Let’s Talk About Balance

An open panel discussion on non-traditional healing modalities and how we conceptualize balance in the construct of our lives, this episode is lifted from a session that Julie Piatt and I conducted during our Plantpower Ireland retreat this past July. It features our long-time friend Colin Hudon, a physician of Traditional Chinese Medicine who is also the founder of Living Tea, which imports the finest living teas sourced from ancient tea trees across both China and Taiwan. Topics discussed include: * Colin & Julie's personal struggles and experiences with self-healing; * Broadening our concept of healing beyond traditional Western modalities; * The idea of “healing by subtraction”; and * A lengthy discussion about how we conceptualize and apply the idea of “balance” in our lives. Plus, we take some great questions and comments from our Plantpower tribe! This one veers towards the more esoteric, so please approach with an open mind. You might be surprised by the self-reflection it stimulates. I sincerely hope you enjoy the exchange. Peace + Plants, Rich Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:00Rich Roll?

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• 0:44Rich Roll?

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• 1:05Julie Piatt?

  As beings that are waking up, we need to start to value that which is unseen with an equal focus to that which is seen. So, the whole world's out of balance because there's so much importance put on the logical, the scientific, that's masculine. But there's an entire half of the universe which is completely illogical, unreasonable, feminine, magical, that's not being valued the same way. And that's not balance. And that's why the world is so out of balance right now.

• 1:42Rich Roll?

  That's Julie Pyatt, and this is the Rich Roll Podcast.

• 1:56Rich Roll?

  The Rich Roll Podcast.

• 2:00Rich Roll?

  Hey everybody. My name is Rich Roll. I am your host. I'm your conduit. This is my podcast. Thanks for stopping by. Today's episode is recorded from one of the sessions that Julie and I conducted during our retreat in Ireland this past July. It focuses on the subject of balance and we also explore a variety of less conventional healing modalities, things like acupuncture. And we're joined briefly by Colin Hudon, a longtime friend and physician of acupuncture and traditional Chinese medicine, who is also the founder of Living Tea, which imports the finest living teas from China and Taiwan. And he's there to help us explore a few of these less conventional healing modalities. If you recall my podcast with Tea Master

• 2:45Rich Roll?

  Wuda, then you'll likely recall Colin's name coming up, being mentioned, because they are collaborators and friends. And actually, it's through Colin that we were able to even meet Wuda in the first place. But before we dig in.

• 3:06Rich Roll?

  Okay, balance. What are we talking about in this episode? Well, we talk about a lot of stuff. Colin talks about his healing experience with Julie. We talk about traditional, conventional ideas around healing and medicine versus the more esoteric forms like herbs and acupuncture and traditional Chinese medicine, something Colin calls healing by subtraction, or healing by clearing. We talk about balance. What is it? What does it mean? The difference between balance and extremes. We take questions and comments from the Plant Power Ireland Tribe, and it's awesome. It's a little esoteric at times, but it's good. So let's drop in on Manor Ballyvaline in County Cork and get woke.

• 3:54Julie Piatt?

  Okay, awesome. Here we are, everybody good? Did you guys like the lunch? It was good. It's good, right? Ballyvallane is...

• 4:03Rich Roll?

  Valan.

• 4:05Julie Piatt?

  Oh, please. Are you correcting me now in like Irish dialect after two weeks? Ballyvallan.

• 4:12Speaker 02

  It's just Bala for short.

• 4:15Julie Piatt?

  Okay.

• 4:17Rich Roll?

  Ballyvallane.

• 4:19Julie Piatt?

  Seriously?

• 4:23Julie Piatt?

  Anyway, they're doing an amazing job. Incredible job, I think. So, that's really great. So, good for us. So, Rich, what are we gonna talk about?

• 4:31Rich Roll?

  It's your show, Julie. Today on Tap, we have balance. That's gonna be the subject, yeah?

• 4:38Julie Piatt?

  Kinda not. Kinda already moved on.

• 4:40Rich Roll?

  I went upstairs to have a little powwow with you about what we're gonna talk about, and Julie says, "Just follow my lead." So then, I come here, and she does a little... That's why she's like, "Rich, what are you gonna say?"

• 4:52Julie Piatt?

  No, I'm just... I'm striking back for the "Ballyvallan" correction. Okay.

• 5:00Julie Piatt?

  Okay. All right. So, let's just scratch that, and we'll begin at the beginning again. Okay. So, in yoga, we were talking about balance, but we were also talking about imbalance. So, in order to be balanced, we have to deal with our imbalances. And I've been talking to many of you, and many of you have been sharing your experience around life, around situations where, you know, we find ourselves living what we think is a healthy existence. Like, you know, "I'm eating really healthy. I'm practicing yoga. I'm taking care of myself." And why am I still plagued by certain traumas, and illnesses, and physical issues, and emotional issues that are still living with us?

• 5:45Julie Piatt?

  And I think anybody who's been alive in a human body would agree that we have these moments where we're just like... We're like, in the same situation with the same circumstances, and we're kind of beating our head against the wall, saying like, "Are you serious? Like, am I here?" Here again? You know, what about all the progress I made? What about all the work I did? And so the way that I like to view that in life is just, you know, as we know, energy moves in spiral patterns. And so we have to understand that we're in this process of movement. And even if you're revisiting a certain point on the spiral or the labyrinth, you'd say

• 6:24Julie Piatt?

  that we have evolved, but we're getting an opportunity to revisit those patterns so that we can clear and heal to deeper and deeper levels. And so Colin has been treating us with these amazing Chinese medicine treatments, and he's truly gifted, and Rich and I feel so blessed to have him with us. He's truly a treasure of information and a beautiful heart and experience. And so he's gonna go run in a minute to support himself so he can continue to do sessions. But I wanted Colin to come up and to share about his experience.

• 7:05Julie Piatt?

  We both consider ourselves, I guess, seekers, and we both are healers to a certain extent in different modalities. And even though, like many of you, we both have had physical issues that continue to plague us. And so I wanted Colin to share his experience around his, and then I'll share some of my experience around mine. So anyway, thanks.

• 7:29Speaker 02

  Thank you. I just like making stuff up, so I'm just gonna totally make everything up. Well, so what you just said and what I thought I was going to talk about are two different things.

• 7:45Julie Piatt?

  Okay. You could just talk about what you want to talk about.

• 7:50Speaker 02

  Well, initially, you were gonna talk a bit about clearing.

• 7:53Julie Piatt?

  Yeah.

• 7:54Speaker 02

  Is that what you want me to go with?

• 7:57Julie Piatt?

  Yeah, go with that. But I guess what I'm saying is that I think your experience that you and I had together a few days ago is a very powerful foundational experience that can help the mind to find a leg to grab onto. That's why I wanted you to share that.

• 8:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, okay, sure. So...

• 8:19Speaker 02

  One thing I would say, prior to just talking for a moment about some of this healing work we're talking about, is that we've been entrained and inculcated and conditioned to see reality in a very particular way that we implicitly agree to. And it's based in thousands of years of history and education and paradigms of thought and belief that inform the way we're thinking about everything that we didn't necessarily sign up for. And, you know, even questioning some of those beliefs, like choosing not to eat animal

• 8:59Speaker 02

  products or something, starts to put chinks or cracks in some of those ideologies and I think can start to open up the possibility of questioning all the traditional assumptions that society kind of bases itself on. And when we look at some different healing modalities, they're different modalities, or they might have different paradigms or be based on different approaches to reality than we have been taught to believe in. So, and I would suggest that that's a very good and necessary thing to be healthy in

• 9:39Speaker 02

  mind, body, spirit, emotions, to really question and be skeptical and have great inquiry and great faith together. So, that being said, you know, you can open the door, you can open the lid of that, what I just said, and go and talk for quite a while about some of those ideas, but specifically around healing, you know, I've had, I've been studying Chinese medicine for quite a long time, and prior to that, different aspects of health and wellness and diet. And mysteriously, about nine years ago, I developed a very intense skin rash that kind

• 10:22Speaker 02

  of took over my whole upper body and was so itchy that for a number of months I didn't sleep and I would have to sit with socks, and I'd have to tie my hands and put socks on my hands and sit at night so I wouldn't scratch my body. And it was a very, very intense and extremely unpleasant experience. And I had a chunk of change saved up and I went and saw all these different doctors. Western allopathic dermatologists, rheumatologists, naturopaths, shamans, all these people. And went to Australia to live with this shaman in the outback. And that's a whole other story. What happened there, that was a pretty, it was an interesting experience. And actually, when I came back to LA, Julie and Rich and their family were kind enough

• 11:06Speaker 02

  to take me in for, I don't know, 10 days or something. And let me try to digest what happened over there in Australia. And through the process of studying Chinese medicine, I was able to heal my body maybe about 95 to 98 percent. And it was in particular an experience with a Chinese doctor up in San Francisco that absolutely blew my mind how powerful her treatments were with Chinese herbs and she did acupuncture with needles. And I was so kind of moved by that experience. It was one of the things that inspired me to go and study Chinese medicine in school. And fast forward about eight years.

• 11:51Speaker 02

  And recently, I started, I had, I moved to a new state, to Colorado, and I wanted to practice Chinese medicine there. And in order to do that, I had to take some additional national board exams. So I started studying a lot for these tests. And just prior to the most recent test, this rash came out of my arms and hands, which some of you might have noticed some redness on my hands. And it got really itchy and I kind of started to freak out going, wait a minute, I thought I was complete with this hellish process. And, and over a number of days, it was getting worse and worse and worse, the more I studied. And...

• 12:32Speaker 02

  So then the first three days that we were here in Ireland, it was getting really uncomfortable. And like maybe every hour or two, I was at the point of like, really wanting to rip my arms off because they were so itchy. It sounds a little extreme, but...

• 12:46Speaker 03

  Had you already taken the test at this point?

• 12:47Speaker 02

  Uh, yeah, I took it and I passed, so that's the, the good news. But upon passing it, the, this rash continued to get worse. And so then we kind of get to Ireland and I'm kind of like, what's going on here? Why is this happening?

• 13:02Speaker 02

  And Julie and I have talked a lot about, you know, transmigration or reincarnation, which I think is way more complex than we just jump from one life to the, to the next.

• 13:15Speaker 02

  Also that if you ever talk to somebody about reincarnation, like you were Cleopatra, you were Augustus Caesar, you were, you know, uh, the Pharaoh of someplace, right? It's never, you know, you were the prostitute with syphilis who died at age 14 or whatever.

• 13:32Speaker 02

  So, so I think it's more complex than that. But oftentimes there are continuities or we have certain curiosities or fascinations in life.

• 13:46Speaker 02

  And we don't really know where they come from. There's no reason to explain that. You know, I've been obsessed with Chinese culture and certain aspects of Chinese medicine and tea and spending as much time in Asia as possible. There is absolutely nothing in my upbringing that would have pointed to that.

• 14:05Speaker 02

  Among other things. So, we did some healing work the other day because kind of all day we're in like the most beautiful places. The, the cliffs of forgetfulness from the Princess Bride. We found out that's where we actually were. Uh, and in these incredibly beautiful places. And I was having this almost like a histamine response where I was so itchy and uncomfortable all day. And it kept getting worse and worse and worse. And then we did a healing session just before going to bed.

• 14:31Julie Piatt?

  But we tried to go find a medical clinic and we tried to get some Western medicine.

• 14:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, we were all over.

• 14:37Julie Piatt?

  Very, very diligently for a few hours.

• 14:41Speaker 02

  And that wasn't happening. All the pharmacies had like just closed. And then they go, go to this one, it's open. And they just close. And so it wasn't happening and...

• 14:50Speaker 02

  We get back to the place and I'm kinda wondering like, when is this gonna end? Is it going to end? Why is it getting worse? I'm not stressed out now, etc. Or whatever the trigger, whatever I thought the trigger was, had gone. So then we do this session, and a lot of the theme of the session was, my words for it would be healing by subtraction, but you could also call it healing by clearing. And you can think of clearing in terms of, on the mental, emotional, physical level, but you could also think of it on the etheric level, or we call the astro level, causal level, mental level. There's one paradigm of what you call energetic anatomy that would suggest that we have multiple

• 15:33Speaker 02

  bodies that extend beyond the physical body. And also that we have cords that attach us to different lifetimes and to other people. You know, you might experience this pragmatically, like you think of your mother, or you think of a friend, and then the phone rings a minute later. Probably you've experienced something like that. Or you get a sense that something's off, and then you talk to somebody and you realize that you were thinking about them at that time. I mean, this is starting to sound like Star Wars and the Force or something, but I think you probably know what I'm talking about. So we did this session, and a lot of it was around clearing. And I guess Julie can say more about that if she wants to, but the one salient part

• 16:18Speaker 02

  that I'll mention now is that halfway through the session, I felt myself relax, and I felt my sympathetic nervous system kind of calmed down, and my breathing deepened. And then I felt myself kind of drop into my body, and went from, basically for the past month, every day, every couple hours, being very itchy on my arms and my neck, to any itch stopping, completely stopped. And since that session, I have not even had a twinge of, "Oh, I think..." And my skin's been healing every, almost hourly. So I wouldn't be surprised if by the end of this week, it's completely back to normal.

• 16:58Speaker 02

  And that's, it's not due to taking an antihistamine, or taking any Chinese herbs, or doing acupuncture. It might be from being around such healing, wonderful people for the whole week. But- I would suggest that there are aspects of healing that are nonlinear and that are, dare I say, multi-dimensional and that are beyond the realm of the five senses. You know, through our five senses, we're only experiencing a very limited range of reality in terms of, you know, we only see between, a tiny range between ultraviolet and whatever's on the other end.

• 17:42Speaker 02

  And our hearing, you know, if somebody blows a dog whistle, we don't hear it at all, but all the dogs in the neighborhood go crazy, et cetera, et cetera. So, yeah.

• 17:52Julie Piatt?

  Thank you for sharing that. So, yeah, I just thought it was really powerful for us to hear that demonstration, just because, you know, that was a healing, it was my healing. Colin was lying on the bed and I was doing what I do. What I would call that is that I, it was really a prayer of love for him and of recognition for him and of seeing him in a perfect state. And also some mechanics, kind of like brushing your teeth, just things that I've learned from doing so much healing work. You know, you were mentioning regression. I did a regression session a week for two years. I've worked with a lot of amazing healers and I've learned along the way.

• 18:36Julie Piatt?

  So I've learned, I've learned what to ask for, I've learned what to, you know, if I get shown a vision, I've learned what that is. But really, the overall intention was just pure love. That's all it was. And it was knowing that nothing is wrong with him. And as long as I've seen him over nine years try to unlock this puzzle, I've known that he would never solve it intellectually and I've known that it was part of his evolution, his ascension process. And I think there was also an aspect that... We were meant to interact with each other. And so what we initially did was, this is really severe. He was really uncomfortable. Uncomfortable enough to want to go to an emergency room.

• 19:19Julie Piatt?

  And he's a physician himself. And we couldn't find it. We couldn't find a Benadryl, like, anywhere. And we were stopping in multiple pharmacies. We would have just done it, because that would have been the logical thing to do. It would have been the easiest thing to do. And then here we were, back at the Airbnb. And he had asked me, actually, early in the day. It's not like he wasn't open to working with me, but he had kind of said, hey, if you're up for it, maybe we could do a session. Well, then, when we couldn't find any relief anywhere else, we were kind of forced. And all I did is, he went in his room and laid down, and I just prayed for him. But I specifically removed certain things, cleared him from certain situations, cleared

• 20:00Julie Piatt?

  some emotional pressure that was being applied to him, disconnected mental programs of what he was thinking his disease was about, opening up into another timeline that we know we have together in some realm, some form, and clearing any past, we'll just say, missteps, and just aligning with a very clear purpose. All with the intention that the body is divine, that he is divine, and that we were calling back that original perfection of the human form. And all of it just wrapped in a huge blanket of love. Just huge, like, as much as I could muster. It was just like, use this channel through this heart, with all the love that I have, just give it to this being.

• 20:45Julie Piatt?

  And then I had no idea. I didn't know if it was going to work. I didn't know if he was going to be like, oh shit, she sucks. Like, it's not very good.

• 20:53Speaker 02

  That's mostly what I was thinking.

• 20:54Julie Piatt?

  That's what I was thinking. But, you know, you just don't know. But I guess that's the thing that I wanted us to open up and to speak about. Because even though Colin's sharing some ideas and some concepts and stuff that we're like, okay, this might be out there, I just know that if I asked most of you, you have some experience in your life that you have experienced that there is no logical explanation of. You're no different. We are all spiritual beings having a human experience. And part of this... The state that we're in as a collective is that, like I said today in yoga,

• 21:36Julie Piatt?

  veganism is not going to, you know, cause you to self-actualize. It's not the end point, it's the beginning point. And we have so much emotional trauma around food and our eating issues. And so many of us here have talked about issues that are lineage. They're in your ancestry. And you're like, why is this pattern running me? And it's not even you, it's just part of you. So as beings that are waking up, we need to start to value that which is unseen with an equal focus to that which is seen. So the whole world's out of balance because there's so much importance put on the logical, the logical, the scientific, that's masculine.

• 22:20Julie Piatt?

  But there's an entire half of the universe which is completely illogical, unreasonable, feminine, magical, that's not being valued the same way. And that's not balance. And that's why the world is so out of balance right now. So being somebody who's feminine oriented and as usually women or men who have a strongly developed feminine side, a lot more in the younger men generally. But we feel things with our entire being. You know, it's more like the whole body breathing that I've been sharing with you. It's like we're firing on a lot of levels, you know?

• 23:01Julie Piatt?

  So I just wanted Colin, as this physician of Chinese medicine who's a male, to share that experience, you know, that happened. And also for you guys to see that just because we eat well and meditate and, you know, are healers, doesn't mean that we're free of these, you know, traumas. I mean, he's dealt with this for many years, it's been going on. And in my case, my case is, you know, I have head trauma. I have severe headaches that are not migraines, but they're migraine-like. And I've been trying to unlock this key for 20 years. And sometimes it gets It's better, sometimes it gets worse.

• 23:44Julie Piatt?

  And, you know, in the beginning years, I used to put a lot of pressure on myself, be very, very frustrated and very upset that I hadn't been able to figure it out. And then that would create an extra stress, you know, turning on me. And then for survival, I just got to a point where I would just observe them as an observer and just say, "The body is having a headache," and try not to get involved and just get whatever comfort I could. And then just recently, I had a severe episode in the month of June, and I realized that I had a certain lifetime that was linked to this head trauma that I had failed to look at. I knew that it existed. It had been told to me by six different healers.

• 24:26Julie Piatt?

  Two friends of mine had told me of the experience themselves. And all the time, I had never taken the time to go back and relive the experience. It was like, I was like, "Oh yeah, I know that happened." But I had never faced it. So I was like, "Why is my head feel like it's literally bleeding, like I have knives stuck in my skull?" And then I got the awareness that my body was talking to me. My body was talking to me, and I wasn't listening to my body. So the body is trying to tell me something. It's a key, it's a clue for me to reclaim my power, for me to call back all of my body

• 25:06Julie Piatt?

  parts, or powers, or energies that have been disconnected from me for lifetimes, so that I can fully integrate to be who I am. And in order to do that, you have to look at everything, you know, that's happened. And it's very complex, and I'm not here to tell you that there's any one way to do it. You know, we did a little bit of Kundalini today for me to show you the breath work and how that moves energy through. Of course, we have Colin here doing, you know, Chinese medicine. He also happens to be a mean tarot card reader, by the way, just on the down low. We have me doing this... Spare time. ...this etheric surgery kind of work, and we're gonna do a yoga nidra, like

• 25:49Julie Piatt?

  a guided sleep meditation today. But I just wanted to present this as a, as a, as a way and a possibility for us to really open up and understand that we have to recognize both sides of what it means to live this spiritual life in a human body.

• 26:14Speaker 02

  Can I just say one quick thing?

• 26:15Julie Piatt?

  You can stay the whole session. I just want to make sure you get your running.

• 26:20Speaker 02

  Well, with some of the people I've worked with, you know, you kind of pointed to this idea of an awareness or giving equal primacy to what you could call the numinous, the unseen, the unknown, you know, to other levels of reality potentially. But I would say, actually, there's a third aspect which I think should take as much, if not more, primacy than anything, which is there's nothing in our education system or upbringing that emphasizes our interior lives. And there is, you know, through meditation, there is a practice there, but it doesn't mean an actual study of the interior life.

• 27:01Speaker 02

  And, you know, like anything, if you're trying to learn something outside, there is a process of studying and learning that usually, if it's a complex field or discipline, is years of study. And I'd suggest that our interior lives are as complex, if not more complex, and more worthy of that same level of rigor and inquiry and even, not scientific approach, but an approach that is methodical and diligent and focused of investigating and understanding the interior life as much as the exterior world.

• 27:42Speaker 02

  And there's nothing in our contemporary culture that suggests that that's a worthwhile endeavor. And so there aren't really tools for it that you can find sitting around in culture or in the education system or anything. And something I just said to somebody who came for a treatment a little while ago is, and this is just a suggestion to show you that you're asleep, which I recognize every day in myself, which is, I call them alarm clocks. And if you take, for example, something that you choose for the day or the week, say it's every door I go through today, I'm going to use my left hand, or I'm going to brush my teeth with my left hand, or I'm going to...

• 28:28Speaker 02

  Be aware of my right foot every time I walk up a set of stairs today. Or you just use something that you're inserting into your reality as an alarm clock to be present in that moment to your mental, emotional, and physical being, the sensations in your body, to take stock or to take a photograph. Not to, uh, not to learn from it, but just to take the moment of can I see myself in this moment? And I've done that practice for many years and what I've found is that, the first thing you see is that many days will pass sometimes, where you've, you've given yourself this task of setting this alarm clock.

• 29:10Speaker 02

  Many days pass and you realize you haven't been there for one of those moments. You haven't remembered to do it once. And if you're, if you can't remember to do it even once, then you have to ask yourself, well, where, where, where was I? You know, what, what was I doing in that moment? Was I daydreaming? Was I in the past or the future? Was I, I, yeah, I wasn't present, that's for certain. And the process of doing that is developing just the criteria or the tools with which you can start to excavate and explore your interior reality, or even to see it at all. And that's something that, like I was saying, it's a discipline that I think takes many years.

• 29:52Speaker 02

  And without it, we're awake and we can navigate reality mechanically and sometimes, uh, wakefully, uh, well enough. But it doesn't mean that you're navigating reality masterfully. So, there's a lot there to explore, but just maybe one thing to try is try to give yourself some simple aim and see if you can maintain it for a day or a couple of days and, uh, make a practice of it.

• 30:24Julie Piatt?

  Thank you. You want to go run?

• 30:27Rich Roll?

  Alright, I'm gonna go run now. Thank you, Colin. That was beautiful.

• 30:37Rich Roll?

  Can I say something?

• 30:41Rich Roll?

  On the theme of mastering your reality, whether that's through the physical world, the interior world, or the etheric world, you know, the overarching theme kind of of today is balance, right, and how does balance play into those pursuits, and how does balance, how is balance specifically applicable to the choices and the decisions that we make every single day about how we're going to allocate our time and our resources, our energy, right? And I think it's an interesting topic, you know, culturally, we're reared and raised to, and taught that we should eat a balanced diet, and that we should live a balanced

• 31:21Rich Roll?

  life, and everything should be, you know, properly and evenly apportioned across the chessboard of your sort of daily, monthly, yearly experience. And I don't know, I don't know, I'm interested in like exploring that idea, and I'm coming to the conclusion that it's just flawed in many ways. First of all, it begs the question of how we're defining the word "balance" to begin with, like what does balance mean to you, what does balance mean to me, what does balance mean to each of you individually, and I would, I would submit that that probably varies wildly.

• 32:01Rich Roll?

  And, and what is the value of, of, of balance versus extremes, you know? And as somebody who is prone to and attracted to extremes, and somebody who's gone down dark alleyways in extreme pursuits, and somebody who's also learned a lot about myself and how to live by, you know, touching the exterior of the extremes, I think it's a more complicated question, you know? I think there are people out there that would say, eating Vegan diet is extreme, that's not balanced. So that's a differential in how we're defining extremes, right? So I'm interested in exploring, on a group level with all of you, this idea of balance, how you think about balance, where you're challenged by balance,

• 32:46Rich Roll?

  and how perhaps we can move past this idea to a different concept of how to live in a way that is in pursuit of this mastery of our existence. Do you have any thoughts on that before we go further?

• 33:06Julie Piatt?

  Yeah, I mean, I think it's different for every person. And I think that you have to be authentic to the way that you are, the way that you express yourself. However, I would say, I would bring that back down to the longevity and the mindful path is the middle path. And so I don't know how that ties into extreme paths. And I would say also that I think it's our challenge of how are we finding the balance in the moment,

• 33:49Julie Piatt?

  rather than looking at life as a series of time, you know, long stretches of time as we know it in this system. I think you have to be balanced in the moment. You have to be grabbing that awareness to be really connecting on the deepest level.

• 34:15Rich Roll?

  If you were to reflect back on your life, or if you were to poll a certain group of people, a large population of people, and say, you know, what is your fondest memory? Or what is the most meaningful thing that has happened to you in your life? You're likely to get answers like, "Oh, that time that I fell in love," or "the time that I climbed Mount Everest," or "the time that I did Epic 5." Or what have you, these tend to be, uh, these tend to be extreme events, events or experiences where time falls away and there's a level of focus and intensity that is temporal, it will end at some point, but they are, uh, but they are events that are, you know, outside

• 35:00Rich Roll?

  the, the, you know, the parameters of what one would typically define as, as being within the construct of a balanced life. So, nobody is going to say, "Oh, it's that time when everything in my life was perfectly apportioned and I was exerting the same amount of energy into every aspect of what's important to me." So, how do you reconcile those two things? And part of how I think about it is, not in terms of, um, you know, scales that are balanced, but more in terms of like a pendulum that's swinging, right? And allowing myself to let that pendulum swing, you know, to one side, perhaps maybe a little bit more, you know, further along than, than somebody else, on my personal definition, as long as

• 35:45Rich Roll?

  you know that it's going to swing back, so that everything else can kind of come in check, because there's a reaction to every action.

• 35:54Julie Piatt?

  Yeah, I get that perspective. I, I guess I would just say that finding balance to me is being beyond the experience. So, it's like if you chase some amazing high, you're going to have some amazing low. It's just the way that it works. So, the way to actually cultivate your energy as a master is to find that middle point. It's almost like you're in the zone and this is going here and this is going there, and this is going here and this is going there. So, I agree with you. If you, if you polled 99% of the population, that is the answer, they would be looking for that, that epic experience that they could remember in their life, which is a memory of the past. Um, uh, or maybe it would

• 36:37Julie Piatt?

  be a projection into the future. But I guess what I'm saying is, to tap into the force that holds all of it, is to be in the middle, is to be in neutral, and that is balance. That is true balance. I mean, what you're saying is, is, is, uh, the extreme experience might be the one that the, that the emotional body cherishes the most, right? But that, I don't know that that is balance.

• 37:08Rich Roll?

  So then, would that be something to be avoided? You know what I mean? If your heart is compelling you to pursue something outside of what might be socially approved of, but that is what is speaking to you, are you not to then pull that thread and follow that?

• 37:27Julie Piatt?

  No.

• 37:28Rich Roll?

  I'm not saying I have the answer, like I'm challenging you because I'm interested in how this plays out and how you think about it.

• 37:35Julie Piatt?

  No, nothing should be avoided, and your desire should not be avoided, and nothing should be suppressed. I mean, in an absolute answer, you should pursue everything to the end of it so that it's exhausted within you, so that it's no longer pulling at you. But I just have a...I'm not...I mean, the subject of balance, I guess I'm not in a framework where I think that balance means that if you're pursuing extremes, that that's balance. I mean, balance is the equanimity in which all these experiences are happening. So, like I said, you know, for instance, like I had a moment in my path where I made

• 38:20Julie Piatt?

  a move and I quit a job that I should have kept, but I had received a message that I needed to stop working immediately. I'm sounding really bad. And my thing to my client was that I was no longer allowed to work for money, and that I literally was doing interior design, and if I had four months to live, this is what I said to him, "If I have four months to live, I wouldn't say, 'Oh, golly, I can't wait to redesign your house.'" Like, that's just what I have to do. So I said, "I really have to be an artist." And so, he said, "Okay, but why can't I buy your art?" And I said, "Well, that's a conflict of interest, because I'm your interior designer and I'm telling you to buy my art." Well, I left that meeting, and he bought a lot of my art, and I made a lot of money that day.

• 39:02Julie Piatt?

  And he asked me later, he said, "How come you weren't more happy? How come I didn't see you, like, jumping up and down and screaming?" And, you know, and it was because I had reached this place of neutrality within me. And I said to him, "I don't want to experience the deep lows after the deep high. So what I'm endeavoring to do is find that neutral and just be in my power." That is like the neutral power of what I would call balance. So it's not that I'm not grateful, it's that I'm not going on the pendulum. I don't want a ride on the pendulum because the pendulum's always going to swing. There's always going to be a repercussion to that. So, and you can't live your life always in the highs.

• 39:47Julie Piatt?

  You know, so I just, for me, I'm just, I'm seeking that balance is that middle path. And I think that that is the longevity. That is, if we can stay in that neutral, we can be very effective over a very long period of time. I guess that's what I'm saying.

• 40:11Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think.

• 40:12Julie Piatt?

  Do you want to take the mic so we can have a little recording? Oh, here, I have an extra.

• 40:20Speaker 03

  Now, I've thought about this from a work-life perspective, obviously for a while. But I think, Rich, you've asked the question on some of your podcasts as well, just challenging what this concept of balance is. And at least for me, I think there can be a fallacy in maybe the word balance, thinking, like you said, equal distribution across the scale, or some perfectly proportioned amounts of everything. And I don't see that necessarily as balance. I see that more as equanimity, or, you know, an equal distribution of everything. But balance for me is, I mean, you can see incredible art sculptures that are asymmetrical, but still within balance.

• 41:02Speaker 03

  So you have things out on the extreme, but maybe the, the weight of those is not as much as, you know, going down the center mass. So I do think you can, you can approach and go extremes, but other things will have to accommodate for that in some way. And, you know, so it's hard to think of like, I'm going to sleep eight hours, I'm going to work eight hours, I'm going to, and be in a relationship eight hours. You know, that may not be the reality. But I do agree that over the long term, things do balance out. And so if, yeah, if you are out here on the extreme, then you're not going to balance at some point, or you're going to have to correct that to come back into balance.

• 41:46Speaker 03

  Balance and as you were just speaking, I was thinking of like wavelengths. I mean, you can have very fluid, steady wavelengths, or you can have some that that do oscillate over, you know, high peaks and troughs. But I, you know, I, I, I think the word balance in and of itself gives us a perception of equanimity more than some sort of distribution around neutral that may not be symmetrical. You know, maybe for some, it may be symmetrical, but for others, it may be, you know, something different.

• 42:23Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I like that sentiment. I think, I think that's, that's spot on in two respects. The first being that perhaps this, this question of how do I live a balanced life is the wrong question, or at least using the wrong vernacular to frame the inquiry. And I really like that analogy of the sculpture, the idea of you can still be in balance and be asymmetrical. You know, there's something cool about that. I hadn't thought of it in that way.

• 43:00Speaker 04

  Thanks. I think it's, it's interesting when you, when we talk about extremes and I've, I've always enjoyed extremes. And I think when you look at what you do in an extreme event, whether it's, you know, sport or, or business or whatever else, if that extreme is to take you away from a reality that you don't actually want to be in, then it's completely out of balance. And I think you, what we have to try and do is find harmony in mediocrity first, because when you then just become one with just the flow of how your life is, then you can still

• 43:43Speaker 04

  step out and do an extreme thing, but it doesn't have a major negative impact. It's to try and find that peace within yourself that is just, you know, what is Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday like? If I accept how I am and how I am going to be in those days and in those moments, then I've found that peace that I'm okay with mediocrity. My life is my life and I'm here to live it. I can then step out and do other stuff. But I think it's so important that we find that inner peace first because a lot of the times the extremes are being pursued to escape rather than to be pursued as something beneficial to you spiritually.

• 44:26Julie Piatt?

  Yeah, it's like I used to talk to Rich a lot and to some of the athletes that I would meet about getting to the point where you were training or doing whatever that activity was for the love of it, just for the love, for the pure love. And we had friends with different names of organizations like Never Stop. And I used to joke and I was like, "Please stop, please sit down." But yeah, it's like, what are you running from and what are you running to? And I think it's the same thing with the money conversation that we had today. It's not the extreme sport that's the out of balance, it's the reason for doing it.

• 45:08Julie Piatt?

  And if you're doing it for the love of it, or doing it because it's your love, your child love, like it is in your case, then it's aligned to who you are. And we can use money as an energy the same way. But if your quest is the money, then you're looking in the wrong place. So what I've talked to some athletes about that I've met through Rich is really getting to the love of it. And sometimes when I, I don't know, I guess that's kind of like an interesting subject because sometimes Rich will come back from training and I'll be like, "Hey babe, did you have fun?" And he's like, "Fun?" He's like, "All I'm in is in pain, like, the whole time." I'm like, "Really?

• 45:52Julie Piatt?

  I thought you were having a blast doing that." So yeah, I think it's a question, I think.

• 46:00Rich Roll?

  Well, it's just fun's the wrong word, you know, like painful, yeah, but there's other rewards in that. But, you know, I have taken to heart that idea of like doing it for the love. And I think that's important. And I think really kind of what I'm hearing here, or the wisdom behind all of this, is not the behavior, or the extreme thing, or whatever it is, it's your relationship to that thing, right? It's like, is your relationship to that thing in check? Is it healthy? Are you trying to escape some reality or run away from something? Or are you using it as a fulcrum point to learn something

• 46:39Rich Roll?

  or to explore something in yourself? And is your emotional connection to that, you know, in a healthy place of neutrality? Or are you like out of whack with the meaning or importance that you're attaching to any of these pursuits, right?

• 46:56Julie Piatt?

  Yeah, like if you have an adrenaline thing that's just pushing you, like, I gotta go do the next thing, I gotta do the next thing, and I have to do it, and I have to conquer it, it's like, what are you doing?

• 47:05Rich Roll?

  Right, that's who I am.

• 47:07Julie Piatt?

  Right.

• 47:07Rich Roll?

  So how do you parse like, that's who I am, and that's what I love, versus the unhealthy, like, within that, baked into that, you can almost hear the, like, I'm running away from my life because I'm scared of something.

• 47:18Julie Piatt?

  Yeah, and yet, in an absolute term, it's exactly, I mean, it's exactly perfect, because that's what that being has to go to, to get exhausted, to then, to then return back to himself or herself. So, everyone should pursue all their desires, and, you know, and, I mean, the yogi way would say to go deeply into them, even if they're negative, go deeply into them. Don't suppress anything. Fully experience everything so it's gone. And that's not in alignment with AA practices at all.

• 47:45Rich Roll?

  I was gonna say, do you tell an alcoholic that? That's not gonna end very well?

• 47:48Julie Piatt?

  He's like, we've always like argued over this. I'm like, yes, honey, do it. No. But that would be what a yogi would say. Because there's no, you don't want to suppress anything. You don't want, that's why I said today, to understand that we have both light and dark. Because when we start to be in denial, and we start to push some of those down, then the demons come up. You know, I mean, look at the Catholic Church. Look at, you know, it's like, you don't want to suppress that stuff. It is part of our humanity. And then, you know, we have to deal with some of it, and we have to clear things, you know, that we've been given to clear from ancestral lines and stuff like that.

• 48:33Speaker 03

  No, I was just saying that Rich had a podcast with a guy named David Clark and they discussed this topic at length where he was an ultra runner and he just kept, I mean, I don't know, he was like doing all, just setting one crazy record after another, running 10 marathons back to back or double Leadvilles or whatever and he eventually, you know, started questioning himself, "Why am I doing this?" And maybe somebody posed the question to him initially, but, you know, he did this and in the middle of, you know, one of his endurance runs just completely broke down and, you know, had the epiphany that, "I don't need this anymore, I'm complete as I am." And it seems like he was kind of chasing validation through these endurance sports.

• 49:11Rich Roll?

  Yeah, by his own admission, he was, you know, seeking something outside of himself through those pursuits and it just kept getting more and more crazy. And then he had that, like, he literally had a breakdown in the middle of an ultra run. But that would be an example of him pursuing that yogi pill. Like, he did it all the way to the wall.

• 49:29Julie Piatt?

  Yeah, and that was his sacred moment. He had a sacred moment.

• 49:31Rich Roll?

  I guess you could say in the context of an alcoholic too, that like, they need to just drink until they reach that point where they can't, they're not, they, within themselves, know like, "Okay, I have to stop."

• 49:42Julie Piatt?

  Right, or hit bottom.

• 49:43Rich Roll?

  As opposed to somebody doing an intervention and getting somebody into rehab who doesn't really want to go to rehab yet because they're not ready yet, because they're not done.

• 49:49Julie Piatt?

  Yeah, exactly. So really, really be done. Really go through it and really be done. And that's kind of scary because some people's choices might lead them to, you know, exit the body or do whatever. But, yeah, I mean, an Indian master that I used to meditate with used to say like, you know, "People are so afraid of a depression. They're like, 'Oh, he's depressed, take a pill.'" He's like, you know, "Maybe if he has a really good depression, I'll wake up, you know? So he'll be in bed a few days. And after that, it'll like, crack his head open and he'll be like, 'Oh.'" But, you know, again, it's all in moderation. I'm not advocating that for everybody, but I'm just saying, yeah, exhaust your desires and, and when you have that sacred moment, you can find the real reason.

• 50:37Speaker 05

  I think there can be moments of balance in those extreme actions. Like, it may not be balanced from an energy exertion perspective, but I think from a mental balance, like, I mean, sometimes when I'm out there pedaling for, you know, 100 miles or something, I reach this state where I feel very balanced and very in alignment and at this calm place. But then I may be dead tired, like, the next day, but I think you can have some balance in those extreme moments. I don't know, what do you think?

• 51:13Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I mean, I know exactly what you're talking about. I experienced that myself, and so that's why I think, you know, how we define balance is important, and perhaps the word balance itself is the wrong word or the wrong, like, thread to pull to even, like, address this subject matter.

• 51:27Julie Piatt?

  I've never seen Rich more beautiful than at the end of Ultraman. Right when he crosses the finish line, he is more him than he ever has been, completely stripped of anything, you know, literally anything. It's really beautiful.

• 51:45Speaker 05

  Do you consider him to be balanced in that moment?

• 51:48Julie Piatt?

  Definitely. Yeah, definitely.

• 51:56Speaker 06

  Hi. When you were mentioning, a few things kind of popped into my head, but I don't know if I can actually really express it the same way it kind of occurred in my head. So one was about the pendulum. So kind of, I think when you responded to Rich, Julie, you kind of said, yeah, it's kind of somewhere in the middle, but I think it's not really like being still in there and stopping, and so there is, the whole dynamism stops, but it's almost like, I'm kind of imagining, like, you almost kind of rise above the pendulum and it kind of have a, kind of like a choice. It's not necessarily, oh, you become holy or something, but it is, there is a, I don't know, like, not necessarily to take away all these nice, fun things, you know, like

• 52:41Speaker 06

  the things that we kind of, that makes us really alive, but somehow, and also not necessarily to, yeah, to kind of make it totally, yes, stagnant either, I think, anyway, so that was the image. But what I was thinking about was also... It is about, isn't it, about the relationship to yourself and the connection to yourself? So it's kind of like, I was trying to think about where is your reference point so at a moment in time. So if you kind of have the right, like, I'm imagining if I am actually really connected to the impulse and the energy that is coming from inside me, I might do something that

• 53:26Speaker 06

  might look really extreme from outside, but I'm actually in perfect alignment with it. And that's kind of maybe what is balanced. So it is a kind of like this regular check-in. And whenever if this idea of doing something, whatever it is, is actually if we try to look for something that is outside of ourselves, or it's kind of if it comes as a result of, you know, like because other people are telling us something, or you know, we are influenced. So it's a kind of like if there is that connection is missing, then I think we go into these extreme situations where it swings off and we kind of go in the other direction maybe. Anyway, that's my thought.

• 54:06Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I like that. I like the idea, I mean, what I got from the first piece that you were talking about is the idea of being the observer of the pendulum. Like the pendulum is going to swing, you're not going to stop it, but it's your relationship to that swing. And if you can become the observer, then you're in that place of equanimity, right?

• 54:30Julie Piatt?

  Yeah, and you were talking about rising up, sort of rising up out of the turbulence of the experience. And yes, if you're rooted within yourself and a very deep connection, that's kind of the idea. Like, it's like, everything can be happening, but you're still in neutral. It doesn't mean that you don't have likes and dislikes, or you don't enjoy this or not enjoy that, but at least you can tap into that space. And that's in yoga when we're practicing, that's the ujjayi breath. When you're, experience the exertion and the surrender at the same time, that's what that training has given me in life, off the mat, is to be able to tap back into that, connect to the breath, and then you're, you know, you're in that neutrality.

• 55:13Julie Piatt?

  But yeah, it's completely unique to every person. So Rich's balance is not my balance. It's completely different.

• 55:24Speaker 07

  I'm finding this conversation really fascinating. Finding it difficult to stay in balance because I've got like a million thoughts going through my head at one time. I think that personally, I can have incredible days, incredible days around connection with people, around experience, usually physically, like exercise or exertion, and also connection with people and like that particular day. And it's happened enough in my life that I can almost be like, yeah, tomorrow's gonna be a come down, like Blue Monday or something, you know, just like, I'm really interested

• 56:09Speaker 07

  because I've gotten to the point where I can almost predict it, but I don't necessarily want to go through that because I find that there would be ideally a balance, kind of what you were speaking about, being neutral enough in the moments of like a really intense, amazing day. Love that and then be okay with the next day that you need to rest. And so, in that, I've dissected like a, there's like a physical and emotional, like there's the, like the balance needs to come back physically, the rest of the body needs. And also, but what I find, like I'm okay with physical recovery, but like an emotional recovery, like an emotional come down, where I just feel low and it's like a day where

• 56:52Speaker 07

  I can't seem to pull myself together to do, I can eventually do the things I would like to do, but if I had any structured plan for that day, it all goes out the window. I just can't make myself do what I had planned to do, or something like that. And so I'm curious, okay, I'm getting in a really roundabout way to the question. When you and Colin were speaking of different bodies, like I've heard of that through, you know, you know, learning about that, like a physical body or a causal body, like do you think there's an emotional imbalance and a physical imbalance, or if something happens on it and then the emotional body can be out of balance, or something that happens in the, the physical body that can be out of balance, or like do those all need to click together for us to find that balance?

• 57:38Julie Piatt?

  Yeah, I mean, they're different things. They're different energies, different bodies. And what I would say is, I think in this culture, I think what you're speaking to is in this culture, we're always chasing the high, the good. Was it good? Is it great? You feel great? You feel fantastic? You feel amazing? And, you know, speaking to Guru Singh recently, I mean, that's immature. It's just immaturity, you know? It's like, that's not, that's not what we should be chasing. Life is full of many colors and very, you know, various states of experience. And so, it's that equanimity, or that place, if you're connecting into what's beyond all those highs and lows, that you can, you know, not have the trigger where you're like, "Oh, I feel depressed. Why am I depressed?

• 58:23Julie Piatt?

  You know, I should take a Prozac." Or, you know, "I should go force myself out to go run around or try to change this." An Ayurvedic approach would be living in harmony with the cycles. And there's an appropriate time. It depends on what's going on in your life. But, we have to understand that if we go, if we go on the pendulum or the roller coaster, and we want to ride the ride, and we're like screaming our heads off at the top and hanging out of a car, there is going to be a downward experience. And that's okay. But, just understand that the life shouldn't all be about chasing the good. And we look on Instagram and all this illusionary life that's being projected everywhere.

• 59:07Julie Piatt?

  And, you know, this is a conversation that I've been having a lot on my podcast, is, you know, what is using this tool to spread the message? And what is insanity? Like, just craziness? You know, just filming yourself all the time? And then you create this. I mean, do we film ourselves, you know, when we have snot on our faces? Or, when we, you know, have the flu? Or, you know, or we look like shit? No, you know, I don't. You know, so... It's like we're creating this illusion and it's like, you know, "Life is great. It's so fantastic, you know, and it's amazing, and aren't you amazing?" And that's not real.

• 59:48Julie Piatt?

  It's not honest, it's not authentic. And as a being, you're gonna have a lot of different experiences. And so, an Ayurvedic approach, or a more balanced approach, Ayurveda, living in harmony, would be to trust yourself and to honor yourself and to love yourself even if you're depressed. And all things will pass. And if you learn to love yourselves in those moments, and I would not push through them, that's not my inclination. Respect how you naturally feel, pay attention to how you naturally feel, and nurture yourself in those spaces. And then, you know, you will right, you know, it will shift naturally, you know. So, I hope that answered your question.

• 1:00:33Speaker 07

  Yeah, yeah, thank you.

• 1:00:34Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I would say, just as a corollary to that, you know, I, of course, agree that, that, you know, we shouldn't be judging our emotional states, placing value judgments on them, like, "Oh, no, I'm gonna, you know, I had this experience, I know tomorrow I'm gonna be depressed, that's bad, you know, or I should avoid that, or how can I expedite, you know, getting through that so that I can then feel better because I'm supposed to feel good because I have all these things in my life, and if I don't feel good, then there's something fundamentally wrong with me." Like, that whole, like, mental masturbation is, I think, you know, unproductive. But I would say, at the same time, you know, the

• 1:01:14Rich Roll?

  example that you set up was interesting, because it started with you having a social experience in which you were sort of fulfilled and engaged, yes, and then the anticipation of the come-down the next day and the kind of emotional hangover that ensues. Is that accurate?

• 1:01:33Speaker 07

  So... Almost just like a...

• 1:01:37Speaker 07

  Not in anticipation of it, just like entertained, like I wonder if that'll happen again, kind of thing.

• 1:01:43Rich Roll?

  Right. But perhaps some attention can be placed on how you experience that social situation so that you're not depleted, right? So somehow you're getting, there's something vampiric going on, or you're lacking a certain boundary, and so you're putting out all this energy, or you're allowing like your, you know, your energy to be sucked up by a bunch of other people, and that might be enjoyable or whatever, but it's leaving you depleted the next day. So can you set up a healthier boundary, or can you be in an emotional state where you're a little more neutral in that experience, so that you can go through that and enjoy it, and wake up the next day and not have like a big, you know, crash?

• 1:02:24Speaker 07

  Thank you. That was really helpful.

• 1:02:29Rich Roll?

  I mean, Julie's really good with the boundary stuff.

• 1:02:32Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:02:33Julie Piatt?

  Well, yeah, I mean, it's kind of like, okay, so now we're getting back to what I, what my first answer was, was not going on the high-low train. It doesn't mean-

• 1:02:46Rich Roll?

  But the highs are so fun.

• 1:02:47Julie Piatt?

  I know, but they're so extreme. Yeah, and they are, and everyone should experience them, but that's what comes with maturity. It's like, you know, you kind of understand, you know, like, I don't know, Guru Singh like actually says in his teachings, like, please don't be excited, be less excited, you know, because excitement is immaturity, and we need mature wisdom. So be grateful, be immersed in blessing and devotion, be wise in your discernment, and take balanced action, but don't be excited, you know, don't be like, oh, I'm so excited, so, you know, so crazy. So I guess that again goes back to, yeah, learning how that you're an energetic being.

• 1:03:31Julie Piatt?

  I'm gonna work on, I'm gonna teach you guys some stuff about sealing your field and working with your energetic field, but yeah, you find you're neutral. Like, think of a Jedi warrior. Like, a Jedi warrior is not going through those extremes. Whoever they are, they are not losing their shit.

• 1:03:46Rich Roll?

  Luke Skywalker's not like, "Oh my god, it's so amazing." "Oh my god, it's so amazing." "I can't wait, can't wait to see Darth Vader."

• 1:03:51Julie Piatt?

  And then like, "Oh, I'm so depressed."

• 1:03:53Rich Roll?

  My dad.

• 1:03:54Julie Piatt?

  Yeah, you know? I mean, it's a great example that we have in our culture. I mean, Jedi warriors, they're just on it, man. They are so grounded in themselves that nothing is gonna fuck them up, nothing. I mean, even being shot at, you know? It's all about having it together. And that's the kind of maturity that we need. So I'm saying, everybody should be who they are. You know, Rich should do his extreme, whatever he wants to do, but we all...

• 1:04:23Speaker 04

  Very exciting.

• 1:04:24Julie Piatt?

  Very exciting. But we all just need to find, you know, our authentic self and then find that maturity and take responsibility for our own selves. And yeah, and don't, you know, don't freak out if your life is not, you know, one happy My Little Pony party.

• 1:04:41Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that's it.

• 1:04:42Julie Piatt?

  You know, from start to finish. Because it's not gonna happen. So anyway, but anyway, I wanted to share.

• 1:04:50Speaker 04

  Yeah, I was just gonna say that I think it's when you see that kind of moment when you worry about that high that you're enjoying and you think, you know, fuck, I'm gonna, it's gonna go down. I think it's really good because if you could see that already, that's like really, really important. And just to give you a real life example of it this morning. So yesterday was a really cool day and it was so awesome, great conversations. I went to bed, really chilled out. But I had a kind of a shit conversation in the middle of my day yesterday to do with trying to sell my business and talking to a bunch of lawyers who, you know, some of them are great, you know?

• 1:05:31Rich Roll?

  They're all horrible.

• 1:05:34Speaker 04

  And so I had that, I went to bed, I went to sleep. And when I woke up this morning, I just woke up in bad mood. I kind of woke up and I just kind of, and I knew, just kind of...

• 1:05:48Speaker 04

  Looked into my head slightly and I could just see that there was some kind of dream in my subconscious, so it definitely had conflict. So I thought, okay, my day is now going to be defined around this. And as I was having that conversation, I realized that I then had my phone in front of my face and I was now on Facebook. And I was like, whoa, okay, this isn't good, because I'm now just trying to find other people's reality to escape mine. So then I just thought, okay, just sit up, drink water, meditate for 20 minutes, and then I just went for breakfast. And I went, okay, just clear it out. And I think sometimes what we have to try and do is, it's like taking the cachet of your subconscious, dumping it out of your computer. You gotta, because so much stuff goes on when we're sleeping that we don't, we're

• 1:06:32Speaker 04

  not conscious of, and that can kind of bring tension and anxiety into your life. So you might masterfully control the conscious side of your life, but the subconscious is there as well. But being able to see it and know that it's coming is great, because then you can work around it and have a strategy.

• 1:06:50Julie Piatt?

  Which brings me to the yogic technique of the afternoon. We're going to practice yoga nidra, which is an ancient yogic practice of lucid dreaming. So it teaches you to be lucid while you're sleeping. And it's a really, how many people have done it before?

• 1:07:12Julie Piatt?

  So we're gonna do one of the practices out of the Bihara School of Yoga. And it's a very amazing relaxation technique. So I think that's a good place to start.

• 1:07:26Speaker 04

  Thank you, guys.

• 1:07:27Julie Piatt?

  Thank you very much.

• 1:07:40Rich Roll?

  All right, we did it. What'd you guys think? Did it raise your vibration? Did it challenge your assumptions? Did it provoke you? Did it enlighten you? Hit me up on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and let me know your thoughts. I'd love to hear your perspective. Hey, you know what? I started making videos again. As you guys know, I put the word out on this podcast a couple of months ago that I was looking for a creative, collaborative partner, a filmmaker, an editor, a cinematographer, or a photographer that I could work with. And I got so many amazing submissions, so thank you to everybody who sent me your stuff. I think I may have found the guy, David Zammatt, traveled all the way here from Bali, originally from Malta. He was so interested in the opportunity and we've been working

• 1:08:24Rich Roll?

  together for the last week or so, and we've already got tons of great stuff in the can. Our first video went up the other day. It's called "Let's Celebrate." You can check it out on my YouTube channel, and I look forward to creating, producing, sharing a consistent stream of entertaining, helpful, informative content on that platform. I'm very, very excited about it, and I'm really digging David's vibe and his work ethic. So I think it's just gonna work out just great. So check that out. If you would like to support this show in my work, and my work, not in my work, and my work, I would really appreciate it. And it's pretty easy to do. Share the show with your friends and on social media. Leave a review on iTunes. Make sure you hit that subscribe button. And of course, we also

• 1:09:08Rich Roll?

  have a Patreon for those that want to contribute financially to the benefit of the work product that I'm putting out. And thank you so much to everybody who has done that. You guys are amazing. Every week I send out, not every week, most weeks I send out an email called Roll Call. It's free. It's short. It's five or six things I stumbled across over the course of the week that I thought were informative, enlightening, entertaining. Yeah, and I just want to share them. There's no affiliate links. I'm not trying to sell you anything. Just cool stuff I came across, articles, documentaries, videos, podcasts I listen to, whatever. I just sent one out late last night, and it was good. It was packed full of stuff because I hadn't sent one out in a couple of weeks. Anyway, if that interests

• 1:09:52Rich Roll?

  you, you can sign up for it on my website and any of those email capture windows. I want to thank everybody who helped put on the show, Jason Camiolo, for audio engineering and production, and extreme patience for tolerating me as I'm in this writing project right now. I haven't been as diligent or scheduled in getting him what he needs to do his job. So, thank you, Jason, for that. Same goes for Sean Patterson. He does all the amazing graphics. The guy is like a wizard with Photoshop and all that kind of stuff. And theme music, as always, by Analemma. Thanks for the love, you guys. Thanks for listening. I appreciate you. I'll see you back here in a couple of days. Peace. Plants, namaste.