Adam Roa: Rebirthing Your Identity — Uncovering 25 Years of Repressed Trauma

22:39Adam Roa:Yeah. Well, I appreciate that. that it's there's a lot of places I could start you know in in that answer but what I would say

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26:31Adam Roa:To tie this into, I think, I want people to understand the importance of creativity because with AI right now, we are in a time period where for the very first time, as far as I'm aware, we have the opportunity to fully outsource the creative process from beginning to end. And that is a very dangerous space to be. I am not anti-AI. I actually love what AI opens up for us. However, to utilize it to amplify human creativity is different than outsourcing human creativity. And to speak about my journey to find my way there, because I grew up thinking I was not creative. I thought my brother and sister were the artistic creative ones.

27:23Adam Roa:And I was the logically minded analytical one. And it really starts vulnerable share, but it really starts because I was molested at the age of five, but it was a repressed memory until I was 30. 30. So I spent 25 years feeling as though there was something off and I couldn't tell what it was. It was just this intrinsic feeling that something was off. And so the story that created in my mind was there's something wrong with me inherently. And I just feel it. I know there's something wrong with me. And that led to all kinds of issues and problems and depression and et cetera. and when that memory finally came back to me i cried so so many tears of joy because it felt as though i i was no longer a stranger in my own body it felt as though i knew myself for the very first time my life made sense for the very first time wow and i'm 41 now and so it's it's been over a decade of putting my like dissecting back to the roots, like a tree that has rotten roots going all the way back and pulling out all the rot, the way it affected my relationship to women, to men, to money, to safety on the planet.

28:46Adam Roa:Why I moved through the world, always worried that something bad was going to happen. All of this stuff made sense and having to reprogram and rewrite. And what is creativity? Creativity is the process of putting together patterns that you've never put together before. It's my definition. When I'm writing a poem, it's just patterns of words that I've never put together before. A musician, it's patterns of sounds you've never put together before. It's a painter's patterns of colors and shapes and textures they've never put together before. And what is personal development? What is personal growth?

29:21Adam Roa:what is being conscious it is actually just the process of going okay what are the patterns that led me to do the thing i'm doing now or feel the way i'm feeling now and the data points are not sounds and textures and colors the data points are emotions thoughts actions and events and you put those patterns together and you go oh my gosh this is why i have intimacy issues in relationship because of blank, blank, blank, blank, blank. And so the process by which we evolve as conscious beings is a creative process. And therefore creativity is a skill that you can get better at. And so every poem I write is not just about the poem.

30:07Adam Roa:I'm developing the very skill that will allow me to spot the patterns within myself and in the world that allow me to evolve with more grace and more ease. And so that journey of creativity and understanding the power of it was one of suicidal depression, intense breakups, uncovering sexual abuse. And along the way, leaning into the creative process and very specifically filmmaking and acting and poetry as avenues for me to figure myself out and release the pressure of all the emotion that was getting unveiled. Wow. That's huge.

30:55Darin Olien:I love that in the context of our life and who we are, we are inherently creative. And like what pieces do we want to put out or create from within to express these different things i'm curious also how how did this re like if if you want how did this reveal itself it was initially two two back-to-back nights of ayahuasca

31:25Adam Roa:uh or she will do that so that that was the initial and then um various aspects of it for the next several years some plant medicines like aboga oh you did yeah i've done a few aboga journeys um only one ibogaine specifically but so aboga journeys um and then some deep therapy work uh that had no medicine involved right you gotta do the work after that

31:56Darin Olien:i'm curious just like out of my own curiosity uh what was your experience between ayahuasca and aboga or abogaine very different they're

32:10Adam Roa:very different i don't know how much plant medicine experience you uh first ayahuasca was

32:15Darin Olien:99 okay are you early oh gee yeah that was we're gonna we did it it was 98 99 and we did it at the coming out of it on the eve of 2000 oh y2k whether we were gonna have lights on and we're all like we might as well go this route because we're gonna be good and we our lights still turned on so um yeah so that was that was the start dabble with a little microdose but not interested in not doing it under very clear right an outro the the work out outside of that is very very important but that aside yeah what was that like for you i've never i haven't done ibogaine or any of that stuff

33:07Adam Roa:yeah so um i would consider myself at least an ex-psychonaut uh did a lot of of exploration and I always felt more at home in medicine spaces than I did outside of them. It felt like coming home. It felt as though that was the only place I'd ever really felt safe or felt connected to God. It was very interesting. And so I was very drawn to it, and I wondered if I was going to walk a shamanistic path and go. And I've done a couple dietas down in Peru and spent a couple weeks with four hours down the Amazon River and the little villages sitting ayahuasca and stuff. And what I would say is that a boga to me, I mean, there's phases of it, but it really feels like a 48 to 72 hour journey.

34:01I mean, it really, it's not until you fall asleep

34:05Adam Roa:a second time that you kind of start to feel normal. and um it the way that i would describe it is that ayahuasca feels like i'm going and having a meeting a conversation an experience with this spirit of ayahuasca which most people feel as being a very feminine spirit they say it's grandmother medicine and i have very direct conversations and I, it's, it's, it is a back and forth of an experience for me. And then with a it feels as though you suddenly are standing at a translucent shimmery veil between you and the spirit world. You're right there. I mean, it's, it's right there. And a bog is one of the few that you can actually die while taking.

35:04Adam Roa:And so my understanding is that in Gabon Africa, they often use it to speak to the dead. And so it's as if you're in this spirit realm in such a way. But what that also does is the timelines get a little confusing. Like what is, in Ayahuasca, I often leave with this is what to do. here's the action I'm going to take. Okay. That makes sense. Okay. That's how it applies. This is the conversation I get to have. This is the direction I want. And a boga, the best advice I got was from the facilitator who said to me, I was, you might leave with lessons and some very clear action steps, a boga. Try not to, to make too much sense of it right away.

35:51Adam Roa:Just look back in six months and your life's going to be entirely different. And I would say both, both times that I went and did it, uh, that was very true for me. My, my life looked drastically different six months after.

36:07Darin Olien:Wow. Yeah. It's pretty intense when you go, yeah, people can die. So the facilitation has to be, and there's a lot of legislation actually trying to get legalization of a boger right now in the States. Yeah.

36:23Adam Roa:I hope they, I hope they do, man there's a lot of documentaries now about people with ptsd and veterans that are using it

36:29Darin Olien:literally rewires like wipes out that whole network right yeah and then opiate addiction

36:35Adam Roa:it's far more effective for treating addiction and but you would know even better than me just the the speed at which uh there's actual legalized studies being allowed and legalization of things that are proven effective and yet at the same time harder to monetize. It's a very slow process. Yeah.

37:00Darin Olien:Yeah, these things need to be, because all of it can be quickly a negative process if they're not facilitated correctly. That just goes. That's the thing that I have seen for the last 25 years, just like, whoa, that just doesn't feel safe. Or people have been flinging themselves in the middle. I've had people come to me and go, just wait a second. Let me do some digging and find facilitators.

37:30Adam Roa:Well, I have a question for you around this. Cause, cause where my brain goes is so right now in the world of sort of ayahuasca, right on any given night, there's, it's happening in practically every major city in the United States. It's all over the place now. and it's very it's still illegal so it's it's underground and you have a lot of unsafe situations and even if if the medicine itself won't cause you to to necessarily die um i don't think people realize on an energetic and spiritual level the dangers of opening yourself up to these other realms in unsafe containers with with faux shamans that are not able to navigate that space It's, it's, you can pick up things that will lead to mental illness and, and psychotic breaks.

38:19Adam Roa:Like it, it is important for you to be with the right facilitators. Now that's, do you think legalization actually would help? Because I also look at how some of the things that we want to get legalized, like the label organic or whatever, has this whole other element that's not necessarily improving things. So I'm just curious.

38:42Darin Olien:It's a great question. I don't necessarily, because what does legalization mean? Standards, safety. But we're also getting to this other area where I do agree with you from a facilitator standpoint. It's not an academic facilitation. you like it's it's a it's an energetic um deeply understood potentially generational understanding of what this plant is or plants and um i i can tell you quickly we don't have to get fully into it but i probably my third or fourth time way back then i had a break and it was a month of the most beautiful and the hellish experience of my life. Wow. Because I was, and I'm looking for that facilitator for help and they had no idea what to do.

39:48Darin Olien:And so I was walking in the world going, like if we were sitting here, I was like a zombie. You wouldn't even have to be aware of anything. You could be a normal person and go, something's wrong with that guy. Right? But I'm receiving all this information. I'm seeing stuff. I'm hearing stuff. I'm like, and it's not shutting off. And it felt like at the time, I didn't have the skills to navigate that incredible world that was like maybe an ode to Carlos Castaneda's work or something like that where I'm like, Like I, so it was scary as shit on the one hand, but also like, holy cow, this is. So I really had a huge, and, you know, I healed from it.

40:43Darin Olien:And, but I walked away going, whoa, that facilitation is potentially the most important. um and that container that's held uh so you know i i don't know i know when when other hands get into it and the kind of the the left brain let's try to i don't know if that works i'm not sure but but at the same time you have microdosing you have things you have other ways of using the molecule without potentially opening up to other entities and i saw a lot of stuff like yeah like i i was like oh you got a thing on your knee and you gotta like i was seeing all kinds of stuff and um so i don't i don't know i think yes a regulation of some sort needs to happen but But I kind of think it needs to be indigenously focused.

41:54Darin Olien:It needs to be worked together with the true healers who know more about it than all of us combined. It needs to be facilitated from that perspective, not taken on as a Western, fully regulated system. it needs to be done together so whatever that looks like i think but but anyway that's you know and i'm also like i have a part of me that i'm like we do have it all inside of us and so since then i've kind of like i don't need any of that plant medicine because that fucked me up too much and i also i can open up doors pretty easily in my own work um since then you know through breathing and meditation and stuff like that if i just trust and if i just let it happen i can you know i do little self-hypnotic things every day is that intuitive for you or did you yeah yeah it's it's i just start trusting it's just trusting you know like these things are like you take ayahuasca you take these things again i haven't done ibogaine but once you do that it it's it's opening a door and there's no going back and at the same time like i've had some incredible journeys just through an hour two hours of breath work right you know it's powerful oh yeah see all those ancestors what are you guys doing and all kinds of stuff.

43:33But anyway, there's a lot there, clearly.

43:38Darin Olien:There's a lot to plant medicine, and I think it's a powerful tool when done correctly.

43:44Adam Roa:Yeah, it's a whole other can of worms. I guess a follow-up question I have for you is you've been around with your shows. I just saw something. You just got something new greenlit, right?

43:57Darin Olien:Yeah, yeah. So we snuck out a little thing at Sundance. yeah called the roadmap to happiness amazing so i've been filming all like we've been working out for two and a half years and we filmed about half of it we have half of it to go and there was just an opportunity to be at sundance and and reveal and that's a project with a lot of different

44:19Adam Roa:celebrities yeah yeah and so you've been around a lot of these these celebrities and things and a question that i had for you because you just talked about sort of the intuitive opening of doors and the, and the things. Um, and, and you, when you spoke about Kenya and how you saw something, you said, I'm changing this. Yeah. I'm doing something about this. And you made it happen. Yeah. I think most people they're listening, watching you and, and your career and going, you're someone who makes shit happen. You see it and you just make shit happen. And And I'm curious if that's something that you see as a, as a superpower of yours, if it's something that you've trained, because there are people watching and listening to this that are going, wait, you just opened these doors energetically and you just, you like make it happen.

45:13Adam Roa:And they're going, wait, what does that even mean? But I have, I've been around a lot of high performers and they all have this, this thing to create the portal and walk through it. And I'm just curious if you've noticed that, if it's something that you see when you're around a lot of people who've reached certain levels of success.

45:33Darin Olien:Good question. I love how you're flipping this whole podcast on me. But I think, number one, this is a can of worms, but as a kid, I was premature. I almost died at birth. And my father, you know, growing up, I always, so I was kind of behind in a lot of things. And so I kind of had to find a way of working and pursuing and overcoming obstacles super early. And so it developed this, okay, it's not this way, figure out a different way, going to work. like working hard yeah and from minnesota it's like blue collar herb and you know freezing your off and shoveling and stuff like that but so there was this survival side of me that i chose to live my dad recapitulated this to me in a beautiful way before he passed away going i saw the moment you decided to live when you were four three and a half pounds wow and he would say god he's got a heart he's got a he's got it hard like my dad felt bad for me but every time i would be hit with an obstacle i'd figure out a way and so i started developing this i would say yeah probably a superpower it's just um and it you know and then it became healed a lot of that stuff as as i need didn't need to come out of survival to do it yeah um and and because i never felt like i was the most optimal person in any situation that i had to overcome something it then didn't stop me in pursuing something that I cared about.

47:39Darin Olien:So my FOMO didn't exist. It still doesn't. I mean, it does to some degree.

47:45Adam Roa:If you want to, you do.

47:46Darin Olien:Yeah, just in some degree. It's like I never studied film, not one ounce of studying, and I'd done a bunch of stuff, right? Not even being aired. I just want more people to see it. So I think it's just, and it continues to this day, You know, down to earth fell away and it kind of imploded for a million reasons. But like the desire of great people doing great things, wanting to show the world of hope and possibility and solutions and like it wasn't done. So this was stirring in me. So one of my producers from down to earth, we hooked up and said, we got to go. And he goes, yeah, you got to go.

48:36Darin Olien:We have to do this. So that's what we've been working on this whole new series with this huge aperture of happiness with all of these pillars. And I just every time I feel like not enough about it, I just end up doing it. And then I think the internal work has been something that without fail, you know, for the last 30 years, I just, I sit quietly. I listen. I let it, just like a journey. You know, when you're in a journey, you have to surrender. And you surrender to a place inside of yourself that's more obvious when you're in a journey. Less obvious when you're in the normal consciousness. but I just keep working that muscle.

49:30Darin Olien:I keep going on a feeling and let it guide me. And it's as strong as, you know, it feels strong.

49:42Adam Roa:Because you're in that, the silence and stillness every day. It's a practice for you for 30 years. Every day. And is it a style of meditation that you do?

49:53Darin Olien:or is it is it i've followed many and now i just do my thing i just i i listen to some uh this company called a new calm has got this it is beyond binaural beats but it's it puts my brain into a gamma yeah state and in that place it just kind of easier for me to just it calms the body down and then I'm and then coming out of that I either stream of consciousness journeying or I'll go in and just start visualizing I'll scan my body I'll focus on maybe something I'm working on and then and then I do this little I just made it up because it it came to me and I do this little self-hypnosis where I walk up on these stairs into my consciousness.

50:46Darin Olien:I literally see my hand opening the door and then I meet my higher self. And then I start asking him questions. And then he goes back into this glowing library and he starts pulling out books of what I want to focus on. It's trippy. I've never said that publicly before.

51:08Adam Roa:Okay, everybody. Are you

51:10Darin Olien:ready to upgrade your operating system? I know I am. I'm always game to do that. Not just physically, but mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. That's what we're doing over at Super Life Patreon. This isn't just behind the scenes membership. It's a global experiment in conscious living that I am connected to, committed with, in every cell of my body. Each week, you'll get exclusive access to deeper podcast conversations, extended interviews, voice notes from the road of me personally, personal reflections, behind-the-scenes footage, community wellness challenges, and even surprise drop-ins that I no longer do on social media because I don't really dig it anymore.

52:01Darin Olien:We're talking decentralized healing, reclaiming sovereignty, ancient wisdom meets future tech, any tribe of people with you walking the path. If you love this podcast, the Patreon is where we go deeper, get more real, and reclaim our power together. Join us at patreon.com forward slash Darren Olin. That's Patreon, P-A-T-R-E-O-N.com forward slash Darren Olin, D-A-R-I-N-O-L-I-E-N. join the movement support the mission let's rise together well thanks for sharing that's something

52:43Adam Roa:i do so that's what i do when i'm interviewing people on my podcast

52:49Darin Olien:exactly we have a new host of super life we switched something's happened so yeah so anyway but but but because you care about is why we're talking about it and you're a facilitator and you also have done a bunch of that work and uh and i think you know maybe someone takes something away from what i said i didn't give a lot of detail but i think the important thing is listening and eliminating static between you and the creator you and the truth yeah so

53:21Adam Roa:i spent my new year's this year in a darkness retreat we did yeah so i did uh the retreat was eight days and it was five full days in the dark. So for people who aren't familiar, literally in a room that's completely blacked out, uh, they bring you food. They put it through like this one way thing. So there's no light that gets in. Um, but outside of the time they drop off the food once a day and ask and make sure you're okay. You are in complete darkness. You, you, um, yeah. So I spent five full complete days in, in complete pitch black stillness, darkness, et cetera. And, um, I went in, in 2025, I came out in 2026 and, uh, I had this thing because for maybe seven, eight more, more years, uh, I've been fully nomadic and I travel with a little altar.

54:14Adam Roa:So just some sacred items to me, a candle. And every night I sit and pray and have my practices. I meditate every morning. And in November of last year, I stopped and I've just been going through a complete identity deconstruction and sort of going, okay, what's here? What, who do I want to be moving forward? What do I really believe in? I see what's happening on the planet right now. And I feel as though everything that we used to have trust in, no one trusts anymore and everything's destabilized. So people are searching for, for meaning. There's a revival of the church as people go, wow, this is stable.

54:55Adam Roa:And there's a lot that's happening. And I think that for those sensitive to it, they're being asked to find out within ourselves, what are our pillars? What is, what do we stand on individually? And so I thought, well, let me go into the dark and strip everything away where it's just me, just what's up here happening in my head. And I'd stopped praying and I'd stopped, um, sitting at my altar every day. And it's not because I'd stopped believing in God, but it was sort of, uh, what is my faith now? What, what is the version 3.0, 5.0 of this? And I had this very interesting experience where in that stillness, there's obviously the mind there's the thoughts there's the thoughts but then suddenly after a while the thoughts become different there's a different texture to them there's the voice it's still my voice but it's a voice of it's it's like a whisper and it and it lands in a different place in my body and in my brain and i remember having this thought at a certain point and i i go what if that voice is God.

56:18Adam Roa:And I went, well, why, why would my voice sound like me? And then I went, why would it sound like anyone else? And then I had this amazing, this amazing thought where I went, wait a second, this voice, the omnipresent has always been there. I've never been without, has never abandoned me. That voice that's separate than the thoughts, that deeper voice. how do I even know that's my voice? If it is, how do I know it might sound exactly the same in your, to you, because it's the voice of God, but it's always been with you. So you've just thought it's your own voice and it's always been with me. So I've always thought it's my own voice, but we're hearing that voice when we get quiet.

57:02Adam Roa:And so that idea and that concept was a really powerful realization for me of, as I re-navigate my relationship to faith and God and all these things. And it became so clear how much static and how much noise there is. And I mean, not even just inputs from, from the outside, but my reactiveness to those inputs, my desire to pick up the phone and, and do something because sitting and just being feels uncomfortable, that noise has to be sifted through to get to that voice. And so when I hear you share about your process, I hear someone who has built a relationship with that deeper voice and spends time in that relationship.

57:56Adam Roa:And, um, I don't know if that's true, but that's how I receive it. And I think that that's an important distinction that I've even deepened for myself as someone who's been in the work a long time, a lot of medicine journeys, all these things that deeper whisper of a voice um has been something that i've i've been really sitting

58:15Darin Olien:with a lot more recently i love that and and i think that's the that is the work in the modern day world to to take a pause from the from listening to the chaotic mind and then just fumbling around life from that perspective and i think you know the modern world is so distractive that we literally have to put ourselves in a dark cave right to relearn the listening that many indigenous people because we never had this we in an unprecedented time we're we're we're creating more noise exponentially every second that is so distracting from the real truth the real voice and i love that you made that distinction i'm curious like And after you came out of that, how has that integration been for you?

59:27Darin Olien:Do you find that the practice of quote unquote finding that voice or hearing that voice is easier to grab onto or to hear? Like what's been your experience now?

59:43Adam Roa:I think that I'm in the process of figuring out how to find that voice in the modern world. Right. I think that there's so much inertia.

59:58Darin Olien:Yeah. It's like, and you really become aware.

1:00:02Adam Roa:Spend five days in the dark by yourself and then come back to Los Angeles. Absolutely. And just even the psychic static of all the people and all of the technologies and all of the Wi-Fi and all of this stuff is so palpable. And the honest truth is that most people are dealing with some level of like distortion in their fields, in their bodies, whether it's illness physically or whether it's anxiety or whether it, you know what I mean? There's so much fear right now. And, and we are, so the mystical teachings, the mystery schools will say, maybe call something an aura, but science is proving we have that.

1:00:52Adam Roa:What is that thing now? That's the electromagnetic signal that your heart is putting out every single second. And so that tells us that you and I right now, our hearts are sending electromagnetic signals that are interfacing and alchemizing and sending us information about each other with, we don't have to say anything. What do you think happens when you're just walking around a busy city? You are alchemizing with the electromagnetic signals of everyone around you, which is an amalgamation of how they're feeling, their wounds, their traumas, their hopes, their dreams, how they slept, what they ate, all of that stuff.

1:01:30And I think that right now I'm figuring out how to contribute in a meaningful way that's not just more noise and i've shared online the first video

1:01:46Adam Roa:i ever put out online was in 2013 of of me talking to my phone and saying hey this is my name's adam and i'm learning about this thing and that was 2013 so i've been doing it for about 13 years and i haven't posted in a month and that's the first time in 13 years i've got posted a month No stories, no posts, no YouTube videos, nothing for a month. And it's wild to observe guilt come up. It's wild to see shame come up or embarrassment. There's a part of me that thinks I should be speaking up. There's so much happening. I should be doing that. And I'm embarrassed that I'm not. And there's a part that feels guilty as if I have a platform that people are dreaming to have.

1:02:30Adam Roa:I have a gift of being able to speak articulately that, that other people don't, I'm not fulfilling my potential. I'm not utilizing my blessings. So all of this noticing, and at the same time, just stopping for a moment, that's the biggest thing coming out of this, this darkness. I've stayed a lot more still and given myself permission to, to not feel like I have to and waiting until I hit that moment where I, I, I, it comes from a purely inspired place. And when it comes from that authentic place, I know it will be meaningful. And right now I feel I don't have as weird as it sounds. I don't have something that's worth saying.

1:03:21Adam Roa:And so I'm, I'm sitting back right now. That's, that's what's happened since.

1:03:25Darin Olien:I think, dude, I am so happy that you said that. I mean, and you're holding to something that no one can understand but you. You're holding to a very deep integrity. And in the face of all of this stuff, yeah, we can throw out all kinds of information. But I honor that. Thank you. I appreciate that. I have grown to try not to use too many strong words, but I just don't, social media is not safe. And I just personally don't want to put too much personal information out in a certain sense because I just, I'm like, I like these conversations. I like to build from something else. but um i've kind of peeled off and like try to create a community over here where there's more of a opportunity to share openly um without having some bot that is not even a person like like commenting i know right and then you read that one thing and it just derails you

1:04:46Adam Roa:and it's just like i don't think people understand that that a comment from a stranger I've been in, in this, I've taken arrows for many, for over a decade and there will still be a comment that comes through and sticks with me and go, wow. And, and it hits that wound of feeling like there's something off about me, something wrong with me from, from my childhood wounding and going, damn it. You got me. Well done. You got, you got in here. I let you in. Damn it. And I agree with you. I think that to open up vulnerably in unsafe spaces is how we cause trauma. And so the most important thing for us to do is find the safe spaces where we can be authentic and be vulnerable because we have to have these conversations.

1:05:37Adam Roa:We have to be able to talk about what is happening. And I loved, I told you, I listened to you on Rich Roll's podcast. And one of the things you said is I wrote this book and I'm, I'm saying these things because I just want people to be talking about it.

1:05:51Darin Olien:Yeah.

1:05:52Adam Roa:We let's not put our head in the sand and let's just talk about it. And it's so challenging to talk about it because you could say anything and, and people are going to attack you from, from one side, the next, or both sides. If you try one side, the other side's attacking you. If you try and be in the middle, both sides are attacking you. It's a really challenging time. And so I love that to hear that you're creating these spaces where it's safe to have those conversations.

1:06:20Darin Olien:Yeah, it's like, you know, if you struggle with alcohol, an unsafe place is to go into a bar, right? So it's like if we realize some of these platforms are unsafe and I have a lot to say about whatever, why would we put ourselves in the middle of a of a of a unsafe community so it's you know you know it's that and and that and i agree like we like oh my god i should be posting i should like i am not living from should and and and i think if everyone kind of took a little heed of that information and what we just talked about right now and like i need to do it because of this and that uh every time my team i love my team but like sometimes when they like well you do this and you break the algorithm like i don't give a shit yeah right it's like i am also working here i'm working from here and from from the from that perspective backwards not from trying to figure out the algorithms to somewhere else like that's just not how I work um crazy love yeah what's that what's that new book yeah so crazy love is my book coming out in May uh it is

1:07:49Adam Roa:a collection of poems and actual real journal entries oh wow all around the arc of love and relationship. And I mean, journal entries, I never thought I would ever be sharing with anyone, let alone the entire world. I mean, journal entries when I was contemplating suicide, journal entries where I was trying to figure out, is it okay if I slept with a woman when I knew I didn't want anything more? Like, is that okay? I don't actually know. I communicated it, but I still feel bad. And so like, it's, I'm not cool. I'm figuring it out. It's messy. It's ugly. It's painful, but, um, it's aligned with the, everything that we're talking about where I, I've, you know, even though what's gone viral for me has been my poetry.

1:08:42Adam Roa:And that's a big part of why I get invited to do keynote speeches and things like that. My business has been primarily coaching. So one-on-one coaching group programs and masterminds and that sort of thing. And I felt so less called to telling people how to live their life. I feel so less called to like, here are the ways in which you can accomplish blah, blah, blah, blah. It's not that I don't still have opinions about it, but there's a million other people that are telling you that stuff. You know, there's a lot of people telling you how to live your life these days, you know? And so the book also for me is I'm not trying to tell you anything.

1:09:28Adam Roa:I'm not saying here's how to do anything. I'm saying, here's all the ways that I have tripped and fallen and my heart's been shattered. And I've tried to figure it out the most real authentic raw way I can show it, which is my private journals and my poetry and my art. And hopefully in there, you'll see something of value for yourself. You'll see yourself woven in some of those inquiries. You'll feel your own heartbreak and, and, and see the way that I was able to start piecing myself back together. And it'll give you the next key in your journey and i'm interested in letting letting my real authentic experience speak for itself and let people fill in the blanks and that's why i'm excited really for this book to come out because it's in alignment with this new like it's not a self-help book in in that traditional sense it is a self-revelation book for you to find yourself

1:10:33Darin Olien:reflected back wow i mean there's so much that i think about when you said that because it's the antithesis of of social media because they're trying to be perfect and do the perfect thing and all that stuff but the thing that i initially feel when you say that is we're all trying to figure this out we're all messy we're all the same in that sense you know this is having a human experience is not easy you know and and trying to find ourselves through the mess is, is the opportunity. So to vulnerably share, I didn't think I could read my journal

1:11:26Adam Roa:entries cause they're all scratchy, but, um, bro, I, to, to write the book, I flew to Spain with a, a box that I shipped of all the journals I've kept since 2007. And I just started chronologically reading through them and post-it noting things and whatever, trying to figure out how I wanted to compile this and i read through every journal multiple times and it was like reading a really long book and you're sick of the main character after page one like that was that was it god what a miserable whiny little bitch oh my god i have to listen to this guy for the next decade And the wild thing was that I was journaling about the same topics, fears, and insecurities in 2007 as 2020.

1:12:19Adam Roa:And it was so powerful because the way that the book is structured is this arc of dream love, like the idealized love and the desire for it and the longing for it. And then not quite love the, the, the section where I'm like, I wish it was you, but it's not. And I know it's not. And then the scary love, cause you meet the person, you know, it's something. And the first thing that happens is suddenly your fears start arising and then it's the beautiful love. But then it's the painful love where you're trying, you see it starting to crack and you're trying to hold it together and then it breaks and you have to put yourself back together.

1:12:52Adam Roa:And it's this arc, it's multiple relationships, but it reads like one relationship because that's what I realized when I was going through it. It's I'm caught in these loops. I'm caught in the, in the same cycles. And then I, when I see everyone else around me, I'm going, so are they. And then I went, actually, that's just love. That's crazy love. That is, that is the craziness of love. It is this innate thing. Like you were talking about climbing the stairs and you're meeting, there's a feeling in us and we are being drawn to that thing. And it looks different for everyone, but it is love. Even if it's not a person, it can be a place, a thing, a dream.

1:13:37Adam Roa:And it is love that is pulling us forward. And as we approach it, we all start to have our fears and our insecurities and our doubts come up and then it's going to die at some point. You know, even if you spend your life together with that person, you are going to have so many iterations of who you are and what your relationship is. My parents just celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary. There are so many versions of them that they've been through. And they lost everything in 2008 when the bubble burst. And my dad at 60 years old, having been a property owner now, has to start delivering packages.

1:14:19Adam Roa:it broke my heart to see my father in his 60s delivering packages because he rolled the dice and and lost in a lot of ways and in their 60s they had to figure out a new version of their marriage and and who they are now and what their future looked like and so we that cycle is constant and i got to see it myself over and over and over again and it was very helpful because now I can be in the grace of even where I'm at right now of going, I don't know what's next, man. I don't, I don't have, I mean, I have stuff to say in these environments, but I also, yeah, like you guys listening to this, if you don't want to listen, take a single thing that I'm saying to heart.

1:15:09Adam Roa:Okay, great. I have no reason to convince anybody of anything but i also think that if we're real and if we're authentic truly and i mean the vulnerable the embarrassing the ugly the whatever the parts that most people try and hide if we we let that be seen i think that that is the the single most important thing that we can do because

1:15:34Darin Olien:nobody's got this shit figured out nobody nobody right and if they and if you think they do that's the dupe right it's the guru thing and that's what social media would would have you

1:15:49Adam Roa:believe yeah like just do these three things have your morning routine be exactly this and like here's the the framework of a date night that will bring re-inspire your relationship and there's just, it's like the algorithm is feeding you things to believe that there's an algorithm to how to solve anything. And, and it's so much more complex than that.

1:16:11Darin Olien:Yeah.

1:16:14Darin Olien:My first thought is, okay, so what are the takeaways today of this conversation? You know, listen, I think there's no, I mean, I, I, I get so much courage from, from that's the word that sticks out for me with you and you know it is it is um it's not easy to dive into all of the infallibilities all of the insecurities all of the unlovable places but god that had to be an incredible therapy session putting that together to be able to, instead of having a counselor that you go to every year, and then hopefully they start reflecting things back to you, but you actually started reflecting yourself back to you and you're going, oh my God, look at this loop.

1:17:10Darin Olien:Look at this same story. Look at this. Like, what was your, because that's, that's its own journey. It's almost like took you longer, than an ayahuasca but ayahuasca can walk you through any one of these plant medicines walk you through that shit pretty quick too right but you did it in a reading your old journal entries like did you feel like going through that that there was this huge i guess um breakthrough or relief or release. A hundred percent.

1:17:53Adam Roa:Yeah. It was, it gave me, so it gave me the awareness.

1:17:58Darin Olien:Yeah.

1:17:59Adam Roa:And a lot of people confuse awareness for change. Right. They go to the ayahuasca ceremony or the personal development, Tony Robbins seminar or whatever it is, and they become aware of why they might've done something or aware of their behavior pattern. And they think that they're changed. Right. And they're not changed. Awareness gives us choice. And then making new choices is how we change. And so becoming aware of these loops in such a clear way that was undeniable and seeing it be 12 years of my life, the same loops, gave me the opportunity to opt out and say, I'm done with that pattern. I'm done with it.

1:18:46Adam Roa:and uh two weeks after completing my time in spain and having finished the draft of the book and making that decision i met my now partner we've been dating for more than a year and the healthiest relationship i've ever been in really and um so i do know something shifted yeah your

1:19:05Darin Olien:field you go back to the fields that you're in your field changes you can take in other things because you're not attracting all of that other shit.

1:19:15Adam Roa:Absolutely, 100%. And so I think that that is the power of art again, coming kind of full circle, is when we create, we're creating from our current consciousness, right? And it becomes this time capsule. And so that was actually been one of the biggest struggles of the book for me, has been I'm not that person anymore. Right. And yet here it is, you know, I'm doing poems from it again and I'm going like, I'm not there anymore. And some of them I go, wow, there was so much depth and wisdom in that, that I didn't even fully understand when it came through me. And then there's other ones where I go, wow, that's a lot of victim consciousness wrapped in there that I didn't realize at the time.

1:20:02Adam Roa:And, and it's just amazing. These little, these, these time capsules. And I encourage people to, whether it's journal entries, whether it's artistic creations, to look back. They say, if you don't learn from history, you're doomed to repeat it, right? Well, what about our personal history? That's so applied to this almost on a national, international level, the Roman Empire. Okay, what about just Adam Roa? What about my own personal history? I'm going to keep repeating the patterns until I learn from them and make new choices and opt out and more intentionally choose who I want to be.

1:20:42Darin Olien:You know, it begs to illuminate this idea that not that out there or the world isn't doing anything wrong or it's doing anything good per se, but when it triggers, you said it earlier, when it triggers back at your own pain, we sometimes miss these opportunities of of of our own healing and then go well change that if that person wouldn't wouldn't have done that or needs to do that and then it becomes this missed opportunity and it becomes an outward like change it and i'll be better right if you didn't do that i wouldn't be in pain in a closer relationship you know it's it's it's and i love that you went through this arc of all of these journals and then also saw from a different perspective going wow there's the opportunity but i was looping for five years seven years of the same thing but yet there was this pin that if i would have saw it then i could have pulled it and things would have changed and that's it's not easy to do in the moment but every time like how am I feeling with what's going on in any part of my life those are access points of the healing of the possibility of the reflection and that's where I think opportunity is always trying to get us back home to ourselves you know and and it's it's a constant uh vigilance on our own so what do you think for you now kind of moving forward how do you know as life happens and you're going to go out this door and traffic and and people and people are going to call you and people are going to be bummed out or whatever happens.

1:22:50Darin Olien:And then you said it too, that you're trying to move in life with that muscle of accessing that deeper voice that you got in the, in the darkness. What are some of the things that are helping you, um, um, listen from that place and take alternative, uh, choices?

1:23:17Adam Roa:I think, not to sound like a broken record, but my art, my creative practices, writing poetry is a big one. And then also allowing myself permission to do things that don't seem to serve a purpose. You know what I mean? How so? I've gotten back into reading fantasy novels.

1:23:43Darin Olien:I love wizards and warriors and that kind of stuff.

1:23:46Adam Roa:I just, I love it. And so I've started to read those again after years of only reading personal development books or that sort of thing.

1:23:55Darin Olien:It's never fiction. It's only nonfiction. Right.

1:23:58Adam Roa:Or watching shows like Peaky Blinders. I heard that's great. So I started watching Peaky Blinders and allowing myself that instead of only documentaries and things that I could justify as somehow furthering something. um and so giving myself space again um to play to be a nerd i i've got into uh playing magic the gathering the the card game wizards and things i used to play when i was a kid and i went what do i remember i just in that inquiry what did i remember doing as a kid i used to play magic gathering okay let me get into magic gathering and then ideas start popping up from that right Like I also used to be a Dungeons and Dragons nerd.

1:24:40Adam Roa:I loved playing Dungeons and Dragons with my friend. And I started thinking, wouldn't it be cool to lead a Dungeons and Dragons like group that's personal development based? So as you're playing the game, you're actually working on like owning your voice or courage or whatever. You could find a way to do that. And I just, I noticed that these things that I judged as not being productive.

1:25:04Darin Olien:Or not spiritual.

1:25:05Adam Roa:Not spiritual or not whatever. I'm giving myself more permission and I don't know if that's a modality, but it feels like a practice for me right now because I've been the, I come from an athletic background. I was a wrestler and, and just discipline is not hard for me. Relaxing and not making it so military strict. that's harder for me to feel like I could just allow myself to play video games for a couple hours hard right right work doing eight zoom calls on a single day because I'm moving something forward that wasn't hard for me so I guess I'm finding balance by moving in this other direction and being more gentle more soft more patient and then following curiosity is the piece I believe that life is a soul scavenger hunt.

1:26:04Adam Roa:I believe that the clues that are left for us are left through love, curiosity, and inspiration. And that's how God guides us. What is that thing that you've always been curious about? And that thing, that pottery making class, like I'm going to take that thing. It may have nothing to do. It doesn't have to become a career. So many people are not following curiosity because they don't know how they're going to make money from it or how it's going to lead to something for all you know that pottery class is just where you meet your future wife right right or or maybe you you make a friend who recommends this thing or maybe pottery leads to resin paintings and who knows but i'm i'm really wanting to allow myself more grace and that's my current practice that and writing poetry still i love that and it's like

1:26:56Darin Olien:that's personal to you and someone listening maybe they slack off too much and they're not

1:27:02Adam Roa:cold plunges and saunas and they need they need some discipline to tan their butthole yeah yeah

1:27:07Darin Olien:yeah exactly don't not too long yeah not too long um that that peel is really bad uh but but you know that again that's listening to what it's having enough awareness over you yourself and then And almost being your own practitioner of what's good for you. And again, instead of looking out there at someone else going, they have this success and so I should listen to them. Nothing wrong with that. But going through the awareness of what's going on inside of you and understanding you. And I like that it seems as though you've really spent the time seeing what Adam's architecture is or was. so that you can go, well, what's working, what isn't, and then how about allow for grace and play and pursuing things, and that's what you need.

1:28:05Adam Roa:I mean, do you ever hit burnout? Oh, hell yeah. I was going to say, you do so much, man.

1:28:11Darin Olien:I'm in a similar place where push, push, push, push is really easy to the point where I'm like, I am toast. and and 2025 was tons of physical pain tons of stuff like that where i was i literally couldn't do it anymore so um so i literally couldn't do it anymore and then i had to fully surrender and now it's a it's a level of wow what if you don't have to push what if it's a level of presence you could be and in yourself and back to attraction rather than pushing how what year did that shift for you 2025 was so last year was was just yeah it was well it's been pushed the entire time but right was the was the breaking point it was like operating system is tapped and so at what point

1:29:16Adam Roa:that this conscious decision i want to go back into magnetism um is probably only in the last two to three months okay so similar similar to me yeah interesting yeah yeah very interesting

1:29:30Darin Olien:it was like i i had no other choice and it was from the pain old injuries like nothing worked i couldn't kind of finagle around them and then keep going yeah like all my tricks didn't work yeah and i was like holy shit i'm tapped and so i went in i started investigating super super super pain and then go oh where have i felt that before and like fucking took me all the way back to birth wow and i was like holy shit and i'm still i still go back and re i re uh birth myself literally I'm rebirthing because I had a lot of there was a lot of trauma that was Imposed when you they thought this kid was gonna be dead right right so I'm literally just Recapitulating the whole thing every day Wow even even this morning Like just going oh what would it be like to actually be on my mom's chest rather than stuck in an incubation Cube and not have contact with my mom for three weeks.

1:30:37Darin Olien:That's how I started well and we know that you can die that way. And I almost did. So I was like, holy shit. And I was like, well, I can actually change that. My nervous system immediately changed. The first time I did that and I just let myself visualize it, my body just went... And ever since then, it's just been changing. And so it's like... that energy i've been carrying for my entire life do it do it go go i'll be better i'll i'll be you

1:31:12Adam Roa:know all that's being rewritten beautiful super important and it sounds similar to what i was saying before of of we're being asked to like you're stripping back to birth yeah really stripping back i went to the darkness like the womb of just strip it all away exactly strip it all away and, and see who do I want to be? What are my values? What do I want for my life? These sorts of questions. Um, because we are collectively re negotiating what, what society is right now. And if we're, if we're not intentional about that design, um, someone

1:31:56Darin Olien:else is going to decide it for us yeah and that's the beautiful opportunity not easy but it's actually it might be easy it's just the it's just the pain that you have to look at that like i was fucking holding i didn't realize like i'm 55 years old i'm like what the fuck like how the fuck am i still holding on to that you know it's like you party like jesus christ

1:32:27Adam Roa:i don't want to do this right it's like does it ever end just another another thing yeah but the answer is no it doesn't ever end no it doesn't but but the relief the breath the new operating like oh my god it's a new operating system thank god well brother i feel like we can talk forever

1:32:50Darin Olien:yeah it's been great conversation um and i crazy love yeah comes out in may comes out in may people

1:32:58Adam Roa:i think everyone will relate yeah and i would love to leave you with a poem oh my god one one

1:33:05Darin Olien:i don't think you've heard probably okay um please uh but this one specifically i wanted to do for

1:33:11Adam Roa:you because your work i'll let the art speak for itself but but this one's for you and everyone listening and this piece is called heaven. Everyone take a nice deep inhale and exhale.

1:33:32Adam Roa:The most impactful thing you can do for the world is learn how to love life, all of life. Show people that being happy doesn't mean turning a blind eye to the pain and the sadness and the suffering that happens here. Show them that choosing love doesn't mean ignoring fear. It just means being willing to feel. And those brave souls will always heal as long as they maintain the courage to feel. Because the fear of feelings really at the root of every fear, which creates a fear of living because feelings why we're here. So you can fight the fact that feelings past have felt so freaking hard, but it's the very fact you have felt all that that feels like the part we should celebrate, investigate, learn to navigate with ease.

1:34:17Adam Roa:Your emotions are the gift God gives you every time you breathe. Energy in motion with the strength to bring a king down to his knees, and yet contained within emotion is the key to set you free. Yes, contained within emotion is the gift of what being human is, a chance to feel all of life from deep sorrow to deep bliss. And you might wish the two would split, but the twist is that they'll always coexist because even the heartbreak you hate today had the way paved by a lover's kiss. So you can write your list of how life's a bitch, but don't forget the asterisk because for all the times you went through shit, it fertilized a lot of gifts.

1:34:56But if you only focus on what you lack, you can't appreciate what you've got.

1:35:01Adam Roa:But with gratitude for what you have, you can see that it's a lot. And that is the difference between abundance and scarcity. It's not about what you have, it's about what you see. So the next time you forget how blessed you be, take a moment and focus on the next breath you breathe. The next time you forget how blessed you be, take a moment and focus on the next breath you breathe. And notice, you're right here with me. A miracle, a great mystery, out of hundreds of trillions of stars and hundreds of billions of galaxies, Somehow, someway you're here today with me and we all breathe on a spinning sphere of chemicals spiraling through the universe.

1:35:45Adam Roa:You were once one of 200 million sperm. You just happened to get there first. So how could you ever say you're cursed? You've been blessed since before your birth and you might not think you have it best, but it could definitely be worse. And if you don't believe that yet, go tell the deaf what you just heard. If you don't like what you see, go tell the blind how much it hurts. On your hardest day, when you really want to walk away, go tell the paraplegic how it's unfair. Share how you want to run from all your problems while he's pushed everywhere in a chair. And I'm not saying that life is fair or that it's easy.

1:36:23Adam Roa:We all go through a lot, but as you walk through the valley of the shadow of death, don't lose gratitude for the fact that you walk. Celebrate the fact that you can dance and sing. Embrace the abundance in the very act when you talk. Because when you can spot abundance in the simplest things, that's when more abundance unlocks. The simplest things. Taste and touch and breath and smell. Did you know there are people with something called anosmia, which means their sense of smell is completely lost. So while they literally can't smell the roses, do you want to complain you don't have the time to stop?

1:37:02Adam Roa:Because this life is the only one that you've got. And there are people who would trade places with you without a second thought. So no matter how many tears, heartbreaks, or bad days you pay, the cemetery is full of souls that know living is worth the cost. Don't wait till it's too late to learn that lesson. Living is worth the cost. But make no mistake, Being alive is not the same thing as living. Just like throwing something away is not the same thing as giving. So if you haven't yet found your love of life, I suggest you keep on digging and allow yourself to feel your way through all the hurt and all the rage.

1:37:44Adam Roa:And as you feel, allow yourself to finally turn the page. That's how we heal. and it might hurt like hell, but you'll have shown us we'll be okay to feel it all and still love life. That's heaven. And you'll have helped pave the way. That's heaven. Can you feel it? Heaven is here today.

1:38:17Darin Olien:Thank you, brother.

1:38:18Adam Roa:You're very welcome. Thank you for having me. man thank you for all the work that you do it's really inspiring and it's very much needed and

1:38:24Darin Olien:appreciated it's only just begun thank you