"we're going to talk about the office I promise stick around folks rain welcome at the writer producer you know as Dwight Schrute assistant regional manager manager one of the most iconic characters in..."

"satisfaction we will never be happy we all have a shadow and it's always there it's self-important and righteous and entitled but I'm not going to get rid of those aspects of Myself by keeping that sh..."

"um I always think the the earliest years are the most important so could you take me back to your earliest context and give me the factors that I need to understand to understand you sure a couple of ..."

"was three years old here was this abandoned kind of toddler kid living in the literally the jungle uh and my dad was an abstract painter and science fiction writer and Baha'i and uh that's that's how ..."

"gaslighting mind [ __ ] because I just spent five minutes describing the Baha'i faith right and this these beautiful ideas and prayers and meditations and about world peace and finding love and connec..."

"there's an argument over there a baby will think it's it's about the baby but what have you learned about through your years of therapy but also your own experiences well I experienced a lot of pain i..."

"caused me to be driven to try and be the best version of myself they set me on a spiritual path uh to really deeply explore the world's spiritual traditions and to try and connect with my higher power..."

"just like gratitude takes you away from from depression so you'll see time and time again these amazing you know the great comedians of the age you know and how much suffering they underwent in their ..."

"that abuse and that gaslighting that I underwent as a kid when you say the word abuse you mean the gaslighting yeah you know I don't want to get into stories there was you know there was some there wa..."

"the kind of the heaving sobs and that's what I'm talking about that's the kind of connection that I needed like finally someone was asking me what was in my heart you know and that began a kind of a p..."

"and and then we go and we and we pray together so you know this led me to a very long period of time where I was completely alienated from my faith in my in my 20s and um I didn't want anything to do ..."

"magnet so I don't know and then you know I I took my first acting class um we had moved to Chicago from Seattle and I went to a high school that had a really good theater program and I took my very fi..."

"kid from Suburban Seattle where I had been on the chess team and played the bassoon and been on Model United Nations and I'd barely talk to a girl and uh and then I was like all right I'm in whatever ..."

"debilitating way was there a catalyst for that was there anything in your life that was was absent or was it just do you think it was just things catching up on you from your earliest years um well I ..."

"parent of your life lost while you were having anxiety attacks and you were rudderless um I would say five or six years yeah there were some things got better I started working a little bit more uh I ..."

"you ask yourself that question why should I keep living yeah um and it wasn't at that point I mean I've had some suicidal ideation over the years that wasn't a time when I was actively thinking about ..."

"in your time you work at it and you you're gonna start working and yeah you're gonna start slow but it's going to build and then you're gonna find incredible joy and purpose and meaning in your work a..."

"but I'm I'm grateful that my pain took me along that path one of the things that I think brings spirituality and some of these big questions into focus is death something you talk about in your new bo..."

"because I had one of these key kind of transcendent experiences spiritual experiences which was in uh we my dad died of heart disease he was getting a quadruple bypass surgery and he just couldn't mak..."

"what we need to recognize and this could help people this can help people with their mental health struggles is an understanding that where we're radiant luminescent precious shards of the Divine inha..."

"and that really resonated with me and I know a lot of people have mentioned that in the book because we do experience our life as this kind of like buzz of like appointments and choppings and zooms an..."

"experience yeah what is the opposite of that that you see when you walk the streets or You observe people like what is the opposite way of living to that and why is it causing suffering Thoreau talked..."

"that is the witnesser and it's getting in touch with that that allows us to get above the static so meditation is very important to me the next step of meditation for me is connecting with the ultimat..."

"they want to learn all this and you're providing the the the way in to them so we get to have this conversation people may not agree with what I'm saying but it might spark something and you know grat..."

"move forward and that's why parents love their children like what I experienced I'm sorry it's just it's beyond that you can call me deluded but that's what spirituality is is just increasing that lov..."

"if if I and but then he he had the Father which is a close second right but then my dad who was so traumatized by being abandoned by his wife and was so already emotionally shut down and he couldn't r..."

"was the only thing I watched and I watched it for about two years so obviously I I just kept going back and back and back it was you know you talk in chapter 10 about the Seven Pillars of spiritual Re..."

"[ __ ] it's absolute and total crock of [ __ ] now certainly I'm not meaning to demean anyone that's struggling to pay bills and they're going like you know [ __ ] you Hollywood elitist you got millio..."

"self-will and ego satisfaction we'll never be happy are you happy I am yeah Happy's the wrong word but whatever it is you mean by happy I have that thing what is that thing um I don't know what the wo..."

"a reflection of what would have happened in nature once upon a time you've probably come to learn that I have sponsors on this podcast that I use and products that I love my sponsors should be a refle..."

"CEO works still struggle with because sometimes when we we read the books and stuff and I've written a book myself it can sometimes exude the illusion of fixed or figured it all out I'm done right wha..."

"and I still have a big ego you know I'm still narcissistic and I still you know want ego satisfaction and it's always there you know it's it's uh it's uh you know they always say an addiction that you..."

"shadow um a lot of people are trying to fight their Shadow I mean a lot of the prevailing narratives are that you can therapy your way out of the Shadow yeah no it's it's sitting there you gotta [ __ ..."

"hundred years uh it has transformed millions of people's lives first of all there's the idea that there's this wonderful dichotomy at the center of the 12 steps which is if I Surrender if I admit defe..."

"um in terms of even spirituality I told you a second ago about my partner who is very s whatever anyone might call spiritual and surrendering to her way of living has brought me so much value in my li..."

"this is an illusion of self so surrender eliminates that illusion of self but there's so many other nuggets in 12 steps like one of them just in the middle of the steps is when we are wrong promptly a..."

"her every day I tell her every day what she taught you about the nature of what love is you know it's interesting she also had a very traumatic childhood and a difficult her parents had a very difficu..."

"you and me both my partner sounds exactly the same and I feel like I've learned how to love someone by emulating the things she does so naturally the things she says the things she admits when she say..."

"if you could go back to that moment that's such an exceptional question I was reading a uh someone was writing about bullying and they were talking about how bullying is a three-step process like you ..."

"um thank you for so many things my there's two real really incredible things that um changed my life in a really important way the first was obviously the office you know you were by far my favorite c..."