ATTENTION: This is an automated transcript for this episode of “People I Know Show”. It has not been edited or reviewed. It will have some mistakes and sometimes be unclear.
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I wouldn’t want anybody to ever love me out of obligation or expectation and I wouldn’t want anyone to pretend like they don’t love somebody else out of obligation or expectation to me.
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This is People I Know Show a podcast about influential people personal growth and being wrong. I’m Curt Carstensen. This is episode number 68. My guest is Ro Leonard, Ro and I recorded this conversation during my recent trip to Europe. Of course, as I speak to you now, the state of Europe and really the United States is very different than it was then with travel to Europe being much more difficult or possible for some individuals, and most of the entertainment options typically available in the United States now shut down due to the COVID-19 Coronavirus outbreak and suspected growth. I’m aiming to have deeper conversations on that topic on at least one future episode. For now. I have a few episodes planned from my trip to Europe, and in some of the future ones. I’ll talk more about some of the things I did on my trip. As for now it’s the people I’ve met. I traveled with Ro because they are a partner of Mariah Moss. The daughter of my friend Brad will also be on a future episode so it all ties together. But I hadn’t met Ro a week before we recorded this and we got to spend a lot of time together. In this conversation, we’ll learn about how to escape wage slavery, which is a term I hadn’t really considered before. Believe it or not, Ro, I learned how to pick a proper watermelon. And I get a better understanding of the difference between fruits and vegetables. Ro likes living in the woods, and I get a better understanding of that. And I learned where the name Ro comes from plus in the being wrong segment, more on polyamory. Moss in the previous episode, talked about their experience. Ro in this conversation explains their side of it. If you haven’t subscribed to People I Know Show yet do that on your favorite podcast playing app to get the episode to download automatically. I’m working on adding more clips from the podcast onto the People I Know Show YouTube channel. So you can take episodes in and bits and pieces. And you can find clips on the People I Know Show Facebook and Instagram pages as well. Reach out to me on any of those platforms or shoot me an email People I Know [email protected] Now to my conversation with Ro Leonard
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Curt Carstensen here for another episode of People I Know Show today joined by Ro Leonard.
3:13
Hello Ro. Hey, Hey, how you doing? I’m doing good.
3:16
You are someone relatively new to my life? Yeah, but it’s a currently a Monday. We’re in Crete, an island south of Greece, a part of Greece. I first met you on Tuesday and we’ve been together a lot in about a week’s time. Wow, you have a
3:35
much better order of time that I do.
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Is it that I have a better order of time or that you’ve been living this life of traveling and not really having time as as important not the traveling part the fact that for much of the last however many months I forget how many this for you. You can tell me? You’ve been doing a thing where the day doesn’t matter the time doesn’t matter. Yeah, and And right now, I’m still on that American Got to know when this is happening. Maybe you’ve left that. I mean, you’ve always left that.
4:04
I would say probably more so have always left that. But yeah, it’s been about see for four months in Europe, and I was traveling for about a month in America before that. But I don’t know, I guess I have a history of not paying attention to the days. I like to spend a lot of time in the woods and doing things without time restrictions. So I kind of end up not paying too much too much attention to the days. Sometimes it’s important, it is important, but you know, one of my favorite experiences is when you’re with with a group of people that you’ve been spending a lot of time with for like a week or two weeks or something and then it’s like, What day is it and then everybody together is like, What day is it? I have no idea what day it is, and then you end up realizing that you’ve lost today or That everyone thought it was a day that it wasn’t. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
5:05
I’ve had the experience of not remembering the day and taking a little bit of time to figure it out. I haven’t had that experience where no one knows. I think that’s a beautiful thing. This time and days and calendars and schedules is a part of many people’s lives. But you said for a long time this is this is something you’re not really concerning yourself with. Try not to Yeah,
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trying not to
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Did you like at a certain point in your life where you restricted constricted by schedules and you realize you just don’t want it anymore and started doing things differently? or How did it really come about where you maybe grew out of the thing that you were raised? I’m assuming you were raised on it. Not so different than I. Yeah, time and dates kind of matter at a certain point life.
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Yeah, yeah. So some sort of a structure.
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Yeah, I guess. It’s all sort of part of my grander scheme of living. In terms of like, there are things that I hold as goals or ambitions or wants. But really, on the most fundamental level, my biggest goal in life is to live as freely as I can. And with actively choosing to do whatever I want to do in any given moment, never doing anything that I’m not actively choosing to do. And one of those things for me has been living a life with as little rigidity and with as little structure with as little reliance on needing to be at a certain place at a certain time. I mean, sometimes jobs can kind of restrict that a little bit. But, you know, I try and spend as much time as I can in the woods and I try and spend as much time as I can.
6:50
Free of working.
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Yeah, yeah.
6:55
Yeah, yeah. I that makes sense to me. There’s a I want to get into the into wood thing to really fully understand what you’re doing in the woods. I can venture guesses but I want to know from you Yeah, but when you said that, like it made me smile because that you’re talking about the free of schedules and doing what you want to do as much as humanly possible in this day and age. Is that your words as your mind, but that’s, that’s what I’m working towards. I’ve I’ve designed my life where I have jobs I have always I make income, but as much as ever, I feel like I work when I want to. And that’s something that I like I don’t know if people strive for that commonly. I don’t think that many people have even people that like run their own businesses sometimes feel very much in need to like always be working or something right. I have a pretty good situation with that. But I’m not at all at the end of where I want to be. And I look at you and hear from you. You’re talking about being in the woods. That doesn’t necessarily interest me that much. But I think you’re way further ahead than me in that regard. So explain this in the woods thing. What do you got going on when you’re doing that?
8:11
Well, I mean, first of all, I think further ahead is really a subjective thing. I mean, everyone is just done on the path that they’re on at whatever place that they’re on. But I think that very, very early on, and by very, very early on, I mean, a few years ago, I’m very young. After I did one year in college and was like, that’s not for me. I was like, Okay, well, then what is for me, and I was like, Well, I have a job right now and I don’t like that I like I don’t like paying rent and living month to month basis and always feeling like, at any point I could suddenly tumble into complete chaos. If I didn’t have this source of income, that’s not a very big source of income. So very early on my biggest goal in life was to escape wage slavery, which is where I feel a lot of people are certainly the majority of Americans are in terms of people not being able to save money, people that are being indebted. And I find myself extremely fortunate to not be in any sort of a debt. I’ve never accrued a large amount of credit debt. I’ve never had any serious injuries that have left me with medical debt, and I’ve only gone to university for one year, which means that I was able to successfully pay it off and I come from a certainly not a wealthy family, but a lower middle class family, which means that, you know, I’m able to pay off my school in a reasonable amount of time and finding myself free of debt is really the biggest The biggest thing to this because escaping wage slavery is is a thing of privilege. I mean, so many people are in debt, and so many people are actively being put down in society to the point where that’s not really an option for them. So I do really count my privilege, as as much as I can. But it became a very big goal for me to escape this wage slavery. And then at a certain point, I was like, well, like, at what point is wage slavery? Just having a job? And at what point is it actually wage slavery? Like, at what point Am I being forced to do this to stay alive? And at what point am I choosing to do this to reward myself with some sort of freedom, okay. And because of that, I slowly started to get out of the job that I didn’t like to do when I started doing the jobs that I wanted to do, which didn’t always result in the most amount of money and then sometimes I had to leave the job that I wanted to do in order to continue To sustain myself,
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so you’d have to go back to a job you didn’t want to do for a while because there’s more money involved.
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Right? Right. I never worked at a place that I was completely opposed to working to. But you know, having to take jobs to get yourself by is something that
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I’ve certainly had to do.
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But I found a really, really, really amazing opportunity of work back home, that allowed me to make a good amount of money and do something I was really passionate about. It was more work that I’ve ever put into anything. And this was selling produce selling vegetables roadside where I worked as an independent contractor, big old air quotes where I would show up in the morning and I would grab a truck full of vegetables that I air quotes by For zero dollars, and then I would drive out to a roadside and sell those vegetables all day long. And then I would come back and I would sell whatever I didn’t sell back to the people who provided it to me, and then keep 20% of whatever I sold, okay? And because of this, you know, my average wage ended up being something like $15 an hour, all in cash, not needing to be super scrutinized. And this resulted in you know, I was working before finding this job, I was working at a pizza place that I loved what I was making $7 750 an hour, and I just cannot save up anything and I was still actively trying to pay rent and it just felt like this idea of travel that I’ve held for a long time was completely unattainable to all of a sudden being like, okay, like, okay, we can save money now. Like we can save money and we can do this, like we can do this. It’s right there. You can Do it. And then I did it. I mean, it was 14 to 16 hours every day. And I worked six days a week. So I was working at least 70 to 80 to 90 hours every week. But it was work that I wanted to do was work that every day I was outside surrounded by what I loved most festivals, and talking to people and finding passion with other people in those vegetables and really loving what I was doing and actively choosing to be there the first time that I was really like, actively choosing to be there. Like I really stopped hanging out with most of my friends because I didn’t have very much time and they’d be like, oh my god like you. You poor thing. You poor thing. You’re working like 90 hours a week. I love it. Like I’m out all day like I’m paying attention to the sun. I love vegetables. All I’m eating right now is just in vegetables. That is it. calories. Yeah, pretty. Pretty much. Yeah, yeah. raw diet without trying to be around diet. Yeah, just eating vegetables and vegetables and vegetables. finding other people that love vegetables as much as I do is super reward I for
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people that are stopping to buy the vegetables from you, you’re gonna relate to often in similar ways because that’s, that’s that’s your people. Yeah, yeah,
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you get a very big mix of people but you you know, you see so many people that like, like you see people that come by that don’t know anything about vegetables, but love vegetables and it’s like great. I’m so excited to teach you about vegetables and you see some people who come by and are like, yeah, like the, the kernels on your corner a little bit too small and be like, Yeah, I know it was a little bit of a dry season, but you know, like good things are coming around a little bit and it’s still very, very sweet and like, like starting to work with people and talk with people and getting the teach people and especially kids that come by, you know, kids get so excited about All sorts of different vegetables, especially when it gets to pumpkin season. It’s like, like being able to teach a kid how to pick out a good watermelon. One of the highlights of my life like having a kid that like, really listens to you, and it’s like, oh, this is what I’m looking for. And then like picking up watermelons be like, is this a good one and be like, yeah, yeah, you’ve learned how to pick up the good watermelon. You nailed it. You nailed it. Yeah, it was like some of the most happy people I’ve ever met. Like, a phrase that started to come up a lot during this time was nobody’s pissed off when they’re stopping at a vegetable stand. But like, if you’re pissed off and you’re driving down the road and you see a vegetable stand, you don’t stop. If you’re happy and you want to get vegetables, you stop at the vegetable stand. Like, I’d say the entire time I encountered maybe two or three angry people and most people that stopped just overwhelmingly happy and
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so overjoyed. You’re selling a product that you want to sell and you believe, yeah, you’re dealing with people that the vast majority are in a great mood and easy to work with deal with.
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Yeah. And good place to be. Yeah and making more money than I’ve ever made doing and boys as much per hour plus like twice the hours. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it was pretty remarkable and it afforded me the freedom to then spend five, six months just traveling and I have plans to keep doing that for at least right now my flight back is in four months so it will have been about nine to 10 months of traveling just based off of like two months of work
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four months from now we’re looking at this for six middle of summer that’s like prime vegetable season, you can go back to the gig it’s exactly what I’m doing. You can do that make it work constantly make a bunch of money and do it all over again if you want
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exactly my plan. Yeah, is really cool. Yeah,
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yeah, yeah, it’s you figured it out row.
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Yeah, yeah. I mean it’s as close as I’ve gotten to my goal from years back of escaping wage slavery you know, it’s it’s, it is still working for a wage but in no way do I feel a slave to that wage. I’m awarded more freedom than I’ve ever had ever in my life. I have the freedom to do this.
17:22
So yeah, I love that we’re having this conversation because I I think about this often enough to have gotten to the point where I’m at is the thought that continues to occur to me how how can I have my own schedule get what I want if I’m going to trade my time for money, I’m trading in the way that I feel neutral to good about not never bad about Mm hmm. And I think that’s your your thought process resembles mine and you found a system. You’re trying it for the first year it seems Yeah, but it’s worked well. You’re getting all these experiences and meet people and go in other places. We can get into some of that in a bit. I just I I don’t want us to be the To the thinking that we’re having this conference.
18:02
Yeah, I’m sure there’s a lot of people that think that way. And I think there’s an even bigger amount of people that think that way, but don’t know how to do it. Yes. And I think that that’s why talking to people and like sharing how to do it and sharing the way that it can be easy is so, so important, because I’ve met people that are like, just right on the brink of doing it that like all they want to do is travel or all they want to do is like live life in a free way and they’re just so close to doing it. They just don’t know how to, you know, switch some of those levers to to get there and to start doing it and what those levers are is different for everybody. But I think there are probably some universal levers so to speak of how to change your mindset before you change anything in reality. You know, like you don’t, you don’t need to have a high paying job. You don’t need to be completely devoid of debt. But the first steps are for most people to start switching your mindset into a mindset where you can accomplish the things that you want to accomplish the things. It’s not as easy as that. But those are some of the first one is
19:27
never easy. I did say some words, I strung together some words a few nights ago, and I think you wrote it down. I believe I said, first you got to release, then you can do something like that. Yeah, whatever we’re doing right now in this moment in time. We’re attached to it in some way some so much greater, so much less. But there’s an attachment that you need to release before the next thing can happen because sometimes if you try to do while still having it doesn’t work out so well. So right. It used to be a sentence. Okay, this this can end if it needs to end this can end and then I can do this next thing.
20:05
Yeah. And sometimes it’s uncomfortable but I mean uncomfortability breeds comfortability. It’s been a very big model of my life lately. That you know, like when you when you get uncomfortable, it’s when you realize how comfortable some things can be. You know what, when you when you quit your job and start looking for alternative ways to make money, you start looking for alternative ways to get yourself to where you want to be. That’s uncomfortable, you might spend some of your time uncomfortable. But all of a sudden, you get all of this comfort of a wow, like, I suddenly don’t need to do that job that I hated and I suddenly am able to, you know, like if, if you’re if you’re lacking something in your life, if you are lacking, you know, the the extra income To go out to eat or to go to a bar with your friends or something like that. Sometimes that can feel unfortunate but then man like the one time that it happens, you’ve never appreciated going out to eat more than that. You’ve never appreciated being with your friends more than that. And even so, you know, even if you don’t end up going out to a bar with your friends, having your friends over to your place or going to your friend’s place has never felt as good as when you felt like you couldn’t do it. uncomfortability breeds comfortability. So releasing those things that feel comfortable now will make you feel uncomfortable, but it will make you realize how much more comfortable you are without those attachments.
21:47
you’re suggesting that we should walk into the things that make us uncomfortable knowing that better things will happen on the other side, right barring,
21:54
maybe like physical safety, things like that or
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indiscretion. You Yeah, people with families, you know, don’t don’t necessarily quit your job and let your kids starve. But in most scenarios walk into the thing that makes you uncomfortable. And it’s like it’s the human nature that you were like, pushed away from that because what we feel inside, but if you can build a logical structure around that and just kind of ignore the feelings long enough to just go for that’s, I know I don’t do it all the time. Yeah, I’d done it. And that’s every time I do it, I come out the other side going okay, that’s worth it. That wasn’t that hard. Those those types of things hit me like, oh, why Why was I so afraid of that? Yeah. Yeah.
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Like I I feel like I have a lot of
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anxiety in my life. And I have a lot of these things in my life. And recently, I’ve been thinking about this in terms of that I feel like one of the most at peace, anxiety ridden people that you’ll ever meet in terms of like, I keep pushing myself into uncomfortable things. And I keep feeling anxiety about them. Like I don’t feel comfortable with everything. But I know that if I keep doing the uncomfortable thing, it’ll keep getting better. And the better on the other side is progress from where I was before, which means that it was worth it. To me, I, I totally can relate to that. And I think those are important lessons to have gained for yourself and also to share. I have four fingers holding up now because as I learned this from us, yeah, we may talk about mass here a little bit. If the chronology works. It will have been a podcast first with with they them okay that someone will understand it. If you’ve if you’ve listened to the one that’s probably labeled Mariah Schumacher. This will all tie together. This is that was yesterday, then. Yeah, I’m on this two week journey. This is the second of maybe four conversations recorded. We’ll see what the future holds. And this is interesting to me because I don’t usually do things this way. And we’ve mentioned we’re here in Crete, which is, you know, a place we’ve never been before. And we’re sharing some time here and saw some beautiful things today and there’ll be photos that’ll attach to this and all that. But getting back to the four fingers yesterday Mahse was trying to remember some things and she was holding her fingers up. I think I’m gonna get rid of two of them quickly because I feel like I just want to learn everything right now.
24:28
Yeah. Two of them
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involve watermelons are watermelons a vegetable or if not do were you also selling some fruits, their fruit and when I say that I was selling vegetables. Most of what I was selling was fruits. cucumbers are fruits. zucchinis are fruits peppers are fruits. Corn is a fruit. The only thing I was selling that was vegetables was technically. potatoes and carrots. Really? Yeah, the whole distinguish.
24:56
Distinguish fruits and vegetables. Is it better strictly on how they’re like growing, where the seeds are, where the seeds are,
25:04
yeah, so anything that contains the seed within it is a fruit so a cucumber has the seeds on the inside of it. So even though we oftentimes think about a cucumber as a vegetable, it’s a fruit. tomatoes have the seeds inside of it. It’s a fruit. Okay.
25:19
So we think of fruits and vegetables based on like, I think that juiciness maybe type of thing. This is juicy. It’s a fruit. Yeah, this is hard.
25:26
It’s a vegetable. Yeah. And raw. Yeah, but yes, when I sell when I say that I was a vegetable seller and this did get pointed out to a lot of comedic effect. selling those produce was that most of it really is fruits, watermelons and cantaloupe. You sound
25:44
more passionate about vegetables and call them all vegetables.
25:47
Yeah, yeah. I’ve tried to transition into saying that I’m passionate about produce, rather than I’m passionate about vegetables.
25:55
Okay, well, I feel like I learned something there. Yeah, a bunch of things that I thought were fruits are not original. The third vegetables are not the fruits. Yep. And then watermelon is one of my favorite things to eat. Yeah, and I think I’ve gotten better at picking a good one when I go to the supermarket maybe I should come to your stand in the future assuming I’m not there to a similar stand I’m in the old I shopping all the I don’t know what their produce is your how you regard there’s but if I’m in all the and I see their watermelons, which one should I be looking for?
26:25
So depends on what you’re looking for. But primarily most people want sweeter watermelon for sure. So the ones that are spherical rather than oblong are going to be sweeter
26:37
fear, okay. Yeah, like ones that look more like a ball.
26:41
Yeah, yeah, we’re like, yeah, it’s a female. Female versus male watermelon. Wow. Yeah. So I think it’s the long ones are male, the round ones are female. It could be the other way around, but the round ones are sweeter. Okay. The biggest one to tell is the webbing like the brown on net sort of looking formations that form on the rind of watermelon, you know I’m talking about.
27:06
Yeah, I do like that. I would like to look at two of them right now, but we don’t have them.
27:10
Yeah, so it looks like webbing, the one that has more webbing or like bigger webbing is going to be way sweeter way sweeter. The other ways to tell are from the stem, but almost always the stem is cut off. So you can’t really tell from that. So the biggest way that I tell people is the webbing that is on them. The one that has the most webbing on it is the one that’s going to be way sweeter the thing that I always tell people, which I gotta admit, I’m pretty sure it’s a total lie. But it is a lie that I keep perpetuating because people really like to hear it. And it’s the way that I first learned about the webbing is that the webbing is actually the marks of pollinators in the field. So bees and Hornets cannot pierce the rind of a watermelon Okay, because the watermelon mind is too thick, but they try and they can detect which watermelon has more glucose and more sugar in it. So the one that has more webbing the webbing is literally the marks of the pollinators trying to pierce it over and over and over again.
28:15
You don’t think it’s true though you’re just say this
28:17
I, I’m really not sure. And I’m choosing to not look it up because it’s, it is a lie. It’s got to be my favorite lie to tell people about watermelons and everybody loves it. But yes, it is true that the one that has the more webbing is going to be much sweeter. Okay, spherical. Lots of webbing. If you find one that’s all dark, like, like all dark green with no stripes on it. It’s a different variety of watermelon and it will be the sweetest watermelon you have ever put in your mouth. So we want that. Yeah, they’re called Black Diamond watermelons. It’s a specific wedding but that goes against your webbing thing we know all dark, no stripes, right? No stripes like how normally a watermelon is like Dark green or green with like light green stripes on it. You find one that looks like a massive dark grape. Like it’ll be spherical and they’ll be are all dark green that’ll be the sweetest watermelon you’ve ever eaten in your life. The likelihood
29:16
of us talking about watermelon that was I would have bet
29:21
I would I would have
29:23
been so unlikely but now I think maybe this would be the last episode of my podcast I’ve learned how to find the best why shut it down.
29:30
The purpose has been fulfilled Okay.
29:32
Well, don’t Google it. I googled the best watermelon how to pick the best watermelon and I got totally different answers. Hmm. And maybe they’re correct as well. I don’t even see them.
29:43
I don’t know what do you know,
29:45
I think it has something to do with the the bigger the spot that it was like if it was sitting on the ground longest so the discoloration the yellow white. Yeah, the more of that is better because it was in the field longer or something like that.
30:00
has more to do with what color the spot is. If it’s a yellowish spot, that means that it’s probably well well ripened. If it’s a white spot, it means that it was picked too early and Okay,
30:10
less sweet. Okay, so yeah, that’s probably what Google said. And I just forgot,
30:13
but it could be the same with the spot on the ground because that’s what it is from where it was sitting in the field. So if it’s a big one, then either it’s going to be a super sweet, super ripe watermelon or it’s going to be overripe and disgusting and mushy.
30:29
Okay, we don’t want them yeah, the other was somewhat like knocking at it the more hollow it sounds, the better bullshit. Okay, Todd, totally cut to the BS
30:36
today. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, totally. totally not true. I see people come up to my stand all the time. I can pick up every single one and knock on those be like, play your games. You can pick out whichever one you like. Yeah.
30:50
Good. That was two of my four fingers. Okay. Other one. We still haven’t answered. What you do in the woods. I know. You told me you traveled we traveled for a month before coming to Europe in some of that, I think involved you be in the woods maybe. Well, what are you doing? How do you spend a day in the woods? Yeah,
31:07
see nothing else going on. It’s interesting because I actually wasn’t including my Woods travels in in that that chronology because I I go to the woods a lot. That’s probably in the woods for about a month before leaving on traveling around America for a month before leaving to come here.
31:27
I love the woods. I love the woods. I love the
31:31
woods. I feel like that’s definitely a thing in Minnesota we call for it. I don’t know if other people do elsewhere.
31:38
Yeah. National Park foresti area, just
31:43
within nature and nothing nothing modern. I know no business commerce are away from it rough in nature only
31:49
right and in Minnesota. That usually means you know, like maybe the nearest store will have some very basic necessities and will be about like a half hour to 45 minute drive away. We have a there’s a camp spot that me and my group of friends have loved for a very long time. It was formerly campground like a held up campground by like a company. And the company went under and the government bought the campground. And in the United States national parks, you can camp there for free for up to like three months or something like that, in what’s called dispersed camping, unless it’s otherwise set aside for something else, you can camp anywhere in any national park for up to three months, something like that. Maybe it’s two months. So this place that used to be a campground that went under and then got bought out by the government. They still maintain it as a campground so they still have like, Camp areas with like fire rings and things like that. They even have little toilets. In the ground that they even pump clean once every year. And you can just camp there for free for months at a time with nobody bothering you. And that is like, that’s been our place for years and years. We first learned about it from a local who is a good friend of ours who throws a music festival out there once a year. That’s cool. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that festival is very awesome. I’m going to do it this year. While I’m back in the US, it starts the festival is the weekend before my produce job starts. So it’s like my last hurrah before. Oh, what? Perfect timing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, so it’s really just sustaining yourself in the woods and like, I hear a lot when it comes to being in the woods like, don’t you get bored like, what do you do for like, weeks and weeks and weeks in the woods like well, being in the woods is kind of tiring, like you wake up with the sun in the morning, maybe have a slow morning, maybe have a little bit of breakfast or something, maybe have some coffee. And then it’s like okay, so now we have to gather wood for the night and for the fire and for the for cooking and for everything else. need to clean any dishes or clean anything else that’s been going on. need to take care of these small responsibilities around camp maybe need to build a new structure, maybe need to reposition things throughout the day. keeping things in the shade, things like that. Always trying to improve the environment in which you’re living. If that’s building new structures, like you know, you could spend an entire day just going and finding for big logs digging holes in the ground putting stakes, we’re putting these big logs stakes in the ground and building a roof over those and then suddenly By the end of the day, you have a new structure, but like that’s a whole day. That’s a tiring day. And you spent days doing Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And so it’s kind of fun to leave stuff like that behind for whoever comes afterwards because then they’ll show up and have this weird little structure. I’ve never had one last more than a year like if we’ve been camping there. One weekend and then you know, that might be our last weekend there we build all these wild structures and then we come back the next year and they’re all gone. I don’t know what happened to them but I hope that someone enjoyed them. And the other thing I really like to do out there is agate collecting agates are a type of gemstone that are in Minnesota, very much so. They’re all over the world but Minnesota is really known for them like superior agates they’re beautiful, they’re amazing. And pretty much anywhere in Minnesota that you see rock you can find that against little little rocks. You can find that gets So we do we spend a lot of time when we’re in the woods, you know, like maybe accomplish one task and be like, Alright, let’s go and look for I guess for a couple hours and come back and accomplish another task. And then Alright, let’s go and look for I guess for a couple hours. So usually end up spending a lot of our days doing that. And really, I mean, just walking around in the sun, being in the sun being in the elements is tiring to your body. So by the time the sun is setting, you’re exhausted and you’re ready to go to bed and then wake up the next morning and do it all over again. It’s great, it’s great. The only thing that ever limits my time in the woods is how much money I want to spend on bringing food out there.
36:46
I’m not really into hunting and I there are some things that you can forage in the woods, but they’re primarily like strawberries and it really depends on the season and you can’t really sustain yourself on just wild strawberries. So I have to get some things from stores to bring out into the woods. So that’s the main limiter on how long I spend in the woods. Really, do you learn?
37:12
much we learned just by trial and error and the people around you or do you spend a lot of time researching and some other ways reading like, the things that you’ve gotten better at? Does it come from some distant learning from some somewhere else? Or is it come from BNF? Hmm. And it’s I’m sure it’s both in some ways. Well, what do you really focus on experience or some some sort of outside learning?
37:34
Yeah, I’m trying to think, I don’t think there’s ever been any sort of like, outside learning beyond just the shared experience of the people that I’m with, like, you know, we’ve all had our lives that have led us to that point, some of them more in the woods, some of them less in the woods, but everyone has input to give into what’s going on at camp. You know, sometimes You might be at camp and nobody wants to cook. And then sometimes someone might show up and be like, Oh, I love cooking. I’ll cook over a fire every single day is great. We’re about to have great food all of a sudden. And sometimes that’s me, you know. But yeah, I mean, it’s really all just about the shared experience of everyone that’s there and everyone that’s actively doing it.
38:22
And people that are there people that want to be there because it’s something they learned to enjoy.
38:27
Yeah, yeah. And or come to enjoy. Yeah, there have been times when people have come out there because I’ve been encouraging them to and other people that have been there have been encouraging them too. And then they get out there like, this is not for me, and that’s like great. That’s awesome. I’m so glad that you figured it out. No shame to you for not liking what we’re doing out here but like you shouldn’t stay out here. If this isn’t what you want to do, like definitely don’t keep staying out here because of the woods. If you don’t like the woods, the ones are wickedly uncomfortable. If you don’t like the woods, you’re not going to enjoy your time being in the woods. I mean, it seems simple, but some people are like, well, but I I set aside this weekend to come out here. It’s like, why do you want to spend your weekend being miserable? You don’t like this at all? Like, leave? Leave. I would love you to be here. I love your company, but leave, please leave. Yeah, yeah, rarely but it has happened and
39:20
if I’m with individuals that are really good at like everything, and they’re okay with me, not knowing that much and just helping a little, then it can be a good experience. If like, we don’t have someone that really knows what they’re doing, then I think that’s not good. Or maybe the numbers are so disproportion like I’ve gotten some friends. is a couple nights, expert campers, you know, not my thing for four weeks, but I can enjoy that for a couple nights. If I’m like with my family, sometimes a bunch of us go and not a lot of us are really the camping type. And we don’t even know We’re kind of glamorous too, because we have a big camper. So it’s really not probably at all what you’re doing. But it’s stepping into that space. It’s, you know, I guess it doesn’t become really camping. It’s the it becomes just living in a house away from the house, which is something that people do.
40:16
Yeah, yeah, I don’t think there’s any, any amount of shame or less than to that sort of thing either because, I mean, either way, it’s stepping outside of your comfort zone, and it’s going into the woods and it’s experiencing something new and, you know, doing that at all is going to be a growing and learning experience for people whether or not you know, like, there certainly is a culture of like, like, you know, people that are going out with like just a hammock and like nothing else and then they’ll Scarf Scarf and anybody who goes out there with a tent and then the people in the tent will scoff at anybody who would be going out there with their car. And then they would scoff at anybody who’s going out there with the with their RV and I’ve seen so much of that to just be like, well, all of us just want to be in the woods. Like why does it matter? Yeah. Oh like all of like, all of us love nature and all of us are here for a reason like why should it matter at all the way that we want to do it or experience it
41:22
and you have a very good attitude about just that and just anything the way you look at it and the conversation I had with moss also it’s just what I’ve learned from the two of you. I hope I’ve learned spending a week with you it’s like really fine, positive team the things that are going on not not focused on the negatives I I’m a optimistic positive person but I realize even sometimes, with the two of you that I’m I’m judgmental and negative more than I think I am. And that’s something to continue to work on because yeah, just just happiness and beauty in itself. Let people do what they’re doing. And just encourage, encourage them when they when they’re like kind of wanting and needing and open to it with ways that they may might find what they’re looking for if they’re not there yet, and you think you can help them if you can’t, maybe just let it be and let them be where they’re at.
42:17
Yeah, yeah. It’s always a growth thing, finding where you’re comfortable finding what you want to be doing, finding what you’re comfortable with, and finding your ways to align your logical self with your emotional self. Because I think typically people on the average are good. Most people are good people aren’t really out there in the world trying to be bad or trying to hurt other people. But sometimes people’s logical state and their emotional state don’t line up and sometimes that results in lashing out it results in anger. It results in All sorts of things that sometimes people don’t know how to properly deal with or properly work with. And, like, learning how to make those, as aligned as you can I find typically results with people being more and more optimistic, more and more aligned with themselves and the people around them, things like that. And it’s always a growth thing for everybody. And I think that being on that path at all is astonishing. I mean, so many people I feel are not on that path or have not started that path or have no inclination to start that path. And I feel as though I’ve been on that path for a while and do not feel anywhere near accomplishing some sort of eternal bliss of always being alive. I don’t think that’s even achievable. But you know, I think being on that path at all is amazing. I think starting that journey at all is amazing. And that never ends. Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, it’s it is always more growth. Yeah.
44:19
Row I still have one finger yet but we’re not where to hold that aside when keep one finger down here for a second
44:25
and search for that finger.
44:28
I want to go back to a few days ago, we became followers of each other on Instagram and I asked you what your Instagram name was in Can you recall what you told me? Or how that played out as something to do with
44:42
a it’s a reference to a Grateful Dead song. Okay, and what is it? What did you say? It’s it’s ramble on row man one row. The Grateful Dead song is ramble on rose. And yeah, so my name is Row. I’m not sure if I’ve ever explained this to you Euler. My name row comes from both my masculine and my feminine name. They both start with row. So I’ve just been going by row as feeling more in the middle, sometimes fluid between both but more in the middle of that gender spectrum. But my, my feminine name is Rosie. Okay, so when I was starting to really explore that side of myself, my extremely supportive friends were just sending me songs about roses and about roses and things like that. And I love the Grateful Dead love the dead and the song ramble on roads is an amazing song. So ever since it kind of took over itself as being my username and my handle for things ramble on row or rambling row or ramblin Rosie I have a patch on my backpack that’s a it’s a Grateful Dead logo of a broken wheel with roses all around it that says rambling Rosie that a friend embroidered for for me. Yeah,
46:14
yeah when I asked that question that was that was an answer I wasn’t expecting with new information which is good. So now I need to maybe keep another finger down. Finish that thought. Explain better and this relates to the conversation I had with moss Mariah maybe as the conversation is labeled on the podcast is the fact that you’re going with roe. Mm hmm. And you haven’t always get into that a little bit more when that when you made that determination. That was that was the thing you’re gonna do. Yeah, so
46:51
I was born masculine still have male anatomy and have lived most of my life that way. I think I started to come to terms with my queerness and openness to my openness in sexuality to everybody when I was in
47:18
high school at some point.
47:22
And as I was getting into college, I was experiencing more of that culture. I came from a pretty small town where that really was not very prevalent at all. My high school girlfriend and I started the Gay Straight Alliance at our school. And we actually got protested by adults who came into our school to protest us, the first year that we did a Day of Silence, protest, counter protest of adults in our schools, and then the next year they banned adults from coming into the school to protest students. So then all of those parents kids protested us the second year. Yeah, so I came from a small town. And when I started to go to college and started to experience more of that, I started to realize that it was more okay than I had been led to believe. My parents and family has always been wildly supportive of that sort of thing, have always made clear that it’s completely okay. But it doesn’t really changed the society that you’re coming up in. And as I kept delving into that more and more, at a certain point, masa and I moved to an even bigger city where we became more involved in that scene of people in the queer scene in general and getting to know more and more people like that.
48:40
And
48:42
yeah, so it’s sort of sort of kept building from there and was coming to an understanding that gender just as sexuality is just as almost everything is is a spectrum. There aren’t really black and whites in this world, or at least there are extraordinarily few, very few truths that sort of supersede that black and white rule. And that’s something that has been a huge part of my life in terms of in terms of self growth, which is kind of an entirely other topic of being, non duality of living my life as non dual as I can. The fact that I’m alive at all means that I’m living in a dual world. So it’s not something that can ever be transcended, but trying to live my life as non dual as possible. And that came from a variety of sources, a variety of teachings. Meditation brought me there a lot. mindfulness and meditation and a very big contributor to that for me was psychedelics. And so to just go ahead and scoot all of that non dual stuff aside answer the original question, actually, the way that I first really started to come into contact might be the wrong word, but come into contact with my own inner femininity, was, you know, having all of this growth of acceptance and the queer community and gender being a spectrum and the world being a spectrum and having particularly, maybe the most impactful psychedelic experience that I’ve ever had resulted in one of the most intense and potentially life changing experiences of that kind that I’ve ever had, which was living literally like looking into the mirror and I The person that was looking back at me was like a feminine version of myself. It looked literally as though, like, the person that I was was if I had been born a male, and the person that I was seeing in the mirror was the person who I would be if I had been born a female. And I had a complete conversation with this person, like, I was like, Whoa, okay, like, what is your life? Like, like, what’s going on? Like, what? And it like, literally felt like talking to a person in an alternate universe where I had been born female. And at a certain point in this conversation, I was like,
51:42
well, what’s your name? And she was like, Oh, I’m Rosie, and I was like, Oh, hi. Fair enough.
51:50
So the first time you heard Rosie or Yes, it’s already getting no no first time it came to you was in this psychedelic experience.
51:57
Yeah. Where she just Told me directly that and I was like, Oh, alright, fair enough. Like, I have no idea like before I had thought about potentially what a name for me could be or for my feminine self and like the name that I had floating around in my head was just before that, and I was like, that doesn’t feel right, because it just feels like it’s like some name that I’ve plucked out of the air. And then this felt just like literally asking and just being told and all right, fair enough. All right, that’s, that’s what it is, I guess. So then from there I like after that experience, I really started to try and delve into that more and more and more. I looked into hormone transitioning for quite a while. And I looked and really started to live more that way. Live a lot more feminine Lee than I had before. Even to the point of shaming my own masculinity, which is something that I’ve been working on more recently bringing that around, not not looking at it simply Yeah, yeah, recognizing that everybody has a divine femininity and a divine masculinity in them, everybody does. And that it’s no good to shame one or the other. And that’s what I had been doing. But I started delving into this more and more and more and for a little while I was going by our and that didn’t quite fit me oftentimes because it would usually just result in pirate jokes. And slowly working through that and then it might say I sort of just came to this place of row just really seemed to fit for me. And that’s the only name have been known by for
53:59
a little over a year now
54:02
and it works like for me meeting you I didn’t give a ton of thought to wait what does that stand for was a short for I did learn coincidentally what your given name was yeah I need to share that I don’t I don’t know how you think you’re trying to like maybe you’d be trying to detach yourself from that bully
54:19
oh well see that’s also part of the not trying to shame the mask entity side of myself in terms of like, you know, I’m very happy to share that my my feminine name is Rosie but sometimes causes me more IR to share that my masculine name is Robert. Yeah. But coming to terms with accepting both of those as being sort of like two sides of myself not shaming one of them just because it was the way that I have been living most of my life.
54:49
You learn a lot as Robert and then you experience the Rosie situation from that day for Yeah, and now your row. Yeah,
54:58
roll is pretty cool. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah, yeah, it was definitely a very big transitioning time, regardless of it being a chemical transition through hormone therapy or anything
55:15
like that. Have you haven’t done that? No, I’ve
55:18
considered it many times and don’t. Right now, I have no plans to do it.
55:25
But it’s something that I keep thinking about.
55:29
Yeah, it usually just comes down to the
55:34
the thought of shaming one side or the other and just accepting where I’m at, for the most part, is the reason why I haven’t and the potential side effects that come with doing it are great enough that I’ve thought, Well, you know, like I can either accept where I’m at or potential deal with these very harsh consequences that aren’t necessarily common but can happen that would then result in a much worse experience of life just because I’m uncomfortable in my body and that it’s quite likely that even if I did go on that therapy, I would never, like that’s not what’s going to make me feel comfortable in my body. Yeah,
56:25
okay. three fingers now maybe should be four. I might have already forgotten one. Can you tell me what the psychedelic was that you had this experience on?
56:34
Yeah, that time and most of my most intense psychedelic experiences have been with LSD. Okay. LSD or DMT are the two biggest impactors to my life. I would say LSD DMT, or MDMA are the three biggest impacts to my life. I would say. MDMA might be The first in terms of most impactful to my day to day life psychedelic that I’ve ever taken, but yeah
57:09
I’ve never had any experiences of any of these but I’ve heard enough conversations of people that have are talking about it now having this conversation with you are just slightly more prominent my mind at some point in the right situation right? You want to be in like a safe space or with people that you trust? Yeah. No, this the legality of all this is probably kind of not really a not maybe not a concern for you, but it’s still a thing.
57:31
Yeah, yeah. Not Not too much of a concern for me. And that also definitely is coming from a place of privilege that I’m not typically a major target for that sort of thing certain other people can be but you know, I’ve never been a seller of psychedelics I’ve never been a a distributor or producer beyond what I’m using myself.
58:01
So it’s never been too much of a concern for me.
58:06
You know, people have all sorts of tactics to try and get around the legality that don’t really work. Like swim is a popular term in the psychedelic community. It stands for someone who isn’t me. So when you’re telling a psychedelic experience, you say, oh, swim experience this, because it’s someone who isn’t me. And that doesn’t protect you from the legality side of things. But I don’t know whenever it comes to this sort of thing. I’ve just always kind of counting my blessings as being like, the DEA has bigger fish to fry than one person taking psychedelics for spiritual growth. Yeah,
58:43
and this is, you know, a part of the legal system where you’re This is something you’re choosing for yourself to yourself is not harming anyone, right things that if that legalize should be decriminalized? Yeah, I’d imagine we agree on a lot of things in that regard. Yeah. Okay, other fingers. What do we got here? This one I want to cover it because when I asked you a question while ago, we never got to it, but I don’t want to totally skip it. When we when I asked you about the Instagram you there’s something about just another hippie or something you said that was your name at one point. I want to get back to that moment. Well, I don’t know exactly if that was your former Instagram name or if that’s a name you had on something else?
59:23
No, probably just in reference to it being a Grateful Dead name. You know, coming to terms with being a hippie has been a growing process because you don’t necessarily want to align yourself with any group of people because it can kind of make you feel like you’re stuck into that group of people. But at a certain point, I’ve kind of been like, Well, you know, you’re, you’re a person that takes a lot of psychedelics and listens to a lot of champions, just let people call you a hippie, it’ll be fine. Just don’t worry about It
1:00:00
it’s the I don’t call anyone a hippie I don’t know maybe somehow has come up at some point I’m I don’t think I would align with that group if there was a group that was aligning with i don’t i i that word. I think it was very prominent, like in the 70s. Probably not that it’s totally disappeared. But you’re aware of it. He brought it up that day and it kind of got my mind going like, what? If you are a hippie or you’re not a hippie? What does that
1:00:32
what does that matter?
1:00:33
or? Yeah, yeah, I think it’s a it’s a term that I feel like I’m hearing more and more typically in people reclaiming it for themselves, rather than it being used in the stigmatized way that it has necessarily been used. But I don’t know I I, I have mixed feelings about it. But I do like it in the way of like, Certainly I don’t like every hippie. But if somebody came up to me and said, like, Oh, yeah, like I’m, I’m a hippie that’s doing these things. Right off the bat, I’d be like, okay, we were probably aligned on a lot of things like we probably have a similar idea about like, like, some things like we probably have some similar ideas about consciousness, we probably have some similar ideas about spirituality, we probably have some similar ideas about openness and freedom that we can, you know, it’s almost just like a, like a marker to just know that we might have some things in common the same way that like if someone describes themselves as a sports fan, you don’t know that. They like all the same teams as you, you don’t know that they like sports in the same way that you do. But you understand that there’s some things that you probably align on or some common ground that you can see Start to have a conversation about the same with any sort of group identifier. Like someone describing themselves as being someone who likes hunting or someone who’s into guns or someone who is anything any group identifier is just a way to start connecting
1:02:18
the PDF when you initially connect with someone, a part of that connection is typically something that you have in common that you can build from.
1:02:28
Yeah, I didn’t someone identifies as a hippie to you, you kind of know what the couple things that you could start talking about and make that connection. Yeah, it’s not
1:02:35
usually the way that I immediately introduce myself and I think it’s partially still because of the stigma around the word. But I think that it is something that is sort of like a puzzle piece identifier for a lot of people like I think like on my my work away profile for travel. I think my intro line is I’m, I’m a consciousness forward free thinker and lover was just like, if you’re a hippie, you’re you get what I’m talking about. You know, like, it’s just saying, it’s maybe just saying hippie in a slightly different way or with a slightly different choice of words. Yeah,
1:03:21
yeah. Let’s totally neglected this to this point. I have one more finger. And then I think after that, we’ll get to my personal growth and being wrong segments. But before that, let’s do that. You’ve been traveling in Europe for months now in Europe. Yep. Yep. Share, share a story about that. Something that just really, really is something you’re gonna keep for a long time or forever. Something that’s happened in these four months that that brings, I’m sure there’s many but yeah, that brings a sense of what you’ve been up to for four months to a reality for me right now. Yeah.
1:03:56
Yeah. So the first thing that immediately springs to mind for sure. Is this beautiful, beautiful, beautiful piece of property in Bulgaria, mass and I spent three months in Bulgaria, which was the literal maximum of our stay without getting a visa. And I have plans to return to Bulgaria as soon as my 90 days out of the country are up so that I can go back to this place. When we first went to Bulgaria, we worked at a hotel slash farm for about a month and a half. and enjoying our time there all sorts of experiences there that don’t need to get into But at a certain point, there was a bit of a communication breakdown with one of the owners of the place and slowly started to degrade our experience a little bit to the point where we were like, you know what, like, like we should just be looking for somewhere else to go and there is this neighboring project. too, we have met multiple times just by being there to begin with. And we’re like, you know, they seem great. And really like, the only reason that we hadn’t have gone there earlier was just because of the you know, like they don’t have much electricity, they don’t have running water. Only use compost toilets. And it was like, you know, we’ve just been choosing to be comfortable here at the hotel, but we’re not having as good of an experience here. So let’s go to this place and it ended up just being the absolute most amazing, magical place with people that align themselves in a way to me that resonates on an extreme level. I think being around people that you don’t align with is one of the most beautiful things in the world. One of the biggest things that can lead to growth
1:05:55
but
1:05:58
I mean being around people That just like immediately you’re just like, like people that are on the same level as you to the point where immediately you’re just both learning things from each other. Like it feels like two magnets getting closer and closer together and like building up this like spiraling energy of constant information exchange between everybody involved, and it just feels like constant upwards growth. And it’s just this beautiful property on a lake in Bulgaria with one solar panel in one shitty battery. So like, as soon as nightfall comes, there’s just no more electricity. But during the day, you can charge your devices or whatever you need to do and that’s pretty much the extent of it. You can use Wi Fi during the day. And then all of their water that they use is rainwater for washing dishes and washing yourself. And then you can go into town with a big water jug to get water from the mineral spring that is everywhere in Bulgaria. They’re called chest months. And it’s just because there’s so many mountains in Bulgaria, they have all of these fountains that are just spring fresh, spring fed mineral fountains that are beautiful purified water and everybody goes there for their drinking water. Everybody has these big two three liter jugs that they fill up with water from the Tesla. And we stayed there for only I think about three weeks. They have six dogs. And when we were there, there was only one other person who was staying there and we were actually alone there for a few days in between. There’s like two main owners of the place. One of them was leaving before the other one got back. So we were there watching the place for like three days. And it was just the absolute. One of the most amazing experiences I’ve had being on this property being so in touch with everything going on, being in touch with these animals, people in touch with the land and learning so much from everybody there, everybody involved. It’s where I got the phrase uncomfortability breeds comfortability. Because not having a warm shower suddenly makes you realize how realize all of the comfort that comes in just having warm water at all to wash yourself off with a rag. You know, like suddenly that feels like the most comfortable thing in the world because you don’t have any other options or, you know, like, not having easy electricity or anything to cook meals suddenly makes every meal that you make, it takes more work. And that makes it so much more delicious because it’s like you’ve you’ve put so much more work into it. The discomfort has bred a new type of comfort from it. Yeah, so it’s a place I’m really excited to go back to and I’ll be going back in the spring as things are blooming rather than in the winter after everything had been dying off. So we’ll be able to see And like a little bit of a new season and help out with planting in the spring and things like that. So this will be your final stop before returning back
1:09:08
to Minnesota the summer. Yep, yep. Yep. Well,
1:09:13
it’ll be my last long stop. And I’m doing like a week stopover in Morocco on my way back. Yeah, I’m pretty excited for that. So cool.
1:09:21
Well, you’ve you found this magical place for you that really matches what you want to do and experience. Yeah, just I like that. You can explain that. So I have a better understand that. That’s probably not the place that I would find to be my favorite place. I’m sure I learn a lot from it. Yeah. I imagine for me and for anyone, there’s there’s some place something like this that we can find in the world that we’re not currently having. Oh, that brings us much closer to what we really want. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. need to be seeking it and give yourself an opportunity to find it.
1:09:51
Yeah. being open to it.
1:09:53
Yeah. So my finger the last thought that I’ve been holding for probably an hour and you can help me with that. Maybe we have the personal growth and being wrong coming up. But then you mentioned anxiety earlier. Yeah, ties mean, anxiety ties into something from the past leading our minds ago, kind of going a little overboard. Is this something that we should tackle right now? Or should we should we get into it with my final segments, whereas the best fit in?
1:10:22
Probably my answer for personal growth probably has a lot to do with it.
1:10:26
Okay. Well, let’s move forward to the personal growth segments. Yeah.
1:10:31
And
1:10:32
row so a story from your life that demonstrates you growing as a person.
1:10:38
Yeah. So as I think I kind of alluded to,
1:10:43
in a couple different ways throughout this conversation,
1:10:47
both with the most impactful psychedelic experience that I’ve ever had, as well as feeling this disconnect between your logic and your emotions. For me, I found that To be one of my biggest sources of anxiety, besides anxiety about worrying about things about worrying about the future worrying about the past, one of the biggest things was that like, I feel all of these emotions where I’m upset and logically, I don’t understand why I’m upset. And that can only lead to more frustration. It’s just a downward spiral of being like, why are you thinking that? You shouldn’t be thinking that well, but I am thinking that, damn it, okay, now what do we do? And at a very low point in my life, it was just after I had moved back from the bigger city where I hadn’t moved with mass and I had moved back to Duluth, where I then lived for the next year and a half before coming on this travel, where I went through some of the most intensive personal growth that I have in my life. When I first moved back, it was one of the lowest points that I can remember, at least in my adult life. And I felt very stuck. And I was really stuck for maybe like a month after moving and was just like, This is no good. Like, I feel stuck. I recognize that I’m stuck like I need to
1:12:23
keep doing something about this. And I
1:12:27
started doing some research and reading into MDMA as therapy. MDMA is the pure form of ecstasy or Molly. But without any additives. You know, ecstasy is usually MDMA, mixed with cocaine or some other amphetamine or something like that. MDMA is the pure form of it. And right now, it actually has breakthrough status, according to the FDA, for treatment for PTSD. It’s nickname is the acceptance drug. It can make you think about things that you don’t feel acceptance for and suddenly feel acceptance for them. So in doing my research, I was reading all about these PTSD patients and that’s what they’ve mostly been doing because that’s where they’ve been getting the funding to keep doing this research. But the way that they structure these sessions is a person who is treatment resistant to PTSD, other PTSD treatments, who feels it is debilitating their average life have been going into these studies. And they have three regular psychotherapy sessions. And then they have one MDMA session with that psycho therapist who while under the influence leads them through their experience that they have the trauma about, going to have a month break and then they do it again, and they have a month break and then they do it again. And then they have another psychotherapy session afterwards to sort of analyze what growth had occurred. The most recent study of most recent study that I’ve seen about this was actually analyzing 200 patients a full year after this therapy had undergone when the therapy happened. All of them, literally 100% of the 200 patients were saying this was a positive experience. I like this experience. Like this was good. A full year later, they went back and they re questioned all 200 patients 100% of them so that it had a positive impact on their life. 76% of them no longer even qualified as any amount of PTSD. Yeah, it literally breakthrough status drug. And I was reading the research. I was like, Oh my god, like the acceptance drug like this amazing therapeutic drug and I’ve maybe done it once or twice in my life. had been like, Oh yeah, like this is making me very emotional and very happy. But I’m taking it in like a party setting or something where I’m, you know, just putting that energy into dancing or interacting with people or into making out with people. And that’s fun. Yeah. All good experiences, but I was like, okay, so like, clearly I understand that there’s some sort of potential for this. And I was like, well, I can’t get a psychotherapist to do this. For me, this is still illegal. And it’s also I don’t, I can’t afford therapy. So what am I going to do? So I started to write down in my journal, anytime that something was really bothering me, especially any thought that just kept ruminating over and over again, I would just write it down, write it down and write it down and write it down until I had this big list of things. And I was like, Okay, so I’m going to try and structure this just like the PTSD, just like the PTSD treat I’m going to do a session, wait a month, do another session, wait a month, do another session. So
1:16:07
October,
1:16:10
October 20 was my first session. And, you know, it felt great felt great to look through my list and be like, Oh, yeah, like, wow, this feels great. And then like, the next day, I was like, Oh, my God, I still feel terrible like this. This didn’t help me at all. Like, what, what, what? And you know, doing a little bit more research, and it was like, Well, the reason that they do those three sessions is because not everybody clicks the first time around, like, they do three times because some people take two times, some people take three times, most people will get it within three times where suddenly that acceptance kind of clicks and it’s all about integration into the rest of your life. Yeah. It’s not about the experience itself. It’s about how you bring that experience into the rest of your life. So November 20. First was the most impactful experience I have ever had in my life. It was the day that things clicked for me. And it was the day that you know, the next day, I started doing all of the things that I knew were good for me that I wasn’t doing before. It was the day that I started doing yoga every day. And I started meditating every day. And I started journaling every day. And it was the day that I started to look for a new job because I didn’t like the job that I was in. It was the day that I like, started making that purposeful difference in my life was the day that I started cooking for myself. Again, I love cooking for myself, I just wasn’t doing it. Like I knew that I liked doing it. I just wasn’t doing it. And it was that experience that really just clicked things in my head and set off a chain of events a chain of experiences that we’re all in spiritual growth and personal growth that all led to me growing more in that year that I feel like I’ve ever had before. I’m just constant upwards growth constantly pushing myself and constantly feeling good about it.
1:18:15
Yeah, I mean,
1:18:16
so that may be for you. That was what it took to get the positive momentum. You seem to have needed to begin to do these things that you should do. Yeah, maybe that’s not the only way but it’s a way to do it. And what it really comes down to is the things that we know we should be doing once once you start doing those things. The momentum cannon will carry you Oh, yeah, to do more and you’re just gonna start continue to feel better. Yeah, yeah. Your existence.
1:18:45
Yeah. Even since that experience, I mean, talking with friends and talking with other people who like, you know, you hear people say it so clearly. And it doesn’t seem all that crazy because you’ve lived your life that I’ve lived my life that way too. But you know, like I would hear a friend being like, Oh, yeah, like, I love yoga. It makes me feel so good. I love exercise, but like, Yeah, I just like, I don’t do it. Like, I don’t have the time for it. And then just thinking like, well, like, we’re just hanging out right now. Like, what do you mean you don’t have time for it? You have time for it right now. Like right now, right now you have time for it. Like, let’s do it right now. Just start doing the thing. Just start. As soon as you start doing the thing, you’ll realize why the thing felt good in the first place. Like it’s not about the experience to set you off. It’s about starting to do the thing that set you off. And certainly I’m not a proponent that psychedelics are for everybody. They’re not. But I feel like a lot of people just need something that will just
1:19:51
get them in motion. Just start doing the thing. Most people know what’s good for them. Most people just aren’t doing it. Whatever you’re doing right now. Is the leading you to be the person you are right now. So there is something needs to change to get the momentum shifting and that is it for you. Maybe there’s a bride of other things you could have done that could have also done I don’t know. We don’t know that we’ll never really know that. Yeah. But know that you found something that you could do differently that led to something clicking away it hadn’t before. And now your seems like being around you for a week. You You’re in a pretty good mood most the time and yeah. And you’re living your life that we want to and you’re fairly happy person. Yeah,
1:20:33
yeah. Yeah, I think so. I really like the word that you just said, what what you’re doing. What you’re doing right now leads to the person that you are right now. I think that is a phenomenal summary of that. You know what you’re doing right now lead to the person that you are right now. All you got to do is start.
1:20:54
Perfect. Thank you for sharing that. Yeah. Now let’s go to the being wrong segment. Wrong, something you were wrong about in the past really about changing your mind, change your actions, changing something drastically from the previous version of yourself to now what’s a story that comes to mind when I bring up that topic?
1:21:13
Yeah. So the thing that comes to mind is kind of when I was at that, one of the lowest points of my adult life when I moved back up to Duluth, I’m sure most talked about this in your conversation. But when we, when we started doing polyamory, we had broken up for maybe two or three months where we were like, Oh, this, like, I knew that logically, polyamory made sense to me, but the emotions were not there. They’re still not always there, but I They really were not there. I was really overwrought with jealousy and overwrought with over comparisons and worry and anxieties and fears polyamory loving, many like yeah, being in loving relationships romantic, sexual, however it goes, Yeah, more than one person at a time. Maybe not like at the same time but as a part of your life. Right, right. Right. And my parents have always had an extremely codependent relationship and coming up, like that’s just what I knew relationships, to be, to be monogamous to be relying on one another wholeheartedly to be putting your will into the other person in that relationship, which is not healthy and even then I knew that that’s not healthy. It’s just like, where my emotions were. It was the ultimate disconnect from logic to emotion. Cuz logically, I could look at all of this and be like, well, that’s, that’s not healthy polyamory makes sense. Of course, it makes sense. But the emotions just aren’t there. The emotions aren’t backing that up. The emotions aren’t aren’t aligning. They’re like, what can I possibly do about this? And it grew to a point of being like, well, I guess, like, I can’t do anything about this right now because the emotions are just too overwhelming to deal with this. And like, I guess like, this just needs to be the end, which is a ridiculous notion to be now that like, I don’t I think it would take something astronomical to stop any sort of connection between me and mass. It just seems completely infeasible to me. And it seemed infeasible to me then too, but it was like, well, I can’t deal with everything else that’s going on. I just I just need to not be there for a while. And and ended up of course, as everything is everything is perfect because everything led to the moment where we are now. And going through that experience is what led me to my place of personal growth and to a growth of myself rather than a growth relying on another person or relying on growing for another person or with another person or in line with another person and genuinely growing for myself rather than for someone else. What I mean, when I left I really did think I was like, okay, like, I guess that’s it, like, this incredible biggest love of my life is just like, okay, like, I guess I guess that’s it. I guess that’s where we call it like, I guess now it’s time to go do something else. Go be by myself for a while or whatever. You know, that’s When I was wrong, that like, I don’t think that that connection could ever end. And I don’t think that walking away from it was I don’t think that walking away from it is the right move for me now, because something like that happened now walking away from it or hiding from it wouldn’t be in the way that I deal with it. It was the right thing for me then in the sense that it led to everything else that led to now. But
1:25:29
you know, that’s that was a major point of change. For me trying to understand this, you were wrong thinking that there wasn’t a way for this great connection, great relationship to continue in a new way that you could feel okay about it in this new way. And you still have it, maybe not constantly, maybe differently. Maybe there would be some jealousy to have to deal with. Right, but you could continue to have this great relationship, right in a way that was not traditional and maybe had You feel a little weird in ways you didn’t like, but it could work and you can make it work in some way and just keep it alive as long as it’s there.
1:26:06
Right? Right. Because that’s, that’s all there is. discomfort breeds comfort and doing the thing that’s uncomfortable and stepping into the uncomfortable is sort of like maybe the ultimate lesson that came from that because it was the ultimate uncomfortable thing to step into that complete transformation. But it ended up being the most comfortable thing. You know, I, I wouldn’t want anybody to ever love me out of obligation or expectation. And I wouldn’t want anyone to pretend like they don’t love somebody else out of obligation or expectation to me. I would rather I would rather I would rather walk out that door right now and have mass tell me that they never want to talk to me ever again. Then to live even a single moment where we’re not actively choosing to be around me. And I don’t think that’s going to happen so far it hasn’t happened yet, but if it did, I would much rather that happened then have someone stick around because they feel obligated to or expected to or to have someone pretend like they don’t love somebody else because they’re expected to be monogamous, monogamous or obligated to be monogamous. That’s just that stifling. That’s not the way that life is meant to be lived. Even if it’s uncomfortable, it’s it breeds comfort. It breeds the comfort of feeling completely confident in our connection more confident than I ever did when we were monogamous. I mean, I was worried all the time that I was screwing everything up or that I was not being the proper monogamous partner and then I was like, Oh, great. I’m not being the perfect monogamous partner. I’m being exactly who I am in every moment and we still love each other incredibly, now it’s Yeah, discomfort breeds comfort.
1:27:58
My opinion on this was shared with moss and the episode I recorded just you know yesterday that’ll probably precede this episode and the chronology of the People I Know Show podcasts. spent a week with you now rrrow I feel like I’ve gotten a lot closer. I think things that might change in my life by spending some time with you, or you and mas is based on this conversation, I’m probably more likely to look at a camping experience differently and do that again. Yeah, I slightly more likely to do some sort of psychedelic thing at some point. And traveling for a long amount of time between the two of you, I think that’s slightly more likely to happen. There was one more thing that I think I was thinking about a minute ago. And the other thing, well, I need to probably jump into that further. Maybe the thoughts have been there that this is going to work but knowing people that are doing living that experience Yeah. I think me having this conversation with you. And with mass and then me pointing these conversations. I can’t explain it well enough with an individual. Okay. Listen to this. Yeah. And then you’ll kind of know closer to where I’m at. Like, I don’t want to just be. I want more people to understand. So I love that you shared your perspective and masses. I think it’s,
1:29:17
I think it’s important for people to realize that it’s not always easy. Like, that was a very big thing for me when diving into it was that like, I had this expectation that everyone just thought it was this breezy thing. And everyone felt great about it. And everyone felt total love all the time until I listened to it. Like, it was one other podcast where somebody was like, Oh, yeah. Oh, my God. Like, the jealousy is so intense. Like, the jealousy is overwhelming sometimes, but like, you know, it’s all okay.
1:29:45
Yeah, okay. Yeah, yeah, it’s all okay. All right, great. Good.
1:29:49
Yeah. We’re humans. We’re gonna feel jealousy for variety things, and it’s one of the things gonna happen. Yeah, I thought of the other thing. Yeah. Perfect. way to end Hey, I am dramatically More likely to stop at a vegetable stand near summer. Spend some time there and that’s perfect. You might it might not be yours. You might be a few hours away. Who knows how that the geography works. I’ll stop at one. Yeah, I’ll think about you when I do that.
1:30:14
Yeah. Talk to him,
1:30:16
bro. Thank you. Thank you preset the past week. We’re departing each other tomorrow. I’ll see you sometime. We don’t know when but
1:30:22
Yeah, it is. Pretty cool. sure we’ll see each other again. All right. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai