How to Overcome a Painful Past & Break Codependent Attachment, Expand Consciousness, & Find Yourself, with Pete Holmes
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I went into this session wanting to talk about this anger that's really irrational. It's really hard to look at the therapist. He was like, can you just find the anger? Where do you feel it in your body? I,

I like a visual and I see this like kind of emaciated bear with very sharp claws that's been sequestered to a cave. And you're just kind of dreaming awake. And she's like, let's just talk to it. Ask it, what are you protecting? Now I'm in the cave. I'm talking to the bear. This bear, it doesn't like this. It thinks it's bullshit. Everything that my dad would think about this, this bear thinks. Shut the fuck up like it's dumb.

At one point, a voice comes from not the bear and it's like, "Why are we trying to like partner with this thing?" All he does is destroy. Kept talking to the bear. "We see that you're trying to protect us." - The idea is to integrate the bear and not exile the bear. - Exactly. 'Cause it's not really a bear, it's a part of me. I put him in the cave.

I chained him to the wall and he's starving. So of course, anything that comes near the cave, he's going to devour it. I was like, at least it's strong. It's fiercely trying to protect us. We found this whole new tidal wave of real love and appreciation for the bear. My therapist was like, can we make a plan to just say good morning to the bear?

just as a way to integrate it. We were just like, thank you. You're so strong and decisive. Come with us and help me because you are useful and helpful and I don't want to starve you anymore. I'd like you to be at the table. I was unskilled and you trained me.

I was forgotten, and you reached out to me. I was fatherless, and you nurtured me. I was broken, and you mended me. As Jesus says, whatever you do for the least of these, you do unto me. Support a child in his name through Compassion International at Compassion.com slash unto me.

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Hey, I just found out something astounding. Approximately 63% of those of you listening to or watching My Ambienics Breakdown are not subscribed. We know you're listening and we know you're watching because of all of the awesome comments you leave telling us how My Ambienics Breakdown is helping you lead a happier and healthier life. We love that. But...

The best way to support our show is to subscribe. It's also the only way to get latest updates and to know when new episodes drop. So anywhere that you listen to podcasts and on YouTube, please subscribe. Hit the bell icon so that you know when a new episode drops. Thank you so much, and on to the episode. Hi, I'm Mayim Bialik. I'm Jonathan Cohen. And welcome to our breakdown. This is the place where we break things down so you don't have to. I mean, we have such an exciting guest. We're going to answer such questions as, what is the nature of reality?

What is the nature of consciousness? Is it okay for children to be kissed on the lips by their parents? We're going to answer the question of what happens when we feel torn and have dual loyalties to people. How does that impact our sense of self? We're also going to talk about what happens when you find out you're being cheated on. Is there a way to turn that into an understanding that it might be for the best?

And to that point, how do we see some of the bad things that we may perceive in the moment with a higher perspective that it may be all part of our plan to help us get where we actually want to go in our life? And finally, is there a personality type that is mean to small children? The person who's going to answer all of these things with us is Pete Holmes.

Pete Holmes is a hilarious stand-up comedian. He's also the creator and star of HBO's Crashing, produced by Judd Apatow. And TBS is The Pete Holmes Show, produced by Conan O'Brien. He has a podcast called You Made It Weird, which I'm going to be on. And he's the author of a book called Comedy Sex God. He was destined to be a youth pastor.

but always felt that there was something not right about that path and became a comedian. I cannot say enough...

loving and kind things about the wisdom of Pete Holmes and the hilarity. This man is so funny, yet so deep, so philosophical. It's such an amazing gift to be able to blend both of those attributes to speak about things that are really at the core nature of what it means to be human, embodied, spinning on this rock through time and space and trying to understand what it all means and then doing it, like really making us laugh like we never have before.

I'd say this is one of our most diverse episodes in terms of the content covered. So let's welcome Pete Holmes to the breakdown. Break it down. Pete Holmes, welcome to the breakdown. Thank you. That's a thing we say.

I know. And Andrew Wheel was like, like on the spot. He knocked over his chia seeds. He blew it. You're talking to pure showbiz now. Thank you, Mayim. To camera. It's great to be here. On the breakdown. What are we breaking down today? You, apparently. Uh-oh. Somebody beat you to it. I've been broken down.

I'm on the tumble cycle. We're really, really excited to get to talk to you. You and I met on the set of Hollywood Squares. Yeah. And you've been someone that we've been trying to talk to for a long time. But I know it wasn't my charismatic self that you saw on Hollywood Squares that day that convinced you that we needed to have a match made. I hate this. Can I tell you? I can't. Keep going. But...

I was really, really excited to get to talk to you and excited to do your podcast as well. I'm super thrilled. Well, what's breaking my heart was on Hollywood Squares, there's nine comedians or whatever you want to say. Nine personnel, nine humans, nine comedians.

genetically modified personality humans. And there were so many episodes where people didn't really get to participate. Mine was one of those. And yours was one of them. And it broke my heart every single time. And it doesn't matter how evolved you are, how well-loved you are. No, it feels bad. How boundaried and balanced you are. I spent more time in makeup and hair and travel. No, I know.

then there. The advice that I would give was like everybody that I, I don't want to Pete-splain, but like I have a heart for my people, anybody that's doing something on camera. And I'm like, you just have to like insert yourself into it. And I don't think you could have done that. No. Well, I'm not, I'm not an inserter. If that's not a soundbite, I don't know what is. Here's the thing. I think if I had done, you know, I only, I could only do one episode. So, and that was the thing. I knew it was kind of like a crap shoot. Like it was,

It wasn't a one in nine because that's not the stats, but it was about a 30% chance, you know, that you could. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I...

The reason I was nervous to do it, and this does lead into something about you. I didn't bring you here to talk about me. That's like my podcast. If you take a nice 10-minute jaunt, I'll feel so at home. I'll just superimpose my face on your face because that's how I do. A thing that happens when you are a comedy person is that people assume that I am spontaneously, constantly writing jokes. And there are many comedians who...

who can think that way. And you, every time something happened, you were freaking hilarious because your, your brain, it, it works that way and not all of ours do. So I kind of like sat there, I sat there next to like Tiffany Haddish and Christian Shaw and I was just like, everyone is so funny. They're so funny. Which leads me to, you and I are the same Enneagram number. Ooh.

Ooh, wait. What do you think my Enneagram is? We think you're a four. I am. I'm equal parts three and four. So I claim both. Of course you are. Because that's the most four thing you can do. Exactly. The most four thing you can say is I'm not a four. Correct. I'm a three and a four. Right. So... What does it mean that she so claims her fourness? Well, no, I also... No, I don't think that was...

I don't. How dare you? Yeah, I'll say it. What I was going to say was that that sense of, you know, feeling like they have something I don't. I'm not like I'm not doing it right. I don't fit in. Right. For me, when I learned about Enneagram, I was like, oh, like my therapist has explained this for 30 years. Yeah. But I had never heard it, you know, in a kind of like

personality profile like that. And so as I was doing my research, thank you, Valerie, for helping us do my research. Not my wife, this Valerie. Different Valerie. When I was doing the research, I was surprised how much I related to a lot of your experience. Oh, great. So this had me thinking like, huh, is this a thing? So we both were raised in

a variety of flavor of religious childhood. So all the things that come with that.

Rules, restrictions, guidelines, you know, secrets, hiding, badness. And then I was like, oh, you're a deep thinker. You're a very cerebral person and very much, and obviously this has sort of been a lot of your career, is being vulnerable, talking about these things. Also being on a particular spiritual journey separate from, you know,

religion per se. And, you know...

Like, I don't have your psychedelic vocabulary and encyclopedia of experience, but, you know, this notion of trying to find this intersection between a religious past and a spiritual present or future. And so then when I found out that you were a four, I was like, are we a formula? Is this the formula? Do you get a four by this? I know so many fours. Tell me. They're not. No, fours are...

Well, I don't know. Your glasses frames are pretty standard for a four. I'll say that.

Usually for Enneagram four is the individualist. Is that the title? I think it's the artist, right? Oh, but yeah, I think it might be called. I don't know what the framing is. I feel like the one who most people commit suicide, if you want to be totally honest. But don't you think that's just so cool? I mean, I'm not trying to belittle suicide, but even when you're like, I went on Hollywood squares and I couldn't engage.

My four is a pretty positive four that I'll be like, because I don't fit into that phony shit. You know what I mean? Like, it's a great number to be if you want to turn anything in your favor. But I'm not... The way that I identify with fours, and I'm curious your experience, is like I really...

I don't like when people say I don't like small talk, but I really can't handle it very much. And I'd much rather talk about what you're afraid of. My main feeling in life is we're all pretending like this isn't

astronomically confusing, strange. And I'm not talking about current events. I'm talking about being. I'm talking about being on a rock in outer space, breathing oxygen, walking around, being a tube. Things go in here, they come out there. Reproduction, sex, food, all of it is just so strange. And I watched that with my daughter. She's six. She knows that it's strange. We're indoctrinating her into that. And fours are like...

the people that are like, when I was a kid, the way that I explained it in my book was, I'm a what is fire person. I was always going like, what is fire? And they'd be like, well, it's the combusting of this and that. And I'm like, well, that's the chemical relationship that's happening. But what is fire? It took me a long time, probably four decades, to realize my question really is, what is consciousness? What is observant? What is aware of fire? And what fire ultimately, I think, is made of is consciousness. But we can get into that. I don't know.

Who cares? Uh-oh, consciousness-only model over here. But being a person that wants to talk about what is going on here. I almost called my first book, What Is This? Because that is the question. What is this? And I think it's one of those wonderful questions that even if you don't get the answer and you won't, participating with that mystery and that wonder is the way to enjoy your breakfast more or to enjoy this conversation more. It also drops you into the moment and we're just, if we can all just like,

Sometimes on my podcast, I'm like, could we just pretend after this podcast, we're going to die? Like we die immediately after this podcast. How differently would you engage with this? You know what I mean? And maybe that's morbid, but for fours, that's not morbid. That's completely valid. Right. To be like, let's just pretend this is the last conversation you ever have. You can also frame it more positively and say, pretend it's the first conversation you've ever had.

And how exciting. Everything becomes less disposable. Yeah, exactly. That's like the anarchy in life is that everything is disposable. Nothing means anything. And yet if you put some parameters on it, either first or last, then all of a sudden everything is heightened. That's right. Yeah. You just don't want to sleepwalk through anything. I mean, which most people are. Absolutely. What does that look like? Do you think sleepwalking? Yeah. Like what, what do you, how would you kind of encapsulate that? Hmm.

I have a joke. I've never done it, but I was like, my dad, the problem is like we're on our phones all the time. And I'm like, my dad was on his phone through the entire 80s. Like he didn't have a phone. But the reason why phones are so sort of upsetting to us is it mirrors back to us what we're all kind of doing. Even without the phone. Without the phone. You're planning, you're replaying.

You mentioned that you haven't done psychedelics and I haven't done that many. I actually didn't say that. I said, I don't have the dictionary. Oh, the acumen? Exactly. I don't have the encyclopedia that you do. Forgive me. I thought you were trying to distance yourself from my... I was never. Okay. We're one.

Well, when you take, I've had certain experiences with and without drugs, but the one that I'm thinking about right now was with drugs. And it became the funniest thing in the world that we use the blank screen of the present moment and your awareness, your aliveness.

And on that blank screen, we just project a guess of the future, which is almost always wrong. Or we replay the past. I know this is basic stuff, but like you're just replaying stuff that already happened. What a waste of the screen. Go live. Go live on Instagram. Go live. Like let's see something new instead of,

badly reenacting the past, and it's always in your favor, not in your favor, even worse, or just guessing on the future, even though you're batting zero. You just keep doing it. And sometimes one of the things that psychedelics, or love, or art, or beauty, or music, or theater, or lots of things,

can drop you into the raw potential, the limitless potential of what's happening right now. And you kind of wake up. That's like coming. I don't mean spiritually wake up. I mean, you snap into the moment. You walk a different way home. Or you look your dog in the eye. Or you hold your daughter's hand and you watch her little fingers curl around your thumb and you're there for it. That's one of the things that psychedelics does is it deletes those competing stimuli.

Right. And it helps you just do what you're doing. You might be running from a clown, but it helps you do what you're doing. MindBalance Breakdown is supported by AG1. AG1 is daily self-care for me and Jonathan. We know that we're doing at least one good thing for our bodies every day when we start our day with AG1. For the past three years that we've been using AG1, we're giving our bodies the vitamins, minerals and more that they need, supporting our whole body health, including gut and immune health.

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Mymbiolix Breakdown is supported by BetterHelp. Jonathan, have you ever been in an environment where you felt like you couldn't be your full authentic self? You know, there's only a little bit of myself I can bring to this podcast. I have a lot of big ideas that are just itching to come out. I

I bet many of us know the feeling of hiding behind some sort of mask. October is the season for wearing masks and costumes, but some of us might feel like we're wearing a mask or hiding more often than we want to, maybe at work, in social settings, even around our family. Therapy can help you learn to accept all parts of yourself so you can take off the mask.

Therapy has been a place where I've been able to figure out how much I'm doing for myself versus how much I think I have to do for other people and all the places that I kind of end up hiding so that I'm not getting my needs met. If you're thinking of starting therapy and want to explore this kind of thing, give BetterHelp a try. It's entirely online. It's designed to be convenient, flexible, and suited to your schedule. All you have to do is fill out a brief questionnaire. They'll match you with a licensed therapist, and you can switch therapists at any time for no additional charge.

Take off the mask with BetterHelp. Visit BetterHelp.com slash break today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp. H-E-L-P dot com slash break. Whether you're making the same breakfast that you have every day or baking a cake for an extra special day, eggs are a staple in our diets. Eggland's best eggs are nutritionally superior to ordinary eggs, containing more vitamins and 25% less saturated fat.

Not only are they better for you, but Eggland's best eggs taste better too. There's a reason that they're America's number one eggs. Visit egglandsbest.com for additional information and delicious recipes. Inherent in that idea that you just described is also that there is an enormous amount of information in the present, in sober life, that we are missing by having these projections of the future.

with having these replayings of the past that we're actually filling in an enormous amount of detail that could be derived in the present without those things yeah that we're missing out on and that they can bring an enormous amount of joy because they're almost like sparks of of creativity sparks of like observation that we basically just paint over i think it requires a lot of surrender and vulnerability and those aren't virtues that are really celebrated would rather be who

who we are, our identity, and be right or wrong in the past or the present, I mean in the past or the future, then be vulnerable. It's actually very, it's a little bit scary to lose yourself in a moment and be that vulnerable. That's why like you think about like a real person

machismo kind of knucklehead. Yeah, of course I went to Trump. I can't think of Trump looking at a painting and just crying because that's not his brand. You could say that about a lot of people. I couldn't imagine a lot of like, you know, shoot from the hip, like kick ass first, ask questions later people. And that's kind of what reality is asking you to be

I was going to say penetrated. I don't know how else to say it. Like to vanish inside of it. And that's a very scary thing. Would rather be suffering and know that we are Pete Holmes or John Holmes, or that's my dad, or anybody. No, you're that thing. And

and have dominion over it than imagine like letting it just wash over you and kind of take you away in it. And even if you don't cry in that moment, what you have to say is, I don't know for a second. Yeah. I can't picture Trump trying on sunglasses. Like they're too vulnerable. I don't know. Do these look okay? Are these all right? Are these okay? Like it's the most vulnerable thing in the world to be like, I don't know. It's a bit much. It's a bit much the shape of my head. It always looks good in the store. And then you walk out, you look dumb, right? I look dumb. J.D., J.D.,

Are these all right?

Look at the glasses. Like I do the same thing. That's, that is a joke, obviously, that I just made. But I sometimes think about my dad trying on sunglasses. Somebody that is a little bit larger than life and impenetrable. And I love my dad, but he's not super vulnerable. Sometimes to access compassion for him, I'll imagine him trying on sunglasses in a sunglass hut in a mall. And just that quiet, he's alone. He puts them on and he's like, I don't know. You know, like that humanizes and softens anybody that I'm struggling with.

I wonder if we can kind of go back a little bit because so much of this also, you know, reminds me of an awareness that you have, you know, kind of in the shadow of how you grew up, meaning, you know, you were right. Like if you're if you're raised with a lot of

especially of a religious variety, it's kind of like, here are the answers. Like, here's what to do, here's how to do it. Here's what not to do, don't do it, or, and then insert threat, you know, or whatever. So I also wonder, do you see, you know, kind of this awakening? Was that something that was always in you? Like, I think it's fascinating you were supposed to be like a youth pastor. Like, you were on a track to be a pastor, but you felt, you found you were funnier than,

you know, as opposed to being more religiously convincing. Can you talk a little bit about sort of your understanding of sort of what that structure created and how in you it gave birth to this need to kind of see beyond it? Yeah, what a generous and good question. I think, yeah, you may. But I have to have dominion over it. You may. Okay.

You may, you may clap. Do these look all right? Blue blockers? Do people wear them? It is one of those things we could just do that the rest of the episode. It'd be fine. But when you mentioned your dad trying on glasses, that's what made me think of it. Like my dad, which was an extension of like the patriarchal Judeo-Christian structure, my dad had to know everything. Meaning in my mind, like he had to have all the answers. And if something didn't make sense to him, he found...

a way, you know, to make it wrong. Right. Like, um, that's right. You know, like a lot of bureaucratic things. And I think his attention also, he had a hard time focusing on like forms and things like that. So it was like, I don't vote. I don't want to save money. I don't want to invest. He didn't know how to do research about banking and things. So it was like, I don't believe in it. And, you know, so it's like,

It's that bending of rules. My father does the same thing. And I'm actually quite impressed with my dad and can also, you know, take issue with the weight because I don't want to do it that way myself. But it's like taking a weakness and making it this sort of like

cocksure strength to be like, oh no, I'm doing Trump. That's dumb, Peter. My dad did real estate and he made a lot of money in real estate. I'm not saying he's a mogul. I'm just saying he did okay in real estate. And he understands that. And he doesn't understand the stock market. I'm not, dad, I'm not shots fired. I'm just saying he had stock in Apple and he sold it.

He had it in like the 80s because somebody told him to buy Apple. I'm firing shots at your dad. Shots fired. And, you know, in my heart of hearts, and my dad would be like, well, you get real estate, Peter, because it's real. Why he do that with his tongue? He does this. My dad's always kind of chewing. Similar to Jeff Bridges, man. You gotta get some real estate.

real estate, man. I thought you were great on Hollywood Squares and when I was on Celebrity... It's falling apart. The impression is slipping away like a kite. My dad...

And I can see why growing up in the sepia-toned streets of Boston in the 70s, he developed this as a survival thing. He was like, real estate is real. You can buy it. You can visit it. You can paint it. You can sell it. You can watch it. People are always going to need places to live. I understand it. The real estate, I'm sorry, the stock market, what do you do? Where is it? I don't understand. It goes up. It goes down. It goes up.

So instead of saying, and I do have the fantasy of my father being like, honestly, Peter, I think about that Apple stock. It was a really humbling moment.

I mean, if I just held on to that, but I had to say, Jay, you don't know everything. You know, like if he could have said that and been like a modern dad, that would have been great. But I have to kind of celebrate and try to appreciate what he did do, which is a little bit more swinging dick. And he's like, fuck the stock market, buy apartment buildings. And I'm like, all right, that's fine. It worked for him. It worked for him. And my dad has sort of like a

He did teach me. I have friends. My brother-in-law is like, I wish my father had taught me to like go for it and take risks and take up space. So there are all these lessons that my dad did teach me that are extensions of the same sort of whatever you want to call it. But to answer your question. To my first point, yeah. I think...

I would say that growing up in the church and with a religious mother and a father who went along with it, it did in a good way introduce me to some of the big questions of life. There's a really one of my favorite pastimes is reclaiming things from both the Old and the New Testament.

in my own understanding and going like, oh my God, that's incredible. I can't tell you how much I go to the Burning Bush or the Garden of Eden or the Prodigal Son. Those are kind of my big three. But like those stories and those stumbles still really work for me. They just don't work in the way that they were introduced to me. One of the things that was tricky for me was I remember feeling like as a child, I don't believe you. Like going, I don't buy it.

I call bullshit. You think, and I would ask, you know, I'd be like, you think everyone who doesn't pray the sinner's prayer to Jesus goes to hell. And I just go, so everyone in the Holocaust left hell and went to hell? That, well, I don't understand. And every starving child in Africa that a missionary didn't get to left hell and went to hell? And forget that. What about, Rob Bell makes this incredible point. It's fucking metal in this book he wrote called Love Wins. It really changed my life.

It's a metal. I almost don't like it. It's so fierce. But he goes, there's something in the church called the age of accountability, and it's seven years old. So if a child dies before they're seven, they go to heaven. And he just says, well, if that's the system, wouldn't it be more gracious to just end all of our lives at six? I know that's dark. But he's like, we're talking about eternal damnation. Take it out of the equation. And by the way, there have been some really mentally disturbed people that I don't even like talking about. I'm just saying that's...

what it looks like when someone goes, can we get real about what we're talking about here? Conscious living eternal torment, which is what I was raised to believe in, hell, is a thing. We should just do everything we can to avoid it, apparently. But I just didn't buy it. I saw a lot of people talking about church and the meaning of life and the big picture of life with the same banality that they talked about sports or Chili's as a restaurant. And I was just kind of like going like, I don't buy it.

I don't buy any of this. And it sort of, it sent me to Israel. I studied in Israel for a semester and I asked all the rabbis and everybody that I knew. And a lot of them, I was like, also disappointed. I was like, well, shit, man. Like how much of this is culture? How much of this is just wanting to fit in? Enneagram sixes, just like tribalism. And I'm not putting it down. Tribalism has its place. But at a certain point I was like,

oh what i'm looking for is is uh a little bit further afield from this and it took my first wife leaving me briefly becoming an atheist i called it a heratius because it was a nice break from a god that i thought wanted to torment and torture and kill me and then um finding joseph campbell finding ramdas finding rob bell um and

Alan Watts, those types of people and doing psychedelics. Although I don't want to oversell that. Sure. That was part of it. I wonder if we can take a little pit stop at this marriage that you just, you know,

You kind of tucked it in there, but also, you know, a part of your career is about confronting it. So it feels safe to talk about. Yeah. You, is it true that you really were an abstainer, like before you got married? According to the internet. Right. No, but I'm saying you were living, were you living a Christian life as it were? Okay. This is a great question because I didn't believe myself.

You know what I mean? It wasn't like I was just looking around my church and going like, I'm the only legit believer here. I looked at my own reality. I'd ask myself, do you think these starving children in Africa are going to hell? And I'd be like, no. I didn't even have to intellectualize it. I just looked at my behavior. I was like,

I had friends that weren't Christian and I thought they were just great. And occasionally, it's called witnessing to them. I would occasionally witness to them and it was just the most awkward. How do you witness? There's nothing, you're going to hate it.

Have I told you about my personal savior? Jesus Christ. It's that. You start you open like that. In my teenage years, I was... What am I supposed to say? No. Tell me. I don't know if I would actually say that. I'd probably be like, listen up, dog. My man, JC. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. That's more engaging to me than have I told you about. I think one of my friends, we're still friends. He did...

sort of become a Christian per my nudging. Is there anything weirder than that? But, and we still laugh about it. I remember we were sitting on like a grassy field and I was probably, I'd probably be knowing me and my Enneagram fourness. I was probably like, do you ever think about hell? Do you ever worry about that? Like I just went right to the issue because really the sales pitch is built in.

there's a clock on it so we want to create urgency any any good sales why why now we've got to incentivize so you never know when you're going to die it's pretty good and then there's a great hook there's a great hook so you put the ticking clock on it and then you say good news all you have to do is there's a solution pray this prayer i just did an interview a couple days ago and i realized how long it's been since i've talked to like just kind of like a straight-laced religious person

he was talking about what he does to prepare for death he was a undertaker and i i just thought it'd tell me about like his paperwork or something bureaucratic and he was like well i go to confession once a week and i really wanted to be like on one hand i can go like look if if going to confession helps you taste your innocence then that's a nice ritual but if we want to unpack it and go like

So if you got hit by a bus... It's a transactional relationship you're creating with a god that you think exists. I'm hugely upset by it. Yeah. Everything you just said. But also, and this is in, I think it's in Hamlet. He's going to kill somebody, but he won't do it until after they confess their confession. So a lot of human history is believed at the moment of confession, that's a good time to die because you're clean.

And I really do take issue with that idea of a God. I forget who said it.

it was probably richard rohr we've made a god in our image instead of the other way around we're petty we're transactional we want to forgive but but the the awareness that i believe in is mercy it isn't merciful it is mercy if that makes any sense so what what what um what does make sense if not like what what is your explanation of

in that sense? We're all clean always forever. There's no such thing. We're all dirty always forever. Do you have a framework that does sit right with you? The way that I understand this is

as simply as i can because i'm not i learned a lot of this from my teacher rupert spira and he can answer these questions yeah and he's because he's speaking from that place sure i touch that place and i spend more and more time in that place but i'm not him no but i'm just curious if you're like there's no sin like we're all just right my definition of sin would be unconsciousness it's sort of similar to um sleepwalking or forgetting who you are we could do the prodigal son thing the

The way that I was raised was Jesus died for your sins and that blood atonement in a very like extension of the Old Testament. Here's the ultimate sacrifice. He died for your naughtiness and now you can go and reunite with God. In my current view, you've never been separate from God. Right. How could you be?

Rupert has this beautiful point where he's like, it's not blasphemous to say in your essence is divinity. It's actually blasphemous to say you stand apart from God. That's blasphemous. It's to say I'm apart from the ground of being. I'm over here. And sometimes I picture it like drawing it, like this is God, this is God. Whoop, there's Mayim. Like somehow separate. So from this worldview, it's helpful to think for me, it's like a dream.

at night, this is like God's dream, or you could just think of your dream. At night, there are wicked people and they are made of my mind. And when they die, they go back into my mind. And we realize when we woke up, nothing really ever happened. And in another real sense, when I was asleep, I wasn't even really aware of what they were doing. It was just kind of, it's not a lucid dream, just sort of happening in a very similar way. I think my daughter's name is Lilo, which means the play of the universe. This is sort of like

one way to understand it is God's dream. And wickedness and goodness is stuff that labels that the thinking mind imposes on them. The prodigal son, which I love making this point as many times as I can, but I can do it very quickly,

is, you know, a son is born into a kingdom. That's important. It's his birthright. He didn't earn it. He's a nepo baby. He inherited it, but that's you. You inherited it. You were born. Harry Potter realizes his parents were wizards. Every fairy tale realizes their parents were royalty. There's a reason we keep telling this story.

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You know, I've seen the Narnia movies, like that's literally, and I'm not a Christian person, but you know, there's something very moving about this notion that exactly how you are with all of your imperfections, exactly how you are is how you were made to be. And there is something useful in the parts of you that still get to grow, mature, repair, but that, you know, and, and

I mean, I do want to get back to your filthy marriage. But that notion that like we, and this is not a, it's not a Christian idea. It is most popularized in Christian liturgy and in that sort of framework. But

when you think of it from a Ram Dass perspective, from a deep transcendental, you know, outside of Judeo-Christian, you know, kind of structure, that is the notion that we have all inherited this conscious experience. Yeah. The two questions that are super important is who or what is aware of my experience? And this is Rupert. And the second one is what is the nature of

of that knower. And when you recognize that knower, this impartial kind of witness, we could say, but just the field of being wherein everything, all your experience happens, it is peaceful. It is happiness. You stop looking for it in objective experience and you start actually kind of, and this is metaphorical, but you sink back into it. So that's recognizing that your parents are wizards. That's recognizing that

The story of the beggar sitting on the box asking for change. Someone says, what's in the box? And he goes, I never looked. And they go, look. And he looks, it's filled with gold. Why? That story relates because...

you deep down what is aware of your experience is completely at peace. It's content. It's happy, meaning it's without agitation. And I think the name of the game is to spend more and more time identified as that and less and less time getting lost in the content of your experience, which you can see is just constantly changing. I'm stuck on an administrative detail.

You say you had a friend who you may have encouraged through the conversation to become a Christian. When you decide maybe you are not a Christian in the same way, do you have like a responsibility to call him and help him understand? Yeah, I called him. I said, we're not Christian anymore. No, he figured it out on his own. But there was a moment that like when my wife, she had an affair and then I was sort of

uh thrust into this life that i never expected or intended that's what the show crashing was about but it's also just what my life was about i got thrown into the deep end living in new york city being a comedian and i'm suddenly single for the first time in my life so i went through my 20s in my 30s essentially which is the way i think you should do it you're a little bit more level-headed you kind of understand how to pay your rent and all that sort of stuff anyway

So when that happened, I remember that friend was a little jealous that I had like kind of had my cake and eaten it too. You got to have sex with other people. I got to have sex with other people. It was exactly, that was exactly the issue, by the way. It was like, what? Because I married the first person that I had ever slept with. We did have sex before we were married, but then we stopped. It's the most Christian. Christian kink is so fucking, it's so sexy. That's the episode title. Oh, Christian kink.

There's nobody, I would say nobody's having hotter sex than Christians when they're being like naughty. Like if you're having like a Christian affair, my ex-wife had an affair and she was raised as religious as me. She thought like, I'm risking it.

oh, how bad, that's like Jane Austen level, like both houses shall disown us, but you, you have to have it. Like it's so fucking sexy and it's such a kink. It really is like a, God is watching and he's devilishly upset. Like,

Nothing will turn, if that's your thing, nothing will turn you on more than God is mad that you have your face mashed between bosoms. Can you talk about, can you talk a little bit about, um...

you know, finding out that your wife was not fateful. Yeah, sure. Did this happen in a flash? Like, this is something also we often hear women talk about it. Like, there's articles in Cosmo about it, right? But I'm very interested in... Does he always lock his phone when you walk in the room? Exactly. Yeah.

Yeah, can you, and I'm not asking for any more detail than you're comfortable sharing. I'm a four, I love it. You're serving me a delicious Thanksgiving meal. I love it. Thank you for asking. I really do. At the time, I didn't love it, obviously. I was reading Joel Osteen's Your Best Life Now, which is,

So funny. It's prosperity gospel. I'm not putting Joel Osteen down, but it's very like, if you're on God's side, he wants you to be rich. He wants you to have a car and he wants you to have a hot partner and all this stuff. Anyway, so I'm reading this book about how everything's going to be just A-OK. And we... That's called irony. It is. It's the cosmic joke. It's...

Hilarious. If you want to talk about like what's going on here and the lessons we're learning and the show we're putting on. Lila also means the play of reality, like the theater play. It's fuck. I think it's not a mistake that at night we love ripping through TV shows and movies. I think that's what this is essentially is we're playing out every weird story.

and the episode where Pete is reading big crest smile Joel Osteen being like, just say thank you, God, and he's going to give you a Hummer, not a blowjob, a car. He says that. It's in print. Why didn't you just take it out? Not a blowjob, a car. Thank you. I'll take your questions. Why didn't you take that out? Anyway, I was living in Park Slope, Brooklyn,

with my first wife and I was really, really happy. And one of the lessons I learned was don't make decisions when everything's going your way. Because I had just gotten my first TV break. Jesse Klein and Nick Kroll helped me get on a show called Best Week Ever. So I'm on this weekly show on VH1. It's 500 bucks a week. It's incredible. And it's a travesty that suddenly I'm making more than my public school wife. That's insane.

cracking wise about the 80s. You know what I mean? But this thing had really come in. And in that mania, as I recognize it now, my ex always wanted to live in the country. We're like, okay, let's move upstate. And we did, like kind of in a flash. We move upstate. And this is when

It was hard for me to differentiate between we live upstate and now we're ships in the night. I'm often going in to do a show while you're coming home. I'm taking the train. I'm getting depressed. What the fuck did I do? I literally thought I was dead. I literally thought I was dead. Like I didn't...

Everything in my life had been so peachy keen. And now everything in my life was coated with that film, that lead coat they give you at the dentist, that heavy depression. Like, what am I doing in Sleepy Hollow, living behind a cemetery on Gory Brook Road? Did you literally live? All of that is true. I love that neighborhood. I've been there. You've been to Gory Brook Road? I have been to the, I mean, it's like a Mecca for those of us who like those sorts of things.

Yeah, for sure. It's a stunning part of this country. I've never seen it because the film that was over my eyes, I just couldn't see it. I'm sure it's lovely. Horse Feathers, the restaurant? Yeah.

When I ended up doing Crashing, we scouted there. We almost shot in the house that I lived in. Wow. Which was, everybody should be so lucky to get to go back to their trauma with a crew. And be like, action! And I'm like, you know, it's so therapeutic to relive it. Okay, so the film. The film. I don't know what's going on. Eventually, there's just more and more distance, not seeing her. And then eventually one day, poor thing, and I mean that, she had notes.

And she goes, things I know for certain. And I'm like, at this point, it's important to note, I have no guess where this is going. I think we're going to move back to Brooklyn. I had told her, I was like, we have to go back. I can't do this. I'm dying, which was a huge step for me. And she was like, okay. I was like, all right, we're going to go back. Everything will be fine. I was such a baby. I didn't know. I didn't know. Say what? I said, not so fast, Goldstein. It's a punchline to a joke. Yeah. Everyone who's mom isn't dead. That's right. Very good.

Who do you think you're talking to? I'm just kidding. I'm offended. I'm not. So she read, the first one on the list was, I love you and I never want to hurt you. I would never want to hurt you. And I'm like, okay. Check. Check. Glad you love me. Glad you don't want to hurt me. Samesies. Nothing bad can happen from here. I had this list for the longest time. I don't know where it is. But number two or three was, I don't want to be a cheating wife. That was the third one.

And at that point, I still didn't know what was going on. And I said, so don't be. Long pause. In the script, it says a heavy beat. Pete, ellipses. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I said as a joke, because I had seen it in movies. You're a funny guy. Constantly. Not so fast, Goldstein. I go, is there someone else? Like a joke. Like, I'm like, what is this, a daytime movie? Is there someone else? She's deathly quiet. I go, is there someone else? Deathly quiet. And I've exaggerated the story because, you know, things, time changes stories. But God's honest truth,

One of my first questions was, is it a comedian? And she said, no. And then I said, this is 100% real. I go, you're leaving me for a civilian? Yeah.

Because I just assumed I had introduced her to the hottest of the hot of the New York open mic scene. Clearly, it was one of them. It was one of the teachers that she also worked with who I really loved and got along really well with. And then that was that. The weirdest part, though, and this is so Enneagram for it, is when she told me, I swear, in real time,

And this is just how my brain works and I'm grateful for it. It went, that's your way out. You can get out. It was like... God doing for you what you couldn't do for yourself is the way... And honestly, I always have respected her in doing what she did in getting free. Bob Dylan. You miss 100% of the shots, you don't take. Michael Scott. But it was like, she needed to end it. I didn't know because it was very nice.

But it wasn't a real relationship. But we thought if we're not fighting, if we get along, if we have pet names, if we sit on the couch and we hold hands and give sweet little kisses and all that sort of stuff, if it's sweet, it must be working because my parents weren't sweet. I'm holding doors for her. I'm being considerate for her birthday. I would make her a birthday book every year. I'm like doing what a child would guess a marriage is, to be honest. And then she blew it up. She had to blow it up.

And she went on and then I went into New York. I want to tap into something, though, inherent in this, which is this notion that it was like for both of your higher goods that this very painful thing happened. I recently started rewatching Crashing, which I had seen when it came out and loved it and then knew we were going to talk to you. So I got to dive back in. And some of the scenes with Leif,

are actually some of my favorite scenes because they're so painful and awkward and your character is being tormented. But in the pilot, I think it is, there's this amazing scene, I think it's like second or third scene with him where he's like, it's,

he's aligning himself with you, that whatever he is doing is actually you both doing it together because it's setting you free and it's like something that needed to happen. And he's like, we are both having sex with your wife. And you're like, no, no, no, you are having sex. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's the moment where your character doesn't realize that because it's too painful that this thing is actually ultimately beneficial. Yeah.

but there's something very powerful about, you know, a horrible thing happens, but it needed to happen for both of your evolutions. - Exactly. And I love that you understood that. You understood it perfectly. Leaf was sort of me

Talking to me then, like a little bit more me then. I've changed since then, but it was me now, let's say, talking to me then. And one of the tricky things about being a person that's interested in spirituality and such is when someone's suffering, that's not the time to be like...

well, this is like God's dream. You know, like that doesn't help when I'm just having a rough morning, my daughter's having a tantrum, let alone real pain. So that was the comedy of that. Like he was trying to be like, let's fly from the highest altitude and this is all going to work out. When people are suffering, you should just...

I'm not saying this because you're Jewish, but sit Shiva with them. Like if there's, there's something I know I shouldn't have said that. The Hummer, the car, not the blowjob. Why is that in the book? Why did you say, I'm not saying this because you're Jewish. I don't want to seem like I'm pandering. I would have said that in Goy company. And they would have been like, they would have loved it. They would have said, what's Shiva? And they go, you mean when you cover the mirrors? And I'm like, exactly. And then isn't it Mazel Tov? And I'm like, thank you.

But it's speech. Tov? Get out of here, black eyed peas and every lax Jewish person I know. It's Tov.

Never mind. Tell me. So it's actually Mazal Tov. Oh, wow. It's wrong on both sides. Yeah, it's wrong on both sides. So if you're going to say Tov, you have to say Mazal. Because Mazal is a sign, like an amulet, like a symbol. I love it. Mazal Tov is a good sign. That's what it means. Good luck. It's a good sign. But if you're using the Yiddish pronunciation, the Ashkenazi is Mazal Tov.

Oh, that's what it is. It's the colloquial way that we say it. It's kind of like Hanukkah. Yeah. Actually, like the... Or a better example. Shabbat versus Shabbos. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Mazal Tov, Mazal Tov. It's a different pronunciation because of Italian. Yeah, it's the Ashkenazi pronunciation. I'll tell Jed next time I talk. And the Black Eyed Peas. L'chaim. Yeah, of course. Of course. I'm glad we sorted that. I am.

I actually loved it. He kept saying it. I loved it. I had to know. It's Mazal. Mazal. You study a semester in Jerusalem and you think you know? I know and I got it. Well, that's where we started putting it together. He'd say Bokatov, but suddenly it's Mazal Tov. No. So the Hebrew would be Mazal Tov. That's what I'm saying. But I didn't know this Yiddish thing. I don't know the joys of Yiddish.

Welcome. She has an online class. We'll send you the login. Meet your new teacher. Nothing good. I wonder about sort of the decision to reveal so much of yourself in this show and kind of as part of your life. Like, cool with her, the ex? Not cool with her. Don't care. Maybe we don't care. No, I care. I was careful, meaning full of care.

But with one L for some reason. We dropped it because who has the time? My secret desire was that she would see the show, not as a message to her, but that if, let's put it this way, if she saw the show, we would get back together. What? I saw your face. I saw your face. No.

No, I just saw your scandalous face. What are you, nuts? That's weird. No. But that's where it sounded like it was going. So the comedy in me said I had to say it. I had to say it. If she saw it, that she would appreciate that me and the writers put a lot of effort into representing Lauren's character. I forget what her name was on the show, but the ex-wife on the show.

really gets a lot more of the persuasion time to be like, this is why I left you. Because that was me trying to learn from it, that I was a baby boy and we didn't vilify her. I feel like if you made this show in the 80s, it was very in vogue to be like,

you can't please them, you know, when you make some show. Well, I mean, I think it would be also, you know, in these days to be like, everyone shouldn't be monogamous anyway and you just should fuck around anyway and have sex with all the people because that's what we're made to do, which is, I think, a different bit of flavor. I wonder though, I couldn't help but

pick up and you didn't deserve that. You didn't deserve to be cheated on. There's nothing you did, but you did talk about a real shift that happened for you. And I'm just curious, was there something else going on for you? Also, what's it like to sort of have that flashback

film cover everything at the height of success. Like all these things kind of coincided for you. I'm curious what you see as what was happening. I'm not sure I understand. So you said you were happy in Park Slope. I thought I was happy. You thought you were happy. But when you moved out of Park Slope, it was clear to you, you weren't happy. Well, that was the most disturbing thing is I recognized that my

my first wife, was in a lot of ways just enabling my comedy addiction. And as soon as she stopped enabling my comedy addiction, she became... I never thought of it in these terms, but she became in the way. You're now making my dream very self-centered. It's also...

in my defense i was 27 you know and and really obsessed and about making it as a comedian and was good and was getting the feedback that this is going to work out and i wanted to be doing it every now night and now i'm two hours away from a three minute spot at 11 p.m at ucb and then i would staple wrongly or right just what it was

That was her fault. So this resentment started to build up. But that's not relationship. That's not... I didn't know what I didn't know. Right. And I didn't know what I wasn't being. But she was my mommy wife. I'm disgusted as I say that, but she was. I married someone that would have helped me move from Boston to Chicago when I wasn't...

smart enough, stable enough, secure enough to do it on my own. Will you help me show me how to pay, literally how to pay bills and all that sort of stuff? Support me. She was like, nobody wants to be the goat in Seabiscuit's stable. Remember how they put a goat in the stable? So yeah, that's the part of me now that's like, get the fuck out of there. If I was friends with my ex-wife, and I have been on the other side of it, coaching someone who's dating a

Just an oblivious sweetie who again thinks that as long as you're not yelling, as long as it's not wrong, then it must be right. But that is not, now that I, so even when I say I thought I was happy. I told him about us at Hollywood Squares and now that he's confronting us. I need to talk to you guys. No, but like,

That was the gold medal for what our relationship was, was just being nice all the time. And then you realize that human beings need a lot more than just a stable flight. Where's the plane going? You know what I mean? It's not turbulent. Well, I wonder for how many people this is sleepwalking. And, you know, I have a lot of religious family. I have a lot of religious friends.

Many of them do seem very happy. Many of them seem content. And I think in many cases they are. But I wonder, kind of to loop back to that notion of sleepwalking, you know, what kind of relationships are we expecting to have? What kind of relationships do we actually need? I want to tie that actually also to an aspect of your creativity because the show does...

explore you as a very stunted character. And one of the ways it does that is with your mom and the scenes with your mom, when you invite your ex to try to lie to your mom, like that's found the fillet of my issues. You're right in the, in the right in that sweet spot. But it's,

you know, when your mom then later comes out to see your show, you know, what she says to you is that you have no point of view at that stage in your comedy. And so I think it's what I, like there's a triangle here of stunted, uh,

leaning on a wife who is maybe not really partners, who's trying to prop you up. But then also you have to like, as an artist, as a comedian, you have to find something in yourself. And I'm like, the question isn't totally clear, but I'm wondering if you can sort of see the

the triad here. There's something about, like, you're maturing through all of it. And then how that impacts, like... For sure. Well, look, this stuff is gross. Not to me, but I just, you know, to acknowledge, it's gross. And I think a lot of people...

have stuff like this going on and it's really hard to look at. It's one of the hardest topics to make art about. Crashing barely skimmed the surface, but it's really, like, Beau is afraid. - No baby reindeer, you know? - Yeah, sure, yeah, baby reindeer. Beau is afraid. Beau is afraid is my favorite, like, let's look at that sort of codependence and the horror of having, and I'm not saying this is exactly what happened, but a mother that was like, you're mine.

You belong to me, actually. And that very essential thing that I had to do, which was, mom, I want to see other people.

And maybe you could see someone else. Have you considered that? You know what I mean? And we touched on it in crashing. One of the, first of all, the moment you're talking about, you really honed in on a key moment in the show. My mom comes to see me do standup. The way that I wrote that initially was she hates everybody and she loves me. That's what would have happened. But Judd's genius as a storyteller was like, no, we should surprise and subvert. She should like it. Like everybody except you. But that,

is not what would have happened. She would have said, oh, Petey, sweetie, you were the beacon of light. You were the only one. Everybody lit up when you were on stage. It was absolutely amazing. She would have gushed about it. And those awful people talking about their penises and their buttholes. Like that's what would have happened. I bet everything I got on that happened, but that's not what we did on the show. Then the other thing that we had to tone down on the show is that my mom was constantly kissing me on the lips, a very overt,

It's too overt. That's the only thing I saw Jed go, we can't do that.

That's too much. My mom, and I love my mom very dearly, but it was a normal practice. She'd sit on- Normal in many Middle Eastern cultures and European cultures. Like it's not, that's not a foreign thing to people who also were raised in ethnic families or- And my mom is Lithuanian. That was the excuse we always used to make. She's a first generation Lithuanian. I don't think she meant it in any skeezy way. I'm just saying there was confusion on my part. I remember I drew a cartoon for the New Yorker. They didn't buy it.

but it was a young man with his wife and going, mom, this is Rachel. She'll take it from here. I thought that was so funny, but they didn't buy so many cartoons that I thought were brilliant. But anyway, it's very funny. I got why they didn't buy it. It's too gross to look at. And the mom sitting on the lap and the kissing, we did it a little bit.

but we had my dad go rita get off his lap my dad didn't do that in freudian therapy it's called the no of the father we're very strong on that in my house my daughter says daddy uh can i marry you and i go sweetheart i love you so much i'm married to mama you're gonna find a guy you're gonna find a partner that you are so happy about i'm gonna be so like we do it now six years old i i know i love you that big too

But like, I'm with your mom and I want to model that for you. In my joke, I don't do it on stage, but I say it in conversation. I didn't have the Noah, the father. I had the you can have her of the father. So there was this like very codependent,

a little bit emotionally incestuous kind of thing going on. And then where that really shows itself is when you're trying to be married and you're being pulled in two directions. God help me if my mom was asking for one thing and my wife was asking for the opposite thing because my mom was going to win and that makes my penis go inside my body right now. Like I hate what I'm telling you, but it was necessary. So when my wife, my first wife blew it all up,

I didn't know how badly that that kind of that first wound needed to happen. This isn't funny, but it's very interesting. I'm glad. I can spice it up. Do you think these Ray-Bans are right? Should I wear them? Two-tone? No, I mean, it's really, really interesting. I think it's one of the conversations people should be having a lot more. Yeah. I'll say that. It impacts people. One of your sponsors. DrinkLMNT.com slash weird.

Not whatever. It makes my lips puckery. Oh, really? Yeah. Oh, you don't like it? No, my body doesn't like it. I drink it all the time. My son drinks it all the time. We love it. It's funny. I don't do ads for things I don't like. Amazing. Proof that I like it. Get a free sample pack. Slash breakdown though, everyone. Slash weird. This show is doing fine. I don't have a second property to record my podcast in.

Oh, thank you, Valerie. Oh, my God. I'm so sorry. We needed a laugh break. Just clear the air. But bringing it back to the seriousness, you know, the relatability, whether it's a father, whether it's a mother, in a dysfunctional marriage, it's, I think, far too common that a child gets pulled in for the emotional needs.

And this is, we aren't talking about it. It hits me. I went to the AFI, I did their screenwriting and my thesis was about a kid whose mother was also his psychologist who had to break up with his mom. And he tried to go find a replacement. In your show, you know... That's what I'm doing here. Ah.

In your show, you have the conversation. I think it's between you and your wife or your ex-wife where you say, you know, you need to break up with your mom. Is that in the show? Yeah, it's in the show. Oh, I'm proud. You need to break up with your mom. Oh, I'm so proud. And then the line is, she should try dating your dad. And then I think, I forget if it's you or your ex who says, I don't think he's interested. Yeah.

I don't think he's interested. And so that's where that dysfunction... Brutal. I'm going to re-watch Crashing One of These Days. I really am. I've never seen it. Just the pilot. I mean, I've seen it, but I've never watched it with time in between the making of it. So I'm so glad that's in there. And that makes me very happy. Oh, sorry. That scene is actually in the... I forget what episode it is, but it's when your parents come to town and your wife comes in from upstate and you're trying to convince...

Oh, that we're still together. That you're still together because it's your mother's birthday and you don't want to tell your mom on the birthday. There is some mouth kissing in that scene. Oh, God. Lauren was so good at that. It's so powerful, but it does speak, I think, to its comedic

But it's also extremely deep. And I think that's what the show does really well is it does play on these very philosophical and universal themes. But, you know, that people have to a certain degree. And when you talk about feeling split, where you have these competing dynamics or competing loyalties, Mayim talks about this a lot. That prevents us from ever knowing who we actually are.

which I think impacts and goes to this notion of like, you can't really have an artistic point of view if you're trying to satisfy everyone. That's right. And you lose yourself and you sacrifice yourself at every moment because you're like, I have to either do this, I have to put out that fire, and then there's no room for who you are as a healthy individual. And yet, this kind of ties into what you were asking earlier, Mayim, is like that moment of having to do the brutal thing of standing up to that person

unhealthy setup. Mm-hmm.

I've talked to some of my gay friends and they've confirmed that there's something about coming out in the 80s and 90s difficult, but it sets the standard of like, I'm not lying anymore. And I'm not trying to claim or align with that. I'm just saying, I got a taste of that going like, this is horrible. It's breaking everyone's heart in my family. But once I got a taste of

of my truth, I was like, we're not going back in that cage. And that was a huge lesson. And unfortunately, there was no way to learn that apart from having to be like, I think I literally said to my mom, mom, I want to see other people. Like, she's funny. She's a funny lady. And she laughed. She understood. She did her best to roll with it. And we kind of, I don't really know

we've rebuilt the relationship but it's not what it was and i think that still makes her sad but it makes um my fam my family my wife my daughter i wouldn't i wouldn't trade it for the world this also ties to this notion of sleepwalking because if someone is constantly trying to satisfy the needs of someone else it's impossible to not project

the past or replay it because you're scanning all the time. You're not in a present moment saying embodied in a way that's like, what do I like? What am I noticing? I'm like, what is that person? Well, you're playing a role. Exactly. You're handed a script and you're playing a role and that's what's so difficult about visiting Boston for me is I'm handed these sides and I'm just like, I don't do this character anymore and it fucking sucks. What really sucks too underneath what you're saying is

the, the, the violation of, of being told over and over that you're responsible for my happiness as if I could, as if I could, like, I still deal with that. I'm a pretty balanced person. I do a lot of work, a lot of therapy, a lot of everything, but I can still catch myself believing like what my mom says, essentially, which is you're the only one I'm only happy when you're here. And I'm always like, mom, I'm never there. So it's a heavy burden.

And I think people can relate to that in differing degrees. It doesn't necessarily even have to be a parent that you're playing this old role for. It can be friends who knew you in a certain way and they expect people to behave like that. It could be... That's why... Okay, look, Dr. Suze, be who you are because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind. It's like, it's all right there. And if there are any relationships in your life where you're like,

You're holding your breath the whole time to stay in character. I'm living proof you can find...

another person you can find another relationship it could even be with a parent you can find a new way to approach that relationship and there is hope and it's possible and if you need convincing watch literally almost any movie yeah i don't think the avengers is about aliens that attack new york avengers and every movie like that is about our demons our issues facing us

And using trauma, Iron Man is a good one, using trauma to build a suit and redefine yourself. It's death and resurrection. It's Harry Potter. It's recognizing who you really are. And it does tie back into spirituality. Jesus has this really under-quoted thing where he's giving a talk. They don't call them talks. He's chewing the fat. He's hanging out in a house, and it's packed. One of the things I always tell Christians that are like,

repelling people i'm like jesus drew a crowd like what he was talking about and what he was was compelling and engaging and exciting to people so it wasn't finger wagging and all that stuff so anyway he's drawing a crowd and they come to him and they go jesus i'm paraphrasing your your mom and dad are looking for you and he goes i don't have i'm paraphrasing i don't have a mom and dad

This is my mom and dad. That's unit of consciousness. And it happens in parts work, in internal family systems. When you start recognizing your highest self, which is awareness, you can separate and go like, oh my God, Pete is so hung up on this relationship that ultimately is a dream. And who he really is, is the dreamer. You can back away. And that's what I hear Jesus saying in that moment. He's like, I don't have a mom.

Byron Katie, who's a brilliant teacher, she changed my life too. Her book, Loving What Is, changed my life. I was talking about my parents with her on my podcast and I was talking about my dad. I wasn't there yet. I didn't understand what she meant, but I'm like, and I'm afraid my dad's going to like eat me or something. And she goes, but do you even have a dad? And she was talking to my dad.

awareness. And, and, but Pete was like, yes, you know, like, but it's hard to, it's hard to get there. It's little by little, you can start finding your true self. I relate so much to all of this because my work for many years has been to not try to think about what someone's reaction to what I'm going to say is going to be and try to then shift whatever I'm going to say to avoid confrontation or reaction. And that are you a nine?

No. What am I? We don't know. Yeah, you're not. I don't think he's... I'm just being funny. I don't think he's self-aware enough to know what he is. That's hilarious. Mayim, you haven't been here for a while and you came back with a fire. No, but here's what I want. I just mean verbally. You've been here, but you haven't said anything in a while and then you just came in with a story. When I'm done, I think I can't remember what he comes up as. Oh, you think it's misdiagnosed. I have friends like that. He's like, I don't know. He's like, I mean,

I have friends like that. Un-enneagrammable, we call them. They're the 10th type. She has done my enneagram with me answering. She's done it with her answering for me. She has sent me to an enneagram man who did all of them. Enneagram man? Un-enneagrammable. I know people like that. I don't know what the answer to that is. But I relate to what you're talking about because with trying to...

as i explained and and the result of that is not being able to integrate when you talk about internal family systems is not being able to find all our parts because when we're constantly evaluating

how we are going to be perceived. There's no authentic. Yeah, it's exhausting interaction. Yeah. I've heard you talk about something in family systems, which I thought was fascinating, which, you know, the end is that there's a teddy bear on your sink. I don't know if it's still there. It is. Yes. I just put it there. I would love to hear more about that because the notion of the anger and sort of reconnecting to that part of ourselves, I found just that

how you described that was so powerful and related to this so intrinsically. Oh, wow. Well, I'm really touched that you listened to that episode. Valerie, my wife, not this one, got me into internal family systems. And one of the parts of myself that I'm really uncomfortable with is my anger.

And we started kind of looking at that. And when I, I really feel like I have this health bar, like a video game. And when it gets depleted, what's left is wrath.

It doesn't go to anger, it's just wrath. Anger can be healthy and then wrath is destructive. I know by the photos on my fridge. I have photos of some of my daughter's friends on our fridge. I never have it for my daughter. But I'll see one of my friends and they'll be like, look at that idiot. I mean, it's worse than that, but it's like everybody's an idiot, including a sweet little child on a Polaroid on my fridge.

everyone's the problem. Everyone needs to get out of my fucking way and leave me the fuck alone. It's horrible. That's a four in a spin. Yeah, it's a spin. Exactly. I mean, like it's a, it's an unhealthy four. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's me all the time, but yeah, definitely. No, it's the best I can do. My M is I go, um,

like Anchorman, just sit the next couple few plays out. I go like, just sit down and breathe. Well, I think this is literally, you know, I'm envious when you say that you, you know, read, you know, that you read Byron Katie's book and like it changed your life. I've read a lot of things that have impacted me deeply. Nothing has fixed it, right? Meaning whatever the it is, whatever the problem or the challenge, but

you know, what you describe as kind of part of your spiritual journey and, you know, I have parts work and things like that. And like, to me, that feels like the closest we can sometimes get to

to understanding that even in the mess of all those emotions, like I need to pull back, right? What's actually going on? What part of me is getting hurt, right? This is all an illusion to some extent, right? God's dream, however you want to see it. You know, what are the practical things that need to happen to shift out of this so I do less harm?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right? Like to me, that's the thing that, you know. I had it in the car on the ride down. Like, I'll either surf or ski. You know, I love talking about ultimate reality and that's my favorite thing to do. But when we're talking about a four spin, I'm so grateful for that language and that solidarity that you know what I'm talking about. It's like,

Those long inhale, big, big, big inhale, and then a long exhale through pursed lips. And every time I'm doing it, I'm like, this fucking sucks. This isn't going to work. You know, 10 of those later. And I'm not saying you're back, but you're starting. You're starting to come back. I can also tell where I'm at by my relationship to music. If I put on music in that state, I'm like...

fucking idiot. Like it doesn't matter what it is. That person's an idiot. It's for dopes. It's dumb. It's repetitive. It's intrusive. And then when my heart is open and I'm regulated, it could be almost any song. It could be my daughter's like, you know, she wants to hear a sprinkle party from some cartoon. And I'm like, slaps. Like, I love it if my heart is open. So it's that thing. We don't see the world as it is. We see the world as we are. Right. That's really, really true

for me. I'm trying to go back to what you were saying. Oh, the bear thing. The bear. It's actually a nice little setup and punchline. The story closes the gap. I went into this session wanting to talk about this anger that's really irrational. It's really hard to look at. And

It took no effort, meaning I'm always very anxious that I'm going to manufacture something to please the therapist. But I really did go like, let's find it. There it is. It's this like kind of emaciated bear with very sharp claws that's been sequestered to a cave. And I'm just going with it. We're going to go visit it.

And I start, and she's like, let's just talk to it. Ask it the regular internal family systems questions. Like, what are you protecting? Like, would you, are you interested in taking a break? Do you just for context, the bear, like describe like how you get this bear. Cause maybe people, um,

don't quite understand. I didn't get it? Like you say you found a bear, but like you went in, I think maybe people. You went into a therapy session. Yeah, I'm feeling that. I was, what was helpful was I was feeling that feeling. So you went in. I was in that. I was like, we're going to have a good session. I use Eckhart Tolle's language. I go, I'm in my pain body right now.

I hate this. And I was like, I was actually smart enough to know this is going to be good. So one of the tools, just for people who don't know, one of the tools is to have you sort of visualize what is this pain body, what comes to mind. I'm just trying to help people understand sort of how we get to the bear from going into a therapy session.

What's interesting is she never explained that to me. She was like, can you just find the anger? She'll say, where do you feel it in your body? She never said, does it show up as something? She never said, name it. But was that what came to you? But that's what comes to me and probably influenced by some of my familiarity with it.

but I like a visual and I see the bear and I'm in the cave. I'm talking to the bear and, and this bear is like, not about it. Like it doesn't like this. It thinks it's bullshit. Everything that you would think,

Like my dad would think about this, this bear thing. Shut the fuck up. Like it's dumb. At one point, a voice comes from not the bear and it's like, we don't even know what this guy is for. And that was like the most honest thing. It's like, why are we trying to like partner with this thing?

He's for nothing. All he does is destroy. Why are we even talking to him? The bear. Why are we even talking to the bear? And my therapist, who's brilliant, she goes, okay, it sounds like another protector has shown up, another aspect of myself. Can you ask them to just sit next to us quietly while we talk to the bear? And if they have any objections, it's okay. We hear them, we see them. But would you just trust us and sit? And they were fine with that. They sat next to me. It's like a dream. You're just kind of dreaming awake.

Kept talking to the bear what it needed. And what we started to do was like... We thanked it. We see that you're trying to protect us. We see that your strength is trying to keep us safe. The idea is to integrate the bear and not exile the bear. Exactly. And we weren't even doing any of the like...

You don't, you're not actually helping. We weren't doing any of that. We were just like, thank you. You're so strong and decisive and all this stuff. Like just kind of- So discerning. Yeah, wow. You could say that about a shark. Look how fast it was, you know. But it wasn't bullshit, but it was finding real things you could be. Because it's not really a bear. It's a part of me. I was like, at least it's strong. It's strong and it's fiercely trying to protect us. Right.

We really appreciate that. And then we realized in the session that the day before I had called my mom and calling my mom can be tricky. And especially this time of year, shout out to people with this kind of feeling around the holidays. You know, they have kind of a foothold to try and guilt you to come home.

and my mom i'm talking to her and she's like pd3d what are you when are you coming home and i'm like and i just go

Mom, I didn't call to make a plan. I just called to say I love you. I just want to catch up, see what's going on in your life. But when am I going to see you? I want to see you. Yeah, I hear that you want to make a plan, but that's not why I'm calling. Oh, God, I could cry. I hear it's like when you talk to a child having a tantrum. I'm not saying that's my mom. I'm just saying it's the same way you talk. I hear that you'd really like to make a plan. I'm not available for that right now. I really just want to talk to you. I want to brighten your day.

i'd like to hear your voice really loving sweet but but firm i didn't call to make a plan that's new so i'm talking to this bear and while the bear starts to soften is in my mind's eye we realize like an epiphany

That voice was the bear. We didn't recognize, I have the chills. We didn't recognize it because I'm just used to the bear saying, shut the fuck up. But the bear is also the one that gets on the phone and goes, I got this. But it comes out. I didn't call to make a plan. That's bear. And then we found this whole new tidal wave of love and appreciation, real love and appreciation for the bear. And at the end of the session,

My therapist was like, can we make a plan to just say good morning to the bear? Just as a way to integrate it. Because what was happening was I was starving him. I put him in the cave. I sort of chained him to the wall and he's starving. So of course, anything that comes near the cave, he's going to devour it. He's finally getting some time. So he's just shredding everything. But we're trying to say like, come out, come with us.

And help me because you are useful and helpful. And I don't want to starve you anymore. I'd like you to be at the table. What do you think of the bear? Do you have a bear? Why does he ask you this? No, I... Mayim has done a lot of parts work. But what I'm struck by is the availability that you have for your mom to connect with her

If you can say I'm not available for this thing that you feel pulled into. And, you know, I can relate to feeling trapped in those situations when I haven't had the language. And, you know, what I've spoken about is like a lot of people just need the script. Yeah.

Because they freeze and they're like, oh, that person needs something and I feel drawn to do that and I just need to appease that and that's going to make it better because I don't want conflict. It's like, well, the bear needed love. In that situation, there was a real exchange of love and honor. And that's why it can be helpful to talk about the script and the language to say to my mom, I hear that you want me to visit. I even had, I think it was Mark Duplass on my podcast, was like, maybe you could say,

I remember when I was your kid and we were just home all the time. I think about that really fondly. I loved being with you. I had a great childhood. It was fun. We were buds. And I mourn that. It might be a little too metal to be like, but I'm a father now. And, you know,

I don't want to use my daughter as an excuse, but I do say like Christmas is about Lila now. And it's not about flying into Logan airport on December 20th. Fuck that. And that's okay. We'll find another time. So much of therapy and so much of any type of liberation is kind of just recognizing that you're free. That's why it's called liberation. But like, wait,

Wait. And it always feels that way. You're like, hey, I don't, I'm so afraid of my mom saying, are you coming home for Christmas? Afraid. And I'm just getting resource to be like, no, not. And the belief, but you have to, or she'll be miserable.

Byron Katie. Right. I'm responsible. I can make my mother happy. Is that true? Absolutely not true. And I try to remind her of that sometimes too. I go, mom, last time I visited, we weren't having a good time. And I'm not saying that to be mean, but let's stop.

This actually goes back to what you were saying earlier. This butting our heads against the wall and all of these sort of failures to find fulfillment in objective reality. My mom saying, I would be happy if my son would visit me. That can even re-bolster my decision to be like, we need to have a relationship with the part of us that is happiness, that is peace. Ram Dass would say the ego can only experience happiness for the briefest of moments. We both know.

You do the thing. I can't even think of an example. That's how fucking stupid it is. Crashing gets a second season. We jumped up and down on the couch. We broke it. It was a great moment. And then you know what happens. Like an hourglass just starts going and it's replaced with like, we've got to get the room going or whatever it is. A thousand things to do. A thousand things. Or it didn't get picked up. The bad news. And then it doesn't matter. Well, what am I going to do now? It's never out there.

And I know this sounds, I'm not a spiritual teacher. I'm not like dyed in the wool all the time. But like, I will say that it is true that we can practice a relationship with ourself.

Rupert Spire talks about consciousness being like the space in a room. We're always experiencing it. We're just not thinking about it. And your awareness, which is as peaceful. That's why I'm saying God is mercy. God isn't merciful. God is mercy. In the same way that the space of this room allows anything, allows anything to happen and isn't changed, colored or changed or qualified by it. That's sort of what I'm trying to get at when I say God is mercy. And that's the place that

My record, the eye that I see God is the same eye that sees me. There's only one awareness in the same way that the space in this room is the same as the space in my car as I was driving here. It's the same space in my house right now. There's one space broken into this appearance that there's lots of different spaces. So too with consciousness, so too with knowing. There's one knowing that we borrow. And then when you start to taste that,

One of the reasons why we use words like freedom and spirituality is you go like, what are we talking about? Like people on their deathbed. Why was I so afraid of my mom asking me? They snapped out of it. You know what I mean? They put the script down or your wife leaves you and go like, well, what do I really want? I want to be a comedian or whatever it is. And you're set free by these things. Those are little tastes of our inherent freedom, I would say.

Thank you so much. I mean, you're obviously hilarious, but it's just so beautiful to get to talk to you. It ties into so many things that Jonathan and I think about and that people want to hear about. So we really appreciate it. I love it. I didn't know what flavor we were going to go at. No, I mean, I wish we had. I mean, we could talk to you forever. You both love the Renfair documentary? Oh, that's right. I do love it. I think that's...

That's what we're talking about. Sorry, we don't have to unpack that. But the reason why you relate to those things is family dynamics. Yeah, for sure. And the way that the guy keeps thinking that he's going to give it to him. That's us. Why is the cop that's always going to retire get shot in the parking lot? That's us. We're postponing. It's like, I'll go back to myself.

One more job, says Jesse James. You know, one more case before I retire. That's us. We're always postponing it. And the good news is that it's always, oh, that's the prodigal son. I do want to say this. I'll close with this if I can. The prodigal son is born into a kingdom, so he's roiled by blood. He didn't earn it. Anyway.

And he was already good. He's safe in the kingdom. Then he leaves. He asked for his inheritance, which you could say is a metaphor for life. It's like, give me life. Give me separation. I'm going to leave. He goes and he squanders it. He looks for happiness everywhere in the world. People always add stuff here. They assume sex work. They assume whatever drugs and drinking, but whatever happens as a Jewish man, he ends up eating the food of the pigs. So he's as low as he can go. That's as low as you can go.

And here's where it gets really important. Atonement theory, which didn't come into Christianity until like 1054, I believe, is like this idea that something needs to have its head cut off because you're a wicked boy. So if atonement theory was Jesus's message, this story would go, a guy comes and says, sees the prodigal son in the slop and says, hey, your dad's going to be furious, but I'll go with you and I'll let him kill me. Hmm.

And you can watch as he tortures and cuts my head off, but he'll let you live because that's, I know your dad and he needs blood, but I'll go with you and he'll kill me. That's kind of how we've interpreted Christianity for so many years and a lot of spirituality to be honest, because we have this guilt, but that's not the story that Jesus tells. The prodigal son is Jesus's closer. It's his big finish. What he does is he remembers who his dad is. That's it. And he goes home.

And that's not for us to do later. This moment, if it is, it's here now. And we can turn and remember the father metaphor is where we came from, who we belong to. These are all poetic ways of just saying, what actually are you?

And what is the nature of what you actually are? And it's a party. He goes back and there's a party. The dad's not mad. There's a party. That's your true nature. It's a party. It's a party. That's beautiful. It's good stuff. It's really great. Thank you so much. It's just, it's, it's, thank you for letting me say, cause it makes me happy. Yeah. I appreciate it. No, it's a really, it's very interesting. Also just kind of the re-imagining of,

you know, texts and concepts from backgrounds that come with a tremendous amount of baggage and a tremendous amount of, I don't want to say untruths, but lack of context. And, you know, there have been mystics for thousands of years and there were mystics in the time of Jesus and there were mystics before that. And, you know, so it's not, it's not that there weren't people who were

understanding and wanting to understand things on those levels, it was that it wasn't the way that it was transmitted to the masses. And when you want people to be obedient and do the same thing, you keep it simple. You keep it simple and you introduce a lot of structure and threat of punishment. And we do this and they don't do that. And that's what makes us different. And, you know, but yeah, it becomes a banner. Correct. Look, if the Black Plague is

devouring your nation, there's not as much time for experiential Christianity. That's fine. There's also Mongolian hordes or whatever it might be. We need to get under one banner. We need to have one God. We need to have one nation. We need to make them... I get it. I don't fully get it, but I understand. And mostly it's the Jews' fault. I was going to say, Mongolian...

Air quotes for those only listening. From our breakdown to the one we hope you never have. We'll see you next time. It's my and Bialik's breakdown. She's going to break it down for you. She's got a neuroscience PhD or fiction. And now she's going to break down. It's a breakdown. She's going to break it down.

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