Episode 1: Introducing Consciousness and Reasons for Nonduality

[00:00:00] Garrett: So episode one, we made it.
[00:00:20] Erin: All right.
[00:00:21] Garrett: We did it.
[00:00:22] Erin: It's finally happening.
[00:00:24] Garrett: We've accomplished nothing.
[00:00:27] Erin: Well, that's something. So in episode one, I think it's important that we introduce ourselves, who we are. Why are we doing this? You know, those sort of things. So, do you want to start with who you are?
[00:00:46] Garrett: I think it's more important to talk about why we're doing it than who I am since that's just an identity, right?
I think that for some reason, there's something in me and both of us that want to help make the world a better place to some degree, and through some of our experiences that we've had and our relationships with each other and our kids. I think we can help shed some light on topics that other people might be suffering through or struggling with or have questions about.
I often find that my best advice comes from when people ask me questions and I'm able to talk to them about what's going on in their brain and how their mind is processing this and trying to coach them in a way where they can make different decisions.
So for me, that's a big portion of why we're doing this right now. And hopefully we can build a community of people that believe in some of the same things that we do and also want to see the world to be a more loving and unified place.
[00:02:00] Erin: Okay. So, before I talk about a little bit about myself and, essentially reiterate the same thing that you said you said, "believe the same things that we do."
We're of course going to over these talks, go into a lot of that, but what are some of the main beliefs that you're referring to.
[00:02:30] Garrett: So I think the one that I talk about the most is just we're all connected in some way. So all of our energy, all of who we are, all of who we think we are, we all have some underlying connection to each other. In that, it really means that it's in our best interest to be unified and to be working together for some kind of either greater good or just some kind of better place to live.
I think that's a core belief. I mean, there's a lot that we'll go into that has a lot more to do with that, but I think if we can always return in our minds that we are connected, and we're all connected together as one, it will inform a lot of how we process life.
[00:03:21] Erin: So if you can tell Garrett is the one that is going to answer a lot of questions here, and I will be more of the questioner.
[00:03:31] Garrett: Sure.
[00:03:33] Erin: My name is Erin, as he mentioned. I do think that introducing a little bit about ourselves is also important because we are here. We're going to be talking about our lives in some ways, because we'll probably touch on parenting and whatnot.
So I'm going to tell you a little bit about the both of us in the roles that we play here.
[00:04:00] Garrett: And I'll fact check you.
[00:04:01] Erin: Yeah. Okay. so I am a mother of three children, ages eight to 16. I also have three stepchildren, which would belong to Garrett, ages seven to 13, five boys and one girl or total.
So we have had a lot of experiences together with these children and in relationships. So we hope to be able to draw on all of our experiences to talk to you guys about what we've learned and, maybe you can relate to some of the struggles and things that we've gone through and besides that, I am an Integrative nutrition health coach.
So, health and wellness is very important to both Garrett and I. So there are times where we may look into that, talk about those things. It may come up. But, overall, I am really just excited to have these conversations that Garrett and I usually kind of have on the fly or just on our own, anyway. But maybe we can share them and other people who are also going through similar things or have questions that we had, that we have explored and found our own answers to help you guys in that way.
So, that is what we're here for. Do you have anything you want to add to that or before we move on?
[00:05:43] Garrett: No, I think you covered a lot of it. I think that was good. The kids, it's good to mention them. You know, we'll talk about it, but relationships are, are such a mirror. So we have, as you mentioned, we have all these opportunities to see parts of ourselves and our kids and we have a lot of them.
[00:06:06] Erin: And the good, the bad, and the ugly, for sure.
[00:06:10] Garrett: All of it, you know, all of it. So you're not alone out there, if you're like, man, you know, kids are, are, are tough sometimes, like, that's pretty much how every parent feels.
[00:06:23] Erin: Yeah. And relationships among adults can be difficult as well.
[00:06:28] Garrett: I think we should talk about that. So you mentioned our our backgrounds and whatnot. So Erin and I, we've been married for…
[00:06:37] Erin: Four years.
[00:06:40] Garrett: our relationship, which I'm sure we'll get into in this podcast, has had so many ups and downs. It's been insane. Um, at one point in time we were separated. And we didn't know if we were going to continue our marriage or not. And those were really tough times.
And those are the times when I had some awakening moments and Erin did too in those tough times. And it's really been life changing since then, not only on a personal level but also in, in our relationship. So, yeah, it's a huge part of, you know, why we're here today, you know. Really thankful that we were able to, to kind of get through that and be together and continue to be on this journey.
[00:07:31] Erin: Well said, I love it. So let's go ahead and just start in on this. I thought that one of the first questions that came to mind of, why we're here, why we're talking about all of this, was something that is in contention and in the world of like, what exactly is this definition?
And that is the question of what is consciousness? And people see that I think in a lot of different ways. Just as this is an example, uh, Portuguese neuroscientist named Antonio Damascus or Damasio. Apologies for pronouncing that incorrectly. If, if I did, he defines consciousness as, "a complex process that arises from interactions between the brain body and environment."
And I'm just going to read this, short thing, "Damasio argues that our conscious experiences are influenced by the emotional responses that are generated by our body's interactions with the environment. And that these emotional responses play a crucial role in shaping our conscious experience." He is, I think he may be the, the kind of founder of the concept of I feel therefore I am, but, that's just one look at the word consciousness. So I wanted to throw an example out there of like how people see this term or it can be used in a lot of different ways. I want to talk about how we look at consciousness, how we talk about it. So, Garrett, what, do you want to start with, kind of like what your concept of consciousness is?
[00:09:29] Garrett: Yeah, so episode one really started it off with a doozy: What is consciousness? How can we define something that truly can't be defined in words? How do we make sense of it in some way? I think that in the world there's different definitions for consciousness, depending on what lens you're looking at it through.
So, consciousness from a spiritual perspective is a lot of what we'll be talking about. Consciousness from a mental perspective, or therapy perspective is different in some ways than consciousness on the spiritual level. And then consciousness at a physical level can even be different than that. So, there's different layers of consciousness.
The consciousness that, that we're talking about is everything that exists. Everything that is, everything that is. And it's also nothing. So it's everything that can possibly be in the entire universe that, not only can we sense, but things even outside of our senses. It's all of that, but also no thing, it's nothing.
[00:10:55] Erin: Uh, and it's also just one thing, right?
[00:10:58] Garrett: And one thing, and that's why words can't really describe it. It's, my sister taught me this word, ineffable. It's ineffable. Which apparently means it's indescribable in words. And the reason for that is because if you listen to the Yoga Sutras, it's absolute. Meaning that there's nothing that you can relate it to.
It's absolute. Whereas everything else in our lives, we can relate to. We can say an apple is an apple. And the reason we know that is because it's not an orange. It's not a Kiwi. It's not anything else that we might perceive it to be. So we know it's an apple. So consciousness itself has a thread through all of us and all of our existence.
And yet, many of us have a hard time feeling or knowing what that is.
[00:11:59] Erin: Well, yeah, it's, something we can't see, or like you said, define. And, it's outside of our understanding in most cases and
[00:12:16] Garrett: in all cases, I don't think anybody really understands it.
[00:12:18] Erin: True.
It's based on just knowing that it is, but without any proof at all.
[00:12:27] Garrett: So it will, it'll never be, I don't think we'll ever reach a point where consciousness is proven, you know? And, and so in various religions, when you talk about God, which is kind of what I relate to consciousness, it's, you can't prove God, you can't prove the existence of consciousness.
Everything is based on faith. But at the same time, people can have direct experiences of consciousness, right? So we can perceive it directly, and even though we still don't understand it or know what it is, we know that it's there, and we connect with it. And that's through various different methods but consciousness is that stillness, at least in the, in the masculine. It's that peace. And in the feminine, maybe it's joy and excitement to some degree.
[00:13:24] Erin: Enthusiasm and fiery, determination and yeah.
[00:13:31] Garrett: And it's all those things and everything else is all those things. That's why it gets so confusing. But the true nature of consciousness is very God like in that way. And that those people that experienced it know that this is everything. We're all connected in some way. And we don't need to be anybody else than who we already are. Because who we are is absolutely perfect.
[00:14:07] Erin: With consciousness, it brings to mind the idea of non duality. So I want to talk a little bit about what our concept of non duality is. What does that, how does that interplay with consciousness and what is, what is it to you?
[00:15:40] Garrett: So, yeah, really coming out with some heavy topics right away.
Non duality, first of all, there's different forms of non duality. Some people are considered radical non dualists. There's people that yoga sutras is one form of non duality, but essentially what it means to us is: because we're all connected as one, we cannot be separate. And if we can't be separate, then you cannot be one thing, or one way and I cannot be another way. Meaning I can't consider you as bad, because then I am bad too in some way because I'm connected to you.
And knowing or believing or seeing what we've seen, we know that consciousness is not that. It's not, it's not what we would label bad. So nonduality is a concept of, in a dualistic world, which is what we live in. That's constantly separated. That you're taught from a young age that there are good things and bad things and there's ways to act and there are ways not to act, many times associated with the culture that you've grown up in. We eliminate all those dualities. We say, "things just are as they are." Nature is just neutral. It's when we give it some kind of meaning. But everything that exists is just neutral. It's all part of the conscious experiment. And oftentimes people ask, well, what about people that do really evil things?
Okay. That we would label as evil. And there's certainly things that are, that are very, very tough going on in the world that of course, to be unified with. We may not want to associate ourselves with those things that are happening because we say, oh, we would never do that. That's not us. We're this other person. We have these other values.
But I think that's where nonduality leads to compassion for others. To say that they're just unconscious of where they're at right now and they just don't understand their true being and their true self. And they're making these actions based on that ignorance and unconsciousness. And it doesn't make them a bad person, because our belief is that every person, no matter how hidden inside, has this beautiful, loving consciousness. Unconditional loving consciousness inside of them. And it's always accessible.
It's just some people are very, very out of touch with that.
[00:18:44] Erin: So that's obviously a point of contention to some.
[00:18:47] Garrett: Sure.
[00:18:48] Erin: That even the, quote, worst of the worst people out there who have done the, again, quote, really bad things. That, there's essentially good inside that, that everyone's good and that we should have compassion for those people.
Which is completely understandable to, to question, you know, that, that thought process and nonduality in that way. But I had a question regarding, nonduality. Hold on. What was it? It will come to me in a moment.
[00:19:27] Garrett: Well, as that comes to you, I think it's important to also reflect internally on if you, if you're living in a dual world, you often have lots of judgments of people and things.
And how does it make you feel inside when you're judging people? You know, it may on the surface seem like it's positive for you to be like, "I'm better than that person." But if you really get to know yourself and you can sit and feel within yourself, you'll know when you judge somebody and put them down in some way.
It pulls at you inside it. There's something about that judgment that hurts you. And even though it's not always easy to feel, you will feel that. And the same goes with anger. Anytime we separate ourselves. So our beliefs, of course, are our beliefs. Nonduality is a system of beliefs. Nobody has to believe what we do.
But part of our podcast is to say, hey, there's a lot of suffering in the world that doesn't need to be there. We can enjoy our lives so much more than how we're enjoying them today. And here in some of these beliefs that we have, we've found personally that our struggle and suffering has gone significantly down in life.
[00:21:03] Erin: It has, and I find it so interesting how everything we've kind of learned over the last while and as we've kind of developed in, in this way of thinking, it goes against almost everything we're taught growing up. Like our society, our society teaches us to judge everything. That is just how we are raised.
We judge like, is this good or is this bad? Everything we look at is, is saying, you know, how, how does this, play out, is it going to be a good thing? Am I a good person? Am I a bad person? Is this person a good person? Is this person doing a good thing? Is this apple a good apple? Is it a bad apple?
Everything, everything is looked at through the lens of judgment. Whether we know it or not. It's so ingrained in us. That when we're walking around judging, I mean, it's hilarious that at one point before I was aware of all of this, I was like, "Oh, I don't judge people. I don't judge." Like I, you know, I walk around saying, you know, but, but I mean, really I was judging everything I just couldn't even see it.
So, you know, that I see played out in not only this idea of judging and nonduality and everything, but like all of our relationships. All of the way we think about, the way we interact with people, everything that we were taught. I, I feel like at least personally, kind of has been like, I have to, I've had to, reimagine and look at everything through a new lens because all of those things in society and in, you know, growing up, have been taking me down the road towards unconscious thinking, hard relationships, like Garrett said, struggle. Everything has become that because of the, just the way we have, we're, you know, are raised.
[00:23:19] Garrett: Yeah, we've, we've taken something that we can know inside internally, consciousness. And that, that love and peace, as we talked about, and we've substituted that for everything external.
Like your parents taught you that you aren't good enough just being who you are. You need to be something or somebody. This is what success looks like, or you deserve this, or you don't deserve this. Or you can't do that because you aren't good enough to do that. You know, there's all these different things where we learn and learn and learn, that it's not okay to be ourselves. It's not okay to trust our intuition and society, you know, again, not any of that is bad, but it leads to a lot of suffering for a lot of people. And that's why podcasts like ours and other people that are in this world, we want to help people relearn who they are.
[00:24:21] Erin: And, and realize that, you are suffering because I think that in a lot of cases, like I didn't think I was judging. I also didn't think I was suffering so much because it just was the norm. The norm to judge the norm to suffer, basically. I mean, you know, there are times where I definitely knew I was suffering, but in general, I was, yeah, I think, I think all of us are suffering in some ways and I still, I still do.
[00:24:52] Garrett: So here, so to put that in perspective for my, my journey. I used to tell people; I think perfectly. For like 35 years of my life or so. I wish everyone thought the way I did because I don't have any issues, no issues. I think, everything's perfect, right? And Erin's really smiling at me because she knows just how false that was. But I've, something inside of my mind was telling me that, and we'll get to this, but this is our ego was telling me that, yes, you're absolutely perfect.
But part of my journey started when I had everything that I thought I had ever aspired to achieve. A good career, ample amounts of financial resources, a beautiful wife, a family. And yet I would sit in my home office sometimes and feel so empty, just so empty inside. I kept wondering, when is it ever going to be enough, Garrett?
Like, I have everything I could possibly want in this moment, and yet I still feel so shitty inside. And that was a really sad time in my life. And it started me down this path of okay, like what is going on with this? You know why is this happening? And then I started to see all the ways I wasn't okay. So I could what thought I was completely okay, and I started to see all the ways that I was not okay. And so as Erin said part of this podcast, or anything that we do, is to help people to see when they are suffering. And and because so many of us are and we're completely unaware of it.
[00:26:55] Erin: Yeah, it's and I mean maybe ignorance is bliss in some cases or that's what people think. But really what what we believe is that when you're able to uncover that you are suffering, you can truly live as you grow and evolve. And that is, you know, that's, that's our aim. That's what we're trying for.
[00:27:26] Garrett: Yeah. You can live life permanently instead of temporarily. A lot of times when we're unaware, we experience joy through just the various pleasures that we have for ourselves. And, you know, some people that's: drinking alcohol or going out or doing whatever it could, it could be anything, going to play golf, whatever it could be.
These are all just temporary pleasures. Once you do them, they go away. And then you, you feel again, kind of empty inside. So you try to find ways to get more and more pleasure in different places. And this different way of living is you're not seeking pleasure. You're more just experiencing life and joy as it comes through life.
And it's more of a permanent feeling. As opposed to a fleeting, it happens and it doesn't happen.
[00:28:21] Erin: The ups and downs of your everyday feelings in life of okay, what uncomfortable thing do I need to avoid right now? What am I not wanting to do, in the next, you know, a few hours, few days?
What am I resisting? What am I dreading? What do I need to try to find? What foods will make me feel better right now because I'm resisting some, something, or I just feel like Garrett said, empty. I need something to fill me up. So it's going to be food, or it's going to be alcohol, or it's going to be, , relationships. There's always something that's needed and it creates this just up and down of, basically un-fulfillment.
[00:29:11] Garrett: Yeah. I think it's important for our listeners to know that we're still human, right? We're not elevated so far that we don't experience, these ups and downs of life, right?
[00:29:23] Erin: Absolutely. I, I struggle every day still folks, trust me.
[00:29:30] Garrett: I feel like I have maybe less struggle at times, than Erin does, but still.
Our minds are still our minds and we're dealing with decades of patterns we've built up over the years. And sometimes when we experience something that really triggers us, it's your mind's going to react to it. Your thinking mind is going to react to it. And so, teaching your brain, or teaching yourself, to see your thoughts as opposed to just be them all the time is really the key.
As we'll learn together through our lives, we'll learn through our listeners as they have their experiences. Or their thoughts and other things that were, it's just a continual learning journey, but it's always from the same place of, we're all connected. No one is really bad or good. It's just a facade, an identity, and sometimes it's very unconscious. But inside, they have this wonderful being inside them. This wonderful presence.
And as long as we can stay compassionate to that, to ourselves, which will lead to being compassionate to others, then the suffering will continue to go down.
[00:30:51] Erin: I think that sounds like a really good note to leave on. I will say that we touched on, a dozen different things I'd like to take deeper dives into. There was a lot of kind of surface level talking about, some of these belief systems we have and awareness and all of those things that I'd really like to, to spend an entire episode on, in the future.
So.
[00:31:23] Garrett: We will have that coming. A good podcast, especially a new and up and coming podcast. We have to say, hey, if something resonated with you please like it, please subscribe. Tell somebody about the podcast that might find this helpful. It helps with getting this out into the world.
So, thank you for considering that.
[00:31:45] Erin: Yeah. Thank you for listening.