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342 - Sacred Grit with Jason Lyle! Former Pastor, Sex Addiction and Arresting Your Amygdala!
In this episode of 'Church and Other Drugs,' host Jason Lyle, a former pastor, dives deep into his journey through faith, sex addiction, and the complexities of spiritual life. He shares ins...
342 - Sacred Grit with Jason Lyle! Former Pastor, Sex Addiction and Arresting Your Amygdala!
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Interactive Transcript
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moy
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Hey everybody, welcome to Church and other drugs.
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Feels good still.
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Say in that.
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I'll get this out of the way.
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I am a found my album of the year.
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Oh yeah, the year's almost over.
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So yes, this band unprocessed.
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They're from a Deutschland.
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What, you know, our favorite party is from.
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But the political climate, a little too hot for me to bring him back right now.
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Yes.
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But we all know who mine is talking about.
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Yeah, they're from Germany, unprocessed.
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Their new album is called Angel.
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It's so damn good.
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It's so good.
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It's so, so good.
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I'm playing a song at the end of this.
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And Spotify's listening.
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I'm doing a critique on it.
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It's great.
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That's my critique.
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The end.
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Today I have Jason Lyle.
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The student reached out to me.
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And those are, I'll be honest.
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Those are always hit and miss.
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And this one slammed out of the park.
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I got goose bumps so many times talking to him.
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He's a former pastor.
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Currently host the Sacred Grid podcast.
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You can find all of this stuff at sacredgrid.com.
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It's an amazing, there's not much more preference to go.
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It's just an amazing conversation.
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I hope you enjoy it.
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About to record a lot.
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Or in person interview with my good new best friend, Ray from the treatment center.
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I just went to him.
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And I think that's it.
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Oh man, special shout out to George.
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You know what you did.
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You're the man.
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I love you, bro.
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And to the new patrons, thank you so much.
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Still looking for a job at DoorDash yesterday.
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That was fun.
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Patreon.com slash church on other drugs.
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Popner www.popnerdstudios.myshop.com.
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Thank you, Brent, for the short purchases.
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And start you on the drugs.
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Gmail.com.
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I've been having some conversations with a couple of y'all lately.
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And it's been super rewarding.
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And shout out to, hold on.
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I got a file.
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I shout out to Trevin.
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This dude, I just got this DM on Instagram.
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You look like the cameraman for the news reporter who writes the book on that one
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gal's mom from scream 1996.
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And before I could say what he sent me a screenshot and I do, it's true.
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So thanks for that, Drew.
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I appreciate it.
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I'm from South Carolina.
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You sound like you're closer to there.
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Yeah, I'm from Georgia.
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A lot of the time.
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I was born in Decatur.
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Oh, how about that, man?
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That's pretty cool.
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Yeah, did you get a church around Decatur?
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No, I was just literally just born.
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And then recording in progress.
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Yes.
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We grew up, we moved to Irmo, South Carolina when I was, gosh, probably three or so.
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My dad was Air Force.
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So like my sister was born in Arkansas.
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I was born in Georgia.
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And then his family was from South Carolina.
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They always hated me though because when I was younger, I would root for the bulldogs
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because I was like from the, it would make my uncle because they were die hard clumps
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in fans.
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So like my uncle hated that, dude.
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It was so funny.
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I only understood as an adult when I started to like football, how infuriating that could
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be.
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Well, I mean, man, I'm not much of a football fan.
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I grew up in a family that were, you know, bulldogs, falcon.
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Then I think we might have had a couple folks in it.
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It was Georgia Tech.
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Oh, yeah.
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We don't need to speak of them.
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But yeah, but I'm in to line of good Georgia.
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I mean, it's cold.
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Yeah, where's, where's that?
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In the mountains.
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So I'm probably 45 minutes from North Carolina line.
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Oh, okay.
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Yeah.
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So yeah, it's a, because it's cold.
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Well, it's Louisiana cold.
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It's 63, which is like, yeah, we're freezing down here.
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So yeah.
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We got, we got snow this year.
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That was insane.
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We got like 11 inches of snow.
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I mean, and we're, I'm like south Louisiana.
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Like we're in, like all the stereotypes you think of Louisiana is where I am right now.
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It's just all to swamp people.
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Yeah.
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You know, all those folks.
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Yeah, man.
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So I was a pastor.
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I preached a revival in shit.
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What's a, right below Tyler Texas.
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It's, it's God.
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That keep, believe it came.
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Is it in Texas like Beaumont or Conroe or like top Tyler?
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Right below Tyler.
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It does.
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Oh, no, wait a minute.
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It's named after a biblical town.
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Palestine.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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Palestine, Texas.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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Palestine.
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That's where, um, or no, that was Palestine, Ohio.
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I just know that because that's where that huge chemical spill was, right?
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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And I remember, dude, I remember all the, um, it was the same time as the eclipse.
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So all the far right Christian conspiracy theorists were going nuts because they're like
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the eclipse runs right through Palestine in Israel and like, I was like, that's great.
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Yeah.
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That's some crazy shit.
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Oh, dude.
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What?
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Um, so this is some people.
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I don't know.
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Actually, I don't know anyone that doesn't like it.
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But so my thing to do and what I like to do with podcasts is I do very little, especially
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when people reach out, which I love, I do very little background digging because it's
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like I want to find out in real time.
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That's like the fun and the first thing is like having conversations with people.
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Um, so this is cool.
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Um, so I guess Jason Lyle, um, coming from Georgia.
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What's the, and the podcast you do sacred grip, pod sacred grit podcast.
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That's it.
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Um, so yeah, just just from the little blurb, uh, it's amazing to me the amount of like
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pastors, former pastors, present pastors that just have these like, like my, um, the
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Patreon show I do, I do my partner was a former pastor and he quit that and went to go
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work at a brewery.
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It was like the most like, I actually, he got fired or quit.
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Uh, I can't remember how it went, but it's like these, these like crazy stark changes
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and I'm always interested because I as, um, and this is what I was talking to someone
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yesterday about kind of like guruism and how like I always look to, it's like you think
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the pastors have the answers.
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Are you, you hope they do or you, um, assume that they're like immune from the trappings
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of the world above reproach, right?
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And it's so often like the very opposite.
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Yeah.
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Torshirt.
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Yeah.
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Um, so I don't even, wherever you want to start, um, um, how, so I'm curious.
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Is, are you're from Georgia?
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That's your family's from.
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Yeah.
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So I was, go ahead, I'm sorry.
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Well, no, no, I was just going to say what, um, what was the denomination of the, of
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your youth, Southern Baptist.
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Okay.
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Yeah.
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So it's kind of a bit of a long and short of the story, man.
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I was adopted.
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I was born indicator or my biological mother was from the catered Georgia strangely enough.
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Synchronist.
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And so she put me up for adoption at birth.
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I was in foster care for about two weeks.
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And then the family that raised me adopted me when I was two weeks old and I was raised
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in a very lead at the beaver kind of home, um, started church.
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I mean, I never, I didn't know anything other than church.
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And so I tell people I had a drug problem when I was a kid.
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I was drugged to church on Sunday morning.
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Ah, the good one.
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That's a new one.
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Yeah.
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I was going to church on Wednesday night.
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So but through that whole process, you know, getting, quote, unquote, saved and, you know,
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going through the youth program, there were some pretty pivotal moments in there, uh, in
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my spirituality.
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And one was, you know, youth pastor takes all these 11, 12 year old boys in a room one night
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and starts telling us how, you know, masturbation is going to send us to hell.
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Yes.
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He used the story of Oh, man and from the Bible, if you're familiar with that story.
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I'm not.
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Well, the story of the Bible for this man named Oh, man and Oh, man was supposed to,
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his brother died.
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And so Oh, man was supposed to further his brother's bloodline by having sex with his
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brother's wife after his bummer, bummer instead.
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He was, the Bible says spilled his seed on the ground.
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Okay.
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He wasn't in pregnant.
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His wife.
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And so this youth pastor used that passage of scripture to go.
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And so if you spill your seed anywhere other than where it belongs, cause God struck
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her name bad.
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Yeah.
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So, yeah, that's kind.
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Yeah.
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That's the church I grew up in.
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So did they use the apple analogy?
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Oh, yeah.
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The apple on the low.
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The bites out of the apple.
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Oh, yeah, yes.
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Well, how are you?
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I'm 53.
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Okay.
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54.
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So, so yeah, I'm 38.
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So not much change in that time, cause we had the same thing.
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And I just, or this was like the most hideously embarrassing moment of one of mine.
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And when they separated and that, but they invited our dads.
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Okay.
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I don't know if they did that with y'all.
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Yes.
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So it was, it was, and I don't even remember what dude they brought in to talk to us.
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But the whole time he just kept talking about masturbation, masturbation.
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And all I had ever heard, it called like jerking off.
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Yeah.
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And so I, this is, it became legendary.
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I just raised my hand and I was like, what's masturbation in my dad?
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It was just like, oh, and I was like, oh, I knew what it was.
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I just didn't know that was the name for it.
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God.
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I knew it was jerking off.
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Yeah.
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You asked me to tell me there was a clinical name.
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Right.
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Could have saved me some grief.
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Yeah.
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But anyway, yeah, that whole like shame culture.
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I mean, I just grew up in it.
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And you know, it was, it was pretty apparent early on that we just didn't talk about that
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kind of stuff.
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I mean, yeah, we talked about everything else, but we really didn't talk about sex.
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And we also, you know, and I've talked about this before, but divorce was another big
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one, right?
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Like if you got divorced, you were subpar human.
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Like that, at best you got to serve casserole at the meal and clean up the trash, but you
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did not get to lead a Bible study.
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You couldn't sing in the choir.
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You couldn't do this.
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Yes.
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If you had ever been divorced, you're the second ham's hand citizen.
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So like I grew up in a culture that champion purity and fidelity and marriage above all
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else.
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And, you know, you were letting God down if you did anything other than that.
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And so it really kind of set up for me it.
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And I think for a lot of other people that set up this dynamic where if you had any of
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those things, you just hid that shit because you didn't piss off the church because you
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sure didn't want to piss off God.
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And, you know, while the church would not have said this, the church considered themselves
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gone.
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Of course.
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Yeah.
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Of course.
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There were certainly the mouthpiece.
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Yeah.
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That was, that was basically my through line into drugs.
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Truly was growing up.
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So, and I always have to preface this because my mom listens and bless her heart.
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It is not your fault, mom.
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You know, this is one of those things where like memory is a funny thing.
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I don't know exactly what I was told.
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I remember what I heard.
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Okay.
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And what I heard was sexual sin is the worst.
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Primarital sex is the worst.
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I had those urges and desires.
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Therefore I was the worst.
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God hates that sin and you're going to go to hell unless you recite the magic words
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and get baptized, which I did obsessively.
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I didn't understand that it was a term for religious group velocity until as an adult.
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But I remember the day I lost my virginity.
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I did the obligatory called two friends and was like, yeah, and then I hung up and I
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just broke down because I was like, I am the grossest person imaginable.
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And it was basically figuring out that if I was high, I could sort of do sexual things
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guilt-free.
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That was like a little like, oh, cool.
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This is, but the, the, especially with like masturbation and porn, the guilt, the, the
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act, the guilt, the shame, the repentance cycle.
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And like all the emotional alter calls and youth group trips and all this like intense,
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like, you know, that was just so huge because this was around what I was in youth group.
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It was around the, the Columbine, she said, yes, thing, which turned out to be completely
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made up, which is insane.
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But yeah, so it was like that sort of thing was like champion and it was always like,
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we were all like, hooking up during lock-ins and stuff and then, and then we would, and
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then like, somebody would catch a conscience and like, it was so, it's just wild to think
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about it.
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It's fucked up, man.
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It is.
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I tell you what, and I've thought about this a lot lately.
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So you think about the culture we grew up in, you're told, okay, you're born a center
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and you will never be anything else but a center.
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But if you say these magic words, even though you're a center, when you die, you get to
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go to heaven.
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Now, just because you said those magic words, but now hang on a minute because if you
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said those magic words, that means you shouldn't be doing strange way enough, all this shit
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that you really want to do.
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But here's what starts to happen.
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You start having those behaviors and you go, well, I'm just a center.
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Yes.
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I can't help it.
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I'm just a center.
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And that becomes this shameful, reciprocal relationship with God that is, you know, that
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the, the theologically in the Bible, you know, if we talk about the nation of Israel,
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theologians call it the cycle of apostasy, right?
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It's this, I do the thing I don't want to do.
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Then I repent.
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Then I get better.
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Then I do the thing I don't want to do.
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Then I repent.
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Then I get better.
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And what most Christians don't understand is the world that they live in, the very doctrine
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that they follow justifies the actions that they don't want to have, which is Romans chapter
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seven.
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They keep going, well, I'm just a center.
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So may it be good to do it.
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I'm just a center.
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May it well go do it.
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Yeah.
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And I was, and I took that, I got a little chill.
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So that's, no, means it's correct.
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I took that, like, a very much was like, okay, the world, I hate the world.
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I, and I like actually got to put this into, in a way, some guy had me a rattle lyric
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for a song and do some thing for him.
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And it was like, I'm caught between the love of Christ and the hatred of man.
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And it was like so true because it's like, everything is disgusting and gross.
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And at one point, because I, like, suffered with depression, I took that theology, in my
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opinion, to its logical conclusion, why can't I just kill myself and get this shit over
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with and go to heaven?
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Yeah.
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And I, I shopped that around to priests and pastors being like, listen, like, I think I figured
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out a little secret.
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I've got the escape plan.
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I've got the escape plan because that really is the logical conclusion.
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If, if this is, if we're just supposed to grid our teeth and bear our way through this
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world, then like, nah, I'm good.
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Like I'll just skip to the end, skip to the good stuff.
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I hate to tell people that if that, if the most of the theology we believe is true and abortion
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doctors, the, the banjo list of the world, you know, I mean, he's got, yeah, I mean, he
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just locking heaven down, man.
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Whoa, that, oh, I never can, that is, it makes sense in that light.
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And it's like, I don't know how I missed.
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And, and of course, then it's like, once you, and this is what happened to, I mean,
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I'm, I'm very glad.
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I'm fortunate that like, God, allow, however it worked, whether it's just deeply ingrained
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that I have never been able to shake Jesus and I've never been able to throw out the
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baby with the bath water.
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I'm so grateful for that because so many of my friends and those youth group people, the,
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the typical thing that would happen is the youth pastor hooked up with them when they're
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underage.
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They found out that everybody was just lying their way through all of that.
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And they're just kind of like, okay, like, like, have you watched any of the shiny, happy
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people on Amazon?
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It's, you know, the Dugger family, like the quiverful movement.
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The first season is on their family.
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And then the second season is on teen alive.
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It was like a big, is that what it was called?
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Something.
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It was like a huge youth conference every year, like massive.
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And then they had their own, like, school and they, like, put them through, like, basically,
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like Navy SEAL Hell Week to train them.
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They, like, would have these mock drills of like, like, they, they wouldn't, it's these
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kids at basically a youth group camp and without telling them the workers would come in with
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paintball guns and fatigues and like demand that they, like, pronounce Christ or they
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would, like, torture them.
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Like it was like insane.
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It's insane.
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Yeah.
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Oh, listen, man.
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It, it, it, no, that shit shocks me.
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Keep going.
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I'm sorry.
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Yeah.
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No, no, no, no.
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I was, it's just like, so I, I do often.
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I'm like, it is a miracle that I didn't.
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And it's, it's been cool that our, my family has, we've all taken the journey together where,
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um, you know, my sister is a lesbian.
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She's happily married.
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She has two, uh, beautiful kids.
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Um, that we love them.
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Um, my parents have, I went through my drug addiction, uh, really early on.
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Um, so it was, it was like a lot of, uh, I guess, like arrogance and hypocrisy and
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judgment.
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We were kind of spared of because it was real quick.
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Like, hey, this is, this is reality.
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This is the real world.
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And this is like, you know, if you have faith, then like, what are you going to do with
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these situations with your flesh and blood?
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And then it, it really does.
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Like, I really love my parents for that.
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And they're, they were not the ones that just were like, well, it's unfortunate.
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Like y'all backslid and we'll just, we'll see you when you get better type of thing.
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It's like, they really, it's, it's, it's been cool to see.
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I'm glad we all went on the journey together.
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And it makes me sad that other people's experience isn't that.
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And it really does like bum me out.
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Um, that it's so many.
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So this, I've had this like, I don't even know how to assemble it correctly, but like
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this weird pet theory of like, because it seems to me that there is some sort of sifting
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or dividing of what is actually, who is actually truly a Christian and versus this like,
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Christian nationalism thing going on in the West right now.
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And it is, it's both like horrifying and like, well, maybe, and necessary, I guess it's,
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I guess I'm filled, I don't even know where I'm like ending with it, but I guess I'm like,
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I'm like, like, man, like I would just hate watch.
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I was telling my pastor this that it's like, dude, I just hate watch prosperity gospel.
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Ticktocks and I'm just like, gosh, like it scares.
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It's just like, I'm scared for them.
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Like whatever judgment or hell even is, I'm pretty sure it's for that.
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It's for that like the people that are like taking, like spiritually abusing people is like,
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oh boy.
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Yeah, I mean, I feel like they're probably already living there in a lot of ways in the
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tale, you know, it's like I think about, I worked in the country of Uganda for quite some time
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doing development work there and in Uganda, you have what they would call Christians,
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which are people who were born in Uganda and take on the Anglican religion.
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And then you have what they call born again Christians and they would be practicing Christians.
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And that's very much kind of where we ended up in America.
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One of the questions, you know, a lot of people think they're Christian because they were born
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in the USA, but one of the questions I get asked quite often is, you know, is my belief around
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Jesus and, you know, do you believe in the resurrection? Do you believe in the miracles?
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And here's been, become my standard answer has been, well, let me ask you this. Do you believe in
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them? And they'll say, you know, usually yes. And I'll say, what do you live like they're true?
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That's the question I want to know. Is do you have like the tree because here's the thing where
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Christianity started to really, now when I say Christianity, I'm talking about the institutionalized
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Christianity. I'm not talking about the gathering of the people of Christ. I'm talking about the
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institution is when the words and the actions just could not line up. And when they didn't line
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up, the inability to say, y'all know what we fucked that up. So hang on a minute. Let us, we need to
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fix that. So because we are saying that we are a representation of Jesus Christ who we say is
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the Son of God and who we say that we follow this way, truth, life, this love, this person who
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said above everything else you just love, we mess that up. So let us stop take accountability.
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Instead, we just make all these fucking excuses. And then we just pop more shit on top of it.
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It's like, oh, well, I mean, we need a private jet to fly to the other campus that's 3000 miles away.
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And well, of course, my parsing needs to be 23,000 square foot because, you know, I entertain other
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pastors. I'm discipling these men. And so we just hide behind the religion, the religiosity of
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the institution. And then we go, and it's all about God. When in fact, like I listened to a podcast
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yesterday, it's the, I forgot who it was, but somebody sent it to me. It's just due to do the
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documentary called the religion business or something like that. And he said in that podcast, if we
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took half of the money that churches lose on theft by staff, no, half of the money that gets stolen
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by staff yearly, we could end the top 10 global crisis problems of the world. Half of the money that
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gets stolen by the staff, brother, that means we don't have to get rid of planes or we don't have
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to get rid of mansions. We just have to cut down half of what's getting stolen. So I mean,
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dude, it is it, and to grow up in that. And then I was a part of that system for 13 years. And I
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could see it. I mean, when you step behind that pulpit, you're a man with a wife and two children
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and you're trying to raise them. And all of the sudden, you have a $50,000 debt for going to
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seminary and all of the sudden, all of this shit of your family, your, your, your, your career, all of it
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is determined or dependent on you believing the same thing that everybody else is sitting out
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there, believe because if you ever go, you know, I'm not so sure about this thing. They all go, oh,
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wait a minute. Well, then they stop giving it. They stop giving. I don't get a paycheck. I don't
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get a paycheck. My kids go hungry. My kids go hungry. Then we've got a big problem. So you get
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stuck in this cycle of the shit that I say I believe has to be what I believe or I can't feed my
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family. And as a pastor, dude, that is because you never get to question or you can internally, but
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you never get to get it external and go, man, I'm just really dealing with this shit. And I mean,
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you couple that with like myself, just having a fares. I had a sex addiction. You're talking about
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having an addiction, sex addiction that was just drumming. I was a terror, but all that is
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happening behind the scenes, right? It wasn't anybody in my church. I was, oh, okay. That was my
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question. Yeah, no, I was getting, you know, having a fares with women from other places,
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but I was just living this dual life. And to come into this space and to, you know, walk in, I mean,
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right before I lost my job, I would, I was living with my girlfriend. I'd already left my wife.
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I had my kids, and why my kids were grown, but they were still living at home. I'm living with my
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girlfriend. I'm driving from her apartment, dude, to go preach a sermon to the church where my mom,
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my dad, my wife, my kids, we're like propping up this life for a fucking paycheck. And then the
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moment when it did all fall apart, and I did say, you know what, man, I am doing this thing. I
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was abandoned. I mean, kicked to the curb. I went home, reconciled my wife, my kids, but there,
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you know, not everybody in the church, but dude, I got accused of stealing money. I got a
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excuse. So I want to, so okay, that, so a quick, man, yeah, the parallels between being a
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addictions counselor working at an addiction treatment center while being on drugs in secret is,
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is the same. I mean, it's the exact same. And the same deal where like I had,
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at the time I was the only person working out a small child, and it was all about if I,
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and I've understood now that the narrative in my head was not reality, but this is what was
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going on was that like if you, if you get honest, if you lose this, then everything falls apart,
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and it's all going to be your fault. So the only course of action is, is it was like, I'm driving
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the car down the highway, and I have to figure out how to fix the engine without pulling over.
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Yeah. And it was just like, and I just kept fucking the car up even worse. So yeah. So I,
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so my curiosity in your situation was like, so all right, how old were you when you started
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being a pastor? 33. 33. Hey, look at that. I remember, I used to think I used to be like, man,
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maybe Jesus was on to something in like 33 years. It's just the max that you can handle,
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and then you just need to roll out. Um, okay, how long would you, like, how long after seeing how
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the sausage was made? Like, what was the first crack in the fascia for you, like after becoming a
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pastor? Well, so I went to seminary for one reason and one reason only when that was to get answers.
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So I grew, I quit high school, and so I had to go get a GED to do my undergraduate work.
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Went in New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary School. Nice school. Yeah. Yeah. And, and so I went
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there for one reason. I was like, okay, God's called me to do this thing called be a minister to be a
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pastor. And I'm, I'm cool with what we believe. I just need to know why we believe it. And so I go
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in and I start asking questions. And we got about, I was probably two semesters in and I was sitting
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in a classroom, listening to a guy lecture on, I don't know, Christology, theology, Paul, hermeneutics,
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something like that. And I just remember thinking holy shit, he doesn't know. He's making the
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shit up. Like, he is totally making the shit up. And I, and I just remember thinking, oh my God,
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we're literally making stuff up about God. And so at that point, I started asking a lot of questions
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in class. I mean, I would raise my hand like, you know, today we're going to learn about the four
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views of hell. Like how in the, how do we have four views of one place? Right? You know, the,
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the three views of the rapture. I'm like, I hang on once again. So one day, I, um, my professor
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at the end of class were like 13 weeks into a semester. And he said, Mr. Wildkin, I'll see you
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from it out in the hallway during the break. I'm like, yeah. So we walk outside and he goes, look,
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he said, you're going to pass my class. There's no doubt. You know, you just, you, you're doing fine.
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But I need you to do one thing for me. I was like, yes. So he said stop asking questions. Shut the
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fuck up. Yeah. Stop asking. Yeah. And so that moment happened. And then, so and then I got
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handed a book by Philippi Anci called What's So Amazing About Grace. He is my favorite.
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That put a crack in it. And then I got introduced to Rob Bale. And then, oh, my, my curious brain,
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wait, but through Numa or through Numa. Okay. And so he was good then. Yeah. We were down with Rob
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during the videos. Yeah. Strangely enough, that was at a promise keepers conference. And so I
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watched this Numa video. And it was the one called dust. I'll never forget it. And then,
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I think I remember that. And then I got a hold of, you know, velvet Elvis and then, um, blue
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like jazz, which is by the river. And then I was like, oh, my God. What about
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brinning manning? Brinning manning, dude, I read everything. Brinning Manning wrote.
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Yeah. I mean, it's cool. Yeah. So it helped me. Is it? And that was really what kind of started
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my path. And I really think, man, if I would not have had those anchors, I probably would have
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ate a bullet in there at some point in time. I mean, I'm pretty sure. I mean, I had a plan in
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the whole nine yards. And when I finally found the way that I that I cope with everything nowadays,
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which really is what I attribute to keeping me alive, I really found a robust spirituality man.
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And it was a way that everything kind of comes to life. Well, I'm curious what, what would have been
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eating a bullet been about? Like what was it? It would have been a point. The dichotomy's life.
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Like it just, okay, okay. That Romans chapter seven thing. This shit that I don't want to do,
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I just keep fucking doing it. And I just cannot stop. And it was just, well, the only way I know to stop
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is put a bullet in my head. Yeah. Okay. If there is a heaven, I'll get to go. Yeah. Same. I was just
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curious because I was, yeah, it's like, it's, it's funny. It's, it's like the thing, what I believe
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makes me a good therapist and what I believe makes you would make you a good pastor and all that too.
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I can't phone it in. I mean, I just really, I can, obviously, for a period of time,
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but I give a shit. And that's, that's, that can be very problematic if you don't agree with.
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And, and especially I had to like my clinical supervisor a bunch of times, I had to be like,
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I like don't necessarily believe some of the things that I'm like regurgitating. And it's like,
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well, you don't have to. And it's just like, okay, okay. But like, okay. All right. You know,
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I get that. Yeah. In which, which definitely in some cases, like, is still true. And I understand,
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like, there's some battles I just realized, like, I don't have to agree. And it does, and it's,
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it's a, that weird reverse ego where like, you know, some things are helpful to people that
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I don't agree with. But yeah, I was just curious about that. So, I mean, yeah, like, to your point,
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I'm a coach now. So, I mean, I coach people through sometimes recovery, but really,
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I tell folks all the time, really, I'm a spiritual coach. I'm just pointing you toward answers
spk_0
that are already inside of you. But to, to come to that space, man, I, I am so thankful for that
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crazy ass Southern batters upbringing that brought me to a space of being able to finally go,
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oh, wait a fucking minute. Like Rumi said, I searched for God and fell only myself. I searched for
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myself and fell only God to go, oh, wait a minute. That thing is actually in me. Like, it may be
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somewhere else. There may be some grandpa in the sky waiting for me to come jump in his lap.
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I'm not sure. And there may be a Jesus coming back on a white horse with a tattoo on his thug and
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to save all the Christians and lead the rest of them to burn in tribulation. I don't know. I do
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not know. I don't know that for a fact. But what I do know for a fact is whatever that living God is,
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just like Jesus said, the Spirit of God is in me. And I can access that. And that is where hope and
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peace and grace and forgiveness and all of those things that I need for my soul to be okay. That's
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where they are. And even if there is a God somewhere else, the experience of that God is still
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inside of me. It's my experience. Right. Right. So you said that so developing a robust
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spirituality saved you at that point. So like, what did that look like then?
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Yeah. So I mean, I was laying on my left side staring at the wall in my bed,
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planning how I was going to do it. And I had met a guy named Rob Gent. And strangely enough,
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Rob Gent was, uh, had been a seminary and had found his way through Christianity and
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Baptist Christianity, if I'm not mistaken, because I think he went to one of the big five
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and found his way into clinical psychology. And so he worked for a very large
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behavioral health company in America. And I was working for them in wilderness therapy. I was
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in wilderness therapy. God. This is after leaving the past. And so one night I come in from being
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out on shift all week. And we worked with a lot of adopted kids and a lot of them. And yes,
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we did too. Yeah. Any Russian adoptees? Did you ever guess what? Yes. What's up with that? Yeah.
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Yeah. I was a more sex addiction. A lot of them were dealing with sexual issues. Yeah.
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So I'm sitting there one night and Rob is lecturing about how to co-regulate with the kids,
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how to get them to calm down. And he starts talking about this idea that if you have preverable trauma
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that when you're lower brain or you're made to look at triggered, your prefernal cortex goes
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offline. It's called flipping your lid. You're ethereficient all that. And he started teaching us how
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to get the kids to close that prefernal cortex down and access the amygdala. And so I'm laying
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in my bed, planning my suicide. And I thought, okay, I'm going to call this motherfucker because I
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mean, it's like he read my mail. So I shot him an email. I'm like, hey man, I need to talk to you.
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He's, I mean, immediately responded. And that was a God thing because I mean, he's the,
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he's the chief clinical officer of a huge organization. So he emails me back, sets up a call. We get
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on the phone. He's like, look, dude, there is nothing wrong with you. He said, you were a wonderful
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human being. And he said, you have what's called preverable trauma. He said, let me give you some
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tools. And so he introduced me to yoga, breathwork, meditation, cold water, immersion taught me how to
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access my prefernal cortex in times of extreme dysregulation. And dude, I've been using it for going
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on five years now. And it is unbelievable. And that's, I mean, that's what I do now. I was like,
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coach people through those things. I've seen it work from Bethan Bettamine, heroin, sex addiction,
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porn addiction. You name it a grief depression, anxiety when people stick to this ability. And I'm
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going somewhere with this, they stick to this ability. They're able to bring that prefernal cortex
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down into the body and get rational thought into the body. And here's what I thought. That is being
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able to connect what I know to what I do. And I think about when Jesus said, you'll know them by
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their fruit. He's saying your actions tell you what is really going on inside of you. So maybe
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think about addiction, right? Like if I have these habits that I have that are leading to this
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destruction that I don't want to have, there's a disconnection somewhere between my head and my heart.
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Somewhere between what I believe and what I do. And dude, these practices so connect people to being
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able to go, oh, wait a minute. I can access this. But it's just like running a marathon or doing
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crossfit or lifting weights. You don't walk into the gym and deadly at 455 because you decided to.
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You start with wherever you are and then you work your way up and the same thing with nervous
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system regulation. And I know that's a buzz word right now. You know, everybody's like nervous
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system regulation, nervous system regulation. But I could tell you firsthand that what nervous system
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system regulation does is when you understand it scientifically, but apply it spiritually,
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it is unbelievable how you can access the presence of whatever that thing is. Everybody calls
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God. You can just step right into that spot man. And it is unbelievable. And so this is I feel like
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what all right. So I have always I'm sorry, my therapist about this. And it's I am not unique. This
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is an addiction thing where I loathe the present except for when I was high. And that's when I
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am never more present and more connected to my body. The difference being the committee in my head
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is quiet. And it's it's I this was the when I went to treatment the last time that was the
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statement that got my therapist to call the treatment center then and there was I was like day two
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trying to cold turkey it. And I was like, you just do not understand how good it feels to give up.
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And to just just say, okay, I'm fucking going to get it. Like whatever I'm talking to, I mean,
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it is a and everyone that's listening that understands this. It's a hounding and a screaming and a
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aching that is just indescribable and just the simple decision. If you just say, all right,
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we're I'm going. I just get my car. It's like, oh my soothing to just go fuck it. It's the
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yep, the junkie national anthem. Fuck it. Yeah. It's it's I'm yeah, man. It's it's and so she was like,
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okay, how about we I think you should call these folks. Yeah, but I got this it's funny too.
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I got that you get the same relief when you surrender to recovery as well. It's and I was talking
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to someone yesterday. It's almost like, you know, you're getting this and I I'm a spiritual war
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figure. I still so it's like, you're getting this oppression and it's almost like when it figures
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out that you're not going to give it's just like, ah, okay, and it moves on. But it's like, ah,
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the relief. Like when I checked in, it was just like, oh, okay, we're good. Here we go. And then
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there's a here's a thing, man, about that is that fuck it trigger. So I tell my guys that I
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work with and I work with a lot of sex addicts and and you know, most people go heroin, math,
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all the they'll end up at sex eventually and work for sure. Yeah, math especially is all
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ties together, right? Here's what I tell them, we are working in the very minutia of your decision
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making mechanism and what we are trying to do inside that mechanism is gain you a split second
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between fuck it and action. And if we can just create and here's what I found dude, and most
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me and there's two things I use Wim Hofbruth work and then I use cold water immersion that cold
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water immersion grabs that fuck it trigger and it expands their capacity to suffer with it for
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just a moment because here's the truth. If you can just gain the slightest amount of a crack inside
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of that moment and go, oh wait a minute, I can get okay because that feeling of that hounding
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that's all in our nervous system every bit of that shit, every bit of that shit is in our
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desire to survive and we have convinced our amygdala or our limbic system that we have to have
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this thing to survive. And so it starts that that that ump- that center piece of going, I gotta
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have it, I gotta have it, I gotta have it. Our conscious decision to go fuck it lets the body go,
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okay yep we're going to do it and really a lot of times that fuck it is enough to do it long
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enough to get to the thing but if we can catch it and go, oh wait a minute, I'm okay right now
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and we can go let me use all these other tools brothers, breath work, make the call right when
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you're in recovery is like yeah make the call make the call you gotta find another tool but if we
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and it's I love that it's uh I've gotten chills a bunch of time during this conversation but it's
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different aims for the same thing in the in the AA big book it's when going through our day
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we pause when doubtful I mean from the bible that sounded a lot like taking every thought captive
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for Christ. Take every thought captive make it obedient right? And it's true and I um I was doing uh so I've
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never been uh consistently good with meditation I was good and consistent with uh cold cold
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plunges for a good little minute there it's been it's been a while um but yeah and I know
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that that is definitely a a piece that I've always just it's it's it's the area that I lack in but
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when I do like when I was doing cold plunging um and you're you're right because it's like you're
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what's funny too uh I was gonna say it's your body telling you like I don't want to do this and you're
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just kind of like bum or dude we're doing it but uh I did it for um so like there's one gym around here
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that has a um a huge like sauna size cold plunge and uh I think at first I was doing it for like two
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minutes and uh there was this like 79 year old old lady in there and uh after two minutes uh like
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we got in at the same time and after two minutes like I got out she goes like she's like well uh
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where are you going Sunny and I was like I just do two minutes she's like nope you got to do 13
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and I was like okay and I just did it for 13 minutes because that all I was like you're old I guess
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it works I don't know if I have to do it that long but I did that for the longest dude yeah I need
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to start doing that again so the here's what I so what I teach man in my cold plunge I'm looking at
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it's right there on my back porch every morning every single morning of my life my feet hit the floor
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I take a leak and go get in the cold and if I'm not here at my house or I'm somewhere else I just
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jump straight in the cold shower and I do two to three minutes that's all it takes it's like a 22nd
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window to get the prefrontal cortex to reattach to the migdala 20 to 30 seconds and the rest I was
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just about breathing through it I do about 20 minutes of yoga I do three rounds of whim off
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uh breath work and I do 15 minutes of meditation now the reason why I use that combination and this is
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all Jesus related like I pulled all these things through the Bible Romans chapter 12 right I take
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every thought kept it make it obedient no I'm sorry that's not Paul Paul is no condom date with
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shit I'm gonna get my scripture right now that's right don't be conform don't be conform to the
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patterns world be transformed other new in your mind where you can test and prove what God's will
spk_0
is right so if I'm not going to conform to the patterns of this world but be transformed by making
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my mind new that means I literally have to get in there with my mind and create ways to rewire
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those newer pathways and for me yoga gives me the opportunity to feel what my body is trying to say
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so it's that bottom up communication it's like I am moving out of this pattern of my brain telling my
spk_0
body what to do and my body starts telling my brain what it wants so I can create triggers in my
spk_0
body my putting tension in my body then with my breath work I'm opening up my autonomic nervous
spk_0
system but through the whim off breath work I take these 30 huge breaths I activate the
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fight-or-flight response then I hold my breath and I activate my my phone response my calm
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response and then I start working in between the two during that breath hold right so I'm widening
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my capacity in three rounds it gets long I'm holding my breath for two to two and a half minutes
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and then I meditate and meditation is very much about being able to see a thought and let it go
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and that's take every thought captive I'm just watching those thoughts and of course the cold water
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is all about this this trigger mechanism and what I have found dude is through that process
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and I tell people all the time I have an undergraduate degree in theology I have a master's degree
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in international community development I went to Oxford all of that information can come into my body
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it's stopped being three theoretical abstract shit floating around up there in the the ethos and
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I became oh that's what Jesus meant when he said if you really want to see the kingdom of heaven
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you got to be born again that's what he meant he doesn't mean born again so that you can access
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something somewhere else some day some bright morning when this life is over Jesus was saying right
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now I can stop right now and access this kingdom of heaven which is peace inside of me anytime I want
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to and dude when people learn how to do that it changes their life yeah so so a cold shower is
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just as good oh yeah the fact I'd say cold showers are it is are you are you allowed to turn it
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warm after or does that negate it now I mean I think so here's the thing about the cold water
spk_0
and when I start teaching people and in listen when I bring people in for their initial coaching
spk_0
consultation I will start learning the practices are on man ninja tree we do this as well some of
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it would get in the ice water this can't take it they jump right back out I mean they're nervous
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system just cannot take that level of dysregulation since sometimes I start people with a cold pack
spk_0
on their chest for 15 seconds some people I say turn the water to cold at the end of your hot
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shower try 15 seconds but I think optimal as you get in with it cold you stay with it for a
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couple minutes to get out and let your body kind of warm up on its own but I would just say any
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version of setting off that alarm in your head and finding calm is starting to train that mechanism
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that the ability to access rational thought in the midst of dysregulation because that's all
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we're doing uh yeah okay rational thought in the midst of dysregulation so so yeah it's like once
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you finally move from like oh my god it's so cold oh my god so cold I need to get out of here it's
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like once you finally find that okay but you find that I'm okay I'm okay yeah yeah and so what uh
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so like an intro what would be a good intro a three round whim Hof thing yeah so you can you can
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find it just about anywhere on the internet and I have a YouTube video out there that that is also
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but you do 30 deep breaths and you're I usually do mine laying down cheers
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and that you just I mean you're doing one after the other after the other
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uh about that fast you do 30 on the last breath you let all your breath out and hold okay and
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when you let all your breath out and hold here's what starts to happen you eventually have to
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breathe right because nobody cannot breathe in that moment so you let all that breath out and
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you fill your body want to breathe but you stay anyway you're letting your amygdala fire off
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and go hey man we need to breathe but your prefrontal cortex goes hang on a minute we just took
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30 breaths we're okay you stay a little longer then that amygdala goes hey man we need to breathe
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and then you go oh hang on a minute you're managing your panic now clearly you can't stay there forever
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right you eventually have to you have to breathe but you're managing your panic now once you can't
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do that any longer or you feel like you you've done enough you take this deep breath in and you
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hold that for 15 seconds well what that deep breath does is it rewards the nervous system for staying
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in all it's just like it's this reward it's just like addiction yeah but you're rewarding it with
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oxygen you're taking this deep breath in you hold it for 15 seconds you let it go your body
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relaxes you hit round two most folks round one I mean even like cold never done it before they're
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going to hold your breath between 30 and 45 seconds and when we get on up to on when I do retreats
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I take people between six and eight rounds they're holding their breath upward at two and a half to three
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minutes but they're accessing the pineal gland in that space and that's where we get access to
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diamond the trip to mean we get access and into the Bible right and we start having these moments
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to where our brain I believe our brain starts going okay I can relax totally and I can start to
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access and to me that's the presence of God well and it's yeah I always it's it's it's it's it's
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of help it's a it's funny that this idea is novel to people but it's like cocaine doesn't like
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theoretically and I can't I might have been CS Lewis who like theorized that Adam had complete
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control over his entire body and so I could make myself hair when high right now and that's evidence
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by when I would get the text from my dealer that says on the way I am immediately not doapsic I
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all the molecule is doing is telling it's either closing off a gate opening a gate or like it's
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it's doing innate endogenous things so yeah so that's the same as like holotropic breathing
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it's the same deal yeah same thing yep yep it's about a communication so we think about like
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take mushrooms LSD yeah whatever something that's become the the big hoop law right it's like
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people are going down going on our waska trips but the problem is we hear all this romanticizing
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about that but I have a good therapist for in the mind and she's like yeah I have people go do that
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and come back and I'm trying to stitch their consciousness back together because they're they're
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short cutting into something that they can actually just do themselves my buddy is learning how to
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communicate yeah my buddy called it spiritual pornography and ever since I heard that term I was
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like that's exactly what it is and I have paid that I mean that's I've paid that price by like
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I mean it's the classic uh what McKinno is like what you hear the message hang up the phone
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I kept that bitch on my ear dude it was like yeah eventually eventually dude you're not yeah you get
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way too far out there um so god this was like the fastest 50 minutes ever this was great but I
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wanted to uh we do it again man I love yeah for sure um one point I wanted to bring up because this
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is uh it's the classic pushback against uh things like yoga and inner working stuff and uh personal
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thing um how do how is it put it was basically like it's like the difference between
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Christianity and Eastern uh religions is uh Eastern teaches that like salvation is from yourself
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Christianity teaches that it's from God or whatever so do you like how how do you mold those two
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where it's like I'm not uh think is that makes sense I'm trying to form it into a question but
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I think you get what I'm saying I got you well first of all Christianity is Eastern religion so
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just because the Greeks to get over that making no it started in Virginia I'm pretty sure yeah
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what were you saying seminary saying that it's so fun it's good enough for Peter is good enough
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for me oh man here's the thing about Christianity is if you take the words that Jesus taught
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Jesus said when they say the kingdom of heaven is over here or say over there don't listen to
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them because the kingdom of heaven is in your midst it is in you then he turned around and when
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they said so you're saying you're the son of God he said sure I am and so are you we all are
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Jesus never wants teaches and people could challenge me with this like an email me Jason
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dot loud at these sacred grit dot com he never once said that salvation would happen outside of
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yourself Jesus taught that salvation was something that happens inside of yourself and so even when
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if we were to say that penal substitutionary atonement that Jesus died on the cross for our sins we're
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saying that to believe in that is the road to salvation well then that means it's an internal
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response it is me saying that there is something that I believe I'm coaching a guy right now he's
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he's older and I mean he is so far into the Jesus stuff and so we're constantly taking these
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scriptures in yesterday we're working step seven you know and and he's praying you know God I
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lift up these defects of character to you and God I ask you to fix these defects of character and
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when he got done I said okay now can I pray for you it's like yeah I said God inside of him
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take these things and crucify them inside of him not in some far off imaginary fairy tale land
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inside of him that's where the crucifixion has to happen so to crucify the flesh to me means
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I'm letting go of this experience that I have created in my mind and I'm giving up to the
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actual experience of being human here and now because even when somebody calls me Jason that's
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a construct of society and when somebody says that I am a spiritual leader that's a construct of
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society and to say that I'm an addict that's a construct of society what I am is a pure living
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child of the living God and I can access that any time I want to and if I learn how to access that
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love that peace that is already inside of myself and love myself fully yeah man that I can take out
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into the world and I actually have something to give as long as I'm looking for all this external
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stuff to fix my insides I'm just addicted to something else but when I learn how to love myself
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to get up in the morning say every morning of my life I will love me first so this guy also asked
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me yesterday he said I want to be selfless I said well what is selfless he said well self is just
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not thinking of myself so much I still can't let's bullshit you can't do that but here's what
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selflessness is if I wake up in the morning and I choose to love me first I'm going I'm going to
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do the things that make my soul feel good I can leave after that hour or so of time and I don't
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need to think of me anymore I started my day thinking of me I thought of me I loved me I gave
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myself the things that I needed but if I hop in the up in the morning and go running out the door
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slamming coffee and you know God damn it so fucking trying to all I think of is me all day man
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I'm scrapping I'm scrapping around trying to go I need to fix me I need something to fix but if
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I wake up in the morning and just go I'm cool I'll handle in me right here right now when Jesus
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said they asked him they said what is the greatest commandment he said love the Lord your God
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with all your heart soul monastrate them then do this love your neighbor as you love yourself
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will do if you can't love your freaking self you cannot love your neighbor and you cannot
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love God and you're just taking more shit out into the world and expect everybody else to fix you
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damn that is the bow I'm going to wrap this in yeah we are we are definitely going to talk again
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I want to give you uh so just tell everyone where they can find everything the sacred grip.com
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just go to the sacred grip.com you can find everything there I also run an organization called
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adventures and recovery I saw that it's a it's a nonprofit alumni that everybody who either comes
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through the sacred grip program or they come through an alumni hiking trip we do a bring a buddy
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hiking trip in the spring they can come be a part of it we do events every month soon calls every
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month so yeah dude oh yeah I would love we want to talk about retreats and I would love to
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do that somehow yeah well send me an email at church another drug is gmail.com patreon.com
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lecture channel goes and we will see you next time
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we still put it on again for them to feel
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like the living in the world
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but nobody's there
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so
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but nobody's there
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so
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so
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For nobody's sake
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So long
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For nobody's sake
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So long
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But nobody's voice could throw like mine
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Just silence on the mistkin'
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I shouldn't have gone as far now
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All this left is
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The future is still missing out in black
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And crossing my forest was the day I was born
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I wanna protect this love perfume
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Only second fear of you
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Will never really let us do
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But only till we see true
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No one can stop us