Mental Illness + Imagination

(upbeat music)

Welcome to Synchronicity. This episode, I've been putting it off, not consciously, I think unconsciously, and not because I'm averse to it, or afraid of it, or don't wanna speak about it, but because I think it's very important, and it carries a lot of weight, and we're dealing with stuff that people go through on a regular basis, whether they know it or not, and what I'm referring to, I'm sure the title of the episode probably gated, but get away, I haven't named it yet, but I bet it's a clue to you in, is mental illness, or perceived mental illness, an imagination, and there's a fertile crossover, fertile ground that crosses over both of those things, and we're gonna talk about that, and I'm gonna use my own personal experience, and diagnosis, and later realization, as the anecdote that will give you insight into how I've come to these conclusions, but more importantly, hopefully you can apply what I'm talking about to your life, or if you know someone who's struggling with any type of mental issues, right?

We'll get into what that means, but you hopefully can help them. So, let's start with what a definition, or what we classically identify as symptoms of mental illness, certain types of mental illness in this country, but let's just say the world that accepts kind of the medical interpretation of what mental illness is, so let's look at something like depression, right? Clinically depressed. Someone who's clinically depressed is gonna have a variety of symptoms that are observable that we can look at as people, and say, yeah, that person's depressed, they are in a state of depression, they have been in this state, they hit all the hallmarks of this state, we're not gonna go into the specific things, but they are classically clinically depressed, right?

What we've done there is essentially created a box category, a bucket, and we're literally, I don't mean conceptually, we're literally throwing these people in this box, and you're saying, no, why are you using the word literally, you're a dumbass millennial, I am a dumbass millennial, but I mean literally we are psychically creating a box and throwing people who have hallmarks of symptoms related to depression, throwing them in that box, and then they're in that box and they're like, fuck, I'm depressed, this is what I am, I am in this state, and I don't know how to get out of it often, so what happens then?

We have wonderful people with good intentions trying to come up with solutions. Far be it for me to say that pills are universally bad, or drugs are universally bad, this I think is a noble pursuit to try to help someone who's dealing with what is perceived to be either a chemical imbalance, or so reactions psychologically to a traumatic experience, or just maybe this is how they just came into the world and don't know another way, maybe they learned it from their parents, maybe they learned it from friends, maybe they learned it comparing themselves to outside culture and people, who knows? Not important, what we do know is when we label someone depressed, or having an anxiety disorder, or social anxiety, or borderline personality disorder, or bipolar or schizophrenic, we are looking at symptoms and qualities emerge and saying this does not line up with what we, the culture, the people deem appropriate for our reality.

So that's what's going on when we label someone mentally ill. Now when you label yourself mentally ill, you're also doing that, and that's why I think it's important to be careful about, yes, you acknowledge what you're going through internally, but don't identify with the state too much, especially if it's not a productive one, because you can get stuck in it, right? And this applies for things that aren't just having to do with mental illness, to talk about this a lot with getting stuck in a state of scarcity, or poverty, or fear, right? You can get stuck in any number of states, infinite states basically, you can do whatever you want and get stuck in it, but when you get stuck in a really sticky one, like depression, or high anxiety, or OCD, or any of these things that are really pitched up or pitched low to a degree where it's hard to move out of them, be careful about labeling yourself for other people mentally ill, or saying that you are this and you are that.

And now I will, and the reason is, just to be clear, is that your imagination creates reality, right? If that's true, what you imagine of other people, if their imagination is not of a degree where they recognize that creates it for them. So if you say, oh, so-and-so is depressed, so-and-so has anxiety, so-and-so is sad. What do you think you're doing there? You're writing that narrative, at least in your world, and that's your impression of them, maybe when they're not around you, or maybe they express it a different way, but I'm telling you, your perception creates reality. So, what does this mean?

That's one level, right? We're dealing with what mental illness, how we identify it, how we classify it, and how we basically use it out in the world, right? That's one aspect of mental illness. The other aspect is, you yourself may feel unhinged sometimes. You may feel at a whack, you may feel imbalanced, you may be thinking crazy thoughts, right? You may be hearing voices in your head, so how do we distinguish between what is a productive state of discomfort, right? And one that is just overwhelmingly negative, right? So that's one question related to mental illness. And then another is, is if you go and say, this is not healthy for me, I have clearly identified this is not some way I should be feeling or thinking, how do you move out of that, and how do you navigate something like the imaginal realm, right?

This imaginal power and these imaginal acts we can use. Now, I'm gonna now go into my story about how this is played out for me 16 years ago. I'm recording this in 2019. So in 2003, and I'll compare it to now. And how I, you know, can tell you what happened back then, what happened for me, what I needed to get out of what happened back then, how that affected my life. And then now with that knowledge and experience, how it helped me stabilize, what I consider a, I'm not enlightened, I don't think yet. Who knows, I'm not ruling it out in the future, but I don't think yet. But I'm operating in a way that I know is, this is who I am, I feel fulfilled, I feel satisfied.

I feel strong, vigorous, good, I don't know how else to say it. So I'm gonna compare those two things and maybe the story will resonate with you on some level. So 16 years ago, I've said this and spoken about it many times on this podcast, I had a transcendental mystical experience that at the time I referred to, I don't know, I wasn't referring to it any at the time, at the time it was just nuts. I experienced later what I referred to as everything is one giant synchronicity. Everything was connected, everything was there and it wasn't just me being deluded in my mind, I had people around me confirming, I would say something would appear right there.

Crazy shit was going on. What ended up happening though, is I didn't know why this was happening. I had taken some LSD, but it lasted long after the LSD state, LSD was out of my body. So it wasn't just a chemical physiological response to a foreign substance interacting with my body, it was something else, it was clearly something else, but I didn't know what it was. I was waking up with Sanskrit names of chakras in my head. I had a compulsion to learn about all these weird things like astral projection and psychic stuff. It was just weird and the stuff going on in my life was even weirder, just like the crazy amount.

There was no gap in the synchronicities. That's how I would explain it. So what ended up happening is I kind of blew a fuse, right? I was cool, I was manageable, I was hanging out with friends. I definitely seemed a little bit weird. I was talking about things like Jesus Christ and unconditional love, not particularly effective. And I was bouncing off again, out against everyone else's reality, which I now recognize is still just me being projected out. So what started to happen? I started to be like, what is going on? I'm doubting maybe the validity of this experience, internally, and lo and behold, externally, people would start to challenge my experience.

And I didn't know what was going on, so I couldn't defend it. I couldn't say, yeah, this is a valid thing. I'm plugged into the fucking cosmic control center and I'm getting downloads. I didn't know what the hell was going on. So what happened is after about three months of a very acute upstate where, if I'm looking back, felt imbalanced, right? It was too much energy. I couldn't handle it, right? I was not stable. I was not in a space of equanimity and peace. I was ramped up and pretty excited. After those three months, I crashed hard and I had never been depressed in my life. I had experienced sadness and melancholy, but I had never been depressed, especially for an extended period of time, especially to the degree of where I was feeling at the time.

I wasn't getting out of bed. I remember I was like, I would have been bad for like 10 days or something. I don't think I'd gotten up or just to go to the bathroom and I went to the store. I was in Boston and I wanted to go get cigarettes. I was smoking camel cigarettes at the time. Ew, gross. And I don't judge you if you smoke cigarettes. I just, looking back, I don't know how I did it. Seriously, if you like cigarettes, fucking go for it. If you know why you smoke them and you love them, I'm not judging. But I went and my knees were fucking wobbly. I couldn't even walk straight. I was like, oh my God.

And that's when I knew something was really wrong. It's hard for me to reach out to help. I don't remember exactly how it happened, but there was clearly something in my voice where my mother got concerned when I spoke to her and my good friend Celine came up and basically packed me up and got me back down to where I was from, the suburbs of DC and Maryland. And I started kind of just coming back down to base level consensus regular people reality. Let's just put it like that. Got a job as a cashier at a taco place in Bethesda, which is one of the wealthiest cities, towns, whatever you're caught in the country.

So I was just serving up like tacos to predominantly angry people. Just angry people who did not see me as a human being. This is why I always try to interact with people like we're cashiers or waiters and really look them in the eye. I'm like, I recognize you're a person doing this job. You're not this job is man, some of these people. Boy, anyway, and they were Buffalo Bill's fans, the owner of this place, the owners of this place. So you just know, I'm not right. Anyway, I got a job there enrolled in community college and started seeing a psychotherapist, a psychiatrist. And very early on I saw the psychiatrist and I'm like doing weird things.

I just remember like I was drawing all these mandalas. I didn't know why I didn't even know it was called a mandala I was just doing it. He's like looking at me and he's like, well, what the hell is going on? I still in every, I'm just realizing this now. In every psychiatrist's office I've ever been in or psychologist, I've always kind of challenged them a little bit just 'cause I totally don't buy into one person's perspective. I don't not buy into it. I just, you know, I'm careful about what I'm gonna buy and I'm gonna ingest. And I clearly, let's be clear. I got an authority complex sometimes.

So that definitely played into it. But anyway, he's like, yeah, man, like after a few sessions, like you're bipolar, it's classic. Go look at this textbook classic bipolar. I was like, okay, whatever. I was like, I don't wanna take any drugs or pills. That's what I was very clear about that. I'm not taking anything to change my mind. I don't think I'm broken. I don't think I need anything to make me feel a certain way. I had been prescribed dexadrin and ritalin as a kid, which if you know, it's just speed. So I lost a bunch of weight. I was never eating, I just felt weird and jacked up all the time.

So I was very against any medicine or pills that made me feel a certain way. So what happened is, is he started talking about lithium. Lithium, if you think about it, you don't know anything about it, you're like, oh my God, lithium. Fucking Kirk will bane wrote a song about that shit, some serious shit, dude. It's not, it's a salt, it's a natural element. I think it's the seventh element, I could be wrong. It actually does nothing if you're not bipolar. That's one of the weird things about it. It doesn't make you feel a certain way. It doesn't make you act a certain way. It doesn't prevent things from happening.

It just, they've found, in some people who demonstrated qualities of bipolar, you know, classical diagnosis, it did level out their moods and they were able to function. So people love it and I was like, listen. It's about probably the only thing I'm okay with taking because it basically, if I don't have anything, it's not gonna do shit. It's a salt, maybe I'll get thirsty. So I took it and it didn't change shit. I felt exactly the same the entire time. I just started crawling out of the space I was and I would not credit lithium looking back. I'd credit my friends, my family and my willingness and desire to not feel how I did.

That was a big part of it. I knew very much that how I had felt before, even if it seemed crazy, wasn't totally crazy and I at least wanted to get back to functioning normal person. So I was playing, you know, watching football, playing a lot of Madden, you know, smoking weed, doing normal 20-something-year-old shit where you're living in your mom's basement after being in college for three years. So it was definitely a fall from grace and that level but I didn't perceive it as such. It actually felt fucking amazing 'cause I felt like a normal person again. So I took with the eye climb data that rolled back in school and basically got into a prestigious music program with very bad grades because I told him this story and they're like, "Oh, he must be, he must be alright, he's not totally nuts."

Or they just thought they were gonna take a chance, I don't know, but I got in, got my shit together, graduated and moved to New York, 2008, 2009. That period, I moved to New York. 'Cause that's what you do with a music degree. You don't know what the fuck you're gonna do. We graduated college with a music degree. Cool dude, great, you fucking good. Go use that at a business. So you moved to New York, you moved to LA, you moved to Miami, you moved to a place where at least there's music around so maybe you got a shot. So that's what I did. Got there, got my shit together. For the most part, I was still doing, not totally like, I don't know what the fuck was going on.

But one thing that started to happen is I had an emerging interest in Tibetan Buddhism. There's this great Tibetan shop on St. Mark's and there's cool like singing bowls, one of which I'm looking at right now, I still have to this day. And there's something about it that caught my attention, especially things related to the idea of like Bodhisattvas and things like that. Just caught my attention. But I also got the concurrent that at the same time that I was like, I don't think I'm bipolar. I was like, I'm pretty sure I'm not. Like I think that whatever I went through was weird shit but I don't think I am.

So rather than just being like, let me flush all these pills down the toilet and prove it, I was like, let me do this in a way that if I am to go off this, like no one can give me any shit about it. So I hit my mom up and I was like, listen, mom, I don't think I'm bipolar. I'm willing to go to a psychiatrist. I'm willing to see someone to get off this and at least prove that I'm stable without them. And if that's cool with you, I'd like to do that. So that's what I did. I saw a pretty interesting guy in the, he was a young dude and the larry, so I was like, Mercer Street. Like God knows how much that office space cost.

And he was always late. He was always late, fucking drove me nuts. I'm like, dude, just can't not be late. And it's like, I get he's with people but it just always bothered me looking back, like chill the fuck out dude, people with problems. So I went to him, I'm explaining all this stuff. I explained my conception of what I thought happened earlier, six years, seven years prior. And three, four months later, no more pills, no more lithium. And so then began the test of validating whether I'm crazy or not, I need pills. And I didn't. I met my eventual wife who I'm married to now, Alexis. We had two kids, got my shit together, started figuring out about how I wanted to make money in the world, at least at the time being.

I mean, I was pretty much still at the time refusing the call, right? I hadn't found that I wanted to be a musician, that I really wanted to express myself creatively out in the world. Even though I'd gone to music school, I let the world kind of beat it out of me, that this isn't a pursuit that's possible. Don't even try, that type of thing. So I wasn't fully living my truth, but at least that was a stable, functional person in the world, right? That's a win compared to being just like a wacko on the street yelling at people, which I wasn't, but I could potentially be where I wasn't at in that direction, but some people do, unfortunately, they don't have the family, they don't have the support, they don't have the system that helps them, you know, stay grounded and get back to the world and realize what's going on.

So that's what happened, and everything was copacetic, everything was great, I got off it, it changed, you know, my conception of how the medical profession works in treating mental illness, but everything was pretty much fine. Got no beef, everything's good. So over the years, as I've looked back on the experience, I was pretty lucky and fortunate to have all these things in place to kind of get me out of the pharmaceutical and psychiatric, again, I wasn't in the pharmaceutical, right? Lithium's not really a pharmaceutical, it's a salt, click it up, but I was lucky to skirt that. A lot of people who exhibit symptoms of bipolar or schizophrenia or any mental illness that doesn't seem productive for them or other people are usually given pretty high doses, amounts, and strengths of allotropic drugs, drugs that change your brain chemistry.

And I don't know, I mean, if you need it, because the person is self-harming, I think that's good, you know, if they're going to be institutionalized, which is another weird thing we do to people who don't conform to what we want in reality, we put them in fucking boxes and cages, that's another way of approaching it, but luckily that was far enough for me, I was able to maintain a link with this world that no one ever thought that. But I look around and see kind of what happened in my situation and look at people who don't have the kind of grace and fortune to escape the system and are on drugs and who think there's something wrong with them and who believe that they're depressed and believe that they're anxious and believe that they're afraid and believe to be human is this constant state of misery.

And to see that validated and confirmed by whether it's pharmaceutical companies, psychologists or psychiatrists, and I don't have problems with them in general, but the people who help the system kind of classify people as being mentally ill does a lot of harm. It does a lot of harm because here's my perspective on what happened to me 16 years ago. I loosened and greased the wheels for recognizing that imagination precedes materiality. And when you're really in that state, the distance in time between when you think something or imagine something and it's showing up in your life is very, very, very, very small.

And when that happens, it can freak you the fuck out because it's like, what the fuck is going on? Reality is not working the way it's supposed to. Luckily now, people are kind of more tuned into this. We have modalities that we can use to look into kind of the weird nature of stuff. You have people like me yakking about, imagination is creates reality and all of this stuff. So there's voices, there's beacons out there that you can tune into, but at the time, you know, none of this shit. And it's just like, it was just overwhelmingly complicated and I didn't know how to deal with it. So what ended up happening is I collapsed back into these states where I was like, this isn't how it works.

I am going crazy, this isn't right. And when you see people out there in the world, and again, everyone out there is you projected back, but I think the way we collectively think about people who are quote, unquote, mentally ill has created a system that really fucking sucks and people who are going through some mystical experiences. And that includes schizophrenic people. And yes, if you're harming yourself and harming other people, sometimes people need to step in and help you, right? For sure, for sure. So if you notice you're getting to that point, like seek help, right? That's a big part of whether you know you're really mentally ill, quote unquote again, is if you are refusing help at any turn and you're only listening to yourself and you're a hundred percent sure and then you write all the time, that's a warning flag, right?

So if that's you, fucking take a step back and start being able to listen to other people. One of the beautiful things of having a podcast, not these solo cast episodes, but is the privilege of being able to listen and talk to other people and talk with other people, right? That's so needed. Even though everything is you projected out, you need that feedback. They're also them, right? It's you and you. I and I, these people are out there. We're all here to learn things through each other. We're all mirrors. So it's very important that if you find yourself kind of getting caught up in your own shit completely and you really think like, I'm the only thing in some ways you are, but also you're here.

And you start detaching from this reality and thinking you don't have any function here or this is just lesser than because imagination precedes it, you're fucking up for real. So again, back to my experience. What ended up happening is I greased the fucking wheels. I tapped into imagination creates reality. I was creating it every second, every minute, every hour. There's nuts, but I collapsed back down because I didn't know what was happening. I didn't know imagination create reality. I thought something external was happening to me. I thought it was the gods or the universe or drugs or whatever it is.

And when you believe in something outside of yourself, you're playing, it's inevitable you come crashing down because that's not what's, it's not true. It's you, it's you. You can project something outside of yourself, like the universe and the world, but it's you. So if you don't get that essential fact, like you're headed for a crash, no matter what you're doing, doesn't have to be a transcendent or mystical experience, it's just you're headed for a crash, it's you. So I now looking back as I kind of, like I described in the past, that was getting shot up to Space Mountain. When I was on Space Mountain, the view is pretty much the same as it is now, so I didn't know how the fuck I got there.

Other people who were up there who didn't know how they got there started finding me. So a lot of homeless people, a lot of just people crazies on the street as most people would refer to them started coming up to me and some of them were totally unhinged, but some of them like they knew what was going on and they weren't as crazy as they may have seemed or appeared to people. But it was like this attractive force. Like we're both on this other layer of reality and that's when I really started to think about mental illness and schizophrenia and all these things because like what happens is if you get diagnosed and you don't have a support system, you just get pushed through this fucked up system and labeled a certain way and it follows you around and you believe it and everyone around you believes it and like where can you go from there without a good family and friends?

Where the fuck are you gonna end up? You know, like that's why there's a lot of people out there you know on the streets and off the streets who are in these situations, which is why I'm doing this episode because I know there are people who will hear imagination creates reality and then really just get shot up into space and just like stay there and not understand that this world exists too and not understand that these worlds merge and overlap and we use them both to balance ourselves and a multitude of ways. It's incredibly important that we recognize we're trying to integrate these things but we don't wanna just forget that the system that is in place in the world doesn't have a organized way of dealing with this yet and the reason again is because imagination proceeds materiality, this is stuff we believe, right?

If we're not dealing with these unconscious aspects of ourselves, if we believe in crazies in the street, what are we gonna find? What are we gonna find, right? And I don't, when I say believe and imagine, don't always think this is some conscious thing. What the techniques do is build a bridge between your conscious and unconscious minds, right? That's the (speaking in foreign language) the Jehovah's Witness or witnessing this process of building a bridge between your conscious and unconscious mind and then bringing it into this world, right? That's what's going on there. But this world still exists, right?

And unconsciously, we are putting this stuff out there. If we believe ourselves to be mentally ill, if we don't engage with aspects of ourselves that are uncomfortable, it gets pushed out into the world. And there's a weird concept at play here. There's a wonderful talk. I put it up on MindPod Network. I highly suggest you check it out from Neville Goddard called The Law of Liberty. And I'll link to it in this episode. And it's a tricky one. It's a really fucking tricky one because he basically is laying out, and this is my direct experience too, that this is your world. There is no fiction. If you start coming up with people how a fictional character, that is created somewhere.

You are literally creating that in the world. Everything you do is your world. It's also everyone else's. I know it's a tricky fucking thing, but it's your world. So when you start changing your internal beliefs and systems and thoughts, your world changes. And trust me, I mean, anyone who's experienced it after listening to this or before knows that to be true. It's fucking weird. It's a weird, weird concept because, of course there's external reality. What am I afraid to say? What am I fucking nuts in the mental illness episode? No, of course there is. Of course there is, but it's you pushed out.

It's so weird. And you need to have the right kind of stability. That's what we're going for when we're talking about mental illness. We want this knowing this stability and creativity to kind of all live in harmony so we don't get off track. So we don't get moved off our mark by threshold guardians, disguise this external people or internal thoughts, right? We wanna know how do we discipline ourselves to stabilize our minds to be the person we know we're supposed to be? How do you do that? I found the imaginal techniques to be incredibly grounding and helpful for me. People find mindfulness techniques.

People find modalities like tarot and astrology and kabbalah and all of these things to be helpful. I think it's important again to point out that don't make the misapprehension that it's not you. Those tools can get, I love doing this. I've been doing tons of these tarot readings for people over the past few days. And it's just so fun. And it's so helpful and it's so fucking accurate. But don't get too caught up in a modality because then you'll forget that it's you or you can, not you will, you can. And that's important. So mental illness to bring it back to what we're talking about here. We have two dimensions of which we're talking about mental illness.

We have the dimension of not getting too far off into space when you realize imagination creates reality. You don't wanna get knocked off and fucking sent into a counterproductive state where you can engage with the world. And then the other aspect of mental illness is not being too quick to judge and label people as mentally ill or as bipolar or BPD or OCD or all these things because if you do that, you're doing it for them. You're saying that this person is that way. And if they can't exercise their agency over their own reality, you're doing it for them and that's not cool, don't do that shit.

So we'll get a little weird and alchemical at the end of this episode now, which is to say, if you recognize your imagination, creates reality, it precedes materiality and you know someone or you yourself are labeled as mentally ill, start using this to get out of that. Start using this to walk into the best version of yourself where you can drop the stigma of feeling a certain way because maybe you just process things a little bit differently. And that's not an excuse to be a shithead or totally fucking bonkers for the state of being bonkers. Like you'll know if you're on the right track, you won't feel off track and that's your barometer.

And if you wanna feel more on track, find the modalities that work for you. Find the people who understand what you're talking about. That's one of the benefits of where we're living right now is you can find these people relatively easily, easily whether it's a podcast, whether it's a forum, whether it's Reddit, whatever it is, like find the people. Find the people who make you realize you're not fucking nuts, you're not crazy, you're really not. You may have some issues right now, but find the techniques and modalities that help you work through those. And then do that for other people, right?

Here's the truth about imagination proceeding, materiality, creates everything, right? You can bless people, right? We spoke a little bit about Jesus Christ, what that really is, not a guy, not a person, a psychological state of waking up and remembering who you are. Well, Jesus Christ, the guy in Fable could do a lot of different things, a lot of different blessings and boons and healings. So, if you're at the point where you know who the fuck you are, congratulations, welcome, we've been waiting for you, but if you're at that point, start blessing people, start healing people. Don't take those steps in the world until you know what you're doing, just do it internally and watch what happens, just lift people up with you, it happens, it happens, my friends know, my family know, right?

Ah, mental illness, what a weird and wonderful thing to talk about, primarily because it's shifting, right? I would define a form of mental illness now, if we're really talking about this, is someone who doesn't recognize their true power. That's a mental disturbance, that's a, I don't know, but illness, it's a mental affectation that is limiting. That's what we need to be start calling mental illness, not the person who's yelling at fucking wizards in the street that aren't there, maybe those fucking wizards are there, you don't know? You see wizards, you ever seen a wizard that you don't know, you don't know, maybe they're there, maybe it takes someone to go up and be like, "Bro, what are you seeing?"

I've had these conversations with homeless people, what is there? They'll tell me, it's crazy how people who are probably labeled lost and hopeless causes, because they didn't have the means or support to get themselves out of it, or the people to help them, probably just totally irredeemably written off as schizophrenic, I had a conversation with them, and I don't know what the fuck they were talking about, right? Weird, right? Weird, they're just in a different place, they've shifted and fragmented their reality into a place that we can't see. And this, again, isn't saying that every crazy person on the street is, you should go and talk to them and try to heal them, no, that's not what I'm saying.

You can do it remotely anyway, but more importantly, do it to yourself first. Figure this shit out for yourself first, stabilize your own mental clarity, sanity, and health. Then, once enough of us do that who have had these experiences, I guarantee systems will emerge, where we can start in this world, not just blessing people psychically, in this world, create funnels that help people through this stuff. That's my dream, that's my goal. I know it will happen because it happened for me. I navigated a perilous course to get there, and if I didn't have an inner knowingness and conviction, I easily, God knows what I could have been prescribed.

God knows how far I could have fallen down and just assumed I was a smaller version of myself than I actually was, and I could have went pretty fucking deep, and that's there but for the grace of God, but who is God, right? So yeah, that's mental illness. If there are any questions about this in comments, please hit me up. Now, I know I've gotten enough communications on this podcast from people who are struggling, and what I would encourage you if you feel like reaching out and you're not in a good place, quote unquote, just take a beat, try to figure out what you wanna say, what you need to ask in the shortest and most condensed way possible.

I know when you're ramping up there and there's a lot going on, you wanna write a lot, you wanna share a lot, you just wanna get it out. It's 'cause you're backed up. My friend told me about this when I was realizing I had all this shit in me creatively. He's like, dude, you're backed up, it happens. Like, you'll get it out, just let it come out at the right speed. Wonderful advice, thank you for that, Zev. The same thing goes with this. When you hear someone who's maybe like on the other side of a tough situation, you wanna just like immediately reach out and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Just take a beat, just take a beat, figure out how you wanna ask the question or address what you need to have, and I'll get back to you, right?

I'm doing this. Okay, that's the mental illness episode. There's more to cover, as always. I'm sure there'll be more to talk about on this. Don't, this isn't medical advice. So I even have to say that shit, fuck that, man. Like, it's not medical advice. If you're on pills, don't throw your pills away. Do it the right way so you feel good about it. Whatever that means, and make sure other people feel good about it, 'cause that's you. So if other people are like, all right, I don't like it, but I'm kinda okay with it, that's okay, that's good. So don't take this as reckless advice, and I'm not saying no one is mentally ill.

It's just, you know, we wanna navigate these shifting paradigms with as much clarity and confidence as possible. And I know what it's like to feel crazy. I know what it's like to be clinically diagnosed is crazy, and I also know what it's like to not be crazy, and to have those same experiences, but not feel off-balance, and not feel like you're getting shaken off your course. So it's my duty and obligation to share that. And I promise you, when you come out of the other side of what's going on right now, it's the best. It literally is the best. And I don't mean like not being diagnosed, or anything like that.

I mean like, just being who you really are, stepping into what you're really supposed to do, and knowing that, and loving that. Oh man, it's just the best. I wake up every day just so happy. I can't even tell you. And I know people who are doing the same. It's fucking great. So that's it. I'll say this at the end of this episode. I'm gonna continue to do these tarot readings for free. There's a lot of them. I think I did like 15, 16 of them in the past few days. I'm doing it to bone up on my skills. It's like I'm remembering what the tarot is, more than anything. At a certain point, I'm gonna charge money.

It's just how it is, man. And I'll do free readings for people who can't do it, of course, but this is a service. I'm providing, it's helping people. And once I'm at the point where I'm confident, I can do this intuitively without relying on learning, I'm gonna charge. So this is a good opportunity to get a free one before I start doing charging, especially if you don't wanna pay for it. But you should wanna pay for it 'cause it's cool shit. Like I started paying for astrology readings and tarot and all of these things because it's like do it. Just do it, trust me, move the energy around. It's smart.

It's free now. Great and review this podcast. Share it with someone who needs to hear this stuff. That's all I can say. It's important. I know that. I know that I'm okay with saying that. And it's me, the person talking. So it's not just blind narcissism. Share it with someone who it helps. That's it. That's it. We'll talk about all the other stuff in another episode. Happy imagining, lots of love. Bye-bye. (upbeat music) ♪ Driving through the forest ♪ ♪ Running at a time with my mind ♪ ♪ All my honey, I got money on my mind ♪ ♪ Money on the outside, money on the outside ♪ ♪ I turn, I wanna hit the wind with your mind ♪ ♪ Cosmic heart blow, you already know ♪ ♪ Big ass energy, kumbalini grow ♪ ♪ Flowing through your body ♪ ♪ Don't be afraid to lay yourself ♪ ♪ Go and ride the wave ♪ (upbeat music)

(upbeat music)