I'm the owner of The Matrix, I'm Jonathan,
and I'm left of center.
And I'm Rich, and I tend to lean a little bit more
to the right, but the bottom line is, is together,
we try to look for the balance of what it means
to be human in today's world.
All right, let's get started.
Welcome to Living in the Matrix, I'm Jonathan.
This is my co-host Rich, say hello, Rich.
Hey everybody, so great to be back with you guys
and it's Friday and I'm in a special place,
you know, for all of our YouTube listeners out there.
Studio, if you would, it's, I'm in Breckenridge, Colorado.
I'm wishing that everybody out there is cool
because it's almost 85 degrees out here right now.
So if it's 85 in Breckenridge, Colorado,
it's gotta be hot every place else.
So hope everybody's staying cool out there.
Yeah, but if you're in Colorado,
it's really beautiful wherever you go.
I love going there.
It's gorgeous.
Yes. All right, today, folks,
we have a really interesting guest.
I have been looking forward to this all week.
We have a guest or someone who's interacted
on listening to our podcast
has sent in recommendations for guests.
And it has been such an interesting take
interacting with our guests.
We would love more.
So if you have information or have ideas,
send them our way.
But today I invited Joel Frederick,
who is a longtime listener of our show,
to come on to the show
and we're just gonna have a great conversation.
Welcome, Joel.
Hey, thanks for having me on, guys.
Really love the podcast.
Thank you.
So let's start with the obvious question,
which is what made you say,
I want to listen to that?
Well, it was interesting earlier this year,
you know, I was in that mode of looking for information,
looking and just seeking alternative sources
because of where I was at my journey.
And so I said, well, you know,
I need to tune into some podcasts.
I need to see what's out there.
And, you know, so sure enough,
I got to mow my grass one day and I pull up Spotify
and I'm looking at the titles
and I come across Living in the Matrix.
And I'm like, wow, what an interesting title.
What an interesting description of what we're living in right now.
And it just resonated.
And so, you know, I listened to the first episode
and I was hooked because I felt like the dialogue
you guys are having are a lot of the things
that people are wanting to learn more about.
They're already having those conversations
in their small groups, in their heads.
And honestly, the guests and the conversations
have been fantastic.
So I've listened to pretty much all of them
and I really, you know, I learned a ton of information,
obviously, but also just to enjoy the journey
of doing my own research based on some of the topics
that were discussed.
Yeah, that's amazing.
Thank you for that.
What's the one episode that sticks out in your mind?
I mean, there's so many.
You know, I think one of the first ones was Sean Clayton.
And just, you know, I think it was episode maybe three
or something and just mind blowing,
I think with Sean and his journey,
just how he learned to refocus on everything
that's happened to him and frame it in a way
that this was what I created in order to love myself more.
And I, you know, I'd never heard anything like that,
just reframing everything that,
because, you know, I don't know about you guys,
but when I started off as a young man,
I didn't want to have any regrets in life.
You know, I had goals, I don't want to have any regrets.
And of course, you know, as life goes on,
you realize that was pretty immature
to think that I wouldn't have.
And, but I think when you look at the way Sean framed things,
it's like, okay, well, everything that happens in life
is for a reason.
Absolutely.
And not just that, you create it in some way
to love yourself more.
And just what a beautiful way to frame that
and to be able to process that.
So, you know, that's definitely one,
I mean, I could name a few others.
Lindsay Karakardi was a more recent one.
And I loved how she kind of went from a literal study
of the Bible to a metaphysical
and just looked at it in a completely different way.
You know, was it Dr. David Dell?
Oh yeah, I've seen him.
Yeah, he-
Oh, that's Warby actually.
Was that Warby?
Yeah, Warby's out of El Paso.
Dell was out of Illinois.
That's right.
Oh yeah, he had the beard.
Yeah, amazing.
Yeah, I loved him saying people come to me
come to counseling because they want to feel good.
And I helped them to be good at feeling,
which I thought was great.
And, you know, I could mention two more.
Brittany Hartley.
Yes.
I loved that conversation.
That's one of my favorite ones of how rich it was.
And I thought that she did a great job of just
displaying how we can love other people,
even when they have different spiritual beliefs.
Like you don't have to just, you know, rain on their parade.
They're on the journey.
They see things the way they see it.
I think you can really be gracious
in sharing experiences, even if you don't align
with how they're describing it.
And I also loved what she said about people.
People ultimately have to make the choice.
You can tell them some information.
You can show them the door,
but they have to walk through it, you know,
which I thought was great.
And I think for many of us who have been on this journey,
we know that you have to do the work
to actually process and be ready to walk through that door.
You can't just walk through the door.
You have to be, you're ready when you're ready.
And you can't force people through that.
So that's just a couple.
I could name a few more, but yeah, great stuff, guys.
Great conversations.
Yeah, well, believe it or not, we're up to 32 episodes now
that we've produced.
I was going to say that what struck me so much
was that when we did Sean Clayton,
that first time episode three, I was actually here.
It's the only time I've done a podcast that it was here.
So maybe there's something magic about Breckenridge,
but one of the things that,
one of the things we've seen as this common viewpoint,
we have tried to lead with love.
We have noticed that no matter what the study,
whether it's meditation or cold plunges, biohacking,
whether it's something like coming out
of a terrible religious experience
and creating a new paradigm, it's all love.
Love is there.
It kind of runs through it.
We've had a couple that really don't have that necessarily
at their heart, and it's always impossible to do.
But one of the things we noticed was it became less
and less talking about a simulation,
like the way we've got the matrix and the real world,
even though everybody's got their own definition of that.
But it's about how do we help people break through, right?
How do you break through the status quo?
So we try to make it a little bit more grounded in that
because it is really ephemeral to talk about the matrix.
So those are the kinds of things we're trying to track.
Well, I think Sean kind of caught in a metaphorical way
with that idea.
He's the first person that ever boldly claimed
anything bad that happened to me, I caused.
And that was a turning point for me because what he did
is he basically said the old way of thinking,
the matrix way of thinking is it's somebody else's fault.
And it might be the impetus of the fault,
but it's still my responsibility.
And I think that is what awakening is out of the matrix,
is this realization that I am worth it enough to get out
and to not be part of it, to awaken to my responsibility
for myself because here's the reality.
Over the last year and a half that we've been doing this,
my life has radically changed.
Rich and I were talking about it that when you repeatedly
tell your body the same thing positively over and over
and over, you are rewriting the scripts over a 90 day period
into your parasympathetic nervous system.
And you can actively change yourself.
And I think that's the whole journey of this podcast
has been to chart that it is possible to change.
It is possible to grow as a human being.
So I love your insights.
Joel, what you saw, which is we wanted this to really be
a human podcast about what it means to be a human being.
Yeah, absolutely.
And as you mentioned that, I'm actually,
one of the things I'm contemplating is removing
the limiting beliefs about money.
So, I mean, like most Americans, I put paycheck to paycheck
for most of my life.
I've had some moments where I've manifested
and actually increased my income.
And I could share more about that.
But the bottom line is I'm trying to learn more
about my subconscious and how, if we keep feeding ourselves
with the beliefs we want, the beliefs, where we want to go,
we can over time remove those subconscious,
unlimited beliefs. And so, yeah, that's one of the areas
I'm really focused on right now.
Have you, Rich, you were talking about what's your mantra
that you're talking about right now?
Well, believe it or not.
That's how you go after those limiting beliefs
is you rewrite the script, it's opposite them.
Yeah, so I was on Instagram one day and I was,
you see these reels, there's Anthony Hopkins
and Anthony Hopkins, who is a great actor.
He actually plays diabolical characters in Hannibal Lecter,
but he also plays C.S. Lewis, which is amazing dichotomy, right?
So here's what he says, say this three times a day,
at least twice a day if you can, morning and evening.
It says, universe, I am open and ready for you
to start conspiring in my favor to make my dreams come true.
And I request a clear sign of my reality today to come to me.
I'm open, I'm ready, thank you.
So he's got a little alchemist vibes in there, right?
With the universe will conspire with you, et cetera, et cetera.
But the funny thing about it is,
is that it started to really work
and I actually had my son do it and he said,
I just had some amazing news today and we laugh at it.
We get to the place as humans where we're like,
wait a minute, I'm so in the dumps
that how am I supposed to manifest anything
when I can't even get out of bed in the morning?
And there's something, this is where I believe,
I still believe it, Jonathan and I are disagreeing
on a lot of kind of ontological, theological constructs
of like deity and being God or having God help out
and avatars and stuff.
But there's this idea where I still believe
that even though Neo figured out he was the one,
he had to do it, right?
If he didn't, the world would end.
But he had a little help along the way.
He had some people looking for him and trying to help out.
And I think sometimes that thing where we start,
maybe it's grace, right?
Grace is that prompt.
Grace is that prompt that says you can get out of bed.
You read something by Mark Loserilius who says,
dude, you gotta get out of bed, right?
You hear about, I don't know, maybe St. Paul.
Maybe you think about saying, if I just say it, right?
If I just say it once or twice or three times,
let's see what happens.
And I think that's the grace, that's the divine,
that's the cosmos trying to help lift you up, I think.
So I'm still willing to have that interaction, right?
I'm doing stuff, but at the same time on the same coin,
two sides of the same coin, I believe there's help
coming from the outside.
I don't know, what do you think?
How long have you been doing the mantra?
I've only been doing it for,
I literally finally wrote it down
because I just literally wanted to go back.
I heard about it months ago.
And then I've been doing it recently more often,
just for the last week or so.
And I'm about to close,
I'm probably number one in the quarter, this quarter.
And I'm about to close a company that is one of the most
biggest darling AI companies in the world.
I'm not gonna tell you the name of it,
even though there's no NDA, but imagine being able
to work with like one of the second largest,
most valuable client companies in the world, right?
So, and being able to just walk through that process
with desire to do good for them, right?
It's been almost effortless in many ways
and about the time and stuff like that.
So those are the things that I really appreciate.
You know?
Yeah, I'll share, you know, one of the things
that I'm listening to, but it's by Bob Proctor.
You can find it on YouTube.
But the mantra is, and I've got it right here.
It says, I'm so happy and grateful.
Now that money comes to me in increasing quantities
through multiple sources on a continuous basis.
And it says that over and over.
But I think, you know, that's just one example.
And the example you gave, Rich, these are all tools.
And that's the way I look at it.
These are tools.
There are so many different tools and mediums
in which we can manifest.
But I think the thing that I've come to understand now
is it's all about faith.
It's all about believing.
And that's what Neo had to do.
He had to believe.
And I think some people say the word manifest.
Some people use the word faith.
And I'm from a Christian background like you guys.
I come from an evangelical Christian church.
And so faith has always been very important to me.
But yeah, I think that I have two really good examples
of where I believe something was gonna happen.
And it happened.
And for me at that time in my life, it was focused on prayer.
But the bottom line is the faith was absolutely there.
I can share when we moved to Jacksonville,
my wife has some autoimmune conditions.
And we were looking to get to a warmer climate.
So I dragged my feet for six months.
And finally I go, okay, let me approach my manager at the time.
And if he's cool with me working from home full time,
that'll open up the door for us to move anywhere.
So I did.
And he was very receptive to that.
And he was very supportive.
And so he goes, look, ultimately it's a HR process,
but you're gonna have my support.
That gave me the green light.
And so from there on, I just believed
that the road would be paved,
that there would be no obstacles.
And when I say that, it was 100%.
There was no doubt in my mind
that God already knew the house, that it was already there.
And it was just a matter of us waiting.
And so the interesting part,
as months and weeks went by, that was back in January,
come July, we're renting our house back in North Carolina.
And we have maybe three or four more weeks left
before we got to move out.
We don't have a house yet.
And it's 2021 and the Jacksonville market's crazy.
Everybody's paying 50,000 more than asking price
just to get the house.
And so we get this one house, we make a bid,
we lose it to a cash bidder,
so we kind of move along and keep looking.
Well, I think it was like a Wednesday morning,
my wife and I are talking
and she's just like, kind of at her wits end.
She's like, we gotta find a house.
We gotta stop being so picky.
We may have to raise our budget.
And I wasn't budgeting on any of that.
So I just stepped on my back porch and I said,
God, don't make us wait any longer.
Please reveal our needs.
Please reveal to us the house you already have
picked out for us.
And that night at six o'clock,
we got the call that the buyer backed out
and the house that I'm in now was ours.
But when I look at that, I go,
I didn't waver in my faith
because I didn't see any other way for that to happen.
It had to happen that way.
There was one other example, back in 2019,
I had some financial goals and I needed a huge increase.
And I started to manifest, started to pray about that.
And I went for a number that I thought
they wouldn't go for.
I got interviewed.
It was long story short, a job came to me.
I was aggressive with the recruiter.
I gave him a number.
It was probably 40% more than I was making.
There was no haggling.
Boom, done.
I knew that was a one.
So again, faith to me, no matter what your tool is,
you've got to believe.
Amen.
Now we definitely believe that.
I think that the thing that I'm trying to understand
is are we talking about the same thing?
So, you know, atheists and Christians or theists
are constantly fighting against each other.
But if you go to the physics, the world of physics,
the world of physics and the levels of quantum mechanics
all the way down to what we now know as the unified field
that we've been understanding for the last 30 years,
you've got just pure consciousness.
And that is the voice in the mind of God.
And that's what the Buddhists or the Hindus talk about
as the Atman, the self, all being tied to.
And at its core, it looks like the yin-yang symbol.
Yes, it does.
The vibration of it.
So I think that I used to be a Calvinist.
You know, Joel, I'm a five-point Calvinist.
I used to love Mark Driscoll, going to John Piper,
you know, and I still love Jesus.
You know, I believe the resurrected.
You know, I'm still all that, right?
So I love that.
But at the same time, I think that he has been trying
to tell us some things that I think we've tried to put in a box.
And I think his love and grace is so great.
As you've heard, obviously, from several Universalists
we've had or complete restoration folks,
that, you know, that's a great hopeful future
that we've got to look forward to.
Anyway.
I think that's the value of grace.
Like, first, Joel, to your point, the value of manifesting
is to discover who we are, that we are children of God.
I think that's the best metaphor that our current bodies
can understand.
But at a quantum level, we're all part of one source.
And the conversation we've had is,
in evangelical Christianity, there's
a very clear separation between the two.
And I chose to believe that grace was big enough
for me to explore the idea if it's one.
So about two years now, I have been exploring
that conscious idea of, I am.
Jesus said it, and I'm saying, I am.
And it's the presence of the fullness of what God created in me
without any limitations.
I'm not white.
I'm not Jonathan.
I'm not 57 years old.
I am.
Because Elon Musk said how he was talking about how we program
our brain to think we are the age we are, because that's
what they tell us to do, to count our birthday every year.
But I feel like I'm like 25 inside.
So what if my body could catch up to that?
So it's this idea of, if we are one, is the manifestation
process simply a reality that this is, as Alan said,
is, as Alan Watts called it, a game?
Because if you're me and I'm you and Rich,
we're all the same person, it fundamentally does transform
how we treat each other.
Absolutely.
And that is, I think, the idea of the kingdom that we grew up.
Did you grow up an evangelical, Joel?
Yeah, I grew up in North Alabama in the Church of Christ, actually.
The Bible?
Okay, a capella.
The Bible Bell, absolutely.
No music, yeah.
Near Nashville, the Christian music capital.
So you guys had music.
No, they didn't.
Not at Church of Christ.
Well, no, we didn't have any instruments in the building.
And I could go down a whole list of the divisions between
the churches of Christ.
Can you have a kitchen in the building?
Can you not?
Women's roles and all those things, you know.
But yeah, no, totally a capella.
Yeah, I can appreciate the four-part harmony.
I grew up singing and really singing and you could actually hear yourself.
So that, but no, I go to a church now that has full piece band and all that.
So I've definitely come around on some of that.
But yeah, that was life growing up and there was a lot of legalism.
And just a lot of dogma.
You know, I think the Church of Christ, it was like we have the right doctrine sort of thing.
And yeah, so I went through a lot of that and I felt like I kind of got out away from that in
2014 when I moved to North Carolina and I deconstructed my faith down to what my
foundational beliefs were, which is basically Jesus and that's pretty much it.
I mean, not that all the other things weren't important.
I don't think you need more.
That's the bullshit of theology is you don't need more than Jesus.
You know, it's like when you've gone through all of the religious trauma,
you realize the only thing that you keep when you let it all go is Jesus.
Because Jesus is the shining example of what it looks like to love all the time,
to live into grace, to live into the kingdom.
Like that's the kind of life I want.
And I thought about the cost of that.
Like, does it lead to the cross all the time?
I don't know, but it's the willingness to see God in the midst of everything.
And I think that's a provocative way to live.
So at this point in your life, Joel, what's different between now and say when you were,
you know, in your 20s or 30s with Christianity?
Has anything changed?
Oh, yeah, absolutely.
I think with that deconstruction that I just mentioned, I really started to get away from
the judgments.
You know, I mean, there was a lot of flippant judgment placed and, you know,
a lot of harsh judgment.
And I realized, you know, I think at that point, I said, you know what?
I'm not God and I'm not going to put myself in the judge's seat.
There were many people that I knew that they would make open statements that that person's
going to hell because they believe this or they don't believe that.
I said, I'm never going to do that.
That's not my role.
My role is to love and to share the message.
And that's it.
What happens to that person?
I don't know, but I'm not the judge.
And I think that that started me towards the journey of love, being more loving.
And I really I think the biggest thing that happened to me in my faith is in 2021.
I basically I had a situation with alcohol where I started drinking probably in my 30s.
I was kind of a late starter, if you will.
And I did it in New England.
So I lived in the Boston area for 15 years.
And, you know, those crusty New Englanders.
The Irishman.
Yes, of course.
But yeah, the crusty New Englanders, you have to, you know, break the ice over a brew, you know,
and just kind of break down those barriers.
So I learned to acquire the taste over time.
I would just, you know, chug it down and then I started to like it.
And all of a sudden, I'm enjoying all the seasonal brews for Sam Adams.
And that led to, you know, hard liquor.
And, you know, eventually I was drinking more days than I wasn't.
And I had that little hidden mini bar.
And what, Joel, what did you like about it?
Just the buzz.
It's urban.
It's delicious.
That's it, man.
I did.
Bourbon was my go-to.
I'd have, you know, bourbon and Coke or just straight up bourbon.
But yeah, it was for me, it was just a drink or two.
And, you know, being a New Englander, I was like, oh, I'm going to drink that.
And beyond that, you know, that buzz only lasts so long with alcohol.
It hits you.
You get that feeling.
And then you can keep drinking, but you're not really going to get that feeling again.
You're just going to get drunker and drunker.
But so that was basically an ineffective coping skill that I had acquired.
And I was going through a lot of trauma at that time in my life.
So in 2005, I had twin girls that were born three months early and they had a lot of complications.
So, you know, one of my daughters, she's had 16 brain surgeries.
Oh my goodness.
Yeah, she was born with hydrocephalus.
And so she's got two BP shots and now she has an LP shot in her spine.
And fortunately, since 2014, she hasn't had to have any more surgeries related to that.
But, you know, for the first couple of years of their life, it was like a surgery every couple months
because something would go wrong with the shot, infection, you name it.
I was, you know, I look at my life growing up, it was like leave it to beaver.
And, you know, there was no trauma.
And so that was my first real bout with trauma.
And I didn't know how to handle it very well.
And, you know, my wife and I handle it very differently.
I was more the plastic smile and I got to keep positive because that's kind of who I am.
And, you know, but it wasn't great how we were clashing in those times.
And I think alcohol for me was an escape and became an escape.
And so fast forward to 2021, I had a trauma.
I had an afternoon where I was drinking early.
It was NFL Sunday and I was spray painting outside.
All right, that's not a good combination.
Spray painting, inhaling those fumes and drinking.
And by the afternoon, I was blacking out.
And that had never happened to me before.
And I didn't know what was going on.
And basically I had I only have bits and pieces of that.
I woke up in the middle of the night and I realized, you know, I didn't know what all had happened.
And that scared me.
It was just a moment for me that I decided I was done.
You know, drinking wasn't going to be part of my life anymore.
I called some buddies.
I have a really good friend in Plainville, Mass, Michael Pettit.
He directed me to AA, which was virtual at that time post pandemic.
And I basically did that for a couple months and I got clear of alcohol.
And the reason I share that story is because that started a journey for me of healing.
Because I was again, ineffective coping skill.
I was masking all the pain.
I was just doing what I needed to do to get through the day, take care of my family.
But I was hurting.
And I think through the journey, you know, I've been sober almost three years now.
I've learned to give permission to love myself.
I was taking care of everybody else.
Nice.
Yeah.
And, you know, it's funny.
Like when you grow up in the church and you know, you read the greatest commands.
Yeah, we know that scripture and the second one is of equal importance.
Love your neighbor as yourself.
As yourself.
But people don't focus on the as yourself part.
Nope.
But what's the assumption there?
The assumption is you're loving yourself and you're loving yourself the way God loves you.
Right.
And but no, in the church, we focused on deny yourself.
Think of others better than yourself.
And so that it's almost conflicting in our minds.
But that's I really dissected that scripture and I said, you know what?
I can't just the way that hurt people hurt people.
Loved people love people.
And you have to love yourself before you can love other people.
And so it's been a great journey of learning how to love myself to give myself.
I think the different outlets that I need.
I, you know, I could go on a little bit more, but I think, you know, one of the beautiful things about it, too, for me was I worked on forgiveness.
You know, I think there was some hurt where, you know, a best friend was no longer a best friend.
But in my mind, he still had the label of best friend.
And I was holding on to some hurt.
So, you know, a thought came to me, hey, just write a letter, just write a letter to that person, not to send it to him, but to process what you're feeling and to kind of close the chapter.
And I did. And by the time I was done with the letter, I had tears streaming down my cheeks.
And I was able to close the door on that.
And now if I see that person again, I don't have to cringe.
I don't have to look the other way and walk the other way.
You know, I can treat them as, you know, another another person that that I knew as a friend years ago.
But yeah, there's a lot of a lot of healing.
And I'm really appreciative of the journey, just going back to what you're saying, Jonathan, loving myself has been has been very freeing.
And it's actually I've healed.
I feel so much better, so much more healthy.
And it's been great.
Do you think that I believe this is the case now, but do you think think that alcohol itself and the glory we give it is its own matrix and an element of the healing that you're experiencing?
It's its own matrix and it's just a complete lie.
And how would you suggest we help more people understand how to break through?
Yeah, I think it is it is glorified on TV.
Absolutely. I mean, you look at all the movies, soap operas, everywhere you look, there's a drink and the advertising to make it look great.
And, you know, what was essential during the pandemic?
It was it was grocery stores and the liquor stores.
Right. They were considered essential.
And it is interesting.
I think that's one of the things I'm contemplating.
I don't know the answer.
But when I think about what's behind all the lies and the deceptions, I wonder, you know, that who is that?
You know, is that a group of people that are the puppet masters for even our government?
And the red and blue are made to look different, but they're really a uniparty working together.
And they're all their strength.
Absolutely. No, you've nailed it.
This is the yeah.
If you follow the money, it's Black Rock State Street.
Because that's a fact is they control in the American system most of the capital.
And it's all our money.
That's the joke of it.
Yeah.
Yeah, you know, and they control the media companies and the food companies.
The food companies make us sick and the media companies make us fat by sitting on the couch
and being anesthetized.
There's value in food and value in entertainment.
Like, I love alcohol.
But what I've tried to spend the last couple of years of my life is in a mature response to it,
because I was never an alcoholic.
Mine was always drugs.
That was my coping mechanism.
Once I understood it, alcohol could be what it was, which is an enjoyable thing.
But when I'm getting hammered all the time, it's usually an indicator of a deeper issue.
Yeah. And the really cool thing for me is I go to corporate dinners there at the bar for an hour.
It would be harder for me to take a drink than it is for me not to take a drink.
And I don't look down on anybody for drinking.
Just for me, it's been a great choice.
And I'm going to stick with what works.
And that's the beauty is that's what everybody should support each other's mental choice.
And it has grown, right?
Dry January has become more of a thing.
I think alcohol is the number one coping mechanism.
It is.
There's nothing cheaper and more affordable.
And more dangerous, though.
Do you listen to Huberman at all, Joel?
Yeah, I have listened to him a few times.
He's got a two and a half hours just dedicated to alcohol and there's just nothing positive about it.
And so for me, I'm just similar with Jonathan has I've been trying to do five days off and like a
couple on here and there.
And at first it was seemingly like an insurmountable task.
But when you actually tell yourself, wow, I feel better.
I'm sleeping better.
My shoulder doesn't hurt anymore.
You know, it's all inflammation.
You know that the metastasis, it goes from ethyl alcohol to acetyl aldehyde to acetate.
And what's your poor liver is going through and talk about longevity.
So we should have this conversation again, because it's really the first time in 62 episodes that
we've really brought up kind of the nature of alcohol and how pervasive it could be.
And I think we should dedicate some time to it because it is truly breaking free.
There is a freedom.
You realize the lie.
You say, why did I do this to myself?
I know what it was like.
Right.
And so Tucker talks about this.
He's got this in a conversation with the guy who used to be a seal.
And I think we need to have conversations about it.
I'm thankful for your angle.
It's a really good perspective.
Yeah, I saw that one.
And also Dr. Robert Morris, I've been diving into his YouTube channel and loved your.
Yeah, but he basically describes inflammation as systemic acidosis.
You know, just like, you know, when I looked at one of his videos, I was just blown away about,
you know, cells need nourishment from the blood and then they release waste in the form of acid.
And the lymphatic system, it's its job to remove that.
When your lymphatic system backed up, that affects, of course, your kidneys and your adrenals,
you get systemic acidosis, which is acid in the body.
And that's what we call inflammation.
And if untreated, if you don't change that state and it gets worse and worse,
that leads to intracellular acidosis, which we know is cancer.
And so it's amazing to to kind of learn some of the things that you don't learn in mainstream
about the basics of body chemistry and how things work.
I've been doing based on him.
I've been doing a lot of great fasts where I take a bowl of grace with some lemon juice.
I've eaten that for just three days and I felt great afterwards.
I'm going to try to do it longer.
Do you do that every meal?
No, but I do.
I have been eating grapes just as I'm sorry, fast.
Is it are you doing the grape one time a day or are you just doing that over?
If I do a fast, it's I can eat as many grapes as I want throughout the day.
Love it. Yeah.
Yeah. I think there's something also that Dr. Morris brought up that I've really started to
appreciate, and it's the nature of the fruit.
Actual life and what it does to us.
It does make us more spiritual.
There is something that connects us to that fasting, of course.
I mean, Jesus talks about prayer and fasting, but I'm going to actually do an ayahuasca
journey, Joel, in a couple of weeks.
And one of the things they want you to not do is eat fried food, alcohol, cannabis,
anything.
Don't expose yourself to social media and violence.
Don't even ejaculate, but eat plenty of fresh fruit because that'll get you ready for a
mind that is ready for that.
And the more we do that, that first thing Dr. Morris does, he gets up and has those
berries in the morning.
And I'm thankful that keto and these paleo diets have berries as part of it because that's
what we lived on for hundreds and thousands of years.
And we've got to lean into that, right?
And I think you're onto something.
Yeah.
Yeah, absolutely.
I think there's so many alternative forms of information in regards to health that I've
tuned into as a part of this journey.
There's a guy named Nathan Crane.
He's right here in Jacksonville, too.
He survived stage four cancer naturally.
He's written a book on it.
You guys are probably familiar with Dr. Jack Cruz.
Yeah, we had him on.
Yeah, you guys did.
That's right.
Yeah, because I listened to him on Huberman.
Just amazing.
And I continue to listen to other podcasts.
Amazing what he's discovering about light and how the body harnesses light.
And even to the point where there's pathways into the brain where light is all the way
up in the brain, which I don't even think medically is documented anywhere other than
his research.
So I'm jealous for you, though.
You've got that dawn in the sun right there.
You've got that melanin getting fired up by the ATPs there, the sunlight.
And if you get up early enough, you're right there.
And you can actually stare right at the sun in the first 35, 45 minutes because there's
no UAV and UVA, UVB radiation.
And so Laird Hamilton, I just literally saw him on Instagram.
He does it all the time.
And then once you get past that time, you want to be in the peripheral.
But it can actually literally when you're grounding and you're getting it done, tell
me that you can't feel just working through it.
Yeah, you're really pushing me to go to the beach more and sit at those sunrises.
I got to do that more.
How far away are you from the beach?
I'm 20 minutes.
OK.
Yeah.
Well, I'm in the West.
So when I get to see a sunset at the beach, but in the morning, because I've got some
buildings and stuff around me, it's already up a little bit.
So I've got to be careful on how I do that.
But give it a try.
Make it make.
Give yourself a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little
bit of a challenge.
Give yourself a little challenge to get out there three times a week and see if it doesn't
make a difference for you.
OK.
Yeah.
Hey, guys, I have a screaming child downstairs.
She's doing well.
She's actually starting her second year in college.
Amazing.
Yeah.
They stand relatively close to home in Florida.
Yeah.
My daughter Stephanie, she's going to college at Southeast University in Lakeland, so three
hours away.
Perfect.
And she's loving it.
Her daughter has autism.
She was diagnosed basically right before her second birthday.
And so, yeah, she's at home with us and we'll take care of her as long as we're alive.
And I've got to make sure I have a nice trust set up for her so she can be taken care of
when we're gone.
But she's amazing.
She makes us laugh every single day.
Joel, you talked about sort of that first early periods.
Looking back at yourself, how did you make it through?
Man, I think I just held on to hope that one day it would change.
And I knew I had to be strong for my family, especially for my kids.
I love being a dad.
I love just pouring into my kids.
I'm a big kid at art, so I mean, most of us are.
So we had, I think, one house, we had a trampoline in the basement and it was one of those shorter
ones and just getting in there with the kids and we had a rope swing that they could swing
around.
So I think life always revolved around the kids and doing different things.
Just, I tell you what, it was very hard the early years and just getting to go home to
Alabama to see my family and spending time with them, like that was just such a recharge
for me.
In many ways, we were on an island when the kids were early on and going through all the
surgeries and whatnot.
So that was difficult.
I think you just, like with special needs, it's its own community.
And I think you just connect with the people who are in the similar situations and you
learn from each other.
You just kind of share.
Like we made friends with a family.
We would do every trick or treat.
We would do pizza at their house and go trick or treating.
There's a funny story there because my daughter with autism, she was born in the
country.
She just decides it's time to trick or treat, grabs her bucket and heads out the door.
We're just eating our pizza.
We look around, where's she at?
She was two doors down and luckily a neighbor had her sitting with.
So it's just, I think, I don't know how I made it through.
I think faith had something to do with it, although I struggled in my faith.
I'm like, God, where are you?
Things like that.
But I just held on.
Did you make peace?
Because it sounded like you were getting to the idea that you had sort of made peace
with that trauma and kind of going through all that.
Did you make peace with it?
Yeah, I think I have made peace with it.
I think that I see the beauty in that journey and what it did for me to catapult me into
growing as a man, as just being stronger.
I don't think I was, I think based on my childhood, I was a happy-go-lucky kid and young man.
I didn't have much of a backbone.
I really cut my teeth in project management at one of my first jobs, which was Harvard
Business School.
And I ended up managing all of the vendors, AB vendors on the campus.
And that taught me to be a little bit gritty that, hey, it's okay to be firm and hold vendors
accountable to deadlines.
And you don't have to be Mr. Nice Guy all the time.
There were a lot of things that I appreciate about the journey that make me who I am today.
And looking back, I can go, all those things happen for a reason.
They all helped me.
And I also see the beauty in all of what we went through because now we can look back at it.
My daughter can actually look at all the surgeries she went through and she can smile.
And she can look at it and go, hey, I never thought I'd use my right arm because of the
cerebral palsy, but here I am strengthening it in PT.
And now I can do 10 push-ups or I can lift this dumbbell.
I can turn my wrists.
There's just, I guess all that to say there's so much appreciation for, you can't see it
when you're going through it.
But when you look back, wow, that really helped me grow.
That's funny because in the Hindu way, they talk about you focus on your Dharma, which
is the here and the now.
You don't actually have to put expectations out there.
If you do, what are you doing now?
There's no attacks.
Exactly.
But this is what Jesus says, seek first the kingdom and his righteousness that all these
things will come to you.
So in that way, it's the same.
But one of the things I've been noticing about this conversation, Joel, is that you've done
some deep work, meaning like the way you're reacting and responding and where you've put
your foot forward, you've had some great experiences and or have you done some additional
practices besides the prayer and staying close with your church community and hunkering down
through your journey?
I mean, it seems like you've got some other things because you've come across as a very
kind of wise in the world and been through ups and downs and you're speaking a lot of
volume.
So is there anything else you're doing to kind of keep you to where you are now?
Like I call it a spiritual discipline, if you would.
Well, I think I'm contemplating meditation, but I haven't done a lot of meditation.
I've gone in spurts, but I haven't figured out a routine or meditation.
Not doing the cold plunge just like you read, although I have a buddy who's doing them and
I'm considering adding that in at some point.
I think what I do best is in terms of a routine and a ritual is I journal.
If there's a thought in my head, something that comes to me, if I can write it down on paper
or like I actually, I do everything on keyboard.
I'm an Evernote guy.
My whole life is an Evernote.
But if I can write it down, I'll end up with a page once I start and I can get it all out.
And so it's not bouncing around in here.
I think that's one of the things that is always helpful for me.
And I might go days on end where I don't do it, but when I do, it really is, it's just a great
way to get it out, process it.
Other than that, prayer has been something that has helped me.
I threw away the ritual prayers.
And when I talk to God, it's just a running conversation.
It's not a Holy Father, blessed thee and all that.
It's not that that's bad, but I just said, you know what?
Whatever's on my mind, on my heart, I'm just going to, if I'm happy, I'm going to talk about
what I'm happy about.
If I'm pissed off, I'm going to talk about that.
And that was actually very freeing and helped me since I started that type of prayer.
That's awesome.
Is that on your side?
No, it's not.
No, I think it's on mine.
Okay.
We were trying to figure that was still the grandchild there.
Could you hear my grandson?
I didn't actually.
No, we did not.
Apple has good noise canceling, but yeah, he was screaming for like three minutes.
I had it on, I'll erase all this.
So, hey, real quick on that note, Rich, that was a great question.
I mean, you guys, because of your background, do you guys still pray?
I mean, what do you guys do in terms of your rituals, I guess?
Yeah, in terms of me, I've memorized Psalm 138 in the Message Bible, which is, gosh, his name.
It begins with an E.
He wrote the message.
He was a bit real.
I love the message.
Yeah.
So, I memorized that and I love it so much because it's about gratitude.
It's about thanking him for everything and about the angels sing his praise and how the
kings sing his praise and how he gets you out of trouble.
When I get in the bad stuff, keep me alive in the angry turmoil.
With one hand, slay my enemies, with the other, rescue me.
Keep running for me because your love is eternal, right?
Don't give up on me now, those kinds of things.
It's definitely one of those kind of intercessional or Psalms, like I'm in a bad place.
Please help me.
So, I've been through ups and downs through sales, tech sales in the last four or five years.
It's been a bloody mess.
So, I say that.
I say a little bit of prayer or J-bez every now and then and then I just free flow it.
I love Jesus.
I pray to him.
But at the same time, I meditate, right?
I try to meditate twice a day with transcendental meditation and it is a guy who's a Hindu.
It's a Vedic tradition.
But I found that it's actually changed my heart and my wife and daughters notice like,
Rich, you've changed.
You know, what's going on there?
And that's where I've been having to work.
Jonathan is such a great empath.
He's got a great heart and I've lived up here in this world and after two messages from
people called a word of knowledge from a gal going to Bethel up in Reading and one other
gal who was in our post construction put, you know, deconstruction group said,
if you change your heart, you'll change the world, Guli.
So, those are things that I'm really trying to get into and how can I tap into that more
and more, right?
Yeah.
And I've my concept of prayer has changed because I'm changing my reference point that
the person I'm speaking to is part of who I'm connected to.
They're distinctly separate still as constructs, but I'm trying to get my body used to that
sense of permanent connection that's never been gone because my operating procedure always
started from I was separated. That's why I think this matters.
And this is what Jesus was doing. Jesus was, I am.
And so, I'm changing the construct of that of when I say,
what that the new part of prayer is me getting out of my head because I was just like rich for the
most of my life, although I think I had a nurturing mom who helped me become an empath.
But what I'm realizing now is instead of thinking about it all the time, I'm learning to feel it
instead of thinking because your body can only do one at a time.
And when I drop into my body, I have the most insanely beautiful thoughts about the kingdom.
And I think that's resonance or coherence when you connect the two because I think that's what
the head and the heart connected is what Jesus was talking about a Christ consciousness
because you can hear God, you can feel God.
Practice love, it becomes a felt experience of God because God is love.
That's the dialogue I'm having because I'm always trying to construct it, but I'm now realizing
feeling is the knowledge part because when you feel like when you get a baseball game and your
team wins, you feel it and you remember forever. That's instant knowledge. That's what I'm learning.
I'm reading the I'm reading going through a course in miracles and they're talking about the knowledge
of God is felt. And so, I'm running on my walks to in prayer to feel the experience and it's pretty
dynamic. So, it has to be felt because it's a part of the experience.
Seeing is not believing, right? It's like they've seen miracles, but they didn't believe because
their heart didn't feel it, right? And that's when you've experienced that you can't get it
taken away from you. And that's also why we've talked about the nature of psychedelics, Joel,
you know, and in Johns Hopkins for 25 years. And you've got people who have been one in touch with
the cosmos. Now, here's the thing. I think that God has given us a mind that once we get to that
level and that oneness with him, we don't need all these other things, right? We don't need pop,
we don't need alcohol, we don't need psychedelics because that opening is there. And if you've
tapped in enough, I mean, look at all the ancient mystics, you know, these guys didn't have, well,
John might've had some ergot in his wheat in his rye when he wrote the book of Revelation.
Let me give you a different thought because one of the things that I've been thinking about is
the concept of the Trinity is father, son, Holy Spirit. I think the father is the prefrontal
cortex. The son is the amygdala and because that's the experience we're having here on earth. And
your emotions are the spirit because those are the animating factors of life. When you feel
something deeply, you're empowered because if there's no disconnection between me and God,
how do we put the Trinity in relationship to that in the human experience? And that's my initial
idea that I'm coming up with is that if we are part of source, what changes and it's, okay,
I have this executive function, this really good thinking part, and then I have this human part,
and then I have this animating part, it just seemed to fit a little bit. So I'm changing
my dialogue on prayer because I'm realizing I can do anything in grace and I am empowered to do
anything in love. And the more that I practice love in grace, the more I experience God as a felt
sense, not just an intellectual sense. Because I think theology is this logic of God, but love is
the experience of God. That's why it's always more powerful. Yeah. Yeah. And grace is something I
didn't understand early on. Of course, growing up legalistic, now what I love about where I'm at now
is I always feel like I'm in God's grace. Like I never beat myself up anymore. And I used to beat
myself up all the time. And it felt like I had to earn my way into God's good graces. But I love
that. And Rich, when you mentioned the Psalm, it reminded me, I do say the prayer of serenity very
often. And I have a coin that I found that has the prayer on there. You can order it on Amazon.
But I love just that prayer. It says, God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. And of course,
it goes on to say a lot more than that. But just starting my prayers with that, which is what I
normally would do, it's just very free. John, can I just say I've met some of the coolest people
I've ever met in my life at an AA meeting. My brother's got 10 years on him and my sister just
got five. And when I just heard these people, we were allowed to be there because it was a
celebratory thing. Normally, it's kind of, you know, confidential, but I'm just hearing these
conversations going on. It's like, these people are wise. They are a community. This is love. This
is it. And again, AA doesn't necessarily require belief in Jesus, just a higher power, which again,
I think if it's doing these things, it's powerful. One of the things that we talked about with some
other friends at AA though, that I'm still trying to get my head around is if you've been clean and
sober for 35 years, you shouldn't be able to say, you shouldn't have to say, I'm an alcoholic
anymore. I think John, we might've talked about that. It's like, I haven't had a drink for 35
years. I don't think I'm an alcoholic anymore. Right. And yet it's there. Right. And it's,
well, here's the why is we don't want to define our identity and something we're not. Because
once you do, you're attracted to it. Right. That's the hard part of that. I don't consider myself an
alcoholic. I went to rehab, but I don't consider myself an alcoholic or a drug addict because
that's not who I am. I'm not a not, I am something. And I think it's powerful the way you shifted it
to how do we find the best out of something which puts us in right relationship to it? Because the
reality at Ben Affleck, who's a famous alcoholic said, suffering, which is the usual outcome of
alcoholism, always is the best medicine. Always. Because it forces us to have to deal with it.
You know, we have to, you get to a point where it's like, okay, I can't let this trajectory
keep going. I have to deal with it. Cause at some point it feels like death. It really does.
You know? Oh, yeah. That's the yet to face reality. Yeah. Yeah. And I think the,
the suffering part is the part where that's the alchemy. That's what Sean has always talked about
is by transforming the alchemy of it, we change our relationship to it. I'm no longer suffering
from it. It's part of my story. And that's what happened to you, Joel, is that you took something
that hurt and made it real. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So Joel, I have a question for you. You've,
you've, you've done a lot of research. You've listened to a lot of podcasts. You're pretty
a lot of depth out there. What are some of the topics or concepts or ideas out there that you've
seen that you think would be another great idea for us to dig into on a future podcast?
Anything that comes to mind like, man, these guys would be great with this.
Give us an idea if you could. I mean, I think like mirror work is something I'm contemplating.
I know that that was talked about by what was it? Cleaver? I think so.
No, he's talking about shadow work. Yes.
Yeah, he's talking about shadow work.
Young stuff. Yeah.
Yeah, but mirror work, I don't know if you guys have heard of that.
I've never heard of that. It's interesting.
No. Yeah. And I'm still learning about it, but it's the idea that, you know,
whenever you're the whatever's in your environment is like a mirror. And you're reflecting. And I
think someone I read an article recently said, if you want to change the reflection in the mirror,
you don't reach out to the mirror and try to change that frown to a smile. You have to change
you. You have to change from inside of you. And then that smile will be reflected back to you.
You have to do the work, basically. And basically, the whole idea of whatever you see in front of you
is a mirror of what's going on inside of you. And so I think just really, it's just really an
interesting topic that I would love to hear more about and how people are approaching that.
The idea seems obvious. I'm surprised nobody's ever invented it. But I think people are in a
very creative mode right now, especially around healing. And I think it's powerful because
I don't think most men were open to doing work. I think there is an emergence of men who are willing.
Women have always been able to do mental health or spiritual work. Men are really beginning to sort
of open up to those possibilities a lot more. And I think and I'm surprised nobody's ever done
mirror work because it's a great reflector. Like you said, it's whatever we project is what is our
life is trying to communicate to us. And that has been one of my greatest lessons is whatever I see
is what I'm supposed to deal with. It's dealing with that stuff that is in my life rather than
trying to find that's the value. Like you talked about the judgmental background. I think that's
what shifted for me as well is there wasn't a lot of value in judging everything. There was tremendous
value in bringing grace to everything. And that's the flip for me on this whole journey of
embracing grace at a whole nother level of it works. It's better. Grace is just better.
And the same thing, I think, and just pivot out from mirror, how about the company you keep?
Nobody golfed better with a terrible group of foursome. You golf better when you've got people
on your foursome that are really good. My son spent a lot of time with kids that were three or four
years younger. And it just didn't do him any good. There was different modalities, different dreams,
different ambitions, and just living off the teats of the parents. And I think that it applies to
that too. I think we can definitely dedicate an entire episode to that. I think it's brilliant.
Yeah. One of the other things too, Dr. Robert Morris, of course, touched on this and the spiritual.
There's another guy that's a fruitarian that I found on YouTube. I can't remember his name.
I can send it to you. But he basically was presenting the idea that in order to connect
to the spiritual planes, the astral, you really have to clean your body out. So it starts with,
and you touched on that, Rich, earlier, just the whole idea of I've got to get the junk out.
I've got to purify the body so that I can purify in order to connect to the spiritual. And it
may kind of make sense to me, but it's very interesting that one thing leads to the other.
Well, I found his argument incredibly credible, because it's very simple. And the idea, one,
the body, what is it when it converts the fruit sugars very differently than manmade sugars,
and it is a lot better for your body. But he talked about it as if you're just eating fruit,
you're really out, you're creating an alkaline state in your body that it can come out of your
body, come back to neutral, it can breathe, you're not inflamed. Most people live in a permanent
inflamed state because our food sources are so shitty. And, you know, look, you just learning
that and realizing that I could affect that is very powerful. I think that's the value of this
whole podcast journey, as we've talked to so many different people that are living outside of the
world. And I can't tell you how many times Rich and I have said, Oh, my God, that was the best
podcast ever, because we learned something. Yeah, the whole journey of this podcast has been to
learn something. And it has been incredibly valuable learning these things, because they
changed our lives. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So, yeah, Joel, it has been fantastic having you on.
And I loved all of this. This has been great hearing from our audience. And if you are a
listener, please contact us, find us on our podcast channel on our website, living in the
matrix.ai. Contact me on Twitter, or on contact Rich on Twitter and me on Instagram. And we would
love to hear from you. Maybe we should, I would love to have more guests. It would be fun to do
this. Rich, any final words? No, just it's been an absolute pleasure, Joel. I'm glad we gel in the
same places. And I think having these conversations every single time resonates with somebody else.
And that's how it grows and expands. And I think that there's so many practical ways where we can
get through this, because it's not getting easier out there right now. The world is really
challenging. There's a lot of crazy stuff, and we need each other in order to make this thing work.
And the stronger we are together, the stronger we'll be as a planet. So thank you so much for
your time. And everybody just hug a friend, a loved one this weekend. Enjoy, get outdoors. And
Joel, any final thoughts from your end? Anything final on your end?
No, I just I just want to say, you know, Virginia Drake is someone that I presented to JB
as a guest. I ended up having two phone conversations with her. So Jenny, she mentioned
you, Rich, and she said, Hey, she's still waiting for you to follow up with her on that one.
I'm scared. I'm scared what's gonna happen, because it's gonna be kind of too revelatory. She told me,
she literally says, Wow, you've done some deep work. And then when I told her what I did, she's
like, Oh, bad, Richie bad juju. Right. So it was, it was like, Wow, that's, that's a castigation
online. But I think, um, you know, she's saying, you don't need somebody else. Just it's just you.
It's the breath. And it's the groundwork. It's just you. And she's seen some crazy stuff. And
we've she's got some crazy ideas out there. But believe it or not, I understand. And I kind of
joll up with what she says, but I will have to do that. It's gonna be a promise. Yeah.
That's great. Well, thanks for coming on, bro. And to all of our listeners, please comment,
review. We'd love to hear from you. And have an absolutely fantastic weekend. Tell yourself
you're worth it every single day. Start a new mantra. Start something that is improving your
lives. That's why we're here. We're here to encourage people to believe in themselves,
to have faith in themselves and to grow because this life is pretty incredible when you let it be.
Much love, everybody. Have a great week.
So let's get started.