Reducing Emotional Reactivity and Finding Inner Peace with Yung Pueblo

0:07Forrest Hanson: Hello and welcome to Being Well. I'm Forrest Hanson. If you're new to the show, thanks for joining us today. And if you've listened before, welcome back. And I'm here live and in person. It's always great to do an in-person recording with Diego Perez, also known by his pen name, Young Pueblo. Diego is a very, very serious meditator. He's a poet, and he's the author of a number of books, including his most recent book, Journey, The Year That Changes Everything. And I'm excited to see him again because Diego's now become a good friend of mine. So Diego, how are you doing? I'm really happy to be here, Forrest.

0:43Forrest Hanson: We are so happy to have you here. It was great to have you and Sarah come in a little bit and just hang out with us before we started talking. You are here ostensibly because you have a new book, Journey. And also because we've become increasingly friendly and I like having you here a lot. And it's great to have an opportunity to just have you out. Another opportunity for Sensitive Boys Club to come back together. I'll take it. Yeah. One day we will have merch. We'll have like the mugs. Yeah. Stickers. The whole thing. We should talk about that sometime, actually. It would be great to do more of a Sensitive Boys Club thing.

1:17And we should talk about maybe starting that pod in like 2028. I want to like really focus on doing some more writing.

1:24Forrest Hanson: No, this is so funny. I've definitely been thinking about like the same thing because I think that so much of the content that's out there, like if we just look at our statistics for the podcast, about 70 to 80 % of the listener base is women, which I think is awesome. If you look at the kinds of people who are applying to be therapists or psychologists these days, most people's undergraduate classes in psychology or their graduate school classes training to be therapists, 80, 90 % women. And so I wonder what you can do to expand the tent a little bit and bring more guys into the conversation in ways that I hope are really productive for them, really helpful for them.

2:01Yeah, that feels really key. I mean, I've noticed, too, that my audience is about 80 % women, and it was never designed to be that way. And I'm very grateful for the people that listen and read and come to the events and whatnot. But at the same time, it makes me wonder, like, how can we show more men that having a good relationship with your emotions is strength, is cool, is like the type of resilience that you want to build outside of external dynamics, the internal dynamic of what's happening in your mind? That's going to affect every single part of your life. So you might as well pay attention to it.

2:34Forrest Hanson: Yeah, I don't know what happened that made that less culturally appealing to men, other than all of the typical socialization things you would say in terms of how women are typically socialized versus how men are typically socialized. But it's just something's happened where the stuff that's out there that seems to cater to men more often is just like very red-pilled. It tends to be very right-wing. It tends to be very like women-hating in its orientation. and man, I would just love there to be more alternatives that are out there for people. Yeah, and you see that in the coming together of patriarchy and capitalism where there are these very strict ideas of what it is to be a man and then it's combined with productivity.

3:19So it just becomes this thing that is based on what value is, but then value is this sort of external object that you're trying to go after, just like money or a house or a car and whatnot. But there's a lot missing there because I think the most beautiful parts of life, you have to be aware. You have to have like a sense of what am I personally doing to bring harmony into the environments that I'm a part of? I think that's really important. And even going back to what we're talking about in terms of even the idea of like Sensitive Boys Club, and I know we joke about it, but And I was just talking with Sarah about how even in this moment, in terms of like the meditation community that I'm a part of, right?

4:06Like we had our teacher, Asa Ngoenka, he passed away in 2013. And the community is expanding and growing. And we need each other collectively to learn, to process, to understand, you know, what is right practice and what is wrong practice. But you take that outside of meditation and into any community. And when we talk, I'm always learning. When we're thinking together, I'm always learning. So it's really valuable to know who your comrades are in knowledge. And I think there's a lot of value to that.

4:43Forrest Hanson: I think that kind of collaborative model that you're describing has a feeling of softness associated with it. That is not exactly the same thing as a more kind of like dominance oriented classic patriarchal model, right? It's really easy to get into kind of a pattern with my own stuff where I have more of a dominance model orientation toward it, where I'm trying to like really fix something or change something or make the way that I am right, as opposed to being more open minded around, oh, like what's Elizabeth bringing to this that I can pay attention to? or like, oh, what's a different way for me to look at what's going on inside of myself?

5:22Forrest Hanson: You write a lot about how the first response that we have or first reaction to a certain stimuli is not always the true version of who we are. That's like the mask that we're wearing, right? We get into that habit pattern and then you kind of peel it back and look underneath it and you find all of this other stuff. But that's, again, I don't really think of that as being like a dominance model. I think of that as a kind of collaborative act with your interior. And maybe there's just something in that, that marketing that to men has been like more challenging. I don't know exactly. I'm not sure you think about it.

5:57Yeah, I think it's hard to accept ownership over not just your actions, but how you're perceiving reality, where the mind wants to point the attention, sorry, not the attention, but it wants to point the blame outward in terms of like, oh, if I feel stress or I don't feel good, then it has to be something external. But that is delusion. That is fully incorrect. And granted, there are going to be moments where someone says something to you that you don't like or something, you know, someone has aggrieved you in some way and you do deserve an apology. But ultimately, where is that reaction starting?

6:38It's happening in your mind. So the intensity of that reaction is going to be determined by how long you hold on to that, how long you hold on to that moment of ill. And don't get me wrong, it's very important to be accountable, to walk gently through the world, to make sure that you're not harming people. But then at the same time, it's also very, very important that if you want inner peace, if you want happiness, you have to understand that that is an internal mindset that you need to cultivate, right? The most basic example is if I'm in a relationship and you're trying to give to me and I can't receive it, then you could have just the most incredible partner.

7:18But if you have not worked on yourself to let go of the patterns that are being driven by your past, that are stopping you from even being able to receive love, then the issue is on the inside.

7:30Forrest Hanson: There's something in this that's making me think of years and years ago in politics, because I'm old enough to remember when being a flip-flopper was enough to be like a political death sentence when somebody was branded this way. And if you think about it, what is that actually? That's commitment to view. And I felt this way in the past, so that means I have to feel this way in the future. This was my opinion then, so it needs to be my opinion now. And that kind of perspective of just keep on rolling with it, again, is that very classic sort of patriarchal thing, right? I was right in the past.

8:04Forrest Hanson: And so, okay, I got to keep on being stuck with that. But change is like the most beautiful, powerful thing in the world. And you can't change if you don't let it go. I think that's one of the biggest things that I learned from that 60-day retreat that I sat from January 1st to March 3rd of this year, where I will struggle so much if I try to force my identity to be a specific way for the longevity of my lifetime. And I think you see a lot of that that sort of wraps itself up in masculinity, where like a lot of people are trying to like be a certain way, or they're always trying to be a particular version of themselves with their friends, instead of just realizing that all of existence is a flowing river that's moving forward, that's always changing.

8:49And what does that mean for you as an individual? That means that you're going to have to let your preferences evolve. You're going to have to understand that part of your inner peace and your inner fulfillment is in letting go of labels, like letting go of just like letting yourself flow and evolve and change and so that you can expand in the ways that you need to so that you actually feel inner harmony.

9:14Forrest Hanson: And that's right in your wheelhouse in part because it's like the core of the form of meditative practice that you do, which is the witnessing of reality as created by many different parts, like made of different things. Reality is kind of like a unicorn. All the parts are real, but a unicorn doesn't actually exist, right? And then the witnessing of it as constantly going through these little fluctuations, like the way that I feel right now is different than the way that I feel an hour from now, and that's okay. And it's that kind of that's okay and that acceptance process of it, that I think it's really tough for people.

9:49Forrest Hanson: I struggle with that all the time. I don't know if that's something that you've had a real journey with here and knowing a little bit about your past, I would say so. Yeah, absolutely. I think that's one of the biggest qualities that you can really cultivate for your own growth and your own happiness is, can I be okay with not being okay? And understanding and expanding your idea of inner peace so that it's not about, oh inner peace is like when all the pieces of the puzzle are perfectly put together and then I will never be bothered again like that's that's also a total delusion you know inner peace is much more can I have an awareness of my reactivity can I have an awareness of the reaction that's happening in my mind that is flying in with a particular pattern behavior pattern that wants to just jump out impulsively.

10:36And instead of allowing that to happen, it's more so creating space in the mind so that you can slow down. Like literally just slowing down, seeing the pattern arising, seeing the impulsiveness, and then having that inner resilience, which you can also think of as inner peace to just decide, you know what, I'm not going to act on all those feelings in this moment. I'm actually going to be intentional about choosing something that's genuinely skillful.

11:05Forrest Hanson: One of the things that I will hear people who've started to do something like go to therapy talk about is they're starting to unfurl these different patterns that they have, right? So they've got their habitual behaviors. They're like immediate responses. And then they start building this different stack of awareness, right? They start learning a little bit more about themselves. They start going, okay, here's how I would prefer to be, or oh, here are the patterns that are like kind of getting my way in different ways. And then they'll have an interaction where they feel a little stuck because they're having a hard time figuring out if what they're feeling is like the old pattern or if it's actually kind of authentically how they feel.

11:46And they're not sure how to figure that out. I'm wondering how you think about that. I love that. I think that there is a lot of clarity and being very cognizant of how your nervous system feels, what your values are, and what feels intuitively correct. So that requires a lot of self-awareness for you to really become a friend to yourself and have a good relationship there so that you can even feel the reality that's happening within you. And when you start building enough self-awareness that you can see the pattern arising, the impulsive pattern, and you have that inner peace to either say no, choose something different and whatnot, there is a bit of unlearning that you have to do where I feel like a lot of times we're taught that your first reaction is the real you, but it's not.

12:39Yeah, that's authentic. It's not, you know, it's really not. It's like what genuinely feels authentic is the part where you slow down and you just watch what's happening in your mind And then you decide to yourself like, okay, I know if I follow through with this impulsiveness, I've done it so many times that I know what the outcome will be. But if I decide to choose something different, something that's a little more compassionate or something that helps me preserve myself in a way that I was not able to before, then I'm putting in something brand new into the play of life. and there's a lot of power in that.

13:19And I think too, like, you know, identity is so thick and rightfully so, like the ego is a very valuable, you know, system for survival. But even when I heard you say like, you know, this pattern, all the patterns that we have inside of us, like to me, it feels like after spending so much time meditating that what I am is a heap of patterns, a heap of actions. and whenever I try to like force this sense of Diego together and get really sort of tight about it I'm realizing that that's when tension builds up in the mind and I'm just you know anytime where I feel like I'm taking myself too seriously like I have to remind myself of that truth like dude you're not even real like relax just chill out this is all constructed yeah all the time

14:07Forrest Hanson: It's all a condition. Yeah, totally. So for you, the answer is often going to be, well, I sit on a cushion a lot in terms of what helps you achieve this. That kind of sense of yourself as something that's constructed and changing and to some extent not real, whatever that means to a person. I'm wondering, are there other things that you think help people get more of the recognition in real time of a pattern kicking in or some aspect of themselves coming forward that they're like, I don't know about that anymore? Yeah. With or without meditating, one of the most valuable qualities that you can build in your life that will clarify what direction you should be moving in is just simply slowing down.

14:49I think that's such a key element to being able to tap back into like, what's my purpose? Like, how do I want to show up in this moment? Am I over exhausting myself? Am I saying yes to too many things? And in the act of slowing down, you are allowing yourself the space to just like not feel so much responsibility over trying to get a million things done. And instead you narrow down your goals and, you know, some of your goals should be like, am I really protecting my well-being? Am I taking good care of myself? Am I showing up well for my community? Am I showing up well for my loved ones? and then everything else can come next after that as opposed to trying to be responsible for way too many things.

15:36Forrest Hanson: I think one of the things that really takes people out of that, you have a phrase like living in your own energy is it's obvious, it's other people, it's relationships. It's like bumping our head and needing to deal with our reactivity to other people's reactivity, if that kind of makes sense. And one of the things I've always liked about you is that you've always been very willing to talk really openly about your own adventures with this stuff. I remember the City Arts conversation that we had. A lot of it was about your relationship with Sarah and about the way that that relationship has changed over time.

16:10Forrest Hanson: And she was at that event, you're talking about it up on a stage as she's in the audience, which could be an interesting dynamic. But it was really sweet. It was very touching. And I'm wondering in practice, okay you're trying to develop this new set of ways of being in the world this new set of behaviors you're trying to hang out in your own energy she comes in she's bothered by something that you did she's irritable about something herself she had kind of a tough day how do you stay in that without feeling like you're the teflon buddha on the mountaintop a thousand miles away from her you know how do you stay relational while also like being the way you want to be the answer is presence It's like, you know, oftentimes our relationships are just big invitations where like someone shows up angry and I'm like inviting you, join me in my anger, please.

16:59And instead, if there is a moment where you and your partner are in different energetic situations, you know, your partner may be really flustered. Something happened at work. Something happened in their life that is challenging and warrants that, you know, reaction or even response as they're trying to solve that. But you remaining how you want to be doesn't negate your care for that moment. And I think that's one of the things that stands out for me is like, it's not this like ugly sense of detachment. It's actually a very compassionate, like, I want to hear, like, tell me what's going on. And, but that doesn't mean that I need to like join you into this anger to show you that I love you.

17:43what I really need to do to show you that I love you is like, how can I support you? How do we need to problem solve? Do you need me to just listen? Like, how can I help you through this moment? And remaining in your peace should always, you know, whether they want to join you or not should still remain as an invitation. And what I find happening is that people over time will melt into each other, right? And then if she finds sturdiness in your piece, then she'll melt into that piece in that moment. I think that we really struggle with nuance is maybe the simple way to say a part of what you're - We hate the gray.

18:22Yeah, totally. Because a little bit,

18:24Forrest Hanson: this is kind of a boundaries conversation, right? It's a little like, how do I stay warm and empathic and open while not getting flooded by the emotional experience of another person? and that's just a hard thing to do. I would say in general, like the degree of difficulty on that is a lot higher than either just falling into somebody else's vibe or just keeping it totally at arm's length. We're pretty good at doing those two things. Something I've been thinking about a lot recently is how I feel like we're good culturally at conditioning people to either be doormats or assholes, but we're not so good on teaching them how to be whatever the middle is.

18:59I don't even know if we have a good word for it

19:01Forrest Hanson: other than just like a nice person, but it's just tough. It's difficult to stay open in that way. I think that's something that's quite powerful where it's like, I want to be able to be present for the people that I love while they're going through a challenging moment without having to build a wall to protect myself. Actually, I want to be able to have enough resilience and strength inside where I feel sufficiently nourished by my self-love that I can then extend compassion to another person without losing my inner stability. And I think that's a very, it's a high bar. It's a high bar, but over time, I think a lot of people are doing that work.

19:43And, you know, I mean, especially with the, I think about yoga teachers and therapists are like the Marines of the wellness field. They're like really in the front lines.

19:55And when you're helping people move through their stuff, Like, that's what that role calls for is that it calls for your inner stability. And I was thinking about, you know, I just I wrote a friend of mine is is about to join a therapy program and I had to write a recommendation for him. And I'm like, this guy is like just he has so much stability inside of him that it's going to like the people he will come in contact with. Not only are they going to learn about themselves, but it's going to be so helpful for them while they're moving from chaos to peace.

20:32Forrest Hanson: This reminded me of something. Years ago, we did an episode on So You Want to Be a Therapist, or it was titled something like that. And I talked to a variety of different people who are at different stages in their therapy journey or journey of becoming a therapist. And the last person that I talked to, one of the questions that I asked everyone was some version of, if you're bad at fill in the blank, you probably shouldn't be a therapist. It was like the inversion of the typical question, right? And her answer was something along the lines of if you're unwilling to negotiate and think critically about boundaries, you probably shouldn't be a therapist.

21:09Forrest Hanson: And I think it really gets to what you're describing here. That sense of stability inside of yourself is such a key part of psychological work in general. I think of mindfulness practice as having a real psychological element to it. I think that's always what drew me to it. And it's why so many people who are kind of psychology oriented end up going down the mindfulness rabbit hole, I think. I think that's, I mean, that's my favorite boundary. I remember when I initially wrote that, the first version of that was one of the most important boundaries that you can build is living in your own energy.

21:42Because that's the way I think about it is like, I want to be present in life and I want to hopefully live a life of service. And that includes, you know, being there for people when they're moving through chaotic moments. But I don't want to lose myself in a chaotic moment with them. Like, I want to be, like, I can be more of service if I remain in my peace as I, you know, support or listen or just help them through whatever's happening in that time. And yeah, to me, it's really impressive work.

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25:23Forrest Hanson: That's S-H-O-K-Z dot com. This offer can be combined with other official promotions. Now, back to the show. There's something about figuring out how to be yourself while also being the thing that another person needs. Oh, yeah. That I think is a really tough balance. And that's core to therapy. That's what they're doing in there. Elizabeth talks about it all the time. How do I chameleon into being that which is needed while also still being me and also still delivering the goods technically in terms of the practice of therapy? And I think that with all of the reactivity-related stuff that we're talking about, we eventually wandered to this question of, okay, well, how do you do that?

26:07Forrest Hanson: How do you sit in your own energy or whatever it is? And there's actually a little passage from the book that I wrote down and I would love to read. So this is, I think this is Earth 31. Whenever a thought arises, it will simultaneously create sensations in the body. Sometimes we think we get attached to our thoughts. What we are actually craving or fighting is how the thoughts make us feel in the body. Anger, passion, fear, and all emotions arise with sensations on the body. Challenging memories and thoughts are not the real problem. What you don't like is how they make you feel. Why is that an important distinction?

26:43Oh, it's so big because the mind is so murky and it's easy to get caught up in fighting your thoughts when instead, you know, the memory that you don't like or the thought that you don't like, what you actually don't like isn't necessarily that information because that's what's happening up there as you're thinking about all the different information that you have. But what you don't like is how it makes you feel on the body. So when you have a memory that's scary or that brings up fear, fear has a tone in the body. You can genuinely feel that. And what you don't like is how it feels, not necessarily the information that's up there.

27:29And I think when you understand that like that's where your power lies and this is really you know one of the best things that i got from the vipassana teaching and from the buddhist teaching and guenka's teaching is like being able to know that the reaction starts at the body level and that as soon as i'm reacting to what i'm feeling i'm creating more imprints in the mind that's weighing the mind down and instead of reacting let me just observe and in the space of observation like let me feel what's actually happening there, then you get choices. Then it's like the impulsiveness, the lightning quick reaction just totally slows down and you start having the opportunity to decide, okay, this information is there, but I'm going to literally train myself to not be overpowered by it, not by suppressing it, but by just observing it.

28:22Also, I think that there's a

28:24Forrest Hanson: piece of it where it's so easy for us to like cognize about all of this and have thoughts about thoughts about thoughts. There's also something about thoughts where they feel smart for a certain kind of person. I am this kind of person, so I'm familiar with this, where it's really easy to get bought in to the story that a thought is telling you about something. Oh, that's what they did. Oh, they were whatever. Oh, I was whatever. You know, there's that kind of tone associated with And I think that for me, it was a big breakthrough when I was able to see that process happening a little bit quicker.

28:56Forrest Hanson: I still get sucked into it all the time. But you get a little faster about noticing, oh, okay, I'm doing the thing. And I was able to get down to the level of, actually, I'm just feeling hurt. Or actually, I'm really kind of scared of this thing. and all of this mental proliferation that's happening is just essentially an attempt to justify the feeling that's happening in the body right now. But like the feeling is the actual target. So that's been enormously productive for me. I love that clarity. And even like building off of it, not just justify, but sometimes continuing to fuel it. Oh, for sure, you're buying into it, absolutely.

29:30Yeah, this feeling is like, damn, I'm afraid now. Let me think of more things to be afraid of. or like, wow, I'm feeling so hurt or I'm feeling so tired. Now let me like, how else can I express that negativity? And I always go back to the story of like Sarah, she really like put in practice that lesson that we were both learning at the time where if there's tension in your mind, the mind will try to externalize that blame, but it isn't always true that it's someone else's fault. and oftentimes it's actually not. And what happened between us was that we were both working in separate rooms and we were both working on our laptops and she comes in laughing, just being like, wow, I gotta tell you, I actually just spent the last two hours trying to figure out how this tension in my mind is your fault.

30:23And she was just going further and further and further back in time. And we both laughed about it. I also felt like relieved. I was like, thank goodness, because now we're not in an argument. And I saw what she was experiencing and I'm like, my mind does that all the time too. And I think that is like a real sort of, not only a transitional moment in our relationship where we started really looking at our self-awareness as a tool that opens up the inner peace that we have as individuals. And then we can share that with each other so that we can have real harmony in our relationship. Like self-awareness and inner peace just have this deep, deep relationship where if you can't see yourself, you're not going to be able to have a settled, calm, and nourished mind.

31:12Forrest Hanson: There's a responsibility taking in it that really appeals to me in general because I'm an agency person. I like to know what I can have influence over, right? So the idea that I can have more agency with my feeling states or more of a sense of, oh, this is where my mind's at right now, but it doesn't have to be that way in the future and I can do things to change it is pretty appealing to me. There's also an aspect of this where I think it could be easy for it to turn into excessive responsibility taking or kind of an excessive feeling of - You are a man of balance. Yes, I'm a man of balance. I contain multitudes.

31:51Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know.

31:52Forrest Hanson: I'm just thinking of some of the, and maybe this is just strawmanning a little bit. I'm not sure, but it's really easy for like, turn that frown upside down adjacent stuff to kind of come in here. And so I'm wondering, I guess how you think about like feeling the feeling without becoming the feeling is another thing I've heard you write about. I think it's just so, it's so important to give space to whatever's there, where you're not trying to contort the moment. Like you're letting it be what it is. And if you wake up and you don't feel great and you're able to experience that with a balance and gentleness, like that's an incredible gift that you're giving to yourself and to the people around you because you're not making that thing into a situation where you're fueling it and it's just blowing up and becoming this big mess.

32:39Instead, you're just letting it burn itself out. And I think of a lot of these, you know, either these different sort of heavy emotions, either as a fire that if you keep putting more wood into it, it's going to keep burning. Or instead, you know, instead of just reacting to it, let it burn itself out. And what that looks like in daily life is just, you know, acknowledging what's there, giving it space to be there. But then at the same time, making sure that you're not letting it dominate your actions because it's too temporary of a thing for you to like make a big mess of the situation.

33:15Forrest Hanson: Yeah, there's something in this where it's tough to talk about, at least for me, because it sounds like there are, again, so many seeming contradictions here, where sometimes there's a kind of space that you can get, at least a part of yourself can get. So you feel frustrated or angry or sad or whatever it is. And you're with that experience in a very real way, but there's enough space around it for you to have a part of you that's going, okay, this is changing. Or like, okay, it might not be this way forever. Or, oh, okay, there's some story in this. Or, you know, I've had a long day or whatever it is that's going on.

33:52Forrest Hanson: So there's both this, there's kind of this pendulation where you're like moving into it and then moving out of it and then moving into it. and I don't really know how somebody builds that over time other than just by trying to do it. I don't know what your experience with it has been. I think it's as simple as that. Like you don't have to overcomplicate your piece and part of your piece is really, really dependent on your ability to slow down and make different choices. So yeah, in the very beginning, it's gonna feel clumsy. It's gonna feel odd. You may even feel like you're faking it, but the act of slowing down over time will become second nature.

34:33And it's just like building any other habit. Like you remember your first time in the gym, like super awkward. Totally. And now you go in there and you're crushing it. Feel good about it.

34:41Forrest Hanson: Yeah, doing my best. So you wrote a piece not too long ago that I think relates to this, that you titled, What is Stress? If I remember correctly. Yeah, you read that one? Yes, I did. I did. I thought it was great. I gotta tell you the backstory behind that too. I would love it. Your answer was basically, stress is when you refuse to let go, which is, again, classic Buddhist framework of craving and aversion and clinging and all of that good stuff. A lot of people might respond to that with some version of stress is when the rent is due, which has also been related to your life. You've got a lot of personal experience with that.

35:14Forrest Hanson: And so I'm wondering how you think about this first start, second start of it, where they're the real things that happen to us in life. They are really difficult. there sometimes your partner is being really unfair yeah sometimes they're really mean to you you know whatever it is and it's not just like a mental construction yeah you feel that way they are actually being yeah and separating that out from what do i actually have some influence over here it's really important to clarify that to be able to have the space in your life not just in your mind to be able to build the scaffolding that you need to actually build peace inside of you you need basic things.

35:54You need like water, you need food, you need general safety, you know, to live in a home that's at least somewhat nourishing. So, you know, granted when I, like when I went to the retreat, the 60 day retreat, like if they weren't feeding us, I would not have been able to meditate. I think it's just, yeah, it's really critical understanding that like this scaffolding, this architecture of inner peace, like you can definitely build it, but there are some basic requirements to actually make it happen.

36:26Forrest Hanson: Yeah. And even in monastic practice, what are the givens that if you look at even the Pali Canon or things like that, what happens when you enter monastery? Well, you're given food, water, basic shelter, basic clothing. There you go. That's the foundation. That's what you get. And so the Buddha was like, hey, you need these things in order to practice in the way that I'm describing. There are suttas where he's talking to some king about punishing criminals. And he's like, hey, what's actually going to help this situation out is not punishing these people. It's actually making sure that people's basic necessities are covered so they can behave in more moral ways in the world.

37:02Forrest Hanson: So this is actually directly in that stuff. This is not just a modern coat of paint that's been put over the whole thing. No, and I think a lot of people sort of, they will put the cultivation of their inner peace on hold. because they feel the suffering of the world so vibrantly. They really, really feel it. And they have such big compassionate hearts. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. Like it's good to be informed. It's good to be active and to try to help make the world a better place. But if you're a good hearted person, you still should see the value in taking care of your heart.

37:39Like there is still great value in being able to see in what ways has my own past, my own trauma affected the way that I perceive the world

37:49Forrest Hanson: and the way that I behave, especially impulsively. So how can I unbind that material so that I can show up in a way with even greater compassion and greater inner stability so that I don't lose myself in the chaos? So you mentioned that there's some backstory to the piece, and I'm really curious. Oh yeah, what is stress? stress piece yeah yeah the the back piece so that so what is stress is part of a series of um like deeper defining that i'm gonna do and i'm working right now on what is wisdom and i was working on it the other day and i was like whoa i had to take a step back so that i didn't end up writing something that was like 16 pages long because i was like well i'm starting way too you know This is me, dude.

38:39Everything I write is 16 pages long. So you'll get no argument from me. Yeah, I'm like, how do I properly whittle this down to 800 words? And there's value, obviously, in writing the 16 pages, but that'll come in a book later. But that's what started happening with What is Stress? And I'm like, this is so important. I need to put this together. And I remember feeling stress while I was writing What is Stress? And I'm like laughing through the process because I'm trying to paint something that is simultaneously inspiring and informative and valuable to people. And it's such a big topic because I think of, and we've talked about this before, where the translation for dukkha, suffering, misery, which is the primary ailment of life that the Buddha found that we were all going through as human beings.

39:30The problem with that translation is that it's very dramatic. Yeah. It's also not quite accurate. Yeah. Yeah. And I think for some people, sure. Yeah. The life is suffering, but for a lot of people, it's like life is tense. Life is stressful. And that is something that, especially for us Westerners, like that feels, you can relate to stress because you're feeling it very often and trying to do justice to that piece. But I remember having to, like, I wrote it and then And I was like, I have to put this baby away and then come back to it. I came back to it a week later and then really polished it up.

40:04But it was a nice process of challenging myself because I had gotten into the habit of, you know, okay, let me use Substack as a form of joy and just like write whatever flows out. And this one was flowing out, but also required like, you know, three, four times the amount of work that a normal piece requires.

40:24Forrest Hanson: this actually takes me to something I wanted to ask you about so the last time that we talked you did talk about writing more on Substack and writing more like long form content and the last couple yeah I think that's fair to say the last couple of books of yours prior to this last one journey were more narrative driven I think is maybe the way to put it kind of long form narrative driven this current one is more of like a daily reader it's short form content if you think about it so it's 365 short pieces And I'm wondering how you think about like the return to that format, the longer form content.

40:58Forrest Hanson: It was just funny to have a conversation with you where you're like, oh, I'm getting into long form content. And then you come up with a bunch of a collection of short form pieces. So I had to ask you about it. I'm glad that you're bringing it up. I think I wanted to make sure that Journey really played to my strong suits. And to me, nonfiction, like Lighter and How to Love Better, I love those books. and they're, you know, a lot of people tell me they find them really useful. But personally, for me, like I'm still learning how to write nonfiction, like, you know, learning how to like properly set up a chapter, how deep to go into a topic.

41:35That's all something that's still very new to me. Whereas there is a lot of flexibility in poetry and short prose where like, you can just let it be what it is, like really let it flow. And that style suits me really well. So I wanted to set up a cadence where I really love writing and like all types of writing, but I wanted to make sure that I, you know, release a short form book and then a long form book and then a short form book and then a long form book just to like, you know, make sure that I'm serving the like all the different types of readers well, where people, some, some people are like so busy, you know, if you like are waking up in the morning, you have three kids, like how much time do you have?

42:16You know, you're going to have like a few minutes of self-reflection to like really, try to do some balancing and be mindful of what actions or how you want to show up that day. So I want to be able to design books for people like that as well. And then simultaneously make sure that I have books that have bigger depth as well too. But Journey carries that depth while also making it accessible. And the point of it is that self-awareness and inner peace, these are qualities that are really critical to living a happy life. So you have to understand that they're not easy. They're not fast. If anyone's selling you some package of this, you buy this$500 thing and this is going to make you peaceful forevermore.

43:04We're just talking about this in the kitchen, but okay. Yeah. You don't want to buy that, right? So I'm trying to honestly set up like, okay, if you want to cultivate self-awareness and inner peace, that's going to require a lot of reflection and let it be a long journey. Like that's why it's called journey. Like it's, you know, a year is like the start of it. Like for me, it's really, it's a lifetime. But I remember that year from my rock bottom moment to when I started meditating, which was like literally a year where I was trying to cultivate self-awareness and inner peace. And there was a lot of progress made even before I started meditating.

43:40Forrest Hanson: You break the book into four sections, collected around four elements. It's kind of the classic four elements, all of which have a different kind of thematic aspect to them. Was there one that you found particularly difficult to work on? Yeah, the last one. It's funny. That's actually, I like the water ones. It's my favorite one. Oh, you like it? Yeah, nice. Yeah, I wanted to, the water. Just more relational, I think, is part of why I was drawn to it. And it's, you know, it's really about nourishing yourself. But I also wanted to make sure, like, that I don't get stuck in relationships at the same time.

44:14Like I want to be able to like talk about relationships, but not always have to talk

44:18Forrest Hanson: about a lot of your content is relationship. Yeah. Yeah. It's also a lot of the content that's hit on places like Instagram. It's like relationship content. Yeah, I know. And I had this great conversation with my editor. He was telling me like, he was like, cause I, you know, I'm always kind of, I'm always writing and I have a, for future books, he was like, don't get stuck in relationships because it's an easy field for you to play in. There's like a lot of things to, you know, uncover there. And I will, I'll continue writing about relationships in different ways, but to make sure that you're writing about like for the person who has been struggling to get out of bed, who's been really overcoming some great pain that's been inside of themselves to even get out of bed.

45:03Like now, once they're out of bed, how do they move about in the world? and that's sort of like the, you know, why journey is so intentional in that water section because there are so many different pathways that a person can take in their life outside of just relationships.

45:19Forrest Hanson: Back to the show after a quick break. On days when I'm recording the podcast, it's really easy to feel pressed for time and lunch can be one of the first things to go. I look up, it's three o 'clock, I haven't eaten since breakfast and it's not exactly surprising that I don't feel great. That's why Elizabeth and I keep our sponsor, Huel, that's spelled H-U-E-L, in the kitchen. Their Black Edition powder is a complete meal you have instead of food, not a shake on top of food, with 27 essential vitamins and minerals and no artificial sweeteners, colors, or flavors. It has 40 grams of protein and mixes with water or milk in about 30 seconds.

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47:01Forrest Hanson: Now, back to the show. Okay, this makes me think of one of the pieces in the book. Even when someone has objectively caused you harm, that same person, even if they wholeheartedly apologize, cannot heal you. Your healing has to come from you. The way you react to memories and how that impacts your present-day behavior can only be alleviated and transformed by the awareness, acceptance, and retraining that you can provide yourself. Protect yourself, create boundaries, but do not punish yourself by hanging on to hate in your mind. And the reason I thought about it because you're talking about somebody who has had actually really difficult experiences in life.

47:39Forrest Hanson: You've had a lot of really difficult experiences in life. And through whatever it was that got them to the dance floor here, they want things to be different for them in the future than they were in the past. And I think that for a lot of people, an aspect of that is coming to terms with whatever happened. It's a huge aspect of therapy often for people. And there's this kind of, again, classic forest stuff, this kind of pendulation from looking at and thinking about the past to then looking at and thinking about your future and going, okay, how are these things the same? How are they different?

48:13Forrest Hanson: What do I have to change? What do I have to let go of? It can be a real forgiveness process for some people. For other people, it can be a real, yeah, that was messed up, man, process. And it's going to vary. Yeah, I think it's hard to hold on to hate for the entirety of your life. And we don't always see how much that weighs us down and how forgiveness, without even having to talk to the person or say anything, because they may not even be in your life anymore. They may not even be alive or who knows what happened, but forgiveness in the sense where you're still understanding that what happened was wrong, but you're just letting it go.

48:56You're just letting it go and you're letting yourself open a new chapter without having to constantly reawaken that reaction in your own body. And I think it's hard. It's hard to like always have the information in your mind tied to a bodily reaction and never create the space to like loosen that up so that your body can start relating to that memory in a different way. Right. Because like that memory is always going to be there. But instead, like, why do I have to suffer every single time that the memory arises? So now let me do that. Because like what is forgiveness? Forgiveness is acceptance.

49:37What is letting go? Letting go is acceptance. And so being able to just accept, okay, this happened, this information is actually valuable to some degree because I can make sure that this doesn't happen again, right? That I'm informed in a way to make sure that this either doesn't happen to my kids or doesn't happen to me again. But why am I going to keep suffering? I'd rather let it go.

50:02Forrest Hanson: I think this is another middle path thing where, again, we have a vision of what forgiveness or acceptance look like, that we set such a high bar for it that it either doesn't feel achievable or it doesn't feel authentic for us. So like you were describing where forgiveness doesn't have to be, oh, I think what you did was fine. That's not the only form of forgiveness that exists. My dad, Rick, likes to talk about disentangled forgiveness, which is basically what you were describing. It's just like, yeah, I'm doing it so I can let this go. I'm going, all right, man, cool. We're just going to put this down.

50:39Forrest Hanson: I don't want it to be a topic anymore. I don't want to be in conflict with you about this. I still think you're kind of an asshole. But okay, sure, we're just going to let this one go. And I think that's a beautiful practice if you can get there. Maybe you can't, but if you can, wow, what a wonderful thing. And this is true for all this stuff that we talk about, either it's like in your work or on the show or just in psychology in general, where okay is sometimes good enough. You know, the medium version of something can be a really beautiful version of whatever it is that you're doing. And one of the hardest things that I see is like people making their healing dependent on someone's apology.

51:16Sure. Or even someone's change behavior where it's like, okay, like you have to understand if you really want to build inner peace, right? Going back to this relationship between self-awareness and inner peace that like Journey really talks about. Like you have to understand that your field of control is your own actions. Like life gets so much easier when you understand, okay, what do I control? My own actions, that's it. And then what does that tell you? When you're dealing with a difficult situation or a difficult person, like you can't force them to apologize to you in the way that you want.

51:56You know, again, that person may not even be around. They could be like thousands of miles away. They could have already passed on to another life. Like who knows what happened. So making your happiness fully dependent on something that has to come from another, like you are setting yourself up for so much stress, so much continuous tension that instead you're way better off realizing that actually happiness is an internal mindset that I need to cultivate. Like, why am I still attached? Like, why do I need such a strict sense of, you know, someone apologizing to me instead? Like, how can I reformat this idea in my mind so that I can be whole in and of myself?

52:45Forrest Hanson: So we're talking a lot about the letting go side of it. And good practice is a combination of letting go on the one hand and pursuit or cultivation on the other hand. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like this balance of these two things. And one of the things we talked about last time was some of the struggles with generalizing, particularly on a large platform. We are kind of a big fish in a small pond as the podcast goes, you know, where we're focused on a particular niche. Thankfully, enough people listen that we get to keep on having these conversations, you know, that kind of thing. But I can imagine if you're talking to an even bigger audience, you know, you've got three million some odd followers on Instagram, you're going to have a lot of people who need a little bit more letting go.

53:28Forrest Hanson: And you're also going to have a lot of people who need a little bit more cultivation. And they're all reading the same content. So how do you give advice to these two very different groups of people who need very different things? So I'm just wondering how you think about the balance of these two. I think that's why I try to write a lot because people, you're not going to get the total answer in 20 words, which is kind of what you're getting on Instagram, right? You're getting a very minimalistic version of something that requires a much longer. It's more of a bad Instagram, man. Like I said, the 16 pages, this is my tendency.

54:02Yeah, no, and that's fantastic. And I think that, keep writing that way because that's going to come back in vogue. Like, I think AI is going to make it so that we all become disenchanted with social media and we'll be running to podcasts, we're running to a sub stack to get - Something that feels like human interaction. Yeah, and I think that's the interesting thing where you're always going to get people in the comments who are like, what about this? What about that? And of course, but I think instead of trying to make things perfect for the reader, I understand like as the amount of readers grows, I want to be of service and the real service is in a book.

54:43Like that's, it's in like the wide, let's go deep into a topic and then we're going to explore it in a lot of different ways and also think about what's the rebuttal and respond to it. Whereas online, on social media, you're like, instead of thinking like the answer is in this one carousel post, it's not. That's one perspective, one view that may fit for a certain group of people really well when they wake up that Tuesday morning. Whereas there's other people who see things a little differently. And we're also trying to, you know, support. Like, so sometimes I'm thinking about, I'm writing for the person who has already been meditating for years and is really trying to build their inner stability.

55:31And then other times I wake up and I'm like, oh, I really want to write about, write towards the person who like is just turning that lens inward and starting to realize that they have a little more power than they thought they had. And that's also very different from, you know, realizing that there's a lot of value and accountability in relationships. There's so many different topics when you're writing about life, which is I feel like that's my work is like, I want to write about the relationship between you and yourself and the relationship between you and other people. And in that field, there is the infinite.

56:07There's like everything, right? So I think I want to make sure in my mind, I know that every piece doesn't encapsulate totality.

56:18Forrest Hanson: it's not easy to let go of aversive experiences like i'm we're talking earlier i'm afraid i feel bad i'm angry okay that's already hard enough to let go what people can really struggle to let go around are more the things that they're i feel like good attachments a phrase that i've heard is captured by your strengths it's really easy for somebody like me i tend to be like a more cognitive intellectualized person. It's really easy for me to fall down that rabbit hole of just living in that kind of space. For somebody who is a little different from me, I don't know, Elizabeth, somebody like that, really easy for her to just get into the emotional feeling space and just be all about that.

57:01Forrest Hanson: And then there are other things that are good things in life, like using Elizabeth again as an example. I'm attached to her and I am perfectly happy about that. But an aspect of practice is getting comfortable with the letting go of good things, whether it's like a good thing that you're eating, a good sensation you're having, a good emotion that you're feeling. And some people can really struggle with that. That's like a really hard thing to practice around. And I'm wondering how you've seen that like come up for yourself. Yeah, I think, I mean, that's something that comes up for me a lot in longer retreats is like, I am profoundly attached to Sarah.

57:38And that rigidity that I find in my mind is a source of, it has the potential to not fully allow the total strength of love. And that's the way that I think of attachment, where in the sense, I don't think about attachment styles, but I think about the clinging of attachment. And I see how she is the biggest disattachment in my life. And if she weren't there, I would go through tremendous sorrow. And there's nothing necessarily wrong with that. But what it does show me is that my total understanding of impermanence is incomplete. And that's the reality of it is like everything, even if Sarah and I both live to be 100 and then we pass away, it's still, it's going to pass away.

58:31and I hope that whenever you know that day comes and who you know who knows which one of us will be around then but like like may I feel this sadness with peace as opposed to feeling the sadness with chaos and I think it's really been so interesting just seeing that you know a lot of other attachments feel easier to let go of like it but then it's like whoa what's at the core that's binding this identity. And this part of my identity that is so inflexible is like Diego and Sarah. And I like to be able to see like, what's my source of stress? Like there's a lot of attachment there. Good to see.

59:12That's a tough one.

59:13Forrest Hanson: Yeah. Yeah. Because I think that like, it's easy to see some of the places where attachment makes our life more difficult or causes us suffering or whatever it is. But for ones like that, where for starters, it's just kind of like a good thing. It's really much more challenging to see that as a place of practice in this way. And to be clear, this does not mean like letting go of that relationship. No. It's about the mental proliferation or the struggle and strain or the craving for it to stay the same or all of those aspects of it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The papancha element to it. But I think it's, yeah, it's hard because I think a lot of people, they get so scared by change.

59:55And sometimes when I describe my relationship where Sarah and I, we see ourselves as two flowing rivers that have decided to flow next to each other. Like I was talking to a person the other day and they were like, well, what if one of you decides not to flow next to each other anymore? And it's like, that's where the mind goes. like immediately goes to like, if you're not like viciously hanging on, how do you stay together? And it's, well, it's because of our actions, it's our choices. Like, you know, and I responded to the person, I was like, well, like we're, we're really into each other. Like we really, really enjoy being together.

1:00:33And, you know, even this morning, like we just, we went to the gym and we're, we're hanging out, having breakfast and it was just the funniest time. Like she's a comedian, and like, she's so funny. Yeah, that's something that I value so highly. But at the same time, I'm like, well, if I'm too attached, then I'm going to be too, I'm going to lack the flexibility that I need to really love her well as she grows, as she like continues evolving as a human being. And like, and I think that's, that's also really important to me. So I want to make sure that in the home that the two of us are creating, that there's like space instead of it feeling constricted by views and attachments and conceptions.

1:01:13Forrest Hanson: Well, I love that you kind of full circled us there because one of the first things we were talking about was that allegiance to like the past version of yourself, you know, flip-flopping was what I started this whole conversation with. Here you brought it back essentially to the kind of flexibility that allows you to change over time. It allows you to change in relationship because the person that I am today is just not the person I'm going to be in 10 years. And same for Elizabeth. Beth. So how do we sign on to this thing together, knowing that we are signing on to something that's uncertain?

1:01:43Forrest Hanson: Something that's been coming up with several of the coaching clients that I work with recently has been some version of, well, how can I commit if I know this thing will change? And I'm like, what a great question, dude. That's kind of my answer a lot of the time is like, yeah, it's tough. I don't know what to tell you. This is the nature of life. And so do you get comfort or can you find comfort in that uncertainty? Totally. You have to. If you want to not only be successful internally and externally, you have to be really adaptable. When I think about another way of saying the opposite of attachment is letting go is the opposite of attachment is flexibility.

1:02:22It's just being flexible. It's like knowing that I have my actions, I can paint on this canvas of life with my actions, but that doesn't mean that I control every outcome and that there are just so many things that are just fully outside of my field of control, but I'm okay with that. There's still within that field of control, like your actions have so much power. So you still have a lot of say over how you design your life, but yeah, then a curve ball is going to be thrown your way and that's okay. You can deal with it.

1:02:55Forrest Hanson: And I think that self-responsibility part of it again, because there's something in what you're saying that's about what I'm doing, what I'm feeling, what I'm choosing. I'm the one who has that flexibility. I was having a conversation with a friend recently at a dance event. They were really struggling with a decision that they had to make. And they were asking me a lot of, well, what do you think I should do kind of questions? And I didn't have a concrete answer for that. There were a lot of understandable choices that they could make. I think they were all kind of understandable. And they were really appealing outside of themselves for the answer to this question when the reality was that the answer had to come from inside of them.

1:03:35Forrest Hanson: Totally. Like it just, it couldn't come from somewhere else. So they could, you know, do all the math, but still end of the day, they got to look inside and make a kind of choice. And that's really scary for people. It's interesting too, because like that deep, deep craving we have to move against the flow of the universe. And instead, we're demanding a static version of reality, where it's like this problem is a problem because things have changed. Or there's a change that's looming over me that I would rather not even deal with. And I think that's another key element of inner peace, where it's like, if you really want peace, your only option is to embrace change.

1:04:16Well, I think as always, we could kind of just keep talking about this endlessly.

1:04:20Forrest Hanson: I do want to ask you one final question about the book as we get to the end here. If there were a particular part of it, or a particular topic, or even, hey, if you want to get more specific, a particular entry in the book, which has these 365 separate entries in it, that you're like, okay, I want people to read that one. What is it? Yeah, I think I'll answer your question in this way too. So if you're a person that's looking for, you know, figuring out how to achieve your goals, the fire section is for you. If you're looking for balance, the earth section is for you. If you're looking for really nourishing yourself, that's where the water section is.

1:05:01And if you're looking for adaptability, you go to air. So you kind of have to like pick, you know, because you can really open the book and, you know, get something out of it on any page. But the book is designed in that way where it's like, you know, these are the different qualities that you need to really thrive in your self-awareness and in your inner peace. It's always so great talking with you, Diego. This has been awesome. Yeah. Thank you so much, Forrest. I really appreciate it.

1:05:31Forrest Hanson: I always love talking with Diego on the podcast for a whole bunch of reasons. One of them is because I never know what we're going to talk about. I did not expect that we would start today's conversation by talking about men and masculinity and why men seem to be less interested in mental health topics than women typically are. The best answer I could come up for that one is that it's about socialization and a particular vision of what men are and what men are supposed to be. And that really relates to power and control and this sense of who we are as something that has never made a mistake and cannot admit fault because admitting fault is a form of weakness and we can't have that.

1:06:11Forrest Hanson: And that's essentially the opposite of what we talked about and focused on today, which was really about flexibility and finding the middle path in things and being able to appreciate that things are constantly changing, even you. And so you will feel differently about things in a day, a week, a year from now than you did yesterday. And if we're going to do that process in some kind of an effective way, then we need to be open to change. And being open to change means being open to the possibility that the way we were in the past is not quite the way we want to be in the future. And this can include a kind of responsibility taking.

1:06:45Forrest Hanson: That was a big part of what Diego talked about today. And this balance in responsibility between appreciating your part in things, other people's part in things, the part that you have a lot of influence over, and the part that you have very little influence over. People tend to think that authenticity is living in your first reaction to things, And that is simply not the case. Your first reaction to something is habit. It is the mask that we wear that helps us get around the world in some kind of effective way. But all I mean by effective is that it's what we've done in the past to get us to where we are right now.

1:07:22Forrest Hanson: That does not mean that it's the best way of doing things. And so we need to learn to look for what's actually true underneath that first reaction. This requires that we develop self-awareness, which was a big theme of the conversation as well, and hopefully that self-awareness then lets us get to a general sense of inner peace. Inner peace is one of those phrases that can make more, I don't know, skeptical, agnostically oriented people like I am cringe a little bit. It can have this veneer of spirituality or metaphysics or whatever attached to it. But I think that Diego's view of inner peace is a really good one.

1:08:00Forrest Hanson: It's a really accessible one, at least for me. And he frames it as more a kind of objective awareness. So you're really seeing what's actually going on inside of you, and what's actually going on in the world around you. And your clear seeing of it gives you a kind of freedom within it. You're no longer asking the questions about what is happening so much, because you have this picture of it that you've developed over time. Particularly one of the things that helps us develop a sense of inner peace is a little counterintuitively, a sense of impermanence and an openness to the reality that, like I was saying before, things are changing all the time.

1:08:36Forrest Hanson: Nothing stays quite the same. And this feeling of impermanence can be a really painful one for people. It can be a difficult one to wrap our hands around. I don't like it that this enjoyable feeling state that I'm experiencing right now when I'm sitting here and recording this outro is going to change in the future. I don't like that I'm going to have difficult emotional experiences. Sometimes we even don't like that we have to let go of our difficult emotional experiences. I really want to keep on being pissed at that person. I really want to keep on fearing that thing, because I think that that fear maybe keeps me safe.

1:09:12Forrest Hanson: But as we move to a relationship with ourselves, the world, other people, where everything is changing all the time, and it's okay. And all we can do is lighten up about that change, come to terms with it, develop some resilience and relationship to it, build some inner strengths that help us manage it more effectively, and just kind of generally lighten up. That lightening up, I think, characterizes a lot of really experienced meditators, which Diego is an extremely experienced meditator. And it's something that I see over and over again in people who have a deep practice with that. We also talked a little bit about thoughts and feelings and how often the mind creates all of these thoughts, all of these explanations, all of these reasons, because it doesn't want to actually face the feeling that we're experiencing underneath all of that.

1:10:01Forrest Hanson: And what we really don't like is not the painful thought that's immediately available to us. It's the feeling state that thought is creating. And so sometimes we can get around this whole process or avoid a lot of cognitive bypassing by focusing a little bit more on the sensations that we're experiencing in the body. Like what does fear really feel like for you? What does sadness really feel like for you? How can we get a little bit better at noticing these feeling states when they come up and hold them again a little bit more loosely? Oh, this is a feeling that's happening right now. Oh, this is a sensation that I'm having.

1:10:37Forrest Hanson: It's real. I'm with it. I'm experiencing it. And also it's not all of who I am. So again, there's this kind of pendulation which came up over and over again in the conversation, this movement, into something and out of it, holding it and letting it go, finding the part of it that you agree with, finding the part of it that you disagree with. If people take one thing from not just this podcast episode, but the Being Well podcast as a whole, I wouldn't hate it if it were getting more comfortable with stuff that's in the middle. Life is bumpy. Life is complicated. Most of the things that we boil down to a little Instagram square or a 90-second TikTok video or whatever are inherently profoundly reductive.

1:11:26Forrest Hanson: And the truth often lives in this world of complexity and uncertainty and yes, and, or sometimes, but also. And that's the place that people are typically the least comfortable hanging out. I hope you enjoyed today's conversation with Diego. Again, his new book is Journey, the Year That Changes Everything. It is available for pre-order right now. It should be available for ordering, I think, soon over the next couple of days. This episode comes out just a few days before the release of the book. Always really appreciate Diego coming on the show. He's become a really good friend as well as a colleague, and I just love to see his work continue to get more and more popular over time.

1:12:10Forrest Hanson: So if you've made it this far and you haven't subscribed to the podcast yet, please take a second to subscribe to it. Really helps us out, means a lot to me. You can find us on Patreon, YouTube, Spotify, Apple, pretty much everywhere that you get your podcasts. Until next time, thanks for listening, and I'll talk to you soon.

1:13:08We'll be right back. US only. See store online for details.