Exploring Altitude - Episode 5

In this episode, Kyle talks in more detail about how to recognize higher levels of consciousness, as well as how to reach them. One key take-away is that sometimes we just have to learn to let go of things in our life that are dragging us down like weights. Without them, we will feel lighter and be able to achieve a level of life that is close to levitation.

Transcript

Welcome to Life at Altitude with Kyle Mercer,

A podcast about upgrading the way we participate in life through changing our behaviors and raising our consciousness.

Hi there.

This is Kyle Mercer again with another podcast.

I've been passionate about exploring these things ever since I was a little kid.

I mean,

Partly,

My father had that bent and my mother was a social worker and was interested in growth and development.

So,

You know,

I kind of come by it naturally and I've been really interested in it.

I mean,

To the level like when I was a little kid,

I remember laying in bed thinking if I could just get my mind right,

I could levitate.

I mean,

I really spent quite a bit of time focusing,

Seeing if I could levitate,

You know,

Just get my head right around it.

I've,

For whatever reason,

My life has just been meant to,

You know,

One painful step figuring out each step after another to really,

You know,

So I come by this through the experimentation on myself.

And even,

You know,

People ask me what I do for a living and I wouldn't say this ultimately,

Really.

What I would say is I'm really interested in the exploration of what it means to be human and how to optimize my experience.

That feeling of going to the next level of consciousness,

Making that transition from one place,

That having that altitude and expansion is my favorite feeling.

I love that feeling when all of a sudden things become clear or when I gain that altitude or,

You know,

Click into that.

So,

You know,

I've been really focused in my life about how to experience that.

And then this is more like a hobby that comes along with that.

You know,

I learn all this stuff and then I say,

Oh,

I found out this really cool thing.

I want to share it with you.

And hey,

I noticed this or,

You know,

So I come back,

I kind of see out there exploring,

Trying everything.

And then I come back with the nectar,

You know,

The very best things out of what I found and discovered.

And that includes my interactions with you.

You know,

So much of what I teach is not,

It's not an idea I thought up in my head through inquiry.

I just have this open inquiry.

I ask people questions.

What does that feel like?

You know,

What would you need to do to let that go?

Or why do you hang on to that?

Or,

You know,

How would you like it to be?

And it's amazing in,

You know,

In thousands and thousands of those conversations,

People teach me all sorts of things about what it means to be human and what it takes to shift.

My intent's here,

Not that I know a lot.

I've created models and I've got some things that I think help people think about themselves in consciousness.

But my real intent is just really to be in conversation with you,

About you,

And,

You know,

See what we discover.

And it's kind of fun to do that.

My,

You know,

My biggest intent I would say is to be safe.

And we're going to talk more about that,

About really setting that context for safety.

But,

You know,

My intention is just not to hurt anybody.

I,

You know,

I'm here to support you and not here to judge you or criticize you or put you down or anything,

Not to want you to be different than you are.

It's just to really discover for yourself how beautiful you are.

And in this work,

You know,

And what I always knew but wasn't really able to articulate was that,

You know,

You have complete self-worth already.

It's not,

You know,

We think of it as broken or lacking or something like that,

That they're our soul or we need to heal or recover.

And we can talk about healing and recovering,

But it's not who you really are.

Who you really are is operating already there at the highest level of consciousness.

It's not like we raise to that level of consciousness.

It's more like we just kind of shed the things and then we remember or recognize that level of consciousness.

So,

And so I'm always in that process and you guys can be in that process.

I mean,

Many of you already are,

But we can accelerate that process of just kind of letting go of the stuff that's not us.

You know,

Sometimes I use the metaphor of a canoe if we've got this great canoe and it's full of rocks,

Right?

And so there's about that much freeboard above the water.

And so we want to find the real still water.

We don't like it when the wind blows.

We want everything even and calm.

But every time we throw a rock out of our canoe,

It floats a little higher,

It's a little more buoyant,

A little easier to paddle,

All that stuff.

And so as we get these rocks out of our canoe,

It's just naturally buoyant.

And then after a while,

We're kind of saying,

Hey,

We don't want the calm water anymore.

Hey,

Where's there a riffle?

Or,

You know,

Let's see how fast we can paddle this.

Or,

Hey,

Where's the whitewater?

I'm ready to try that,

You know,

And check that out.

So it's just a matter of kind of cleaning out our canoe.

What else could we throw out that's burdening us or winding us down?

You know,

How could we see it differently?

That's really what we're after here.

One of the things a lot of times people say,

You know,

I'm not asking you to be open even.

Like,

Don't just take what I'm saying and just assume it.

I would say,

You know,

It's really healthy just to sit back and see,

You know,

If it's useful or not.

You know,

Don't agree with me necessarily.

You know,

Well,

Let's see if this guy knows what he's talking about.

And particularly now,

There's so much information out there,

So many different philosophies and ideas and all that stuff that we really want to be cautious and discerning in what we choose to put our time and energy into.

In historical terms,

If we go back to the Greeks,

Greek civilization,

It was an interesting time that was in some ways like our time.

There's also kind of a Roman parallel politically and socially.

But there's,

As far as information and knowledge,

It's very much like the Greek time.

The Greek time was so interesting and vital because information was coming from all over the planet through Greece,

You know,

From the Near East,

The Far East,

Silk Road,

From Northern Africa,

From Europe,

From even Ireland and all these different places,

All these different ideas and languages,

Mathematics.

And so it was really hard to know what was mysticism,

What was made up,

Just a story,

A theory.

So the intellectuals would create these schools of thought,

You know,

And they'd organize them to have certain ideas like the Stoics,

Amazing philosophy from the Stoics.

In fact,

If you go back and read the Greek philosophers,

They weren't behind where we are now.

I mean,

They could have been Tony Robbins or whatever.

I mean,

They have just,

It's not like we've gotten anywhere.

We've shared it with more people.

It's more democratized.

We,

As ordinary people,

Have much more access to it and the time and energy to pursue it.

But the knowledge isn't any better than it was back then.

But there was two schools of thought,

The skeptics and the cynics,

And we made them into dirty words,

Bad words,

Like,

Oh,

You're so skeptical,

You're cynical.

But the skeptics and cynics had similar ideas,

And it was,

We're not just going to take any idea just because somebody said it,

But we're not going to throw it out either.

We're going to test it and see if it's useful.

And if it's useful,

We're going to use it all the time.

And if it's not useful,

We're going to throw it out and ignore it.

And we're going to catalog these things.

So you can see this was the beginning really of the scientific method and using that for really looking into things,

You know.

And so this is actually really a basis of inquiry methods.

With inquiry method,

Like traditionally,

A lot of times when I'm talking to somebody or connecting with somebody,

We do what I call advocacy.

I say,

You know,

I think you should do this or this would be the best for you or,

You know,

I've noticed this about you and I think you should really take care of this or,

You know,

With our kids or with our partner or with our employees or employers that we give them our opinion.

We tell them what they should do.

I call that advocacy.

It's when I have an idea and I want to share it with you.

Well,

The next level of consciousness I consider inquiry.

And inquiry is the opposite.

I'm really curious about what's going on with you.

You know,

How are you feeling today?

You know,

What's behind that?

You know,

Is there anything that I'm doing that's affecting you?

So that it's actually a higher level of consciousness to be curious.

So I'm a scientist.

Now when somebody,

You know,

Somebody oftentimes when they just start doing inquiry is they get confused and they combine the two.

So they say,

Oh,

I'm going to use inquiry.

Don't you think you should do that differently?

And when we combine advocacy and inquiry,

I call it manipulation.

So it's cleaner just to be,

If you're in advocacy,

Say,

Hey,

I've got an opinion.

Would you like to hear it?

That's even a little inquiry.

If somebody says yes,

Even the question opens somebody's mind to hear it.

So if I don't ask,

I just say,

Hey,

You should do this.

We all naturally put up walls.

We often don't hear it and we explain and defend.

But if I ask you first,

You know,

I've got an opinion.

Would you like to hear it?

And you say,

Yes,

It actually comes from a different part in the brain.

We associate with a different part of the brain.

And then we go,

Oh yes,

Now I'm open to hear it.

Now there's a possibility that they'll receive what I'm offering.

But I find it just so useful to be an inquiry.

It's scientific,

Right?

Even if I have a hypothesis,

Like if I'm working with you about some issue in your life,

I may have a hypothesis,

But I don't believe in my hypothesis because it's coming from my brain.

It's really just a projection about me.

It could be accurate,

But it's just a projection about me.

It doesn't have to do with you.

So I can ask it as a question.

Is it anything like this?

If I say it's like this,

Isn't it?

That's different.

That's advocacy.

But I say,

Is it anything like this?

And you can go,

No,

It's not anything like that.

I said,

Oh,

What's it like?

And then you tell me.

And so that's the sign in the idealized scientific thing.

Even if I have a hypothesis,

I'm not attached to my hypothesis being proved true,

Right?

Is this right?

So inquiry really has that quality of looking into and investigating and being curious about things.

So that's my approach.

And I encourage you just to use that approach here,

Not to just jump in and say,

Well,

I'm going to sit back and see.

So it's just great to talk to you again.

And I'm looking forward to doing more podcasts and looking forward to having some of you on my podcast.

So that'll be great.

And would love to hear any comments that you have or responses to this podcast.

And also invite you to share this with other people.

I mean,

Let's spread the word and start to get more people just opening up some of these ideas.

So once again,

Have a great evening.

Take care.

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Once again,

This is Life at Altitude with Kyle Mercer,

Inviting you to enlighten itself.