Connection & Regulation W/Jason Lyle - LLL W/ Glenn Ambrose

In this special episode, I welcome Jason Lyle, an amazing man with multiple irons in the fire, increasing the quality of life and spiritual connection for the masses through coaching, podcasts, and retreats.

Transcript

Welcome to Life Lessons and Laughter with your host,

Glenn Ambrose.

Hey,

Everybody,

Welcome to Life Lessons and Laughter.

So today I have a special guest on.

I spoke with him once and man,

There was just some some good flow going on with some great information.

So I want to have him on and we're going to learn a little bit more about him and why he does.

So here is Jason Lyle.

Hey,

Man.

Welcome.

Thank you.

I appreciate you having me.

Yeah,

Absolutely.

So,

Yeah,

We had an amazing conversation,

A great connection,

And you're doing some really good work.

So I want to have you on and and discuss all kinds of stuff as well as the stuff that you're working on.

So to start,

Why don't you just tell the people a little bit about yourself and what you do?

Yeah,

My name's Jason Lyle.

I was a Christian pastor for 13 years,

Planted my own church.

They call it the cowboy church because we met in a barn and we'd run horses out on a Tuesday night.

We did church on Tuesday night.

We'd run horses out and set chairs up,

Bring people in.

They would take the chairs down and run the horses back in.

I did it that way on Tuesday nights in a barn to reach men.

I felt like men who are in the construction industry,

Which was most of what I worked around.

I was a plumber for prior to planting the church.

They were just wanting a spiritual expression,

But they did not want to give up their Sunday morning.

They did not want to go to some big building with pews and put on a tie and all that all that jazz.

They but they really gravitated toward a barn,

Freezing cold.

I baptized guys in freezing cold water back then.

Still doing it,

By the way.

We'll talk about that a little bit.

But I baptized guys back then in a horse trough.

And that led me down this spiritual path.

In 2017,

I quit being a pastor due to having affairs.

And I'm sure we'll get into that some as well.

And in that healing process.

But that led me to form what is known as Adventures in Recovery,

Which is a fraternal group for men.

We go hiking a couple of times a year,

Three day,

Two night trips.

We're this coming weekend.

We're doing a sound bowl experience in Atlanta.

We go rock climbing,

Mountain biking,

Fly fishing.

We're going to climb three 14000 foot peaks in Colorado this July.

And everything about Adventures in Recovery is just a free organization.

Guys can just join.

We raise money in order to pay the bills.

And it's just I call it man church in a lot of ways.

It's just a place for guys to heal.

And out of that,

I started Sacred Grit.

And Sacred Grit is a podcast,

Which is all things nervous system regulation for men retreats.

I do three to four men's retreats a year.

Yoga retreats is what we call them.

And then I also do one on one coaching with people.

I have a client in New Zealand,

One in Scotland and one right down the road here.

You know,

So I have clients all over the globe.

And so it's a it's an honor to really guide men in a in a spiritual path that in most of them,

They're really just kind of fed up with church,

You know?

Yeah,

Yeah.

And that's some great work.

What a great I love the I love the visual of baptizing in a horse trough.

Like that.

That's just like I thought the barn was good.

But that's even oh,

That's the cherry on the cake.

But that's awesome.

Yeah.

And I think it's I think it's really important.

You know,

A lot of my work is just general work to to anybody and everybody.

But,

You know,

I really do see the increasing need for men because it's you know,

It's I mean,

Most of I mean,

I've been on this path 22 years and.

Especially when I lived in Rhode Island,

I went to a lot of events.

I ended up having a lot of events at my place,

Too,

Once I opened my place.

But I went to a lot of events.

I went to a lot of Sambal healings and gong bass.

And and and just anything spiritual.

And most of the time I was the only man there.

Yeah.

You know,

And it's like so.

But,

You know,

We are we're all waking up and and there's something also,

You know,

The other thing I actually just thought of is when I got sober.

When I really decided to get sober and stop any excuses that were getting in my way,

I joined a men's group because it was recommended.

And people told me back then they said they said there are things you don't realize that's happening,

But you are changing things that you would say because of being in a room with women and men,

As opposed to if you were just in a room with men.

And I was like,

Yeah,

You don't really know me.

I'm pretty honest and straightforward.

And I don't think that's true until I joined the men's group.

Yeah.

And all of a sudden I was like.

Oh,

Wow.

Like,

Yeah,

Yeah.

I didn't realize that I was holding back certain things.

And,

You know,

Because of the because of women being in the room.

So so there there is a time and a place.

You know,

I believe the ultimate goal is for us all to come together.

But there is a place where we can benefit from from being in a situation that's,

You know,

Just the gender that we are.

Dude,

Let me tell you something,

Man,

And I agree with you.

There is a time and a place for men,

For men and women to come together.

But here's the way I see this is like evolutionarily.

Right.

So if we back up a few thousand years and we think about hunting parties going out for days to go find animals to feed their family,

There's a group of men and they're gone for days.

They're doing life together.

They're trying to figure out ways to entertain themselves.

They're probably,

You know,

Picking on each other.

And here's what's the most amazing thing.

And this happens at men's retreats.

But the men's retreats are a little bit more structured,

Right?

Like they get their sacred grit men's retreat.

We're going to talk about honesty,

Curiosity,

Self-love.

We're going to have all these deep conversations.

We do some breath work,

Some yoga,

Some meditation.

We're getting the cold water on purpose,

All these different things.

But when we go hiking,

I mean,

We do two,

Three day,

Two night hiking trips a year.

One of them is called a bring a buddy trip.

That's how we recruit into the program.

100% free.

Anybody can come.

The second one is alumni hiking trip just to get everybody together.

But when we get these guys out in the woods and you get a fire going and on Friday night or Friday afternoon,

They're all hiking in.

You know,

Everybody's kind of talking a little bit.

They're kind of starting to feel it out.

Who's this guy?

Who's that guy?

Saturday morning,

We get up in the campfire by Saturday afternoon,

Brother.

The 14 year old boy jokes are flying.

You know,

I mean,

You can say they're playing in the creek looking for crawfish and,

You know,

They're got their shoes off walking around camp barefoot.

But what begins to happen by the time Saturday afternoon?

Because on Saturday we go up to this big field and we do breath work,

Yoga,

Meditation,

We'll go jump in the river.

We really do all the same things,

Just not without as much structure.

It's more like this camaraderie by Saturday evening around the fire,

Dude.

It gets so real.

I mean,

The transparency is just open.

And you have guys talking about being molested when they were a child.

You have guys talking about being tied up in or I'm sorry,

Locked up in the bedroom all day while their parents were at work without food.

They hear about kids who were zip tied to their bed when their parents would.

I mean,

So these guys are just really just pouring their hearts out and they're in a group of men who are going,

Dude,

Yeah,

Man,

I get that.

So it's really interesting.

Cause you can go from guys making jokes that guys make in that environment to really,

You know,

Put an arm around a dude and crying and going,

Man,

It's going to be all right to doing yoga.

You know,

We're all around the campfire doing down doll,

You know,

It's like,

So it is a beautiful experience and there's nothing quite like the male bond,

You know,

When you get around and listen,

The ladies,

I love ladies.

Right.

But the thing about it is men feel like they have to be strong when they're around women.

They feel like they've got to be strong.

And when they get around dudes,

They can figure out really quick.

I don't have to be strong.

I don't have to be,

You know,

Fake.

I can really open up and let these other guys in.

And it's a powerful thing.

Yeah.

And,

And that's exactly what can happen in a safe environment like that,

Because,

Um,

You know,

We,

We,

We feel like we got to be tough in front of other men too,

Like,

You know,

In normal everyday situations,

Because,

You know,

You,

It's,

You know,

How I grew up,

It's,

If you showed any sign of weakness for a millisecond,

You had four guys just laying into you,

You know,

So it was,

So it's the,

It's all that pressure.

But when you're around other guys that are all doing the same thing,

You know,

And,

And being vulnerable and being open and,

And not defending and not attacking like that,

It's,

You know,

It's,

It's exactly what you said.

It's like,

You can,

You pick up on it very quickly.

I've been in those situations with the men,

You know,

And to like,

In a way,

What we just described with men's defenses being up around women and being up around other men,

You would think that it's really,

Really hard and it's not.

When you're in a safe space with other guys and they start doing it,

It's,

It's,

It's like,

It's kind of like you've been waiting for it your whole life,

You know?

You're like,

Oh my God,

Finally,

I can just be me and,

And authentic and,

You know,

Vulnerable and,

And these guys got my back,

You know,

The other thing,

The thing that I think too,

Man,

I didn't mean to cut you off there,

But I want to get this in before I forget it.

Cause I'm 55 and I'll forget it.

The thing too,

Is the common bond of suffering.

So you get out on that trail and you're sleeping in a tent,

You're carrying your food on your back.

You're three or four miles from the truck.

You're,

You know,

A thunderstorm comes up.

You're just in it.

There's no thermostat to turn the heat up.

There's no thermostat to turn the air down.

There's no toilet to go flush.

You got to go,

You know,

Pick a spot.

There's no running water.

You have to purify it in the Creek.

And these men start to share this common bond of being out in the woods.

And it does remind me of old hunting parties,

You know?

And so that to me is like part of,

So when you're at work,

Yeah,

There's still this structure jockey in for position,

Or if you're in a sports,

Uh,

You know,

Um,

I don't do sports,

But if you're like a sports event,

There's some of that,

Or if you go over to a buddy's house and you're in his home,

You know,

And you're watching his TV and it's like,

There's all this jockey and stuff going on,

But when you're out in the woods,

There ain't nothing,

But you know,

The sun,

The moon,

The stars,

The trees,

The dirt,

The grass,

The birds,

The animals,

The river,

And when everybody starts to realize,

And they do very early on.

At first or second night,

We're all equal out here.

No,

Nobody's nobody's big out here.

All it takes is a Georgia thunderstorm at two o'clock in the morning when you're in a tent.

And old growth forest in the Appalachian mountains to go,

Oh yeah.

I ain't nothing.

Yeah,

It's,

It's,

It's interesting because I'm kind of getting,

Of course,

I'm getting some flashes of some spiritual experiences with men over the years,

But I'm also getting flashes of my childhood growing up because I kind of,

Yeah,

I broke left hard when I was like 14.

So it was just all like,

I,

I basically stepped away from my functional family and stepped into the dysfunctional world and my friends were my family and partying out in the woods was what we did,

You know,

Just about every weekend and,

You know,

And,

And going out sometimes going on,

I loved going out ahead of time.

Sometimes myself even,

But with,

Uh,

With a group of guys and going,

Doing wood hauls before the party started,

You know,

Let's go out in the afternoon and,

And,

And just do some cleanup,

Do some wood hauls,

Get ready for the party tonight,

You know,

And it's just that camaraderie and,

Uh,

You know,

All,

All that bonding that you go.

You do.

And there's a ton of spirituality there too.

I still about once or twice a year,

We'll throw my backpack on and just walk off into the woods by myself for two or three days.

And here's why.

I mean,

If you think about the greatest stories of spiritual men,

You think about Abraham,

Moses,

Jesus,

John,

The Baptist,

The Buddha,

Um,

You think about Muhammad,

Every one of these men have one thing in common that as they go into the wilderness,

Elijah goes into the cave,

All of these men go into the wilderness and it's in the wilderness where God speaks to them.

And,

You know,

According to the Bible,

It's not in the wind,

It's not in the storm,

It's in the still small voice.

And I tell guys all the time,

You know,

It's like with no matter what religious structure you come from.

And I think,

You know,

People come from all manner of religious structure.

Even,

You know,

If you're atheist,

You're still probably coming from some sort of a religious structure.

You're probably handed along the line.

If you grew up in America,

That's probably Western Christianity,

But some kind of a structural way that you see the world and view God,

Even if you don't believe that God is there.

Right.

And I tell a lot of my friends who say,

I don't believe in God.

I have them tell me what God they don't believe in.

And I usually say,

Yeah,

I don't believe in that one either.

You know,

But when we go out into the woods,

When we go out into the wilderness and everything is stripped away,

Everything,

All of our creature comforts,

All of our,

You know,

All of our,

Uh,

Ability and,

Uh,

All of the cars and the things that,

That are going 900 miles an hour,

And we're just there.

No cell phone.

Cause there's no cell service.

I usually don't take a book.

I will take a journal,

But nothing.

And you're just there with yourself,

Glenn,

It is in that silence where your soul gets completely steel that God speaks to you,

But not in a voice.

It's not Glenn.

Here's what you should do.

It is something that comes up inside of you.

It's an energetic movement.

And somehow you just know,

Surely God was in this place.

And I did not know it to quote Jacob from the Bible,

Right?

It's like,

Oh,

This is what Jesus is talking about.

When he talks about the helper,

The paraclete,

The Holy spirit.

This is what he means.

Not some bright morning when this life is over,

I'll fly away somewhere.

But right here,

Right now in this space,

I can access this divine thing inside of me called God is what most of us call it and all men need is a little bit of separation.

And dude,

That thing will come on them.

And you know,

We don't do any crazy stuff.

Nobody dances around,

Jumps up and down,

Get slain in the spirit,

But you do see a lot of tears.

You know,

You see a lot of guys that are,

And you know,

That's God that's moving through them and it's a beautiful thing to see.

Yeah,

Yeah,

It's true.

It's you know,

Sometimes the the the bond can be,

You know,

Breaking down in the tears and stuff like that.

And it's just and not being judged.

And you know,

That's powerful in itself.

But yeah,

Nature is,

You know,

You were explaining that.

And I kept thinking like,

Yeah,

This is why I live in the mountains of the Dominican Republic.

Yeah,

I live in the mountains.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And it it's it's it's being surrounded by nature.

Yeah.

And,

You know,

That day,

That's where I went before this podcast.

I went and rode my mountain bike.

You know,

I live in Dahlonega,

Georgia,

Right here at the foothills of the Appalachian mountains,

And there's nothing like it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's just so beautiful.

And I like it.

I like camping over here and going out because there's no one thing people don't know about the Dominican Republic is there's no big animals out here.

There's no danger out here.

You know,

Like I don't have to worry about cats.

I don't have to worry about crocodiles or alligators or,

You know,

Anything.

I'm just like out there.

You know,

The most dangerous thing out there.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Which is nice.

But but yeah,

No,

I hear you.

It's I mean,

Nature is huge,

You know,

In all in all references.

It's just it does give you that space to come back to center.

You know,

We're part of nature.

We are nature,

You know,

So it's no wonder that we feel more still and calm around it and in it,

You know?

Yeah.

You know,

The other thing,

Too,

Is talking about me and the reason why I think the breathwork and the cold water speak to me in the way that it does.

And I've I've had so many men I have put in ice cold rivers,

Ice baths.

I mean,

Hundreds at this point in time.

And they all come out.

And once I explain to them the neuroscience behind it,

But then also point out how focused they can get if they stay with that discomfort for two or three minutes,

They start to realize that they're gaining control over their lives.

And here's what I tell me.

And it is putting teeth on your spirituality.

It is giving you something to do with your pain.

Most men struggle in the mental health world because they think they have to go to therapy.

And therapy is a beautiful thing.

Therapy can give us a diagnosis.

Here's what's going on with you.

You have PTSD.

You have anxious attachment.

You have avoided attachment.

You have depression,

You have anxiety,

Your addiction.

You know,

You're going through tremendous grief.

They can tell us what's going on.

But what they cannot do for men is give us something to do with that pain,

Something to do with that problem.

And what is I have noticed that,

You know,

If we get out of the woods,

We get in a brotherhood of men.

We have the shared suffering thing.

If I can then give these men a way to attack their pain,

A way to move on to their grief,

Their depression,

Their anxiety and go,

You know what?

I can gain control by letting go of control.

I can gain control over my mind and my body by letting go of control in this freezing cold water and learn what it means for my prefrontal cortex to connect to my amygdala and give me access to my own soul where the divine lives.

And Jesus called that the paraclete or the Holy Spirit.

And I tell my guys,

Remember the word paraclete,

Because it's like it literally means a para cleat alongside to help you dig in like a pair of cleats on a soccer field.

So the Holy Spirit of God is not meant to do something for us.

But this energy,

This universal energy,

I'm going to quit saying Holy Spirit has too much connotation to it.

People get that hung up and equated to church.

I'm not talking about that.

And so the energetic movement of universal love is a helper.

It's not going to fix your problems for you.

But what it will do is it will meet you in your decisions and you can gain control over your own decisions because it is your decisions that are creating your future,

Not some hypothetical God that may or may not be on a throne somewhere with a big gray beard waiting on you to jump in his lap when you finally die.

I have no idea if that's true or not.

But here's what I do know for a fact.

My life right now is a culmination of my decisions.

And I need to know what my decisions are.

And I need to have control over my decisions in order to move forward in my life.

And that's where God meets us.

Yes.

Yes,

Absolutely.

It's you say things very well.

A lot of times,

Man,

I,

You know,

I find myself expanding on things.

And and like when you're talking,

I'm just going,

Yeah,

Yes.

Yeah.

You know what?

So so,

Yeah,

It's good.

And you know that the other thing that I mentioned to you that I really liked about your story is that you you came from,

You know,

This place where where you were very involved in religion.

But,

You know,

Like I mean,

Enormously involved in it,

Well versed in it,

Knew it upside down and inside now.

But you were still going through difficulty in your everyday life.

Yeah.

And you know,

Which I think is a place where.

To me,

This is very important because it can help everybody,

Because like if you're one of those people that is involved in a spiritual path or a religious path and you're still struggling,

Well,

Then,

You know,

Your story can help.

If you are not on a spiritual path or or a religious path.

I don't know why the hell you listen to this podcast,

But I'm glad you are.

But but like it's I think it can it can give your story can give people some insight into actionable stuff that really changes your life on a daily basis.

Like,

You know,

My book is called Down to Earth,

The spiritual beings guide to a happy human experience.

My whole belief is that spirituality,

Religion,

Whatever you want to call it,

Is not here for that,

For the afterlife.

You know,

That's wonderful,

Too.

But it's if it doesn't enhance my life now,

I'm not interested.

I'm just not like and I don't believe it's one or the other.

I believe that what enhances our life now can enhance our soul eternally.

So,

You know,

So so that part of your story that,

You know,

You were so,

You know,

Like we don't necessarily need a lot of the things that we think we need.

Yeah.

You know,

And most spiritual like I remember.

Michael Singer saying this on his first interview when The Untethered Soul came out,

And I've heard all kinds of other people say it as well.

Really advanced spiritual teachers and stuff.

They all say like,

Yes,

We've done all this studying.

We've done all this research.

We've done we've studied with these amazing guru gurus all around the world.

And the good news is that you don't have to do any of it.

Like,

You know,

So so,

Yeah,

If you can touch on that,

Because,

You know,

Coming from living an existence.

Plus,

The other thing I think it's going to help people see is,

You know,

Like when there's people that are on a religious path specifically,

But also the spiritual path,

And then all of a sudden they fall off the pedestal that people put them on.

Most people don't understand why.

You know,

They're like,

Yeah,

But they were living,

You know,

This way.

So why were they making these mistakes that are so human,

You know,

When they're supposed to be above human?

So,

Yeah,

Can you touch on,

You know,

I'm just going to hand it over to you because I know that you'll touch on these things that I'm bringing up in just the right way.

Yeah,

Man,

There's so much going on in there,

Right?

And as I told you off the air,

I read the Bible through for the first time when I was eight years old,

All the way through cover to cover.

And my mom has pictures of me when I was four or had she's passed away now.

But there's pictures circulating somewhere of me when I was four years old with a suit on,

Standing at her footstool with her Bible open with one hand in the air playing preacher.

Oh,

My God.

So this spiritual path has been.

I was doing Elvis at that age.

Yeah.

Elvis and Bobby or Elvis,

Too.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So I have always had this spiritual curiosity,

But it was around the age of puberty where I really started having struggles.

I hit puberty,

Found porn and,

You know,

Things that go along with that.

And the church creates a lot of shame,

Especially the Southern Baptist Church in southern southeastern United States.

There's a lot of shame around sex.

And so that created in me very early on.

I had a youth pastor tell us that God despised things that 14 year old boys,

13,

14 year old boys want to do,

You know,

And they become 13,

14 years old.

And he used this story in the Bible about a man named Onan.

And I don't know if your listeners are familiar with this story.

But the story of Onan is basically he was supposed to further his dead brother's bloodline by having a a child with his sister in law.

So his dead brother's wife.

And the Bible says that when he went to to consummate,

That he would spill his seed on the ground.

And he was doing that because he didn't want to get her pregnant.

And that's,

You know,

Historically.

But the Bible says it displeased God so much that he killed Onan.

And that is the verse that this youth pastor used to explain to us that masturbation was an abomination to God because God killed Onan because Onan did that.

And so it created.

Yeah,

That's a heavy one.

Yeah,

That's right.

That's a lot of 14 year olds got saved that night,

I tell you.

No guilt trips there or anything.

So so that's when this dichotomy between my sexuality and my religion began.

And,

You know,

Over the years,

I got married very young.

I was 19 years old.

I came from a family of plumbers.

My dad was a plumber.

My uncles were plumbers.

My cousins were plumbers.

I mean,

We just that's what we did.

We all had we're all construction background.

And,

You know,

Plumbers are pretty rough fellas.

And so I was working construction,

Married at 19.

That's just what we did in my family.

We married young and we started families.

And to be fair to the woman I married,

I had I'm 19.

I had zero idea what I was doing.

So early on,

I was doing things I should not be doing with other women.

And we had our first child,

Then we had our second child.

And I kind of slowed down a little bit.

Yeah,

I quit altogether there for a while.

And in 2006,

I was adopted at birth by my real parent,

My biological mother gave me up and my parents that raised me got me when I was two weeks old,

But I was raised knowing I was adopted.

But it's when I started a church in 2004,

I started seminary at the same time.

And not long after that,

I went to find my biological parents.

And I really don't know.

We,

I do know why I did that.

That's a story for another time.

But when I went to go find my biological parents,

I found out my biological mother had died two years prior to me trying to find her and my biological father had died two years prior.

And dude,

I don't know what it was.

It triggered it in me.

It was really strange.

It kind of pissed me off at God.

It's like,

Well,

How dare you?

I mean,

Here I am giving you my whole life to serve you.

And this is the things I get.

And so,

I mean,

I kind of went on a tirade just to be honest with you.

And I'm not justifying my behavior.

There is no justification for what I did,

But the first affair that I had that came out,

Came out in 2010 and we kind of swept it under the rug.

And then another one came out in 2017,

Which I lost my job over,

But I mean,

I needed to go anyhow because spiritually I had kind of moved in a direction of really not believing anything like I used to believe,

But I was having to continue to preach it because I was raising two kids,

Right?

I needed the paycheck.

So the dichotomous living and,

You know,

Most people will say things like,

Well,

How,

You know,

Dude,

I was getting up on Sunday morning and leaving my 26 year old girlfriend's apartment to go to the church and preach a sermon where my wife and my kids were waiting on me,

Right?

I mean,

Just really out there,

But at the very basic level of Christian theology,

It supports a dichotomous lifestyle.

And here's why.

Evangelical mainline theology teaches us that you're just born a sinner and you're born that way.

And there's nothing you can do about it.

You're,

You just,

The day you came out of your mama,

You were a sinner and you deserve to go to hell.

Now the Baptist come up with some of this,

You know,

Age of accountability.

Nobody can tell you what it is.

Strangely enough,

It's around puberty,

Which I find interesting,

But I digress.

But the idea being that you have got to have salvation in order to go to heaven.

So they teach that there's this transactional moment where you go down an aisle,

You say a little prayer with the preacher and the preacher baptizes you,

And now all of a sudden,

When you go to heaven,

When you die,

You get to go to heaven.

So think about that for a minute.

I'm born a sinner.

It's all I'll ever be.

But now that I've been saved one day,

I get to go to heaven and I get to go to heaven regardless of what I do between now and then.

Right?

So it doesn't matter what I do between now and then,

Because all my sins are forgiven.

So the system is set up for a dichotomous lifestyle.

So when you take a pastor who has two degrees in theology and understands Calvinism,

Arminianism,

All the isms,

Right?

Well-versed in doctrine,

Understands the Bible,

You could come at him with any argument you want to,

And he can say,

Well,

You know what,

Maybe this is God's will that I have a 26-year-old girlfriend.

Maybe God planned this,

And maybe,

You know,

Maybe this is supposed to teach me something.

You know,

God is sharpening me into the man I'm meant to be.

All manner of bullshit,

But it gives you the ability to be able to twist your narrative instead of going,

I'm perfect,

I'm born perfect,

I'm born happy,

I'm born with this innate ability to make decisions that shape my life,

And so I need to be in control of those decisions.

Now,

After I left the ministry,

I started reading the things Jesus said in a very different light.

And here's the thing that gets me about what he says.

This woman gets caught in adultery,

Right?

And these men bring her to him and throw her down in front of Jesus,

And they're the religious people of the day.

And they say,

Jesus,

We caught this woman in the act of adultery.

The Bible says we should stone her to death.

What do you say?

And Jesus does a strange thing.

He leans down and starts writing in the dirt with his finger,

And nobody knows what he wrote,

Right?

Nobody knows what he wrote.

But the Bible says that as he's writing,

Whatever he's writing in the dirt,

These men that accused this woman of adultery just walk off one by one.

And so a lot of theologians believe Jesus knelt down and started writing their sins.

Like,

Well,

Let's just examine your life for a minute.

And I don't know that's true.

There's a lot of conjecture there.

But once they all walked away,

Jesus looks at the woman and he says,

Ma'am,

Where are your condemners?

And she said,

Oh,

Your accusers.

And she said,

There are none,

Sir.

He goes,

That's right.

And neither do I condemn you.

Now go and sin no more.

He says,

Go and stop.

You need to sin no more,

Right?

Just stop doing that.

Just stop doing the things that are hurting you.

And the church didn't have to ask somebody this the other day.

And this is not an anti-church podcast,

But I'm kind of turning into that.

I asked somebody the other day,

I said,

If you think about the doctrine of original sin,

This idea that in the Bible that people use the Bible all the time to justify this,

The book of Isaiah says your righteousness is as filthy rags.

So the church teaches that the best you can ever do is just a filthy rag in the eyes of God.

You will never be good enough.

So who wins to believe that?

Well,

You don't win because you believe you're a piece of junk your whole life.

God sure don't win because you believe you're a piece of junk.

But you know who does win the church because what they tell you is,

But come to us,

Give us your money,

Listen to our sermons,

Sing our songs.

And when you die,

You'll get to go to heaven.

But what they don't realize and I don't think any of this is done in evil intent.

It's all done from years.

Thousands of years of Roman tradition is where it comes from.

What they're really doing is ruining people's lives.

They are causing shame and hurt and they're causing people instead of people being able to go,

You know what?

I think I married the wrong woman and I think I want out of this thing.

But I don't know how they go.

No,

God hates divorce.

Matter of fact,

If you get divorced,

You can't even serve soup in the kitchen or we might let you scrub the toilets.

There's a special place in heaven for you,

But it's,

You know,

Probably scrubbing toilets.

So it's ridiculous.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And unless unless you can,

Unless you pay a certain amount of money and then they'll annul it,

You know?

Yeah.

I mean,

You know,

But you might say,

Well,

Hey,

Look here,

Man,

I could donate $50,

000 to the new building team.

Oh,

50 grand.

Sure.

Where would you like to serve?

Your children's church.

Sounds good to me.

No background check.

Who cares?

You know,

It's like it's wild.

Yeah.

And,

You know,

One of my and I agree with,

You know,

A lot of what you're saying here,

Because it's,

You know,

That one of the things about human beings is that if,

You know,

We beat ourselves up tremendously and,

You know,

I was a personal trainer for many years.

So I learned a lot with people and motivation and how they work through that experience,

As well as life coaching and spiritual advising that I've done for years.

So so,

You know,

And one thing is if you think negatively about yourself,

You are more likely to do negative things.

You know,

When when you think positively about yourself,

You're more likely to do positive things because that's what you think you are,

You know,

And it's and,

You know,

Jesus said,

You know,

Be perfect as my father in heaven,

Be perfect as my father is in heaven.

Like so we do have the ability to control our choices and our decisions and and steer this.

And,

You know,

And I think like,

You know,

Just kind of as a general statement,

Because because we were we were kind of laying into like Christianity and religions there to some degree.

And I,

You know,

I truly believe that that religion,

If it's used properly,

Can do wonderful things.

You know,

It's what the word literally means to reattach the same word yoga.

Yoga means to reattach yoga.

Sanskrit religion is Latin.

They mean the exact same thing to reattach,

To take reattach,

To source,

To source.

That's right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So so it's you know,

It's there,

You know,

I think a lot of religion is is manmade and therefore flawed.

Like you said,

Like you said,

Over conditioning from thousands of years.

I mean,

It's you know,

There's there's aspects of control that are specifically traced back to the Romans and,

You know,

All that stuff.

But yeah.

And but a lot of this stuff is is,

You know,

There's there's a lot of beautiful stuff in there,

Too.

And so I think if if we use it to reattach to source,

If we use it as a vehicle to to culminate and cultivate that inner connection with our source internally and expand our connection with our,

You know,

With all that is,

Then it's going to serve us well.

If we get overly concerned about the dogma and the rules,

You know,

Jesus was yelling about that with the Jewish religion back in his day.

It was like,

You know,

You know,

The Sabbath was made for man.

Man was not made for the Sabbath.

So it's,

You know,

All this stuff.

So,

You know,

There's good and bad in it,

Of course.

And Jesus's teachings are amongst my favorite teachings.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean,

Just phenomenal,

You know,

So that is there's definitely good there.

But yeah,

We have to we have to slow down and I think use our our consciousness to to decide just what makes sense,

You know,

To us,

Most likely individually.

And if we're honest with ourselves and we kind of just and this is a this isn't just religion.

I think this is all areas of our life.

If we just sit there and say,

Well,

This person said it and I like them,

So therefore it's true.

You're screwed,

You know,

Like you've got to dissect,

You know,

Each aspect and see how you feel about it.

And if and if it makes you feel good,

Like,

You know,

And I don't mean in a sensory pleasure,

Momentary pleasure kind of way,

A different feeling of good.

Right.

I mean,

If it makes you your soul light up,

You know,

Then it makes you feel in line.

And,

You know,

Now you're you're on to something.

And if it makes you feel like crap about yourself,

Probably shouldn't be doing it.

Probably shouldn't be doing it like I coach quite often that I'm not trying to point them to answers outside themselves.

I'm trying to point them to answers inside themselves.

And that's what you're talking about.

That's exactly it's it's yeah.

That's how I view it,

Too.

I view it like that,

You know,

When I'm when I'm speaking,

Sometimes people think that I'm trying to teach them something and I'm not what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to phrase things in ways and and and expose them to concepts and ideas to help them remember what they already know.

Yeah,

That's exactly right.

They have to remember who they are.

It's already in there.

Every bit of that is already in there.

And it's just like,

You know,

I think it's why Jesus said,

If you really want to see the kingdom of heaven,

You have to be like a little child.

You know,

If you think about a little child,

A little child doesn't know anything.

They don't know anything,

You know,

Until they didn't know the color red was called red or somebody said it was red.

It was just a color.

And that's what Jesus is calling us to do,

To let go of everything that we think that we know so that we can see what actually is.

And that's where critical thinking comes in.

I think it was Socrates who said,

I'm the wisest man who ever lived because I claim to know nothing.

And there's so much truth in that statement,

Because when we say that we know what God is,

We say that there's something that God isn't.

And that's impossible for there to be something that God isn't.

God is everything and truth and light and love.

And this thing that's in the center of our chest.

I love how you made that,

That I say that all the time to my guys.

You see people do this.

They'll say,

You know,

You need to get in line,

Get yourself in line,

Get your spirit in line.

There's this chakras.

And but really what we're saying is,

I need my head and my heart attached to each other so I can access this divine being.

I need to know that what I'm thinking,

What I'm feeling are lined up with what truth is that this thing speaks to me.

That's where truth lies.

And,

You know,

It's threatening to the establishment in a lot of ways,

Because you go back to,

You know,

The Roman Catholic Church's history.

We changed the Bible to the pulpit and the common people weren't allowed to read it.

You know,

All the power stayed with the one up front.

And that is the problem in a lot of situations with spiritual leaders is the power of someone's spirituality is turned over to this person.

But in evangelical theology,

When you talk about the Protestant Reformation,

One of the things that Martin Luther and not King Jr.

,

But Martin Luther,

Martin Luther,

The reformer from,

I think it's 1717 or 1870,

I can't remember.

But one of the things he said is there's a priesthood of all believers.

Every one of us are a priest.

We're our own intercessor.

We're our own contact to God.

We're our own,

Says in the book of Hebrews.

So,

You know,

I think for people to regain their autonomy,

Their spiritual agency,

I tell guys all the time they come to me that are,

You know,

Struggling with methamphetamine and heroin is two of the hardest ones to get off of and pornography.

I will say addiction is a choice.

And even when it doesn't feel like a choice,

Unfortunately,

It is still a choice.

You have just got to find the capacity to choose.

And I think it's the same thing about being happy,

Being happy and having joy and choosing the laugh is a choice.

It's a choice and it's not always easy,

But it is a choice.

I'm working on a book right now called a man or I don't know if I'm going to call this,

But the idea is a man after God's own heart.

And right now it's just a bunch of scrap pieces of paper and handwritten journal entries.

But one of the things I wrote about this morning was this very idea that if I am farming out my decisions to anyone else,

If I am allowing anyone else to determine my internal state,

I have moved away from autonomy and towards slavery.

I'm giving somebody else.

And that includes riding down the road and getting mad at the person in front of because they won't speed up.

I'm giving that person in front of me control over my inner experience.

Uh,

I think it's,

Uh,

Abraham Herschel.

I can't remember.

No,

That's a,

That is a,

Um,

A Jewish,

A rabbi.

There's another guy.

I can't think of his name.

Abraham Hicks.

Is that what you're telling me?

No,

This guy was in,

Uh,

He wrote a bunch of journal entries in concentration camps in Nazi Germany,

And he writes in there in one of his journal entries.

God,

Man's search for meaning might be the name of the book.

Anyhow.

Oh,

It's trial and tip my tongue.

Yeah,

I know who,

I know who you're talking about now too.

He says in there that they might take away my freedom.

They might take away my life,

But what they can't take away is my joy.

They can't take that from me.

And that is a man who has learned how to have spiritual autonomy.

When you have spiritual autonomy,

You have the ability in the face of hard things to be able to go,

It's okay.

It's going to be okay.

You have the ability to grieve the hard things,

But move on.

And I,

You know,

I think that that's right where we are in humanity right now,

Because,

I mean,

I believe that there's a,

There's a spiritual shift happening on the planet.

And,

You know,

And,

And this is,

I,

It seems to me that,

You know,

I see patterns in,

In spiritual teachings over the years and I believe where we are now is where really it's imperative that we step into the things that you're discussing today,

Because what it does is that we've had like 20 years ago.

You know,

When I woke up,

Like the teachings were different,

Man.

And it seemed that if you could just kind of live spiritually and take care of your day-to-day things and really not like do anything to harm others,

You were kind of good,

You know?

And now it's just,

It's not enough.

I believe that we need our teeth into spirituality more because the changes that are happening on earth,

There are more problems that it's,

You know,

The,

The ugliness is expanding,

But it's the,

The gap in between living spiritually and not living spiritually is widening and we have to pick a side.

And dabbling in spirituality and religion just isn't enough anymore because of all the horrible things that are going to be continuing happening on earth.

If you're not grounded,

Solid in your spirituality and connected with that autonomy,

Autonomy that you spoke of,

If you're not grounded and anchored into that firm,

You're going to get pulled out by the drama and sucked into the other side and not be able to separate and not be able to stay in this,

This spiritual,

The spiritual side.

And,

You know,

The other thing that,

That kind of is,

It's based,

It's along the same lines is when you were saying that the,

The church leaders,

You know,

I see it,

Not only the church leaders,

But also the world leaders or any leaders.

When,

When any leader starts thinking that they are the ones that knows no best for everybody else and everybody else can't think for themselves or do for themselves,

That's where the big problems start,

You know,

Because then it's all about control.

It's not about love.

It's not about what's best for anybody.

And you can rationalize whatever behaviors that you want.

And I think we're seeing that on a global scale now.

I do too.

I,

I,

And here's the thing,

Man,

Spiritual autonomy is,

Is about being,

Knowing that I inside of myself am the captain of my soul.

And when someone else comes along and tells me what I should do in order to be attached to this thing that I may call God,

I should immediately look at that with suspect.

It's interesting.

We don't take that kind of behavior around anything else except for religion.

If somebody comes in and says,

You know what you really need to be doing with your money,

We usually go,

What are you talking about?

What I need to be doing with my money?

Or somebody comes along and says,

Well,

You know,

You really need to be doing with your children,

Like,

What are you talking about?

Get out of here.

These are my kids.

But what we don't,

Somebody can say,

You know what?

I read a book the other day and it said,

We immediately go,

Oh,

About God.

What about,

And it's the craziest thing because Jesus teaches us.

And I love what you said a minute ago.

This is what came to mind.

There's just this.

Jesus starts teaching one day and he goes,

Anyone who hears these words of mine,

And he's talking about truth,

Anyone who hears the truth and puts them into practice,

He is like a man who builds his house on a solid foundation.

The wind blows,

The storm comes,

But it can not fall.

But if anyone hears these words of mine,

They know the truth and they don't put them into practice.

They build their house on sand and the wind comes and great is the fall that that man's house will have because he chose to build his house on an unfirm foundation.

When we build our lives,

Our everyday lives,

And this is why nervous system regulation is so important because people make impulsive decisions off their survival brain instead of being able to catch those thoughts and go,

Wait a minute,

There's a verse in the Bible about that.

Take every thought captive and make it obedient,

Right?

They're all in there,

But to be able to go,

Wait a minute.

Before I make this decision,

Let me use some cause and effect thinking.

If I do this,

That will happen.

Our bodies teach us this all the time.

If I eat too much,

It gets bigger.

If I eat too little,

It gets smaller.

If I put the muscles under stress,

They grow.

If I take them off of stress,

They atrophy.

If I go out and run and breathe hard,

I gained VO two max.

If I don't go out and run,

I lose VO two max.

And that's not punishment.

That's natural consequence.

It is cause and effect.

And nobody uses cause and effect thinking,

You know,

If I eat Reese's peanut butter cups,

Which I love,

By the way,

Four squares a day,

I am going to grow in the wrong direction and I'm going to drive my blood sugar up.

Right.

You're talking about you're a personal trainer.

I owned a CrossFit gym for about four or five years and I would see it happen with people.

They would come in,

They would start getting healthy.

They would start losing weight.

Then they would get obsessed.

And this is in the other direction.

I'm going to work out two times today.

Oh,

I'm going to come in and do,

I want to,

I'm going to add a lift.

I want to do more.

I want to get bigger.

And next thing,

You know,

Shoulder blown out and knee blown out,

Back blown out,

Going for surgeries,

Everything else,

Because we have to know when to listen to what our entire self is saying,

Mind,

Body,

And soul.

All of it has something to say to us.

And that is part of being a human,

Having a human experience.

It's to know,

To know cause and effect and to be able to see it.

If there's a button I'm quoting the hell out of the Bible,

That's probably a fun in it,

But there's a,

By there's a verse in Proverbs,

Solomon says the prudent,

The wise see danger and take refuge,

The simple,

Which is where we get the word moron from the simple,

Keep going and suffer for it.

Think about that verse.

The prudent see danger and take refuge.

The simple keep going and suffer,

Suffer for it.

So that's cause and effect.

Right.

And this is,

This is a lot of what's happening.

You know,

Like I think,

I think a lot of times,

Um,

I'll use the word unconscious or a lot of other people do too,

You know,

About,

About how people are running around.

And if you take everything that you just said and to phrase it just in another way,

Basically what we're doing is because we're not slowing down and thinking through things and a cause and effect way,

Like you spoke of where we're walking around functioning unconsciously because we're going too fast,

We're not in control.

Most people make decisions and take action based on stimuli response,

Just unconscious reaction,

Not stopping and thinking about it and doing it.

And if you go around to a million people and you say,

Do you know what you're doing and why you're doing it?

About a million.

I'm going to say,

Of course I do.

And they don't.

Yeah.

You don't know.

You don't.

Yeah,

No,

It's,

It's all bait.

It's just like a computer.

When our brain,

When we use our brain in that fashion,

Our brain is exactly like a computer.

It's just a bunch of data that,

That we accrued through our past experiences.

A stimuli comes into those neural pathways,

Triggers an unconscious response based on our past experiences.

And it's a media and it just happens.

And we don't know why we're not going into our brain and saying,

Okay,

How did I come to that conclusion?

Oh,

Well,

When I was in second grade,

Little Susie stole my crayon.

And then when I was in fourth grade,

This happened.

And then,

You know,

And go over millions of data points that were all culminated and,

And formed to spit out this unconscious reaction.

We don't know the reasoning behind any of that stuff,

You know,

So to disengage from our,

From our brain,

Just going stimuli,

Automatic reaction,

We have to come back to the present moment.

We have to disengage from now,

Pause for a moment and use that critical thinking that we're gifted with and say.

Cause and effect,

You know?

And so,

So like what you were saying is,

Is the,

The work that you do really helps people get to that point,

Right?

Yep.

It gets to that point where they can stop their thinking and they can choose a conscious response as opposed to functioning unconsciously.

A hundred percent.

That's exactly what I do.

Yeah.

Can you touch on that before?

Cause you know,

Of course we're,

We ripped right through this hour already.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Can you touch on that?

I can.

So that,

That process you're talking about,

Strangely enough,

Jesus talks about it too.

He says that if you really want to see the kingdom of heaven and kingdom of heaven,

I believe is cause and effect thinking peace.

It's where we get our patients,

Our joy,

Our love.

That's the kingdom of heaven,

Not someplace somewhere else,

But right here,

Right now,

Jesus says,

If you really want to see the kingdom of heaven,

You must be born again.

Well,

He does not mean go down the aisle and take someone's hand.

He means in the moment,

Removing everything that you think is real.

That's that computation you're talking about that past experience,

Creating data and make future projections that may or may not be true.

He's saying you have to train yourself to let go of those things and to be able to access cause and effect thinking.

All right.

So in the work that I do,

Let's just use cold water.

That's an easy one.

And it's,

It's the easiest one for,

You know,

For me to explain.

When I get into cold water,

I fire off my lower brain,

Also known as the amygdala fight or flight,

Right?

And so when that thing fires off,

I got in it this morning.

It's 34 degrees Celsius or Fahrenheit here in Georgia.

And my ice tub sits outside.

So it was just barely above freezing.

So I got in it this morning.

And as soon as I get in and I've been getting in it for years now,

I do it every single day in the summertime,

I put ice in it,

But when I got in that amygdala immediately fires up and it goes,

Get out,

You got to get out.

You're going to die.

And listen,

Glenn,

I've been doing this for five years and people will say,

Does it get any easier?

I'm like,

Nope,

Never.

Not one time have I ever gotten in and go,

Oh,

It's easy now.

It is hard every single time.

And I get out of the bed,

Go to the restroom and go straight to the cold water.

So I was in at five 30 this morning,

Five 15 this morning.

So when I fire off that amygdala and I stay there,

What I start doing is I'm choosing to override my fight or flight response,

I'm choosing to override this thing that is irrational.

I know I'm not going to die from sitting in cold water for two or three minutes.

I know that I'm just fine.

I know that the heat's on right on the other side of the door.

I know that I've got a fire going in the fireplace.

I know I'm fixing to go in and do some yoga and warm my body up,

But access that prefrontal cortex.

And after about 20 seconds,

That prefrontal cortex comes back online and I go,

Ah,

There's the juice.

I have access under my own autonomy.

I have controlled my trigger,

Brought my rational thought down and I can find,

I can control shivers.

I can control those crazy thoughts.

And I do that day after day after day.

I have a client and I love this quote.

I use it all the time.

He says,

Repetition is the mother of skill.

And that is so true because when I put in the reps of getting in the ice water,

Getting in the ice water,

Getting in the ice water,

And also do yoga,

Breathwork,

Meditation after that,

But that's for another podcast,

But I am teaching men how to in the midst of dysregulation,

Exactly what you said.

Instead of going,

I'm going to drink the thing,

Smoke the thing,

Shoot the thing,

Click the thing,

Go see the thing.

Fly off the handle,

Cuss at my kids,

Holler at my wife,

Hit my wife,

Whatever it is I'm doing.

Instead of doing that,

I'm going to go,

Oh,

Wait a minute.

I'm triggered.

Hang on.

And we're talking about split second,

Brother.

I'm not talking about people going.

Hold on a minute,

Love.

While I think about what I'm going to do,

I'm talking about,

They can feel the trigger and go,

Ah,

There it is.

Hang on and turn the volume down.

And if I can get them to just turn the volume down one notch,

They start to gain control.

And that control is infectious.

Men go,

Oh my goodness,

I can control this.

And I'm like,

Yeah,

Man,

You just got to put in the work.

It is no different than somebody doing bicep curls.

If you want the bicep bigger,

You got to do bicep curls.

If you want the legs bigger,

You got to do squats.

If you want to build up a VO two max,

You got to run.

You've got to train your autonomic nervous system and your prefrontal cortex to come together and to get that cause and effect thinking out of your brain and into your body.

And that's what I do.

I love it,

Man.

That,

That,

That's like a,

That's a beautiful exclamation point at the end of a great podcast.

It was perfect.

Thank you.

So yeah.

Yeah.

That,

That,

That's awesome.

That's it's highly valuable in this fast paced society.

We have to learn how to do this.

And I think that,

You know,

The,

The methods that you,

That you use,

You know,

The ice water,

But like you said,

That there's other ways,

Breathing meditation.

Yep.

Yeah.

That like,

I,

You know,

I,

I hate telling people you must do this.

You must do that.

Right.

Because of what we'd said earlier,

You know,

Who the heck am I to say what you're supposed to do?

But so like,

I won't tell you exactly what you got to do,

But you got to get in control of yourself so you can function,

Function consciously instead of unconscious.

One of the thing is if it speaks to you,

Do it.

That's the thing I tell my guys.

It might be the cold water breath work yoga might be any of that,

But if it speaks to you,

Do it,

Don't question it.

If you,

If you,

If you hear me talk about it and you go,

Wow,

That is interesting.

That's that's something inside of you saying,

Give it a try.

Right.

Yeah.

And it's,

It's,

It's,

You know,

We're,

We're,

We're not talking about anything that's,

That's negative.

We're,

We're talking about things that only,

You know,

That's why I liked the way you described it.

It's because you,

You know,

That you're not in danger.

Yeah.

You know,

So this is beautiful.

All right.

Well,

I'm going to wrap up as we hit the one hour mark and I'll be back with you in just a moment.

Thanks everybody for listening and I hope you enjoyed it.

And,

Uh,

That's going to do it for today.