00:00:04
hi yesterday I came out
00:00:08
here and what I wanted to talk about it
00:00:11
didn't feel like talking
00:00:12
about I ended up just enjoying looking
00:00:16
at the clouds and hearing the
00:00:19
water but this
00:00:21
morning uh it
00:00:23
was it's kind of strange because I'm
00:00:26
backpacking out in a mountain but I had
00:00:29
cell phone signal
00:00:30
and so I was reading some comments cuz
00:00:33
uh my brother
00:00:36
brother-in-law uh was sleeping
00:00:39
in and
00:00:42
then there was a doctor who wrote about
00:00:46
how he was struggling with similar
00:00:48
things that I was struggling with and
00:00:50
how he was going planning on quitting
00:00:53
once he finished his
00:00:54
residency cuz he was very close to
00:00:58
finishing um and
00:01:00
uh he wanted to go hiking
00:01:05
and uh write a novel
00:01:09
and uh spend time in nature and take
00:01:14
care of himself or herself I don't know
00:01:17
it if they were a man or a
00:01:20
woman and that reminded me of a lot of
00:01:23
other comments um from that first video
00:01:26
I made or not the first video I made but
00:01:29
the one that that uh I talked about
00:01:32
quitting
00:01:34
neurosurgery and there were a lot of
00:01:36
comments asking well what's the
00:01:39
alternative cuz we can't all quit our
00:01:43
jobs
00:01:46
and I've been thinking about that
00:01:49
question what's what is the
00:01:51
alternative and so I wanted to talk a
00:01:55
little bit more about
00:02:04
uh why why I quit
00:02:07
and
00:02:10
um that it wasn't just about quitting a
00:02:14
job that I
00:02:15
thought wasn't uh
00:02:20
fulfilling it's really about learning to
00:02:23
trust
00:02:24
myself and love
00:02:26
myself
00:02:28
and you know I if
00:02:32
I if I did those things if I trusted
00:02:36
myself and loved
00:02:38
myself
00:02:39
it I could have gone down a path in
00:02:42
neurosurgery and found a fulfilling job
00:02:45
I
00:02:46
maybe
00:02:49
um but that's not how it played out for
00:02:52
me and you know there are many
00:02:55
neurosurgeons that I know who are very
00:02:58
fulfilled by their job
00:03:00
and they do life-saving work literally
00:03:04
saving lives every
00:03:07
day and so it's not that we all should
00:03:11
quit our
00:03:14
jobs I think it's really about trusting
00:03:18
yourself and listening to your heart
00:03:22
and loving yourself and I I'll explain
00:03:26
I'll explain more about about this from
00:03:29
my own
00:03:31
experience and uh I wanted to share this
00:03:34
and if you want to
00:03:35
listen
00:03:38
then then uh it might be
00:03:40
helpful uh for for you
00:03:46
to I know I would have wanted to hear
00:03:49
this when I was 17 years
00:03:52
old because when I was
00:04:06
uh no I was
00:04:09
18 when I was 18 years
00:04:12
old I had just finished my first year of
00:04:16
college at uh MIT so Massachusetts
00:04:20
Institute of
00:04:24
Technology and
00:04:26
um oh and there are comments saying that
00:04:30
MIT doesn't have a medical school or
00:04:33
neuros surgery program and that is true
00:04:36
I went to MIT for college and I went to
00:04:39
Duke University for medical school and
00:04:42
my residency training and I didn't feel
00:04:45
comfortable sharing that in that first
00:04:48
video exactly where I trained s for my
00:04:51
surgery I wasn't
00:04:53
sure if it was the right thing to do at
00:04:56
the time so sorry about confusing some
00:04:59
of you guys
00:05:01
guys and
00:05:04
girls but hey I guess it was when I was
00:05:07
18 is when I really that was a pivotal
00:05:11
moment in my life and that's where I
00:05:13
betrayed
00:05:15
myself so when I when I was going
00:05:19
through my first year of college U it
00:05:21
was a wondrous
00:05:23
time I took all
00:05:26
these cool courses some courses were not
00:05:30
that cool but the ones I really liked I
00:05:33
don't remember which ones I took in my
00:05:34
first year but yeah I took Literature
00:05:39
Like Shakespeare and poetry and history
00:05:42
and I took jazz music history and I took
00:05:46
an acting
00:05:47
class uh these were in addition to my
00:05:52
biology and chemistry classes that I had
00:05:55
to take for
00:05:57
my um
00:06:00
well
00:06:04
I I wasn't sure what I was going to
00:06:07
major in but I uh I knew a lot of
00:06:11
chemistry and biology from my high
00:06:12
school and so I tested out a bunch of
00:06:15
stuff and so I I figured that I could
00:06:18
easily get a degree in biology or
00:06:20
chemistry and so I I was taking some of
00:06:22
those courses but they never interested
00:06:24
me uh I
00:06:27
found I found all those all those
00:06:30
science courses uh extremely boring
00:06:33
except for Ecology ecology was very
00:06:36
interesting learning how um life forms
00:06:40
uh adapt to their ecosystem and how the
00:06:43
ecosystem changes um and how everything
00:06:47
is tied together the the plants and
00:06:50
animals the predators and prey uh and
00:06:53
how resources in an
00:06:57
ecosystem uh are finite and that uh all
00:07:01
the life forms in that ecosystem have to
00:07:04
learn from uh well they don't learn they
00:07:07
just live but there's a balance that's
00:07:09
reached and
00:07:12
so that was really cool class but all
00:07:14
the other science classes I really
00:07:16
thought were super
00:07:19
boring I love the Poetry I love the the
00:07:23
plays Shakespeare plays I love
00:07:26
acting
00:07:27
uh um
00:07:31
I loved writing poetry I was writing
00:07:33
some poetry and I was part of the
00:07:35
literary journal called Rune r u n e n
00:07:38
MIT
00:07:41
T so when I came
00:07:44
home to Oklahoma uh in the summer
00:07:49
of Summer between my first and second
00:07:52
year of
00:07:53
college I came home and I told my
00:07:57
parents uh that had signed up for a
00:08:01
major in
00:08:05
philosophy now at the
00:08:08
time well I probably is still the case
00:08:11
that at MIT the the Philosophy degree is
00:08:15
linked to Linguistics so it's actually a
00:08:19
philosophy and
00:08:20
Linguistics major they're tied
00:08:24
together and
00:08:30
I historically have been very horrible
00:08:33
about learning languages and that is his
00:08:36
own story that's very interesting about
00:08:38
why I had a mental block on
00:08:42
languages I will go into that at some
00:08:46
point but
00:08:49
I um actually it's tied to this is tied
00:08:53
to this about loving myself but I don't
00:08:56
know how I'm going to integrate that
00:08:58
into this um but uh I'm going to go
00:09:03
with I might come back to the language
00:09:06
part so I signed up for philosophy and
00:09:09
Linguistics and I came home and I told
00:09:11
my parents
00:09:12
and you know my parents are very loving
00:09:15
and caring and uh you know they're um
00:09:19
immigrant Asian uh parents Korean
00:09:22
parents and uh my father is a doctor he
00:09:26
still practices now and he loves his job
00:09:29
and he finds great fulfillment in
00:09:32
helping out
00:09:36
uh other
00:09:39
people
00:09:42
so there obviously was great concern
00:09:46
about whether I could make a living for
00:09:49
myself with a Philosophy degree and what
00:09:53
I would
00:09:55
do
00:09:58
um oh my my father is a doctor he's been
00:10:01
doing it a long time and successful and
00:10:05
he's happy with his job and and being a
00:10:08
doctor pays
00:10:10
well and
00:10:14
so you know there was a a there was a
00:10:17
lot of discussion
00:10:20
about how will I make a living for
00:10:23
myself how will I support myself how
00:10:25
will I support my family should I choose
00:10:26
to have a family
00:10:29
you know these are very
00:10:33
heavy uh topics for an
00:10:37
18-year-old I just wanted to have fun
00:10:40
and do what I thought was
00:10:42
interesting my heart told me that
00:10:45
studying philosophy and poetry and and
00:10:51
um doing a little bit of
00:10:55
acting uh well and studying ecology that
00:10:59
was cool but my heart told me that those
00:11:03
those things is what I I needed to study
00:11:06
and needed to go
00:11:08
with but
00:11:11
reason um logic told me that taking the
00:11:17
safe path of becoming a
00:11:23
doctor
00:11:26
uh
00:11:27
was was kind of of like a sure
00:11:30
bet something something that I could
00:11:34
feed myself with and and find hopefully
00:11:37
find fulfillment in taking care of other
00:11:39
human beings like my dad has found
00:11:44
fulfillment but I I knew in my heart
00:11:46
that that wasn't what was right for me
00:11:49
but
00:11:51
I I made the
00:11:54
choice to go into
00:11:58
medicine from for those
00:12:02
reasons it was a choice cuz I could have
00:12:05
chosen to continue down the path that I
00:12:08
felt was right at the time it wasn't
00:12:11
that my parents forced me sure there was
00:12:15
some there was
00:12:18
some pressure to make a certain decision
00:12:22
but
00:12:22
ultimately it was my
00:12:25
choice I chose to go into
00:12:30
medicine and not listen to my
00:12:35
heart that
00:12:38
was how I betrayed
00:12:42
myself and that led to 20 years of
00:12:45
suffering and all sorts of
00:12:51
problems uh I already explained the
00:12:54
suffering I went through of being a a
00:12:57
physician
00:13:02
um but it was really magnified
00:13:05
because I knew that I had betrayed
00:13:09
myself um all along that U I chose
00:13:14
something that wasn't what my heart told
00:13:16
me was the right
00:13:20
thing
00:13:22
um that led to all sorts of problems in
00:13:26
my life beyond just you know work stress
00:13:30
and and health
00:13:32
issues it it manifested in very strange
00:13:36
ways
00:13:38
like if I had to make a
00:13:43
decision it could be even something
00:13:46
relatively trivial
00:13:48
like should I get snow tires on my
00:13:52
car as a second set in addition
00:13:57
to all season tires because I was one of
00:14:02
the jobs I was working at I was working
00:14:05
in in um Minnesota and it was really
00:14:08
snowy up there for like half the
00:14:13
year and
00:14:15
I went back and forth so many times
00:14:20
about well all season tires are probably
00:14:22
good enough maybe I could just do that
00:14:26
and get by throughout the year
00:14:31
but then then I would say
00:14:33
but allseason tires don't have the
00:14:36
stopping power are stopping yeah Power
00:14:38
and traction of snow tires so maybe it's
00:14:42
not safe maybe I'll get in an accident
00:14:44
uh if I was driving in icy conditions
00:14:47
with or snowy conditions with allseason
00:14:51
tires um and but then I'd say oh but
00:14:54
it's more expensive to get snow tires
00:14:56
and a separate set of wheels for my
00:14:59
SUV and I'd have to change
00:15:03
them twice a year when the summer comes
00:15:06
and then when the winter
00:15:08
comes
00:15:11
so I would vacillate between these two
00:15:14
decisions for like a week I would be
00:15:17
like Oh I'm I'm going to be fine with
00:15:20
allseason
00:15:21
tires and then the next week I'll be
00:15:25
like oh no that's not safe I need to get
00:15:27
snow tires and and
00:15:30
um I
00:15:32
drove my wife crazy talking about
00:15:37
this
00:15:40
like it just it literally drove her mad
00:15:44
and I'm so grateful that she's still
00:15:46
married to me and she's a very patient
00:15:49
lady but I ran her patience I ran her
00:15:53
patience dry there was no more patience
00:15:56
left because I could not make a
00:16:01
decision but that's
00:16:05
because I couldn't trust myself
00:16:09
anymore because I betrayed myself very
00:16:13
deeply at 18 years
00:16:17
old I knew in my heart what I needed to
00:16:20
do but I chose to ignore it and I went
00:16:26
down I went down a path that I was
00:16:28
wasn't I don't think I really was
00:16:30
supposed to go down but I don't know I
00:16:34
don't know if I was supposed to or not
00:16:35
but I
00:16:37
did
00:16:40
um but
00:16:42
I sometimes I wonder what would have
00:16:45
life would have been like had I gone
00:16:46
down the other path and just followed my
00:16:52
heart
00:16:57
um yeah
00:17:02
so these decisions that that kept going
00:17:04
back and forth like I go back and forth
00:17:06
I mean it's that was just one I mean I
00:17:09
literally do that about well I used to
00:17:11
do that about almost everything where
00:17:13
even if my wife would say hey do you
00:17:16
want to eat some of this and then I'd
00:17:17
say
00:17:19
no h
00:17:22
maybe nah not
00:17:26
really actually I do want a little bit
00:17:29
like it just played out in the rest of
00:17:33
my life
00:17:35
where
00:17:36
I could no longer trust myself or I
00:17:39
wouldn't let myself listen to my
00:17:46
heart and then that also played out in
00:17:49
other ways because I didn't trust
00:17:52
myself I had a hard time trusting other
00:17:55
people
00:18:02
that would lead to
00:18:05
suspicion sometimes
00:18:08
paranoia it would lead to me not being
00:18:11
open with other
00:18:14
people
00:18:19
um it led to a number of
00:18:23
problems um
00:18:29
and because I hurt myself I hurt
00:18:35
myself I hated myself hated myself for
00:18:40
doing this and I had really just locked
00:18:44
this away I locked it away because it
00:18:47
was so painful to think
00:18:50
about and
00:18:52
so I suppressed all of
00:18:55
this but I I hated myself
00:18:59
I didn't love
00:19:01
myself and this this went on for 20
00:19:07
years
00:19:09
um there were times where I was just a
00:19:14
complete jerk to
00:19:16
people
00:19:18
um I said things that were very hurtful
00:19:23
and um there were times when there could
00:19:26
have been a beautiful friendship and I
00:19:28
would I I didn't trust myself I didn't
00:19:31
love myself I hated myself I and I
00:19:34
didn't trust a very well-meaning
00:19:38
person and I've ruined that
00:19:43
friendship yeah this this just kept
00:19:45
playing out over and over
00:19:50
again
00:19:54
um and I refused to go back and really f
00:20:00
really face what I had done what I had
00:20:03
done to
00:20:05
myself and to process those feelings and
00:20:09
to maybe do something different I I I
00:20:13
refused to do that
00:20:16
so so I had
00:20:19
buried uh my feelings but they would
00:20:23
keep trying to come
00:20:24
back and so I tried to drown them
00:20:29
I tried to drown them in a couple
00:20:34
things I tried to drown them in
00:20:38
money so when
00:20:41
I when I got out into uh when I tried
00:20:47
to when I finished
00:20:50
residency and I started in my private
00:20:54
practice I was
00:20:56
making a lot of money
00:21:00
like
00:21:02
really incredible amount of
00:21:06
money and I thought that would bring me
00:21:09
happiness so
00:21:13
I my wife and I went on all these trips
00:21:17
to various places went
00:21:21
to uh yeah
00:21:24
all all these pretty cool places and I
00:21:27
I'm very grateful that we had those
00:21:30
experiences I I
00:21:33
bought cars I uh I had a Miata stick
00:21:41
shift um
00:21:46
and uh Ford Fiesta ST oh no the Miata
00:21:50
was in automatic cuz I didn't learn
00:21:52
manual at that time not until I got the
00:21:54
Ford Fiesta ST in
00:21:57
manual and I drove the heck out of those
00:22:00
cars out on the California
00:22:03
coast and that was fun but it didn't
00:22:07
fill it didn't fill the hole in my heart
00:22:10
it
00:22:11
didn't it didn't make up for my
00:22:16
betrayal and lack of trust in myself and
00:22:20
loving
00:22:21
myself no amount of money
00:22:25
could fix that problem
00:22:29
and the novelty
00:22:31
of having a shiny red car that handled
00:22:36
well that wore off
00:22:38
and I was left
00:22:41
with my uh broken
00:22:46
Soul
00:22:53
um and and I I you know I knew things
00:22:56
were wrong but I refused to I refused to
00:22:58
go and examine them and fix that fix
00:23:01
whatever problem it
00:23:03
was well the problem with my
00:23:06
heart and so I tried to drown the
00:23:10
feelings
00:23:11
in
00:23:15
um
00:23:17
uh two
00:23:20
addictions well I don't I would say they
00:23:22
were
00:23:24
addictions I
00:23:26
yeah I don't know if feel was an
00:23:29
addiction but I would I would say I used
00:23:33
these two
00:23:35
things um to try to numb
00:23:39
myself one of them
00:23:43
was uh video
00:23:49
games I
00:23:51
played this firsters shooter called pubg
00:23:55
pubg or player unknown Battleground
00:24:00
round and it's just a game where um it's
00:24:04
a game where like a 100 people jump out
00:24:06
of an airplane and you land on an island
00:24:09
and you have to find you have to loot
00:24:12
gear and weapons and uh I played with my
00:24:17
a squad of friends so three other
00:24:20
friends and um you have to kill all the
00:24:24
other squads on the island so uh and
00:24:28
then you win the game if you are the
00:24:31
last team standing as long as one of you
00:24:34
one of your teammates you or your
00:24:36
teammate is alive and you're the last
00:24:38
alive then you win and you get a
00:24:42
chicken winner winner chicken dinner is
00:24:44
what it says on the
00:24:47
screen
00:24:49
um and it's the same game every time but
00:24:54
every time is different uh because
00:24:58
there so there so many random attributes
00:25:02
to it uh that it is highly
00:25:06
addictive yeah that is
00:25:10
adic and I played the heck out of that
00:25:14
that game I think I racked up
00:25:17
like I don't
00:25:22
know maybe like 18 or 19,000 hours
00:25:27
playing that game and I I was very good
00:25:29
at
00:25:34
it
00:25:36
um I was very good at it and when I play
00:25:40
that game I couldn't think about
00:25:42
anything
00:25:43
else uh because it's so um engrossing it
00:25:48
just takes all your your mind's
00:25:51
attention so I couldn't think about all
00:25:54
the other problems I had
00:25:59
and I I had a lot of fun playing that I
00:26:02
made some really fun uh really great
00:26:05
friends and we laughed and and had we
00:26:09
played together for many years and I I
00:26:12
do miss that uh playing with my friends
00:26:16
cuz I I stopped
00:26:18
playing uh about a year
00:26:22
ago
00:26:24
um but the reason why I stopped playing
00:26:26
is I realized that I was just trying to
00:26:29
run away from
00:26:32
myself
00:26:37
um I didn't want to run away from myself
00:26:42
anymore so I told my
00:26:44
friends that I needed to go write a book
00:26:48
actually because at that time I thought
00:26:49
I was going to write a novel on um
00:26:54
collapse um so I told them I told them
00:26:59
thank you for all the great times of
00:27:02
playing together and that I I really
00:27:05
going to miss all of
00:27:08
them and uh I was very sad and they were
00:27:12
sad too cuz we had so many fun times
00:27:15
together but I had to leave
00:27:18
because it was preventing me
00:27:22
from learning to love myself and trust
00:27:25
myself
00:27:28
the other way I was numbing myself was
00:27:31
drinking
00:27:33
alcohol usually two drinks of some kind
00:27:39
of uh liquor like
00:27:42
uh
00:27:44
bourbon or um
00:27:47
tequila or
00:27:51
brandy and the reason why I drink liquor
00:27:54
is actually an interesting story and I I
00:27:56
can
00:27:59
um I I can talk about that a different
00:28:02
time CU that that one's an interesting
00:28:04
medical mystery story of why I could not
00:28:07
drink beer and wine or cider fermented
00:28:11
beverages that that that's that's a cool
00:28:13
story in
00:28:14
itself um so I won't go into that in
00:28:18
detail but I what I would do is I would
00:28:21
go to
00:28:22
work I would see patients in clinic
00:28:25
clinic was often the worst part for me
00:28:27
because I would feel everyone suffering
00:28:29
and it would get absorbed into my body
00:28:33
and uh I knew that I could only help out
00:28:36
maybe 1 out of 20 or something like that
00:28:39
and the 19 out of 20 um I couldn't help
00:28:44
but but they could probably help
00:28:46
themselves but despite
00:28:49
telling telling the patients how they
00:28:51
could help themselves I knew that most
00:28:55
of them wouldn't listen to that advice
00:28:59
uh because it's just kind of strange to
00:29:01
hear that advice from a neurosurgeon who
00:29:03
does surgery all these things about help
00:29:05
your body
00:29:06
heal so you know I'd go through clinic
00:29:11
and I'd see all these people suffering
00:29:14
so bad from spine
00:29:17
problems I would feel their suffering it
00:29:19
would get absorbed into my
00:29:21
body I in a way I felt like I was
00:29:25
talking to a brick wall about
00:29:28
how to help your body heal because you
00:29:31
know people didn't come to a
00:29:32
neurosurgeon's office to learn
00:29:37
about about eating healthier sleeping
00:29:42
more uh taking care of yourself stopping
00:29:45
drinking too much alcohol or or smoking
00:29:49
cigarettes they came to a neurosurgeon's
00:29:52
office to get
00:29:54
surgery
00:29:55
so I was absorbing their soft suffering
00:29:59
and I was
00:30:05
um I was
00:30:08
frustrated feeling like I was telling
00:30:11
this really important health information
00:30:14
but nobody was
00:30:17
listening and in a way that was a
00:30:21
reflection of
00:30:23
myself I was not listening to
00:30:26
myself and that was reflected in the
00:30:30
universe uh of my
00:30:34
experience my heart was telling me hey
00:30:38
you need to do these things to help
00:30:41
yourself and to love yourself and trust
00:30:43
yourself but I wasn't
00:30:46
listening and I was telling my patients
00:30:50
hey these things actually work I've seen
00:30:54
that in my patience and in myself you
00:30:57
have the power to help your body heal if
00:31:01
you do these relatively simple things
00:31:04
but no one would
00:31:06
listen and I really think that that was
00:31:09
a reflection of me not listening to
00:31:13
myself I was not listening to myself
00:31:17
about how to
00:31:21
heal so I would come home and I would
00:31:24
feel really unhappy and uh and sad and
00:31:29
frustrated and and
00:31:32
angry
00:31:34
and I got into the habit of drinking uh
00:31:39
about two servings of some kind of
00:31:44
liquor and
00:31:46
that made me
00:31:49
feel like for that hour or two I didn't
00:31:53
have to worry or feel the anger and
00:31:59
frustration that um that I felt every
00:32:05
day but that that led to its own set of
00:32:09
problems I mean it was just numbing the
00:32:12
problem it wasn't fixing the problem and
00:32:17
the alcohol made me not sleep well
00:32:20
because when you drink alcohol even if
00:32:23
it's just one or two servings you don't
00:32:26
sleep well uh you wake up early or you
00:32:29
have fragmented sleep where you wake up
00:32:32
multiple times and then the next
00:32:35
day the next day you you don't feel so
00:32:39
good you people call it hangover or
00:32:43
anxiety even if you didn't drink like a
00:32:45
ton you still get this anxiety that's
00:32:49
afterwards and uh my one of my gaming
00:32:52
friends from pubg he would say that
00:32:55
drinking alcohol is is stealing
00:32:57
something Sunshine from tomorrow and
00:32:59
bringing it to
00:33:00
today
00:33:02
uh and it's true it it makes you feel
00:33:06
good for a short amount of time but then
00:33:08
you pay for it with a much longer time
00:33:10
of not feeling
00:33:13
good uh but I
00:33:16
I oh and I wouldn't drink if I was on
00:33:19
call so I just want to make that clear
00:33:22
uh I wouldn't drink alcohol if I was on
00:33:25
call
00:33:33
um so I felt like I was drinking
00:33:37
responsibly you know not
00:33:41
like drinking like a whole bottle of
00:33:44
liquor every night I wasn't doing that I
00:33:47
was
00:33:49
drinking well probably within
00:33:53
the uh recommended maximum of two drinks
00:33:57
for an adult male per day I mean
00:34:00
sometimes I would drink a little bit
00:34:01
more but on average it ended up being
00:34:04
around I think about two drinks per day
00:34:08
that that was just a way to numb
00:34:12
myself but that too I realized
00:34:16
that that had its own set of problems
00:34:21
um and it gave me more problems than
00:34:26
Solutions so
00:34:28
so after I
00:34:32
after before I quit it was after I made
00:34:35
the decision to quit neurosurgery but
00:34:37
before I actually quit I I saw my body I
00:34:41
was
00:34:42
fat
00:34:44
overweight my cholesterol numbers were
00:34:47
up for the first
00:34:50
time
00:34:53
and I I I just knew that I I had to quit
00:34:56
drinking alcohol Al together so I
00:35:00
did um and I when someone asked me hey
00:35:06
would you like to have a drink you know
00:35:07
if we're out to
00:35:09
dinner
00:35:11
uh I know I know that it gives me more
00:35:15
problems than Solutions so I don't I
00:35:19
don't have the desire to drink
00:35:22
anymore
00:35:26
alcohol so
00:35:29
there I removed two things that were
00:35:32
preventing me from looking at
00:35:38
myself but even with removing those two
00:35:41
things
00:35:43
uh I still had built up such a
00:35:46
resistance
00:35:47
to seeing what I had
00:35:50
done and what I continue to
00:35:55
do the mind is a funny thing
00:36:02
uh it it's pretty marvelous and that it
00:36:06
it's very efficient at giving you
00:36:08
information about yourself and the world
00:36:11
around you it takes shortcuts too to be
00:36:15
efficient in its
00:36:17
processing um and it
00:36:22
also it also is very good at sealing
00:36:25
away harmful memories
00:36:28
or memories that don't feel
00:36:31
good and it is so good at doing that
00:36:35
that if you try to go and examine those
00:36:38
memories uh it's like trying to find
00:36:42
it's trying to examine it's like trying
00:36:43
to
00:36:45
examine uh some artifact that has been
00:36:48
sealed in a
00:36:50
casket and then buried
00:36:55
underground and then cemented
00:37:00
over that's that's what it's like trying
00:37:03
to examine these
00:37:05
very painful memories
00:37:10
uh it's NE it's nearly almost
00:37:22
impossible I I've never seen a therapist
00:37:25
but I probably should have at some point
00:37:27
point I think that would have been
00:37:29
helpful so I think
00:37:32
seeing help seeing a professional uh who
00:37:35
can help you examine these painful
00:37:38
memories uh
00:37:41
is would be very
00:37:44
helpful I just kind
00:37:48
of raw dogged it myself um with my
00:37:53
wife's
00:37:54
help thank goodness I married her and
00:37:57
she's stayed married to me despite not
00:37:59
being able to decide whether I want
00:38:01
winter tires or allseason tires or
00:38:05
both
00:38:10
um but she she kept on saying hey you
00:38:15
need to look under the hood I'm like
00:38:18
what the hell does looking under the
00:38:19
hood mean and what good would that
00:38:23
do I was like I'm just living in the
00:38:25
present I'm just living in the present
00:38:27
what good what use is it to look in the
00:38:30
past uh because it's hard to even
00:38:32
remember what the past was and so I was
00:38:36
very resistant
00:38:37
to doing
00:38:40
that and consciously and subconsciously
00:38:44
I was resisting it
00:38:48
uh but she she was very she's a very
00:38:54
patient person
00:38:58
uh and
00:39:00
she kept
00:39:03
suggesting hey why don't you think
00:39:06
about why you do these things in the
00:39:11
present like why do you have a hard
00:39:14
time with making decisions that are good
00:39:18
for yourself why do you make decisions
00:39:21
that hurt
00:39:22
yourself uh
00:39:28
why don't you get angry if someone's
00:39:29
trying to hurt
00:39:33
you it probably has something to do with
00:39:37
choices you made in the past and when I
00:39:40
would hear that I'm like
00:39:43
that's that's ridiculous
00:39:48
I I I don't need to do that I just need
00:39:50
to work on right
00:39:55
now um
00:40:04
it it wasn't really
00:40:06
until well so I gradually started to
00:40:09
like think about it I'm like well okay
00:40:12
she might be right even though I don't
00:40:15
think she's right she might be right and
00:40:18
so I just would try to do it and I'd be
00:40:23
like why do I feel paranoid right now
00:40:27
when when did I feel paranoid in the
00:40:31
past what is being paranoid it's like oh
00:40:34
okay I don't trust someone else but
00:40:37
where does that feeling of not being
00:40:39
able to trust come
00:40:41
from and then last night I
00:40:45
realized that feeling of paranoia or not
00:40:48
trusting others is because I don't trust
00:40:53
myself and that trust
00:40:57
I think that lack of trust of myself
00:40:59
came from that Mo that moment in time
00:41:02
when I was 18 years old and I didn't
00:41:04
listen to
00:41:07
myself that's looking under the
00:41:10
hood and so now I
00:41:14
know what I
00:41:17
did
00:41:19
um one thing that did help a lot was uh
00:41:25
trying uh psychedelic
00:41:28
mushroom
00:41:30
there I didn't know this until recently
00:41:34
I thought all psychedelic mushrooms are
00:41:36
illegal but there are some that are
00:41:39
legal in the United
00:41:42
States uh there's the mushroom called
00:41:45
emita
00:41:46
musaria it's the one that's red capped
00:41:49
with white spots like in all the
00:41:53
cartoons and video games
00:41:55
and like in Mario you know there's a
00:41:57
mushroom with a red cap and white spots
00:42:00
that is amonita
00:42:03
musaria um so I recently tried that like
00:42:08
a month
00:42:10
ago and the first time I tried that I
00:42:18
uh I was
00:42:22
angry and normally I don't think of
00:42:24
myself as an angry person I I
00:42:27
I like to be
00:42:30
calm and pleasant to other
00:42:34
people and
00:42:39
uh I like to think of myself as at
00:42:43
peace but when I took that mushroom I
00:42:47
was
00:42:50
angry I just I was just so angry about
00:42:53
everything
00:42:59
I was angry about even Dobie
00:43:02
barking because she sometimes barks at
00:43:05
other dogs like
00:43:07
incessantly I she's a small dog and at
00:43:11
some point a big dog rolled her over
00:43:14
once and ever since then she sees other
00:43:18
dogs as threats and so whenever a dog's
00:43:20
nearby she just barks barks barks barks
00:43:22
barks until they go
00:43:24
away and I was angry angry that she
00:43:28
would not stop barking cuz we were on
00:43:30
the beach and there were some dogs
00:43:33
playing on the beach further
00:43:37
down and I was
00:43:39
like n this mushroom makes me angry I
00:43:43
don't think I ever want to take this
00:43:45
mushroom ever
00:43:47
again
00:43:49
um and I told my wife later uh she
00:43:53
didn't come on that trip I told my wife
00:43:57
about
00:43:58
it and she
00:44:01
said maybe that's how you really feel
00:44:04
but you lie to
00:44:06
yourself and you don't let yourself feel
00:44:09
angry maybe the mushroom is helping you
00:44:13
not lie to
00:44:18
yourself and I thought well that could
00:44:20
be
00:44:22
possible maybe I'll try it again
00:44:33
so I tried it again this time with my
00:44:36
wife and my uh
00:44:41
brother and
00:44:45
um we were watching some YouTube
00:44:49
video and then as soon as a mushroom
00:44:51
kicked in I got up and I
00:44:53
said I don't want to watch this YouTube
00:44:56
guy this this guy this guy is dangerous
00:44:59
I I I don't want to listen to any more
00:45:02
words he has to say I I I I
00:45:06
refuse I really don't like this guy and
00:45:08
I was
00:45:13
angry and my my wife and brother-in-law
00:45:18
were like
00:45:20
what this guy's just talking
00:45:23
about possible ancient civilizations
00:45:26
what what are you so worked up
00:45:30
about and then I realized it was the
00:45:35
mushrooms had kicked in
00:45:37
and I was feeling what I always feel or
00:45:42
what I had always been feeling which was
00:45:45
a lot of anger at
00:45:48
myself um and so then I realized that uh
00:45:52
the mushroom prevents you from lying to
00:45:55
yourself it helps you see
00:45:59
uh it helps you see yourself and the
00:46:02
universe and your
00:46:04
experiences um without the lens of your
00:46:08
ego filtering out things so your your
00:46:10
ego or your mind or some whatever you
00:46:13
want to call it it filters out things I
00:46:16
think partly to make things more
00:46:17
efficient like if you look at a bunch of
00:46:20
blinds on a window and they're all
00:46:22
painted white your mind knows oh they're
00:46:26
all painted with the same paint so
00:46:27
they're all white so I'm going to
00:46:30
tell me cuz I'm not my mind I'm not my
00:46:33
body I'm actually
00:46:35
separate the mind is telling me that all
00:46:38
these blinds are
00:46:40
white on a mushroom when you look at the
00:46:44
the blinds you realize that every blind
00:46:47
is actually a different color because of
00:46:49
how the light is in the room so the
00:46:53
mushroom removes that
00:46:57
that lie of your
00:46:59
mind uh which I think is probably
00:47:02
helpful in in a computational efficiency
00:47:07
standpoint um to just say oh those
00:47:09
blinds are white they all look the same
00:47:12
that way you don't have to like expend
00:47:13
extra energy to think about that but
00:47:15
when it comes to examining past actions
00:47:19
and how things are actually going in
00:47:22
your life it's actually not helpful uh
00:47:25
because it ref it prevents you from
00:47:29
really looking at yourself and what you
00:47:31
do to yourself and other people
00:47:35
continuously based off of things that
00:47:38
happened in the past and
00:47:41
so that really helped me a
00:47:45
lot there are some downsides to that
00:47:47
mushroom and I will talk about that in
00:47:51
an episode on psychoactive
00:47:54
substances mainly some side effects like
00:47:56
like feeling very uncomfortable and hot
00:47:58
and a blurry vision and some other
00:48:02
things but I I'll talk more about that
00:48:05
at some point it's not for everybody and
00:48:08
it definitely has
00:48:10
some side effects that are unpleasant
00:48:14
but it's very valuable and that it
00:48:17
prevents you from lying to
00:48:20
yourself
00:48:21
[Music]
00:48:24
um so then then I realized that
00:48:29
yes I betrayed myself I lied to myself I
00:48:34
I don't love myself I hate myself I hate
00:48:37
myself for doing
00:48:38
that and I refus I had refused to look
00:48:43
at that for 20 years and it caused all
00:48:46
sorts of pathology in my
00:48:49
life um both mental and physical and in
00:48:54
relationships uh
00:48:57
even in in looking at money I I I I
00:49:00
thought that
00:49:01
money money was evil
00:49:04
because uh in my mind I
00:49:09
chose to go
00:49:11
into a medical career for a
00:49:14
safe uh a safe paycheck in addition
00:49:18
to helping other people but the safe
00:49:21
paycheck
00:49:23
was the factor because I thought I could
00:49:26
still help other people doing philosophy
00:49:29
and writing poetry and writing books and
00:49:31
things like
00:49:34
that so I I Associated money
00:49:38
with evil like betraying myself
00:49:42
and then I realized that oh it's
00:49:44
actually not money it was just me
00:49:46
betraying myself money is just money
00:49:48
it's just some imaginary number and some
00:49:50
computer or some piece of paper with
00:49:53
some fancy writing on it it doesn't it
00:49:55
doesn't have
00:49:57
it by itself is not evil it's just what
00:50:00
people do with it can be but it also can
00:50:03
be good
00:50:04
too
00:50:06
um yeah so I realized what I was
00:50:11
doing and once I realized that I
00:50:14
realized that I have to say sorry to
00:50:17
myself so there is a a Hawaiian
00:50:21
prayer called ho ponop Pono ho
00:50:25
apostrophe o p o n o p o n o ho o poo
00:50:32
poo and that that prayer it goes
00:50:36
um I'm
00:50:39
sorry please forgive
00:50:42
me thank you and I love
00:50:50
you that poem that that prayer is about
00:50:55
restoring Harmony and
00:50:57
balance you can say it to somebody else
00:51:00
that you
00:51:02
hurt you can say that to someone else
00:51:05
but I find it's very powerful to say it
00:51:08
to
00:51:08
yourself and when you say it to yourself
00:51:11
you can actually say A A variation of it
00:51:15
which
00:51:19
is I'm
00:51:21
sorry please forgive
00:51:24
me I forgive you
00:51:28
thank you and I love
00:51:31
you now that variation is possible
00:51:34
because you are saying sorry to
00:51:37
yourself because you hurt yourself and
00:51:40
you are also the one who did the hurt
00:51:43
you are the one that did the hurting and
00:51:45
you are the one that got hurt so you can
00:51:48
say sorry to yourself please forgive me
00:51:52
and you can you are also the person that
00:51:54
says I forgive you because there there
00:51:58
are two parts that got separated by
00:52:01
that
00:52:02
whatever wrong act
00:52:05
happened you you separated
00:52:10
Yourself by saying that
00:52:13
prayer you acknowledg that a wrongdoing
00:52:17
happened you acknowledge that you
00:52:19
separated Yourself by saying I'm sorry
00:52:23
and then you say please forgive me
00:52:25
that's that's the the one who carried
00:52:29
out that action saying please forgive me
00:52:32
to the the side of you that got
00:52:34
hurt then when you say I forgive you
00:52:39
that is the side of you that got
00:52:42
hurt accepting and
00:52:44
saying I forgive you the person who hurt
00:52:49
me and then you say thank you you
00:52:53
acknowledge that there
00:52:54
is a for forgiveness of
00:52:58
yourself and I love you is bringing
00:53:01
everything back
00:53:03
together so I had to say that to
00:53:06
myself that I am sorry
00:53:17
Jonathan well I just said my
00:53:21
name um
00:53:26
that's
00:53:29
okay I'm sorry Jonathan
00:53:36
that I'm sorry that I betrayed
00:53:42
you at 18 years
00:53:45
old please forgive
00:53:50
me I forgive you Jonathan
00:53:56
thank you and I love
00:54:00
you I'm sorry Jonathan that I hated you
00:54:06
and I didn't love
00:54:09
you I am sorry that I hurt
00:54:12
you please forgive
00:54:18
me I forgive
00:54:22
you thank you I love you
00:55:33
so that's that's the
00:55:36
alternative it's not quitting it's not
00:55:39
everyone quitting their job
00:55:42
it's learning to love yourself and
00:55:45
forgive
00:55:46
yourself and trust
00:55:53
yourself so I love me and I love all of
00:55:59
you and I hope that helps
00:56:03
you not lie to yourself
00:56:12
anymore cuz I'm not going to lie to
00:56:14
myself anymore either
