Explore every episode of the podcast Know Thyself

Elizabeth Gilbert joins me for her first public conversation after a six month sabbatical, a stretch where she stopped writing, producing, and planning so she could simply be available to life. Liz is the author of "Eat, Pray, Love", "Big Magic", and her memoir "All the Way to the River". In this conversation she speaks openly about the daily practice of two-way prayer that guides her choices, her recovery from sex and love addiction, and the story of loving her partner Raya through terminal cancer and active drug addiction.

What We Dive Into:

1. Liz describes feeling trapped many times in her life, most painfully while caring for Raya through cancer and active addiction. Each time, the only way out was the truth she least wanted to tell, and naming where she was lying, hiding, or manipulating is what finally set her free.

2. Recovery taught Liz that no partner, payoff, or praise could fill her sense of scarcity around love. Sitting with the part of her that wailed for someone else at three in the morning, and promising to stay anyway, slowly built a secure attachment to herself that no other person could provide.

3. Liz no longer believes everyone must create, but she believes everyone is invited. Success can never be promised, yet telling the story within you will change who you are by the end. As AI grows more capable, the lasting reason to make things may be the one our ancestors had: it is pleasing.

Know Thyself, but not by yourself. A guided space to return home to yourself.

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___________

00:00 Intro

02:30 The Call to Stop

08:30 Listening for a Higher Voice

19:25 How to Recognize the Ego

26:05 The Public, Private, and Secret Self

29:12 Writing From Healed Scars

33:43 Love and Secrecy With Raya

41:10 Codependency and the Truth That Frees

47:06 Generosity With Strings Attached

53:43 Searching for Enough Love

1:00:42 The Inner Child Left Unchecked

1:03:29 Life After Seven Years of Recovery

1:11:46 Redefining Creative Living

1:19:42 Buried Treasure and Ancestral Joy

1:22:44 Ideas as Living Entities

1:30:16 Creating Without Assurances

1:33:44 The Discipline Behind Inspiration

1:38:56 Art Scars and Reclaiming Play

1:45:32 Creativity in the Age of AI

1:50:43 The Practice of Two-Way Prayer

1:55:13 Asking for Our Instructions

2:01:26 Five Days in Darkness

2:06:21 What It Means to Know Thyself

___________

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My guest today is Tom Bilyeu, the entrepreneur behind Quest Nutrition who went on to build Impact Theory into one of the most watched long form interview channels in the world. Tom is now building a procedurally generated video game called Kyzen, and in recent years his content has shifted away from personal development and toward economics, artificial intelligence, and the systems that quietly shape how we live. I wanted to sit with him inside that shift, to understand what pulled him away from the mindset conversation he had mastered and toward questions about money, power, and the trajectory of intelligence itself.

What We Dive Into:

1. Tom credits his success to a simple loop: predict an outcome, run the experiment, and stay honest about what actually happened. He treats being wrong as useful data rather than a threat to his identity, which lets him adjust quickly instead of defending a position that clearly isn't working anymore.

2. Tom argues that meaning isn't discovered but handed to us by evolution as an empty box we get to fill. For him that box holds his wife and his work, and he believes people struggle most when whatever filled the box, a job, a role, a relationship, disappears and nothing takes its place.

3. Tom's core financial message is that not owning assets quietly erodes your purchasing power through inflation, whether you notice it or not. He believes the escape route is available to almost anyone, but most people never take the step of investing consistently over decades instead of waiting for certainty.

Know Thyself, but not by yourself. A guided space to return home to yourself.

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___________

00:00 Intro

01:50 The Evolution of the Show

05:02 Between What Was and What's Next

08:53 The Spark of Divinity and What Tom Is Building

13:52 Nature, Nurture, and Leverage

15:49 The Physics of Progress

19:35 Facing Ego and Inadequacy

24:08 Feeling Most Alive

25:58 A New Virtual World

27:36 The Coming Bifurcation of Civilization

36:52 Superintelligence and Universal Abundance

40:27 Four Futures and How Soon

50:59 Simulation Theory and Consciousness

1:04:13 Why Something Rather Than Nothing

1:10:17 Letting Go of Certainty

1:21:39 A Communion of Subjects

1:30:22 Meaning in a Disenchanted Age

1:40:42 Who Is Tom Without His Ambition

1:42:10 Rewriting Value in a Post-Scarcity World

1:45:55 How the Money System Is Rigged

1:59:15 Is a Crash Coming

2:02:22 A Message to the West and P(doom)

2:09:57 Why Tom Came On the Show

2:12:15 Rewiring at the Root and What's Sacred

2:18:25 The Movie of Your Life and Your Blind Spot

2:21:16 Utility, Novelty, and Fulfillment

2:25:20 The Most Transcendent Moment

2:27:24 Dabbling in Meditation

2:29:13 The Case for First Principles

2:32:30 From Adyashanti to Kyzen

2:38:20 Outro

___________

✨MORE FROM TOM BILYEU

↳YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TomBilyeu

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Matthew Hussey is back on the show, and this conversation picks up right where our last one left off, except he's grown a lot since then. Matthew built his early career on a simple idea: create more opportunity and you'll make better romantic choices. Over time he realized abundance alone doesn't fix anything. The real work lives underneath, in the unconscious patterns and emotional reflexes that decide who we choose and how we behave once we have them. That discovery pushed his focus toward emotional regulation, and it's the thread running through everything we talk about today.

What We Dive Into:

1. Matthew built his early career on the idea that more romantic opportunity leads to better choices. He later realized abundance does not override the unconscious patterns formed by our earliest relationships. Real change comes from understanding those patterns, not expanding the pool of options.

2. When someone does not text back for hours and a whole day unravels, the reaction is rarely about the message itself. Matthew describes triggers as reflexive states shaped by earlier wounds, not conscious choices. Curiosity and self-compassion, not shame, create room to respond differently.

3. Matthew traces his readiness for commitment to a relationship built on certainty and standards at once: his wife made clear she was giving it an honest try and expected the same. That let him stop fearing the future and start showing up fully, since the decision no longer sat on him alone.

Know Thyself, but not by yourself. A guided space to return home to yourself.

https://www.knowthyselfcollective.com

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___________

00:00 Intro

01:09 Why the Focus Shifted to Relationships

09:26 How Perspective Shifts With Experience

11:41 Relationship as a Path to Growth

17:11 The Fear Beneath Commitment

34:24 Commitment as Freedom, Not Loss

48:15 Spreading Your Needs Across a Tribe

51:50 What's Actually Essential in a Partner

1:00:37 Choosing a True Teammate

1:07:11 Being Whole Before You Partner Up

1:19:37 The Gift of Real Presence

1:26:07 What Men and Women Actually Need

1:34:33 Beyond Masculine and Feminine Labels

1:36:41 The Illusions and Joys of Parenthood

1:41:37 Letting Go of the Achievement Identity

1:50:27 Working With Emotional Triggers

2:10:08 The Dance of Acceptance and Growth

2:12:18 Life as an Earth School

2:20:23 Learning From Different Wiring

2:22:46 The Power of Shared Vulnerability

2:30:20 Closing Reflections

2:32:36 Outro

___________

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I sat down with Dr. Shefali, clinical psychologist trained at Columbia and the voice behind the Conscious Parenting Movement for over two decades, to explore what it really means to parent from awareness instead of ego. We talk about the illusion of the perfect parent, why children are our greatest mirrors, and how the wounds we carry from our own childhoods get passed down unless we do the work to see them clearly. Dr. Shefali doesn't offer a script. She offers a practice of humility, one that asks us to look at ourselves before we look at our kids.

What We Dive Into:

1. Dr. Shefali explains that most parenting struggles trace back to ego, the desire to control, to be right, to see your child as an extension of your own unmet dreams. Real conscious parenting means constantly questioning whether your actions come from your child's essence or your own unresolved story.

2. Without rites of passage or male mentors, boys are left to figure out masculinity through porn and the manosphere. Dr. Shefali argues that testosterone, purpose, and physical challenge need healthy outlets, and that community, not isolation, is what turns raw masculine energy into something protective and grounded.

3. Dr. Shefali describes how social media exploits children's developing brains, especially girls', feeding insecurity and manufacturing endless standards to chase. She calls it algorithmic abduction, a process that outsources parenting itself and leaves children disconnected from their own inner voice.

Know Thyself, but not by yourself. A guided space to return home to yourself.

https://www.knowthyselfcollective.com

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___________

00:00 Intro

01:51 Defining Conscious Parenting

03:35 Inviting Grace Into Parenting

07:20 Children as the Ultimate Mirror

10:25 Where Support Slips Into Control

11:07 Protecting the Developmental Years

14:05 What a Human Birth Means

17:17 Nature, Nurture, and the Cost of Pushing

21:43 Why Raise Sons and Daughters Separately

26:01 The War on Little Boys

30:54 What the Manosphere Gets Right

38:10 Male Loneliness and Silence

42:45 The Father Wound

47:08 What Conscious Masculinity Looks Like

52:08 Algorithmic Abduction of Girls

58:20 Empowering Girls Beyond Appearance

1:02:31 Boundaries and Sharing Power

1:09:28 Dr. Shefali's Own Hardest Lesson

1:14:43 Preparing to Become a Parent

1:16:42 Parenting With a Misaligned Partner

1:22:13 Sibling Differences and Favoritism

1:33:09 Escaping the Perception Prison

1:38:05 The Mother Bind

1:40:50 Confused Messages About Sexuality

1:45:05 The Machine Behind It All

1:55:16 Closing Message to Parents

___________

✨MORE FROM DR. SHEFALI↳New Raising Conscious Sons / Daughters Books: https://www.drshefali.com/raisingconscious-daughters-sons/↳Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/doctorshefali/↳YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/ ⁨@doctorshefali⁩  ↳https://www.drshefali.com

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John Wineland has spent nearly twenty years teaching people how to love more deeply, and in this conversation he lays out why intimacy has become one of the most demanding spiritual practices available to us. We talk about why relationships surface our oldest wounds, why the partner we choose so often mirrors the exact pattern we grew up in, and why that mirroring is not a mistake but an invitation to heal. John also opens up about his daughter Claire, who passed away eight years ago, and what her life and death taught him about grief, presence, and unconditional love.

What We Dive Into:

1. John explains that whatever part of you remains unhealed keeps transmitting into the world, and it draws a partner with the opposite wound so you can replay your childhood dynamic together. He frames this pattern as an opportunity rather than a flaw, since the relationship that triggers you most is often showing you exactly what needs attention.

2. Years of unspoken fear shape how we stand, breathe, and hold tension, so real change requires more than insight alone. John describes training the nervous system through practices like breathwork and qigong so the body can stay open in moments that would normally trigger defense, attack, or withdrawal, which is where lasting change actually happens.

3. Reflecting on his daughter Claire, John shares that there is no end to grief because there is no end to love. He describes honoring grief as an act of self love rather than something to rush past, and encourages anyone facing loss to give that grief real space instead of staying busy to avoid feeling it.

Know Thyself, but not by yourself. A guided space to return home to yourself.

https://www.knowthyselfcollective.com

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___________

00:00 Intro

01:48 The Historical Evolution of Love

05:45 Why We Attract Our Reciprocal Wound

08:17 When Relationships Deepen the Wound

10:48 The ROI of Doing the Work

14:30 The Four Pillars of Divine Union

22:56 Safety, Belonging, and Being Loved

26:34 The Wound of Being a Man

31:47 Patterns in Men's Work

37:49 What the Manosphere Gets Right

40:03 Why Men Stay Silent

46:47 Masculine and Feminine as Universal Forces

55:12 Energetic Polarity and the Three Kinds of No

1:01:22 Liberation Through Relationship

1:03:23 Staying Connected Through Busy Seasons

1:10:14 John's Own Attachment Wound

1:15:51 What Claire Taught Him About Love

1:24:00 Should I Stay or Should I Go

1:33:41 Healing Generational Trauma

1:44:45 Preparing for Divine Partnership

1:49:02 The Practice of Incremental Improvement

1:52:01 Closing and Where to Find John

___________

✨MORE FROM JOHN WINELAND↳Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/john_wineland/↳YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@JohnWineland↳Teacher Training: https://johnwineland.com/teacher-training/↳Men's Leadership Training: https://johnwineland.com/embodied-mens-leadership-training/https://johnwineland.com

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Dr. David Spiegel is the Wilson Professor and Associate Chair of Psychiatry at Stanford, the co-founder of the hypnosis app Reveri, and one of the world's leading clinical researchers on hypnosis. He has worked with over 7,000 patients across 50 years, and in this conversation he opened with something I did not expect: he tested my hypnotizability live on camera. I scored a nine out of ten. What followed was one of the most genuinely surprising conversations about the mind I have had on this show.

What We Dive Into:

1. The self you walk around with is not a fixed structure. Dr. Spiegel calls it a convenient assumption, something the brain constructs to simplify experience. Hypnosis reveals this by demonstrating how quickly and completely a person can shift, often in a single session.

2. Memories are not neutral recordings. They are laid down and retrieved from brain regions that manage affect, which means the emotion and the memory are inseparable. Working with a memory hypnotically allows you to enter it, update its emotional meaning, and change how it lives in you.

3. The same capacity that lets a child survive abuse by mentally leaving their body can, in adulthood, become a habitual distance from experience. Understanding whether your detachment is a protective skill or an old survival pattern still running is one of the more honest questions this conversation surfaces.

Know Thyself, but not by yourself. A guided space to return home to yourself.

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___________

00:00 Intro

01:52 What Hypnosis Actually Is

05:34 The Malleability of Personality and Self

07:01 How Trauma Gets Stored in the Body and Memory

12:00 Hypnosis as the Oldest Western Psychotherapy

15:13 What Happens in the Brain During Hypnosis

18:36 The Default Mode Network and the "My Fault" Network

22:29 How Hypnotizability Is Measured

30:28 What High and Low Hypnotizability Looks Like in Life

33:58 Live Demo: Testing André's Hypnotizability

40:11 Dissociation: Adaptive Defense and Pathological Trap

45:50 How to Use Hypnosis for Stress and Performance

49:07 Hypnosis vs. Meditation: Being vs. Doing

54:41 Flow State, Golf, and the Art of Process Over Outcome

58:13 Believing Is Seeing: The Color Perception Experiment

1:01:00 Perception as a Generative, Interpretive Act

1:03:29 Emotions as Signals and Hypnosis as a Flashlight

1:07:01 Smoking, Self-Respect, and Reframing Addiction

1:09:08 Dr. Spiegel's Path: A Genetic Illness in the Family

1:15:44 Dissociative Identity Disorder and the Many Selves

1:19:54 If There's No Solid Self, Who Are We?

1:22:04 Collective Trance and Societal Hypnosis

1:26:50 Reverie and Empowering Innate Abilities

1:27:12 Closing Message: Learn More About Your Innate Abilities

___________

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Rizwan Virk is an MIT-trained computer scientist, video game pioneer, and bestselling author of The Simulation Hypothesis. His work sits at a rare intersection: quantum physics, Eastern mysticism, and the architecture of video games, all pointing toward the same unsettling and strangely liberating conclusion. In this conversation, we explore not the nihilistic version of simulation theory, but the one that actually gives life more meaning rather than less.

What We Dive Into:

1. The simulation Rizwan describes is not one where you are code running on a server. You are the soul outside the game, choosing an avatar and entering by choice. The body is the character. The player is something more.

2. Synchronicities, hunches, recurring patterns, these are not coincidences. Rizwan frames them as messages from a deeper intelligence, perhaps a future self, a guide, or the part of you watching the game from outside. The practice is learning to read them rather than dismiss them.

3. In a well-designed game, difficulty scales to keep you engaged and growing. Rizwan applies the same logic to life: the quests that keep returning are the ones not yet completed, and completing them is what the game is actually for.

Know Thyself, but not by yourself. A guided space to return home to yourself.

https://www.knowthyselfcollective.com

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___________

00:00 Intro

01:46 NPC vs. RPG: Two Flavors of Simulation Theory

07:44 The Universe as Information: It from Bit

13:07 The Second Assertion: Information Rendered as Real

18:06 Non-Locality, Quantum Entanglement, and the Speed of Light

22:32 The Simulation Point: When VR Becomes Indistinguishable

26:44 The Third Assertion: The World as Purposeful Illusion

35:23 Awakening as Becoming Lucid in the Dream

38:52 The Fourth Assertion: You Chose to Play the Game

43:42 Life Selection, Forgetfulness, and the Bardo

49:28 Savant Children and the Autism-as-Backdoor Hypothesis

57:28 The Literal vs. Metaphorical Axis of Simulation Theory

1:01:52 Yogananda and the Film Projector Metaphor

1:07:34 The Life Review, the Book of Life, and the Karmic Database

1:13:47 Samskaras, Vasanas, and Yoga as Cessation of Whirlpools

1:17:34 Clues on the Treasure Hunt: Synchronicity and the Quest Path

1:22:38 The Simulated Multiverse: Running the Simulation More Than Once

1:30:09 The Tiger Swami: External Tigers and Inner Ones

1:36:23 Rizwan's Heart Surgery and the Course Correction

1:44:14 Karma, Dream Palaces, and the Questing Engine

1:48:49 Living the Life Review Before You Die

1:57:01 Kindness Is Enforced by the Architecture

2:03:17 Epistemic Humility at the Edge of Mystical Claims

2:14:22 What Is Outside the Simulation?

2:22:54 UFOs: Interstellar, Interdimensional, or Rendered?

2:33:09 Closing Message: Challenges Are Integral to the Game

___________

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↳YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@rizwanvirksimulation

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Dr. Robert Lustig is a neuroendocrinologist, pediatrician, and bestselling author who has spent 45 years watching children get sicker despite his best efforts to stop it. His work connects the dots between ultra-processed food, mitochondrial dysfunction, dopamine hijacking, and the chronic stress epidemic in a way that is impossible to dismiss. In this conversation, we explore what he calls the hostage brain, what happens to a nervous system under sustained biochemical assault, and why so much of what we call personal failure is actually a systems problem.

What We Dive Into:

1. When chronic pain, emotional or physical, goes unresolved, the brain reaches for anything that spikes dopamine to quiet it. Over time, tolerance builds and neurons die. Lustig's point is that this is not a personal weakness. The food, the screens, and the stress have conspired to put nearly all of us in some version of this state.

2. Dopamine drives wanting. Serotonin drives contentment. The loneliness epidemic is not simply a social problem but a neurochemical one. Cortisol reduces serotonin, dopamine antagonizes it, and ultra-processed food depletes the tryptophan needed to make it.

3. Lustig draws a clear line between primary needs, love, sleep, real food, and secondary desires, status, power, accumulation. Meeting the basics first is both the simplest and most radical act available.

Know Thyself, but not by yourself. A guided space to return home to yourself.

https://www.knowthyselfcollective.com

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___________

00:00 Intro

02:02 What Is Hostage Brain?

04:47 The Loss of Stress Resilience

09:15 Dopamine, Tolerance, and the Addicted Brain

11:26 The Five Causes of Hijacked Biology

13:08 The Amygdala: Fear Center, Air Traffic Controller, Buckshot

16:07 The Four Brakes on the Amygdala and Why They're Failing

22:13 From Real Food to Ultra-Processed Food: The Five Changes

23:51 Sugar: The Big Kahuna

29:57 Mitochondria, Body Temperature, and the Energy Crisis

32:33 The Corporate Machine: Big Food, Big Pharma, and the Atlas Network

36:26 Does Big Food Collude with Big Pharma?

40:51 Children Getting Sicker: The Systemic Failure

46:10 "Personal Responsibility" Is a Tobacco Industry Invention

51:44 Freedom of Choice Is Really Freedom to Blame

53:11 Loneliness vs. Solitude: The Serotonin Distinction

56:52 You Can't Love with an Inflamed Brain

57:25 The Gut-Brain Axis and the Light of Tryptophan

1:03:13 Orange vs. Orange Juice: Why Fiber Is the Point

1:07:44 BioLumen and Making Ultra-Processed Food Healthy

1:16:14 Insulin, the Three Fat Depots, and Thin Outside Fat Inside

1:25:10 How to Reduce Liver Fat

1:26:19 Sugar, ADHD, and the Prefrontal Cortex

1:26:41 Practical Steps: Phones, Plastics, and Environmental Toxins

1:33:18 The Four C's: Connect, Contribute, Cope, Cook

1:41:29 Community Questions: ATP, Cognition, and the Biological Basis of Consciousness

1:45:27 What Gives Dr. Lustig Hope

1:47:38 Closing Message: Tend to Yourself First

___________

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↳Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DrRobertLustig/

↳Metabolical Book: https://metabolical.com

↳https://robertlustig.com

STUDIES MENTIONED:

↳https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41880620/

↳https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/505/504/

↳https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0306987726001544

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Jim George is a stillness coach, former animator, and one of the first guests ever to appear on this podcast. He has spent nearly 50 years developing what he calls practical spirituality, a way of working with the mind that requires no doctrine, no dogma, and no special belief system. What it does require is the willingness to get quiet enough to see what is actually there. In this conversation, we return to the most essential territory: the cost of mental noise, the nature of the ego, and what it genuinely means to be present for your own life.

What We Dive Into:

1. The noise in the mind is not neutral. Every moment spent in a self-generated narrative about the past or future is a moment you were not actually there. At the end of a life of that, Jim says, there is a strange vacuum.

2. The drive for status was not a character flaw. It was, quite literally, a matter of life and death for our ancestors. Understanding that gives you room to stop being run by it. When you see the mechanism clearly, competition can begin to evolve into something closer to cooperation, which Jim argues is the actual path forward for the species.

3. Gratitude is not a feeling you perform. It is focused attention on what already is, and it shifts your neurochemistry from dopamine-driven wanting toward something more stable.

Know Thyself, but not by yourself. A guided space to return home to yourself.

https://www.knowthyselfcollective.com

✨THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS:

https://www.im8health.com/knowthyself

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___________

00:00 Intro

02:40 The Cost of Normalizing Internal Noise

06:07 What the Noise Is Made Of: Limbic Survival and Chatter

12:11 The Contrast Between Noise and Stillness

14:52 Status as an Evolutionary Artifact

24:16 Normalization and the Tiger in the Mind

29:18 Pure Stillness vs. Stillishness

32:37 The Ego Narrative and the Illusion of Separation

40:14 Everything We Want Is an End to Seeking

45:36 Simplicity, Dopamine, and the Holotropic Universe

49:27 What Happens When Subject and Object Dissolve

57:32 Stillness as Practice, Not Destination

59:24 Self-Love vs. Realizing Self as Love

1:02:08 How to Actually Do It: The Long, Short, and Micro Form

1:08:38 The Gifts of Headlessness: Harding's List

1:13:47 Physics, the Quantum Field, and the Non-Physical

1:25:15 How Far the Self Can Expand

1:37:08 Values Work: What's Actually Driving Your Behavior

1:47:18 Finding Your Me-Shaped Hole in the Universe

1:59:43 The Universe Conspires When You Commit

2:08:31 Closing Message: Quiet Down and Bring It

___________

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↳Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jimgeorgeofficial/↳Contact: https://getstill.com/

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Jahnavi Harrison is a Grammy-nominated artist, musician, and practitioner of Bhakti Yoga who has spent her life exploring sound as a path to the divine. Raised at Bhaktivedanta Manor in England, she grew up inside one of the world's most dedicated devotional communities, and in this conversation we trace how that formation shaped her relationship with voice, identity, approval, and what it means to offer your life as a prayer.

What We Dive Into:

1. Most of us were told at some point to be quiet, to sound better, or to wait until we were good enough. That conditioning runs deep. Reclaiming the voice, whether through kirtan, song, or simply speaking truthfully, is one of the most direct paths back to a self that stopped performing and started expressing.

2. Bhakti is not a feeling you arrive at and maintain. It is a daily offering, something you return to moment by moment, especially when you have drifted. Jahnavi's framing is simple: make space for prayer in whatever form feels alive to you, and that space will become a source of nourishment that compounds over time.

3. The desire to be accepted can masquerade as discernment, as wisdom, even as calling. Jahnavi traces how much of her own journey involved slowly distinguishing the voice of genuine inner knowing from the much louder voice that simply wanted to be liked. That distinction is not resolved once. It is worked on for life.

Know Thyself, but not by yourself. A guided space to return home to yourself.

https://www.knowthyselfcollective.com

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___________

00:00 Intro

01:36 What Devotional Music Actually Is

03:12 Sound as a Direct Path to the Divine

06:42 Sound as the First and Last Sense

09:15 The Sensitivity of Sound and Its Transformative Power

12:28 Why We Lose Our Voices: Fear, Shame, and the Voice Unsung

16:22 Finding Your Voice and Speaking Your Truth

20:17 Discerning Your Own Voice from the Noise of Others

23:46 The Missed Flight: Choosing Calling Over Convention

29:00 Life as an Offering: Dharma and Letting Go of Outcomes

31:54 The Intelligence of the Heart in Bhakti

36:22 Nature, Silence, and the Inner Life

42:39 Prayer vs. Meditation: Are They the Same?

48:32 Prayer as Relationship, Not Request

57:54 Kirtan, Mantra, and the Dissolution of Self

1:03:25 Kirtan at a Funeral: Sound as Communal Holding

1:06:15 Losing and Reclaiming Faith: The Reckoning with Tradition

1:13:33 The Role of Trusted Counsel Through Doubt

1:15:28 The Grammys and the Tension of Devotional Art in Industry

1:21:37 Fame, Ego, and Staying on the Right Track

1:25:40 Expanding Beyond Tradition: The Rise Album with Willow

1:35:36 Art as Revolution and Service

1:38:31 The Coldplay Concert and the Power of Mass Gathering

1:43:17 Current Projects and Dreaming Bigger

1:51:37 Closing Message: Make Space for Prayer Every Day

___________

✨MORE FROM JAHNAVI

↳Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jahnavi_harrison

↳YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/JahnaviHarrisonMusic

↳https://www.jahnavimusic.com

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Anil Seth is a professor of cognitive and computational neuroscience at the University of Sussex and one of the world's leading researchers on consciousness. His central claim is both unsettling and liberating: we do not passively receive reality, we actively generate it. The world that appears when you open your eyes is not a transparent window onto what is actually out there. It is the brain's best guess, a controlled hallucination, built from the inside out.

What We Dive Into:

1. Your brain is not reading out the world like a camera. It is making constant predictions about what is out there and updating them with sensory signals. What you perceive is much more a product of those internal predictions than of the raw sensory data coming in. In that sense, all perception is a form of hallucination, just one that happens to be grounded in reality.

2. Just as the brain generates a model of the external world, it generates a model of the self. The feeling of being a continuous, stable "I" is another best guess, not a fixed essence waiting to be discovered. This is both humbling and freeing, because a constructed self can be examined and updated in ways a fixed one cannot.

3. As AI systems grow more sophisticated, they will increasingly appear to have inner lives. Anil draws a sharp line between intelligence and consciousness, arguing that current AI lacks the biological, embodied, self-regulating properties that we believe underlie genuine experience. Confusing performance for presence is not just a philosophical error. It shapes regulation, design, and how we treat these systems.

Know Thyself, but not by yourself. A guided space to return home to yourself.

https://www.knowthyselfcollective.com

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___________

00:00 Intro

01:47 We Don't Perceive the World — We Generate It

04:29 The Brain as a Prediction Machine

07:22 Controlled Hallucination: What That Term Really Means

09:37 Reality Is Real, But We Never Perceive It Directly

13:25 Optical Illusions as Windows Into Perception

16:42 Perceptual Humility and Echo Chambers

19:34 The Perception Census: Mapping Our Inner Diversity

25:24 Perception, Priors, and Personal Suffering

29:17 Memory, Identity, and What We Expect to See

33:19 The Minimum of Consciousness: Bare Awareness

38:15 Pure Consciousness and the Feeling of Being Alive

41:51 Can the Contents of Experience Tell Us About Consciousness?

45:46 Out of Body Experiences and the First-Person Perspective

50:31 Psychedelics, Reality, and the Sense of Realness

57:12 Anil's LSD Experience and Mary's Room

1:03:47 Defining Consciousness: Nagel's "What Is It Like"

1:07:25 The Distribution of Consciousness: Animals, Trees, and AI

1:17:27 Steel-Manning Panpsychism

1:21:09 Pragmatic Materialism

1:34:23 Intelligence vs. Consciousness: Why AI Is Different

1:38:17 Why Current AI Is Probably Not Conscious

1:43:53 The Danger of Believing AI Is Conscious

1:49:24 What Happens When We Take the Self Too Seriously

1:52:01 Reflections on Death and What Dies

1:57:34 The Self as Process, Not Essence

2:02:00 Free Will as a Useful Perception

2:05:43 Closing Message: Celebrate the Everyday Miracle of Consciousness

___________

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↳Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/profanilseth/

↳Books: https://www.anilseth.com/read/books/

↳https://www.anilseth.com

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Dr. William Li is a Harvard-trained physician, co-founder of the Angiogenesis Foundation, and New York Times bestselling author whose work centers on one quietly radical premise: the power to stay healthy lives inside you. In this conversation, we explore the five hardwired defense systems the body runs continuously, angiogenesis, stem cells, the gut microbiome, immunity, and DNA protection, and what it looks like to actually support them through food, sleep, and daily choices.

What We Dive Into:

1. You are not just one organism. You carry 39 trillion bacteria inside you, many of which send signals up through the vagus nerve directly to the brain, shaping mood, social behavior, and stress levels.

2. Your body was born with 70 million extra stem cells stored in bone marrow, ready to mobilize and repair damage whenever called. Sleep, food, and metabolic health directly influence how effectively they do their job.

3. The environment is full of things we cannot fully control, microplastics, toxins, pollution. What we can control is whether our internal defense systems are strong enough to handle the load. Chronic stress degrades those systems faster than most environmental exposures.

Know Thyself, but not by yourself. A guided space to return home to yourself.

https://www.knowthyselfcollective.com

✨THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS:

https://drinkLMNT.com/KnowThyself

Try LMNT & get a free sample pack

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Code KNOWTHYSELF for 15% off

___________

00:00 Intro

01:42 Health Is Not the Absence of Disease

05:24 The Five Health Defense Systems

07:14 Defense 1: Angiogenesis and Blood Vessel Health

09:07 Defense 2: Stem Cells and the Body's Repair System

14:01 Defense 3: The Gut Microbiome and the Holobiont

21:38 Defense 4: The Immune System as Inner Army

31:44 Defense 5: DNA Repair and the Iron Dome Within

36:48 Cancer Is Growing in All of Us Right Now

43:07 The Rising Cancer Rates and Why They're Skewing Younger

47:40 Microplastics: Where They Come From and Why They Matter

55:37 The Case for Keeping Your Shields Up

59:15 Practical Steps: Air, Water, and Food Quality

1:07:46 Sleep, Movement, and Stress as Health Defenses

1:11:04 The Danger of Chronic Overeating

1:19:09 The History of Abundance and the Clean Plate Myth

1:23:43 Bruce Lee and the Philosophy of Personalized Health

1:29:00 What Modern Medicine Got Right and What It Lost

1:32:42 The Interstitium, Acupuncture, and Converging Worlds

1:35:34 The Future of Cancer Treatment and Health Span

1:44:42 Dr. Li's Favorite Foods and Why He Loves Them

1:55:53 The Science of Dark Chocolate

1:59:00 Closing Message: Optimize Your Gut

___________

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↳Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drwilliamli/

↳Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/drwilliamli/

↳YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/DrWilliamLi

↳Eat to Beat Your Diet Book: https://drwilliamli.com/etb-diet-book/

↳Eat to Beat Disease Book: https://drwilliamli.com/book-li/

↳https://drwilliamli.com

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Dr. Justin Sledge is a scholar of philosophy and Western esotericism, and the voice behind the YouTube channel Esoterica, which has grown to over a million subscribers. He has spent his career studying the traditions that history tried to erase: Gnosticism, Kabbalah, Hermeticism, witchcraft, and alchemy.

What We Dive Into:

1. Classical skepticism is not about debunking or disbelief. It is about bracketing your personal investment long enough to let the material speak for itself.

2. Newton wrote more on alchemy and the occult than on calculus. Descartes arrived at his famous method through a mystical dream. Stripping these facts from the story of modernity has cost us access to some of the most important spiritual technologies ever developed.

3. Every other starting point, certainty, comfort, doctrine, conclusions, has a gutter waiting at the end of it. Awe keeps the garden of curiosity alive.

Know Thyself, but not by yourself. A guided space to return home to yourself.

https://www.knowthyselfcollective.com

✨THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS:

https://www.im8health.com/knowthyself

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___________

00:00 Intro

01:57 What Skepticism Actually Means

06:21 How to Enter Mystical Inquiry Without Collapsing Into Belief

08:03 Religion, Mysticism, and the Margins

11:24 Gnosticism: The World as Prison, Christ as Liberator

14:21 The Nag Hammadi Discovery and the Many Christianities

17:00 William James and the Four Qualities of Mystical Experience

21:50 Perennial Wisdom vs. High-Resolution Differences

26:44 The Limits of Propositional Truth

31:32 Irrational vs. Non-Rational: Why the Distinction Matters

37:10 The Danger of Universalizing Mystical Experience

44:34 The World Is Stranger Than We Assume

51:01 How the Myth of Rational Modernity Was Curated

59:35 Recovering the Suppressed Voices of Western History

1:00:45 Mary Magdalene: Not a Prostitute

1:14:22 The Suppression of the Feminine and the Road to the Witch Trials

1:18:55 The Malleus Maleficarum and the Anatomy of a Moral Panic

1:24:01 Poverty, Not Practice: Who Was Actually Accused

1:26:27 The Books Justin Brought: Agrippa's Three Books of Occult Philosophy

1:32:08 Agrippa and the Possibility of Induced Illumination

1:41:32 The Kabbalah and the Sefer Yetzirah

1:46:04 The Hermetic Tradition and Hermes Trismegistus

1:54:22 What Studying These Texts Has Done to Justin

1:59:51 Agrippa's Trilemma and the Limits of Reason

2:04:22 Hermeticism vs. Gnosticism: The World as Divine, Not Prison

2:13:11 Making the Best Case for the Transcendent Realm

2:19:54 Whatever Matter Is, It's Indistinguishable from Spirit

2:26:34 Justin's Personal Satanic Panic: The School Shooting

2:38:03 Generational Trauma and the Suppression of the Feminine

2:44:57 Truth as a Verb: Dialogue Across Difference

2:47:14 Are We on the Threshold of a New Renaissance?

2:58:39 Community Questions: The Most Meaningful Experience of Magic

2:59:15 When Justin Realized the Books Were Real

3:03:51 Finding the Clerical Necromantic Underground

3:04:26 Recreating Alchemy in the Modern Lab

3:07:11 Why We Want Magic: The Very Human Desire for Hidden Power

3:13:00 Modern Mythology and the Meaning Famine

3:20:10 Closing Message: Flourishing Begins in Awe

___________

✨MORE FROM DR. JUSTIN SLEDGE

↳YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/esotericachannel

↳Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/esotericachannel

↳https://www.justinsledge.com

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Donald Robertson is a cognitive behavioral psychotherapist, author of over nine books, and one of the founding voices in the modern Stoicism movement. He has spent over 30 years studying how ancient Greek and Roman philosophy intersects with contemporary psychology, and in this conversation we start where it all begins: the maxim carved into the temple of Apollo at Delphi. Know thyself. We explore what it actually meant, who said it, and why it still matters more than most self-help advice written in the last century.

What We Dive Into:

1. The Stoics drew a sharp line between what actually happens and the value judgments we add on top of it. To say something "is awful" treats our emotional reaction as a fact about the world.

2. Of all the emotions that derail a life, anger gets the least attention in therapy, self-help, and honest self-reflection.

3. In the ancient world, wisdom was not something you consumed or memorized. It was something you practiced daily. Collecting insights without changing your behavior is closer to what the Sophists sold than to what Socrates taught.

Know Thyself, but not by yourself. A guided space to return home to yourself.

https://www.knowthyselfcollective.com

✨THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS:

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___________

00:00 Intro

01:53 Know Thyself: The Three Sayings at Delphi

07:44 What Philosophy Actually Means

11:17 Socrates vs. the Sophists: Wisdom vs. Appearance

18:05 The Stoic U-Turn: Reorienting What We Value

23:59 Self-Knowledge as a Mirror for the Soul

26:59 Values Clarification and the Eulogy Exercise

35:02 Ad: LMNT

36:03 Eudaimonia: Flourishing, Not Just Happiness

39:40 Hardship as Opportunity for Character

45:31 A Brief History of Stoicism

53:22 Ad: Timeline Mitopure

54:33 The Stoics Were Way Ahead of Their Time

59:30 Stoicism, India, and Alexander the Great

1:06:31 Early Christianity and Greek Philosophy

1:14:03 Marcus Aurelius: The Man Behind the Meditations

1:19:17 Philosophy Born from Injury: Marcus and Donald

1:32:52 Uppercase vs. Lowercase Stoicism

1:38:28 The Two Phases of Emotion

1:45:47 Prosoché: The Practice of Paying Attention

1:50:40 Appearance vs. Reality: The Stoic Core

1:56:34 Turning the Chinese Proverb into a Practice

2:02:44 The View from Above and the Acropolis

2:11:28 Premeditatio Malorum: Rehearsing Adversity

2:17:27 Anger as Temporary Madness

2:23:26 De-Romanticizing Desire

2:36:58 Sophists, Rhetoric, and Modern Influencers

2:44:47 Why Self-Help Isn't More Helpful

2:56:17 The Socratic Method as Cure for Conceit

3:13:19 The King Who Rules Himself

3:17:50 The Oracle of Delphi and Socrates' Mission

3:33:44 Injustice Harms the Perpetrator More

3:36:51 Donald's Own Life: Philosophy as a Path

3:38:46 The Eleusinian Mysteries and Marcus's Initiation

3:48:21 Learning to Die as Liberation

3:55:29 Marcus's Naked Soul: Transparency as Practice

3:58:07 What the Stoics Taught About Love

4:02:05 Rapid Fire: The Great Philosophers

4:16:00 Closing Message: You Underestimate Your Resilience

___________

✨MORE FROM DONALD ROBERTSON↳Substack: https://donaldrobertson.substack.com/↳Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1732050.Donald_J_Robertson

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Dandapani is a Hindu priest who spent over ten years as a celibate monk before devoting his life to teaching the world how to master focus. His central claim is simple but unsettling: most of us are not distracted by accident, we have spent years actively practicing distraction, often more hours a day than most people practice anything else they care about. In this conversation, we unpack what it actually costs to live a physically present, mentally absent life, and why that cost compounds with every passing year.

What We Dive Into:

1. Whatever you do for hours a day, every day, you get good at. Most people have unintentionally practiced distraction more than they have practiced anything else, which is why concentration feels so foreign and difficult by comparison.

2. You cannot practice being present directly. Presence is simply the outcome of keeping your awareness fixed on one thing without it wandering. Trying to "be present" without training focus is chasing an effect while ignoring its cause.

3. When your attention bounces between unfinished tasks, each unresolved jump adds a small charge of anxiety that accumulates over the day. Learning to hold awareness in one place, even briefly, interrupts that buildup before it becomes stress.

Know Thyself, but not by yourself. A guided space to return home to yourself.

https://www.knowthyselfcollective.com

✨THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS:

https://oneskin.co/KNOWTHYSELF

Code KNOWTHYSELF for 15% off

___________

00:00 Intro

01:29 What Distraction Costs Us

07:29 The Law of Practice

13:19 Life Is Finite, Not Short

24:08 Money, Purpose, and the Path of the Householder

28:08 Tasting the Super Conscious

32:21 Awareness, Anxiety, and the Roots of Stress

39:42 How to Train Focus: The Ball of Light

50:11 Eliminating Fear by Controlling Awareness

55:43 The Greatest Gift: Undivided Attention

1:01:36 Becoming a Monk: The Search for a Real Teacher

1:11:20 Choosing a Philosophy Before the Practice

1:23:26 Signs of a Maturing Soul

1:30:21 A Day in the Monastery: Practicing All Day Long

1:36:38 Intuition, Psychic Sensitivity, and Its Dangers

1:43:28 Going Narrow and Deep on One Path

1:50:14 Filtering the Mind Like a Kitchen Strainer

1:58:44 Building Willpower: Finish What You Begin

2:03:04 Reincarnation, Compassion, and Unresolved Baggage

2:13:29 How to Spot a Fake Guru

2:17:42 Ambition, Peace, and the Final Message

___________

✨MORE FROM DANDAPANI

↳https://dandapani.org/know-thyself-podcast

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↳YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/dandapanillc

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Ido Portal is one of the most original movement thinkers alive. He has spent decades studying the body across martial arts, acrobatics, yoga, dance, and ancient movement traditions, not to master any one of them, but to ask a deeper question: what does it actually mean to move well, and what does the body reveal when you finally start listening to it? In this conversation, we go long, covering ground that most movement conversations never reach.

What We Dive Into:

1.Most of us treat the body like a car to maintain, something we service occasionally for performance or appearance. Ido's entire framework starts from the opposite premise: the body is not a tool you use, it is what you are. That shift alone changes what practice means.

2.What we attend to grows. What we neglect crumbles. Ido applies this principle everywhere, from babies in hospitals to athletes on the field. Bringing undivided attention to even one part of your body for one minute, with no music, no phone, no audience, begins a transformation most people have never experienced.

3.The most important moment in Ido's own journey was admitting he didn't have what he was looking for. Not as defeat, but as a beginning. The person who thinks they already have a connection to their body is the one most closed off to finding it. Not knowing, and staying there, is the actual practice.

Know Thyself, but not by yourself. A guided space to return home to yourself.

https://www.knowthyselfcollective.com

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___________

00:00 Intro

01:44 How Most People Relate to Their Body

09:22 Movement vs. Practice vs. Exercise

10:27 Life Is for Practicing, Not Just Living

20:13 Attention as the Primary Tool

23:49 Stop Practicing for Exposure

28:12 How to Begin: Removing Leakage

35:22 Diagnostic Play and the Art of Seeing

37:30 The Ancient Schools of Practice

43:33 Tensegrity and the Body's Inner Models

49:28 Proprioception, Sensing, and the Pain of Feeling

1:02:05 Tension, Connection, and What the Body Actually Needs

1:08:00 Ido's Journey: Searching for a Real Teacher

1:13:15 Why Real Teachers Refuse to Give Clean Answers

1:23:49 What Am I Before Who Am I

1:29:23 The Chariot Analogy: Body, Emotion, and Intellect

1:36:42 Feeding the Emotional Body

1:40:14 The Weber-Fechner Law and Reducing Inner Noise

1:52:29 How the Body Reveals What We Hide

2:02:15 Pursuing Weakness Over Strength

2:05:46 Discipline, Motivation, and Real Will

2:16:02 The Practice of Sitting and Choiceless Awareness

2:37:22 What Inner Work Without the Body Misses

2:41:31 The Heart as the Missing Path

2:45:55 Community Questions: Practical Tools for the Body

2:57:18 On Animals, Archetypes, and the Spirit of Movement

3:03:02 Closing Message: Become a Practice

___________

✨MORE FROM IDO

↳Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/portal.ido/↳https://www.idoportal.com

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Dr. Caroline Leaf is a cognitive neuroscientist and bestselling author who has spent over 40 years studying the relationship between the mind and the brain. At a time when neuroplasticity was still emerging as a field, she was already building clinical tools to help patients recover from brain injuries, trauma, and conditions that conventional medicine had written off as permanent. In this conversation, we go deep into a distinction that changes everything: the mind is not the brain, and once you understand that, you stop being a victim of your own biology.

What We Dive Into:

1. The brain does not generate thoughts. It responds to the mind. Everything you think, feel, and choose originates in the mind and then gets coded into the brain and body.

2. Depression, anxiety, and other mental health labels are not diseases you have. They are signals pointing to an underlying thought that needs to be found and restructured.

3. You cannot change what happened, but you can change the impact it has on your present and future. Through a process of deconstructing and reconstructing toxic thought networks, the grip of the past loosens.

Know Thyself, but not by yourself. A guided space to return home to yourself.

https://www.knowthyselfcollective.com

✨THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS:

https://www.bioptimizers.com/knowthyself

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___________

00:00 Intro

03:11 The Difference Between Mind and Brain

07:17 Why the Brain-Is-Boss Model Gets It Wrong

12:25 Consciousness Beyond the Physical Body

14:25 Quantum Physics, Microtubules, and the Mind

21:24 Science and Spirituality Converging

23:41 Early Research: Neuroplasticity and Traumatic Brain Injury

28:50 Mind-Driven Change: Telomeres and Cellular Health

31:56 Working in South Africa: Healing Through Mental Frameworks

34:31 The Origin of the Neurocycle

40:13 The Non-Conscious, Subconscious, and Conscious Mind

49:35 How Thoughts and Memories Build Into the Brain and Body

51:59 The Five Steps of the Neurocycle

57:01 Step One: Gather Awareness

01:00:24 Step Two: Reflect

01:02:10 Steps Three to Five: Mindstorm, Recheck, Active Reach

01:09:28 Community Questions: Fear of Losing Your Identity

01:14:32 Working Through Shame, Grief, and Emotional Signals

01:15:46 Retroactive Causation: Changing the Past Through the Present

01:19:28 Intelligent Design, Choice, and the Source Behind Life

01:22:45 Mindsets, Patterns, and Teaching Children

01:25:58 Stress as Intelligence: The New Book

___________

✨MORE FROM DR. LEAF

↳Website (for books, courses, 1:1 coaching): https://drleaf.com/

↳Neurocycle app: https://drleaf.com/neurocycle-app

↳Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-dr-leaf-show/id1334767397

↳Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@DrCarolineLeaf

↳Neurocycle Certification: https://drleaf.com/certified-strategist

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Todd Rose is a Harvard-trained social scientist, former high school dropout with a 0.9 GPA, and co-founder of the think tank Populace. His research centers on the gap between what people privately believe and what they publicly say, and the profound consequences of that gap for individuals and for society. This is one of those conversations that reframes something you thought you understood and doesn't let you go back.

What We Dive Into:

1. Your brain estimates group consensus using a simple shortcut: the loudest voices repeated most often. On social media, that is 10% of users creating 80% of content.

2. Belonging means being accepted for who you actually are. Fitting in means changing who you are to be accepted.

3. Authenticity is not about being perfectly accurate about who you are. It is about making choices you genuinely believe align with who you are right now.

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___________

00:00 Intro

01:27 What Are Collective Illusions?

02:05 The Cost of Self-Silencing

05:06 How We're Hardwired to Conform

07:40 Why the Brain Is Easily Fooled About Group Consensus

09:13 Social Media and the Amplification of Fringe Views

13:20 What Americans Actually Want in Private

21:01 Who Profits from Keeping Us Divided

23:52 Foreign Manipulation and AI Bot Farms

29:37 The Most Consequential Collective Illusions

36:38 What Authenticity Actually Means

41:15 The Coming Age of Courage

42:14 Belonging vs. Fitting In

49:44 René Girard and Mimetic Desire

59:43 How Collective Illusions Can Shatter Overnight

1:05:58 The Velvet Revolution and the Power of Authenticity

1:12:09 How to Build the Muscle of Living in Truth

1:20:25 Todd's Personal Collective Illusion: Faith and Identity

1:24:34 Spiritual Exploration and Holding Beliefs Lightly

1:32:23 Certainty and Knowledge Are Inversely Correlated

1:41:42 Fulfillment Over Achievement

1:50:31 Small Actions That Raise Collective Consciousness

___________

✨MORE FROM TODD

↳Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ltoddrose/

↳Populace: https://populace.org

↳https://www.toddrose.com/

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This is a compilation episode, and it draws from some of the most honest and clarifying moments across recent conversations on the show. Nine different voices, each approaching the same territory from a different angle: what it means to stop being ruled by the outside world, to understand the patterns we inherited, and to come back to something more real inside ourselves.

What We Dive Into:

1. ​ Thoughts arise whether you choose them or not. The shift is learning to observe them rather than be pulled by them.
2. ​ The nervous system learns what safety feels like early, and it keeps returning to that baseline even when it no longer serves.
3. ​ Your body, your beliefs, your identity, all of it was accumulated over time. Setting it aside, even briefly, creates the space to touch something underneath that is more stable.

THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS:

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___________

00:00 Intro

02:12 Shi Heng Yi: Master Yourself, Not the World

11:10 Dr. Sue Morter: The Hidden Truth Behind Your Triggers

19:04 Emily McDonald: Living from Feeling States, Not Outcomes

24:58 Joe Hudson: This is Your Sign To Be More Vulnerable

31:53 Sadhguru: How To Make True Impact

48:20 Henry Shukman: Tasting Awakening for Yourself

1:00:29 Nicole LePera: Your Childhood Beliefs Might Be Holding You Back

1:13:19 Lucy Hale: Remember To Accept Your Own Timeline

1:17:23 Wim Hof: It's Time for Love

___________

MORE FROM OUR SPEAKERS

✨Shi Heng Yi: https://youtu.be/Yg_vu7MelmU

✨Dr. Sue Morter: https://youtu.be/NAdU39m1Oxo

✨Emily McDonald: https://youtu.be/BS80CB3fgS8

✨Joe Hudson: https://youtu.be/vF4R9uDje0E

✨Sadhguru: https://youtu.be/FMoXXb-wKE8

✨Henry Shukman: https://youtu.be/ZMk3ztb66mc

✨Nicole LePera: https://youtu.be/BlpyzG5vV_o

✨Lucy Hale: https://youtu.be/MkNjs5vbG9M

✨Wim Hof: https://youtu.be/yjKoAXOFNqw

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✨https://www.knowthyselfcollective.com

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Dr. Vasant Lad is the founder of the Ayurvedic Institute and the man most responsible for bringing Ayurveda to the West. He has spent over 40 years teaching this 5,000-year-old science of life to practitioners across the world, and in this conversation, we sat down together at SoHum Mountain Healing Center in Asheville, North Carolina, where I had just completed a week-long Panchakarma. What unfolded was one of the most quietly profound conversations I have had on this show.

What We Dive Into:

1. ​ Why unprocessed emotions don’t simply pass — and how grief settles in the heart, anger in the liver, and fear in the kidneys until they’re physically released.
2. ​ How your tongue, pulse, and face reveal what’s happening inside your body, often before any symptom appears.
3. ​ Why your original constitution (prakruti) shapes everything from your digestion to your temperament — and how modern life pulls you away from it.
4. ​ The gap between two breaths, and why Dr. Lad calls it an ocean of awareness available to anyone willing to sit in it.

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___________

00:00 Intro

01:58 What Ayurveda Actually Means

02:40 The Five Elements, Three Doshas, and the Body

06:18 Prakruti, Vikruti, and the Root of Disease

08:00 The Sankhya Philosophy Behind Ayurveda

13:33 The Goal of Ayurveda

15:26 Dr. Lad's Path: Guru, Calling, and Coming West

18:06 Where Western Medicine Falls Short

22:05 Ama, Agni, and the Ayurvedic View of Disease

25:56 Pulse, Tongue, and Face: The Art of Diagnosis

34:29 Reading Psychological Nature Through the Pulse

39:00 The Gap Between Breaths: Awareness and Mysticism

44:37 How Repressed Emotions Crystallize in the Body

47:39 Panchakarma: Physical, Emotional, and Spiritual Cleansing

51:52 Ojas, Tejas, and Prana: The Vital Essences

56:18 Sexual Energy, Celibacy, and the Cultivation of Ojas

1:00:07 Life as Meditation: The Unified Field

1:06:00 The Ayurvedic View of Death and Dying

1:14:56 Dinacharya: The Daily Routine as Spiritual Practice

1:18:48 The Doshic Clock and the Yugas

1:25:22 Relationship, Self-Knowledge, and the Closing Message

___________

MORE FROM DR. VASANT

✨Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drvasantlad

🌐https://ayurveda.com/about-vasant-lad/

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Dr. Mei Rui is a Yale-trained molecular biophysicist, concert pianist, and clinical researcher at MD Anderson Cancer Center, where she runs trials on the measurable effects of music on the human body. In this conversation, we explore what actually happens in the brain the moment music enters it, why the auditory system is the first sense to develop in the womb and the last to go when we die, and how something as accessible as a curated playlist can outperform FDA-approved pharmaceuticals in reducing cortisol.

What We Dive Into:

1. Music is not a supplement to healing. In the right context, it is the intervention.

2. The brain responds differently when you actually show up for the music.

3. A longitudinal study in twins showed that three to four years of musical training reduced the risk of Alzheimer's and cognitive decline by 64%, an effect size found in no other single activity.

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___________

00:00 Introduction: Dr. Mei Rui

01:44 A Life Between Music and Science

05:26 What Happens When Music Enters the Brain

07:26 How the Brain Processes Sound and Music

11:32 Why Minor Keys Feel Sad: The Science of Tonality

14:37 Live Piano Demo: Matching Music to Mood

19:06 Music in the Operating Room

27:41 Music as Medicine: Clinical Applications

29:10 The 32% Cortisol Study

31:19 The 16 Compositional Elements of Healing Music

35:11 Oxytocin, Familiarity, and the Parasympathetic Response

36:18 Timbre and the Cello's Resemblance to a Mother's Voice

42:31 Cymatics: Sound Made Visible

45:16 The Ancient Roots of Music as Healing

47:09 Listening vs. Playing an Instrument

55:33 The Musician's Brain: Structural Differences

57:46 Music Training and Protection Against Alzheimer's

59:44 Music, Empathy, and Neural Synchrony

1:01:36 The EEG Experiment: Reading André's Brain Live

1:18:21 What the EEG Data Revealed

1:22:26 Music, Flow State, and the Disappearance of Self

1:26:55 Music as Spiritual Medicine

1:30:23 How to Listen More Intentionally

___________

MORE FROM MEI

✨Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/@meiruipiano

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Arthur Brooks is a Harvard professor, social scientist, and three-time New York Times bestselling author whose life's work centers on a single, urgent question: what actually makes a human life feel meaningful? In this conversation, we explore why depression and anxiety have surged since 2008, how technology has hijacked the part of the brain responsible for wonder and meaning, and what it looks like to live, as Arthur puts it, like his great-grandfather Leroy, present, bored at times, and genuinely alive.

What moved me most in this conversation is how Arthur bridges the ancient and the scientific without losing either. We get into the three components of meaning, coherence, purpose, and significance, as well as the dangers of extrinsic reward, the psychology of calling, and why the formula most of us are running on is just slightly off. His answer to the meaning crisis is not complicated. Use things, love people, worship the divine. But getting there requires honest self-examination, and this conversation is a strong beginning.

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___________

00:00 Introduction: Arthur Brooks

01:54 The Modern Meaning Crisis

02:47 Coherence, Purpose, and Significance

06:17 Why Meaning Collapsed After 2008

14:19 The Doom Loop of Technology

20:22 The Death of Boredom

25:13 Ad: Mudwtr

26:34 Living Like Leroy: The Case for Real Life

30:05 Six Practices for the Right Hemisphere

36:22 The Morning Routine and Brahma Mahurta

43:35 Ad: LMNT

44:39 Ad: BiOptimizers

45:47 Breaking Free from Your Phone

49:07 Romantic Love and the Paradox of Choice

54:59 Finding Your Calling

1:01:29 Progress, Arrival Fallacy, and Living Now

1:17:22 Enjoyment, Satisfaction, and Meaning

1:19:36 The External Scoreboard and Love Is Not Earned

1:25:10 The Four Idols

1:29:49 Self-Transcendence and the Divine

1:37:40 Marriage, Adoption, and Walking to Heaven

1:45:03 Suffering, Beauty, and Meaning

1:53:59 Use Things, Love People, Worship the Divine

___________

Episode Resources:

https://www.arthurbrooks.com/

https://www.instagram.com/arthurcbrooks/

https://www.instagram.com/andreduqum/

https://www.instagram.com/knowthyself/

https://www.youtube.com/@knowthyselfpodcast

https://www.knowthyselfpodcast.com

Dr. Paul Conti is a psychiatrist, trauma specialist, and author whose work centers on one deceptively simple idea: that understanding yourself is the most powerful thing you can do for your mental health. In this conversation, we explore how the unconscious mind quietly sets the boundaries for how we think, feel, and move through life, and how much of what we assume is just "who we are" was actually formed long before we had the words for it.

What struck me most in this conversation is Paul's insistence that looking inward doesn't have to be frightening. He introduces the concept of the generative drive, the part of us that moves toward creativity, altruism, and genuine contribution, and makes a compelling case that this is what separates a life that feels full from one that simply accumulates. We also get into the myths we build from isolated facts, why the traditional psychiatric model falls short, and what it actually means to bring compassionate curiosity to yourself.

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André's Book Recs: https://www.knowthyselfpodcast.com/book-list

___________

00:00 Intro

02:05 Assessing Mental Health Like Physical Health

03:04 The Unconscious Mind and Its Hidden Influence

06:30 How Identity Forms in Early Childhood

08:23 Compassionate Curiosity as a Practice

11:02 Empowerment, Agency, and the Healthy Self

15:34 The Assertion, Pleasure, and Generative Drives

24:26 What Humility Actually Means

27:09 Ad: BiOptimizers

28:18 Shame, Feelings, and the Lessons We Carry

35:10 How Memories Build the Myth of Self

42:32 Ad: LMNT

43:41 Waking Up vs. Growing Up

48:10 The Limits of Diagnosis-Driven Psychiatry

51:07 What We're Really Striving For

58:18 Self-Worth and External Achievement

1:02:12 Anxiety as Adaptive and Maladaptive

1:09:52 Defense Mechanisms and How They Shape Us

1:16:51 Tools for Self-Inquiry and Lasting Change

1:25:52 Repeated Patterns and Relational Wounds

1:29:45 Hard-Won Growth and Gratitude

1:32:12 Paul's Personal Story: Loss and the Path to Medicine

1:37:17 Presence, Suffering, and the Art of Helping

1:41:35 Closing Message: Your Mind Is Your Friend

___________

Episode Resources:

https://www.drpaulconti.com/

https://www.amazon.com/Whats-Going-Right-Powerful-Optimizing/dp/1538776049

https://www.instagram.com/andreduqum/

https://www.instagram.com/knowthyself/

https://www.youtube.com/@knowthyselfpodcast

https://www.knowthyselfpodcast.com

Emily McDonald holds two degrees in neuroscience and has become one of the fastest-growing science communicators on social media. In this conversation, we explore how the brain constructs reality from the inside out — not as a passive receiver of the world, but as a constant prediction machine shaped by memory, belief, emotion, and past experience. From color vision to the kitten experiment, Emily brings the science to life in a way that makes you ask: where am I the kitten in my own life?

What I love about this conversation is that it doesn't stop at the intellectual. Emily shares how understanding neuroplasticity moved her from skeptic to someone who radically rewired her relationship with identity, money, and what it means to pursue something with passion. We get into the difference between harmonious and obsessive passion, how identity sets a ceiling on what we're willing to receive, and why processing time — the unstructured silence we've largely lost — may be one of the most important things we can reclaim.

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___________

00:00 Intro

02:14 How the Brain Constructs Reality

13:50 Rewiring Beliefs Around Abundance

20:12 The Brain as a Prediction Machine

21:35 The Default Mode Network and Self-Concept

24:15 Science and Spirituality as Complementary Lenses

27:09 Ad: One Skin

30:19 Identity Beyond the Thinking Mind

41:44 Ad: BiOptimizers

42:52 Identity as the Set Point of Your Life

45:39 The Neuroscience of Habit Change

47:39 Desire, Fear, and the Energy Behind Goals

1:07:03 Living from Feeling States, Not Outcomes

1:13:58 Purpose Beyond the Self

1:24:21 Nervous System Regulation as a Foundation

1:27:52 Discipline as Self-Trust

1:33:51 The Three M's Morning Routine

1:39:05 Environment, Association, and Chemo Signals

1:42:20 The Necessity of Processing Time

___________

Episode Resources:

https://www.instagram.com/emonthebrain/

https://www.instagram.com/planetempodcast/

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https://www.instagram.com/knowthyself/

https://www.youtube.com/@knowthyselfpodcast

https://www.knowthyselfpodcast.com

Dr. Roman Yampolskiy joins me to explore one of the most urgent and uncomfortable questions of our time: what happens when we create intelligence that surpasses our own? We unpack the difference between the AI tools we use today and the emergence of artificial general intelligence, and why the transition from narrow systems to self-improving intelligence may mark a point where human control is no longer possible. Roman shares why even the people building these systems do not fully understand how they work, and why that gap in understanding becomes exponentially more dangerous as capabilities increase.

In this conversation, we explore the limits of control, prediction, and safety in a world where intelligence can recursively improve itself beyond human comprehension. Roman lays out why the problem of AI alignment may be fundamentally unsolvable, what timelines experts are realistically considering, and why even a single mistake at that level could have irreversible consequences. This episode invites a deeper reflection on what we are creating, what we assume we can control, and whether humanity is prepared for the intelligence it is bringing into existence.

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___________

00:00 Intro

01:25 What Is AGI and Why Should We Be Scared?

05:17 Roman's Journey: From Optimism to Impossibility

09:07 The High Risk, Zero Reward Equation

13:01 Why Superintelligence Is Uncontrollable, Unexplainable, and Unverifiable

18:00 How Long Do We Have? The AGI Timeline

21:24 How Superintelligence Could Actually Kill Us

23:28 Are We Living in a Simulation?

28:21 Can AI Become Conscious?

31:28 Ad: BiOptimizers

32:41 The Possible Timelines: Terminator, the Matrix, or the Zoo

42:24 I-Risk, X-Risk, and S-Risk: Three Ways It Goes Wrong

46:31 The Human Meaning Crisis: Jobs, Purpose, and What's Left

49:02 Ad: Based Bodyworks

50:20 What Empowers Us as Individuals Right Now

59:37 The Race to Doom: Who's Building It and Why They Won't Stop

1:07:41 Can AI Be Conscious — and Does It Already Have Internal Experiences?

1:12:41 Hacking the Simulation: Quantum, DMT, and Escaping the Code

1:18:30 Simulation Theory, Religion, and the Same Ancient Map

1:29:34 The Deal Roman Would Offer Altman, Dario, and Elon

1:39:44 What Is Humor? A Computer Scientist's Theory

1:43:03 What Comes After: Singularity, Death, and Knowing Thyself

___________

Episode Resources:

https://www.romanyampolskiy.com/

https://www.amazon.com/Unexplainable-Unpredictable-Uncontrollable-Artificial-Intelligence/dp/103257626X

https://www.instagram.com/andreduqum/

https://www.instagram.com/knowthyself/

https://www.youtube.com/@knowthyselfpodcast

https://www.knowthyselfpodcast.com

Listen to the show:

Spotify: https://spoti.fi/4bZMq9l

Apple: https://apple.co/4iATICX

Joe Hudson returns to explore a deeper layer of the inner work, and why peace alone is not the full picture of being human. We unpack the distinction between awakening in the mind and awakening in the heart, and how many people use meditation and awareness as a way to find calm, while still avoiding the emotional depth that brings real connection, intimacy, and joy. Joe shares how positive emotions can actually feel more threatening than negative ones, and why the capacity to feel love is directly tied to our willingness to feel everything else.

In this conversation, we walk through Joe’s personal journey from early childhood patterns of shame, emotional suppression, and disconnection into years of seeking awakening through meditation. He shares how peace became accessible, but something was still missing until he began to open emotionally and develop the capacity to feel fully. This episode is an invitation to move beyond detachment and into a more complete experience of being human, where joy, intimacy, and love emerge through welcoming every part of ourselves.

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Andrés Book Recs: https://www.knowthyselfpodcast.com/book-list

___________

00:00 Intro

01:17 Peace vs. Joy: Two Different Awakenings

06:42 Joe's Story: Rebellion, Wounds, and the Stories We Make

11:34 The Meditation Obsession and the Awakening That Changed Everything

20:00 From Peace to Fully Human: The Heart Journey Begins

27:24 When Peace Becomes Bypassing: The Call to Feel

28:27 Ad: Mud/Wtr

29:46 The Smoke Signals of Emotional Suppression

38:23 Overthinking, Fear, and the Emotions Behind Every Decision

43:39 Commitment, the Self-Reliant Pattern, and Relationship Dynamics

49:38 Ad: The Way App

50:58 The Chasing and Being Chased Dynamic in Love

1:00:35 Joy Is the Matriarch — and Anger Is a Child Too

1:03:18 Turning Toward the World as the Real Path of Growth

1:10:33 What Are We Really Searching For?

1:14:02 Living Your Calling: Purpose, Surrender, and Doing What You Love

1:25:03 AI, Societal Transformation, and the Edge of Wisdom

1:31:25 Vagal Authority and the Emotional Order of Operations

1:40:46 Joe Coaches André Live: Perfectionism, Self-Reliance, and Vulnerability

1:55:26 Dropping the Identity of Being Spiritual

1:59:11 We All Want to Be Seen

___________

Episode Resources:

https://www.instagram.com/joehudson_aoa/

https://www.artofaccomplishment.com/about

https://www.instagram.com/andreduqum/

https://www.instagram.com/knowthyself/

https://www.youtube.com/@knowthyselfpodcast

https://www.knowthyselfpodcast.com

Wim Hof joins me to explore the deeper story behind his work, from profound personal loss to discovering a direct path back into the body through breath and cold exposure. We unpack how modern life pulls us out of feeling and into constant mental noise, and how reconnecting with the breath can bring us back into a state of presence, strength, and clarity. Wim shares how a single moment stepping into freezing water at 17 opened something fundamental within him, quieting the mind and reconnecting him to his heart.

In this conversation, we explore the science behind his methods and what it means to consciously influence the nervous system and immune response. Wim explains how breathwork can reduce inflammation, strengthen the body, and restore balance, and why this ability is not unique to him but available to anyone willing to practice. This episode is an invitation to reclaim autonomy over your body and mind, and to remember a deeper connection to nature that modern life often pulls us away from.

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___________

00:00 Intro

01:27 A Life Shaped by Purpose

04:00 The Science of Breath and Inflammation

09:20 Music, Cold, and the Opening of the Heart

12:31 Becoming a Missionary for Human Healing

22:10 Freedom, Autonomy, and the Power Within

25:15 Trust as the True Superpower

29:52 Ad: Function Health

31:04 The Years of Searching, Love, and Loss

37:16 Grief, Rage, and the Call to Change the World

47:14 It’s Time for the Soul

52:10 Returning to the Body Through Breath and Cold

53:31 Ad: LMNT

54:39 The Wim Hof Method in Practice

1:07:17 What the Cold Really Teaches

1:10:33 A Message for Humanity

1:12:45 Choosing Stress Before Stress Chooses You

1:19:11 The Forgotten Power of the Breath

1:24:08 Consciousness, Soul, and the Search for Meaning

1:33:18 Becoming an Agent of Change

___________

For a free Wim Hof Method Mini Class:

https://www.wimhofmethod.com/free-mini-class

Episode Resources:

https://www.wimhofmethod.com

https://www.instagram.com/iceman_hof

https://www.instagram.com/andreduqum/

https://www.instagram.com/knowthyself/

https://www.youtube.com/@knowthyselfpodcast

https://www.knowthyselfpodcast.com

Emad Mostaque joins me to explore one of the most confronting questions of our time: what happens when human intelligence is no longer economically valuable? We unpack how rapidly advancing AI is moving toward a world where cognitive labor becomes obsolete, and why this shift may happen much sooner than most people expect. Emad shares how we’ve already built systems that can replicate human thinking, decision-making, and creativity, and how the next phase is not about new breakthroughs but simply scaling what already exists.

In this conversation, we explore what this means for identity, purpose, and the future of society. If so much of our sense of self is tied to what we do, what happens when that disappears? Emad lays out the possible paths forward, from centralized control of intelligence to more open and collaborative systems, and why the stories we choose to believe in now may determine whether we move toward collapse or abundance. This episode is an invitation to rethink work, meaning, and what it truly means to be human in a world where intelligence is no longer scarce.

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___________

0:00 Intro

01:17 The Last Economy

02:03 The Race Toward AGI and Human Obsolescence

07:50 Why AI Will Reshape Work Within 800 Days

14:36 The Collapse of Work as Identity

18:22 How Far Ahead Private AI Really Is

21:24 The Three Futures of AI

32:52 When the Economic Loop Breaks

37:38 Ad: Based Body Works

38:07 What AI Changes About Intelligence

40:50 When AI Replaces Human Worth

48:44 Ad: BON CHARGE

48:46 Industrializing Self-Deception

55:55 When AI Knows You Better Than You Do

1:08:23 What Utopia Could Still Look Like

1:20:20 How to Use AI Without Losing Yourself

1:30:59 Can AI Become Conscious?

1:46:29 What Makes Us Human?

1:57:08 Longevity, Transhumanism, and the Future of the Body

2:03:51 The Practical AI Tools to Start Using Now

2:14:43 The End of Human-Only Discovery

2:17:22 What Parents Should Teach Their Kids Now

2:23:39 Happiness, Agency, and the Final Message

___________

Episode Resources:

https://x.com/EMostaque

https://x.com/ii_posts

https://ii.inc/web

Emad's Book: http://thelasteconomy.com

https://www.instagram.com/andreduqum/

https://www.instagram.com/knowthyself/

https://www.youtube.com/@knowthyselfpodcast

https://www.knowthyselfpodcast.com

Listen to the show:

Spotify: https://spoti.fi/4bZMq9l

Apple: https://apple.co/4iATICX

Shi Heng Yi joins me to explore the path of self-mastery through the lens of the Shaolin tradition, and why, despite having more comfort and convenience than ever before, so many people still feel a deep sense of inner lack. We unpack the idea that external success, wealth, and achievement cannot replace a missing sense of inner stability, and how the constant search outside of ourselves often leads us further away from what we are truly looking for.

In this conversation, we explore the relationship between mind, body, and energy, and why true mastery begins with learning how to regulate and understand oneself rather than trying to control the external world. Shi Heng Yi shares how thoughts shape reality, why discipline and consistency are essential for growth, and what it means to become “transparent” by letting go of identity and the need to be someone. This episode is an invitation to shift from reacting to life toward consciously creating it from within.

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___________

0:00 Intro

1:11 The Root of Suffering: Becoming Someone

1:50 Why Comfort Doesn’t Create Peace

4:56 The Inner Void Beneath External Success

9:16 The Path of Self-Mastery

16:04 Mastering the Mind, Not the World

21:07 Where Attention Goes, Energy Flows

27:21 Ad: OneSkin

28:43 The Essence of the Shaolin Spirit

36:29 Living with Intention and Integrity

44:14 Service Beyond the Self

46:34 The Freedom of Being No One

57:14 Ad: Mud/Wtr

58:56 Trust, Discipline, and the Inner Path

1:05:24 Strength Without Suppression

1:10:20 The Middle Way of Emotion

1:13:11 Structure as the Gateway to Freedom

1:19:00 Returning to the Body

1:35:36 The Body as a Tool for Awareness

1:42:32 Breath as the Bridge to Presence

1:46:38 Seeing Clearly: The End of Suffering

1:54:31 From Endless Seeking to Direct Experience

1:59:27 The Mind’s Five Obstacles

2:08:07 Turning Awareness Inward

2:11:20 Beyond the Illusion of Separation

2:14:25 Nothing to Gain, Nothing to Lose

2:15:30 Closing Thoughts

___________

Episode Resources:

https://www.shihengyi.online/

https://www.instagram.com/shihengyi.online

https://www.instagram.com/andreduqum/

https://www.instagram.com/knowthyself/

https://www.youtube.com/@knowthyselfpodcast

https://www.knowthyselfpodcast.com

Dr. Nicole LePera joins me to explore how our childhood experiences shape the nervous system, emotional patterns, and identities we carry into adulthood. We unpack how many of the reactions, habits, and relationship dynamics that feel automatic today were once adaptations we developed to maintain connection and safety early in life. Nicole explains how emotional attunement in childhood forms the internal “home base” we return to, often recreating familiar patterns even when they no longer serve us.

In this conversation, we explore attachment styles, people-pleasing, parentification, and the unconscious roles we adopt in order to belong. Nicole also introduces the practice of reparenting—learning how to meet our own emotional needs through awareness, nervous system regulation, and body-based practices. This episode offers a grounded path toward understanding where our patterns come from and how we can begin to create a deeper sense of safety and home within ourselves.

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___________

00:00 Intro

03:30 Unearthing What We Buried to Survive

09:12 The Childhood Roots of Our Coping Strategies

15:59 The Importance of Emotional Attunement

19:52 Understanding Attachment Styles

28:33 Ad: LMNT

30:35 From Seeking Love to Finding Home Within

34:54 Meeting Needs With Compassion

41:06 Ad: Mudwtr

42:29 The Impact of Status-Oriented Parenting

51:34 The Body as the Foundation of Healing

1:04:19 Simple Practices for Nervous System Regulation

1:12:07 Growing When Your Partner Isn't

1:26:07 Vulnerability as the Path to Connection

1:42:15 Healing the Need to Be Perfect

1:50:55 The Power of Inner Child Awareness

___________

Episode Resources:

https://www.instagram.com/the.holistic.psychologist

https://theholisticpsychologist.com/

https://www.instagram.com/andreduqum/

https://www.instagram.com/knowthyself/

https://www.youtube.com/@knowthyselfpodcast

https://www.knowthyselfpodcast.com

Zen teacher and author Henry Shukman offers a clear and grounded introduction to the heart of Zen practice. We explore how awakening is not an escape from life, but a deeper participation in it — a realization that dissolves the illusion of separation and reveals a boundless field of awareness and love.

Henry shares his own spontaneous awakening experience at 19, the profound insight that life is not divided between self and world, and the difficult healing journey that followed. From mindfulness and meditation to flow states, jhanas, koans, and the role of trauma in spiritual growth, this conversation maps out a path that integrates awakening with emotional healing.

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André's Book Recs: https://www.knowthyselfpodcast.com/book-list

___________

00:00 Intro

01:26 An Introduction to Zen

13:10 The Premise of Original Love

17:14 Training the Mind Like the Body

20:54 Freedom From Identification With Thought

27:50 What Are the Jhanas?

32:50 Ad: Saily

33:54 Tasting Awakening for Yourself

45:17 Awakening vs Psychological Healing

50:17 Awakening as an Ongoing Path

54:54 The Distinct Path of Zen

59:13 Koans as a Path to Insight

1:13:53 The Enlightenment of the Mundane

1:20:07 The Freedom of Emptiness

1:26:16 The Necessity of Meditation Practice

1:34:32 Sweeping the Yard (A Zen Poem)

1:43:33 Beauty, Ethics, and Interconnection

1:47:33 The Journey to a Whole Heart (A Poem on Heartbreak)

2:02:58 Original Love in a Fragmented World

___________

Episode Resources:

https://www.instagram.com/henryshukman/

https://www.instagram.com/theway_app/

https://www.instagram.com/andreduqum/

https://www.instagram.com/knowthyself/

https://www.youtube.com/@knowthyselfpodcast

https://www.knowthyselfpodcast.com

Dr. Sue Morter returns to explore what it truly means to awaken — not as a concept, but as a lived, embodied experience. Beneath our protective personality and performance-driven identity lies a deeper intelligence — an electromagnetic master system that governs healing, perception, and consciousness itself.

In this conversation, we explore how nervous system regulation opens the doorway to higher awareness, why triggers are invitations to reclaim lost parts of ourselves, and how building energetic circuitry transforms reactive patterns into creative power. From subtle anatomy and the Shoshumna channel to the relationship between consciousness and matter, this episode bridges science and spirituality in a grounded, practical way.

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___________

00:00 Intro

5:48 The Illusion of Inherent Brokenness

11:37 The Fuel Behind Achievement

17:21 The Protective Personality

31:21 Ad: LMNT

32:46 The Return to Second Innocence

47:04 Ad: BON CHARGE

48:13 Expanding the Space Between Stimulus and Response

1:04:06 The Science of Subtle Anatomy

1:29:24 The Limits of Spiritual Language

1:43:07 Embodiment of Expanded Awareness

1:49:02 Moving From Joy Instead of Lack

1:54:16 The Transformative Power of Immersive Experience

2:15:22 Surrendering Fully Into Feeling

2:25:42 A Message to the Heart of Humanity

___________

Episode Resources:

Dr. Sue Morter's book: https://nt113.isrefer.com/go/HYHYL-Book/KnowThyself/

https://www.instagram.com/drsuemorter

https://www.instagram.com/andreduqum/

https://www.instagram.com/knowthyself/

https://www.youtube.com/@knowthyselfpodcast

https://www.knowthyselfpodcast.com

Listen to the show:

Spotify: https://spoti.fi/4bZMq9l

Apple: https://apple.co/4iATICX

Nir Eyal joins the podcast to explore one of the most foundational forces shaping our lives: belief. What if the way you see reality isn’t reality itself, but a simulation filtered through prior assumptions, expectations, and unconscious scripts?

In this conversation, we unpack the difference between fact, faith, and belief—and why most of our suffering stems from confusing the three. Nir shares powerful research on predictive processing, placebo and nocebo effects, learned helplessness, and how our expectations literally alter what we see, feel, and experience in our bodies.

From secular prayer and gratitude practices to Byron Katie’s turnaround method, this episode is a deep dive into how to move from limiting beliefs to liberating ones. If beliefs are tools, then the real question becomes: are the ones you’re using serving you?

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André's Book Recs: https://www.knowthyselfpodcast.com/book-list

___________

00:00 Intro

01:35 The Difference Between Fact, Faith, and Belief

05:36 Illusions of Reality

07:29 The Core of Our Perception

15:52 Where to Start Enacting Change on Your Life

19:53 Beliefs as Tools, Not Truths

25:28 Ad: Nord VPN

26:32 The Cosmic Slot Machine

37:39 Spotting Your Limiting Beliefs

46:39 The Prison of Our Own Making

51:33 Why We Perceive Threats Everywhere

1:00:18 Becoming Indistractable

1:12:57 What Attention Means Today versus the Past

1:26:44 The Motivation Triangle

1:32:00 Closing Thoughts

___________

Episode Resources:

https://www.instagram.com/neyal99

https://nir.substack.com/

https://www.instagram.com/andreduqum/

https://www.instagram.com/knowthyself/

https://www.youtube.com/@knowthyselfpodcast

https://www.knowthyselfpodcast.com

Swami Sarvapriyananda unpacks the philosophy of Advaita Vedanta and its central claim: you are not the body, not the mind, not even your thoughts — you are pure consciousness itself. Through rigorous reasoning rather than blind belief, he guides us step by step into a direct inquiry of who we truly are.

We explore the limits of faith-based religion, the pitfalls of mystical experience, the distinction between intelligence and consciousness in the age of AI, and the profound implications of non-duality. This conversation is not about adopting a belief system — it is about dismantling false identities until only the undeniable remains.

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André's Book Recs: https://www.knowthyselfpodcast.com/book-list

___________

00:00 Intro

01:18 What Is Advaita Vedanta

06:44 The Promise Freedom From Suffering

10:16 Liberation While Living

15:09 The Three Spiritual Paths

23:38 The Path of Knowledge Jnana Yoga

28:42 Discovering Our Ignorance

29:49 Descartes and the Indubitable Self

32:36 Ad: LMNT

34:50 Deconstructing the Self

37:18 Are You the Body

42:09 From Body to Breath to Mind

47:30 AI and the Difference Between Intelligence and Consciousness

49:12 Consciousness in Deep Sleep

52:23 If Not Body or Mind What Are You

53:23 Pure Consciousness Explained

55:04 Dualism vs Non Dualism

57:42 The Dream Analogy

59:17 Maya and the Appearance of the Universe

01:00:28 Ocean and Wave Analogy

01:01:13 Ad: BON CHARGE

01:03:35 The Shift From Person to Awareness

01:10:00 Awareness as the Ground of Reality

01:18:00 The Root of Suffering

01:26:00 Ego Attachment and Fear

01:34:00 Living as Pure Awareness

01:42:00 Practical Self Inquiry

01:50:00 Free Will Karma and Responsibility

02:02:00 The Illusion of Individuality

02:14:00 Consciousness and Modern Science

02:26:00 Death Rebirth and Liberation

02:38:00 What Enlightenment Really Means

02:50:00 Final Clarifications on Non Duality

02:55:00 Closing Reflections

___________

https://www.instagram.com/andreduqum/

https://www.instagram.com/knowthyself/

https://www.youtube.com/@knowthyselfpodcast

https://www.knowthyselfpodcast.com

Joscha Bach explores the nature of consciousness, free will, and reality through the lens of computation, cognitive science, and philosophy. Rather than treating the mind as a mystical entity, Joscha frames consciousness as a constructed dream—a model generated by the brain to make sense of the world and coordinate behavior.

We examine why beliefs should remain provisional, how the self functions as a useful fiction, and why suffering emerges when internal learning signals misfire. Joscha explains why free will feels real even if decisions arise before awareness, how meaning exists beyond the individual ego, and why wisdom is not simply knowledge but the ability to orient oneself within larger systems of value.

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André's Book Recs: https://www.knowthyselfpodcast.com/book-list

___________

00:00 Intro: Josha Bach

04:24 Agnosticism, Evidence, and Logical Alternatives

11:20 Reality as a Mental Simulation

13:00 What Physicalism Actually Claims

16:55 Telepathy, Rituals, and Distributed Minds

19:45 Consciousness Does Not Make Decisions

22:55 Free Will as a Post-Hoc Story

24:00 Consciousness as a Trance State

26:00 Meditation and the Illusion of Self

29:10 Out-of-Body Experiences Explained

31:07 Ad: BON CHARGE

36:30 Why the Brain Fills in Missing Reality

39:50 Dreams, Selves, and Narrative Identity

43:20 Intelligence, Models, and World-Building

47:10 Why Reality Feels Stable

51:00 Meaning, Agency, and Mental Compression

55:10 Why Consciousness Feels Central (But Isn’t)

59:30 The Psychological World vs Physical Reality

1:04:10 Intelligence Without Awareness

1:08:45 The Cost of Believing the Self Is Real

1:13:30 Waking Up From the Narrative

1:18:40 What a Cognitive Science View Really Implies

1:23:30 Final Thoughts: Living Inside the Dream

___________

Episode Resources:

https://www.cimc.ai/

https://www.instagram.com/andreduqum/

https://www.instagram.com/knowthyself/

https://www.youtube.com/@knowthyselfpodcast

https://www.knowthyselfpodcast.com

In this conversation, David Ghiyam shares the spiritual framework that has guided his life for over 25 years—one rooted in the idea that reality operates according to universal spiritual laws, just as it does physical ones. Drawing from Kabbalistic wisdom and lived experience, David explains how the soul’s purpose is not comfort, but transformation, and how life’s challenges are designed to reconnect us with a deeper source of fulfillment.

We explore the concept of the “light of the Creator,” the idea of spiritual baggage carried across lifetimes, and why pain, relationships, and adversity act as mirrors for inner growth. David reflects on periods of profound darkness in his own life—financial collapse, loss, doubt—and how a shift from victimhood to responsibility opened the door to unexpected clarity, healing, and abundance.

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___________

00:00 Intro - David Ghiyam

04:57 The light of the Creator

08:25 External teaching vs internal understanding

12:36 Kabbalah in the life of David

18:39 What is the source of consciousness?

26:50 The trap of “needing” energy

31:00 Ad: Mudwtr

32:21 Does everything happen for a reason?

39:43 The magnetic quality of being whole

52:51 The role of business in our spiritual paths

59:55 Protecting the seed

1:09:08 How to practice trust in your intuition

1:18:18 One spiritual law people violate daily

1:29:26 Closing thoughts

___________

Episode Resources:

https://www.instagram.com/davidghiyam

https://www.davidghiyam.com/

https://www.instagram.com/andreduqum/

https://www.instagram.com/knowthyself/

https://www.youtube.com/@knowthyselfpodcast

https://www.knowthyselfpodcast.com

In this conversation, Reggie Watts explores creativity not as a skill reserved for a few, but as the fundamental way human beings relate to reality itself. From comedy and music to improvisation, paradox, and play, Reggie reflects on how we’re constantly creating our experience of life—often without realizing it.

We talk about absurdity as a doorway to truth, humor as a form of instantaneous awakening, and why laughter momentarily dissolves identity, ideology, and certainty. Reggie shares how improvisation shapes his philosophy of living, why structure exists to be transcended, and how playfulness restores a sense of freedom in a world that often feels rigid and over-defined.

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André's Book Recs: https://www.knowthyselfpodcast.com/book-list

___________

00:00 Intro - Reggie Watts

04:54 The absurdity of being human

07:21 The insight gained through self-reflection

11:34 The philosophy of improv

19:06 Realizing the artist in you

24:27 Ad: BON CHARGE

25:44 Reggie’s form of death meditation

38:14 Altered states as a reference point

46:09 Not all transpersonal experiences are equal

52:43 Reframing anxiety after altered states

1:03:25 It’s all an illusion

1:12:44 Service to self vs service to others

1:19:28 Building community

1:23:15 Closing thoughts

___________

Episode Resources:

https://www.reggie-watts.com/

https://www.instagram.com/reggiewatts

https://www.instagram.com/andreduqum/

https://www.instagram.com/knowthyself/

https://www.youtube.com/@knowthyselfpodcast

https://www.knowthyselfpodcast.com

In this conversation, Jesse Michels joins me to explore a question that’s becoming harder to dismiss: what if the phenomenon we call UFOs points to something real—and we don’t yet know what it is? Rather than arguing for belief or disbelief, this episode is an invitation to curiosity, careful inquiry, and intellectual honesty about the limits of our current understanding.

We examine historical UFO encounters near nuclear sites, government secrecy, and the growing body of anomalies that don’t sit comfortably within a purely materialist worldview. This is a conversation about staying grounded while remaining open. About asking better questions. And about whether phenomena like UFOs, non-human intelligence, or something we haven’t yet named might be nudging us to expand how we think about reality, consciousness, and our place in the universe.

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André's Book Recs: https://www.knowthyselfpodcast.com/book-list

___________

00:00 Intro

06:36 Questioning the Nature of Reality

09:18 A Timeline of Non-Human Intelligence Evidence

23:37 Why Nuclear Sites Attract Attention

31:55 Extraordinary Claims, Extraordinary Evidence

40:29 Ad: Momentous

41:51 Letting Go of Human-Centric Thinking

47:49 Studying Claims Without Dismissing People

58:58 Non-Human Biologics and Physical Evidence

1:06:10 Ad: Boncharge

1:07:25 What May Have Been Quietly Explored

1:18:55 The Hidden Branch of Physics

1:26:38 Reframing Aliens Through Consciousness

1:33:33 Grays, Nordics, and Reptilians Explained

1:40:10 Why We Don’t See Reality Directly

1:53:58 Glimpses Outside Linear Time

1:58:44 Why Aliens Look Strangely Human

2:07:32 Shared Phenomena in Altered States

2:15:32 Jesse’s Personal UFO Experiences

2:23:35 The Monolith as a Metaphor

2:29:07 The Problem With Visual Proof

2:35:24 What Is Actually Happening?

2:46:47 Voices Worth Listening To

2:51:22 What Would You Ask an Alien?

2:53:19 Closing Thoughts

___________

Episode Resources:

https://www.youtube.com/Jessemichels

https://www.instagram.com/jessemichelsofficial/

https://www.instagram.com/andreduqum/

https://www.instagram.com/knowthyself/

https://www.youtube.com/@knowthyselfpodcast

https://www.knowthyselfpodcast.com

This final episode of the year is a special compilation reflecting on the lessons, reminders, and moments that shaped 2025. It’s a curated journey through insights from across the year—designed to help you slow down, take stock, and step into 2026 with greater clarity, presence, and intention.

This episode is less about doing more and more about listening—reflecting on the growth, challenges, relationships, and inner shifts that defined the past year. It’s an invitation to notice what wants to be released, what wants to be integrated, and what seeds you’re ready to water moving forward. Sometimes all it takes is a one-degree change in direction to alter the entire path ahead.

Momentous: Best Creatine in the game

https://livemomentous.com

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2025/2026 Reflections and Intentions: https://www.knowthyselfpodcast.com/yearinreview

Andrés Book Recs: https://www.knowthyselfpodcast.com/book-list

___________

00:00:00 Intro

00:01:37 Review 2025 Instead of Planning 2026 (E166 – Tim Ferriss)

00:05:27 The Most Important Practice of 2026 (E152 – Mark Manson)

00:10:11 There Is No Wealth Without Health (E128 – Mindy Pelz)

00:12:26 The Importance of a Bedtime Routine (E143 – Michael Beckwith)

00:17:59 How To Grasp The Opportunity of Life (E119 – Marianne Williamson)

00:25:16 The Power of Entrainment (E145 – Dr. Theresa Bullard)

00:31:01 Be Careful With What You Desire (E160 – Aaron Abke)

00:35:18 Explore Your Relationship With Money (E140 – Lewis Howes)

00:41:59 Ad – Momentous

00:43:14 Happiness is an Inside Job (E149 – Dr. Thema Bryant)

00:48:16 The Unique Opportunity of Our Times (E154 – Sadhguru)

00:53:25 How To Discover Your Dharma (E155 – Dr. K)

01:01:11 Living The Moment You're Meant To Live (E164 – Dr. John Demartini)

01:07:53 The Problem With Manifestation (E118 – Aaron Doughty)

01:13:29 Finding Stability in Surrender (E135 – Yung Pueblo)

01:16:23 Relaxing Into Instability (E146 – Cory Muscara)

01:20:42 Looking Back To Plan Ahead (E158 – Tom Campbell)

01:24:35 A Different Perspective of the Future (E165 – Dr. Iain McGilchrist)

01:29:04 The Unlimited Potential of Being Human (E134 – Peter Crone)

___________

Watch the Full Episodes

Tim Ferriss: https://youtu.be/NxmUCGuapNw

Mark Manson: https://youtu.be/to-APJvffFQ

Mindy Pelz: https://youtu.be/pgWnbRg5-cg

Michael Beckwith: https://youtu.be/r3wrUmE1L3w

Marianne Williamson: https://youtu.be/AQzKagUJGvI

Dr. Theresa Bullard: https://youtu.be/mrKiH4J0_5U

Aaron Abke: https://youtu.be/zXMKj8fNnYQ

Lewis Howes: https://youtu.be/PTPjCtF9es4

Dr. Thema Bryant: https://youtu.be/ItRCT_L2kpA

Sadhguru: https://youtu.be/FMoXXb-wKE8

Dr. K: https://youtu.be/zj40FT631P4

Dr. John DeMartini: https://youtu.be/dVR01alAe8o

Aaron Doughty: https://youtu.be/79INohJ7KTw

Yung Pueblo: https://youtu.be/bwom9Y6ybcg

Cory Muscara: https://youtu.be/IrxFMkYUBFg

Tom Campbell: https://youtu.be/IoGSWLuH2Js

Dr. Iain McGilchrist: https://youtu.be/LZ5C11mlTH4

Peter Crone: https://youtu.be/VCi93m9lloM

Episode Resources:

https://www.instagram.com/andreduqum/

https://www.instagram.com/knowthyself/

https://www.youtube.com/@knowthyselfpodcast

https://www.knowthyselfpodcast.com

Dr. Mindy Pelz returns to explore the deeper meaning of aging, menopause, and the profound psychological and neurological transformations women undergo as they grow older. Drawing from neuroscience, anthropology, mythology, and personal experience, Mindy reframes menopause not as a decline—but as an initiation into wisdom, sovereignty, and inner authority.

We discuss the concept of the “second innocence,” the pruning and rewiring of the female brain across hormonal transitions, the grandmother hypothesis, and why modern culture fears aging women. Mindy shares how trauma, grief, solitude, and uncertainty can become gateways to resilience, neuroplasticity, and self-discovery—especially when women stop outsourcing their worth and begin listening inward.

Boost your hydration with Pique Life Tea (20% off here):

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Andrés Book Recs: https://www.knowthyselfpodcast.com/book-list

___________

00:00 Intro - Dr. Mindy Pelz

03:39 The return to the second innocence

08:18 What’s the purpose of menopause?

16:09 Where the shift begins

23:04 Supporting others without abandoning yourself

31:57 Being considerate vs owning others’ emotions

34:14 Ad: Pique Life

35:55 The power of solitude

43:26 Letting go

52:48 From power over to power within

56:48 The brain architecture of wisdom

1:02:24 Transformation: From a caterpillar to a butterfly

1:19:58 Fasting during menopause

1:26:35 Knowing when and how to detox

1:32:31 Healing through breathwork, EMDR, psilocybin

1:45:12 Lacking a support system

1:49:07 Closing thoughts

___________

Episode Resources:

Her new book: https://bookshop.org/p/books/age-like-a-girl-why-the-brain-changes-that-happen-after-40-set-you-up-for-your-best-life-yet-dr-mindy-pelz/1d7c0fe95ab52c4f?ean=9781401975562&next=t

https://www.instagram.com/dr.mindypelz

https://www.drmindypelz.com/

https://www.instagram.com/andreduqum/

https://www.instagram.com/knowthyself/

https://www.youtube.com/@knowthyselfpodcast

https://www.knowthyselfpodcast.com

In this episode, Dr. Will Bulsiewicz walks us through unseen forces shaping our health, energy, and emotional lives. From the chemicals in our food system to the hidden drivers of inflammation and burnout, we dive into why so many people today feel exhausted, misaligned, and disconnected from their true well-being.

We examine how modern culture normalizes habits and environments that work against our biology, and why healing requires more than symptom management — it demands addressing the root causes, rebuilding alignment, and taking ownership of what we allow into our bodies and minds.

20% off Pique Life Tea (FREE glass beaker and frother!):

https://www.piquelife.com/knowthyself

Andrés Book Recs: https://www.knowthyselfpodcast.com/book-list

___________

00:00 Intro: Will Bulsiewicz

02:34 How much of our mood is controlled by our gut?

09:40 Two diseases: individualism and materialism

23:30 The intelligence that lives in our gut

35:31 Ad: Pique Life

36:46 What is immune intelligence?

48:01 Detoxing from environmental toxins

54:54 Why are chemical companies allowed to poison us?

57:39 A short horror story

1:02:45 Looking out for what to avoid

1:05:27 The effects of factory farming on our bodies

1:17:36 Humans are the microbes of the Earth

1:26:23 Conclusion: Changing the world

___________

Episode Resources: 

https://www.amazon.com/Plant-Powered-Plus-Activate-Inflammation/dp/0593418794

https://www.instagram.com/theguthealthmd/

https://theguthealthmd.com/

https://www.instagram.com/andreduqum/

https://www.instagram.com/knowthyself/

https://www.youtube.com/@knowthyselfpodcast

https://www.knowthyselfpodcast.com

Lucy Hale joins me for a deeply honest conversation about sobriety, identity, childhood wounds, fame, intuition, and learning to finally feel at home within yourself. Known globally as a singer and actress, Lucy opens up about the parts of her journey most people never see: the fear beneath early success, the alcoholism that followed her from childhood, the spiritual intervention that changed her life, and the inner work she’s committed to since.

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Andrés Book Recs: https://www.knowthyselfpodcast.com/book-list

___________

00:00 Intro: Lucy Hale

03:27 What do you attribute your ambition to?

04:49 Alcoholism

14:23 Hitting rock bottom

19:33 Finding meaning in yourself

27:59 Old Lucy vs New Lucy

33:30 Ad: Boncharge

35:28 How has your connection with yourself revealed new insights?

44:40 How do you navigate being in the public eye and staying true to yourself?

47:26 What are you getting intuitively about the next chapter of your life?

50:49 Ad: Mudwtr

51:57 How do you handle rejection as an actor?

54:34 From your young age, what called you to being in this line of work?

57:12 Is there a moment that stood out to you that said "I made it"?

59:51 Pretty Little Liars

1:05:54 What would you say to past Lucy?

1:08:01 Was taking responsibility of your life what shifted it all for you?

1:12:37 How do you view your sense of spirituality?

1:19:48 What is your relationship to boredom?

1:23:00 How has the definition of beauty evolved for you?

1:28:56 What does prayer look like to you?

1:29:51 Being 36 and the biological clock

1:34:46 Closing thoughts - Lucy's masculine vs feminine side

___________

Episode Resources:

https://www.instagram.com/lucyhale/

https://www.instagram.com/thelightdwellers/

https://www.instagram.com/andreduqum/

https://www.instagram.com/knowthyself/

https://www.youtube.com/@knowthyselfpodcast

https://www.knowthyselfpodcast.com

In this solo Q&A episode, I’m answering the questions so many of you have asked me over the past few days—about ego, identity, relationships, breakups, shadow work, discipline, grounding, and what the spiritual path actually looks like in real life.

I share honestly about the subtle ego patterns I still face, how I navigate heartbreak with grace, what it means to “perform” spirituality versus actually live it, and the practices that keep me connected when I fall off center. I also speak about dating, celibacy, intimacy, and how I think about love at this stage of my life.

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Andrés Book Recs: https://www.knowthyselfpodcast.com/book-list

___________

00:25 How do you feel about people using spirituality as an identity?

04:34 What is a subtle form of ego that you still catch yourself falling into?

06:22 Relationships ending

08:30 I would like to hear about your struggles

10:19 How do you stay & grow in a relationship when your partner doesn’t meet you in that growth?

13:50 What are your top spiritual books?

14:39 What’s the simplistic way you ground yourself when you feel an imbalance?

15:50 Who is André underneath all the labels?

17:35 Do you ever fall off your practices with meditation or music?

19:26 Are you single?

22:23 - Ad - BiOptimizers

23:47 What do you use to know yourself deeply?

25:27 What makes you most optimistic about the future of humanity?

27:38 Which meditations do you practice?

28:37 How did you believe so much in yourself to create something at this scale?

30:31 What’s your vision for KT for the coming year?

32:57 When did you start playing piano?

33:40 What practices keep spiritual insight grounded and accountable?

34:36 What illusion do you see most are still caught in without realizing it?

37:55 What was your earliest experience that awakened you to God within?

40:35 How do you know it’s your calling when it comes?

44:25 Do you think the more one knows themselves, the harder it is to fall in love?

48:03 Do you believe in free will?

51:26 How are you approaching dating and relationships?

52:54 What is the most overlooked doorway in consciousness?

53:54 What’s the deepest question you can ever imagine asking yourself?

55:21 What you feel is most important for calling in sacred union, your person?

57:06 What are some of the biggest patterns you’ve unraveled in yourself?

59:22 How were you raised spiritually/religiously?

1:00:55 What kind of diet do you follow & why?

1:02:04 What was the book that launched you into seeking?

1:03:20 What’s the deepest truth you’ve met this year?

1:03:58 Do you as André think that God is consciousness?

1:05:49 Do you still go through episodes of depression?

___________

Episode Resources:

https://www.substack.com/@andreduqum

https://www.instagram.com/andreduqum/

https://www.instagram.com/knowthyself/

https://www.youtube.com/@knowthyselfpodcast

https://www.knowthyselfpodcast.com

Dr. Alan Goldhammer, co-founder of TrueNorth Health Center, joins us to reveal the science and psychology of water fasting, detoxification, and healing the body through nature’s intelligence. Drawing from 40 years of clinical experience with over 20,000 supervised fasts, he explains why many chronic illnesses—hypertension, autoimmune conditions, metabolic disease, and even depression—respond when the body is given a chance to reset.

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Andrés Book Recs: https://www.knowthyselfpodcast.com/book-list

___________

00:00 Intro

04:25 The Body’s Innate Ability to Heal

08:45 TrueNorth: How Water Fasting Is Done Safely

13:10 Dopamine, Pleasure, and Modern Addiction

17:40 The Food Environment That Makes Us Sick

22:00 The Problem With Hyper-Processed Eating

25:47 Ad: Boncharge

26:20 What Happens to the Body During a Fast

30:55 Detoxification and the Healing Crisis

35:10 Who Should and Shouldn’t Fast

36:16 Ad: Mudwtr

39:30 Refeeding: The Most Important Phase

44:00 Case Studies: Reversing Chronic Disease

48:25 Weight Loss vs. Health Restoration

52:40 Why Most Diet Advice Fails

56:55 The Discipline of “Nothing”

1:01:15 The Psychology of Cravings

1:05:40 How Environment Shapes Behavior

1:10:05 Living in Alignment With Natural Law

1:14:20 How Much Is “Enough” for a Healthy Life?

1:18:40 The Simplicity of Whole Plant Foods

1:22:00 Conclusion

___________

Episode Resources:

https://www.healthpromoting.com/

https://www.instagram.com/truenorthhealthfoundation/

https://www.instagram.com/andreduqum/

https://www.instagram.com/knowthyself/

https://www.youtube.com/@knowthyselfpodcast

https://www.knowthyselfpodcast.com

In this special compilation episode, we explore the deeper dimensions of human consciousness. Featuring insights from Deepak Chopra, Tim Ferriss, Sadghuru, Dr. Lisa Miller, and others, this episode is a journey inward — from sensing what cannot be seen, to feeling what we’ve long avoided, to awakening to what we truly are beyond all stories. Through wisdom, science, and lived experience, we discover that the next evolution of humanity isn’t about becoming more — it’s about remembering the awareness that’s already here.

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Andrés Book Recs: https://www.knowthyselfpodcast.com/book-list

___________

00:00 Intro

01:12 Dr. Tara Swart - Beyond the 5 Senses: 34 Hidden Abilities

09:36 Dr. K - Reality of Intuition and Cultivating It

13:12 Deepak Chopra - Awakening to Your True Nature

15:13 Dr. Iain McGilchrist - Paying Attention To Access The Realm Beyond

21:25 Ad - Pique Life

23:05 Dr. Sue Morter - Transcending and Integrating the 5 Senses

26:13 Zach Bush - Remembering Our Innate Intelligence

30:08 Dr. Lisa Miller - Becoming a Spiritual Parent

39:29 Michael Beckwith - Divine Intelligence + The Power of Being Alone

41:55 Ad - BiOptimizers

43:17 Dr. Sue Morter - Healing the Emotional Body (And Feeling it Fully)

48:10 Tim Ferriss - Shutting Down Sensitivity Because of Trauma

56:03 Rainn Wilson - Purpose of Pain and Suffering on Our Path

1:02:04 Dr. K - The Difference Between Safety and Comfort

1:04:37 John Vervaeke - Self-Deception, Cultivating Wisdom and Find Meaning

1:17:05 Pete Holmes - Balancing Being Spiritual and Being Human

1:19:24 Dr. John Demartini - Setbacks Are Not in the Way… They’re ON the Way

1:24:24 Yung Pueblo - Learning to Love Better: From Arguments to Allowing

1:29:10 Joe Hudson - Best Way to Gain Emotional Awareness

1:32:00 Peter Crone - Freedom is Available Here and Now

1:38:44 Sadhguru - Don’t Take Yourself Too Seriously

___________

Watch the Full Episodes

Dr. Tara Swart: https://youtu.be/exAAKSeHP9E

Dr. K: https://youtu.be/zj40FT631P4

Deepak Chopra: https://youtu.be/ZhIQ5bzv-0w

Dr. Iain McGilchrist: https://youtu.be/LZ5C11mlTH4

Dr. Sue Morter: https://youtu.be/p0TWCSEPl3A

Zach Bush: https://youtu.be/3q0He3UOwVI

Dr. Lisa Miller: https://youtu.be/HTppdV4Mnt4

Michael Beckwith: https://youtu.be/r3wrUmE1L3w

Tim Ferriss: https://youtu.be/NxmUCGuapNw

Rainn Wilson: https://youtu.be/t_LvB6W4NmE

John Vervaeke: https://youtu.be/NOwnb6CkFlQ

Pete Holmes: https://youtu.be/PSPMP7DPEqM

Dr. John Demartini: https://youtu.be/dVR01alAe8o

Yung Pueblo: https://youtu.be/bwom9Y6ybcg

Joe Hudson: https://youtu.be/dhlupWyTNYM

Peter Crone: https://youtu.be/VCi93m9lloM

Sadhguru: https://youtu.be/FMoXXb-wKE8

Episode Resources:

https://www.instagram.com/andreduqum/

https://www.instagram.com/knowthyself/

https://www.youtube.com/@knowthyselfpodcast

https://www.knowthyselfpodcast.com

Transpersonal psychologist and dharma teacher Dr. John Churchill joins us to explore how ancient wisdom and modern psychology unite in the path of conscious evolution. Drawing on decades of training in Tibetan Buddhism and developmental psychology, John reveals how the Bodhisattva path—awakening not just for oneself, but for the benefit of all beings—offers a map for our individual and collective transformation.

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Guided Meditation: https://youtu.be/i_5WApfC1pM

Andrés Book Recs: https://www.knowthyselfpodcast.com/book-list

___________

00:00 Intro

01:38 Humanity’s Evolutionary Moment

03:14 Planetary Perspective & Spiritual Transition

04:15 AI as Symbol of Transformation

05:06 End of Time & Psychological Judgment Day

07:18 Destiny vs. Fate in a New Age

09:06 Shift into Love as a Developmental Stage

10:57 Individuation & Inner Sovereignty

12:00 Seven Stages of the Heart-Mind

13:32 What Is the Heart-Mind?

14:02 Reincarnation & Consciousness Evolution

16:02 Awakening in Animals & Soul Development

17:00 Beauty, Goodness & Truth vs. Ego Development

18:43 Ad – Momentous Creatine

19:04 Cartesian Split & Blossoming Intelligence

20:21 Stage 1 – Awakening the Heart Seed

23:06 Stage 2 – Emotional Healing & Astral Awareness

26:08 Stage 3 – Training the Mind & Sacred Sciences

33:15 Stage 4 – Stabilizing Heart-Mind & Path of the Bodhisattva

36:46 Pitfalls on the Spiritual Path

42:00 Stage 5 – Integration & Service

46:22 Ad - Pique Life

48:30 Stage 6 – Transcendence & Non-Dual Awareness

56:00 Stage 7 – Embodied Wisdom & Planetary Participation

01:04:00 The Bodhisattva Path in Modern Times

01:11:00 Navigating Glamour & Spiritual Ego

01:18:00 The Role of Practice & Discipline

01:25:00 Collective Awakening & Cultural Healing

01:32:00 Mystical Science & Sacred Technology

01:39:00 The Return of the Sacred Academy

01:46:00 Inner Sovereignty & Social Transformation

01:53:00 Living from the Heart-Mind

02:00:00 Final Reflections & Call to Action

02:06:00 Conclusion

___________

Episode Resources:

https://www.planetarydharma.com

https://www.instagram.com/planetarydharma/

https://www.instagram.com/andreduqum/

https://www.instagram.com/knowthyself/

https://www.youtube.com/@knowthyselfpodcast

https://www.knowthyselfpodcast.com

Clinical psychologist and bestselling author Dr. Lisa Miller joins us to reveal the groundbreaking neuroscience that connects spirituality with mental health, purpose, and human flourishing. Drawing from decades of research at Columbia University, she shares how spiritual awareness literally changes the brain — rewiring us for resilience, compassion, and meaning. From the awakened brain to the power of awe, Lisa bridges empirical science with lived spirituality, showing how we are biologically built for connection with something greater than ourselves.

www.bioptimizers.com/knowthyself

Use code KNOWTHYSELF for 15% off!

https://livemomentous.com and use code KNOWTHYSELF for up to 35% off the best creatine in the game

Andrés Book Recs: https://www.knowthyselfpodcast.com/book-list

___________

00:00 Intro03:40 What Is the Awakened Brain?07:10 How Spirituality Changes the Brain10:50 Depression as a Doorway to Awakening14:25 The Biology of Faith and Meaning18:05 The Parietal Lobe and the Sense of Oneness22:00 From Egoic Mind to Spiritual Awareness26:15 Dorsal vs. Ventral Attention Networks Explained30:10 How Prayer and Meditation Rewire the Brain34:00 The Neuroscience of Love and Connection38:25 What Happens in the Brain During Awe42:10 Synchronicity and the Science of Guidance46:00 Raising Spiritually Connected Children50:20 Addiction, Recovery, and the Search for Spirit54:35 The Brain as an Antenna for Consciousness59:15 Science Meets Mysticism: Where They Overlap1:03:30 The Future of Mental Health and Spirituality1:07:40 Reawakening the Innate Spiritual Brain1:12:00 Living with Awe, Service, and Gratitude1:16:10 Closing Reflections

___________

Episode Resources:

https://www.lisamillerphd.com/

https://www.instagram.com/dr.lisamiller/

https://www.instagram.com/andreduqum/

https://www.instagram.com/knowthyself/

https://www.youtube.com/@knowthyselfpodcast

https://www.knowthyselfpodcast.com

Death doula, attorney, and spiritual guide Alua Arthur joins us to explore how embracing mortality awakens us to life’s deepest meaning. Through her book Briefly Perfectly Human and her work helping people die with peace and purpose, Alua invites us to face what we fear most — not to prepare for dying, but to learn how to live fully. We explore the taboos around death, the regrets people hold at the end of life, and the powerful clarity that comes from asking what remains undone.

20% off Pique Life Tea:

https://www.piquelife.com/knowthyself

Andrés Book Recs: https://www.knowthyselfpodcast.com/book-list

___________

00:00 Intro

04:20 What Is a Death Doula?

08:10 How Facing Death Changes How We Live

12:45 Why We Fear Death

17:15 Imagining Your Own Death

21:40 The Most Common Regrets of the Dying

26:05 What Remains Undone in Your Life?

28:18 Ad: Pique Life

30:10 Facing Mortality as a Spiritual Practice

34:50 The Art of Dying Well

39:25 The Beauty of Grief and Letting Go

43:10 How to Be Present With the Dying

47:30 Conversations About Death With Loved Ones

51:00 How Alua Found Her Calling

55:40 What Dying People Teach About Living Fully

1:00:15 Grief, Identity, and Rebirth

1:05:30 How to Support Someone Who’s Grieving

1:10:45 The Mystery of What Happens After Death

1:15:00 The “Glitter Wave” Theory of Consciousness

1:20:20 Reimagining Rituals Around Death

1:25:40 Living Authentically Before It’s Too Late

1:30:00 Conclusion

___________

Episode Resources:

https://www.instagram.com/alualoveslife/

https://www.instagram.com/going_with_grace/

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BSP6FVYR/

https://www.instagram.com/andreduqum/

https://www.instagram.com/knowthyself/

https://www.youtube.com/@knowthyselfpodcast

https://www.knowthyselfpodcast.com

Cognitive scientist and author Donald Hoffman returns to share discoveries reshaping how we understand perception, consciousness, and reality itself. Drawing from evolutionary game theory and quantum physics, he reveals why we don’t see the world as it truly is—and what that means for science, spirituality, and awareness. Hoffman bridges rigorous mathematics with timeless wisdom, showing how awakening to truth means seeing through the interface of perception to what lies beyond.

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To get your free shilajit today:

https://fractalforest.co/knowthyself

Andrés Book Recs: https://www.knowthyselfpodcast.com/book-list

___________

00:00 Intro

03:45 The Probability of Seeing the Truth

10:20 Fitness vs. Truth in Evolutionary Theory

17:30 The Limits of Our Perception

24:15 How Language Shapes Reality

31:10 States of Consciousness and Altered Perception

38:50 The Virtual Headset of Space and Time

42:04 Ad: Bon Charge

46:35 Physics Agrees: Spacetime Is Doomed

54:25 The Mystery of the Observer

1:02:10 No Theory of Everything

1:10:40 Consciousness vs. Physicalism

1:19:15 Neural Correlates and the Illusion of Causation

1:27:45 The Case for Consciousness as Fundamental

1:29:38 Ads: MUDWTR, Fractal Forest

1:36:20 From Science to Spirituality

1:45:10 Introducing Markov Chains

1:53:30 The Birth of Trace Logic

2:04:20 Time Dilation and the Mathematics of Perception

2:18:10 Beyond the Headset: Infinite Consciousness

2:36:30 Science, Mystery, and Humility

2:54:40 Conclusion

___________

Episode Resources:

https://x.com/donalddhoffman

https://www.amazon.com/The-Case-Against-Reality/dp/0141983418/

https://www.instagram.com/andreduqum/

https://www.instagram.com/knowthyself/

https://www.youtube.com/@knowthyselfpodcast

https://www.knowthyselfpodcast.com

Tim Ferriss opens up about the inner evolution behind his outer success. He shares the practices and perspectives that have most transformed his life: from the art of asking better questions and setting meaningful goals, to the wisdom of subtraction — removing what no longer serves to make space for what truly matters.

Tim reflects on how psychedelics, fasting, and deep self-inquiry have reshaped his understanding of sensitivity, healing, and purpose. He explores the balance between self-development and self-centeredness, revealing how real growth begins not in control, but in surrender.

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https://fractalforest.co/knowthyself

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Andrés Book Recs: https://www.knowthyselfpodcast.com/book-list

___________

0:00 Intro 

2:40 Trusting in What Can't be Controlled

6:45 Reviewing Your Life & Setting Goals

8:54 Why He Devoted His Life to Strategic Self Development

13:13 Asking Great Questions Leads to Great Results

19:12 A Question to Shift Your Perspective on Life

28:04 The Key for Growth: Addition vs Subtraction 

38:09 Making the Space for Social Connection

44:14 The Power of Subtraction & Fasting

49:55 Ad: Fractal Forest

51:32 Self Development Without Being Self Centered

59:48 His Journey with Psychedelics 

1:14:15 Ad: Pique Life

1:16:47 How Psychedelics Changed How He Sees Life & the Mystical

1:20:22 The Misuse of Psychedelics and How it Used to be Used

1:27:07 Why He started Working with Them

1:31:32 Red Flags & What to Watch Out For

1:37:35 How His Relationship to Sensitivity has Changed

1:46:50 Healing from Childhood Trauma

1:58:28 Creating A Life Worth Living

2:05:28 The Projects He Pours His Time Into

2:10:43 Coyote, a Game of Connection

2:19:50 Diversifying Your Business & Self

2:23:18 Rapid Fire Questions

2:36:20 Conclusion

___________

Episode Resources: 

https://www.instagram.com/timferriss/

https://www.explodingkittens.com/products/coyote

https://www.instagram.com/andreduqum/

https://www.instagram.com/knowthyself/

https://www.youtube.com/@knowthyselfpodcast

https://www.knowthyselfpodcast.com