Ep. 109-The Byte: Douglas Tsoi
Meet Douglas-Franciscan Spiritual Director, Grace facilitator, and creator of sacred spaces. We talk about "dark grace," and how maybe, just maybe, it's what gently (or not so gently) puts us on the right path. Douglas' miracle? Getting fired from a dream job...and that has made all the difference!
Transcript
Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of the Bite-Sized Blessings Podcast.
A couple items of note before we get into the good stuff this week.
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Now my guest this week,
The unstoppable and frankly astonishing Douglas Soy.
He is so many things.
It's so hard to kind of describe everything that Douglas does but he is a Franciscan spiritual director.
He used to be a lawyer.
A twist of fate or rather he would argue a twist of grace.
Kind of pulled the rug out from underneath him and set him on a new path in life but the path that he's on is creating gifts and grace for so many people.
I don't want to spoil it.
I don't want to go into too much detail.
I'll let Douglas explain everything.
He's much better at it than I am.
So now episode 109 of Bite-sized Blessings.
When I was 28 years old I was a lawyer.
Now making $150,
000 a year and miserable.
I really disliked my job but I had been taught,
You know,
Chinese immigrant family,
This is what I was supposed to have.
Like I did well in school.
I got a super high-paying job and had a nice apartment,
Nice car and this was the life I was supposed to have.
And I got fired or laid off.
It was in the 2001 dot-com bust and at the time that was the most difficult experience of my life because on some level my parents disowned me.
You know,
There's just,
You know,
Talk about the whole idea that we're drenched in grace.
Like one of the things I think about is what I call dark grace.
Like things,
Grace is not always like,
You know,
Pretty flowers and perfume and doggy,
You know,
Doggy hugs.
There's a fierce dark quality to grace too and sometimes things happen that like you do not want to be seen as a good thing.
And I think that's what I'm trying to do.
I'm trying to be a good person.
I'm trying to be a good person.
I'm trying to be a good person.
I'm trying to be a good person.
I'm trying to be a good person.
I'm trying to be a good person.
I'm trying to be a good person.
I'm trying to be a good person.
I'm trying to be a good person.
I'm trying to be a good person.
I'm trying to be a good person.
I'm trying to be a good person.
I'm trying to be a good person.
I'm trying to be a good person.
I'm trying to be a good person.
I'm trying to be a good person.
I'm trying to be a good person.
I'm trying to be a good person.
I'm trying to be a good person.
I'm trying to be a good person.
I fired or laid off in the 2001 dot-com bust.
And at the time,
That was the most difficult experience of my life.
Because on some level,
My parents disowned me.
Because I was not good enough,
Right?
And they came from an immigrant background.
They fled the communists.
They lost everything.
And so for their one son to reject it all,
I knew I was not going to be a lawyer anymore.
I was not going to be a law school teacher.
It was a rejection of everything that they had done for me.
Which is curiously related to the second story.
Which in 2019,
I had a psychedelic experience called 5-ME-ODMT.
And it was an experience of,
I don't know,
Ego disillusion.
Or ego extinction.
And I merged.
I died.
And merged into infinite light.
And when I came back,
The words are not very.
.
.
They don't describe the experience.
And that experience is what actually led me to become a Franciscan spiritual doctor.
Because after you have that experience,
What else is important in life?
And when I came out of that experience,
My facilitator said,
Hey Douglas,
How are you doing?
And I looked up at him and I said.
.
.
It's a cliche until it's fully understood.
And I said,
Everything is going to be okay.
Right?
And he sort of nodded.
And five minutes later,
I was still in silence.
And he said,
How are you doing?
And I said.
.
.
I actually took his hand and I put it underneath my shirt and put it over my heart.
And I said,
I don't have to try anymore.
And the way I interpret it now is like,
We spend all our lives trying.
Trying to wear the right clothes.
Trying to wear the right makeup.
Or like have the right job.
Or live in the right neighborhood.
Have the right partner.
All of it is like we're just desperately trying to feel loved.
And once you have an experience where your ego goes away,
You realize all of it is unnecessary.
And so I relate both of those experiences of like.
.
.
The everyday magic in life is surrender.
You have to surrender.
And sometimes surrender is forced upon you.
And failure is just.
.
.
It's the best way to learn that you are not a control.
And our egos constantly keep us desperately grasping for control.
But you know,
The funny thing is.
.
.
You can't even control your own thoughts.
Thoughts are just running through your head.
And the fact that you can't control your own thoughts or anything that happens in reality should be a message.
All you have to do is let go.
And just participate in life.
So you know,
You ask for magic.
There's magic everywhere.
There's grace everywhere.
I kind of equate it to.
.
.
Because I love physics.
You know?
And it also lines up with some guests that I've had.
Talking about Star Wars and the midichlorians that are supposedly all around us.
And you know,
The Higgs field which is supposedly out there.
Which we're trying to.
.
.
Or the Planck field.
And it's so much easier to imagine grace if you imagine grace as something like that.
Something that is within and without us.
That we're constantly moving through and walking through.
And are surrounded by.
Maybe even breathing in grace every second of every day.
And that's really beautiful.
Your story is so interesting.
Because I've never heard of dark grace before.
And I find that phrase really provocative.
Because it is so true.
You know?
I just recently experienced a breakup last year.
And I would say that that event was filled with a lot of dark grace.
Because I was in a life that was very comfortable.
And I was too lazy to get out of it.
Even knowing that it wasn't where I was supposed to be.
And the whole breakup was not something that I wanted because I was so lazy.
There was a lot of dark grace in it.
Because now I've emerged on the other side.
And my life is 10,
000 times better.
But when you're in the middle of those situations.
Like when you lost your job.
When you were a lawyer.
It's sometimes.
.
.
There's some time where at least for me.
It took a while for me to understand that this was probably the biggest gift in the universe for me.
Did you experience that as well?
Yeah.
I mean the fact that I'm no longer a lawyer is sort of the basis of everything I've ever done since then.
Right?
But yeah.
What you're saying is so wise.
And it's such a cliche.
Right?
Like the worst things that ever happened to me are the best.
No one really fully believes it.
Right?
And it's totally true.
It's true.
If there's any element of wisdom that I can offer as a spiritual director.
Is like the more you surrender.
The more that you can be okay with it all.
Right?
Like including all the ugly things in you.
Which is like a lifelong practice.
The easier life becomes.
What I find so intriguing about your story is you're this highfalutin,
High achieving lawyer.
You know?
Living the dream.
Right?
The American dream.
Success,
Money.
You know?
I think you lived in Southern California at that point.
Everything one dreams of.
And then in one second it's taken away from you.
And since that experience,
Your life,
At least from my point of view,
Has branched out in all these beautiful and diverse and gorgeous ways.
Which you wouldn't have,
Which wouldn't have happened unless you lost the job initially.
And it's so intriguing to me.
Yeah.
I mean,
I think fundamentally it's about participating in grace.
Right?
You have to surrender.
And surrendering is the most difficult thing.
Just like you and your relationship.
Surrender is the most difficult thing.
I know because we want things the way we want them.
Well,
It's interesting because we have such a tight grip on life.
Right?
One of my favorite quotes,
I forgot,
It's from a Buddhist teacher who said,
The bad news is you're falling.
You're just falling.
And there's nothing you can do about it.
The good news is there's no ground.
That's it.
That's another episode of Bite-sized Blessings,
The podcast.
I'm recording this in a crazy windstorm here in Santa Fe.
So if there are weird sounds and artifacts in the background,
I do apologize.
I want to thank my guest,
My fascinating and just unstoppable guest,
Douglas Soi,
For sharing all of his stories today.
And for all of his good works in the world.
We need more people doing good works.
With this podcast,
I get to meet a lot of people doing that kind of stuff.
So for me,
That's kind of a huge gift.
And it's part of the reason I do it.
I need to thank the creators of the music used for this episode.
Henritt,
Frank Schroeder,
Winnie the Moog,
Palash Sunvaya,
Frank Schroeder,
Stephen O'Brien,
And Sasha End.
For complete attribution,
Please see the Bite-sized Blessings website at bitesizedblessings.
Com.
On the website,
You'll find links to books,
Music,
Cool art,
And changemakers like Douglas that will lighten and brighten your day.
I'll also include a link to his website so you can check out all the cool stuff that he's created.
The Gratitude Dojo,
The Appreciation Effect,
And all that other groovy stuff.
So make sure to check under the episode show notes,
Click on it,
And it'll take you to the world that Douglas has created.
Thank you for listening,
And here's my one request.
Be like Douglas.
Live with the idea that grace is all around us,
Whether it's light grace or dark grace.
We're breathing it in.
We are walking through it.
It is everywhere,
Inside and outside.
Live with that idea,
Just knowing,
Knowing that it's okay to surrender because you'll always be taken care of.
