say is the most spiritual person you know? As an actual question?

• 1:33:31André Duqum?

  Oh, for me?

• 1:33:32Speaker 00

  Yeah, for you, yeah.

• 1:33:34André Duqum?

  I mean, my truth is that everyone's equal, you know, but if I was to...

• 1:33:40Speaker 00

  Okay, so that's, and again, this is where you get stuck a little bit, right? So there's the knowing, right? But like, really feel it, like as a human game, right? Because that's a good answer.

• 1:33:49André Duqum?

  Yeah, yeah, the part of me that, you know, like the guru, the enlightened being that wears robes.

• 1:34:00Speaker 00

  Ramana Maharshi, Shrinasagarat.

• 1:34:02André Duqum?

  Has stories of awakening and has sat for, you know, 12 days without moving and like, all that.

• 1:34:07Speaker 00

  Yeah, exactly, and that's how most people would see it, and that's part of the face, and there's a degree of truth to it, right? There's things that people say, there's an energy that they emit that is palpable, and there's something that is enticing about that, that's authentically attractive, not because it's created to be attractive, but it's like, wow, there's something that appeals to me in that person, right? Maybe why, again, people open up to me on an airplane or whatever, there's the absence of pretense that allows them to feel safe. So it's a good answer, why I want you to consider, which will help you, because I know you and I love you, is that the most spiritual people I know are children.

• 1:34:42Speaker 00

  Right? And why I say that is because I feel sometimes with you, you know, in the attempt to garner the attraction, the appearance, especially as your, your brand grows, right? Like it's something that I had to deal with Peter Crone, the mind architect. I mean, God forbid, when I fucking date somebody like, I don't stand a chance, right? Like it's because I can't have any problems, you know, it's so preposterous. It's so stupid.

• 1:35:05André Duqum?

  Yeah, the titles we give ourselves, the hitman for the ego, that sounds really good to the ego, you know?

• 1:35:09Speaker 00

  Exactly. So that's why I said even earlier, I know I'm not Peter. Like I've gotten to the point that I know none of the shit that I talk about is me. I'm just a space. I'm a perspective and it's helpful and it seems to like, you know, bring a lot more joy to people. So I'll keep doing it as long as I do it. But for me, what's missing for you sometimes is a little bit more joy, a little bit more silliness, which we have great humor. I mean, we were in Cancun, we had a blast, right? But I think, you know, maybe why you were with your previous girlfriend is there was a playfulness about her that's really balancing for you because you're more the structure, which is oftentimes the masculine and like the feminine is the self-express, the handbags and the fucking emotions and the shoes. I want to do it all. And the guy's like, well,

• 1:35:49Speaker 00

  I'll keep the fucking everything straight, right? Like, and so for you, that, that spiritual facade, I think, like it reinforces the rigidity of trying to get shit right and look a certain way versus just being more childlike. And that means also, I, I, again, I'm jumping around here, but you'll keep track. I remember a girlfriend, I said, you know, she hadn't been to yoga for years and so she's practicing a lot at home before she goes to class. I'm like, wait, what? She's like, well, yeah, it's kind of embarrassing.

• 1:36:20André Duqum?

  Oh, okay, got it.

• 1:36:22Speaker 00

  I'm like, do you even hear what you're saying?

• 1:36:26Speaker 00

  I mean, that's the opposite of fucking yoga. I mean, you're so disconnected. It's like, whereas a kid, like they love trying to balance on one leg and they're falling over and laughing. Like they don't have to get it perfect, right? It's, it's so, that's where I think for you, just recognizing with compassion again, that yes, you, you've got the look, you've got the brand, it's all beautiful, your conversations are inspiring, they're touching people's lives, and you're a fucking human, you know? And in lay terms, it's like, Your shit still stinks, you know, it's like just a.

• 1:36:55André Duqum?

  You'll never smell my shit, Peter.

• 1:36:57Speaker 00

  No, I'm such a good friend that I would. It's like that's, that's where, that's where real, that's where the real juice of life lives, right? Is like in that real.

• 1:37:07André Duqum?

  Accepting of humanity, which I, I think I've definitely, you know, struggled with.

• 1:37:11Speaker 00

  Yeah, which itself is beautiful to admit because I know you do, you know? And so that you can even having the question, I'm so proud of you that you can have the courage to ask this on air, on your own brand, because everyone right now, I promise you is loving the shit out of you even more. Because you, you could come across as a little bit like intimidating to people because you're smart, you're good looking, you're articulate, you've got a successful brand.

• 1:37:34André Duqum?

  Keep going, keep going.

• 1:37:36Speaker 00

  Just as I'm annihilating.

• 1:37:37André Duqum?

  Let's build a back out.

• 1:37:40Speaker 00

  Um, so it's, it's, it's, but the, the beauty, again, I quote myself all the time. I say, please never become perfect. You'll have no one to relate to. And I think you, because I can relate to someone who's a couple of years older, like, you know, my, my sort of, my residual perfection itself, you know, as a recovering, like wanting to get it all right, I can see in you, you know? And, and it's so beautiful when you can soften and go, no, I'm, I struggle with fill in the blank, you know? Like, I know for me in my relationships, one of the biggest things I had to learn is that, that my partner, particularly romantically, as much as a teacher as I am, even though in the world, you know, they might be like, oh my God, you're Peter Crone.

• 1:38:22Speaker 00

  Like I'm, please don't relate to me like that because as it relates to us as a couple, I'm as fallible, as imperfect, as available to contribution as you are. I might have a fancier way of articulating it and be a little bit more eloquent with language. But as it relates to like the heartfelt, like human flaws, I'm, I'm with you, you know? And I think if you could embody more of that. The irony is all the things that you hold so dear to you in terms of your appearance and your brand and your business would 10x because it's so much more relatable. It's human, you know, and yeah, it's, it's beautiful. So I get it. And the perfectionist tendency can be applied to anything, right?

• 1:39:06Speaker 00

  My athletes, my guy who became the MVP, he was trying to be the perfect baseball player. You can't do it.

• 1:39:11André Duqum?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:11Speaker 00

  My golfers, you as a spiritual figure now, an iconic, you know, podcaster who's got a big audience, again, just that would be the addiction that would be your downfall, right? Because you can't sustain it. It's, it's.

• 1:39:24André Duqum?

  It's exhausting to sustain it.

• 1:39:26Speaker 00

  It is.

• 1:39:26André Duqum?

  That's what I was kind of hinting at earlier.

• 1:39:28Speaker 00

  Yeah. I love that you had that bit near like, I fucking died of being spiritual.

• 1:39:32André Duqum?

  That's, that's, yeah, that's what like how, how it makes sense to verbalize it now because I look back at even, you know, because right now we're kind of going through a bit of a rebrand with Know Thyself and it's just more of a refinement with the podcast star, the branding, website and different things that's in alignment with this new energy that I'm kind of, you know, discovering within myself. We'll go live kind of towards the end of next month in March.

• 1:39:54Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:39:54André Duqum?

  But a big reason for that was this kind of experience I had in Brazil where I was like, just had this conversation with God and like alone in a chapel and, um, you know, starting to like take off my jewelry and the things that identify myself with and

• 1:40:07Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:40:07André Duqum?

  Um, we're making more space for the humanity and like the, the part that is, uh, that, that is natural to want to be liked and to be seen, um, in a, in a good standard and in the deeper accepting of my own humanity and be like, it's okay, like the messy parts of myself, it's okay, like to not be seen, like to, to let go of needing to be seen a certain way, like, and I really had a deepening of like the, the experiential, like feeling in my body, like a lot of those qualities we mentioned earlier, like.

• 1:40:40Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:40:40André Duqum?

  It's almost like a, it's coming off of your own, your own trip or a hallucination in a, in a sense, you know?

• 1:40:47Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:40:47André Duqum?

  After that, I was like, I could see the, for example, the podcast star I created when at the start, um, which is like got some sacred geometry in the background and like gold glowing lights.

• 1:40:58Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 1:40:59André Duqum?

  And, um, I could see parts of myself in which I wasn't aware of at the time, creating that is almost a projection of who I'd like to see myself as or other people to see me as.

• 1:41:09Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:41:09André Duqum?

  And now it's like I, I, and I'm sure there's layers still to go, but. I really don't, I don't, I don't have the desire to be seen as spiritual now. Like, you know, it just is a lot more spacious.

• 1:41:23Speaker 00

  No, absolutely. That's what, that's the word that came to mind is it's just, it's much more real. Right. And I think, you know, what came to mind as you're talking is one, it's much more relatable, which is beautiful because that's love, right? It's when someone's becoming too perfect because of a persona that they're trying to create or portray, they're not actually attainable. Like you can't, you can't connect with someone. It reminds me, years ago, I was on a TV show called Relationship Rehab. And it was funny, there's these three, I think it was three or four experts. So they had one girl was a dating coach, one had a dating business, you know, matchmaking. And then the other one wrote a column about dating for Elle magazine or something. And I worked with her. So the, the premise of the show is that these dating experts who don't have

• 1:42:08Speaker 00

  relationships, which is perfect. And so I can remember walking in, it was, it was here in Los Angeles. And this girl was so put together, right? Because it's a TV show, first of all, right? So, and of course, I mean, I, I mean, I brushed my teeth and made sure I looked at least, you know, presentable, but she was like to the point of like, it was so perfect, right? So anyway, she opens the door and you know, you've got the camera action and you walk in and like, ah, nice to meet you and all the bullshit or whatever. And so we sit down and we say our highs. And I said, you know, wow, you, you look like a porcelain doll. And she said, oh, thank you. I said, it wasn't a compliment.

• 1:42:48Speaker 00

  I have yet to meet a porcelain doll that I want to cuddle with.

• 1:42:51André Duqum?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:52Speaker 00

  You might have just discovered one of the obstacles to you having a relationship. And so I think that's so, again, it's, yeah, brutal. I don't fuck around, right? But I, I just also, but I'm real, right? So instead of being perfect or being spiritual, I think what, what life is giving you, and hopefully I'm reinforcing, is the opportunity just to be real, you know, it's, I've dated now a couple of women who are mothers because they obviously have had a kid or two or whatever, and they've moved on, but. There's something beautiful about being, particularly with the feminine, feminine generally, because they are self-expressive. They have different biology, you know, it's like they go through these cycles.

• 1:43:32Speaker 00

  They they become different people by virtue of their hormones, you know, it's like it's the gamut of all expressions. So they have a lot more self-acceptance because of that amongst themselves, a better listener, whereas guys are a little bit more, you know, we're we're more, we represent perusha consciousness, more stable, it's more consistent, but we become fucking rigid, right? And so when I've dated these mothers,

• 1:43:55Speaker 00

  what I love about it in ways that I can't comprehend, but I'm definitely committed to learning, is they see it all, right? I mean, from fricking childbirth to shit and puke and fucking everything, right? And so they they have a much bigger bandwidth as it relates to acceptance. Like the kid that comes in who in the middle of the night is scared or who shit the bed, literally, you know, it's like they just deal with it. And I think for you and I, and particularly you being younger and a man and not married and not having kids, you know, there's just a whole world of mess that is is waiting for you to explore, you know? And I just hope you get to step in the shit, literally and figuratively. Oh, for sure.

• 1:44:39Speaker 00

  Yeah, and I know you'd be an amazing dad, but I think this might be the precursor to you becoming a dad now prior to the event, which is as a role model, as a father figure, to to be so generous in your capacity to let people be who they are, is to me what it means to be a true leader and a parent, you know? Like often when I work with corporations, I say, good leaders don't make people wrong, they make them better. You know, and and we have such a patriarchal world that is so finger pointing in its nature of like, don't do this, do this. And and what people want is actually just to be embraced, they want to be held. The ego doesn't want to be healed, it wants to be held, as I've often said, right? And it's making space for the fact that we're all fucked up, right?

• 1:45:23Speaker 00

  That to me is real love. People talk about self-love, and I get that asked a lot of me. What is self-love? It's not pampering with like, you know, rose petal bathtubs and massages and manicures. It's learning to realize that as a human being, you by design are fucked up. Can you find enough love for that part of you? That self-love, that we're all imperfect. The nature of being human is to be flawed. Self-love isn't trying to perfect that human. It's making space for it as part of the fabric of what it is to be here.

• 1:45:56Speaker 00

  So welcome to self-love, buddy.

• 1:45:58André Duqum?

  Yeah.

• 1:45:59Speaker 00

  Embrace the part of you that even wants to be spiritual and look cool.

• 1:46:02André Duqum?

  Totally, and that was on the other side of that experience. Like immediately I had a lot of gratitude for young Andre, who whatever coping mechanisms or like strategies or identities, you know, that were useful in building the life that I have now, which is amazing. And I'm grateful for it. And it's like, uh, yeah, and it just gets to be kind of let go or and just like let it be. And it's, I think it's a subtle repatterning, you know, there's like, I, I, in my experience, have a bigger insight or awareness or expanded of how things were happening. And then it's like the continual integrative process of, of repatterning. Anytime little subtleties show up.

• 1:46:41Speaker 00

  Yeah. One of the things that might help, it's in a funny way. Now that you talk about some of these tendencies, you really do remind me of my, my athlete, which is a compliment because he's extraordinary. But one of the things I find most people lack that they need to work on is discipline. Right? When people say they don't have the life they want, they don't have the results they want. They don't have the body they want. Invariably, as a very practical reflection, they just lack discipline. That discipline lacking is usually an extension of lack of self-worth and deeper subconscious patterns which need to be addressed. But for you, the irony like him is his discipline that he needed was to not be so disciplined.

• 1:47:19André Duqum?

  Yeah.

• 1:47:20Speaker 00

  It seems kind of intuitive, but so for you, you know, I'm guessing from the smile, it resonates, right? So one of the things that I find so admirable about you, that you've inspired me with and many is your discipline. But I think your discipline has become, you know, your own sort of self-created prison. Right? Where you've become so attached to it that you've lost the, the flexibility of what it is to be flawed and to be human. So I would invite you to, to just expand your understanding of discipline, which is to incorporate, um, what it is just to be Andre when he doesn't want to do shit. You know, it's okay.

• 1:47:56André Duqum?

  Yeah, for sure. And.

• 1:47:59André Duqum?

  It's felt good creating more and more space for that.

• 1:48:02Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:48:02André Duqum?

  You know?

• 1:48:03Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's an extension. That's, you know, that's the expansion that we're really committed to, that I think you are really talking to. It's not the expansion of you, the spiritual brand, who has a great podcast. It's the expansion that can include that, but also now is making room for the guy that just wants to fucking sleep all day and do nothing, or the guy that wants to look disheveled or doesn't give a shit, or can get angry with somebody, you know? It's, it's, it's making room for all of it. Like, you've heard me say before, can I be with this? Right? It's one of my questions for myself, whatever it is. Can I be with this? Like, whatever it is, like even the devastation that happens in the world, doesn't mean we don't take action, it doesn't mean we don't have compassion, but I'm not going to be in a reactive state to it as though I can't handle it.

• 1:48:45André Duqum?

  Yeah.

• 1:48:46Speaker 00

  It's, um, it's, that's real power. That's real freedom. That's real love. It's all okay.

• 1:48:55André Duqum?

  And I find myself being more pulled from that state now these days, like, uh, earlier on, meditation was more disciplined, militant, almost militant, you know, in my approach to it.

• 1:49:06Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:49:07André Duqum?

  Which is great for the benefits or whatever, but still creating that mental prison that you're living within. And now it's like going to meditate because that's, you know, generally being pulled and called, you know, and devotion versus discipline and, um, really heart instead of the mind as much. And, uh,

• 1:49:23Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:49:24André Duqum?

  Yeah, palpable shift.

• 1:49:25Speaker 00

  And it's a commitment out of, out of love versus fear. Like, what I see in you and so many people, even who are very disciplined, is that they're being driven by an underlying energy of fear, right? That I've got to get it right. It's about how I care to people. It's about being the good boy, not upsetting parents, like fill in the blank of whatever it is that we feel we have to do. And it has that energy of mass need, which is a resistant energy, versus it's a choice. It's out of pure joy and exploration. It's, it's out of the sheer, like, love of being alive, to have the feelings, to have the curiosity to explore, versus just trying to get it right.

• 1:50:05André Duqum?

  Yeah.

• 1:50:05Speaker 00

  And they're very distinct worlds, you know? And I think you obviously dabble in both, but it feels like now, okay, great, you're making room for the one that is more based in. Spontaneity and exploration as opposed to just like this is the way it has to be because this is where I've always done it.

• 1:50:21André Duqum?

  Yeah, yeah, no. And I mean, I, out of like all my friends, I'm probably honestly like the most adventurous and silly and rascal like whenever we like go on travels or whatever, I'm always like climbing the dangerous rocks and doing these things. And like that for sure is, is a, is a big part of me. And, you know, I think previously for sure more in the past, like, maybe I would guard from, guard that side and all of its aspects being perceived, you know? And so it's,

• 1:50:52Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:50:53André Duqum?

  Um, it's been a good process and thanks for chatting with me about it.

• 1:50:56Speaker 00

  I'm excited. I'm excited for you because I love you and I, I can see it and it's subtle. And I know your silliness and playfulness when we're, you know, whether we're on camera or not, like I, I hope there's no difference. So we can be playful, but I can see you have a role, you're playing a job, you know, you've got a job, you're doing incredible, um, role as a host, as you always do, your questions are impeccable, your listening is great, all of that. But there's just a little bit more room for the, for the silly, a little bit more room for the freedom of self-expression, you know, it's like it's, it doesn't have to look a certain way. As soon as we get caught up with the appearance of something, we're missing the point, you know?

• 1:51:30André Duqum?

  Yeah. That's, and that's probably a big invitation also for everyone who's listening, um, which has been helpful for me is asking myself that question, like at any point throughout my day in conversation with somebody and creating something, uh, is there subconscious or conscious, um, cognizance of how something is being perceived externally and how it's point, how it's being appeared? Because in that alteration of behavior lies like we're, we're trapped and we're not free, you know? So that's been a helpful kind of pointer for my own personal journey, I think.

• 1:52:06Speaker 00

  And the way I distinguish it, which I resonate based on what you just shared to everyone and even for yourself, is the difference between being self-conscious and self-expressed.

• 1:52:16Speaker 00

  Right? So people who get caught up in the how is this coming across, or they're shy or embarrassed or anxious, they're self-conscious, they're aware of self. Versus just being self-expressed. You know, one has got the governor on like the brake and the accelerator and the other one is just take it as it is.

• 1:52:34André Duqum?

  You know, and it kind of just weaves in as the wider umbrella for this whole conversation of like, we have our waking up process of perceiving who we are beyond the illusion of a self. And we still have our relative history and character logical stuff that we get to work through as it relates to our own internal emotional landscape and connection and relationship with others. And they like, they're, they're both valuable.

• 1:52:59Speaker 00

  Yeah, there's, there's reality by agreement that is cultural, that is religious, that is national, you know, people become so associated with like these traditions that that's now collapsed. Like, people really think they are a religion, right? I am Christian, I am Jewish, like, and to just give that up, just because you recognize it's not an actual truth, that, that comes with consequences for a lot of people, you know? And that can, that can impinge on that sense of family and belonging that is really primal to the human experience. So I'm not saying that you throw it all away, it's just to recognize that none of it's true. You know, it's, it's, I tell people, it's all real, it's just not true.

• 1:53:40André Duqum?

  Yeah, that's an important distinction, you know, because it helps us not bypass or deny our experience or existence, but it also helps us see the illusiveness of something.

• 1:53:49Speaker 00

  Yeah. And that's where the freedom comes in. Otherwise, we're just fighting over illusions, right? Like, my God is better than yours, or whatever it is. My particular label or my stasis is better than yours. And it's no, it's all made up. And it's okay, you can still play the role. It's like, you don't have to emancipate yourself from your belongings, but emancipate yourself from the person who thinks they need them, right? It's, it's just a deeper level, right? It's like, I love to have all the trappings and all the toys. It's fun, but I'm not attached, right? I love to experience like companionship and intimacy and relationships, but I do the best I can not to be attached, right? Love is allowing for all of it to come and go and to be in the flow and not to be so easily upset, you know, or to be so rigid in the way that things have to occur to us.

• 1:54:32Speaker 00

  It's like, no, I'm in the dance, I'm in the, the trust of life, that things are always and all for all of us to our, to our benefit, to our evolution. And we're here to transcend the constraints with which we arrived. And this brilliant paradigm has got exactly the circumstances you need for that to eventuate.

• 1:54:52André Duqum?

  It reminds me earlier, you know, when we're reflecting on, you know, and it's been talked about through Advaita, through millennia, that even the act or desire to dissolve the ego is in itself an egoic act.

• 1:55:05Speaker 00

  Exactly. Yeah.

• 1:55:06André Duqum?

  And.

• 1:55:07Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's so slippery. And the good news is all unavoidable, right? And people are, well, what should I do? I'm like, just keep living.

• 1:55:14André Duqum?

  Yeah.

• 1:55:15Speaker 00

  Cause wherever you go, there you are and your triggers are gonna be what they are based on whatever it is that you still got to transcend. Like, you know, I say, like, life will present you with people and circumstances to reveal where you're not free.

• 1:55:26André Duqum?

  Life will present you with people and circumstances to reveal where you're not free. It really is a, probably my favorite quote of yours and really does encapsulate like what this human experience is and how it, how it happens in the reflections and mirrors in our life. And when we've kind of dissolved a certain aspect, you know, or overcome one, one aspect of life, there is usually another mirror down the road that's coming, right?

• 1:55:51Speaker 00

  Something more subtle, something more refined. Yeah. Like, and I think we're so far away from what it is, if we were to put it in the word of what is our potential, right? Like, you know, potential is something that gets actualized over time. It's not like you could realize your potential, like it's a finite thing. It's, it's never ending, which is why this is such an extraordinary game, right? The mountain without a top. For as much as I've garnered and learned and realized and let go of and shed and reconciled and mitigated, like, it's, it's, okay, there's something that happened last month that I'm like, oh, shit, I didn't even see that too, you know? And it's, it's just beautiful because it's like, it's like a sport. Like, I love golf, right? Like, and there's no one in the world at the best of the best, they don't get it perfect. That, you know, Ben Hogan, one of the greatest, he said, you know, in his best round of golf, he hit four perfect shots,

• 1:56:35Speaker 00

  you know? It's like, i- i- it's the consistent exploration of what it is to be us. And there's a joy to that. Like, you know, it's, at times it can be a pain in the ass because it's never ending, but that's also part of the, the gift that it is to be alive, to taste it all, to feel it all, and to explore it all.

• 1:56:57André Duqum?

  Yeah, it's again the paradox of being a limitless being within this finite human experience. I remember listening to a tape where Ram Dass was talking about how he's tried every plant medicine and every mantra he's done and every teacher, you know, as if there is a place other than the human experience we're supposed to get to.

• 1:57:13Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:57:14André Duqum?

  And, you know, the deeper realization was like, what if I actually came here to have a human experience?

• 1:57:20Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:57:21André Duqum?

  How funny, you know, us being humans. And it just invites, again, accepting more of our own humanity in the process of what it means to be here in this realm.

• 1:57:31Speaker 00

  I watched a clip recently on the Gram and this guy, I don't know who it was, just came up in my feed. And he was talking about how he, because of a really bad accident, he couldn't feel anything, right? Like sort of a form of paralysis. And it was so beautiful because he said, when I got back, you know, and I started to heal, it took months, he said, I really enjoyed pain, not because pain is good, but because I got to feel. And I really think, you know, that's one of, if we were to look at this through some bigger lens of the universe that we talked about right at the beginning, that gods have sent us to this particular dimension of planet Earth. I really feel that the ultimate intention of what it is to be human is just to feel. Fill in the blank, it doesn't matter, it

• 1:58:16Speaker 00

  doesn't have to be joy and like, you know, euphoria and orgasm, it could be like fucking heartache. I mean, I love the fact that I love my dad so much, it hurt that he died, you know? It's all, it's all an expression of love, right? In different, different ways. Like, and that to me is the gift that it is to be human. And so whenever we deny ourselves feeling something, you're cutting off what it is to be alive and vital. And we're so programmed to like, well, we only want the good shit, right? Like, don't want the bad stuff. And it's like, no, there's, there's joy in all of it underneath. It's just the capacity to feel itself is the opportunity that it is to be human.

• 1:58:55André Duqum?

  That's saying, "I don't know what the truth is, but I know what love feels like." And we are here to have that feeling experience.

• 1:59:01Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:59:03André Duqum?

  And thank you for the continual reminder that your presence is to remember that power. You know? And your gift, as I've shared many times, and the articulation of the inner dimension is second to none. And, you know, I'm just grateful for the mirror that we get to be for each other. And it's been a pleasure to spend more time with you, you know, even going to Mexico for a week. And getting, I mean, we're just constantly joking. Anytime we're with each other, it's just one big shit show of just laughter and playfulness. It's amazing.

• 1:59:39Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:59:39André Duqum?

  And I love that you get to, that you let that shine, you know? And you have been more and more as well on your own journey. And how I truly have felt, even since I've met you, like the arc of the impact and scale in which you're serving the planet is like a rocket ship that's just taking off. And I get to see the events that are coming and the books that's eventually coming out soon.

• 2:00:03André Duqum?

  I hope. I just can't wait to continue to witness your journey, man. So, thank you so much for sharing yourself today.

• 2:00:09Speaker 00

  I've really got that, that hit hard. Thank you. That means a lot. I mean, we, you know, what I'm left with, as you say that, is we just need to play more. Like, let's play more together, let's spend more time together. It's always a joy to be on here. You're one of my favorite hosts, just not only because you're a friend, but just because of your intelligence, your awareness, your brilliance, and your genuine care for asking questions and wanting to make your host feel seen and heard. And I've always felt that. And I hope today was impactful for people. And I hope your words, you know, as I say, from your mouth to God's ears. And it feels like things are going well. And it's definitely very humbling to see the impact my words seem to be having on people out there. And I can't think of a life that's more fulfilling than one that makes a difference.

• 2:00:54Speaker 00

  And having you as a friend is part of that.

• 2:00:58André Duqum?

  The best gift, man. What a joy. Thank you so much.

• 2:01:04André Duqum?

  We'll link everywhere, people, all the touchpoints that you have from your Freedom Mastermind to the free offerings and social media platforms. People can find that all linked down in the description below. But is there any aspect of that you want to point people towards before we head out?

• 2:01:17Speaker 00

  No, I mean, just the usual places. I mean, I'd love for people to explore Freedom, the platform, because I think that's my legacy that I'm most proud of. Because there's like now 90 plus hours. It's got all my live events that people can't attend. People do fly around the world, which is still humbling to come to an evening event. And we're going to eventually go around the world. But if you miss out on that and you want to watch them, they're all housed in Freedom. And we wanted to make it super affordable at just 29 bucks a month. So that's something that if people are looking for support, they're looking for insight, they're looking to free their mind, then that's all in there. So but otherwise, I'll just keep doing what I can to help bring freedom to the masses.

• 2:01:53André Duqum?

  And check out Peter's YouTube channel, which you guys have recently activated. And I love seeing it's an important platform, I think. And I'm glad you guys are starting to post on there.

• 2:02:00Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, we realized that that was an avenue we weren't exploring too much. So thank you.

• 2:02:05André Duqum?

  And yeah, last note from me for everybody that's been tuning in. You know, we recently did a survey and got a few hundred responses from the community. And it's really unique and so different to like hear from a few hundred people who are part of your community, the values, what they really see, and their perspectives on what's being created here with the podcast and community. And I would just, just, you know, in all with the level of intelligence and insight and care and compassion of the people that's cultivated through these comments and numbers on a screen, you know?

• 2:02:37Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:02:37André Duqum?

  But to really feel the hundreds of thousands and millions of people that tune into these conversations.

• 2:02:45André Duqum?

  It is like one big Earth family. And even like me sharing vulnerably, like some things that I've been working through. You know, I feel like also this community has been become a space for me to be able to, you know, share and open up in my own process, as I hope it is for you in the comment sections and the people that you get to meet through the events and things. And so it's just a special thing we get to do in this day and age.

• 2:03:05Speaker 00

  Very fortunate. We're very blessed.

• 2:03:07André Duqum?

  Yeah.

• 2:03:08Speaker 00

  Thank you, brother. Much love.

• 2:03:09André Duqum?

  Thank you, everyone. Until next time. Take care.