Pyschosynthesis and the Path of Self Discovery

Transcript

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Successful people and actually organizations, they do 1 thing really well.

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They connect, but they connect in 3 ways they connect with who they really are with their own selves.

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So when you see somebody who's like really at the top of their game, really in, in any industry, you especially see it in the arts and in sports, but people who are really successful are connected with who they really are, with their values, with what they believe, with their why

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All right.

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Welcome to the New Age Human Podcast.

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I'm your host, John Astacio.

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Today, we're talking with Tim Van Ness.

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Now, Tim is a certified psychosynthesis life coach.

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He's got a passion with helping people connect with who they truly are.

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With their own inner wisdom and knowing.

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Now in today's episode, we talk about his personal experience with psychosynthesis, what that actually is and how he uses it to help his clients.

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You can take advantage.

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And peek into some of the techniques yourself and learn a little bit about that too, for yourself and for your business now, before we get started, just want to give you a reminder.

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If you want to help build the show and support, leave us a 5 star review on apple podcast.

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That helps us a lot.

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And if you don't listen on apple podcast, you can always go to new age human dot com and leave reviews straight on the website and contact me if you have any questions.

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So Let's get to the show.

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All right, Tim Van Ness.

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Thank you for coming on to the show, brother.

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How's it going?

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It's going really well.

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Thanks for having me.

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It's nice to be here, man.

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This has been a long time coming, actually.

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Yeah, we've been going back and forth.

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I enjoy our conversations and we're, we're doing similar things.

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We have a similar, thought process when it comes to how we want to help people and, uh, it's cool to, to connect with someone that has your experience, your background.

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And there's a lot of stuff going on that led up to where you're at now being a certified psychosynthesis life coach.

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And I hope I said it right.

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what got you to do that of all things?

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Good question.

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I, well, I've, I've known about psychosynthesis for many, many years.

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My dad was actually, uh, he ended up after I went off to college, he went off and got a PhD in transpersonal psychology.

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One of the things he studied in that course of study, which was from the California Institute of transpersonal psychology, which is now called Sophia University, uh, he studied psychosynthesis.

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So I have known about it, uh, and.

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There's one of the primary training grounds for psychosynthesis in the Northeast is about a half an hour from where I live in Amherst, Massachusetts.

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And many years ago, I worked at a place called the Men's Resource Center.

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There was two doors down from the Synthesis Center.

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Uh, so I've known about psychosynthesis for a long time and probably three years ago, I found myself wanting to do some therapy work, individual work.

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And I thought I should reach out to the synthesis center because I've known about them for a long time and I like the concept.

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And so I did, and I ended up working with a guy named John Shotland, who's in Brattleboro, Vermont, which is about 45 minutes from where I live.

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I'm, I'm in Orange, Massachusetts, about 75 miles west of Boston.

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So I started working with John and after working with him for a year or so, he is a faculty member for the psycho spiritual institute in Florida.

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Which has a coaching training program in psychosynthesis and.

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He started talking to me about, you know, Tim, we're really looking at the need for more male trainers in psychosynthesis.

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Most of the people involved in the Psychospiritual Institute are women.

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It was started by two women.

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And so he said, you know, based on your background, your experience, I think you'd probably be really good at it.

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So we started talking and I started looking at the program and I figured I should probably go through the program.

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Yeah.

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Even before I consider, you know, is this something that I can teach?

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So I looked at that program and there's another program out in California run by a woman named Didi Furman.

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Didi is one of the kind of grandmothers of, of psychosynthesis training in the U S and ran the synthesis center.

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Near where I live for many years.

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So I'd known, I think I'd met her once or twice and I've known of her for a long time, but I looked at these 2 different programs and decided on the, the psycho spiritual Institute program and in Florida.

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And I completed it actually just a year ago.

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This past weekend was the, the 1 year anniversary of our graduation.

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Wow, the timing is actually pretty interesting.

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It is.

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What

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could you break down?

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What is Psychosynthesis?

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As I said earlier, it's a, it's an approach to transpersonal psychology, or it's a form of transpersonal psychology.

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Transpersonal psychology is the study of psychology that goes beyond trans, just the study of personality, or study of psychology, I should say, that goes beyond just the study of personality.

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So it's a, it's a whole system approach to psychology.

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It's a, it's a form of positive psychology.

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The term positive psychology has gotten a lot of, uh, airplay these days.

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Basically, it's a kind of a spiritual approach to psychology, informed by, somewhat by Carl Jung's work.

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Uh, the idea being that we are not our personality, we are not our body, we're not our thoughts, we're not our emotions, we have all these things.

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But who we are in our core essential self is something different.

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Got it.

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Who's the person that's starting to recognize, you know, I feel crappy today.

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Well, who is it that's saying I feel crappy today?

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It's not the crappiness.

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It's not all the stuff that's informing, you know, we're having a difficult challenge in our relationships or we're thinking we're worried about stuff.

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Those are functions of who we are, but who we are in our core essential self.

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Is this core essential self that actually is connected to something grander beyond ourselves and is also kind of connected to the collective unconscious as Carl Jung talked about sort of something again, something bigger than us.

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And so psychosynthesis see seeks to help individuals connect more deeply with who they really are in their course, essential self.

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Like that, those really private moments when you're in bed at night and you're, where you're really pondering those existential questions.

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Who are you really in your essence?

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And how can you work with and have a relationship with all the different psychological functions, our thinking function?

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I used to think of these, of these as different bodies.

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We have these, we have a physical body, right?

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Uh, but like one of our, one of my favorite spiritual teachers of all time said, Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter.

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So Jedi Master Yoda talked about We basically are the force.

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We are not our bodies.

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We are luminous beings, not this crude matter of flesh.

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Right?

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So with that concept, we have the, we have a thinking body.

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We have meant our thoughts.

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We have an emotional body, all the feelings that we have.

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We have our physical body and the sensations that we have, sight, smell, sound, taste, all that stuff.

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in psychosynthesis, we talk about three others, intuition, imagination.

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So some people really see in pictures.

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You know, their, their imagination is very vivid and then the, the impulse.

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Yeah.

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And then the impulse desire function, which, you know, that's like, like, I want chocolate now.

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Um, you know, so these are the functions of our psyche, but they're not who we are.

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And so psychosynthesis seems to synthesize all of these different aspects of who we are, so that we can be more connected to who we are in our core, in our essence, so that we can live.

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Our most fulfilling life on purpose.

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Beautifully said, Actually, I like I want to go back a little bit.

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I like how when you got exposed to this you didn't say hey I'm going to just get certified and just hit the ground running you said I want to experience this to make sure that I can help people with this.

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I want to go through it first, which is huge in a world where there's a lot of get rich quick theories.

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Uh, you, you can fall into the rabbit hole on, on, on, on YouTube and all that.

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Uh, and and just for me, because of what I do and I research and everything, every other commercial is like, Hey, do you want to work from home?

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And hey, this, hey, this, hey, that.

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And it's like that skill of helping people find their true calling and their true self by synthesizing and understanding The different aspects of themselves trying to grasp at everything is very important, and I totally feel that.

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what was your experience going through that program yourself?

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I want to know.

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Yeah, it's interesting.

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I was just, I'm now just friends and colleagues with John Shotland, who was, I am not doing therapy with him anymore, and I actually stopped because he was one of the faculty members, so we didn't want to have a conflict of interest there.

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So he's really a colleague and I got together with him for dinner the other night, and he was asking me the same thing because we were sitting with another colleague, another psychosynthesis colleague, and we were just talking about our experiences of trainings and stuff.

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It was really interesting for me because I was very different, I think, than a lot of the other students in the program, because I've already been a coach for many years.

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So I wasn't really going to learn how to be a coach.

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I was really going to learn more about psychosynthesis and the specific skills and toolkit that psychosynthesis provides as a coach.

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I've been doing leadership and executive coaching for years, and I've been a facilitator and doing leadership development, training and organization development and change consulting and stuff like that.

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So, so I wasn't looking for a coaching thing.

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I.

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I already have, I've been a spiritual seeker all my life and I have my own spiritual path.

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So I wasn't really looking for that.

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A lot of students when we first introduced ourselves and 1 of the 1st calls, a lot of the people were there to learn.

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What coaching is and how to be coach they were learning about kind of having a spiritual life.

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A lot of the people were had been seekers, but they'd never really tapped into anything that worked for them.

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there were people that were really excited about having access to a community.

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I have various communities in my life, so I wasn't there was a lot that I wasn't looking for in an in a way.

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There's a lot that wasn't really new.

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I also knew a lot about psychosynthesis just because I've known about psychosynthesis and I had been working with a psychosynthesis coach or therapist for several years.

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So, and he had taught me a lot about psychosynthesis and using the models and the frameworks and the language and all that.

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So there wasn't in a lot of ways.

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There wasn't really a lot that was new.

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And yet it was still a very profound experience.

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And I feel like I learned a lot and again, the language, the tools, the specific models and frameworks around psychosynthesis and having more ability to articulate them and talk about them and use them and put them into practice into my, into my own coaching.

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So I was, it was great because I was a, well, we, we did a lot of practicing of court coaching.

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Of course, you have to have a certain number of hours.

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So we practiced with each other in, in the class.

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Yeah.

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Uh, and, but I've also, I also had my own coaching clients and my own coaching work.

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So I was integrating psychosynthesis concepts and language into my coaching practice.

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And that I found really valuable as well.

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It's interesting how you came in there with already.

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A lot of knowledge and you're under your belt and, uh, already being a coach of sorts several times for several years.

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And yet you said you said it's it still was a profound experience.

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What about it was profound?

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Was it the inner journey?

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Uh, or was it more of like the revelations?

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I'm very curious.

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D all of the above.

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Uh, it, it was my own energy.

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One of the things that happened in the very first class, they sent out this list of things that you had to do to prepare and be ready for.

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Uh, and.

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And they said, you know, please read this email carefully all the way through, you know, all that kind of stuff.

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So I did.

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I did it.

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I did it.

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I did it all.

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I was all ready.

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I was kind of excited.

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So I get that.

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And I, I, I have to say, I, I had a very difficult time in school.

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My, my background is I'm, I'm an artist and a creative and the traditional public school system was not designed for somebody like me.

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Many of your listeners may be able to relate to this, I suppose.

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Uh, so I had, I hated school.

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Honestly, and I had a difficult time in school and, uh, all, all I really have is an undergraduate degree.

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Uh, I have a bachelor's in music education, uh, and never went on to, to do because I hated school.

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I was like psyched to finally, finally graduate.

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And it took me seven years to graduate from college.

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I bounced around a lot.

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That's part of why, but, so the idea of being a student, and this was sort of the first time I had really been a student again.

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You know, matriculated and paying money for education.

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So that first class.

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1 of the 1st things they said was some of you have not filled out the so so and so form.

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It was something like, you know, the letter of agreement form where you agree to all of their, you know, what it means to be a student and what you agree to do and how to how you behave and all that kind of stuff.

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And they were like, you know who you are.

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And I'm like, I don't know what they're talking about.

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How did I miss this?

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And I instantly felt shame.

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I instantly went back to being in middle school and feeling like I'm stupid and I'm a bad student.

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Wow,

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so that became some fodder to work on and I realized that's what we call in psychosynthesis a sub personality.

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It's my scared little boy that's terrified of doing it wrong and being a bad boy and not being smart enough.

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All those things, a lot of people are more and more familiar now with internal family systems, internal family systems was very much informed by psychosynthesis, sort of borrowed from psychosynthesis.

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Uh, so they call, they talk about parts work and psychosynthesis, it's called sub personalities.

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So it gave me an opportunity to really look at that old hurt, that old wound, that old part of me that is a limiting belief ultimately.

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Because there's that part of me that thinks I'm stupid and I'm not smart and I'm not a good student and here it is again, like, see, that voice in me, that sub personality had all sorts of new data.

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See, Tim, I told you, you know, you've been avoiding it for all these decades, but here you are once again, you're a bad student and you screwed up.

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And you didn't read it carefully enough and you didn't fill out the form and they're calling you out on this very first call.

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So the whole process, you know, 1 of the things I liked about this program was they, we use ourselves as fodder for learning the material and we,

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a challenging thing.

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and it's not something I'm unfamiliar with.

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At some point, we'll probably get to talking about playback theater, which is a big part of my training and in playback theater.

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It's a form of improvisational theater.

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And we practice by telling our own stories and playing back our own experiences.

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That's how we practice.

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So the approach to education wasn't new to me.

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and, and then I also, the other thing I'll say to finally answer your question, the other piece of the answer is by the end of the training program, which is about 10 months.

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I really felt like I had a whole new community of people that I fell in love with I wasn't expecting it.

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And in fact, the whole thing was on zoom.

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The whole thing was except for the last intensive weekend.

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There were several intensive weekends throughout the program and the last intensive weekend was done in person.

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And the end of the intensive weekend was the graduation, which was also in person.

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So that was another really cool thing.

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Cause I, I ended up going down to Fort Lauderdale, Florida for the graduation and for the intensive weekend, I finally got to see all these people that I've been meeting, Like this on zoom or whatever and, you know, relationships that got pretty deep because we're coaching each other on our own personal stuff.

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And again, kind of people that I kind of fell in love with.

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And I was like, oh, my God, it was so exciting to see these people.

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And through that experience, it also made me realize how important these people and how important this process had been.

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Now, um, a silly question.

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They, they do say the camera adds like 10 pounds.

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Was everybody smaller for you when you met them or?

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it's a great, yeah, yeah.

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it's, it's true that the cameras make you look, look different.

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it was more just, you know, we're just sitting here at our desks or standing at our desk.

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So all you see is this.

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So when I got in person, it wasn't so much that they, you know, looked thinner necessarily, but it was like.

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Oh, wow.

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You're, you're a lot taller than I thought you were, or, oh, wow.

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You're a lot shorter than I thought you were.

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Cause you can't tell people's height by just, they're sitting at their desk in front of a zoom camera, you know?

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So that, that, that was the thing.

00:18:58.869 --> 00:18:59.170
yeah, I

00:18:59.204 --> 00:19:01.535
or like, oh, wow, you're fatter than I thought you were.

00:19:02.420 --> 00:19:02.750
yeah, right.

00:19:03.559 --> 00:19:12.000
That's not the best way to, you know, yeah, that's not the best way to meet someone in person and just like right off the cuff.

00:19:12.079 --> 00:19:12.609
Oh, wow.

00:19:12.609 --> 00:19:15.730
Uh, you are looking very different.

00:19:16.039 --> 00:19:17.089
Um, but that's got to be amazing.

00:19:17.119 --> 00:19:18.950
And that that tests to the.

00:19:19.414 --> 00:19:28.964
Just the importance of meeting people in person, and we've gotten so used to, like, there's pros and cons, obviously, with going digital.

00:19:29.005 --> 00:19:36.595
I mean, right now, we're doing it digitally right now where we're connecting, but it's, you know, it's the next level thing.

00:19:36.595 --> 00:19:39.075
I can only imagine just meeting up with people.

00:19:39.484 --> 00:19:42.125
maybe we can go on that tangent just a little bit.

00:19:42.125 --> 00:19:43.904
I'm curious what your thoughts are.

00:19:44.194 --> 00:19:54.884
When you're working with people with clients, what are your thoughts on the digital world affecting people in general on their journey with making those connections?

00:19:54.904 --> 00:19:56.464
Because you're a big connections guy.

00:19:56.464 --> 00:20:01.115
So what are your thoughts on like, what's a good way to balance the two?

00:20:01.214 --> 00:20:01.585
Right?

00:20:04.900 --> 00:20:07.500
Well, that's an interesting way to put it, balancing the two.

00:20:07.960 --> 00:20:10.579
And we do kind of have to do that now.

00:20:10.579 --> 00:20:13.200
It's the era where we're, we are balancing the two.

00:20:13.900 --> 00:20:16.750
You're, you live probably like two and a half hours away.

00:20:16.779 --> 00:20:23.170
I could have driven down to your studio or we could have found a studio to meet in or something, you know, uh, we could have done that.

00:20:23.180 --> 00:20:24.529
And yeah, it takes time.

00:20:25.220 --> 00:20:28.559
And it takes more money because they're, you know, gas money and all that kind of stuff.

00:20:31.180 --> 00:20:41.500
I've spent the last over 25 years doing leadership development training and facilitation of groups and teams.

00:20:42.170 --> 00:20:45.589
Um, really nothing.

00:20:45.994 --> 00:20:51.345
At all that can replace being in person is just absolutely not the same.

00:20:52.125 --> 00:21:06.255
And coming off of what sparked that question, this, this in person intensive training at the end of a nine or 10 months zoom experience, you connect with people very differently in person.

00:21:07.144 --> 00:21:10.914
Now that's not to say, that's not to say you can't do it virtually.

00:21:11.525 --> 00:21:12.285
It's possible.

00:21:12.970 --> 00:21:14.079
And it's not the same.

00:21:14.940 --> 00:21:26.380
So herein lies one of the psychosynthesis principle, which is a similar principle to improvisational theater, as it turns out, which is both and holding both of these truths at the same time.

00:21:26.380 --> 00:21:27.410
I used to talk.

00:21:27.430 --> 00:21:29.599
I used to call it the theory of multiple truths.

00:21:31.059 --> 00:21:35.460
It's possible to connect via zoom virtually.

00:21:36.329 --> 00:21:38.059
And it's not the same as in person.

00:21:38.930 --> 00:21:39.509
Both are true.

00:21:42.460 --> 00:21:50.180
so if we are in this world going to balance it, I think finding the balance is the trick.

00:21:50.795 --> 00:21:57.355
And finally finding the commitment and the resources to actually bring people together is worth it.

00:21:58.204 --> 00:22:00.085
And more and more and more and more.

00:22:00.085 --> 00:22:10.365
I hear people actually hungry and starving for in person connection because people know, we know, like, we know it's not the same and yes, there's all sorts of data you can do.

00:22:10.365 --> 00:22:11.234
And I'm sure there's data.

00:22:11.234 --> 00:22:16.134
You can show that, you know, it's a fact just as effective and business works just as well.

00:22:17.005 --> 00:22:18.994
And the truth is, we all know.

00:22:19.900 --> 00:22:24.259
Or most of us really agree and know and so 2 things about my work.

00:22:24.289 --> 00:22:26.410
1 is yes, I'm a connections guy.

00:22:26.789 --> 00:22:29.299
I've been working with this idea of of.

00:22:29.674 --> 00:22:46.085
Helping people connect with who they are with their own inner knowing so psychosynthesis is a great tool for that also and it's partly because especially in Western society.

00:22:47.474 --> 00:22:49.015
Sometimes I want to blame Descartes.

00:22:49.144 --> 00:22:50.454
I think therefore I am.

00:22:50.664 --> 00:22:53.234
There's there's an orientation to rational thought.

00:22:53.244 --> 00:22:56.865
There's an orientation towards, data and research.

00:22:57.795 --> 00:23:26.424
And over the last 10, 20, and especially 10 years, there's been a lot of neuroscience research and a lot of behavioral science research that for me, not that it's not valid, but there's part of me that ruffles a little bit at the idea that there's now neuroscience research to prove some of these things that we know and things that artists and healers have known for thousands of years.

00:23:27.109 --> 00:23:30.920
Like being in person is a more powerful experience than being on zoom.

00:23:30.930 --> 00:23:31.900
Like, we know this.

00:23:32.259 --> 00:23:35.599
Do I need a research study to tell me that it's true?

00:23:36.019 --> 00:23:52.509
For whatever reason, though, we have a tendency to in this society to really only believe it if it's scientifically proven and I'm concerned about that because I think it gets it gets us away from being connected to our own knowing and our own truth.

00:23:53.200 --> 00:23:54.430
Because we don't trust our own.

00:23:54.460 --> 00:23:55.509
We don't trust ourselves.

00:23:55.579 --> 00:23:57.240
We don't trust our own knowing and our own truth.

00:23:57.240 --> 00:23:58.099
Well, I could be wrong.

00:23:58.109 --> 00:24:04.279
I could be like, you know, I could have some psychological process that's, you know, making me believe that I'm.

00:24:05.230 --> 00:24:10.490
Yeah, and do you feel like you are like, no, that's not to say again.

00:24:10.700 --> 00:24:19.769
I mean, I'm not, I'm not down on research and, you know, there's, you know, there's, there's validity and there's a place for science and there's a place for research.

00:24:19.789 --> 00:24:22.829
And what I'm concerned again is the balance.

00:24:22.900 --> 00:24:29.589
Do we, do we lose our own sense of knowing what's right for us?

00:24:30.180 --> 00:24:35.960
especially in this age of, you know, fake news and all that kind of stuff.

00:24:36.250 --> 00:24:37.349
It's like, who do you believe?

00:24:38.964 --> 00:24:39.275
Yeah.

00:24:39.299 --> 00:24:41.609
Every media outlet has its own agenda.

00:24:41.960 --> 00:24:42.490
I'm sorry.

00:24:42.819 --> 00:24:47.039
Every media outlet is paid for by somebody who's trying to make money.

00:24:47.440 --> 00:24:50.019
So who do you believe?

00:24:50.029 --> 00:24:50.769
What do you believe?

00:24:50.890 --> 00:24:51.849
And how do you know?

00:24:52.720 --> 00:25:01.430
And we end up actually believing the things that resonate with us the most, regardless of the network or regardless of politics or whatever it is.

00:25:02.059 --> 00:25:04.180
If something feels right to us, we'll believe it.

00:25:05.325 --> 00:25:05.785
Mhm.

00:25:06.190 --> 00:25:06.339
And

00:25:06.394 --> 00:25:07.325
know, that reminds me.

00:25:07.525 --> 00:25:07.744
Okay.

00:25:07.744 --> 00:25:08.065
Okay.

00:25:08.089 --> 00:25:18.609
one last thing, and then that, it's not very often that we hear something and we're like, oh my god, that's totally different from what I always thought.

00:25:19.460 --> 00:25:23.319
And then we're ready to go down that road to explore it and understand it more.

00:25:26.984 --> 00:25:27.694
I love those.

00:25:27.785 --> 00:25:39.924
I love it when it happens when those things happen to me where and it might sound contradicting because someone provides you a thought or concept and you're like, I never thought of that.

00:25:40.015 --> 00:25:47.404
And I like getting lost in that new rabbit hole because it reminds me of just having a flashlight.

00:25:48.069 --> 00:25:51.759
And realizing there's another door and now you have a bigger house, right?

00:25:51.759 --> 00:25:57.559
You're like, yes, it's like finding 20 in your pocket and it survived the wash, you know?

00:25:58.839 --> 00:26:16.049
But when you were talking about like inner guidance, that reminded me of something that I think a lot of people can relate to observing, which is the effect GPS had on people where people are driving off the road into the water because they value.

00:26:16.494 --> 00:26:20.744
The machine that is telling them to go

00:26:21.190 --> 00:26:23.730
Turn right, right now, on this road.

00:26:23.970 --> 00:26:26.730
There is no road, but I'm gonna turn right anyway, right?

00:26:27.714 --> 00:26:27.944
right?

00:26:27.944 --> 00:26:36.884
How many times I've had a GPS where it was a rental car and it was just one of those things that they gave you and it wasn't updated and I was circling.

00:26:37.269 --> 00:26:41.640
A block, like 3 times because I didn't know the area.

00:26:41.640 --> 00:26:45.900
And so I had to rely on something outside of myself.

00:26:46.220 --> 00:26:56.138
And then I was like, you know what, let me, pull out the brain of mine that I haven't used in a while, which reads signs, uses logic and.

00:26:56.220 --> 00:27:02.619
Understands direction of, like, the water's to your left land is to the right.

00:27:03.140 --> 00:27:06.470
I know that it's forward and more inland.

00:27:07.789 --> 00:27:10.359
I'm not going to need to make another left now.

00:27:10.359 --> 00:27:12.529
It's, it's on the, you know, like, stuff like that.

00:27:12.670 --> 00:27:19.730
And I'm looking for a Best Buy, and they have a big, huge, yellow sign, and it's like, if I use my eyes and look around, it's like, Okay.

00:27:19.730 --> 00:27:25.390
This, this side street that has absolutely nothing on it is definitely not taking me to a shopping center.

00:27:25.460 --> 00:27:25.740
Yeah.

00:27:26.500 --> 00:27:26.920
Yeah.

00:27:27.029 --> 00:27:31.109
And, or just, uh, for, for myself as a, I would say.

00:27:31.315 --> 00:27:32.654
Elder millennial.

00:27:33.255 --> 00:27:36.125
I asked someone, Oh, where is this place?

00:27:36.805 --> 00:27:47.684
And if they're not from the time of having access to GPS for 10, 12, 20 plus years, they're going to give you actual directions on how to get somewheres.

00:27:48.125 --> 00:27:55.555
And myself, I'm like, Losing patience because I'm like, just, I just need the address and then I can figure it out.

00:27:55.595 --> 00:27:56.595
I just plug it in.

00:27:57.704 --> 00:28:03.454
It's not like you go to, and, and it's kind of scary because I remember someone giving me directions.

00:28:03.525 --> 00:28:06.214
It's, it's the second left at that light.

00:28:06.424 --> 00:28:10.078
You're going to see a sign or you can see a church and this and.

00:28:10.509 --> 00:28:12.650
My attention span has gotten worse.

00:28:12.660 --> 00:28:26.250
So to your point, it's, it's so crucial to, to learn about and strengthen your intuition and then build those connections because that is, there's, it's, there's.

00:28:27.005 --> 00:28:39.585
It's just different, you know, it's different from going to a place where, you know, where everything is at your, your, your hometown and you can map out the whole town in your mind and, you know, all the side streets.

00:28:39.585 --> 00:28:45.015
But imagine if that you were like that for yourself, it will be so much easier to make decisions.

00:28:45.244 --> 00:28:47.023
It will be so much easier to.

00:28:47.595 --> 00:28:55.255
Um, see opportunities that are aligned with your passions and know that it's your passion and not someone else's passion and so on and so forth.

00:28:55.450 --> 00:28:55.779
Yeah.

00:28:55.940 --> 00:29:00.329
John, I know you're normally the one asking questions here, but can I ask you a question about that?

00:29:00.825 --> 00:29:01.285
Sure.

00:29:01.789 --> 00:29:04.059
Have you ever, and this is really for everybody.

00:29:04.059 --> 00:29:11.779
I think, have you ever like in that, that setting that you were talking about, you're, you're using a GPS and you're essentially lost or you can't find the thing.

00:29:12.029 --> 00:29:18.338
Have you ever just done that thing of just like stopping for a minute, listening inside, like, Okay.

00:29:18.990 --> 00:29:22.009
If I didn't have any other information, which way would I go?

00:29:23.960 --> 00:29:27.509
And then just start driving and trusting it.

00:29:28.674 --> 00:29:31.285
I've had to do that because I lost signal, you know,

00:29:32.000 --> 00:29:32.269
Yeah.

00:29:32.765 --> 00:29:36.914
or, I do remember that I have done that.

00:29:36.944 --> 00:29:42.265
I haven't stopped and pulled over and just kind of sat in silence like that, which would be a great thing.

00:29:42.555 --> 00:29:46.224
It was more of like, I got to, Get somewheres at a certain time.

00:29:46.515 --> 00:29:47.484
And you know what?

00:29:48.035 --> 00:30:10.269
What makes sense is that, for example, if you're from the Northeast area and you've ever driven, from New York into New Jersey, that is anxiety because there's 10 different signs and the decisions that you need to make and maneuvering around cars needs to be quick and safe.

00:30:11.289 --> 00:30:22.539
That would be a place that if you don't know where you're going ahead of time, there's no way to read those signs and be able to avoid a car cutting you off in aggressive traffic.

00:30:22.539 --> 00:30:26.400
So it's 1 of those things where that would be a perfect time where I go there.

00:30:26.400 --> 00:30:27.500
I'm like, where am I going?

00:30:27.500 --> 00:30:28.390
Okay, I'm going to Jersey.

00:30:28.390 --> 00:30:28.680
Okay.

00:30:28.700 --> 00:30:29.079
And then.

00:30:29.279 --> 00:30:31.859
I know they live off of, uh, whatever, 42.

00:30:31.910 --> 00:30:34.210
And then I'm just like looking for that number.

00:30:34.309 --> 00:30:36.970
I'm not looking at GPS is confused.

00:30:37.980 --> 00:30:43.019
And I'm just like, and, you know, the light at the end of the tunnel, and you're just weaving in and out of cars.

00:30:43.029 --> 00:30:44.819
So yeah, that's, that's definitely happened to me.

00:30:44.819 --> 00:30:46.069
I'm guessing that's happened to you.

00:30:47.009 --> 00:30:48.720
Yeah, yeah, it is.

00:30:48.779 --> 00:30:57.380
And, um, you know, that's again that that's that thing of trusting your own inner knowing and not that it always leads you in exactly the right place.

00:30:57.410 --> 00:31:11.640
But, I mean, I've definitely had the experience of of this is slightly different, but, you know, going down the road and having having a little nudge inside that says turn left now and.

00:31:12.255 --> 00:31:16.545
And like, well, that's not the way I normally go, but I can go down that way.

00:31:16.545 --> 00:31:18.075
So it's like, okay, I'll follow that.

00:31:18.075 --> 00:31:22.194
And then I found out, find out later, or I see later, there was a, there was an accident.

00:31:22.829 --> 00:31:34.039
You know, along the way, so I'm a big fan of, of developing that well, in psychosynthesis, I was mentioning 1 of the functions is intuition.

00:31:34.049 --> 00:31:41.440
So developing that intuition and developing that, you know, again, because I think we, it also comes down to the nervous system.

00:31:41.970 --> 00:31:42.430
Really?

00:31:42.630 --> 00:31:48.460
Because we get like going from New York into New Jersey, you know, it's like, wait, which bridge, which tunnel?

00:31:49.009 --> 00:31:50.599
Oh, my God, I'm going the wrong way.

00:31:50.599 --> 00:31:53.839
Um, and it's very anxiety producing.

00:31:53.839 --> 00:31:57.700
And so we're kind of in fight or flight all the time when we're driving in that kind of context.

00:31:57.700 --> 00:32:00.019
And we're trying to follow GPS and we're on this thing.

00:32:00.019 --> 00:32:01.339
It says follow this blue line.

00:32:01.615 --> 00:32:05.265
But it doesn't realize that I'm up on this level and not down on this level.

00:32:05.315 --> 00:32:12.015
And on, on, on this level, you can kind of go off here, but on this level, you can't, and it's like, turn right now.

00:32:12.015 --> 00:32:14.734
It's like, I can't, there's no exit for me.

00:32:14.734 --> 00:32:19.545
It's in the other, you know, and there's something about slowing down.

00:32:20.730 --> 00:32:26.410
And, you know, what happens in fight or flight as, as we know, and, you know, thank you neuroscience research.

00:32:26.410 --> 00:32:30.259
I suppose this, you know, it's 1 of the things that explains why it's happening.

00:32:30.650 --> 00:32:33.549
But when we go into fight or flight, our frontal cortex shuts down.

00:32:34.529 --> 00:32:40.930
So does our digestion, which is why we kind of get that sort of sick pit in the stomach feeling when we're nervous.

00:32:41.369 --> 00:32:41.680
Right.

00:32:41.779 --> 00:32:46.210
but our frontal like, our rational thinking function isn't working when we're in fight or flight.

00:32:46.210 --> 00:32:48.329
So that's where we're like, we're listening to directions.

00:32:48.329 --> 00:32:51.460
And if we just stop and slow down and take a breath.

00:32:53.625 --> 00:32:57.664
It can help us bring this back on and we can start to think logically.

00:32:57.664 --> 00:33:01.154
Does it make sense to turn left when actually I want to go over the river?

00:33:01.737 --> 00:33:02.646
I like that a lot.

00:33:02.656 --> 00:33:17.166
And that's something that's like one of my biggest challenges that I've gotten all so much better with where you find yourself in this loop of trying of being stuck on something because you're stuck in fighter, fighter flight.

00:33:17.547 --> 00:33:18.767
And then later on.

00:33:19.152 --> 00:33:25.182
You realize, oh, okay, you know what I did waste a couple hours because I could have just done this.

00:33:25.221 --> 00:33:28.102

Pyschosynthesis and the Path of Self Discovery | Tim Van Ness

Tim Van Ness, PLC

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