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“When your inner world becomes your whole environment, it really magnifies how much the mind creates our reality, how much our perceptual experience dictates our experience. Heaven or hell is really dependent on our state of consciousness.”

In this riveting solo episode of Mental Health in a Modern World, holistic health practitioner Greg Schmaus recounts his profound journey through a four-day darkness retreat in Poland—a spiritual technology used for centuries by shamans and Tibetan monks to catalyze advanced states of consciousness. Greg shares how this unique immersion in absolute darkness stripped away every external reference point, forcing him to confront the parts of himself he’d previously tried to escape.

He explores how the absence of light, time, and distraction brought him face-to-face with his attachments, routines, and sense of identity, ultimately allowing him to experience both deep peace and challenging moments—proving that mental state is everything. Greg describes the physiological reset, the emergence of endogenous visionary states, and the powerful spiritual lessons that led him to reconnect with his authentic self and the feminine aspect of divinity.

Tune in to Mental Health in a Modern World to discover how subtracting all external stimulation can illuminate the light within, and why embracing the void may be the medicine modern life so desperately needs.

5 Key Takeaways

Darkness teaches us that true healing and self-connection come from subtraction, surrender, and direct experience with our inner world.

1. Spend regular time in silence and solitude, removing distractions and external stimuli, to reconnect deeply with your authentic self.

2. Practice releasing attachments to routines, schedules, and the need for control—notice what expands in you when you let go.

3. Tune into your body’s natural rhythms without relying on external cues; eat, rest, and move based on internal signals rather than the clock.

4. Embrace both moments of bliss and discomfort as they arise—meet your entire inner landscape with curiosity, not avoidance.

5. Use mindful eating and sensory practices to become more present, attentive, and intuitive in your daily life.

Dare to step into your own darkness—unplug, let go, and discover the powerful light within you.

Memorable Quotes

"All that's left is who you are without any outer reference points, which is such a more expansive, natural, truer, more authentic identity."

"In a world full of addition—more information, more material goods, more education, more things to consume—perhaps the greatest medicine is subtraction."

"What you're really afraid of in the darkness is what you're filling the darkness with, which is you. The fear of the darkness is really the fear of our own shadow, the fear of our own mind and the parts of us we’ve cast into the darkness."

Resources Mentioned

Aubrey Marcus Podcast (Darkness Retreat episode & documentary) - https://www.aubreymarcus.com/pages/podcast

Ram Dass (Spiritual Teachings) - https://www.ramdass.org/

The Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu - https://amzn.to/3XCWWD4

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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when your inner world becomes your whole environment, it really

magnifies how much the mind creates our reality,

how much our perceptual experience dictates our experience.

And heaven or hell is really dependent on our state of consciousness. I had

some extremely blissful moments and I had some

challenging moments based on my own state of mind and my own

consciousness. And so it was a real magnification

Of how much the mind creates our experience of reality. 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,

psychoemotional 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, Gregg 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. Welcome back to

Mental Health in a Modern World. So today's going to be a very special

episode. I'm going to dive into my experience doing a

4-day darkness retreat. Now, I went to

Poland to do a 4-day darkness retreat back in

January. And leading into it, a lot of people were

very curious about the experience that I was stepping into. And then coming

back from it, there was a lot of curiosity around what my experience was

like. And so I thought it would be a perfect

episode for me to go through my experience and to

share what it was like, and also a lot of the lessons and a lot

of the takeaways in the hopes that some of the gems and some of

the wisdom that came out of the experience might be of support to you on

your healing journey. Now, a little background. I

first found out about darkness retreats

about 5 years ago, back in 2021.

I first found out about darkness retreats through Aubrey

Marcus, who created a podcast with a friend of mine,

Ben Stewart. And they created an incredible

documentary, a film on his experience

at a darkness retreat. And I found it fascinating. They also

went into the history of using darkness

as a technology for spiritual growth, as a way to train

shamans, and as a form of initiation.

And there's even cultures, indigenous cultures in the world

that choose specific children that are going to be the,

the next shamans for the community or for the village, and they keep

them in darkness for periods of time. to help them develop their

extrasensory abilities and extrasensory perception.

So darkness has been even a technology used by

Tibetan monks for advanced meditation practices. They do up to

40 days in darkness doing advanced meditation. So

I didn't know about this incredible spiritual technology

until 5 years ago. And as soon as I watched the

documentary, I had this sense that I need to learn more. I need to—

experience this. So I was actually on a waitlist for

a place in Oregon, but it was almost impossible to get

off of that waitlist. So at the end of last year, I learned about this

place in Poland. And this place in Poland was

started by this gentleman, AJ, who had an

experience years ago at the place that I was on a waitlist on.

And he had such a profound experience that he decided to Open

up his own retreat center in his home country in

Europe. And so my ancestors

actually come from Poland. My maternal ancestors are

Holocaust survivors that you could say went through their own darkness

during World War II, during the Holocaust. And it felt very

synchronistic to actually do my darkness retreat in the

country of my family of origin. And to go into the

darkness on the lands that they, you know, they survived their

darkness. And so it was towards the

end of January that I got on a plane and flew over to

Poland. I arrived at the retreat center Monday

morning, and we were spending the

first day just getting our intentions set. You know, the

intention setting was really important and Really clarifying,

like, what am I— why am I here? What am I here to step into?

What is the purpose of me wanting to really step into the darkness for 4

days and 4 nights? And one of the big things that was coming up

for me leading into the darkness retreat was my own

personal healing journey, and that I spent many years

healing from obsessive-compulsive disorder, in which I was

very afraid of my own mind. You know, I spent many years

struggling with intrusive thoughts, a lot of looping and

repetitive thought patterns, and really an inability to

quiet the mind with a lot of intrusive and

negative thought patterns that for me were really disturbing at the time.

And so I spent many years afraid of my own mind, afraid

of my inner world, and you could say very much running from it.

And so it was really important for me, you know, after all of the healing

work that I've done living free of OCD and free of anxiety. And

for many years, I wanted to prove to myself that I could

be completely at peace with my own mind and have no

fear of myself. That was really important for me. I want to

know what it's like to live with no fear of self, no

fear of any parts of me, and no fear of my own

mind. And so I wanted to prove that I could be at complete peace

within myself and within my own mind. And When you step

into the darkness, that's all there is. And so what a great way

to put that to a test. So I arrived Monday

morning at the retreat center. It was a full day of

preparation. And now the cabins that you stay in,

they're almost like these individual bunkers that are built

into the earth. And so you have your own cabin. There were, I think,

5 or 6 different cabins. So I think there were 4 other

participants In my group, but you're in your own cabin, so

you're quite isolated. And so the cabins are carefully

designed to keep all light and sound out. They

have professional engineers that come in that help

design it and test it. So there's zero light coming in, there's zero

sound coming in. And the structure, the

design of the cabin, so you have a bed, you have a

little meditation and yoga area. Then you have a little place to

eat. You have a closet for your belongings and for

your clothing. You have a sink, you have a toilet, and you have a

shower. Very simple. And there's a little double-door

drop box where they drop off meals once per day. They drop off

24 hours worth of food once per day. The structure of the

cabin is carefully designed to help you navigate in the dark as

best as possible. So for example, all the corners of the walls

are rounded and all of the important

landmarks to help you navigate are carefully

mapped out and calculated. So you have these touchpoints,

you know, okay, when I get my hand on this wall, the sink is right

here. When I get my left hand on this wall, I know the toilet's right

here. So they make it fairly, um, not easy because

you're still in the dark, but fairly accessible to be able to

navigate. You know, going from the bed to the toilet or from the sink

to the shower or whatever it might be. So a lot of Monday is

preparation and turning the lights on and off so you can

practice, so you can help learn the space and navigate

the space, practice getting from point A to point B in the dark.

So day 1, Monday, is a full day of preparation, intention

setting, and practice of navigating the space and getting

everything where your toothbrush is and where your deodorant is and where

your clothes are so you remember. When you're in the dark, where to

access your needs and your belongings.

And so Tuesday late morning, we prepared to go into the

darkness. We did what's called the final seal, where you turn the lights

off, you close the door. Now, I want to just mention

that there's a light switch in the room, so

you can turn the light on anytime you need. So it's all by

your commitment to yourself to keep the lights off. Now, I made it

through 4 days and 4 nights without ever turning the lights on,

but there is a light switch in the room just in case someone freaks out

or someone's had enough or they don't want to continue or they have an

emergency. So there's a, you know, a panic button, there's a light

switch, and there's no locks on the door. So you can walk out anytime you

want. They can't really lock you in there. That would be like

solitary confinement. So it's all voluntary.

So the commitment is all voluntary. And so

we entered the dark, I would say early afternoon, Tuesday, late

morning, early afternoon. And my first experience of day

1 was really just this surrendering of all of

my attachments. When you have light, when you

have an environment, when you have time and space, you

have all of these attachments to structure. And so when you

enter the dark and you surrender time and you surrender space, you

surrender all of your attachments, it

creates a little bit of a stress response in the ego structure, for

example. And it's a lot of times little things. For example,

as I went into the dark, the first thing I did was I

did my Tai Chi practice. I wanted to do a little breathing and a little

movement just to really ground myself into the space.

And one of the things that I noticed was I do 20 minutes of

Tai Chi every morning, but I always set a timer. And so I had

no sense of time in the dark. So I'm like, all right, well, I just,

I'm just going to do Tai Chi however long that I feel like I need

to. So there was such an attunement to what my needs were without

this external reference point and structure that we put in place.

And so there was just this little surrendering of my attachment to time,

my little attachment. to doing 20 minutes of a practice every day,

I have to surrender that and let go of my sense of control of how

long I might be doing a practice. And so

Tuesday was a lot of really just softening into the

experience, noticing where my mind had all of these

clingings and all of these attachments to structure, to

routine, to time, to when I eat, when I do my

practices. There was all of this built-in structure that I've

organized my life around that all of a sudden I'm being

invited to let go of. I'm being invited to release and

soften wherever there are these clingings and these attachments.

And so you're really sitting in quiet, you're sitting in stillness, you're in

meditation, and you're moving into this more

expansive space without this structure,

without this organized sense of reality. And

so I went to bed Tuesday night, and this was really the

first big surrender where I went to bed Tuesday night.

And when I woke up, I had no idea whether I slept for 1

hour or I slept for 12 hours. And that was

a little bit of a stress response because I'm so used to having routine.

We're so used to having an external reference point of the outer

environment of, oh, the sun's up or the birds are

chirping or it's morning time. There's no sense of what time

it is. You know, it's so dark. If you hold your palm or hand up

to your eyes, you can't see anything. You can't hear anything. So there's no

external reference points. And so what that was for

me, it was a deep surrendering to my own biology.

It was a deep surrendering to listening and

attuning. If I'm tired and my body needs more sleep,

I will go back to sleep. If my body feels awake and

energized, I will get up and maybe, you know,

drink some water, eat some food, or do a little meditation or

stretch out a little bit. So it was way less of

using these external reference points to

dictate my internal actions, but more of a

deeper attunement to my internal state to then

dictate my actions. So the surrendering

of all external reference points, which includes time.

Which includes light, obviously all screens, all

schedules, all visual stimulation,

no distinction between day or night. So it was this

deep surrendering of all external reference points

and a deep listening to my own biology.

And so Wednesday was just a deeper and a deeper

surrender and an orienting myself

inward. Rather than the tendency to orient ourselves

outward. And so Wednesday was, you know, most of my

days were filled with meditation, breathing

practices, prayer, spending time

stretching. And I brought a little foam roller. So just rolling

around and opening up my body, periods of

drinking water, eating some food, using the restroom.

But I was basically in silence for 12 to 16

hours a day. Where you're sleeping for maybe 6 to 10

hours. Some people sleep for a lot of

18 hours, like the first night. I actually didn't sleep all that much from

what I can sense. I was up a lot, so I was spending most of

my time in silence and meditation with my breath,

simply just being, not doing. Now, what was a really

interesting phenomenon was I

noticed The first day that in my room,

right by what ended up being the corner of my bed, the foot of the

bed, there was this tiny little speck of green light.

And I was like, oh, at the time I was like, oh, there's some spectrum

of light getting in here. Somehow there's a crack in the wall or

there's some spectrum of light that got into the space. And there's like a

little speck, tiniest little speck. It didn't make the room light

up that room was still pitch black, but there was tiny little green dot

of light that I noticed at the foot of my bed. And it

stayed there for all 4 days. So that tiny little speck of light, I

knew, okay, the foot of my bed is over there. It was the only

tiny little sense of a reference point in terms of spatial

awareness. And at the end of the retreat,

I told one of the facilitators that there was a tiny little

spectrum of light that got into my space and it was there for all 4

days. And my facilitator said, that's impossible.

We've had engineers go through the space multiple

times, making sure, spending nights in there, days in there, making sure that

there's no spectrums of light that enter the space. And

so I said, no, it's actually, it was there all 4 days. So

after we had lunch, after our integration, I said, let me, let me bring you

to the space and I'll show you. And so afterwards, we turned the

lights off, closed the door, and it was gone. There was no light there. And

so I'm still contemplating the mystery of that little green light that

just appeared on as a little speck on the floor at

the foot of the bed. And so coming

back to Wednesday, so Wednesday was really a deep surrender, a

deep surrender to any attachments to time, any

attachments to space. Any attachments to

structure, any attachments to routine, any

attachments to using an external reference point to

dictate my internal experience or my internal choices.

And so the big question was, how do I orient myself

when there is nothing outside of me to orient to? And that's

something that we're not used to. The next piece was my

relationship with food. Now I found that food, you know,

I'm very disciplined with my diet. For me, I always eat

organic food. I eat grass-fed meats. I eat quality

food and I'm very structured around my food intake. Well,

you're, when you're in the darkness, you have no idea what you're eating. You have

no idea until it's in your mouth and you start chewing what it actually

is that's entering your mouth. Now I know that the place was

serving high-quality organic food. Most of it was plant-based.

I'm not, I don't eat plant-based. I eat a well-rounded diet, which

includes animal proteins, but the meals were mostly plant-based for the 4

days in the darkness. So I was eating foods that I had no

idea what was coming in until I started

chewing the food. And so what there was was also

a deeper attunement to the food, a deeper sensory

experience. You were only eating with your hands. You were smelling the

food, guessing what it might be, eating.

Sometimes you didn't know what it was, but you were just really in the sensory

experience of the food. There was such a deeper attunement to what

we would call mindful eating and really listening to what my

body needs without my eyes playing tricks on me or without my

eyes telling me what I should or shouldn't eat. Such a

deeper attunement to my own biology. And so

there was such a surrendering of where all of my attachments lie,

whether it is to sleep routines or circadian

rhythms or go to bed at this time and wake up at this time, eat

at this time, eat only these foods and don't eat it. All of the

ways that my mind creates or grasps for

control, there was a total surrendering of that, which was scary

at first, but then very liberating. And so there was a deep

surrendering into just my natural state of being

and a releasing of all attachment to doing. Now,

so there was Tuesday into Wednesday, Wednesday into Thursday, just

lots of time and stillness, lots of time in meditation, lots of time in

quiet. And you're really in the void. You know, you're

in that space of nothingness, which is such a beautiful, expansive space if

you can soften into it. Now, what was really interesting was

Friday was when I started to move into more

visionary experiences. Now, because you're in the

dark and there's no sunlight, your brain is producing a lot of melatonin.

And when your brain is producing a lot of melatonin,

eventually what happens is the pineal gland

starts converting a lot of the melatonin

production into endogenous DMT,

dimethyltryptamine. And DMT is that psychoactive

component of a lot of psychedelic and plant medicines such as

ayahuasca. And so by day

3, a lot of people report that there's a

DMT release that begins around the 3rd day mark, which for me

was right on time. It was right at the kind of

early to midpoint of day 3 that I started moving

into a visionary space, you know, sacred geometry, fractal

patterns, A lot of, you could say, celestial-type

visions, some experiences of

what we would call astral travel. And it was a very, it was very

magical for me, unique experience. And,

you know, I've had visionary experiences on and off of plant medicine

in the past, but what was really unique about the darkness was because

you're in pure darkness and there's no difference between the inner and the outer

anymore, The visions are exactly the same whether your eyes

are open or closed. So I would have a certain vision, I would have

my eyes closed, and I would open my eyes and nothing would change.

And so it really started to dissolve the veil between the inner

and the outer. You know, when you're on a, you know,

moderate plant medicine experience, you can generally open your eyes and

orient yourself to the environment and ground yourself as needed. You

can go out and come back. And unless you're at super high

doses where you're just gone, you can generally

orient yourself into your environment as needed.

But when you're in the darkness, there is no outer

environment anymore. So the visionary space of

eyes open or closed is exactly the same. There's absolutely no

change. And so this lasted until I came

out of the darkness Saturday afternoon. And so it was a

good 24 to 36 hours of a visionary

experience. You could say it was a light to moderate plant

medicine experience for about a day and a half, which was very unique

for me because most plant medicine experiences with most

medicines that you work with are only lasting up to, you know, a few

hours. And so this was a beautiful experience

to go into really deep visionary spaces.

Without anything consumptive. You know, if anything, you're not

adding anything, you're removing everything. So the

removal of everything and going into those spaces with

the process of subtraction rather than any sort of addition,

for me, was really deeply meaningful. And I really enjoyed the opportunity

to have that experience. That took me through Saturday

afternoon, came out of the darkness, which was also a very unique

experience of coming out of the darkness after 4 days

and 4 nights. And one of the things is when you're transitioning back into the

light, you have to do it very slowly. It's very overwhelming. For me, when I

came out into the light and took my eye mask off, all I

could see was pixels and fractals of light. I couldn't actually see,

you know, physical structure yet. It took me almost like 15 to 20

minutes to orient myself back to physical reality that had

form and structure to it. It was still just kind of pixels and fractals of

light. Now, before I go into the real

lessons of the darkness, one of the unique challenges

was dream states. I found myself having very

interesting dreams in the darkness, and sometimes it was

challenging to shift out of the dream state into the waking state

because there is no inner and outer reference points anymore.

So it was kind of a fine line between dream state and

wake state. I remember one dream, I think it was the second night

where I had this dream of being very claustrophobic, which I've never had before.

And when I woke up from the dream, I felt like I was still in

it. I couldn't orient myself to the wake state because there was

no outer environment to orient to. And so I felt

extremely claustrophobic in the dark and I went into a bit of a stress

response and it lasted probably 15 minutes. And then I was able to kind

of ground and center myself. But the transition out of

dream state into kind of wake state was really unique, and it was

almost like the veil between the two was very thin,

almost nonexistent. And so there were really a

lot of deep lessons from the darkness that I'd love to share. The

first is that, you know, the darkness is the void. So when you're going

into the darkness, you're stepping into the void, and the void is

technically empty. Right? So you're stepping into this darkness, you're

stepping into the void, you're stepping into this emptiness. And when

we have a lot of fear stepping into that space, what I

realized is you're filling the void only with

yourself. And so what you're really afraid of in the

darkness is you're afraid of what you're filling the darkness

with, which is you. And so the fear of the darkness is really

the fear of our own shadow. It's really the fear of our own

mind, our own unconscious, and the parts of us that

we've cast into the darkness. And so the darkness as the

void was an opportunity for me to realize that the

only thing I was truly afraid of was myself. And that

was, you know, a big realization for me.

The next piece is that when you're in the darkness and there's no inner and

outer anymore, Your mind creates your whole reality.

So if you're in the darkness and your mind is in a high

state of consciousness, you could say you're in a blissful heaven experience.

But as soon as your mind goes into any sort of fear, negativity,

limiting beliefs, anxious thoughts, anticipations,

regrets, et cetera, now you're moving into a real dark,

negative, hellish type experience. And so when your inner

world becomes your whole environment, It really

magnifies how much the mind creates our reality,

how much our perceptual experience dictates our

experience. And heaven or hell is really dependent on

our state of consciousness. I had some extremely

blissful moments, um, in the darkness just based on my state

of mind and state of consciousness. And I had some challenging moments

based on, once again, my own state of mind and my own consciousness.

And so it was a real magnification of how much the

mind creates our experience of reality.

Now, the darkness was such a gentle invitation

to release attachments. It was releasing the attachments to

structure, releasing the attachments to time and space,

releasing the attachments to routine and any sense of control,

releasing attachments to certain thoughts, emotions,

ruminations, any sort of attachment to certainty.

And so it was this beautiful invitation to let go of

these attachments. And what I realized was, as I let go

of each attachment that I was clinging to, there was this

expansion in my body, in my consciousness, in my

energy field. And so I realized how much our

expansion is experienced through the releasing of

attachments. Because whatever we have an attachment to,

we stifle energy into, we limit ourselves, we

create a tether or a cord, and it limits our

capacity for greater expansion. This doesn't mean that we

don't commit to things in life, that we're, oh, just, you know, no

attachments. We have commitments in life, but a commitment is

different than an attachment. You know, we want to have commitments to

things, not necessarily attachments to things. And so

the releasing of attachments was what allowed for greater

expansion. Now, spiritually

speaking, going into the darkness really connected me to the

feminine nature of the divine. And the feminine nature of

the divine for me is the void. And the void is almost like

this cosmic womb space, which is, you could

say, the womb of all creation. It's the

unmanifest. In the Tao Te Ching, they call the Tao,

you know, darkness, which is the Tao that can't be spoken, which is older than

God, which what they're saying is it's older than the

manifest God that we've created in our own minds in the

manifest world. It's older than the concept of God. It's

pre, it's the unmanifest. A lot of people say

God is the light, but God is also the darkness. You know, so God

is both the light and the darkness. And you could say God as the light

is the manifestation, and God as the darkness is the

unmanifest or the womb space that all creation is

born out of. And so the darkness really

connected me to the feminine nature of the divine, which

for me is really important to connect to, especially growing up

around mostly Abrahamic religions where God is the Father. God is

portrayed as more of a masculine. And so, um,

really connecting with that feminine nature of the divine was really beautiful.

The next lesson was something that I remember hearing from Ram Dass,

um, who was a beautiful spiritual teacher who said

every method is also a trap. And so,

you know, that teaching made sense at the time, but now

I got a real experience of what he was saying, where he said

every method is also a trap. And so what I

found myself doing in the darkness was

attaching to all of my practices, attaching to my

meditation, and attaching to my breathwork and create, trying to

create this structure out of it. And I'm going to do this practice, and then

I'm going to do this breathwork, and I'm going to do this Tai Chi, and

then I'm going to do this Qigong practice. And I realized

that A lot of my practices in the darkness were

ways that my ego was trying to grasp at some form of

control, some form of structure, a lot

of rigidity. And it was almost like a hiding spot for

the deeper surrender. So the, the

practice that is a vehicle or a method also

became a trap because it became something that I was clinging

to. I was clinging to my practices. I was clinging to my

structure. I was clinging to my meditation, to my breathwork,

rather than really softening and surrendering to the experience. So I

got to really experience firsthand how each

method is also a trap. And thank you, Ram Dass,

for that beautiful teaching. I also

learned the deep practice of non-attachment and

non-aversion. Which is a teaching that comes out of Buddhism,

which is attachment and aversion being the root of suffering.

We attach to all of the things we consider positive, good, or

pleasurable, and we live in aversion to all the things that we

consider bad, wrong, or negative. And so I really

saw how this pattern of attachment and aversion in the

darkness was the root of a lot of our suffering. And the

darkness was a beautiful opportunity to surrender, not just

attachments, but to surrender aversions, whether it's my

aversion to uncomfortable emotions, my aversion to

grief, my aversion to certain thoughts, my aversion to

certain discomforts. And so really moving into

that space of non-attachment and non-aversion really

allowed for a deeper surrender and a deeper state of

expansion. Once the lights turned on, and when I say the lights,

I don't mean after the 4 days, I mean the internal light that

really turned on at the day 3 mark, what I realized that

darkness is really an illusion that, you know, there's

light in every space. And a lot of what

we're learning to do is to attune to higher frequencies,

to attune to higher vibrational experiences, to

attune our extrasensory perception to where we

initially perceive darkness, we're actually just filtering out

the light that's already there. And also the deep connection to

the light within that can illuminate any space

was really a beautiful teaching. And so once the internal lights

turned on around day 3, it really allowed me

to experience that darkness is

actually an illusion. It's quite relative, and that there

is light available in any space, whether it's internally or

externally, just based on how you tune your consciousness

to different vibrational states, different frequencies, different

planes, you could say. And so the darkness

isn't really outside of us. It's, you know, something that we

illuminate from within. So that was really a beautiful

opportunity. Now, I got to

experience a lot of physiological benefits. There was just a deep

sense of rest. So a huge nervous system reset,

a lot of hormonal and neurotransmitter reset,

huge dopamine reset from reducing all the stimulation,

all of the technology, all of the external input. So I

do feel like hormonally, neurochemically,

It's an incredible reset, especially for our modern world.

And obviously this show is Mental Health in a Modern World. And so

I highly recommend periods of darkness for the modern

world because of how much we need a neurochemical

reset. And the darkness for me is one of the most incredible

ways of resetting your dopamine system, resetting your

neurochemistry. So that was a beautiful benefit. that

came out of it. Now, I mentioned

something I really appreciated about the darkness in comparison

to plant medicine experiences. You know, I'm a huge fan of the

work of plant medicine and shamanism, and I use that a lot in my

personal and professional healing work. But the darkness was a

very unique technology because there's nothing consumptive. It's

all through the process of elimination, of subtraction.

And as you eliminate all external inputs and you return

back to that internal source, you're able to access these

deeper and higher states of consciousness without consuming anything.

And what I really enjoyed about it was the rise into those

states was very slow and subtle. And then the coming

out of the states was very slow and subtle. It wasn't like this big

peak and then this big crash. which you can sometimes

get with using psychedelics. And so the slower

build and the slower return, I actually found the darkness to

have more of a lasting effect and a lasting

imprint on my consciousness than any substances that

I've consumed or worked with in the past. And so

it's just a different pathway. It's a different technology and

one that's all internally generated because there's nothing

exogenous. There's nothing consumptive. It's all Your

endogenous production of various

neurotransmitters and reaching higher peak states of

consciousness without consuming anything. Now,

the darkness for me was an initiation. It was an initiation

into a deeper connection to self, a deeper

connection to my true nature, and a deeper connection to

who I am without any outer reference points. You know,

most of the time we develop this persona, we develop this sense of

self, this identity, this ego structure, all

based on the feedback we get from the outer world, the way we

produce in the outer world, our value in the outer world, our

credentials, our roles, all of the ways that we

participate in the world. We create this persona out of it, and we

think that's who we are. But when you go into the darkness, all of

that is stripped away, and all that's left is who you are without

any outer reference points, which is such a more

expansive, natural,

truer, more authentic identity. And so what I

reconnected with, what is what I would call my core frequency, my

natural state of being or original frequency

prior to all the personas, all the masks, all the layers that we

pack on top of that core frequency as a result of engaging

the world outside of us. And so what I

really realized was that in a world that's full of addition,

we live in this world of addition, always adding more and more

and more, more information, more material goods, more

education, more friends, more partners, more lovers, more

food, more things to consume, more things to buy, more money to

make. In a world full, in a world full of

addition, Perhaps the greatest

medicine is subtraction, right? The removal of

stimulation, the removal of noise, the removal

of distraction, the removal of control, the

removal of needing to know or needing to perform, and

really getting back to what's left. And what's left is who you are.

What's left is your original core frequency.

And that's such a beautiful gift that the darkness very gently,

but very honestly offers. And so coming

out of the darkness, there was this increased sensitivity to the

environment, increased sensitivity to stimulation.

I don't watch much TV anymore. I don't spend

really any time on social media anymore, really just for my

work and for, you know, periodically educational

purposes. For me, I've really reduced the amount of stimulation,

and that's been incredibly supportive. There's been a deeper

connection to intuition and a deeper attunement to my

inner self, my own biology, my own needs, and really

listening, really, really listening, which is— these are all the

feminine principles of listening and attunement and

intuition. And so I really appreciated the deep

connection to the inner feminine. of listening,

attunement, and going within.

And so I really, I really feel as though it was a

successful experience. It was a beautiful, cherished

experience that I will always remember. I will probably go back into the

darkness, potentially spend a little bit more time, maybe a

little bit more than 4 days next time. When I, when 4 days were up,

there was a part of me that wanted to spend a little bit more time

in there. It was such a beautiful experience. And so I would just want to

close with one quote, which is from Kahlil

Gibran, which is, every man is 2 men, one who

is awake in the darkness, the other asleep in the light. And we

have a whole world of people that are

asleep in the light right now. And it's really

important that we take the opportunity to awake in the dark.

And when you awake in the dark is when you Remember your

inner light, and that's something that no one can take away from you.

And the last thing I'll— that I'll leave you with is this question

to ponder is what would happen if you removed

everything that you normally use to distract

yourself from yourself? What would be left?

And what would be left is you. What would be left is your true

nature. What would be left is your core frequency.

And what would be left is the light within you that

you can only find when you awaken the dark. And so I

just wanted to share my experience, share some of the

fruits that came out of it. And my hope is to

inspire you to maybe go into the darkness yourself,

but to even just spend more time away from stimulation,

to spend more time in silence. To spend more

time in solitude and quiet so you can really

know thyself. You know, spend more time with that

archetype of the Hermit and really go inward and

explore the parts of yourselves that otherwise may have been

drowned out by noise, by distraction, by stimulation.

And if you'd like some support with that, you can always reach out to me.

You can go to my website, healing40.com, one-on-one

coaching, whatever it is. You know, my coaching and program offerings are all on my

website. So if you need a trail guide in

navigating your own inner darkness, you know, your own

journey through some of those layers of self, I'd be happy to support you.

And so I really enjoyed taking this journey with you, and thank you for

coming along for the ride. And I look forward to sharing

more with you in next week's episode. Bye-bye.