Discovering the Power Within: Jason Shiers' Journey of Transformation

Join us as we sit down with Jason Shiers, who overcame immense adversity to find true healing and transformation. At the tender age of 5, Jason tragically lost his father and his mother was lost in her grief, becoming emotionally unavailable. Having no external support to deal with his loss and grief, Jason sought comfort in food, drugs, alcohol, and criminal activities.

Jason's path of drugs and jail time eventually led him to 12-step programs and therapy. While he did reach sobriety, Jason never found the inner healing he longed for.  However, everything changed when he attended an intensive retreat in Los Angeles. and received a life-altering invitation:  be fully present in the current moment. This invitation became the key to unlocking Jason's inner self, revealing that everything he desired—healing, happiness, and wholeness—had been inside him all along.

After this transformational revelation, Jason no longer needed therapy or the 12-step approach to cope with his inner world. To support others, he shifted his therapeutic & coaching model to focus on acknowledging the inherent strengths within individuals and encouraging them to discover their own true nature.

Today, Jason hosts the podcast "Misunderstandings of the Mind" and runs his coaching program called "Wide World Coaching," where he guides others toward their innate potential and true selves.

To find more about Jason's work:
wideworldcoaching.com
infiniterecoveryproject.com
misunderstandingsofthemind.com

Transcript

[00:00:00] Amber: This week on the Life After podcast, we have Jason Shiers. He is the host of the podcast, Misunderstandings of The Mind. He also does coaching work, addiction recovery work, and I'm so glad that he's here today to sharehow he got to this place and how he's overcome adversity and really turned this into a life of joy and contentment and purpose.

[00:00:23] Amber: So Jason, do you want to take us along your journey of where you were? Because I know this started way back in your childhood where you had some childhood trauma, had some diagnoses in your childhood that at the time defined as mentally retarded, and that was obviously not the case. And do you just wanna take this through those experiences from then until where you are now?

[00:00:45] Jason: Yeah, yeah. That's a long story. There's so many facets, you know, and every time I talk about it comes out differently. Yeah. I mean, it started off with tragedy, with a loss of my dad, you know? I think that that was, such a pivotal moment in my life, the key childhood experience, and that actually the first memory that I have, whether that's psychological protection, you know, or not, I don't know. But it's it's the first memory that I remember, you know, of just the police coming to the door and my mom screaming, laying on the floor, and then my dad had been killed in an accident. And I think it was what I would describe as a catastrophic or cosmic nervous system overload, you know, in, in, in those moments, because that was my connection to life, you know?

[00:01:30] Jason: I have a six year old, you know, so I spent the last year when he was five, really reflecting on my own experience of being a five-year-old and what that might be like because till you've got a five-year-old of your own, you can have some memory, you know? But memory is just not the same as having a real life five-year-old running around you and noticing some of his tenderness and his softness and his sensitiveness and stuff like that, and his, little mannerisms and playfulness and so on. You know? Then just thinking of myself at that time, how impacting that would've been just to have that, to try and comprehend that experience, cause, uh, like he don't comprehend much, he just very in the moment, , all that matters is what's coming next and what can he have to eat, you know, that's all that matters.

[00:02:13] Amber: And then to have that catastrophic experience as a five year old, who's very sensitive and they want to play and they wanna know when the next snack is. And then to have, like you said, that incredibly catastrophic experience of not only losing your dad, but having that memory of your mom's reaction to it and just knowing.

[00:02:30] Jason: Yeah. And actually it was losing both parents because, I mean, I didn't lose the second one physically, but she was there but not there after that there was nothing there really. So what does a five-year-old that loses the most important person to him need? You know, it's like, more than usual. And the normal amount is an infinite amount anyway, but more than usual love and understanding and affection and there was none of that zero. It was really, work it out for yourself . Looking back, it's how I tell the story of infinite resilience and infinite creative potential of all human beings.

[00:03:04] Jason: You know, in the world of psychology and psychiatry in the traditional system, we pathologize all things that fit in with some sort of diagnosis or label, but actually, In a spiritual understanding of human beings and the body mind system that is self-correcting. We just find a way to cope with what seems difficult and those things then get a label later on by someone who thinks they're trying to help . So , my coping mechanism was food. Food was a reliable, partner, friend, comfort. It was all those things that I needed at that time. And that just shows, infinite creative potential. We find a way, we find something that we need, it doesn't matter that it doesn't fit in with societal expectations of what we should be or whether it seems behaviorally normal, whatever that means to the system.

[00:03:51] Jason: It just is a way of coping and that's it. Moving on to being more withdrawn. My mom, I dunno if you had it in the States, but we had a thing called the Yellow Pages in the eighties, and it's like, there was no internet back then. So if you wanted a specialist in something, or a hardware store , or a plumber or a electrician, you looked in this book called the Yellow Pages.

[00:04:10] Jason: It had all these different sections with people's names listed in it, and they got listed in it once a year. So my mom kind of picked that book up and looked for somebody to get help with mental health and we ended up in the psychiatric system receiving that diagnosis at nine or 10 years old and being medicated. In fact, I'd probably forgotten about that until 10, 15 years ago when in one of my psychotherapy trainings, they asked me to get my medical record and I applied for all these psychiatric reports and I started reading them and I was like, shit, I was medicated at 10 years old. I didn't even know that. I remember the trips to the psychiatrist I don't ever remember being given medication or anything like that. I remember the list of things, but it just plummeted and got worse from there.

[00:04:50] Jason: Really, it was just further escapism. . Soon as I was able to go out on my own and do things on my own, say like 12 or 13 things got worse. I stole more from home. I committed crime. I got brought home by the police. I escaped from school. I did all sorts of crazy shit, you know, until I found drugs.

[00:05:09] Jason: And then I just used drugs to escape myself as a young teenager. Used the crime that I'd already learned, , had an ability to became good at all sorts of things. You know, committing crime was one of them as a young teenager. So became good at committing crime and making money and buying drugs and then, that just got progressively worse over the years. More psychiatric interventions, more chaos, more medication, more escapism, more jails, more institutions. And in the end, just finding myself in a homeless shelter at 23 after, after the fifth, sixth, seventh time in jail.

[00:05:45] Jason: Not already at that point broken, you know, just empty and just given up, just completely like suicidal. Just thought life was absolutely shit, and that I'd been dealt a bad hand and that I didn't really, didn't really have any choice. That was it.

[00:06:01] Jason: For some reason I was just a victim, you know? That's how I felt. I identified as that's what I thought. That's what I told everyone. That was my story. You know? I was just a victim of life. That's when I got clean from drugs and alcohol. 1994, I was 23. I was 29 years ago. I don't say anything bad about the 12 step process in rehab. It saved my life for sure, and I've got many friends that it saved their life too. But pretty much it was just like whack-a-mole, you know? I just put down one thing and picked up another. Something else popped up and I gained a lot of weight, like a hundred pound in 12 weeks. When I went into rehab, I stole food, I ate out of bins, I sneaked down to the kitchen every night.

[00:06:39] Jason: I took whatever food I could, I stored it in my room and I binged every day, you know? And I was in rehab and I just basically had put down drugs and alcohol, but picked up food again. That was my primary thing anyway, food. So the fact that I gained so much weight, in that time nobody said anything. I mean, it seemed pretty crazy now that nobody in that sort of psychological profession would notice or say something about that and then from there it was just kind of, finding a way to live . I didn't have a desire to take drugs and alcohol anymore, but I also could not help escaping myself 'cause I couldn't cope with my internal experience. So it just became everything else that could be hidden or socially acceptable. Gambling, pornography, relationships, food. You know, and smiling and putting a front on and getting a job and becoming a somewhat so-called productive member of society.

[00:07:29] Jason: 'Cause that's what you did. You did well on the outside regardless of how broken and empty you felt on the inside. And then from there, when I was going to 12 step meetings and I just was, I always look at other people and compare. I know it's a disease to compare your insides, with other people's outsides, but that's what I did.

[00:07:46] Jason: And I could think people are getting something outta this, that I'm not getting . So that's why I ended up in therapy, because I thought I need some extra support, some extra help. And so I went into therapy and I quite liked it. And I thought, well, maybe if I could train to be a therapist I could help myself.

[00:08:03] Jason: You know, I could get some freedom myself. And then many years later, after all sorts of qualifications. You know, I remember at the end of all my trainings, which were, many, thinking to myself, well, I'm not very happy and neither is anyone else that I know that's a therapist either.

[00:08:18] Jason: So it's like, don't really seem like there's any answers here. So I just continually searched, , there was a seeking, like an intuition of something that there was better than the life that I had, that I never gave up on. So I did all sorts. I did the Hoffman Process and Landmark Forum and CBT and NLP and different things.

[00:08:36] Jason: Every new therapy that came out, I would be willing to investigate, try it. I did all sorts of cathartic experiences and and so on. But I never found peace of mind. I never found joy or contentment. It was just not on the cards for me. And I'd somewhat resigned, at this point, perhaps 40 years old.

[00:08:54] Jason: You know, 20 years in 12 steps, many years as a therapist with a practice. But unhappy, miserable, loads of failed relationships, ballooning in weight, and then losing weight and ballooning weight, and then losing weight on a consistent yo-yo sort of experience, you know, as a way of coping. In the end I had what you might call a spiritual experience.

[00:09:15] Jason: I had a realization perhaps seven years ago or something where my life just transformed in a moment. Everything changed all those years. I mean, palpably, so, noticeably so, or quantifiably so where everything that I did to support myself no longer felt necessary. I just had a, a deep realization of the fact that life is happening inside of me.

[00:09:41] Jason: It's not happening outside of me. And it was a noticing of the function of my own mind in my suffering. A noticing of the being attached to the victim story and the trauma, and the poor little boy who lost his dad and all this, and how I led with that as a way of getting loved, you know, in the world, how relationships had been completely destructive and so on.

[00:10:03] Jason: Because I'd tried to project all my needs onto other people. I just saw it all so clearly. It was like my whole life. In a 10 minute movie flash before me, you know, and it just all looks so clear what I'd been doing, ? And from that moment I've been free. it just happened. And it just made me really interested in transformation, from a transformational experience. I don't mean a long painful healing journey that many people talk about. Not that that's good or bad thing, I'm not saying that, but like the benefits and the power and the awakening experience of that transformation was so life-changing that I couldn't ignore it and I had to look at, well, how do I do this? How do I help others to see this? Whatever it is I've seen. And it was very difficult at first because I couldn't necessarily even quantify what happened because I didn't understand it because the mind is the masculine energy and is just very logical. And we wanna work it out and what are the three steps that I can do to get to this thing that I had? And there was no answer to that. So it took me a long time of sitting in that wondering what had really happened. I mean, noticeably that I stopped going to meetings after 22 years.

[00:11:12] Jason: I stopped going to therapy, I stopped having an eating disorder. It just went away overnight. It had gone. That was it. And it's never come back, you know? So I kind of knew something very deep had transformed, had changed. And also my practice and my work and my work with people, and my work with addictions would change, but I just didn't know how at the time when this happened, I just knew that I couldn't do traditional therapy.

[00:11:36] Jason: I guess what I'd seen as well in that experience was that everything that had been pathologized by the system and I'd believed to be true about me was kind of wallpapered on top of me, as a label or a part of my identity, you know? But none of it was the truth of who I was.

[00:11:55] Jason: All of it was an innocent coping mechanism to cope with the adversity that I'd experienced as a child. And it didn't mean that I was broken. It didn't mean that I was damaged. It didn't mean that I had this endless list of psychiatric diagnosis that had been given over the years. None of it was true.

[00:12:13] Jason: It was all just momentary lostness in my own experience, you know? And I mean, I've seen this happen now with hundreds, if not thousands of people over the years can wake up from their suffering and have a transformational experience, you know, and recover. I wouldn't say it's complete freedom, it's not complete bliss or anything like that, but you can ride the rollercoaster of life much more gracefully from that place then what you can, when you're lost in your own mind.

[00:12:40] Amber: So when you talk about this experience that you had, were you by yourself? Was this a realization you had or was this an idea that was introduced to you by someone else? 

[00:12:49] Jason: Yeah. I went to this thing in L.A. I went, traveled to L.A. to, it was called an intensive, but it was pretty relaxed, to be honest. It was quite funny, 'cause it was called intensive.

[00:12:58] Jason: It was not intense at all. Yeah. It was just an introduction to true nature. It was an introduction to the role of our thinking and perceiving mind in our experience. And I knew a lot about psychology, like pathologizing and giving labels to, and finding techniques and ways to cope with the response to adversity. But I'd never really understood the function and the role of the mind in creating the pathologies in the first place. You know, the normal human response to adversity, what we will do to cope with our internal disease. So it took me a step deeper into my understanding of the human experience, but also it freed me from everything that I'd received.

[00:13:41] Jason: And naively, you know, I say it's naively 'cause people told me" you've got the disease of addiction, you're gonna have it for life." And I just went, okay. It's kind of like I never questioned it. I didn't know where does that come from? How do you know I've got the disease of addiction? Who gets that? Where? How'd you get it? I never asked those questions because no one had answers to those questions. They had conceptualized, what addiction was and given this disease concept to me, which I had innocently taken as, had all of the psychiatric diagnosis, , because there's no blood test or, or test to prove any mental illness.

[00:14:13] Jason: There is only conceptual and theoretical belief about behavior or processes and based on their severity and how long they've been happening that is what a diagnosis is and most people don't know that. They really think just because it comes from doctors people with a medical degree that it must be fact.

[00:14:32] Jason: And that was me. I just naively bought into all those things that I thought was wrong with me until I realized and started looking into the history of mental illness and educating myself about these processes and realizing that there's no truth in any of this stuff.

[00:14:44] Jason: It really is just a description of where you are at in any given moment. It's nothing to do with who you are.

[00:14:51] Amber: You said a couple things that were really important. You talked about how we have our internal world and we have our outer world, and they're often very different because what we present to people, that's not everything that's going on in our heads,. And I think in the mental health field, they're looking really at that outer world. It's exactly what you're saying. There's not a test. It's not definitive. And oftentimes they have such little time to really dive into people's experiences and get an accurate picture.

[00:15:19] Amber: They're kind of making an educated guess on how do these behaviors fit into the boxes that we've made for this. That's important to understand because a lot of those are just really normal responses, right? You lost your dad, it's very normal to be depressed.

[00:15:37] Amber: You just didn't have any sort of framework or support to integrate that experience. You had no coping mechanism, so you had to find your own. And that's what we do, right? We'll find a coping mechanism because we want to be better and like you said, we have this part of us that's a deeper knowing of that spiritual realm.

[00:15:55] Amber: Sometimes we just can't get there without some help like you had in that intensive. I think it's very important to understand that even if you are given a diagnosis, it's a piece of information for you to like, okay, so how do I support my body? How do I support myself out of this? 

[00:16:10] Jason: Yeah. And I, and another distinction I like to make about diagnosis is that the diagnosis is never the reason for your behavior. You go to the professional person- and I'm not criticizing anyone. There's no bad intentions in the system, the people that I've met have never had bad intentions.

[00:16:27] Jason: They've all had good intentions and wanted to help, but just misunderstood the human experience. You go to your specialist, your doctor, your psychiatrist, and you say, here's what I've been doing. And they ask you a list of questions based on a set of criteria. How long have you been doing it for?

[00:16:41] Jason: How intense is this? You know? And you give them all these answers and they fit you into the boxes, like you said, but then you go away and you start telling people, oh, I do this because of my insert diagnosis. . And that's what people say, right?

[00:16:55] Jason: Well, that was never true in the first place 'cause what, what they gave you was a description for your behavior. They didn't give you a a reason, they didn't give you a cause, but this is where part of the misunderstanding is perpetuated in the system. People really believe that their diagnosis insert whatever that is, it's the reason for their behavior.

[00:17:15] Jason: But it was only ever the explanation. It could never have been the cause. 

[00:17:19] Amber: And how disempowering is that? If you believe that this is diagnosis and that's why if you don't dig deeper.

[00:17:26] Amber: You talked about that intuition and that knowing like, there's gotta be something else here. I'm not gonna settle for this. That's why these conversations are important because we have a spiritual side to us too, and it doesn't really fit into our mental health system.

[00:17:42] Amber: Right. 'cause they can't quantify that. Yeah. Those spiritual pieces and how our spiritual selves interpret these experiences.

[00:17:48] Jason: Yeah. Subjective experience can't be quantified. But , in the whole grand scheme of things, they found a way of somewhat quantifying things that falls apart on investigation anyway.

[00:17:57] Jason: It's kind of like nothing. There's no truth, you know? There is subjective human experience and that's it. You know, it's like mm-hmm. But every , innocent attempt to quantify and create results driven evidence. , falls apart on investigation.

[00:18:11] Jason: The same way that you can't quantify our true nature, a spiritual , or oneness. None of it can be quantified but people know it's true. It's just something you know, or you don't know.

[00:18:20] Amber: So when you were in this intensive, sometimes you get asked the right question and you just see things in a completely new way.

[00:18:28] Amber: Was that something that happened for you? 

[00:18:31] Jason: It was really just the, the invitation to be there. I talk about this often . I dunno if you've been in any sort of formal time academic training or university or something where the lecturer starts and everyone takes out their notebook and puts their head down and start writing down, like scribbling everything that's being said, you know, because later I might need it.

[00:18:51] Jason: One day I might look back at it and if I write it down, I probably remember it better, or something like that. That's kind of the, the justification for what people do. No one's present, right? No one's even looking at the guy or, or listening. People are zoning out or doing whatever they can to remember. That's what I'd done in all my trainings anyway as a psychotherapist and apart from the experiential components, in that part. I did it 'cause everyone else did it. People just took out a book. So I thought I better get a notebook and start taking notes.

[00:19:17] Jason: I wasn't that way inclined, but most people were. But this day, the guy had said to me, you don't need a notebook, 'cause I have my notebook ready. He said, you don't need a notebook. He said, can you just be here? And I was like, what the fuck does that mean? "Can you just be here?"

[00:19:32] Jason: No one had ever invited me to be present. It's like I was coming from a place of, seperation and attempts to get somewhere and everything. So it was always about getting more, finding more, learning more. The ego, it's it's innocent attempt to, to grow, to become better, to find happiness was always like that.

[00:19:52] Jason: But that invitation to be present, to listen to just, allow myself to hear something new was a relaxing of the brain processing power that we have, that we use to consume and critically consume information and process information in a very fast way. 'cause you have conversations with people about practical or intellectual or academic stuff on a daily basis, and you notice the speed of the conversation and how quickly do you wanna do this?

[00:20:23] Jason: Do you wanna do that? Yeah. Yep, yep. No, no, no. It's all like that, right? That's this pace of life. But it was like slowing down, going hold on a minute, let's leave space in between words here. Let's have time to breathe. Let's have time to reflect and process information. You know, it's kinda like for the very first time just going, oh, Wow.

[00:20:42] Jason: You know, like life can slow down to a different pace. You know, we're not trying to get something here. In fact, if anything, we're trying to undo some shit here rather than do some shit. You know, it's like we're trying to unlearn some unhelpful stuff because the brain is very good. A practical application consuming information and critically assessing stuff.

[00:21:04] Jason: But it's absolutely the worst tool in the toolbox for finding fundamental wellbeing, spiritual wellbeing. It's not gonna do that because it can't find that three step, two step, seven step process that's linear and absolute for every single person, and the brain can only work with that. You know?

[00:21:22] Amber: That had to be such a different experience when you had years and years of years of formal training and your own seeking. I don't know if this was how you felt, but I know for myself for a long time, I felt like I was trying to run away from my own self, but you can't run away from your own self.

[00:21:36] Amber: So you have to find these other things, but then to learn to sit in the moment, it's very different. I'm guessing that was an opening for you to be like, there's something to this. 

[00:21:47] Jason: Yeah, it's somewhat uncomfortable, right? For many people to just stop moving, stop talking so fast to stop fidgeting, to stop whatever it is, twiddling your pen writing in your book and just slow down and just kind watch what happens in your body? Watch what happens in your mind. Your thoughts become overwhelming. Your body become fidgety. But there was something very loving in those words and something very inviting, you know, that made me curious to know more, okay, this is different.

[00:22:14] Jason: I definitely don't remember having ever having an invitation to just be here by somebody, you know? In fact, probably most of the time I felt like people didn't want me there. So it was kind of like a nice, oh, right. So you're interested in what I've gotta say or , who I am.

[00:22:29] Jason: There's something deeply touching in that moment that allowed me just to relax a little bit and let the guard down and , the ego relax a little bit and just be there. It never felt like in those couple of days- maybe you experienced this too, and many other people will have done that- any training you go to, there's like what I would call as a man, a dick swinging competition. Who knows the most? Who's got the most education? Who knows the most about every subject that comes up? Let's see, who's got the biggest house and the biggest car?

[00:22:57] Jason: Not necessarily, but metaphorically. Every conversation in all my other trainings was a bit like that. There was not much space or quietness or just allowing. And , there felt like no competition there. You know? It felt like there was nothing to prove, or I didn't have to be anyone.

[00:23:14] Jason: Other than just be there. And allowing the the typical defense mechanisms just to relax, and stay present. And while you can't create transformation, you can't create insight. You can create somewhat of the conditions that are more conducive to having an insight into your own wellbeing, by allowing the ego and the brain to just relax and, and not be on guard, you know?

[00:23:38] Amber: Absolutely. 

[00:23:38] Amber: To create, and I think you, what you said was exactly right, is creating the environment because you know, often we're go, go, go and there's all these expectations, but to give that permission and create that space of you can slow down here to just be, there's no expectation for anything else than just to be, you're exactly right on there that it takes down all of our defenses and then that kicks in another part of ourselves that knows things like you said, that our mind can't know. 

[00:24:11] Jason: Yeah. People are very scared to just be right. I mean, like look around, watch people walking down the street like a robot with a mobile phone in their hand, not even looking where they're walking. it's just like the world is created adult soothers called mobile phones and adults are constantly soothing themselves and unable to be because they're what I call mindless scrolling just to avoid the sensations of their body and the busyness of their mind. It's like they're suckling on a little dummy on a consistent basis. What happens when you ask somebody who's on their mobile phone a lot to put it down ? They get uncomfortable they can't sit with themselves.

[00:24:48] Jason: They start fidgeting and doing all sorts of stuff and like, they dunno what to do and they feel awkward and that just shows how much they're not in their body. How much they're disconnected from themselves and it's just a learned habitual thing that's happened with the development of our society without even people realizing what they're doing. That Everyone is addicted somewhat to avoiding themselves and not being in the present moment and I actually heard somebody say that every single thing that we're doing is to avoid the present moment. So it's not just mobile phones, but it's anything possible that's why a lot of people really struggle just sitting. If you find a friend or a group of friends together quite often you go in a restaurant and you see a couple or a group of friends all on their mobile phone at a table.

[00:25:32] Jason: How many times do you see that? It's not like there's anything wrong with picking up your phone - that's not my point now- but people struggled to sit together, you know, just to be together. It's become a coping mechanism for experience.

[00:25:44] Amber: Yeah. I know for me it was several years of meditation before I could truly just sit. As I was learning to embrace that idea of just sitting and being present, I would do a lot of walking meditations and things like that to give my body something to do so that my mind could relax enough that I could do those practices. Like you said, it's very much a learned behavior, right? It's almost this expectation. We know somewhat, but I don't think we talk about it a lot, all the things it does to our brains when we have our phones. It gives us all those, chemicals that we like and we don't realize that it's a true addiction and that's why it's so hard to put down. We miss out on some things when we don't create that space too connect with people without electronic barriers. 

[00:26:28] Jason: Yeah, because it's a societal thing as well. It seems somewhat normal to just be avoiding yourself most of the day. Everyone else is doing it and it's kind of like normal to do it, right?

[00:26:38] Jason: It's like that's just the justification and like bringing less attention to it for people, you know? 

[00:26:45] Amber: Something else you said earlier is there's this expectation to do, it feels counterintuitive to everything that our society tells us to just sit and be with people. 

[00:26:56] Jason: Yeah, I went to a retreat recently seven days, and I decided most of the time to not take my phone and , it was so good.

[00:27:03] Jason: In fact, even when I left there and went back to sleep in my little Airbnb and came back, I didn't really check my phone, maybe a moment here and there, but it was like I didn't want it back at the end. I so enjoyed not looking at that shit. I so enjoyed not mindlessly scrolling.

[00:27:18] Jason: I'm not putting the finger, I'm just as guilty as anyone else from time to time but it was really nice not to have a phone.

[00:27:24] Amber: I think it's that awareness. Try it for a while. Give yourself, if you need to start with an hour, what does it feel like to not check your phone for an hour?

[00:27:32] Jason: Yeah. 

[00:27:32] Jason: Yeah, if you're not sure, it's a great test.

[00:27:35] Amber: There are some benefits, like you talked about those Yellow pages days. It's not right or wrong, it's where we are, and technology has many benefits, but we need to be aware of the other implications that they have.

[00:27:49] Jason: I mean, like it's not, this is not just a criticism. , I don't hold the authority on people's lives. If you're listening and you identify as having struggles in your life, difficult relationships, struggles with addictions, habits yourself, you know, all those things, and you do find yourself escaping on the mobile phone, then it's worth a look. I'm not like trying to tell everyone what they should be doing, but it's just a very common experience for people that come to see me, you know to struggle with that .

[00:28:15] Amber: And it's an easy experiment you can have for yourself, even if you feel a hundred percent comfortable with how much you use your phone. Can you create connections in a different way? I think this is a good conversation to have too, because you talked in your story about how whatever coping mechanism society would accept, you take it, right?

[00:28:33] Jason: Mm-hmm. 

[00:28:33] Amber: And it's so socially acceptable to use our phones, it's a good question to ask ourselves, how does it fit into our life and how does it benefit us? 

[00:28:41] Jason: Yeah, it's kinda like alcohol- perhaps the reason why alcohol was the biggest drug, because it was a socially acceptable drug.

[00:28:47] Jason: You could look at that in the same way, it's like mobile phones are a socially acceptable drug. Gaming is somewhat of a socially acceptable drug. Food is somewhat of a socially acceptable drug. Depending on the effects of it people look towards that.

[00:29:00] Jason: I mean, I can remember many times the alcoholics would look down on drug addicts 'cause they had a socially acceptable addiction. The alcohol, you could buy it in the shop or the supermarket. But drugs, I dunno, they were dirty, you know, they were terrible for people. , that was a very common experience in my early days in in recovery.

[00:29:18] Jason: So you can kind of see what's playing out here? None of this stuff is really leading people to the freedom that they want. Even the recovery there's still a lot of ego at play and a lot of belief in separation and a lot of innocent attempts to self-actualize as a separate being in the world. Like developing your status, your ego, your education, your financial status, your physical being, your relationships, all those things. Trying to find happiness in the objective world, you know, which is not even possible. You can't find happiness in the objective world. You can't find happiness in a relationship or an amount of money or a body shape or anything. It just doesn't come that way. 

[00:29:57] Jason: In fact, I'd always known that. One of my things with weight was that my weight ballooned. I mean, I had six or seven cosmetic surgeries trying to fix the outside of my body, hoping to wake up happy. Each time I'd undergone a new surgery, two of them being in third world countries because it was cheaper and I was really desperate, you know? And there was a time when I lost 150 pounds and I remember looking at myself in the mirror feeling exactly the same and thinking shit, this is nothing to do with the outside of me. But I still continued for another 15 years trying to change the outside of me after having that realization and then I became a very successful entrepreneur business wise. I got to my desired body weight. I had what I thought was a great relationship at the time and I was still unhappy.

[00:30:49] Jason: So it took a lot of those external experiences for me to realize that happiness and contentment can't be attained in the outside world, it just doesn't come that way. 

[00:30:59] Amber: So what are some ways that you think you can get to that happiness and contentment? What is your perspective on this now that you've had these transformations and these realizations?

[00:31:08] Jason: Yeah, there's only one true happiness and that is the experience of your true nature. That is happiness. We are innately happy and content and peaceful, and we take ourselves away from that, you know, in our attempts to find what we think we are in the outside world. We attempt to self-actualize in objects and that's the development of humanity.

[00:31:30] Jason: It's kind of like gotta have the right body shape, gotta have the right amount of money, gotta have the right status, gotta have the right relationship, amount of kids, house size, car, endless list of things you know that people want right through from starting with myself, how I look through to million dollar business deals.

[00:31:47] Jason: All of that. Anything outside of me is an innocent attempt to find what I already am. That's all we are doing in the human experience is trying to get back to ourselves, to our true nature. What's underneath, you know? And I describe it like this experience is happening, but we are here.

[00:32:03] Jason: Experience is happening all the time. It doesn't affect who we are. Who we are is innately peaceful and happy. That's why the only times that you'll get true peace and happiness is, is often with nothing. Like you could be walking in nature by the seaside just having a moment, you feel that pure contentment thinking is gone.

[00:32:23] Jason: There's no thinking. You're just there in the moment. In the moment is happiness and contentment and peace. That's it. It can only come in the moment because that's when you're present. All we ever do in our innocent attempts to get these things outside ourselves is take ourselves away from what we really are.

[00:32:42] Jason: And that's just, the conditioning of society 'cause everyone else is running around in the rat race, so to speak, in the out outside external objective world, trying to better themselves, get new cars, houses, things, girlfriends relationships, whatever.

[00:32:57] Jason: They're all trying to do that. So we innocently get sucked into that conditioning.

[00:33:00] Jason: Everything we ever wanted is already with us , it's always been with us. It's never been missing from us, and we just get lost , in that rat race as as a human being. The peace and the contentment and the happiness, the only time you can find it is now, you can't find it in the future.

[00:33:15] Jason: There's no destination happiness. That's another thing to feed into that bit of conversation is that most people are actually of the belief that one day if I get this, then I'll be okay. You know? If you have any belief in one day, one day when I have enough money, one day when I have the right relationship, one day when I get promotion at work one day, when I lose enough weight one day, then you are absolutely going in the wrong direction.

[00:33:42] Jason: Without a doubt. 'cause there's no destination happiness, you know? 

[00:33:46] Amber: Right. It's not when you have, whatever it is, the 2.5 kids the house and the job and the deals. It's the right now. And connecting to yourself.

[00:33:55] Jason: Yeah. Yeah. And that's always available to you, always to everyone. If you are willing to slow down, put your phone down and just sit down with somebody, you can experience all that you are and all that, they are the connection that you desire, the love. With any person. It doesn't have to be romantic. In the present moment, the connection that you long for ,the love that you long for the presence, it's just always available. 

[00:34:21] Amber: I don't think we're taught that and there's some fear in that of what happens when I just sit with myself. But to know that that is enough, that's where all the answers that you want are.

[00:34:31] Jason: Once you've touched that space, though, I call it a space because

[00:34:35] Amber: mm-hmm. 

[00:34:35] Jason: Words don't describe it. And I also say, don't listen to my words. Test it out for yourself to people.

[00:34:41] Jason: I'm not trying to convince anybody of anything. But like I once heard it described as pointing to fire with ice. You know, the closer you get to the truth, the less you've got to point with. Words don't really fit, you know, I can't fully explain it, but if you touch that space, if you willing to sit and experience that moment with somebody, you won't doubt it anymore. You'll see that it's there and then your life will change trajectory and everything changes as a result of just touching that space and being willing just to be present with another person and experience the love that's in your heart.

[00:35:14] Jason: 'cause everyone's innocently chasing that stuff outside of themselves, you know? 

[00:35:20] Amber: And if we are choosing whatever our coping mechanism is that we happen to be choosing if we're choosing one. Don't take it as a label, but take it as an invitation to sit with yourself and see what's behind that, to see what it is that you're trying to distance yourself from.

[00:35:38] Amber: That's what I hear you're saying is these coping innocence are kind of getting away from yourself. 

[00:35:42] Jason: Yeah, and see the intelligence of it. It's not a sign that you're broken or that you're damaged. Doesn't matter whether it's socially acceptable or it's been pathologized ,turned into a behavioral issue or given a label like narcissist, or a borderline personality disorder, some of the common or toxic labels people want to give to behavior. 

[00:36:02] Jason: See beyond that, what's really going on beneath that it's an intelligent coping mechanism for something because beneath all these things that have been judged and criticized and banded about, and buzz worded is the longing for love.

[00:36:17] Amber: And I feel like it's for self love too. We distance ourselves from that even and it's learning to love that true self of ours.

[00:36:27] Jason: Yeah, absolutely. 

[00:36:29] Amber: We avoid the simple things because we wanna make it complicated. And the simple things are what really work, you know? We could sit with ourselves and create that presence at any time. We don't have to go anywhere. We don't have to do anything. We just have to find that space and do it. 

[00:36:43] Jason: Yeah. One of the Einstein quotes that I love, it says, any fool can make things more complicated, but it takes a touch of genius to make things more simple. I love that because it's like so true, you know? 

[00:36:56] Amber: Because you had what, years and years and years and years of experiences and it was that invitation to be present with yourself, that changed everything for you. 

[00:37:03] Jason: Yeah, for sure. And I've kind of dived into it a lot of times, you know, and someone said to me the other week, they said, you just had all those experiences leading up to that, and you were ripe and ready for that kind of moment, you know?

[00:37:16] Jason: And who knows what everyone else needs? Who knows what everyone else is up to and what they're able to hear. But I have found in my work that while I'm pointing people to what's true and what's healthy about them, that they have a better result than when I used to point out what was wrong with them and how to fix it.

[00:37:35] Jason: And I do see that helping people see that they're living an innately intelligent mind, body, self-correcting system that works perfectly all the time. It's kind of like the ability to snap out of, or come out of whatever's going on is much more because most people that are suffering.

[00:37:56] Jason: I've rarely had somebody believe that they're okay and that what's working, what's happening in them is in intelligence not a pathology. You know, it's not a pathologized behavior or something. And people respond really well to that, to seeing what's good about them, what's right about them, how this is working, it has a massive impact on people's suffering.

[00:38:15] Amber: Such a different conversation, this is what you're doing, right? This is what's good about you. I know for myself, I've had some therapists, I call 'em more shame-based, where it's you're doing this wrong . It sucks when hear people say that it almost feels like, well then I guess I can't change this, you know?

[00:38:31] Amber: It's so different when you have therapists that have that approach, at least for me, but you're giving people some power when you point those things out. 

[00:38:38] Jason: Yeah, the other option is we either go into self-loathing and defeatism or we run away. We don't like this from these people. We can't hear anything what they're saying, you know? It's oh, here's another professional that's told me I'm broken. May as well just give up or there's no hope for me, it's kind of a hopeless conversation.

[00:38:56] Jason: Right. And that's the thing, when you are seeing what's right in people, you're giving them hope, you're giving them potential. You are pointing out that the pilot light is always on and that's sometimes giving people that little piece of hope that they haven't had for years.

[00:39:13] Jason: That's a different experience for people to find their wellbeing versus cope with their behavior, you know? 

[00:39:20] Jason: Yeah. 

[00:39:21] Amber: Incredibly important conversation to have. As we're getting close to the end is there anything else that you feel is left unsaid or you really want to make sure that anyone who's listening knows as we close this out? 

[00:39:36] Jason: No, I think just what we said at the end there, there's hope for everyone, regardless. For me, I'd had a long list of diagnosis. I'd had a long time in 12 steps. I was a career criminal. I'd had an eating disorder for four years.

[00:39:51] Jason: This stuff is not dependent on how bad you are. It's not applying to some and not to others. What I'm pointing to, and I don't ask people to take my word for it, I ask people to look for themselves. What I'm pointing to is true for all people, every single human being. It's just a description of how how the human experience works.

[00:40:10] Jason: That's all I'm trying to give here and look for yourself to see if it's true. Don't exclude yourself based on how bad you were, what happened to you, what anyone professional whatsoever has told you. I don't care how many qualifications they've got, or whatever just see for yourself that innate wellbeing is true for all people and that's kind of what I would love people to look at. 

[00:40:35] Amber: Awesome. And if people want to connect with you more, you have your podcast, Misunderstandings of the Mind, how else can people work with you if they desire 

[00:40:44] Amber: to do so? 

[00:40:45] Jason: My website, WideWorld coaching.com would be a great place to find me.

[00:40:51] Amber: I will leave those links in the show notes. I really appreciate you sharing your story and throwing some hope out there for people that as long as you're still breathing that things can change for the better.