SHOW NOTES: TAI CHI MEDITATION
In this episode of Habits for Humans with Kim Flynn, we discuss Skilled Tai Chi Meditation vs the McDonalds Version: Brandon Gilbert teaches us to practice authentically so you can reap the real rewards of of Tai Chi and have deep inner peace.
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Kim Flynn is a best-selling author, podcaster and serial entrepreneur and has built multiple seven and eight-figure businesses. Her company made the Inc 5000 list of the fastest growing companies in the country. She splits her time living in Costa Rica and Salt lake City, teaching business owners how to run profitable retreats through her company Retreat Works. Kim has one husband, four kids, and a dog and loves spreadsheets.
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TRANSCRIPTION: TAI CHI MEDITATION
Hi. And welcome to Habits for Humans, the podcast that explores and what makes people tick and how to program this brain of ours to do what we want it to do. I’m your host Kim Flynn, and today I’m cracking up laughing y’all because I just filmed, this is my second time filming this because I just filmed the introduction to the lovely Brandon Gilbert who’s about to share his content with us.And his topic is why medicinal mushrooms are something most everyone should be taking. And these are medicinal mushrooms that are an additional bus rooms, that are herbal mushrooms for the stomach. And I just randomly assumed that this was where psilocybin that we were talking about other kinds of mushrooms.And he’s That’s not what we’re talking about today. So I have to crack up laughing. Brandon, thank you for correcting me. Maybe we’ll have even more listeners listening to non psilocybin mushrooms. Why medicinal mushrooms are something you should be taking. I have never even heard of this.I all I know about is the mushrooms that I put in my salad. And psilocybin. So you’re gonna educate us on the other types of mushrooms. We have a giveaway for our listeners at the end. So Brandon’s got an offer for us at the end, and I’ve got some free giveaways and some free training for you at the end.So if you like free stuff, stay tuned to the end and a word from our sponsor, habits for Humans is brought to you by Retreat Works. We train life coaches and business coaches and wellness business owners, how to build a retreat, how to add a retreat onto your existing business. And we host retreats in Costa Rica.Teaching you how to host retreats, if that makes sense. So I’m so excited to introduce Brandon Gilbert. Brandon has been deeply interested in studying Eastern philosophy since the age of 14 as a serial entrepreneur, he started his first business in 2006, and after going deep in the alternative health field to resolve his own health issues, he felt motivated to share his views and experiences with a larger audience. So he created a YouTube channel called hyperion tv.com. In 2009, built up a following, I think, of tens of thousands of followers, and then launched Hyperion Herbs in 2010. And after the profound effect tonic herbs had on his life, he founded Hyperion Herbs to share purely potent tonic herbs and make them accessible and easy, a avail, easily available like never before. He has taught many classes and workshops for Tai Chi meditation, both online and in person, in a wide variety of subjects ranging from alternative health and healing modalities, herbalism, internal arts, and Eastern philosophy. But not psilocybin. So I know that now in addition to running Hyperion Herbs and Hyperion tv, he spends and invest many hours per day training internal arts like Chiang Nigo and Tai Chi meditation.Maybe I said those right this time and various setting practices. So welcome Brandon. How was my pronunciation on those? Definitely expert level. Yeah. Thanks so much. I’m a master. Yes, absolutely. All right, let’s dive into it then. We always start out with the number one habit to manage your own mental wellness.So what’s a practice or 12 that you do to manage the daily stress of life? Yeah, for me, I think Tai Chi is the most powerful thing. Above and beyond, any supplement or any substance or anything else that I’ve taken or ever done. And I say that because. At the deepest, or one of the, one of the more important mechanisms of Tai chi is actually rewiring completely how your system responds to any stressor, whether that’s mental, emotional, physical or whatever.Any type of stressor that your body encounters usually engages what we call your fight or flight response, which we’re all pretty familiar with because I think at least as modern humans, most of us exist in that state fairly constantly. Especially if we’re trying to compete and do things in the world.That’s an aspect of fight or flight. So basically in, in a literal, tangible, visceral, practical, repeatable way, Tai Chi mediation teaches you how to directly interface with your nervous system and release things from your nervous system. So on a day-to-day level, you release things before they can even accumulate.And then, as you go deeper into it, if as you put in hours and as you get more proficient and develop the skills and the qualities, you’re able to go deeper and deeper all the way to the really, some of the deepest aspects of your nervous system and completely rewire your fight or flight response to where there’s a handful of pretty high level practitioners that I know, and they actually don’t have a fight or flight response.It’s literally physical, physiologically impossible for their organism to register stress under any circumstance. Now that’s obviously a pretty, pretty high level attainment and something that took them many years. But they, yeah, they reached it and they have physiologically no fight or flight response.But that’s just one aspect. Tai Chi meditation can go off in many different areas and many different avenues, but at least for me, that’s my biggest daily practice. Okay, so I am a Tai Chi meditation newbie. I’ve never done it before. I’ve only seen it in movies and seen it in parks. I know nothing about it.From a brand newbie perspective, it looks like a cool practice that older people do. Will you walk me through how it’s different than yoga, how it’s different than meditation and kind of like you’re telling me, you’re showing me the view from the end of the road, like the end of the road is you have complete mastery over your body, essentially with no flight or flight.But that’s obviously not how it starts. So will you walk us through the steps of how that happens and how, why Tai Chi meditation why does Tai Chi meditation do that? Yeah, definitely. I think in modern times, We have an amazing opportunity because we can access a lot of things from a lot of different cultures, from a lot of different historical periods, which is great.But the downside is we lack the discernment, we lack the framework, and we lack really the a, the skilled authorities in those things. For us to be able to easily differentiate the difference between meditation, the difference between meditation and yoga, the difference between meditation, yoga, tai chi meditation versus Qigong versus nag, versus a bunch of other things that I can name that when we hear them, we commonly just put them all in the same basket.And what I’m describing and what I practice and what I’ve dedicated my life to seeking out and finding is really the truest, the most authentic and the actual substance behind what many of those words mean. And I can say that they all can have a degree of similarity because obviously, It’s a human organism.Like it’s working with the relationship between the mind and the body. And so of course, if you’re using that sort of interface, then of course there’s gonna be a lot of similarity. But there’s also, I would say, an insanely amount. There’s an insane amount of differences. And we could spend months going over these things.And just in my opinion, from what I’ve seen over the years especially Tai Chi meditation and many of these other arts are by far and away the most complicated,intricate, difficult things that humans have done and have put together, like beyond, above, far and beyond anything else. But basically how that would start and how that would.Really interface with what we’re commonly associated with, which is like people moving slowly or gentle exercise that old people do. Basically, it comes back to it is what it is. So what I mean by that is if someone is just moving slowly and maybe breathing deeply, that’s literally all that they’re doing.That’s not, Tai Chi meditation has nothing to do with it. They might be doing like choreography, dance movements, whatever, from Tai Chi meditation, or if it’s meditation, they might be sitting quietly with their thoughts, with their attention, turned inwards. But that’s not meditation. It’s literally just sitting, trying to be calm and turning your attention inwards.That’s it. Tai Chi meditation is a specific. Dare I say, scientific formula, scientific process of developing specific internal qualities and taking your body through a specific, repeatable, somewhat linear process of development. And basically for me, I’m a freak. I’m a weirdo. So to me that really appeals to me in the fact of dealing with the difficulty and the grueling nature of what the practice actually is.As I’m okay with it, it’s fine, but I have the luxury of time and for most people to genuinely in interface with these arts in a meaningful way, it’s gonna require hours of practice every day over the course of years. If you’re lucky enough to find a really skilled teacher, which I think that’s outside of the realm of, possibility for a lot of us.So yeah. Hopefully that sheds a little bit of clarity. I wish I’ve mostly, oh, go ahead. Sure. I’m mostly more confused because listen to these words. You used the grueling nature, right? The grueling, and I’m laughing because I’m from a perspective of it looks like gentle movement in the park, right?So will you walk us through, and I’m totally believe you and I’m on board with you. I’m just laughing at myself and my inability to grasp, tell me about the grueling nature, like what is going on and what’s the journey? Cuz obviously it starts for everyone as we’re learning motions, right? I’m guessing that’s where it starts.W when does it start to shift and what does it start to shift to? Walk me through that, if you don’t mind. Yeah. To be honest, it’s completely understandable. Thisis not a natural thing. This is completely opposite to how the human body works. It’s completely opposite to how life works and.So much has been lost in translation in the modern world that what we’re familiar with is like a McDonald’s Disneyland version of what the real thing actually is and means, and I will say this with any, just, I would just pose this question to anyone listening. Anything in life that is meaningful requires sacrifice, dedication, focus, skill, like trial and error, making mistakes, investment.We, we can accept that, whether it’s starting a business losing weight, getting in shape, lifting weights, any of those things we can understand are gonna be uncomfortable, unpleasant. You wouldn’t go to the gym and say, I want to be. Lift deadlift 400 pounds. And you wouldn’t, but you wouldn’t go there and say, but I don’t wanna experience any discomfort.I would like for it to be as easy and as comfortable as possible. People are gonna look at you like what planet are you living on? Or if you want to say, you know what, I’d like to be a billionaire, but I don’t wanna make any sacrifices. I don’t wanna have to do any work. I don’t wanna have to learn anything.I don’t wanna have to make any mistakes. I just wanna feel real comfortable and relaxed on my journey for making 60 K a year to making a billion dollars a year. People are gonna look at you like are you’re sure in the right wor ensure in the right dimension here. So let’s say that’s just fairly mundane human level things, but let’s say you wanna say, you know what, I want to go after completely rewiring my entire organism and maybe even have the potentiality of accessing something beyond the human realm.Wouldn’t you think that would proportionately have an incre, like an even higher level of difficulty? Like how difficult is it for us to just maybe change our diet slightly? For most of us, it’s a challenge when people spend their lives. Like I can think of my mom, for example.She’s been trying to lose weight since I was a kid. You know what I mean? It’s just been a constant struggle and that’s just, in least of my opinion, that’s something very small in compared to completely rewiring the entire functionality of your organism and your nervous system in this lifetime and working backwards.So basically how that would even start is, again, like I was saying earlier, the interface between the mind and the body and then basically, at least with Tai Chi meditation and these practices, it’s usually gonna start withstanding. And then basically really getting your mind to penetrate and soak into your body almost a fluid into a sponge basically.Because for most of us, our body is just like a block. It’s just like we feel where our hands are. We are aware of where our limbs are, but it’s can we feel the fluid flows? Can you tell what your extreme bro spinal fluid is doing? Can you tell what your interstitial fluid is doing?Can you consciously manipulate your blood circulation? Can you mani? Can you move your liver around? Can you do all these subtle things? No, but it’s all possible. It’s just what we start off is things are like a brick where it’s oh, okay. I feel my shoulders are really tight.I feel my hips are tight, and then it’s. Okay. It’s where you start. But then gradually over time, as you develop your awareness and your is able to soak deeper and deeper into your body to where you can feel your skin versus your fascia, versus your muscles versus your ligaments versus your tendons, versus your fluids versus your blood, versus your bones versus your nerves.All these different things. Your mind can feel exactly what’s happening in each of those systems. And then basically through a process of release, basically those systems go from a place of relative tension and contraction to opening up. Things open up, things release. It’s almost like a water system.If you have a pipe with water flowing it, flowing through it, and you squeeze it, the water gets constricted and eventually one in backs up and you create problems. But if you actually open it up and the flows are easing and efficient, then the function of that system actually goes up. The body is really similar, at least on a physical level.And even on a mental, emotional level, it’s extremely mechanical. Like I’ve had moments where I thought I was like really stressed or anxious or whatever, but actually as soon as I got the blood to drain out of my head, it completely went away. So I was like, oh, years of mental emotional stuff actually just had a really simple like mechanical physiological thing.So I’m like sharing some of these principles in kind of an abstract way. Yeah. Because to actually in interface with it in a meaningful way, like you need a teacher, you need hours of time to, to really get into it. And what I’m saying doesn’t make sense, but when you actually step into those waters and have, and go through the process, it all makes sense.So it’s, it sounds like I’m being confusing or being vague or abstract, but I’m actually being quite specific. No, that’s, it’s just that if you don’t have the, if you don’t have the experience for it, then it’s foreign. And that’s the other important thing to realize about all these types of arts is that they’re inherently experiential and tangible and visceral and real.They’re not make believe or subtle or based in visualization or hope or fantasy or any of those things. It’s it’s extremely real and extremely dense. And extremely tangible. Okay. And that, that goes for anything on the spiritual realm as well, because they all. Interface and relate. I wanna go way back.That was a great explanation. I wanna go way. To the McDonald’s version of the Real thing. I think that phrase hits it on the head we want something that’s so manufactured and purchased, and so it makes sense. So I’ve been practicing yoga for probably, I don’t know, maybe three years now.Pretty, pretty dedicated. And I go to the local yoga studio and, and for the first, I don’t know, probably two years, it was, let’s do the poses. Let’s, and even for the first six months, it was like, oh, I’m not as flexible as that person. It was like a competitive comparison thing.And slowly it shifted. After a couple of years to now, it’s completely my own experience. I have no idea what else in the cla in the classroom is doing. Really? Who cares? Like they’re having their own experience. And just now, three years into it, getting to a place where I am really focusing on what’s happening inside of my body, right?So I think, okay, this is three years in, man, it’s probably gonna take 30 more years to be able to get to a place where you truly are in that place that you’re talking about. So if I’ve been doing this for three years what’s my time tr trajectory looking like? If I were to order this on a McDonald’s menu, that’s what I’m looking for.Again, I’m looking for you to take the spiritual and make it like menu, McDonald’s menu concrete. But give me some guidance here. If I were doing Tai Chi meditation, I’m guessing it’d be a similar experience. You start with just the movements and then you realize it has nothing to do with the movements. Is that correct or not as much?There’s obviously the human variable as well. And there’s also different mechanics because, modern yoga is, eh, I don’t know. I’ve known people thathave done it for a long time and, doesn’t necessarily do a lot for them because the reason why people’s muscles are tight isn’t because their muscles are tight.Do you know what I mean? So for example, I can illustrate this, how it made me Tai Chi with. Who would approach it a little bit differently. Typically how yoga is let’s say I want to, I don’t know, relax my shoulder or something, right? So I’m gonna take it to the in range and then try to increase that in range through breathing and releasing and relaxing and whatever, to hopefully, like maybe in, at least in my mind, make that muscle not tight or make that muscle longer, right?Or whether that’s my hamstrings doing a forward fold or the front line of my body in the front line of my spine doing a backend, or basically that’s the general idea is go to your end range and maybe try to make that end range a little bit longer, which is why people are so obsessed with I’m, they’re more open than I am, whatever.But in actuality there’s actually, at least physiologically there’s a lot of harm that can come from making your muscles too slack, like hyper mobile, hyper flacid. And actually I’ve known quite a lot of people that have done yoga for a long period of time and gotten actually quite injured. They develop hip pain and joint pain because the elasticity and their tissues gets relaxed and released out, and their bones start doing this.So that’s a whole other thing. But getting back to my point, if I, let’s say in Tai Chi meditation, the stretch isn’t, how much can I move my arm over here? It’s actually how much can the tissue expand and stretch off of the bone? So actually I can stand and I can put myself in basically any posture and put my body in the most intense, grueling stretch that I’ve ever experienced.I wanna vomit, I wanna fall over. I start I’ll start sweating. Like my body will be very uncomfortable very quickly. But it’s a completely different mode of action. And it doesn’t look like I’m doing like a crazy posture. So even if I stand like this, or if I put my arm up like this, or do literally anything I can, if I wanna pick my shoulder in the same way, I can basically just release the tension that’s holding the shoulder.And now basically my body is having to engage all these deeper tissues to basically brace against gravity. But if I’m mentally release more against that, my body actually starts to, the tissues starts to twist and move over the bone. So that’s the biggest thing to understand, at least with something like authentic Tai Chi meditation, is that it’s not about moving my joints around, it’s actually the tissues moving over the bone.And that’s why these are called internal arts, because typically how the body moves like yoga or weightlifting or running, is through hinges. Hinges and joints. That’s how, that’s what’s natural for the body to do. That’s natural. The most efficient thing for the body to do. If you wanna lift something up with your arm contract, your bicep, duh.But in terms of something like Tai Chi meditation, if I wanted to move my arm like this, I would actually first relax all the tension. And then if I wanna sink my arm down, now it’s actually insanely difficult because I’m and if you palpate it in my tissues, they’re all lifted off of the bone and I’m actually getting sweaty, like my, this armpit is actually all sweaty cuz of all the increased blood flow and it’s actually the completely opposite mechanic.But just from whatever 90 seconds doing stupid stuff, whatever, like that arm is noticeably looser and warmer and more hydrated than my other arm. So it’s a completely different mechanic. But basically how that was started is through standing, because basically, We all have a relationship to gravity, right?We’re all dealing with gravity all the time. So basically, through our lives, we’ve accumulated all this built up stress and tension through all the different layers of our body to basically keep us supported in dealing with gravity. So we typically don’t really feel it that much. So what you do is actually completely unnatural, completely opposite, and stupid.You start off by mentally suspending your skeleton in space and then relaxing all of the tension off of your skeleton. So then basically at least for me, because of where I am, that actually creates a stretch. That’s how I create a stretch in my body. I relax and my body expands outwards. But that’s not where you start.Obviously when you start you, you feel like, oh, this is locked this is locked this, you feel, oh, there’s this injury. From this however many years ago that I didn’t know about. So then you’re mentally just standing there and then eventually letting your tissues and stuff released and sink down. And that basically is thaws the ice, if you think about, or if it takes the block of concrete and starts to liquefy it down so that gravity doesn’t hit your body and go have all these like jagged stuck pieces, which then takes your skeleton and just squishes it down.So then when it squishes it down, you’re like, pain here, pain in my back, pain here, da, joint degradation, all those things. So actuality you train the opposite response. So then when you encounter gravity system actually expands outwards. So what that means is, yeah, all my tissues separate out, but actually the spaces in my joints, the spaces between all of my bones actually.Increases as well. And personally speaking, I used to have knee pain, back pain, neck pain my hips cuz I did yoga for about 10 years as well, and I was like a desk worker and all those things. So as a result, my hip bone was jammed into my pelvis. So when I moved it, I literally heard bone on bone.I don’t have that anymore. Why? Because I created space. I trained the completely un the complete opposite, unnatural response. So usually when we encounter a gravity or a stressor tense or we use intention, we try to make our body do something. Whereas Tai Chi meditation is the opposite response of, oh my god, stressor.So it just, like I said, it’s a completely different response. It’s a completely different mechanism, and it’s not easy because when you go through the process, you feel weaker, you feel less strong in your body. You are letting go of all of your protection, all your defense mechanisms, basically. You spent 40 years building up this identity that, that you feel makes you feel strong and competent, and you’re just letting all of that go.It’s the complete opposite of what we want. We wanna feel good, we wanna feel stronger, we wanna feel all these stimulating things. And this is actually saying no. How about none of those things? So I, I don’t really recommend it for people to be totally honest. And I feel like most of the time I’m like a Debbie Downer or like a buzz.Because as you were alluding to earlier with the McDonald’s Disneyland version of things, everyone just wants tell us the three quick, easy steps to master Tai Chi meditation and whatever, because this is what everyone else is offering and this is what everyone else is doing. But the thing is those things don’t really produce the results.I, personally speaking, I did all that stuff for 10, 15 years and got basically nowhere and I got kicked out of multiple Tai Chi and internal art schools because I was. Why is there nothing really happening? There’s nothing here. You’re just teaching me movements. There has to be more to this and I just got kicked out of so many schools and I’ve made so many people mad.
And even still to this day, so many people get offended. But I’m like, look, I’m just saying I invested in, wasted this amount of time in my life and then I actually found stuff that was actually real and ineffective and useful. And now I try to present it and share it to people and then for some reason just get very upset.But then I look at my teachers and other people online and I see the same thing. So I think that’s just some of their deeper principle that humans have going on. This is like the trend. So I’ve done three podcasts this week so far. This is my last, but three three so far, and this is the trend that I’m hearing.I am hearing a big movement away from McDonald’s justifying things, right? I’m I talked to someone who lost like 140 pounds many years ago, and it took her six years to get there, and she wasn’t even focused on the weight. She was just focused on loving herself, right? Like we’re starting to see this big shift away from the easy click bait away from McDonald’s defying and into what is real.And maybe US culture doesn’t have a lot of what is real in it. Maybe we need to go beyond to find Yeah. The deeper hu human experience and things that really heal. It just reminds me of something that has been on my mind. I made a video about it a few months ago and it’s, it ties in perfectly and exactly with what you’re saying and what I, cuz I’ve been interested in health and healing and spirituality and alternative diets and even psychedelics and all these other things since like 2004.In full-time. Like I’m obsessive, I believe it really haven’t had, yeah. Yeah. I mean I just, for whatever reason, the way I was born and the way I was raised, like my brain just developed for better or worse, differently than a lot of other people’s a lot of other people’s. So I’ve been into this stuff pretty heavily.And I’m also by nature kind of a, what many people would call critical and judgemental, meaning I look at my own experience and then I also look at other people’s experience. So if I meet someone who’s been doing something for 20 years and I’m like you’ve been doing this health thing for 20 years, but you’re not healthy, or maybe you are.Then let me see, what did you do and what was your mindset? What was your belief system? Who were your teachers? All these things. So I can maybe try to shorten my learning curve a little bit and learn from other people’s experience. And a lot of people for some reason call that being judgmental, but whatever.But my point is, and what I’ve been thinking about it is perfect to what you’re saying is it seems like there’s the mindset of always lowering everything to the absolute lowest common denominator. Which I understand in terms of maybe accessibility or what people believe is accessible or whatever else, but that’s the world and the culture we’ve been living in for quite a while.The problem is that if you stretch that out across multiple generations, you dumb things down on step one. So then step two learns a dumb down version. So then step two is now teaching a dumb down version of a dumb down version. Then you have step three. So you have a dumb down version of a dumb down version of a dumb down version, and you keep stretching that out.And then what are you left with? Some weird Frankenstein like cheap thing that is inherently empty. So then you have to grab and fill in all these other things to be like, oh, maybe this is the thing. Which is why the other common thing that people love to do in modern times is fusion. Oh, I do this style of yoga cuz it’s blended with this.Or I do this style of tai chi has blended with that. Or I do psychedelic plant medicine, shaman, ayahuasca, yoga, healing, sound journeying, like cram everything into one. But the thing is I see people that have been doing these things and they’re not better. They’re just looking for the next thing. Because inherently where they started from was inherently empty and was inherently missing a lot of things. And I have videos in my YouTube channel where I’ve critiqued the hippie generation in America, because that’s where a lot of this stuff started and pointed out this was their erroneous assumptions that they took their misunderstanding of their poor misunderstanding of a concept, and then that became everyone else’s starting place.Whether that’s Tim Leary or Alan Watts or Rom Dass, or the list goes on of people that had no real skill, no real experience, nothing other than being good with words and good with intellect. And then now this is what a whole culture and a whole thing is built on. I’m like, whoa, that’s not gonna go really anywhere too positive.It’s just gonna keep repeating the same thing, which is just more consum consumerism and more just hype and stimulation, which is basically just. The exact thing that it was supposed to be an alternative to. Because mainstream marketing and entertainment and media and culture is all about how do I poke your fight or flight response in a certain way to elicit a certain response for a specific agenda.So basically that’s how we’re all conditioned in program. Cause that’s the world we grew up in. That’s the world we live in. That’s it. I’m not saying it’s good or bad, right or wrong, it just, it is what it is. But you take that and now you say you wanna do something different, alternative, but you’re still operating under the exact same mechanisms.That’s not ever gonna work, especially when you’re looking at something that has the complete opposite mechanisms. So that’s just something I arrived at after, I don’t know, 20 years in this industry. I think you just nailed it right there. I wish that were like our leading sentence for the podcast because that is like, there’s your thesis statement right there, okay, so if we’re in this culture that is trying to grab more, more, because it’s empty calories. We’re essentially eating empty calories, right? We’re snacking on potato chips. And but you said that, this guy, they’re not the place to go.Who are the authentic teachers and leaders? That’s gonna be my next question. That has to be our last question cuz we’re running over. But this is so fascinating to me. So where do we go if we’re looking for the real meat and we’re tired of the three steps to, whatever piece, abundance, prosperity.Yeah, I think I’ll share that. And I think it, it really is useful to each person to investigate exactly what they’re really after. Because typically what we think we want is oftentimes not what we actually want. I actually did a video about this years ago where I wrote down all of the things that people actually mean by the word spirituality and how none of them actually refer to what spirituality actually means.And I’m just saying, look, it’s not g it’s not good or bad, or right or wrong. I’m just saying for clarity’s sake, if you’re really wanting community, and that’s really what you mean by this term or connection to others, then it’s more efficient to understand this is what you mean and this is what you want.So seek that out directly rather than saying it’s the same thing and trying to do this whole other thing. To me I just think that’s being honest and having some clarity and discernment within ourselves is just a much more useful application of our time because life is short. And tragically people invest.I’ve, I can’t tell you the people, amount of people I’ve met that have invested more than longer than I’ve been alive in like Tai Chi meditation and stuff, and they have. Nothing, zero skill. Like I went to one workshop with one teacher and I already knew and had more skill than they did after 50 years of practice.And I just felt whoa, dude, this sucks. So any, anyways, I was like, I don’t wanna be that guy. So for Wanda, I think that’s the first thing to see is what do we actually want? What are really after? And also what are we willing to invest? Because like I was saying earlier, any real skill, any real change requires investment, requires dedication, requires sacrifice.That’s just life. There’s no real way around that. No one can replace that for you. So at least in my opinion, my experience in terms of Tai Chi meditation and internal arts, and even meditation, even though. Me, like genuine real meditation is so far beyond myself and I would say pretty much all of us for what it actually is and for what it actually means.Cause there’s actually only one definition for meditation there. O has only ever been one practice of meditation with under one definition. Realistically, historically speaking singular. Whereas in modern times, obviously it can mean I’m in a garden, I feel relaxed, I’m in a bubble bath. It can mean all these different things, but that’s not what the term actually means.But that’s so far beyond. So anyways, coming back to answering your question, basically I would say Bruce Francis is a guy that people can access. He’s a little bit old now and he is definitely softened and watered down his teachings a bit for modern people. But he’s very good. Adam Eisner is also very good for Tai Chi meditation meditation, but you have to actually be an official disciple of him to really get a lot of the inner teachings.And then Damo Mitchell is another one who is insanely skilled across a whole lot of different things. And all three of these people are pretty easily accessible and have a, an online presence and they share a lot of stuff. And they’re also coincidentally, pretty disliked by a lot of people because they’re actually good which is a whole other conversation.But the other thing too is if you learn about those three people and the amount of insane difficulty in suffering they had to go through to acquire this knowledge, then at least you can historically contextualize how inaccessible and out of reach this stuff actually is and actually should be.And how the idea that we should just be able to pop on to gaia.com or some website and be like, oh yes, millions of people suffered their entire life for this, but you know what? I’m a modern person. I’ll just pop on pay 9 99 and I get this and now I’m spiritual. It’s I don’t know. But again, it comes back to history and modern context and all these different things.So again, there’s no real shortcuts and I can say genuinely undertaking these things. A really strong way is terrible, really uncomfortable, really unpleasant, and I don’t recommend it. That being said, if you just want some relaxation, maybe improve your health a little bit. That’s way less grueling and demanding and probably a little bit more accessible to people.So those three people have, plenty of books and online courses and workshops and different things that people can access. And more importantly, they have teachers that they have taught because you, for all this stuff, you need a teacher, you need a human being. You need someone there.Absolutely. And actually there’s some stuff that you absolutely cannot even do on your own. You need the actual direct input of that person. And this is just also talking about the kind of mundane, physiological aspects. There are absolutely really insane, crazy esoteric stuff and stuff that people wouldn’t even believe that’s possible.It’s all in there. It’s just pretty far down the line. And that’s not really in the public eye. So I don’t really talk about it, even though that is the world I live in. I tend to just focus on the physiological kind of health based stuff cause it’s a little more relatable and people don’t think you’re completely insane.No, I totally, I get that. I totally get that. Man, you’re so interesting. We never even mentioned mushrooms and I don’t care at all. That was way more interesting. So thank you so much for taking us on that journey. You mentioned quite a few times your videos. Let’s point people to that resource.Will you talk about that for a minute? Yeah, absolutely. Hyper and tv.com. So I have all my YouTube videos and I’ve well over 700 on there talking about, Chinese medicine, herbalism, tonic herbs, adaptogens, mushrooms, health, Chinese philosophy, Tai Chi meditation, all internal arts, these different things.It’s all on there. It’s all free. And, personally I’ve been through a lot and when I was in, I tried therapy a few years ago when I was like talking to this lady e even, she was like, holy shit man. So I share this stuff from a place of personal experience, from someone who, spent my, I spent most of my life on not even wanting to be alive honestly.Just so it’s like I can understand the pain that we all experience. The pretty realistic way. And I don’t share these things lightly and I don’t say things lightly. And I’m not being hyperbolic in saying that when I say this actually does A, B, and C and it can actually genuinely help people. I wouldn’t say that if it wasn’tabundantly true and clear in myself, but also been repeated across millions of other people throughout history.And I have like tons of crazy stories of people that have recovered from things that we don’t believe people should be able to recover and heal from. And I say that partially because I think unfortunately our modern health system doesn’t really have a lot of options for people. I know that’s.Trigger warning, but in terms of people absolutely legitimately getting over something, I don’t think we have a lot of options. I think we have a lot of options for coping, meaning oh, you broke your legs, so okay, for the rest of your life you’re gonna have this weird walk and this weird posture, but here’s how you can be comfortable doing that.I’m more like, how can I completely forget that event ever occurred and completely remove it from my entire system as if it never happened and I’m healthier as a result? I don’t think there’s a lot of options for that, unfortunately, at least I never found them. I looked for 20 years, didn’t see that many.I didn’t see any of my friends or many of my clients are the thousands of people that I’ve talked to and met over the years, which is I think, sad. I hope, hopefully someday we do get there. But I feel like things, at least Tai Chi meditation and some of these other things were actually done in pr practiced in a legitimate way.Can genuinely, like I said, release stuff from people’s nervous system. Like I can’t tell you the amount of bad stuff that’s happened to me that I’ve completely forgotten about, where it’s difficult for me now to actually be very emotional. Like I can be mad at someone on Monday and like my Tuesday I’ll can, I can forget, like I feel like I was mad at them, but I just, I don’t remember why so I mean it’s just, and I, at least for me that’s a more comfortable way to live than constantly being upset all the time and hanging onto emotions and all these different things.And I think really in terms of just being a comfortable human being, that’s what I think this stuff can offer, which is why I’ve dedicated my life to it. Thank you so much for sharing. My biggest takeaway might surprise. My biggest takeaway first of all is the way you describe how empty our culture is and how we, just grab it all bunch of stuff, trying to find that nutrition that we don’t have culturally, like all these deep spiritual traditions that we just don’t have access to here.So that’s my, one of my big takeaways. My other big takeaway is actually about you. I am so grateful for a planet where everyone has different wirings, different ways our brains work. You talk about being obsessive that obsessiveness serves humanity, and you’re like, and that’s allowed you to become a master in a few things.And I think as a culture benefits all of us. It’s just really cool to see you in your element and just wanna honor that that we’re all built differently in, man. Our skills really do. They’re needed. So it’s cool to hear that. Awesome. That was Thanksgiving feast.I keep going back to food. I must be hungry. Every analogy I have is about food. So thank you so much for that. Let me go back to my little script here. I’m totally like I, I’m, I forgot I was doing a podcast. I was just listening to you. So here’s the rest of the podcast. As we wrap things up, reminder, the goal of this podcast is to instill wellness habits into your daily life.To build a life beyond its fine. Let’s achieve spectacular, joyful, and deeply satisfying. And I think Brandon would say, yeah let’s go deep. Let’s go deep, right? Give away from our sponsor retreat works. We do free live masterclass about once a month or twice a month. Sometimes if you’re a life coach, a business coach, or have a wellness business, and you want to learn how to add high-end retreats to your business I would love to teach you how this is my genius if I can own that.I have ran over 500 retreats in my career. And as much as Brandon loves his topic, I love retreats. So if you want to add a retreat onto your business check out retreat.works. So Brandon also has a 10% offer. We didn’t even talk about this, but he has this whole herbal line. Brandon, you have to give us two minutes.Two minutes on Hyperion herbs. Yeah, absolutely. I started Hyperion Herbs in 2010 to basically offer really potent herbal extracts in a way that’s easily accessible and economical. Cuz when I started in 2005, it was definitely not that. Things like REI and Chaga and Corti SEP and Alliance Maine, which can really support people’s immune system and really improve their immune system over time.And also, change and improve how we handle stress. I think especially in modern times, having a strong immune system and keeping our stress response low is absolutely essential. And I think the mushrooms that I sell are some ofthe best tools for that, which is why I’ve been selling them for almost 15 years and I’ve been taking them for 20 years or so.And I’ve really, I think that in the last, I don’t know, 15 plus years, I can only remember being sick twice. And I attribute a lot of that to the mushrooms and how they’ve improved and changed my immune system. So definitely recommend people checking those out. Awesome. And it’s a lot of information on my YouTube channel, a lot of information on the website.And they can also just email me if they have any questions. I’m happy to, provide information or recommendations. Perfect. All the links will be below hyperion herbs.com. Hyperion tv.com. Tell me if I have that right or wrong, and Yeah, that’s right. Okay. Hyperion TV and Hyperion Herbs. So check out Brandon, either one of those, and thank you so much for joining us, Brandon.That was a meal and thanks for our listeners. Have a wonderful day. And for our listeners, thank you in advance for giving us a positive review. Thanks so much everyone.