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“Even things that are quote, unquote, healthy for us can become addictions and turn into damaging behaviors,” says Justin Price, structural health expert and holistic coach, reflecting on decades spent tracking pain, performance, and the seamless dance between body and mind. In today’s episode of Mental Health in a Modern World, Justin Price joins Greg to illuminate how movement, self-mastery, and the archetypal forces driving our choices shape personal evolution far beyond the gym floor.

Justin Price reveals how his own early reliance on exercise and other “healthy” coping mechanisms hid deeper emotional wounds—and what it took to break free from societal and internal patterns of self-negotiation. He discusses the power of the “detective” archetype in healing chronic pain, shares why true spiritual growth demands direct inner experience, and unpacks how the same drive that catalyzes athletic excellence can, when unexamined, limit our lives and relationships.

Tune in to Mental Health in a Modern World to discover why movement may be the body’s safest entry point to healing trauma, how your greatest strengths can become blind spots, and what it takes to authentically transmute pain and addiction into purpose.

5 Key Takeaways

Unlock deeper self-awareness and healing by integrating archetype work, self-tracking, and intentional practices into your journey.

1. Use movement or somatic practices as accessible entry points for emotional and spiritual self-discovery (04:08).
2. Track your own physiological, mental, and emotional states to deepen self-understanding and enhance your ability to help others (32:22; 34:06).
3. Examine and consciously renegotiate addictive patterns—especially those disguised as “healthy” habits—to support true holistic wellbeing (13:02).
4. Practice honoring intuition over inner negotiation, especially when fear or the drive for safety tempts you to betray your deeper knowing (52:08).
5. Cultivate direct experience and introspection as the foundation of spiritual growth, then return to share your embodied wisdom with others (40:53; 47:08).

Start today: Pick one takeaway and commit to one small action that honors your integrated wellbeing.

Memorable Quotes

"I found that people had a lot of emotional and spiritual challenges they were uncomfortable directly addressing, but as things came up somatically in a safe environment, it was easier to access it from that entry point. Movement is so much more accessible because it feels a little less personal, even though that’s mostly an awareness or access thing."

"It was really interesting because I was so attached to that strategy as a way to feel good about myself that even though those other things were negative, I was unwilling to see how it was connected for a very long time. Not until many injuries and personal relationship challenges and burnout several times did I begin to reframe my relationship with it in a way that was supportive and sustainable."

"Anything that wanted to put an intermediary between me and the divine immediately didn’t feel right in my system. I enjoy solo practice and deep experiences—knowing from the inside out and then feeling really clear and grounded in that truth."

Connect with Justin

Website - https://www.myointegrity.com/

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

Resources Mentioned

Sacred Contracts by Caroline Myss - https://amzn.to/48N9FDg

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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Mentioned in this episode:

Embark on The HTM Journey

MHMW - HTM

Embark on The HTM Journey

MHMW - HTM

Justin, welcome to the podcast, man. Thank you, Greg. It's a

pleasure to be here. I'm excited for this. Yeah.

So you and I go back quite a ways. A lot of people don't know

that you were actually my introduction to Paul Czech, you were my

introduction to becoming a Czech practitioner.

So, you know, you've played a critical role in my journey and

my evolution. So I would love, before we dive into

our pretty unique topic today, I'd love for you

to share just a little bit about your background and your work,

a little bit of your story, if you're open to that. Sure.

Yeah. We do have a pretty long history which has been fun to

reflect on over the years as both of us have

evolved into different kinds of practice and work. And it's been really

cool to watch your journey and I feel really grateful that in the beginning there

I was able to kind of catalyze hopefully some

access to some of those things and you were able to run with it.

It was really cool because my background is more in

exercise science and that's where I started. And

then when I started coaching and personal training people, I just

found I needed more than what was given to me at

that point. And then the Czech Institute did a wonderful job of

expanding out into where I could help people, where they were at.

And I think a lot of that is what has driven

my desire to keep learning and evolving how I work

with people, was noticing where

people had needs that weren't getting met by the traditional

practices. And so that took me through a lot of

the check system and took me through a lot of other

corrective and holistic approaches to healing people

in my area of expertise, mostly of chronic orthopedic

pain and dovetailing that into

the essential parts of their complete well

being. So it was, it required looking outside of that

scope as well in order to be able to actually get

people long term results. So which took me more

towards getting an LMT so I could do hands

on work with people and then diving into what's

happening emotionally and spiritually as well. So, you know, we both

care about the whole person being healed and I really

have enjoyed that your emphasis is in the mental health side of things

and my emphasis being on the structural side of things. But

neither one is completely far apart. They're just sort of, you know,

part polarities that balance each other out. So it's been

20 plus years of working with people and it's been really interesting to

see how your perception of working with

people changes, I would say more than Anything. You know, what I love about

our work is kind of how they complement each

other. My focus being more on the mental health, your focus

being on the physical health and physical well being. But as

you said, those are not separate entities. And

a lot of times to heal the mind, you have to focus on the body.

And a lot of times to heal the body, you have to focus on the

mind. And so they're really one integrated

system always. The thing that I found really

beautiful about using movement as the entry point is

that I found that people had a lot of emotional and

spiritual challenges that they were

uncomfortable maybe directly addressing. But as

things came up somatically in a safe environment, it was

easier for them to access it from that entry point. So people just

pick. It seems like the entry point they're the most comfortable with. But we're

all going to get to the same place if we keep going. There's no way

to find true resolution without

actually addressing all those issues. And movement is so much,

in my opinion, so much more accessible because it feels a little

less personal sometimes, even though that's mostly an awareness

or an access thing. And so I found that I liked working with

people who were in the process of self discovery

through movement. So as they were moving and learning how to change things

that were painful in their body, it required them to grow and

open up their mind at the same time. Otherwise we

were just really kind of patching them up and they were coming back back with

the same thing. So some people were ready for that, some people aren't. And

then that's kind of the fun part is how can you help

people shepherd them a little bit along so that they can

get what they need, even if they came for something other than

other than that in the beginning. So yeah, yeah, I love

that. And you know, one of the topics that we're going to dive into today

is archetypes. And one of the

reasons I love the exploration of archetypes is

archetypes are really the language of the psyche. And so

if we want to ask ourselves, like what drives my choices and

behaviors? You're always going to arrive at some

archetypal perspective or some archetypal

vehicle that is what's really driving

our thoughts, our beliefs, our choices, our behaviors, which

all then get expressed through the physical body. You know, we had the

opportunity to do your archetype wheel a few weeks

back. So I'm just curious what your experience of that was. You know, going

through the archetypes, choosing the ones that most resonated as

really representing who Justin is, and then going ahead and casting

the wheel, which we'll get into. Yeah, I. I really

enjoyed it. I found it both

empowering and illuminating at the same time. So.

Because it aligns with my beliefs

around it coming from me and not from the

practitioner, the practitioner supporting me find what I don't know

within myself, then the wheel feels really wonderful that

way, because when you're casting it, it's truly coming from me.

And then it was surprising at times. I knew that was really cool because

going purely from my intuition and how it

felt, that's always really illuminating how accurate it

can be, but also surprising that you, you know, you really

couldn't have thought your way there, which is what we're kind of pointing at.

And so I think it's. It's pretty magical. And I look forward to seeing how

you interpret these things, particularly as you showed me, they interact with

each other in the wheel. So I'm really looking forward to that.

Yeah. Instead of trying to go through all 12

houses, I thought maybe we choose a few

specific houses and really kind of take a deeper dive into it.

Yeah. If that's cool with you. Yeah. And so

just a little background, so for people that. And

we'll link maybe like a PDF to the wheel itself so people

can have a visual. So if you imagine a wheel with.

Or imagine like a pizza pie with 12 slices or

12 sections on it, and so each of those sections or each

of those pieces represents one of the houses on the wheel.

And so the 12 houses actually correlate with the 12

astrological houses. Each of those houses really represents

a key area of your life that you engage in and

participate in on a daily basis. So we

choose the 12 archetypes that we all have. Now, four of them

are going to be universal. We all have the four survival archetypes. We

all have a child, a victim, a saboteur, and a

prostitute. And the reason is because those are kind of like the four

legs of the table of survival. Right. Those are the essential

archetypes that we need in order to survive. You know, there

was a time in which we felt victimized. And so the

victim archetype helps us be aware of any

potential situation in which we might be victimized. There was

a time we needed to sabotage ourselves for our own survival.

There's a time we needed to prostitute ourselves maybe for our own security.

And so those four survival archetypes we all have, and then the

other eight vary person to person. And so what

we'll do today is we'll Explore a couple of Justin's

archetypes, where those archetypes are on the wheel, which

houses, and we'll kind of dive into and kind of peel back some of the

layers of it. That sounds. Yeah.

So the first one that I'd love to dive into is the

addict, because the addict is an archetype that is

so common. And when we talk about addict, we're not just talking

about substance abuse, we're talking about any

unhealthy relationship with a person, place or thing

that you create some sort of dependency around.

And so I'm curious if you're open to sharing

what your relationship with that archetype has been

over the course of your journey and why it was one of the core

12 that you chose for yourself. Yeah, yeah.

I feel there's a lot of. A lot of content there.

The archetype itself, the behavior of

utilizing some relationship to get something I need

that may not have an outcome, either

behaviorally or experientially, that you want, but

still meets a need that you really need,

has certainly been a common theme for me. And I feel like it

stems from needing coping strategies at a

young age for not knowing or having other

practices to process challenging emotions or

even track what the need is. So

I find I heavily relied on that archetype in order to shift my

state whenever I was in a dysregulated

place, unbeknownst to me, you know, I wouldn't know that I was

dysregulated, but I knew I would get some sort of relief

from engaging in a behavior or a

substance, like you said. And so exercise even was one of those things

for me in the very beginning. I feel when I started using

exercise as a way to increase my confidence

and my sense of worth and well being when I was in

my later teenage years, it was very helpful

in that way. And I feel very healthy in the beginning.

And then it became where I could not do it.

So it had given me a really good gift and I felt a lot

better about myself on the inside, which was really the

reason for doing it. And then I enjoyed doing

it. And so it can become. And it's a encouraged

behavior by society. And so it was

interesting. I was never the person that

exercised too many days of the week, but I always

worked myself too hard to actually

recover from. And then it had all these negative impacts on

my ability to show up in personal relationships,

my mental stability, just irritability and

feeling resourced in other activities.

And I was so attached to that

strategy as a way to feel good about myself.

That even though those other things were negative, I was unwilling to see

how it was connected for a very long time.

And not until many injuries and

personal relationship challenges and burnout several

times did I begin to

refrain, frame my relationship with it in a way

that it was supportive and sustainable.

And I feel like it's an important one because a lot of times, even things

that are quote, unquote, healthy for us can become addictions

and turn into damaging behaviors. And

I find it more difficult to change behaviors

that need to be modulated instead of getting rid of. Like if you're

just throwing it out, like if someone has, you know, a really

damaging substance abuse problem, you could just stop using the

substance and avoid it with support and all these things.

But like eating and exercise and those things can

be difficult because you can't just stop eating.

And it wouldn't be healthy for me to just stop exercising. That's one of the

primary ones to me. And then a lot of the same ones that

many people struggle with, you know, stimulants. So, you know, caffeine

or any other stimulation in order to shift a state to

feeling more stable and clear headed

and in control and all of those things. But also

ignoring how it affects sleep recovery.

And then really the big one was how these behaviors

were affecting my personal relationships and

how I could actually regulate and show up to communicate

with people. And it was very damaging for

a lot of relationships, particularly personal, intimate

relationships, because I would be completely exhausted

from overstimulating myself through exercise and

caffeine and other things. And then that would lead to having no bandwidth.

So my life became very small, like it became

very restricted. And all of that was

with the inability to notice

how something I really wanted to be doing was causing me harm.

Right? Yeah. So, yeah,

you know, couple things that were coming up for me. And then we'll get into

the second house, which is where the addict lies on

your wheel. So you mentioned

using addictions to help regulate

100%. And one thing that I

have found, and I'm curious your experience with this or perspective on it,

is a lot of times when we

need addictions to help us regulate, a lot

of times it's because we didn't have primary

caretakers growing up that were able

to help regulate us. And a lot of

times we felt responsible to regulate them.

Yes. And so that attachment injury a lot

of times creates later on in life the need for

some addictive pattern to help regulate us.

That feels very true to me. And in my own personal experience,

Being an only child with a very

attentive mother and a very busy

father and no one else to kind of diffuse what's

happening. I hear other people with siblings speak about how

they could at least talk to each other about their parents. And

so I feel like that context made it more

challenging to notice because there was nothing

to contrast against, really. There wasn't someone else there in the thick

of it to be like, oh, that doesn't seem okay.

And my experience in retrospect is that my own caregiver was

unaware of her own Right. Dysregulation pretty much all

the time. And very classically just in the form of

being anxious and. And then playing that out by being very

busy and very much always in motion

and then placing that intensity onto

me, the child, and not really regulating

herself first. And so I had not only when I would

ask for regulation, it would come in the

form of some soothing. But the other person isn't regulated either.

And so it was confusing because you're like, oh, is this how I feel

better? But I can feel something that feels like you're not

okay, too. And like you said, Greg, then you're like, well, I notice that

they feel better when it seems like I feel better.

So exactly as you said, that creates this interesting dynamic

where in order for my needs

to get met, because that's my primary caregiver, I have to

present as being okay and feel and

help the other person be okay because, you know, I'm a dependent at

that point. Like, I don't have the means and access to really

support myself as a child. And therefore, you create a very

odd dynamic where my I creates hyper

vigilance for me to make sure that that person is

okay because they're the person that feeds and houses and loves you,

and they're completely unaware. And at the time, obviously, as a child, I'm completely unaware.

And it can make it a really small bubble where it

seems like it's working, but then it doesn't work outside of that bubble.

And it was never really working in there either. But you didn't have any

context or contrast to notice how it

could be another way. Right? So, yeah, man,

I would say that was a big reason, because then you

need some other thing to help me. Right? I'm not

getting that modeling or tools or even witnessing someone in

your family be dysregulated and watch them

regulate. And you know you're watching if someone's

dysregulated, they ignore it and then project

it onto the other person. So yeah. Yeah, that was

definitely my experience. Yeah. And so

if we look at the. The second house,

the second house relates to our values and our

worth. So how we value

ourselves, what we value in life, and where we

derive self worth from. And so

it's a really interesting house to have the addict,

because if we look at, for example,

the use of stimulants, a lot of times we might

get addicted to the use of stimulants to help

us continuously perform in the areas that we

derive self worth from. Totally.

100%. And then I'm curious

on the other side, anytime that there's

a threat to our self worth, if sometimes

there's another form of addiction that we might use to

soothe. Yeah. So it's almost like we have two sides of one coin.

Like, one to stimulate to get me to do

the things that. Where that I derive worth from,

and then to soothe anytime there's an injury to

the worth. I'm curious if that resonates with

you. It does. I mean, because I had a very precarious

relationship with alcohol for a long time, and it was. It

was not until I got really physically

ill after I got Covid and I had my nervous system,

couldn't handle that kind of stress, that I was able

to kind of uncouple myself from that as a soothing

technique. But it would always be the thing. And culturally, where I grew up in

the south, it's a pretty normalized behavior

that it was the soma of the

masses there. So if anything was a little difficult to handle. Can I get

you a drink? You know, and it was as normal

as someone being like, are you thirsty? Can I get you some water? And so

almost anything could be solved, at least in the

immediate, with handing someone an

alcoholic beverage. And so that would be the push, pull,

you know, you need to perform all day

and, you know, use that stimulation to get all

that worth. But then after that, how do you come back down

and regulate to where you can rest? And,

Ian, like you said, if you had an injury or some sort of emotional challenge

that came up, you may not want to stimulate more, but you want something to

soothe, like you said. And that was what I utilized for a long

time. And it has a

very razor's edge, I think, where it can be

beneficial a little bit for folks, but as we know, it's, you

know, continues to come out how unhealthy it is for you in any amount

and just promotes actually more

neurological damage and dysregulation. So of all the

things that was the most Dysregulating as an addiction, I would

say utilizing that as a coping strategy is very much

dysregulating. And you can see it in more subtle forms too.

Like maybe you use exercise to stimulate and then

you use breath work to come back down.

And there's an interesting part there to me

where it just depends on the intention.

So do I have to have it or could I use it and

it be helpful? And with these other

more addictive and more damaging behaviors, there's no question there.

There's no check in beforehand. And so

it's not really of conscious choosing. And

that, I think, was really, really clarified for me as I changed how

I navigated regulating myself over the years.

Yeah, beautiful.

The archetype I would love to go to next

is in your sixth house, which is the

Detective. Oh, fun. And the reason I want

to go there is because I had a personal memory

of coming to you many years ago. You know, I first

came to you as a client when I was playing golf in college.

And I remember you doing those incredible

assessments, like the two hour check assessments.

And I was fascinated by it. You know, I was

fascinated how you would look at the body, take

all the measurements and, you know, all the different testing,

and you might have someone that has, I

don't know, plantar fasciitis in their left foot

and you track it back to an atlas subluxation.

And most people are like, how the hell would you track a foot issue

back to your C1? Yep.

But the detective in the sixth house, and the sixth house governs your work.

That makes sense. I would love for you to share a little bit about

how you've seen the Detective as one of, like,

the key archetypes in your workspace.

Beautifully said, Greg. I mean, that has been the really

one of the more passionate and joyful parts of my work.

The primary one, just connecting with the client and working with him

directly. And then the other part is the detective part

there, which is being able to take a lot of information,

taken a whole lot of information, as much as I can handle,

and then synthesize that into

more elegant solutions that

are balanced with all that information.

And I think the dance of that has been what's really fun for me is

if it's about seeing this whole picture. And

then once I have

investigated all of that and I have this

model, basically I end up feeling like I create everyone's

individual model of what's going on for

them. And then once I have a working

model of them in my system,

then it becomes Much easier to ask through the model,

what would be beneficial to this person. I know what their life is like. I

know what their body is like. I know what their nutrition is like. I know

what their health status is like. I saw them move.

I put my hands on them. And when I do assessments and get

a sense of the tone and the fascia, and so you get all of this

wonderful information and create a model. And then instead of

looking at a problem and addressing the one problem, I can

ask through that model, well, what would be good for Greg? You know,

I remember when you came in and you were having back pain, and I remember,

you know, taking all these measurements, and, you know, it was really interesting because.

Because I had this sense that you would do what I asked you to do,

which also comes into the model. How much compliance is the client going to

have? There's entire books on patient compliance and

client compliance and everything. So I knew I could give

you, and I gave you, as I recall, a lot of stretches,

and I gave you stretches with really long

holds, things that most people won't do. But I knew that

you wanted to keep playing and you wanted to have your back not hurt so

much. And it was then easy to,

through that model of understanding where you were at at that moment, give

you a plan that felt like it resonated with

you to get what you wanted. So the

detective part is really fun to me because without looking

a little deeper, getting enough information and collecting all of

that, I'm unclear on how people

would make a suggestion to someone that would

be considering them as a whole person.

And I found that with you, like, because you were committed and you did all

of the things. And I remember also, once you then came to

be a mentee, that it was

surprising how that wasn't something we did

as much as you thought I did. Like, you thought I got to do that,

like, every day. And that was the only thing I did. I mean, having done

thousands assessments, but over the years, but you were doing.

You really loved that. And I remember you coming in and we would do some.

But then the detective continues when you're then in application.

And so within that assessment, I think it's very obvious, but where

it becomes a little more subtle is that's the same.

I'm adjusting that model constantly

while I'm working with the client. The assessments just

allow me to have a faster

update with the model so I have a better working model

to begin with. And then

I remember you chatting with me about, like, man, we're talking to people a lot.

And it's a lot of, like, people interaction, but underneath that,

I'm watching and taking

in and surveying what's happening in their whole system.

And so it becomes this interesting challenge with coaching where you're. I found

that that was really engaging for me, is that I would be

doing metacognition on it. I'd be, like, talking to them about one

thing that they're talking about while doing something else with my mind at the same

time. And, you know, anybody. Coaches knows that's happening, but I found

that really engaging. And

clients would then report things to be like, well,

how did you know that? Or how did. How did that, you know, like the

Atlas thing or something like that. And it all comes from having

a keen awareness, which is potentially a

gift of some of that hyper vigilance that came from

some of my earlier life experience. But

there's just a deep passion to understand and a curiosity that drives

me looking to discover what hasn't been found yet.

And most of the time, there's lots of that to be found

if you're willing to be patient and look. And I found that a lot of

clients will come in. Even like yourself, you'd been to other people, right.

And you had gotten other support, you know, had other coaches

and everything, and. And you told them that you had a challenge

and all this, but nobody took the time to look that deep.

So I would say the depth is also the thing that was really is

and has been really enjoyable to me with my work

is it's not just about how fast can we do this? It's

how complete can we do this? Yeah.

You know, how deep can we go and how close can we get to the

actual core problem? And how many of them

are there? And then if there's a lot of them, which one should we address

first? Yeah, yeah.

You know, when you were sharing, what was coming up for me is how,

you know, in shamanism, they consider shamans to

be master trackers. And

so what you're doing in the gym

or on the treatment table is shamanism, because

you're really acting as a master tracker

of not just the physical body, but also listening to how someone might

be talking about their pain. Absolutely.

That's a beautiful connection there, because

everything is the same thing. So, like, whether you were

tracking. You're tracking their energetic experience or their

spiritual experience or emotional experience, their body is

giving the same information. And it's this

willingness to see, like, this willingness to see it

over the years that has become, because of so many of those

assessments, because of so many people to work with. It's

beautiful now that it requires less in the

sense of numbers of tests to get to

the place of knowing what's going on,

because that has become more intuitive over the years.

And the tracking is really interesting how it's progressed

to where you can know and see inside of

people, so to speak. Like, I can feel where I can follow,

like you said, a plantar fasciitis and a foot. I can follow

just the energy, so to speak, all the way back up

to where the blockage is. And that blockage may be a stiff

joint, it may be, you know, a tight area. But I really

love that and I appreciate that because it feels like that level of work

for people, even though on the outside it may

look, you know, 2D structural, but

it's the farthest thing from that. It's, it's. It's a

very beautiful way to work with people's

whole system and track where they

have energy leaks or where they have blockages and then

work with them in movement. You know, have you found that with your own work,

having that background in the Czech Institute, in that work, have you

found that really helpful when you're tracking from a

shamanistic side to also have a lot of

structural information to dovetail them together? And I'm

kind of wondering how that has played out in your work.

Yeah, it was helpful, obviously, studying Paul's

work and learning how to do those assessments. But also

when you have that knowledge, the real skill

I find is developed by tracking yourself.

And so, you know, for example, I remember years ago,

back when I was struggling with some physical and mental health

challenges, I would notice that

I would have this, let's say, increase in

anxiety or this, you know,

nagging, you know, right neck, shoulder pain.

But I would notice, okay, well, when those symptoms came on,

I noticed my breathing changed. Like, for some reason

I felt like, oh, like I. I'm not really able to

breathe into my abdomen and use my diaphragm like I

normally would for some reason. And then I would notice, oh,

well, my. My gut feels a little inflamed.

And obviously, the Czech knowledge, we know that, you know, inflammation in the

gut is going to shut down the abdominal wall, which includes the diaphragm.

Absolutely. And so when that happens, one

thing that's going to happen is my accessory respiratory muscles are going to

come online, which might cause my neck pain,

or my respiratory rate is going to increase, which is going to

stimulate more of a sympathetic nervous system response, which might increase my

anxiety and Your neck pain and my neck

pain. And so just by really

tracking my own system, then you're

able to really offer that to others. But the body

of knowledge, whether it's, you know, the

relationship between the visceral system and the

musculoskeletal system, you know, or the various systems of the

body, that definitely gives you a foundation to become

that tracker. That's right. But then it's applying it to

yourself first. And I'm so glad you brought that up

because for the

lion's share of my training, personally, when I

trained myself, a lot of that was

solo, A lot of that was without anybody around.

What I found in retrospect, looking at that, what that allowed

for is there wasn't someone else to tell me something.

So with that body of knowledge, the most important

part, like you said, is that you spend that much time

paying attention and tracking your own system. And that was

already a practice for me. And it

felt like a necessary practice because I didn't have someone else

there to tell me. So I would just

continue to track my own system through,

whether it was positional or sensational, or

like you said, visceral or psychological,

and be aware as a detective on myself

with no other input. So the input is me

executing some sort of movement, but it's an exploration all the time,

so it's constantly exploring. You could check out and just do the

thing and that would get the thing done, but that's not what you're talking about.

So that's a hard thing to describe to some folks who haven't maybe done more

martial arts or some sort of high level

dance or something where there's a high level of self

awareness from a motor control standpoint.

People who have done that and talked to each other have this kindred spirit of

understanding. Well, it's like you have cultivated enough

tracking and sensory motor awareness that we're

on the same level and attuned about what

we're doing. And I feel like that gave

me a really wonderful

kind of an empowerment in order to help people because they maybe have not

spent 20, 30 years of their life paying attention to

their system when they move or in

general. So then someone can come in. And because you've done

that, like you said, you've had to chop wood, carry water for many years and

yourself. It's really cool to watch

how that lets people access that medicine,

so to speak, really quickly. So this

whole. No, there's no wasted effort. I

didn't realize that at the time that that was what was happening. I was

doing it for myself. I was doing it to be able to give,

you know, at a more superficial level that

back to clients. But with sustaining that

cultivation of tracking and movement practice for

that long now, I've been able to

realize the benefit of that to folks that really don't. There's

a lot of folks that really don't have much in the way of

understanding what's happening in their system, and

so helping them out with that. For me, it was something that

I took for granted for a long time. I felt like,

well, of course everybody's doing this or they can do this. And

in reality, that has not been proven to be my observation of

clients and friends and family and stuff. So

that's where that archetype really shines as being uniquely in my

wheel versus maybe not someone else's, and also uniquely in

the area of interest of mine that, you know, if you're not a

detective, then that's not your thing. So it's really cool to

see how these archetypes also. Power are gifts,

you know, and they. They can really be a pattern of energy that you

can help understand. Wow. What was motivating me to continue

to do that day after day, week after week, year after

year, in spite of, you know, it being easier to just not.

And so it has to come from the inside. And so these. These wheels are

really cool, because then it starts to clarify your motivation.

I feel like, in a certain way. Yeah, it's

beautiful. It's kind of like a blueprint, kind of the engine.

Yeah. Let's see the hood a little bit. Yeah.

Yeah. So I'd love to do two more. I'd love to go

to the ninth house, which is the domain of spirituality.

Okay. And the ninth house represents our

relationship with spirit, which could include God,

religion, any domain of religion, spirituality,

relationship with God. And you have the hermit there,

which I absolutely love, because the hermit

always has to know through direct

inward experience. Yes. And so much of

religion and spirituality and what people talk about

in those realms are not from direct experience. They're not

from inner knowing. They're from regurgitation of what

someone else said or what someone else experienced,

whether it's, you know, in church and temple or even. Especially

in New age spirituality, where people, you know, might

use the, you know, the fancy words and say the right things,

but you could tell based on the energy that those

words are carrying, that it's not really coming from a deep place

within themselves of I've experienced that, or I

embody that. And so I'd Love for you to share a little

bit about why you feel like the hermit is in your ninth house

and governing your domain of spirituality.

Absolutely. I mean, I remember from a very young age in

that, in more the area of the divine

having, having feeling like I already had a direct connection in a certain

way. And so then not really understanding what that was

at the time, but feeling anything that wanted

to put an intermediary between me and the divine

immediately didn't feel. It didn't feel good to me.

It didn't feel right in my system. And so, oddly

enough, I grew up going to like a Lutheran Church and all

that stuff. And the one thing that did resonate with me was that

the Lutheran Church left, you know,

Catholicism and the Church of England really in order to,

you know, say that you don't need a priest to talk to God.

And so that was the only thing that, like in there. And then the rest

of it, I was like, this doesn't really make a whole lot of sense to

me and I can't just accept it.

And so like you said with the hermit, if it doesn't have your own direct

experience, which then led to it

being a hermetic experience where you do it on your own, like,

I would just do what I could to continue to open up my

awareness. And there was a lot of challenge there because I

didn't have a lot of guides in the beginning. But anything that

felt true in that way, I could trust because

I had fully experienced it myself. And then as

my life progressed and I had more challenges and

the need for that to be cultivated, there was

a lot of experiences that I had, you know, whether it be through

personal challenge or plant medicine or other

things that allowed me to experience God on my

own, you know, and experience it in a different way within

myself. And that allowed me to access it within

myself without an intermediary, as you said. And

once I had more direct experience in some

special ways like that, it felt more authentic to

share my connection with the divine, with the world, and

with clients and people from my heart. Whereas

before it felt anything that was

maybe told to me, I just couldn't possibly

say it without it feeling fake.

And it also, the hermit archetype, the desire to go

and find out on my own and then come back and give it to people

was always very powerful in my system. So if I

had a challenge for the first half

of my life, I was like, I need to just figure this out and I

need to, to see if I can figure it out. And the only

challenge ran when there was no more logical way to figure it out. And

so then I just needed some guides to figure out how to

unify my heart and my mind together. And

so to have access to that. But it's always been in that context

of I enjoy solo practice and I

enjoy solo deep experiences and.

And even if they're solo, but shoulder to shoulder with some other people,

that really is okay too. But it's having your own unique

individual internal experience, knowing from

the inside out and then feeling really

clear and really grounded in that

truth. And then it becomes very powerful to share

because then it doesn't come out, like you said, with any special words per se.

And it becomes an embodied principle

that can be allowed to

unfold with people and myself as it needs to.

So it's less limiting for me, I think it's a more challenging

front end in my experience because it's

a solo thing, but it is more

free once you go that route. For me. So I think it was more about

freedom and it was more about self

knowing and self connection to the divine. Because it didn't

feel like if I just accepted something that was said and

practice that from dogma, that it would get me there. Like I would

always have doubt. And so fundamentally the

knowing is the absence of the doubt. So until

I could eliminate all the internal doubt and any given

challenge, the herm. The hermit kind of archetype is what would power that

it'd be like, okay, let's go back to this, let's keep digging

into this. And then the most beautiful thing was to learn that you can have

support and still do that. People especially the way support

is given now is usually directed

towards that, towards the individual figuring it out on their own.

So that led me more towards spiritual development that was less

dualistic and more from a place of

self than a place of other. So it's very much

a part of me. And it's cool to see it as a pattern of

energy. And then it allows me to navigate my life in a way

that I honor it. Instead of being either surprised by it or

trying to go against it and it not working out and being

surprised why that doesn't work out. So yeah,

it's been a really powerful

archetype. And kind of like the detective, they go together for me,

you know, I'll be using that both

of those things, you know, at the same time sometimes. But one of the

more beautiful things is letting go of the detective

when in direct spiritual experience. So there is

no tracking. Sometimes there's just direct

Transmission and just receiving. And that

just feels authentic to me, I guess, is what I would say. And it didn't

feel authentic in other forms that were offered to me,

you know, so. And that's why also, even, like you said, the new

age spiritual languaging can sometimes also give me the

same feeling I had growing up in a church environment

where I was like, I have the same exact feeling I did when I was

listening to these things where I don't know if you know what you're talking

about either. Yeah. And occasionally you

will run into someone who says the same words, but they really already have it,

and. And then you feel it, like you said, so. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You know, a couple things that I loved about what you shared is

the hermit relates to, obviously, solitude and introspection

and inner mastery. But

after the hermit achieves inner mastery, it then

steps back into the world as a guide. You know,

if you. If you look at the hermit in the tarot, it's holding

a lantern, it's walking, holding a lantern. So it's a

guiding light for others. And so you

mentioned, you know, after that solitude, after that, inner mastery, going

and sharing it, which across from your hermit is

where you have the healer in your house of communication.

Wow. Yeah, that's pretty interesting. Which is really cool, how the

hermit goes inward, does the work of self mastery, and.

And then comes out, and then the healer shares it with others, whether it's

verbally, through presence, you know, in any way, shape,

or form. But you can then see, like you were talking about the oppositions,

how they're kind of working with each other. And this is really

beautiful because that is the pattern

I've seen in my life. And it's like a spiral, and it just keeps

getting bigger where I would do that. And maybe it was a small thing, and

then you share a little small thing, and it starts to accumulate. And

there's been interesting times in my life where there's longer hermit

times and deeper

insights and integrations that then come back, and

then there really is this authentic, deep desire

to share that. And it's

really satisfying for me to share that with people

in the same way that I mentioned earlier about the detective part, where

I put in that inner mastery effort and

work in hopes of. Then when I share it, it's more clear

to that person. It's easier to access,

it's more understandable, it's actionable,

it feels safe, It's. It's all of those things. And. And

it's funny to hear, though. It's clearly those needs of safety and

clear clarity and you know, being for

the person's benefit, those feel like needs that

in my earlier life were, when I was growing up as a child,

were challenging for me. And so it feels also

nicely motivated by my desire to support

people having to go through less pain than I did

in any given area. I can provide support because I,

I remember and viscerally and deeply

to my core, know what it felt like to, to do it by

yourself. Yeah. And, and so it's really fun.

And then connecting and attuning in that way feels really

natural to me. And, and so it is an interesting dichotomy

because in some parts of my life I'm very social and

wanting to be interacting with people. While there's

also that other part with the hermit where in order to make

another jump forward and what I'm

offering to the world, I have to go back into isolation

and spend more time in contemplation and

have a lot of space. And

that's the other thing that's been really amazing is to realize the

power of just creating a lot of space

for my system when that comes on. And there doesn't have to be

some logical plan for why there's all this space,

the space itself, this, my system will start to do that as

long as there's enough space. And it will follow a natural cycle of,

of new awareness and then it's nothing but

wonderful to come back and offer.

And it's a beautiful reinvigoration of

spirit. And so I feel

more connected to myself and a brand new layer

which allows it to express in a whole new way again.

And it keeps me engaged in this work because it's never

the same work, you know, And I've

had some of the same clients for 15 years

or more, some of them, and I've heard them even

ask like, man, it's a long time, do you ever get bored of this? Well,

it's like, no, not no. Because I'm seeing something different

every time because I'm not the same as I was

15, 20 years ago. So to me it seems like

a necessary polarity for the

keep it moving for growth. Because I would say

my instinctual desire is grow.

Like, you know, if I was told there would be no more

growth and development, that would feel like an instinctual threat

to my system. Like it was like you would be telling me you're, you

know, going to snuff me out. So, you know, those

are not surprising to me that they are working on each other because

they Keep creating movement. I love that.

Yeah, incredibly well stated.

And so to round this out, I'd love to

jump over to your 12th house. I'd like to do just one survival

archetype. And so 12th house we have the

prostitute. And the 12th house

governs the unconscious and the 12th house

governs intuition. And so what's really

interesting is that the prostitute

is very much the archetype of inner negotiation.

Interesting. And the prostitute's always trying to

guarantee some outcome that offers

safety and security, which a lot of

times comes into conflict with intuition.

Yes. You know, you might have an intuition that says,

start this project, or, you know, quit your job and

do X, Y or Z. But then the prostitute says, well,

you're getting a steady paycheck over here, so that's a bad

idea. And so you compromise or

negotiate your intuition. So I'd love

for you to share any experience you've had

with this challenge of intuition and

the prostitute being the inner negotiator.

Absolutely. As you were saying that I was tracking and noticing

that I innately have the desire to

continue to cultivate my intuition. And

because the prostitute is in that area,

it's a really good training partner.

So with not enough intuition to balance it out,

you get overpowered by the prostitute. So the

interesting thing in retrospect is noticing how I used

to completely overwork myself to

increase my worth and value and, you know, for safety

and security. And I remember having

intuitive insights that I would. Would

quickly be dashed by that, that inner negotiation, as you're saying,

and the intuition just did not have the

level of strength yet to stand up to that. And it

wasn't clarified enough and cultivated enough. What I find

interesting is that most of the. Most

of the way this wheel is set up is to give me what I want.

And it. And it has this interesting challenge

in order, because I want it at such a significant level,

there needs to be some sort of energy to

train with in order to cultivate a higher level

of intuition in this case. So I still

hear that negotiation. While now I

don't have, I have the ability now to

check in with my intuition and fully

hear it without the negotiation of the

prostitute just coming over the top now,

it's still a big thing for me to work with, I would say, you know,

in more classical challenges like fear over

finances or fear over place

or home or something like that, and

cultivating the ability to check in with my intuition

to balance that has been so helpful.

So, you know, feeling what would be best

for me versus just using that

Unconscious, you know, pattern of energy to force me

to do the obvious, logical, safe thing

to my mind has been really fun because

my mind is really pretty powerful. And so it means that I

need is equally a powerful intuition to keep it in

check. So that that's what comes up for me. And I think

I was just asleep for a very long time and didn't notice any of that.

And it was expressed in

overworking and over saving and,

you know, kind of creating a situation where you'd start to

hoard energy and you'd have actually more than

you needed. But it's all driven by that pattern of like, you need more safety,

you need more safety and being closed off from being

able to hear. Is that really true? Do you, do you feel unsafe

right now? Like what feels like, you know, what you would like to do

now. And I'm really grateful for that because if I

didn't have such an intense experience of that,

I don't think I would have had something to work with in order

to cultivate more intuition, which comes back

into the tracking, it comes back into, into the

hermit. It all kind of flows together there in a really

beautiful way. And it was always a surprise because

I never would have thought that, but I feel that

now in a way that is really more balanced than

it would have been when I was in my 20s or something like

that. Beautiful. I love how you said

the prostitute being a great training partner

and actually the prostitute sits across from the detective.

Interesting. So that's a very cool opposition as well.

So this was such a wonderful conversation.

I'm so glad that we chose these archetypes and took a pretty

deep dive into each one of them.

I would love for you to, as we close to

direct people, anywhere you want to send them, if they're interested

in checking out your work, any of your offerings,

if they're interested in working with you. Where would you like to

send some of the listeners? Yeah, for sure. If anybody want to reach out

via email, it's

justiniointegrity.com so you can

reach out to me or you could, you can go through the

website@myointegrity.com

and that'll get you just a way to contact me if you're

interested in some support, if you're interested in some

virtual coaching, or if you're interested in some movement

support. And you know, I would love to help anybody who

has some challenges finding their way with some

challenging, you know, movement challenges, pain, all that kind of

stuff. So that's mostly where you can find me and

yeah, I would love to hear from anybody who is looking for some help. Beautiful.

And Justin and I do have an upcoming retreat

which will be in August and stay tuned for more info on that.

Justin and I are going to do a follow up episode where we're going to

dive into some of the things that we're going to be exploring in our retreat

together. And if any of you are interested in diving deeper into

the archetypes, you can go to my website,

healing40.com and you can reach out to me if you

want to cast your wheel. Highly recommend. Also checking out Caroline

misses Work. This is based on a lot of her

teachings. She has a great book, Sacred Contracts if you want to go

deeper into some of the archetype work. And thank you again for going

on this beautiful journey with us. It was such an incredible episode. I can't

wait to share this with you guys. And Justin, any last words

as we close? Just I'm very grateful. Greg,

thank you for casting my wheel and having me on. It's been

a pleasure and my heart is just very warmed

by being included in this and so I just want to thank you

from the bottom of my heart for having me on today. It's been a wonderful

experience. Thank you brother. Thank you brother.