📺 Watch on YouTube and Spotify

“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it’ll rule your life and you’ll call it fate,” says Josh Trent, host of the Wellness and Wisdom podcast, who joins Mental Health in a Modern World to illuminate what true mental health really means in an era of speed and disconnection. Josh shares how his own early childhood trauma, from witnessing his mother’s struggle with mental illness to feeling abandoned and unsafe, became both his great wound and his eventual gift—fueling a lifelong journey to wholeness and authenticity.

In today’s episode, Josh traces his evolution from soul-numbing corporate work and addictive coping strategies to helping thousands through integrated healing that honors mind, body, and spirit. He reveals why so many symptoms of “mental illness” are actually threads pointing to deeper stories of self-abandonment, inherited trauma, and the masks we’re forced to wear to survive. Josh unpacks “emotional epigenetics,” explores the liberation that comes from radical self-responsibility and integration of all parts of self, and issues a clarion call for the return of true elders and embodied wisdom in our culture.

Tune into this compelling conversation to discover why chasing the “why” can be a fool’s game, how to break cycles of generational pain, and how presence, curiosity, and authentic connection are the bedrock of both personal and collective wellness.

5 Key Takeaways

Transforming your mental health starts with practical steps—let these actions guide your integration and healing journey.

1. Identify and Integrate Abandoned Parts of Self

Trace your symptoms and patterns back to the inner parts you may have exiled or rejected, then work to accept and reintegrate them for authentic wholeness [13:40](/timestamps/820).

2. Stop Excavating for "Why" and Focus on "What Happened"

Shift your healing inquiry from searching for reasons to clearly recognizing what occurred, allowing you to integrate lessons and move forward [23:01](/timestamps/1381).

3. Use the Liberation Loop Model for Transformational Change

Map your beliefs, thoughts, feelings, and actions (BTFA) in reverse to uncover core limiting beliefs, then consciously cultivate new beliefs through trust, faith, and consistent evidence-seeking action [01:02:40](/timestamps/3760).

4. Seek True Elders and Community for Support

Find guidance and healing within genuine community and elders—those whose embodied wisdom, humility, and presence can support your transformation [43:01](/timestamps/2581).

5. Make Curiosity and Self-Responsibility Daily Practices

Adopt a radically curious mindset and embrace ongoing self-inquiry; celebrate mistakes and remain open to growth instead of defending beliefs or identities [51:31](/timestamps/3091).

Start your journey today: pick one takeaway and put it into practice—your path to integration begins with a single, authentic step.

Memorable Quotes

"We are coming to a high point of consciousness that does not rely on us stuffing down emotion or ignoring what has happened. When we can identify what happened, we can understand how we can integrate deeper parts of ourselves without abandoning or rejecting them."

"The quality of my life is dictated by the authenticity of my being, because when I'm authentic, I'm at peace. Yet these parts of self are very subtle—at some point we abandon a part of ourselves, and most often it's the younger version of ourselves."

"True freedom is the result of when your biology and your reality are no longer at war. Your biology—who you are—and your reality—who you think you are—are one and the same. And then you can be free."

Connect with Josh

Website - wellnesswisdom.com

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshtrent

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/joshtrentofficial/

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/WellnessF/

X - https://x.com/wellnessforce

Resources Mentioned

It Didn't Start With You: How Inherited Family Trauma Shapes Who We Are and How to End the Cycle by Mark Wolynn - https://amzn.to/4i9ofqS

No Bad Parts: Healing Trauma and Restoring Wholeness with the Internal Family Systems Model by Dr. Richard Schwartz - https://amzn.to/3JU9JzY

How to Know Higher Worlds by Rudolf Steiner - https://amzn.to/44DaI28

Outwitting the Devil by Napoleon Hill - https://amzn.to/3VJ5Rbh

Connect with Greg

Website - https://www.healing4d.com/

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/4d_healing/

YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@gregschmaus

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/greg-schmaus-22929589/

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We're coming to a high point of consciousness that does

not rely on us stuffing down emotion anymore

or ignoring what has happened. It's not important that I excavate for why.

Why I believe is a fool's game, but what is very

intelligent because when we can identify what happened, we can

understand how we can integrate deeper parts of ourselves without

abandoning them or rejecting them. Otherwise, if we don't, and this

is the really sad part, until you make the unconscious

conscious, it'll rule your life and you'll call it fate. In a world moving

faster than our minds were designed to handle, mental health is becoming one of the

defining challenges of our time. Welcome to Mental Health in a Modern

World with holistic health practitioner Greg Schmaus. After

overcoming severe anxiety and OCD in his own life, Greg

dedicated the past decade to helping others heal. Through a fully integrated

approach to mental health, combining lifestyle coaching, psycho-emotional

healing, mindfulness, and archetypal work. Over the years,

he's facilitated thousands of sessions, guiding people back to peace,

clarity, and a deeper connection with themselves. Each week,

Greg shares powerful solo insights, conversations with leading voices in

holistic healing, and immersive live coaching sessions that take you

inside the healing process itself. New episodes every Friday.

Follow the show and start reclaiming sovereignty over your mind in a modern world.

Here's Greg. Josh, my brother, welcome to the podcast, man. Thank you

for having me. I am so excited to have you on the

show. And one of the reasons is

I want to express some gratitude to you before we get started.

My business wouldn't be where it is if it wasn't for you.

And, you know, back in, just giving people a little background, back

in, when was it? 2020, when you and I first

podcasted, and then I went to seek

out business mentorship and coaching, and you were the guy.

And all of the things that you taught me and guided me through, how to

build programs, how to podcast, how to do all the things,

everything that I have business-wise now, whether it's the

podcast, my programs, I owe so

much to you. And so I just wanted to start by

thanking you for that. Feels so good to receive that

from you, Craig. Thanks. So welcome. And so

I'd love for you to share a little bit with our listeners about

your personal journey, anything you want to share about your own healing

journey, because this This podcast is Mental Health in a Modern World. And I

know you've gone through some of your mental health challenges,

challenges with addiction. So anything you want to share just about your

own journey and kind of what brought you to the Josh Trent that we're

seeing and hearing today? For whatever

reason, I'm having a memory when I was somewhere between

9, 10, or 11. And I watched my mom get carried

out of the house on a stretcher. Hmm. And I remember

somatically what that felt like and how much that

projected into the rest of my life. This

experience as essentially a young boy who really

needed to know that his environment was safe and how much that impacted his own

emotional and mental health. Flash forward, it actually

created an incredible business and podcast and my ability to

sit here and speak with you. So encapsulated in that

traumatic event was also a real gem. Yet

when I think about the real understanding and/or definition of

mental health, I believe that the definition of mental health is

a sound and clear grounded mind that is connected to the body

and all the different aspects of self such that we're

integrated in a way that our mind doesn't hold us hostage.

that our emotional patterns don't hold us hostage, that our

unconscious beliefs as it pertains to mental health don't hold us

hostage. And so my life has been layer after layer

of understanding 3 big things. First of all,

who actually am I? This discovery of self. Who

am I not? Can I release and liberate myself

from that which I'm not? And then third, can I give myself permission

and joy to celebrate the authentic self of who Josh is?

And I think that mental health is a, quote, crisis, if you want

to call it that right now, because so many people are living out of alignment

with their soul calling, their purpose, and really living

someone else's story. And, you know, we can only hold the mask up for so

long before our biceps starts burning. At some point, we have to take the mask

off and look in the mirror at The life we created for ourselves. And

so that's been my story going back to personal training, then

leaving personal training, going to corporate America, committing what I called

soul suicide or spiritual suicide, doing something for just

money because I didn't have the worth or self-love to

trust myself to be able to lead a mission. And then catapulting

into the past 11 years of podcasting on the Wellness and Wisdom

podcast, Which is essentially where we go to understand, like,

how do we celebrate who we really are? And when we

celebrate who we really are, it's such a deep question as it

pertains to mental health, because a lot of the mental stories we've

created about our life and even about other people and God and society as

a whole are really just projections of the past. They're

essentially packets of information that we've absorbed through emotional

epigenetics. That keep recycling and living out.

But the thing that stops it, and when we become a cycle breaker, is actually

the moment, much like Neo did in The Matrix, where he put his hand up

and the bullets fell. It's not about fighting the past. It's not about blaming

parents. It's not about pointing the finger at who created the

life and the mental health that we have. It's actually about taking a

deep exhale and having an emotional inventory to ask

ourselves the most deep question, I believe. And that is, how

can I celebrate the authentic self? How can I really

know who I really am? And these are very fundamental

questions as it pertains to mental health, because, you know, as Jung says,

uh, children are tasked with the unfinished business of their parents.

And so that's the case for all of us, whether we know it or not.

I always say that whatever's being felt in a space and not being said is

still being felt. So These are some of the things that I've

been leaning on, that I've been exploring in my own journey from

traumatic events in childhood, which I think most of us experienced that in some way.

I'm not, I'm not that. And then this

uncovering or really remembering process of who we really are

and the ability for us to celebrate who we really are. That's, that's been the

journey up until now. I'm sure it'll continue

quite like that. But have different turns and twists.

That's beautiful. What I'm, what I'm hearing from you is

as children, we, we experience trauma, we feel unsafe, whatever it

might be. And then as a result, we, we have these

adaptive strategies and those adaptive

strategies move us further and further and further away

from the authenticity of our being, of

our, you could say, soul blueprints. And what I'm hearing

from you is that is when these symptoms of mental

illness start expressing themselves. Is that correct? Absolutely.

And then you said it perfectly, symptoms, right? The

symptomology is really a thread on a sweater, but

we're all wearing the sweater and we can all decide if it's the right fit

or not. But yet what happens is people want to clip

the thread. They want to address the symptom. And this goes for all

branches of development, whether it's mental, spiritual, physical,

emotional, even financial. The, the itch

or the thread that's loose is really a clue that points us

into what's really going on underneath the surface. Mm-hmm. And

everything underneath the surface, a good analogy would be this, you know, when we're

kids and we held a beach ball in the pool and you'd like get down

there and hold, you can only hold the ball for so long. Eventually the ball

has to pop up. To the top of the surface. Well, we are the

pool and our emotions are the ball. And so

to the degree that we can release emotion or energy in motion,

then we don't have to have so many adaptive coping strategies to which you speak

of, because we can really lead life with an open heart and a grounded

being and experience emotions that are intense,

that can sideline us for a while. But we can become

resilient, much like a bamboo reed or a strong tree

where if there's a storm, it bends, but it doesn't break. And I think

for many people, when there's a break, that's actually the most

beautiful moment in their life. Doesn't feel like it.

But when, when we're broken, we're not actually broken.

We are being forced to look at a part of the self

that's not been integrated. And I think there's real beauty there. It

doesn't mean it's always going to be clean. It actually is most times really messy.

Um, but there, there's real gems there. Yeah.

And one of the,

one of the words that you're using is parts of self. So,

you know, I'm a big fan of parts work. I'm curious, has that

been a part of your healing journey in terms of working with the self as

a multiplicity as a collection of some of these different

parts playing different roles, some of which have not been fully integrated?

It's a yes. And I, I interviewed Dick Schwartz, the founder of

IFS, and he actually did a live session on my podcast and

I had a huge release. And, you know, this concept of

IFS is fascinating, right? We have the firefighters that

cover for the protectors, but essentially We all have this part

of a psyche that is in exile. In his

work, um, No Bad Parts, he talks about the exile. And I think really

the exile is the one that doesn't get enough attention

in most work, because like you said, symptomological-wise, there's

such a focus on the firefighter or the protector. Mm-hmm. Even some parts of

CBT therapy and many branches of talk therapy, they're, they're talking about the

behavior or the action. But I actually think it's much deeper.

I think it's much deeper. And it's been an evolution of understanding, Greg, where,

you know, I went through talk therapy. I did plant medicine and breathwork

and float tanks and microdosing and

inner child work and IFS and just this kind of graduated

experience where, quite frankly, recently in the past couple of months,

I did some very deep work with a gentleman called Mark Wolin.

And he wrote a book called It Didn't Start With You, um,

about intergenerational healing. Mm-hmm. And in the sessions I've been

able to, uh, sit with him, it's been profound

because he and all of my other mentors— I'm up to

850 episodes now. And you know what the through line is, Greg,

at the crux of your question that every guest that sits across the table has

encountered? It's this one deep question of

Am I abandoning a part of myself when I feel

afraid? And what is the cost when I abandon

a part of myself that my life is

beared fruit by? In other words, the quality of my life is dictated by

the authenticity of my being, because when I'm authentic, I'm at

peace. You know, I can be, I can be Josh.

Yet these parts of self They're very,

they're very subtle at times. You know, we've, we've heard the phrase maybe, um,

the ego is a subtle foe. The ego sometimes can be a

snake or a whisper or sometimes a sledgehammer, but

typically the ego has one language and it's the language of fear.

False evidence appearing real or for everyone's attention

responsibly. I like that one because a lot of times,

just because something might be consciously false. Yeah. does not mean that

unconsciously or somatically that it feels false.

Many times these emotions or these beliefs that are locked

into our tissues or into our unconscious mind, depending on

if you follow IFS or if you follow Bessel van der Kolk, or

even the smooth muscle theory and the latch theory from Michael Edward Johnson,

they're all pointing to the same thing. And this is why I love podcasting because

we can, we can go in so many branches of science and models.

And we can ask ourselves, what's the through line? And I believe, Greg, that the

through line is that at some point we abandon a

part of ourselves, and most often it's the younger version of

ourselves. For me, it was little Joshy. He

didn't have the type of support that he needed, even though his

parents did all the best that they possibly could with the level of

consciousness they had in their development at that time. Yeah.

Sometimes our parents' consciousness isn't enough to make our neural

system feel safe because our parents essentially do one thing.

They reflect onto us a reality of safety or

a reality of fear, and they do it based on what they were taught.

So it's this epigenetic transfer that happens. If you look at the Native American

theory, it's, they call it the 7th generation principle. 7 generations

back and forward are healed when we integrate all parts of

self. I do believe it's that one through line though, of us

learning that when we abandon our inner child, when we

abandon that young version of self, we may feel safe

for a while, but the exile is still in the closet

banging on the door, asking to be held. And that exile will

operate in projection, in relationship, in business,

in quiet moments, in friendship, and in literally all parts of life.

Because it's asking for peace. It's asking for integration. And so

that's the through line that I've seen over the past 11 years and all these

podcasts is, can we exhale and be in

peace or be in union with the part of ourselves that we've

abandoned, that we've rejected? And a lot of times that part that we've abandoned and

rejected was a learned behavior because we saw our parents do it.

Beautiful. What it was bringing up for me as you were

sharing is something that, uh, Gabor Maté talks

about, which is

the dilemma between authenticity and attachment,

and how we forego authenticity to secure attachments,

which is a form of self-abandonment. Yeah.

And so I guess the healing journey is as we're

healing those attachment wounds and we're securing more internal

attachments, then we can return to our authentic

self. I would love to dive into emotional

epigenetics. As soon as you said that term,

something lit up inside of me and said, we need to go into that a

little bit. So what is emotional epigenetics?

The way I understand it now, which it's always evolving, but the basic definition

is that the epigenome sits on top of the genome. And so our

genome is fixed, but our epigenome are essentially dials

that turn up the volume or down the volume on a gene's

expression. And so knowing the scientific model, I

really have a hypothesis that I'm going deeper into. And that

hypothesis is that when we understand the science and

the spirituality of why some people heal and some don't, we

find that emotions, unconscious beliefs, and

environmental expression are passed down through lineage.

That's the, that's the top level of emotional epigenetics. And,

you know, I'm a big fan of Mark Wolynn's work. Um, I

love his book, It Didn't Start With You. I also, I come from a family

of Holocaust survivors, so his work really hit home for me.

Oh yeah. And so I've done a lot of work also. I did a

year of training in family constellation, which I know he does a lot of

constellation work. Yes. Um, so this has all been very real

for me. And so with this,

you could say, intergenerational transfer,

how have you noticed that show up in your life? And

how have you been able to begin identifying, wait a

minute, this pattern didn't start with me?

Because there's been a lot of times in my life where I'll play something out

or I'll act something out. I'm like, wait a minute, That so

resembles how I experienced my father, or that

so resembles a dynamic that I experienced in

my original constellation. And even finding,

replicating the constellation from our family of origin with

other people, other partners, other relationships. So I'm really

curious what your experience of all of this has been, because it's such a,

such a huge but probably underexplored topic. Yeah.

Ever since I was a little boy, I felt this hot

air bubble in my stomach and I couldn't figure it out why.

And like I said, in my healing journey, I listed out a bunch of practices

and modalities that I did. Breathwork was a very significant one that

where I was actually able to start sensing what was in that hot air bubble.

But how I learned about Mark Woollens' work was actually through a

friend named Mark Groves. Hmm. And, um, Mark

is a human connection specialist and he, he nudged me in

Wolynn's area. And when I looked back, when I

started to understand the models and the frameworks of It Didn't Start With You

and intergenerational healing, I started to connect dots

from my past about literally, Greg, no, no

exaggeration, every single relationship I'd ever been in,

the way I treated my mother. my father, my brother,

my friends, most importantly myself,

were all a fabricated story

based on a coping mechanism that I felt that I actually

acted out because I saw my parents act their own out. Hmm.

Now, what I mean by this, I'll go a level deeper, is when I was

born, I was born 4 pounds,

11.5 ounces. And for the first 2 weeks of my life, I was in an

incubator. So I was being hovered around by

strangers. I don't know how much my mom or dad held me. And

when I talked to them, they don't remember. Think about how

incredibly—

think about the necessity of human touch, especially

mother to baby. Think about the importance of that, that we've been

learning through science for so long. And then I reflect,

okay, if my neural system was actually coming out of my mother's womb

early, well, then obviously I didn't feel safe inside of my mother. I had

to come out early. And then not only did I feel unsafe

in the womb, in utero, I then was under an

essentially hot plastic glass that was keeping me warm,

kind of a pseudo-comfort, but not the real thing.

And I can look back on that and go, wow, that must have been so

hard for this young— Human being. baby, you know, fetus then turning into a baby.

And then I look at the ways in which my father left home right after

I was born. My mom was struggling with manic bipolar disease at

that time, still is. And then I

graduate into school and being in the system, and I was

bullied and overweight and chronic sinusitis and just the

ramifications that actually started when I was

inside the body of my mother. And then I started to

look into the trauma language of my mother and going into Mark's work

and relaying that to the past and thinking, okay, I'm going to go back and

excavate, Greg, but I'm not going to go back and excavate to blame.

I'm going to go back and excavate to know what happened, not

why it happened. Yeah. This is the big question in my work

and in the answer to your question of how has this unfolded for me?

How it's unfolded for me is in the beginning of my journey, I was doing

it all wrong. I was excavating the past to find why

something happened and what meaning I can make as

to why it occurred. And I'm going to be the one to heal my family.

It's like, that was actually the ego being subtle. Mm-hmm. That

was me trying to hide away from the emotion that I was feeling,

which was inherently grief and sadness. That's the hot air bubble.

And so my journey has been starting out backwards and then remembering

forwards. And so when I look at my

mother and what she was struggling with, and then I go to my

grandfather and my grandmother, who were the product of my

great-grandparents who came over from Sicily and landed

on an island and had a number written on their clothes. And then the

great-greats who lived in Sicily during famine and

wartime, and even World War II. We are the product of a very

traumatic society, but our ancestors and our lineage did not

have the luxury that you and I have now. This is an

extremely luxurious moment that you and I have, and

an extremely luxurious lifestyle for everybody listening. Like, the fact that

you're doing the healing work and that you're interested in this conversation is

only because you have the capacity to do so. You don't have to be working

for 12 hours like our lineage did. So

on a 30K view, what I'm really saying is when I looked back and also

when I looked at my father's side, the challenges he went through with

rheumatoid arthritis, my dad's skin peeled off when he was in high school.

My grandfather had shoes with holes in them walking through

the fields in Wyoming. And I look back on maternal and paternal

and I can see the spider webs Of all the emotional

patterns, all the unconscious beliefs, and all the

environmental expression that essentially what I like to call

bioenergetically burdens people. When we're

bioenergetically burdened with these unconscious beliefs, these

emotional patterns, and these environmental expressions,

we get burdened and we have to adapt. You cannot carry a

backpack filled with 100 pounds of concrete without kind of

Postural subluxation, right? You, you have to adapt in order

to carry the load or in order to carry the burden. And then I

thought in our society now, what's really happening is we're, we're

coming to an awareness moment. We're coming to a high point of consciousness

that does not rely on us stuffing down emotion

anymore or ignoring what has happened. It's not important that I

excavate for why. Why, I believe, is a fool's

game. But what is very intelligent, because when we can identify

what happened, we can understand how we can integrate

deeper parts of ourselves without abandoning them or rejecting them.

Otherwise, if we don't, and this is the really sad part,

until you make the unconscious conscious, it'll rule your life and you'll call it fate,

which is what Jung said so eloquently in the early 1900s. What

he's saying is emotional epigenetics. He's just saying it from

his lens of psychoanalysis. And so I think about my role

and my passion now, it's to bring lightness and also

sacredness to the personal development realm. It's such a

serious world, Greg, and levity and humor and lightness is

needed so much in our healing. If we don't bring that, then we can get

mentally stuck in the excavation. We can get mentally stuck in the mental

models. And I speak from experience. That was my journey. Remember, I did

it backwards. I went mental first. I went why

first. And then I released that and I started to do the real

deeper work that's very complicated and contextual of

how do I love and integrate all parts of self such that I don't carry

on this genetic expression and I don't give it to my children

because that's not theirs to carry. That's mine to heal. That's mine to

integrate. Beautiful. I was

gonna ask, how has becoming a father

impacted your personal healing,

and then also your sense of purpose and mission in the world?

Because you're handing the world over to this next generation.

So how has stepping into fatherhood really impacted those 2

areas?

Wow. The deepest impact for me

has been on a continuous basis,

realizing where I'm not free, where I'm still

in the process of shedding the emotional

patterns and unconscious beliefs, where I'm shedding the

environmental expressions that exacerbate into physical symptomology.

My children are the deepest, most crystal clear

mirror into the truth of who I am.

And of course, right next to that, my wife, she's a powerful mirror as well.

And so, yeah, to the degree that I'm being

present with my children, they're going to teach me so much

more than all these books in my studio, because that is the

ultimate report card. There, there,

there is no greater report card on planet Earth than if your

children and your spouse enjoy being around you.

That's the report card. And then the final frontier

is, do you love and enjoy being with yourself? And one could even

say that that interchanges with all mirrors. So if there's 3 mirrors,

self, children, and spouse,

Then all of those mirrors, actually, I'm in the middle of them like a funhouse,

and they're all just kind of shining on me at all times. So I don't

know if one comes before the other. I think, I think our integration

and our peace and our power comes from the viewpoint of all 3 of these

mirrors that allow us to see who we really are. We could put a mirror

of friendship in there as well. We could also put a mirror of business

and of how we get feedback from people that we do business

with or our friendships. So I think those, those 5 mirrors are,

um, been very, very intense for me at times, but also very

revealing and very joyous. Ultimately, my children teach me

more than anything, and they bring me the greatest amount of joy.

Beautiful. I love what you, you

mentioned about the mirrors, because what that creates is really radical

self-responsibility. It feels radical.

And way less projection. Right.

Beautiful. And how about your— yeah, go ahead. I was going to

say the projection. The projection is a tricky one

because the most dangerous place to

be is when someone says out loud, I'm fully

healed, I'm projection-free. That is the most—

that's like you're walking on thin ice there. Okay. Um,

because that's when the ego is actually gearing up to project again.

And so I just, I'll leave that there. Absolutely.

Absolutely. There's a good dose of humility in there.

Right. Yeah. Um, and how about your,

your work, your mission, your purpose? Like what, what

you're here to do? Because when you step into fatherhood, you step into a

new archetype. It's a very different archetypal

landscape, kind of like you could say maybe going from the warrior to the

king or, you know, any way you

want to kind of frame it. But how has that

archetypal shift impacted your sense of mission

here? The mission when I started,

it was Wellness Force Radio. That was 2015. Yeah.

And at that time, I had a pretty severe

sex addiction, porn addiction. I think it's severe.

Um, and the reason I say that is because that was

my ultimate coping strategy that my

soul knew was no longer serving our evolution.

But I chose the vehicle of podcasting to do self-work

and self-growth in public. To

consequently keep myself accountable.

And in 2022, after 7 years, I shifted

from Wellness Force Radio to Wellness and Wisdom

because I was done being forceful. I was done trying to force

things. And as you know, from Hawkins' work, Power Versus Force,

the only way we can really be powerful is from a place

of embodied peace. Anytime I take something from you

or I take something from anyone else by force, there's immediate

resentment that's created. Now, that also applies to me.

So if I, in my early entrepreneurial journey, I would force

things, I would force productivity, I would force

12-hour days, I would force not going to sleep, I would

force, uh, compulsatory working hours.

And it's because I was afraid. I was afraid of not being successful. I was

afraid of failing. I was afraid of bankruptcy. So you can see that. Yeah.

There again, my, my knowledge and wisdom were, were

backwards. If, if I could put a note in my

pocket in 2015,

I would have told myself to focus primarily on the parts of myself that I've

rejected. And I would have said to myself, and I

think he would have listened, you know, sometimes you ask people that question, hey, if

you can go back and ask your younger self one thing, do you think he

would listen? I say absolutely. I think, I think I would know how to talk

to that 35-year-old version of Josh. Yeah. And

I do think he would listen because the same pain he felt then

carried on up until about 2024,

2025. It took another, Greg, solid

2 to 3 years for me to integrate the

wisdom that was knocking on my door. So it's been,

it's been a genuine evolution and it has not been easy. I'm not

going to powder cake it. It's been really, really challenging. So now,

The fuel source that I pull from has been, how can I be

intelligent in the way that I do my work? And also,

how can I be in union with this young part of

Josh that needs rest, that needs recovery,

that needs time with his children and intimacy with his wife?

The only way that any of that comes is the ultimate

paradox, because the part of myself that I was ignoring, that I

was repressing, and that I was suppressing, you know, conscious and

unconscious, was this young version of Josh that just wanted to

know that I've got him, that I'm here for him,

that no matter where we go or what we find ourselves in, that I'm

going to listen to him and I'm not going to silence him

and I'm not going to put him in a closet and I'm going to let

him know that I've got him and I've got us. That's the

turning point. There is no PDF, there is no weekend

workshop, and I would argue there's no one psychedelic ceremony

that can get people to what I believe only happens through

learned and lived experience. I don't think it has to be as

long. That's part of my mission in the world is to shorten that suffering curve

because I went through such a long one. When you transition to wellness and

wisdom, I'd love to

unpack those 2 words a little bit.

I'd love to start with wisdom, actually, because we have

this world that's full of information, as much

information as you can gather and consume in a

moment's notice, but not a

lot of wisdom. Yeah. There's a lot of information.

Oh yeah. How do you differentiate

information, and you could say knowledge, sure, from real,

real wisdom? Wow, such a deep

question. Um, can— if you don't

mind, can I just share something that I had written down? Is that all right?

Please. I love this because— and then I'll answer personally after this.

Yeah, this is, this is an excerpt from a book called Outwitting the Devil,

and It'll be a 60-second passage.

Um, he was in, uh, he was interviewing the devil, which is essentially just

his shadow, right? Yeah. Outwitting the Devil, a very famous book. He said, what is

wisdom? Wisdom is the ability to relate yourself to nature's

laws so as to make them serve you, and the ability to

relate yourself to other people so to gain their harmonious, willing

cooperation in helping to yield whatever you demand of it.

Time is nature's seasoning experience. Through which the human

experience may be ripened into wisdom. People are not born with

wisdom, but they are born with the capacity to think, and they

may through time think their way into wisdom. Wisdom only comes

through the lapse of time. It cannot be inherited,

and it cannot be imported from one person to another except through the

lapse of time. Wisdom comes only to non-drifters

who formed positive thought habits as a dominating force in their lives.

Drifters and those whose dominating thoughts are negative never

require wisdom except of a very elementary nature.

Accumulated knowledge is not wisdom. If knowledge were wisdom, the

achievements of science would not be converted into implements of

destruction. What is needed to convert knowledge into wisdom?

Time plus the desire for wisdom. Wisdom is never thrust

upon one. It is acquired, if at all, By positive

thinking through voluntary effort. The majority of people who

acquire wisdom do so after they have passed the age of 40.

Prior to that time, the majority of people are too busy gathering knowledge and

organizing it into plans to spend any efforts seeking

wisdom. And he ends with this: adversity and failure are

nature's universal languages through which she impacts

wisdom to those who are ready to receive it. Oh,

I mean, that to me is the

summation of all that I believe and all that I

actually know. All that I actually know. Because

when I think about true wisdom, it's the

ability to know thyself and to have others

cooperate with you in that harmonious law that he described.

And I do resonate with adversity and failure and

roadblocks being the seasoning that are afforded to somebody

who's seeking wisdom if they're ready to receive it.

I also remember reading a book from Rudolf Steiner, How to Know Higher

Worlds, and he said in the beginning of that book that when a

student has a pure heart, a pure

intention in their heart to seek wisdom, Then the master that

holds that wisdom cannot not share it with them. They have to

share it with the student, but only if the intention is pure.

And I think those, those 2 passages I can

repeat, they're not just regurgitations. They're,

they're recapitulations in, in my own life experience because I have actually

lived those, those passages. And I believe in those

passages because That's been the topography of my,

of my journey. That's, that's how it's unfolded for me.

Incredible. Incredible. I really also loved how

in the passage you said that if,

if knowledge was wisdom, then science wouldn't misuse

it in the way that it has. That's right. Really, really

beautiful. Yeah. Look at all the wars that are started in

this world. under the clenched fist that their God is better than yours.

Yeah, or religion. Look at, look at science saying,

stay 6 feet away from each other and put a bag on your face,

and you'll be safe. Look at all the ways in which science has become

literally a god that people pray to. Yet

we have Fauci pleading the Fifth Amendment over

100 times when we all know he's a liar, even though he was exalted as

a god of science. So I'm here to tell y'all, your god of science has

failed you because you were the one that put it on the pulpit,

because you outsourced in a coping mechanism your own safety and

security to be a good little boy and good little girl.

That's not wisdom. Amen. You know, I was

about a— I think it was a week ago, actually. I

was at a fire ceremony.

With, um, it was, it was run by this organization up

here in upstate New York that is connected to the Huichol tradition

of northern Mexico, of firekeepers and medicine

keepers. Ooh. And it was one of the first times

where I felt like I was truly

around elders. It was the first

time that I really felt like I was truly around what

we would call wise elders. Hmm. And they

sat there with so much joy,

such a light heart, and so much delight

in just sharing presence. And

I could see like this look in their eyes

of like, I really see you and I have this desire to

really know you. And it was the first time that I

actually felt in my body this full

exhale of, I could just be,

I don't have to perform. Ooh. And there's nothing that I

have to do to really earn their connection

or earn their blessing or whatever it might be. How much

that differed from my childhood. And I

realized how much we're

missing these wise elders

in our modern worlds. Yeah.

What has the impact of that been from your perspective,

whether it's our generation,

current generations? What has the impact of not having

the wise elders that maybe we once did, um, in

the past? Because that goes along with

the wisdom. Yeah. Whew.

I was looking across the podcast studio when you asked that question,

and I have this super old-school book over here. It's called Vitology.

It was the album cover from Pearl Jam. I don't know if you've seen it.

It's— I think it was written in like 1904. And they were

so certain that everything they wrote in that book was true. And

actually, many of the things in that book were true. But you see, these

people that write these books and these people that dedicate their lives

to an elevation of consciousness or an understanding of the

human condition, they inadvertently

become elders, or they

unconsciously become just information information

givers. And so I think in order for somebody to be a

true elder, they have to balance the art

of knowing themselves, knowing

what they've learned, and knowing what the world most needs in the

current moment they're teaching it. There are some elders

that I've seen that speak as if they're an elder, but they're

teaching things only from the past that don't necessarily relate

to modernity, to where we are now. So I wanted to have that

preframe before I really answer your question. The

impact that I've seen is that many of us

have a deep father wound, that we will

unconsciously seek out other wounded men who have the

same father wound, and we'll get teachings from them because they're

presenting themselves as an elder, but they're not truly an

elder because they don't have an integration of all parts of themselves.

But they're great at speaking. They're great at marketing. And with the rise of

social media, they're great at clips and marketing and reels.

Yet the best elders I've ever found could give a

shit about marketing. They don't care.

They know exactly who they are. They know the wisdom that

they've learned from their past, and they know exactly what the world needs right now.

And they're unapologetic and completely unabashed to

sharing that wisdom to the students that have a pure heart,

that have pureness of heart. And so I think it creates this

bifurcation where when we have essentially a gaping

Grand Canyon of the loss of eldership, it's because

first and foremost, we've been trained to look for quick wins,

quick information, and get rid of the pain we're feeling as fast as possible.

And social media feeds this hungry ghost more and more and more. I

just saw some research that we now officially as a society

have less attention span than a goldfish. I think

goldfish have 8 seconds and we have 7 seconds now. That's

why on Instagram you have to have so much pressure on hooks and

marketing and visuals is because people are doom scrolling. And even

that phrase is interesting. They're doom scrolling because they feel like they're in doom.

They feel an impending doom and they're thinking that social media can be a coping

strategy for them. A real elder comes into

a space and flushes the slate clean of

everything I've just described. Literally just their presence in a space

is healing. Like you said, you were sitting at the fire and you just felt

so seen. You felt like you could really exhale. A

true elder comes into a space with no judgment, with

no projections and with pure, honest lived

experience. And then when they share that experience,

it's so refreshing and it's so

healing. And really, you know what it is? It's so transform— it's so

transformative to the people that are in a space with a true elder

that then those elders finally get the attention and the respect they deserve.

And so I think it's a very complex situation as to why

true eldership is not being practiced in the scale that it used to be

is because I actually feel like it's all part of the plan. Hmm.

I think there's a very nefarious plan on earth to, um,

provide pseudo-comfort, pseudo-sexuality,

pseudo-wisdom, pseudo-everything. Pseudo being

false or fake, like a hollow shell of something that could actually be.

And I think that the way I've seen it play out is I, in the

past, I used to seek out mentors that had a father wound. I used to

seek out People like the David Goggins that are obviously so deeply

wounded that they're preaching from that wound.

And then when I started to do the deeper work on myself, and of course

it goes without saying that I still have more work to do as we all

do. I'm not, I'm not exempt from doing more work just

because I'm at this stage of consciousness. Now, the type of mentorship that I

seek out is I ask myself 3 questions. Do I

want the life that this elder has? Hmm. Or

do I want some part of their life? For example, if I'm seeking out

physical nourishment, do— does this— is this person physically nourished?

Is— are they fit? Are they healthy? Are they well? If I'm seeking out emotional

nourishment, do I look at the way in which this person processes

emotion and their family enjoys being around them? If

it's a spiritual nourishment, do I genuinely feel in my bones

that this person has a direct relationship with their creator?

And the same thing with mental. Do I feel that this

person is mentally sharp or do they have acuity? Can they

articulate their wisdom in a way that it's easy to understand?

These are the ways in which I seek out mentorship, specifically

eldership. And those are the questions that I ask myself,

but I think it's a real, it's a real challenge to society that

there's such a lack of, of true elders. Yeah. And I do think

it's by design, personally. I don't doubt it. And just having

that experience recently was just, it made things

very, very clear in terms of where our culture is right now.

Yeah. I'd love to shift over to the

wellness side because we're

living from my perspective in a world that

yes, there is processed food. There's, you know, all these things. But there's

also like the world of biohacking. There's the world of, you

know, functional medicine, which, you know, is beautiful, but also

sometimes can be a little mechanical.

And I've fallen into the trap recently. Something I've been exploring in myself is

like, I eat well, I exercise, I meditate, I, you know,

sauna, all the things. But it was coming from

this energy of like, micromanagement.

Yeah. And I was just recently

exploring this within myself, and I realized how much

in this micromanaging energy of my wellness,

I wasn't really listening and attuning.

And so it's been a practice for me to really

restructure my relationship with my

body, my relationship with wellness, Really

listening and attuning more, less of like this

micromanaging energy, which funny enough, given a lot of our conversation,

goes back to a lot of the energy of my

mother that I experienced as a child. You could say like

the loving but smothering or loving but

micromanaging. I was like, oh, I actually internalized that

and started to manage my body and my health in the same way. Yeah.

Wow. And so I'm really curious, how do you define

wellness and how has that evolved over the years for yourself?

Yeah, the, the alt— I'll give 2 definitions. There's one

definition that is holistic and scientific, and then there's one

that's deeply personal to me. Great. So the holistic scientific

of wellness is that when You,

you understand how to nourish all parts of yourself.

And that understanding turns into wisdom, physical, mental,

emotional, spiritual, and financial nourishment of self

is ultimately the, the stasis of wellness.

It's the, I believe it's the nourishment of those 5 sides. And those are both

scientific and spiritual. But on a personal note, I think

that ultimately wellness for me Is when I am focused on

the we instead of just the I. You know, think

about the word illness. It starts with I. When I'm

so focused on my victim stories and

my life being against me, and he did this to me, me, me, me, me,

me, me, me, me, that promotes illness. When I start

bridging out and I start remembering that, oh, wellness is

actually both singular and collective. Wellness is deeply

personal, but wellness is collective. Then it gets to the real,

ultimately highest form of wellness, which is that I've

integrated all the parts of myself that allow me to show up authentically.

And when I celebrate my authentic self, it gives permission for people to do the

same. That's wellness. Now, the complexity there is

vast because, as you know, just because I'm

nourishing these 5 parts of self, My bills don't stop. My

responsibilities don't stop. And my projections and

my work and my attunement to those and my awareness of those don't

stop either. And also throw in children, right? And

friendships and personal goals and business. Like,

there's a lot that we carry in this world. And so I do not

believe that it's possible to be well.

Unless we make wellness a passion and a hobby and something that we

love learning about and saturating ourselves in.

The moment that we get pulled out of— I,

I'll just say this word, like being a nerd. I like, I'm a nerd. Like

I, I really nerd out on things like whether it's the brain or

the body or emotions. I like to know all the moving

parts. So I'm a dork. I'm a nerd. And I like celebrate that.

You know, I think it's a great part of being passionate. Look at all

the nerds that have created all the things like these, these phones that we all

carry. Those were created by nerds, y'all. Those were

definitely created by nerds. And so the things that we most value, we

become passionate about. And unless we are really

passionate and we have a hobby and we saturate ourselves

in understanding our own wellness and exploring our own wellness,

Then our attention is currency, and we're going to spend that currency on

television or porn or shopping or unhealthy food or

unhealthy people or current events or news. And

society is just sitting there, you know, licking its chops,

ready to monetize our pain whenever it can. Oh, you don't

like your body? Do this GLP-1. Oh, you think you're ugly?

Get a facelift. Oh, you think you're still ugly? Get liposuction. You know,

it's like It never ends. It fucking never ends.

The hooks of modernity that are sitting there drooling,

waiting to monetize our insecurities and

essentially our lack of authenticity in ourselves.

Incredible. Beautiful. A couple of things that really

landed for me was when you were talking about the nerd. I,

I love that. And one of the things I really value,

and it's, it comes off so much on your podcast when you're interviewing,

is the depth of curiosity that you have.

And for me, curiosity

is one of the most important energies because it

keeps you open to possibility. Yeah. It keeps you

adaptive to change. And it's, you could say the

opposite of certainty. And to me, like,

certainty is death. Like you were saying, like the guy that's like, yeah,

I'm fully healed. I have no more projections. Like that's certainty. That's

dangerous. Yeah, it's dangerous. But curiosity is like, oh, I

wonder if I'm still doing that. You know, curiosity

really keeps you energetically open. And so

I really appreciated that. Yeah. What, like, I don't

know the etymology or the exact definition of curiosity.

But I had some friends over this morning, and I was reflecting back to

biblical times when, when Jesus would give a speech,

he would sit the children right in the front of the sermon.

And he would tell everyone, you can only receive what I'm sharing in

this wisdom if you have the heart and mind of a child.

Hmm. I don't mean that you're not

mature. I don't mean that you need to be reckless. But

think about children. Like when I read, oh my gosh, Greg, when

I read to my children and I just happened to glance over at them,

they are so present. They're like reading this book. They're imagining. It's like,

it's one of the most beautiful things. Yeah. It's so

beautiful. Like it honestly brings up emotion in me just to talk about it.

I was just reading to him last night and I'm like, wow. The

heart and the mind of a child is so

open. You know, kids, 0 through 7,

the neurology is basically on drugs, right? The hemispheres are open.

There's a bunch of neurogenesis happening at all times. I think it's like, I don't

know the exact figures, but it's somewhere around a million new

neurokinetics happening every day. And so

these children are such great teachers because They, they

bring us back to inherently the core of what you said,

which is curiosity. The curious

heart is one that's just there for the observation and for

the learning. The certain heart

is one that is fixed on knowing the outcome and having a crystal ball

of some sort. And I don't think that it's really possible to live

a really beautiful life. Hmm. Without

genuinely practicing curiosity as a skill set. I think it's a skill set.

All the— everything we've talked about today are skills.

Yeah. And these skills, just like, you know, you put a

barbell on your back, it's all the same. It's the

repetitions that you do it in that yields the result. That's, that's what I believe.

Yeah. I also love how you talked about the, the I

versus the we. You know, the, the less, the less healthy we are,

the more self-focused we become, especially like if

that autonomic nervous system's in survival, it's always my

survival. It's always, you know, fight or flight. It's me.

Um, the healthier we get, the more we expand out

into the interconnection. What's interesting is the word

wellness has the we in it, and the word illness has the I

in it. I know. So cool. So interesting. So cool. You know

what? I interviewed this guy named Nir Eyal recently, and he held up his book.

It's called Beyond Beliefs. And he's like, look, the word

lie is inside of belief. I

found that fascinating because I'm like, oh, beliefs are just a

story. They're just a story that we tell ourselves.

So if I grew up in an environment where I was told lies to

believe in, Well, then those lies become pseudo-truth as an adult.

And then my, quote, beliefs are essentially just

packets of information that I've attached to as a coping strategy for

what my soul knows is a lie, but what my conscious mind is acting out

through a mask. Yeah.

And beliefs always feel like they need to be defended.

Of course. True truth never needs to be defended.

You know what's interesting about what you said? And this goes for people in religion,

people that have dogmatic views about anything. The best

way to believe, you know, somebody's belief is embodied

and they have a true connection to their belief

when they can state their belief and they're not triggered

and they don't try to change someone else's. Absolutely.

That's when somebody has a real embodied belief that,

like, for example, I hold a belief that men are men and

women are women. And to some people, that's really triggering. And

I'm like, okay, well, triggering to these people, it's because they want me to

believe what they believe. They want me to believe their

beliefs as if they were mine. But it's the ultimate paradox of

the ego. Because if you think about it, if you have somebody that was

born a man and they went through trauma and now they think they're a woman,

Um, and I refuse to

speak to someone as if they're a woman because they're not. Um,

they— it brings up anger in them. Why won't you believe what I believe?

Well, I'm, I'm happy to allow you to have your

belief without telling you you're wrong. I'm happy to have my belief

without you telling me that I'm wrong. But if your belief rests upon

me believing as you believe, Then what are we really talking about here?

It's not actually belief. It's a packet of

information that was accumulated through, I believe, in many cases,

trauma. And that trauma projecting out

with anger and with forcefulness that if

I don't believe what you believe, then somehow I'm a victim.

Or I'm sorry, then somehow I'm a villain and they're a victim. It's essentially the

basics of the drama triangle. Right. right? Yeah. The, the, the victim,

the villain, and the hero. It's Stephen Cartman's work from the early

'60s. And also, I just interviewed a beautiful woman inside and out. Her name is

Kylie Ryan. And she has a heart alchemy model that she describes,

and she goes deep into this work as well. That's a whole nother podcast, right?

The drama triangle. All of this stuff is

happening because Christ consciousness is at the center of it.

And I believe that Christ consciousness would say, hey, if that

belief makes you truly happy, which I would argue that it doesn't,

then by all means, live your life and you will not receive any judgment from

me. But if you demand with a clenched fist that I believe

exactly what you believe and you make me a villain just because I don't believe

what you believe, one has to then wonder, am I

creating a victimhood vibration for myself? Yeah.

Yeah. To me, anyone that, and I've seen this in myself in the

past, anyone that needs to defend a belief is

living on very shaky ground. Very. You know, very

unstable ground. Someone who's really rooted in truth,

there's nothing really to defend, you know? And I feel like, 'cause I've

explored a lot of this internally, where my

desire to defend belief is really

my unconscious desire to belong.

And in a very

mind-oriented culture, belief is where we find

belonging. Absolutely.

And that goes back to that, you know, core wound, the trauma.

I remember, you remember that show Brain Games with Jason Silva? Yeah.

It was on Discovery Channel. Yeah. He, there was one

episode where he went into the neurology. We have this certain part of our brain.

that is wired for acceptance from tribe. And

we're, we haven't really evolved that much from millennia, right?

Like we're still wired for tribe. We're still wired for acceptance.

I have this phrase that I've been milling on for a while and it

relates to emotional epigenetics. And I wonder how you feel about it.

The belief that I have is that true freedom is the

result Of when your biology and your reality are

no longer at war. Your biology,

who you are, and your reality, who you

think you are, are one and the same. And then you

can be free. Then you don't have to abandon yourself. You don't have to

eat terrible food. You don't have to have any coping strategies at all.

I think I think really what. It could be described as simply as

there is this part of our biology that craves that tribal connection, you know,

tribalism. But we can actually transcend our biology

with our mind and with our consciousness. We can transcend it. I

genuinely, wholeheartedly believe that we can transcend that part of

our brain. Because if you think about it, all the people that

created magical, amazing things, They've all

been outliers. They've all been ostracized. You know,

it's like we've heard that the truth goes through 3 stages. First,

it's rejected. Then it's accepted by few. Then it's

wholeheartedly regarded as the truth. Well, the people that have the

courage to be completely rejected are the ones that shift consciousness

and reality, not just for themselves, but for all.

And those are the people that endure. the suffering

to be able to have their ideas and their reality brought forth. And then

we see people like Bruce Lipton or Joe Dispenza or Paul

Chek or Gregg Schmaus or Josh Trent. Like, we're all doing our

best to project a reality that we believe is most loving and most authentic.

And then we learn who we are in the process of it. We learn if

we can take the bludgeoning. We learn if we can take these burdens.

I remember I saw a clip of Paul on stage once. I think he was

accepting an award and he started bursting in tears. He's like, it's been such a

long road to get here. And I could feel his sincerity, you know, I

could feel how much he's been through to be able to get there.

And I think for, for many people that are changemakers,

the path is not easy. They're going to face those 3 stages of

truth. And a lot of that is

around shifting beliefs and not just in themselves, but

in everyone that they're, they're sharing it with. And that's really hard.

Yeah, absolutely. The last

stop I'd love to take on this beautiful journey together

is what you called the liberation

loop. Yes.

Incredible term, which I'd love to hear more about,

because it seems paradoxical because a loop seems like something

that you get stuck in. Sure. Liberation is something you free yourself

from. So Please, please share with us this

liberation loop. All right. Well, think of it like this.

I'll set the frame. Before being, right,

which is identity, there's knowing.

And the difference between knowing and being is trust and faith.

Well, how is trust and faith built? It's built by evidence.

So if you want to have a new life, if you want to have a

new identity, You have to first go into the depths of yourself and

know and believe in who you actually are. And then one

must go out into the world and create evidence that is a

reflection and their own projection of the love

and of the integration that they feel in themselves. So that's the frame for

what I'm about to share. The Liberation Loop is essentially a

previous model that I upgraded, and before it was the BTFA model.

Belief, which turns into thought, which then goes into feeling,

and then creates outcome or action, BTFA. And

the more that I worked with this model, I thought, okay, if I'm triggered,

if I'm in a life that I don't love, if I'm in a body that

I don't accept, if something in my life is going not how I want it

to go, how do I get out of this? I like built it for myself.

Because I just— now granted, it's a

mental model, But I'll get into the emotion as we go through. So

BTFA, belief, thought, feeling, action. What does this actually

mean? Well, let's run it in reverse. I find it so funny, Greg,

that I've shared with you on this podcast that I, I start things

many times in my life backwards, and then I live them forward and remember. Well,

the BTFA is the same. The way you get to healing and the way you

can have the liberation loop serve you is actually by running

the BTFA in reverse. So it's A, B,

right? Start like this. I'll just do a practical example and I'll make it

personal so we all can understand. If I have an action,

let's just say in my past, right? I had an action of using pornography,

right? That action I can trace back. Okay.

BTFA. All right. So then

what is the feeling that I'm experiencing that

created that action? Well, the feeling I'm experiencing is a

hot air bubble in my stomach. I feel alone. I feel

sad. I feel grief. All right, let me be with that for a moment.

Now let's run the mechanism. What was the thought that

came before that feeling? Well, the thought was,

nobody's going to be there for me. I'm all alone. What does

it matter anyway? But really, if we trace it

deep down, Right? BTFA, AFTB. Now we're at the B, which is

the most important part. This is where the difference between knowing and being

really happens. If we really can jot this down, and I recommend that

people do it actually with a pen and paper, there's something

neurophysiology-wise that it's really beautiful when you actually write with a pen.

You can also do it with an app or you can do it on the

computer. Either way, you're going to get there. When you get to the B, if

you're really honest with oneself, and I remember doing this in the past, The belief

was, well, it doesn't matter anyway.

It doesn't matter anyway because

relationships don't work out. And this is all a big

one for me. Well, this is all that I'm worthy of. These

beliefs are so low density,

so low frequency. You know, on the Hawkins scale, these beliefs are grief and

shame, shame being 20. Yeah. The lowest vibrational beliefs that

we can have about oneself. Lowest vibra— I'm sorry, lowest vibrational states. States.

Yes. But beliefs create the state, right? BTFA, AFTB.

When I really got down to it and looking at the beliefs, then I actually

did the secondary. And the secondary was, okay,

is this true? And I got this from Byron Katie, but I also got this

from Kryon, and I got this from Charles Duhigg, and I got this from BJ

Fogg. They all use this self-introspection inquiry.

And it was, okay, is this belief 100% true?

Okay, it's actually not 100% true. Okay, can you

know 100% that this belief is true?

Well, not really. I mean, it happens all the time, but okay.

All right, cool. If you know that this belief isn't true and you also know

that this belief isn't 100% true, who would you be? What

freedom would be created? without this belief? Oh my

God. Well, like, even I can feel the exhale now.

Yeah. Wow. If I know that

these beliefs that I'm holding aren't actually true and they're just lies that

were packets of information that have been epigenetically expressed in my psyche,

then I can say, okay, cool. What would be possible? I could go on

a dating app. I could go talk to that cute person at the coffee shop.

I could go— for me now, I can go to my wife and give her

a hug. I can go play with my children. Great. Now

turn it around. What is it about you

that actually believes that the results of your life—

like, let's say you're angry at your wife, you're angry at the pornography, you're angry

at these things— turn it around on yourself. Oh,

I'm the one that actually is projecting out the belief that life

isn't worthy, that it's going to break anyways, that people can't be trusted.

that I'm all alone. Wow. Well, what kind of a person

would I have to actually reconcile with when I get to that point of turning

it around on myself to then take, as you said before, radical

responsibility of taking action,

that my new belief of, am I— I am worthy, I am

loved, I can go create the thing that I want. I don't actually need a

screen at all. Then it breaks down into the new paradigm. And the new

paradigm is The new belief times trust

times faith times action. Because when you have a

new belief, the new belief is great. Like we've all felt this, right, Greg?

I want to make sure I understood that I, that I have the audience understanding

the loop, right? It's not a loop that you get stuck in. It's a loop

that you get unstuck out of. That's what the liberation loop is for.

It's for using the BTFA and the FATB to go deep into

Slowing your mind down, turning down the volume on your

reticular activating system, turning down the volume on the amygdala

response and getting into the truth of introspection. Then once

you go BTFA, AFTB, then you start doing your new belief

set, which is called the secondary loop. Then you go into belief, trust,

faith, and action. I believe at the end of that is freedom. At the end

of that is liberation. But here's the kicker. And this is where most people and

even myself Even to this day, I still get lost in it. That's

why it's a, that's why it's a practice, man. Just because I create this model

doesn't mean that I'm perfect in the way that I embody it 24/7,

365. Am I a lot better? And am I like really in

black belt status? I would say yeah. Like non-egoically, I'm in a

black belt status, but I still use the loop because I need it. Here's the

thing to look out for. This model can change your life. It

really can. But what you have to look out for is when you form

the new belief and you've done the work to get to this beautiful belief,

one has to have trust in themselves that they can go out and have

faith in action. You have to go out, you have to go

out and you have to seek out the evidence that the new

belief you've created is real. Hmm. Otherwise, those, those

neuroplastics aren't going to shift. Right? Think about our beliefs

as if you and I were walking in a field and there was the same

track in a field where people always walk this way.

Changing a new belief is hard. Yeah. Because you might get super inspired. You

might have a psychedelic journey. You might go to Tony Robbins, you might listen to

Greg's podcast and you're like, I'm changing my life today. I've

done my liberation loop. I have this new belief. Guess what's going to

happen? The inertia of the old identity is

going to come full front and center the next time that an

attachment style or an archetype or some kind of wound makes

itself clear. Then that's when you really start multiplying

the trust in yourself, the faith in your creator, and the

actions that are predicated on that new belief. So an example for me

might be like, I'm going to journal about how beautiful real

intimacy is. I'm going to journal about how fun it is

to joke with my wife. I'm going to be saturated

in collecting all this new evidence for this new belief. And I'm

going to fortify my mind such that I no longer

walk on that trodden path in the field. Now I walk the new path

that I've actually carved out myself. That's how neuroplastics work.

We have— and interrupt me if I'm going too deep here, but this is a

deep question you're asking. This is a fundamentally I think this is

the, the, the deepest work we can do on planet Earth. And

everyone's got their model. This works for me. And if it resonates for you,

great. And if it doesn't, find the model that works for you. This

model has worked for me and many people. When you go in the field and

when you start carving out your new path, guess what's going to happen?

You're going to get sticker burrs. You might step on a snake. Yeah.

There's going to be all kinds of stuff that wants to— the inertia of the

past identity is going to fight against the new identity.

Such that it's going to test your resolve about how much you love yourself and

how much you're committed to creating this, this new belief. And

I'll say it really clearly, based on the evidence that you consciously

go out and retrieve. That's it. That's really it. And this

is the part of personal development or positive thinking that isn't

talked about. And there hasn't been a real deep framework that I've seen

that allows people to Start going through the challenging

process, Greg, of forming a new identity. But without that

foundation first of the liberation loop, you could

positive think all day. You could look in the mirror and say you love yourself.

If you haven't done the deep soul inventory first, then

I don't think it's possible to go out and collect the new evidence because you're

going to collect evidence that has nothing to do with the new belief.

You're going to collect evidence for the old belief. That's, that's the liberation loop.

I fucking love it. Fucking love it. Is

this a program that you're offering? It's a program that I'll

offer in the future. Right now I'm actually honoring my own

process of coming out of the descent and spending the next 3

months cultivating the curriculum and

getting it to a place where it can really be for

everyone. Because I think the shared journey, the

universal human journey, of suffering and pain

is fundamental to us all. And I think that

change is a really big process. When we turn a battleship, sometimes

it takes a long time to turn a battleship around. And

the only way we do it is through tools. And the one thing I'll say

is that tools are nothing without community.

You get wounded, and you get traumatized in

relationship. So the way the pain comes in is the way the pain comes out.

You only heal in relationship or in

community as well. So community is the perfect place to

fortify and practice the individual learnings and tools,

because then you'll get reflections about your projection

and your community will mirror back to you if they feel embodied in

you, this new belief that you've created or not. Or they'll

challenge you to go through the BTFA-AFTB and then

the secondary process. I don't, I haven't

seen it personally. I think that a lot of people, even when people go to

psychedelic ceremonies, they're still being either

facilitated or they're being housed in a setting

with other people. Community is 2 or more, right? Where we

communicate in unity. And I think that's a real

missing piece that also has to be part of the liberation loop or honestly

any model that resonates for anyone. Beautiful. Josh,

thank you for your wisdom. Thank you for,

you know, one, one thing I want to share is

one of the things I really appreciate is how obviously you've

interviewed so many people. You've had the

opportunity to connect with some, some of the most brilliant minds and

hearts on this planet. But I, I

see this I think the word that you used

most over the last hour plus of

our time together is integration. Hmm. And I could

see, feel, and hear the integration that you've done

and how the wisdom that you speak is really a

result of the integrated self. And,

um, I just have deep appreciation for that.

And so if people want to learn more about your

work, um, hear about what you're up to,

any of your offerings, where would you like to send our listeners?

Well, first of all, man, thank you for sharing that. And I'm

wise enough to know that I still have integration to do.

So I received with total open heart.

And gratitude, your blessing. Also, you know, you, you can only see

that because you've integrated so much of yourself as well.

Mm-hmm. Um, so I'll say that, but I,

I have created a space that's safe and it's not a monetized

space. It's just a space that's, that's free. But, um,

I've created what I call, and it's not going to be a surprise to you

because I think we all need these blueprints. So I've created the

Self-Liberation Blueprint. It's over at liberatedlife.com.

And in this free community and free training, you can find

over 30 videos going very deep into these topics. And the

reason I have it free, at least for now, is because I'm using it

as a testing ground to figure out how I can support people in the way

that they most need the support. And so for a

limited time, y'all can go there. It's free. The community's free.

We have a lot of people that are getting exceptional results. There's breathwork

involved, there's self-inquiry involved, there's deep teachings involved. So

head over to liberatedlife.com. Beautiful.

Josh, thanks for coming on the show, brother. Thanks for having me. This was super,

super nourishing and fun.