David Sutcliffe

And so we believe that we have to betray ourselves in some way in order to stay in connection with other people. So the unconscious belief, when we do betray ourself or abandon ourself or don't speak our truth or give ourselves away, whatever happens,

phrase you want to use is what we're actually afraid of is the disconnection from from the other person which on a primal level is is a threat of course because we want to stay connected to the to the tribe we need to stay connected to other people to survive and so the illusion that we have to shatter is that you can actually stand on your own that you can tolerate the feelings of disconnection you can tolerate

saying something or doing something and feeling the disapproval from from your friend or from the world or from your spouse and that you're going to be okay like you're it's not going to kill you um the way the unconscious mind thinks it thinks it would as when you were a child and so that's not an easy thing to do first you have to understand that you are betraying yourself

Because it's so habitual very often, we don't. We're just left with a feeling of we're angry, resentful. We don't feel empowered in our life. The world out there is somehow controlling us and we're at effect to our environment. Those are all signs. that we are betraying ourselves. And so once you start to understand that, then you can take some self-responsibility.

And the question I ask in all these situations with betrayal, let's say, oh, I have a client show up. It's like, you know, I was betrayed. My girlfriend, my board, whatever, said this, did this. And the question I always ask is, was there a moment before the betrayal where you betrayed yourself? Like, was there some intuition, some instinct, something you wanted to say but you didn't say?

And every time there's always a yes. And it's like, well, why do you say it? Because I was afraid. Afraid of what? Well, afraid of how they're going to react. And so we all have that, right? And so it's just a practice. It's an awareness first and then a practice because it's the only way we really can be free.

Otherwise, we're modulating our behavior based on the external world, based on how other people are going to react. We're caring what other people think, but it's really deeper than that.

Yeah. I mean, you're going to heal all your childhood wounds in your relationship. I'm finding that out. And it's tricky. It always comes up. I'm projecting my issues with my mother, all the issues from my childhood onto my partner all the time. And she was doing the same to me. And it creates this confusion. It creates this resentment. We get at each other.

And I've certainly done plenty of that in my life. I made a commitment early on. If I'm going to make mistakes, I want them to be my own mistakes.

And fortunately, you know, she's a pretty aware, evolved person. So we're able to get to the heart of what's actually going on for both of us and then come back into unity. But it's really about self-responsibility. It's like, how am I co-creating this? There's something that I'm doing. There's some distortion I have. Like, I believe this thing. Is it actually true?

Like, I didn't, I grew up, my mom left my father, left my stepfather. and didn't really attend to my needs during that process. I mean, she was overwhelmed. She was very young. And I felt like, hey, you know, does anybody want to check in with me, see how I feel about this? So my conception of women was I don't trust them, and they don't care what I feel.

And so I walk into a relationship, and I'm looking for evidence of that everywhere. And I'm building a case against her. And any little thing that she does – that confirms my belief, I point to it and then I stack it up until I blow up. And I'm like, you're doing this, you're doing this, you're doing this.

Maybe she is doing some of those things, but my reaction to it is completely out of proportion because of my history and because of that, I'm not actually seeing the good things that she's doing. I'm not seeing the ways in which she is, in fact, very trustable. We all come into relationship with those kind of distortions.

I think discernment is the key. I don't think you have to share everything in a relationship. That's my feeling. But you have to be careful that you're not hiding because if you're hiding something, it's going to be felt, right? And if you're hiding it out of shame, that's going to be felt. And ultimately, it's going to come up. And we can dilute ourselves. We can rationalize.

Painful, painful. Well, I learned this as an actor because when I first started out in Hollywood, you get there and you think that everybody knows what they're doing. And they're smarter than you. At least that's what I thought. And, you know, so you listen to a lot of directors, you know, tell you how to play scenes.

I don't need to share everything with my partner. I don't need to share this. It's not really important. Um, but oftentimes it's that, that kind of vulnerability is terrifying, right. To really reveal who we actually are, uh, to our partners. And I think for men particularly, it's like to reveal that sometimes you're just afraid, right. that you have fear about whatever.

And there's something maybe shameful about that. And the reframe for me is that if you can take ownership of your fear and sort of be with it and not put it on her, you're not asking that she take care of it or do something about it, but what it does is it brings you into presence. Because she can feel that something's going on.

And so if you can name it for yourself and contain it within yourself, it actually creates safety. That kind of vulnerability is really important. The difference is if you're afraid and you're looking for her to be your mother and take care of you, or she has the instinct to want to take care of you because you're afraid.

Which as a man, you want to resist that because you don't want her to be your mother. But I think that kind of vulnerability is really important. I don't think you have to share all your troubles with them, all the details of the thing. But if I'm having a bad day, I want to make sure that my wife knows that it's not about her.

So I want to give her some kind of indication like what's going on for me, be present with her because that's what she's longing for. She's longing for me to be present. And if I don't reveal myself in those moments, I'm not present. And if I'm not present, she's going to be agitated.

She's going to create a story in her head that she's done something wrong or she's going to be upset or angry and something's going to happen. So that's 10. And it's not exactly an answer to your question, but that's how I think about all that stuff.

And it got to a point where, you know, I would see the scene and I thought, yeah, I don't think that was the right choice. Now, it's my face on the screen, right? So if it's not resonating, people aren't thinking about the director, they're thinking about me. So there's a certain point I just... Decided to take ownership of everything.

Yeah, I agree. You see that a lot in the kind of red pill community, like never share your feelings with your woman. And I mean, I understand they're reacting to the opposite pole of that. which is there's this movement to sharing everything with your wife, like that she's your best friend and you want to open up, you want to be vulnerable.

And it's important that she sees you feel and that creates connection and intimacy. And, you know, I'm a therapy guy. So I can relate to that to a degree. And I did that, you know, when I first, when I started therapy and everything, especially into my training. And that's all you're doing is revealing yourself over and over and over again. And then I would do that in my relationships.

And it took me some time to realize like, no, that's too much. Like I don't need to be sharing all of that with her. Um, so I have to be discerning. I have to be able to contain things within myself. I think that's a real practice learning containment, which is not suppression or repression. There's a difference, obviously. Um, there's certain things. Yeah.

I have, I need to take to the boys and there's risks I have to take with my wife that are going to be vulnerable, right? There's things that maybe, um, uh, I need that I need to express to her or the example I just gave that I've, you know, that there's places where I, I feel afraid right now. Um, the, the whole game for me is, as I said, is presence. Like if you are not present with her,

then she's not going to be happy. She's not going to feel safe. And so you have to find a way to be discerning, but share enough so that you're present so that she can feel you. She has to be able to feel you. If she can't feel you, she doesn't trust you because you're actually not trustable. if you're not in touch in some way with what you're actually feeling, you're not trustable.

And the reason why is if you suppress your emotions or you rationalize them in some way, you're going to act in compensation to those feelings in a way that's not authentic to you, right? And that's gonna create problems for you. So it's really, really important

that you understand, know without shame what it is that you're feeling and how and when you choose to share that with her is ultimately is up to you.

And occasionally you'd get into conflict with directors, but the choice was I got to do it my way. I want to listen, of course, to what people are saying and take that information in. But ultimately I have to do it my way and live or die by it.

Because it comes into conflict with a lower self aspect of us that believes that we are bad. And what do I mean by that? Well, going back to what I was saying earlier about we have to repress or deny or disassociate from certain aspects of ourself in order to stay connected. and in favor with our caregivers. Well, the child has no discernment, no consciousness, right? The parents are God.

And so they're going to make the assumption, they're gonna draw the conclusion that those parts of them are bad. Like that part of me is bad. And so most of us, I would say all of us, but I'll say most of us have some place inside us that doesn't trust our own inherent goodness. that there's some part of us that's bad.

And it's usually deep in the unconscious and it can be masked by a kind of confidence or bravado, but most people have some degree of shame. And so that part of us that thinks it's bad, it wants to continue to tell ourselves the story that we are bad. Why? Because that's what creates safety for us. And meaning that this part of me, right? Let's say for a guy, it's my aggression, okay?

A lot of guys think their aggression is bad. They've been told their aggression is bad. So if I show my aggression, I'm gonna get in trouble. Like mom's not gonna be happy or the world is not gonna be happy or my girlfriend's not gonna be happy. So we make that part of us bad. So whenever it comes up, we're gonna tell ourselves a story that there's something wrong with us. I'm out of control.

I need to work on this. Something that it's not okay. And so it takes a lot of work to sort of override that, to accept that. And maybe this is why on a deeper level, it's hard to accept the depth of our shadow. It's hard to accept how cruel we can be. It's hard to accept that all of the insanity that we see out in the world that's horrifying to us also exists in us.

And maybe we don't act it out in overt ways, but sometimes we act it out in subtle ways. All of us are capable of cruelty. And given a certain set of circumstances, like would I have been a Nazi? Maybe, probably. I mean, I don't know. So that lives in me. And I think it's very hard for people to come to terms with that and accept themselves there.

Generally, what we do is we suppress it because we want to create an idealized self-image that we're good. We don't want to know that part of ourself. And so it's in the place where it's hard to be compassionate for ourself. It's really hard to be compassionate from that place where there's this deep-rooted belief that there's something about us that's not okay.

Yeah, well, there's, and I understand it. You know, there's a belief that if I'm hard on myself, like I'm going to achieve more, right? Having that militant general in your head. And I think that's useful. I mean, I want a tough coach. I loved tough coaches. I love coaches that pushed me and who were clear. And if I wasn't meeting the standard, they'd let me know. I liked that.

And if they were disappointed in me, they also let me know.

But at the same time, if that coach doesn't have the capacity to love me, to be there for me, to see me as human, right? And to transcend the performance of the goal and go underneath that, I don't really trust him. And ultimately it's going to unravel. And you see these coaches, those hard apps coaches, they don't last long. They move from team to team.

It's like a little bit of medicine that maybe that team needs for a couple of years, but then they move on, right? So I think we need both things. We need... We need to push ourselves, but we also need compassion for ourselves. And again, it's easy to rationalize. Again, the mind is very, very tricky. And so it's like, oh, I could take the day off today, things like that.

And so we want to mitigate against that. So it's a really, really tricky balance. And I struggle with it all the time. Where is the balance between pushing myself and self-compassion?

Yeah, I think that's absolutely right. I might use the word faith, having faith in your inner impulses to stay in the television and movie acting references. When I was growing up, I was a big fan of John Cassavetes. And he was kind of the original independent filmmaker. And his films were wild and raw and crazy. And he had a great career as a mainstream Hollywood actor.

Yeah, I think that's exactly right. Different energies, different qualities at different times in our life. But I agree with you. If I was going from zero trying to get into shape, I'd want a hard-ass motherfucker driving me all the time. Get David Goggins screaming in my face. Exactly. That's going to get me there as quick as possible. I'm going to learn something about myself.

But then once I arrive and I'm satisfied with where I'm at, maybe that energy wants to shift. So it might be also like, I mean, while you were talking, I was thinking about the balance of the masculine and the feminine. It's not exactly what you're saying, but there's something about that too. And both are necessary at different times. You need that strong masculine force. Yeah.

And sometimes you need that comforting feminine force.

But his films were just something else entirely. And he had this quote about all these people. They go to Hollywood. And they start getting into commercial projects and they say one day that they're going to do something creative. They're going to do something artistic, do something true to themselves, but they never do.

It's

You're attacking, you know? And that's what you should be doing. You're just following your energy. You're following what you want to do, right? Later in life, you can look back and maybe make sense of it all. So, and I was that, right? And right around your age, I started to... think there's something else, right?

Because I, you know, I went to Hollywood and, you know, I was hungry for it and I went after it and it was thrilling and it was exciting. And, you know, I was making money and meeting all these people and having success. And then there got a point where I just like, there's, there's more, right? I didn't know exactly what that meant, but that's when I started on this journey that I've gone on.

I can tell you now at 55, my approach to life is completely different. It goes back to what I was saying earlier. Instead of make it happen, I think let it happen. It's going to come to me. I want to be in the flow. I don't want to force anything. And that was very hard for my ego to come to terms with. Oh, you're not in the driving seat anymore? Yeah, my ego was screaming.

Like, what the fuck, man? Impose your will on the world, bro. And that's a very powerful feeling. And I did that. And it feels fucking great when you impose your will on the world and you get what you want. But that is a diminishing supply. At a certain point, you want to just experiment with doing something differently. What's another way to meet life? There's more information out there.

I'm in my wise man years apparently, which is weird because I have some wisdom I've accrued along the way, but there's another part of me that's still trying to figure it all out and make mistakes. But there is something about what I just said, like having faith, letting it happen, that life is going to unfold, that you're not really in control of things.

And the more conscious and present that you can be, the more you're going to see the entirety of everything. And of course, as you get older into your paternal years, you've climbed the mountain. You know what that feels like. You have that satisfaction. You're in a different place in your life where you want to you know, hold things, you know what I mean?

Help other people and share what you've learned. And it's deeply gratifying. I mean, I'm just coming to this because that, you know, I was pretty aggressive and, and

Because once you buy into that and exactly what you're saying, once you stop listening to those innermost impulses, you start to forget that they're there. And so that had a huge impact on me. And I've done my best, not perfectly. I don't think any of us do it perfectly, to live by that, to live by that inner intuition, those inner impulses, like that thing that is inside me.

There's always a mask that we're wearing, but if I'm doing that consciously, then I can still maintain my authenticity. For me, authenticity is really just truth. Can I be in the truth of who I am?

Well, I can only speak for myself, but I think a lot of us go through this time when we realize that what was motivating me was not what I thought.

I thought I wanted it for this reason, but in fact, it was something else. And for me, I realized at about 37 that almost everything that I was doing was to win the love of my father. And I didn't, you know, I learned that in a process, like, you know, I do this, you know, somatic therapy called core energetics. And, you know, you get deep, deep into your feelings.

And this was not something that I was aware of at all. But in this process, all of a sudden, this awareness came and these thoughts came that, you know, I played hockey and it was like, I said these words, like, I play hard for him. And then I thought, what else am I doing in my life? to win his love because my dad wasn't around.

And I thought, well, if I'm doing it for that reason, I'm not actually free. And what is it that I want to do? And that was a real crisis point in my life. I don't think we can avoid it. I think we all want to win the love of our father. We want to please the father. I think that's built in. So I don't necessarily think it's wrong. But once you've achieved, I did what I had to do.

My dad was proud of me. I'd achieved that. But then the rest of my life, what am I going to do with the rest of my life? Well, I want to do what I want to do. But what is that? Because I've been driven by this thing for so long. It's overtaken me. I've created stories around it for the reasons why. But what is it now?

There's a knowingness that we all have, and only we know it. And if we start asking everybody, you know, is this okay? Is that okay? They're going to be, maybe they'll be able to give you some legitimate reflection. But at the end of the day, I think anybody who's successful at a certain point, they stood alone. They just went on their own intuition, their own gut, and they took a risk.

That's a very uncomfortable place to be because you're letting go of everything that you thought you know, everything you're attached to, your entire identity. And you have to go on this hero's journey, you know, let go of the known world, enter into the unknown. And it's fucking scary.

And that's why, you know, going back to what you were saying, you know, I had this thought, this is, you know, this is why people need therapy. I think it's not even necessarily to solve a problem. that you have, but just to reflect you back to you in the places where you may have distortions or blind spots.

Because when somebody is talking to you and they're kind of full of shit, you can feel it, right? You can feel that they're off just a little bit. And a good therapist is going to be able to sort of name that for you and then lead you back to yourself. Like I don't give advice to my clients.

I just try to reflect what I see back to them and lead them back to their own internal compass, their own internal wisdom. That's the best I can do.

Yeah.

I had my most satisfying experiences when I played hockey, when I didn't concern myself with my stats at

um or scoring goals whatever it was when i concerned myself with how can i be useful for this team like when i made that switch like because sometimes i was playing with a lot of really good guys and i wasn't as good as them and i was like i have to figure out a way to be useful and i always found that um those experiences to be the most satisfying because i was i was part of something and and sometimes you're appreciated sometimes you're not but you have this own

And, um, and that's how they became successful. You have to, you have to follow it. The more you do, the more confidence you, you have in it. And exactly the less you do it, the more I think lost you become.

internal appreciation so i i think you're right i think real maturity is understanding that particularly as a man um that uh spiritual fulfillment psychological fulfillment comes from being of service that you have to you know give your life um to something bigger than yourself and and serve that thing and um i think you know unfortunately the culture is uh you know we're very much lost in being famous and being successful and all the outward things you were talking about

But that's the switch that I'm trying to make. Again, my ego gets involved. It's like, what about you, bro? What about what you want? But you also are less neurotic that way. When you're not thinking about yourself, you have less anxiety because you're just focused on giving. Now, not in a way that you're betraying yourself, as we talked about earlier. You have to be discerning.

You have to take care of yourself. But if you're oriented in that way, I think it's ultimately a lot more satisfying.

No, I think you've got to find out on your own. I did. You are.

Yeah, that's how most of us are oriented. That's what we see because they look so happy. We get this curated version of celebrities or influencers, but I know the truth because I was there in Hollywood. I saw what's going on. I was like, these fucking people are crazy. I couldn't believe it. It was shocking to me how incredibly neurotic they were.

And wonderful people and brilliant and all of that, as you're experiencing. But it doesn't take away your problems. It's the one thing I appreciate about Ben Affleck. I mean, he talks about this... wide out in the open. He's just like, I hate being fucking famous. I can't do anything. I have to live in this fucking box. And none of my problems went away. I still have to live with all my problems.

And maybe in some way, it actually makes it harder.

Yeah, well, yeah, nobody gives a shit about the problems of the rich and successful. And that's a burden that, you know, you have to bear. I feel fortunate that, yeah, I got a level of fame that wasn't crippling. Um, you know, I had one TV show and, you know, people knew me from it, but it was, it was a very popular show, but it was small audience. So, you know, I, I,

I can walk down the street and all of that. I mean, I'm still going to get recognized on the regular, but it allowed me to continue to engage in life and it allowed me to make a career transition, you know, because I went back and talked to a lot of my friends who are very famous and, you know, and I told them what it was that I was doing. They're like, you got out?

And I was so surprised, but what do you mean I got out? They're like, man, good for you, you got out.

Well, it is a kind of prison, what you're famous, because you can't really go anywhere and you can't make a transition. You're stuck there. You can't go get a regular job because of the amount of transference that's placed on you. And so I was really surprised by their reaction. It was the first time that I realized that they did, in fact, feel...

Well, this happens with my clients all the time and I give them an exercise and I have them list things in their life where they had an intuition and they did it and it worked out. And you'd be surprised how long a list everybody has, right? So you're trying to encourage that kind of thinking, but it requires faith. It requires a deep faith. And I'm a big believer in synchronicity.

trapped and I felt fortunate that I still had the kind of freedom to be able to walk away.

I mean, you must get recognized everywhere. And I mean, I remember when I saw you at Kuya, like, because I'd seen you- you know, on YouTube and, you know, there's a, I have a projection onto you. Like I, there's something that happens in relationship when you meet somebody who you've seen in the screen. And so that, that, that must be happening for you all the time.

Yeah. Well, I guess any kind of anonymous life is essentially over for you.

I mean, I don't know how it works. but it seems to be real on some level. I don't know if it's just a trick of my mind or, you know, back in the day they used to look in the fire, right? And you look in the fire for a sign, but what are you really looking for? You're looking for your own unconscious to be reflected back in the fire so you can trust what you see.

It's the burden that comes with, with the gift. It's the shadow. There's always a shadow. There's always a price that we have to pay when we bring our gift fully to the world.

I had this great year where I had this television show. I had two movies. I was dating this very beautiful movie star. I had just bought this house. I was redoing it. I mean, I had everything. And it was upside everywhere that I looked. And I just had this deep feeling of dissatisfaction. I wasn't really happy. I mean, I was gratified in a way and proud, but I wasn't satisfied.

And I didn't know what that was. I didn't have the consciousness at the time to realize this wasn't where I was supposed to be. Although, you know, that had moments where it's, you know, I was on the set of Friends, I remember, and doing a guest spot and, you know, sitting on the couch in the coffee shop and there are all the friends and it's kind of a surreal moment. It was early in my career.

And at the time they were making $750,000 an episode. And I'm just, you know, looking at them, taking all of that in. And I had this feeling, it's like, I don't want this. And I didn't know what that was. I mean, it was a very clear thought. And I was like, is that real or is that just some fear of success that I'm having? And it didn't really play out for another six or seven years.

And then it wasn't until I found something that really lit me up and I realized that The thing that I was searching for in acting, I found in this somatic psychotherapy. Everything that I wanted was in that and the game that that was. The container that it existed in was so exciting for me and creative. At that point, it was really simple.

I just started to move in the direction of what I was most interested in.

No, I had to go through it. I had to go through the process of letting go. I mean, my ego was incredibly attached. I mean, I came up, you know, you're an actor, you're trying to make it. You don't think you're going to make it or, you know, maybe you have an intuition, but you don't know. And then you make it and you're working on television, you're getting lots of money and people recognize you.

That it's not an image necessarily in the fire that you're seeing that's separate from you. You look at the fire long enough, you can get into a meditative state and suddenly your own unconscious is going to be projected onto that fire. And the thing that you see is something that's actually you. And so practices like that, like meditation, I think are very valuable.

I mean, you're just in this other world that so many people dream about. And your ego is just so elated. So then to have a thought like, I don't really want this. It's like, what? No. Hey, hey, whoa, whoa, whoa. This is like a dream come true.

Um, so it took, yeah, it took a long time for me to, to detach my ego, detach my identity and all the, all the, you know, the validation that I was getting constantly, it just, you know, it, it fuels you. And I saw it, I saw it with other people like, um, that I saw that they were, as we talked about earlier, they were trapped. There was no way out for them.

The amount of money that they were making, the fame they had, this is, whether they liked it or not, that was their life.

Which takes a lot of work because we don't always know who we are and we have habitual thought patterns and responses to life that cause us, I mean, we're authentic to those, but to be authentic to ourselves, to go after exactly what it is we want To be present all the way. Maybe that's another way to define it. Being present in the moment, which is a really hard thing to do. Always being present.

Well, the satisfaction is in the quest. You know, it's the climbing of the mountain that's most exciting. You get to the top and how long do you spend at the top? A couple of minutes. And before you start climbing down and thinking about the next mountain you want to climb. So I think it's hard to orient that way because we're so goal oriented.

But if you can stay present in the moment and realize it's like, I mean, that's how it is for me. When I look back at Hollywood, the fond memories. Yes, I have fond memories about Hollywood.

shooting scenes and meeting certain actors and really nailing something and then seeing it on the screen and feeling proud but actually it was the early years in la when i was driving around to auditions three auditions a day and you know all the the kind of craziness of all of that like that part of the movie is my favorite looking back on it.

So it was the journey, the moment before I made it was the most exciting.

Or the thing that I do, it's like with Mexico, you know, I'm going to move down to Mexico. Why am I moving to Mexico? That's crazy. I don't speak Spanish. My wife speaks Spanish, but it just seemed like such a big leap. But I asked for signs. I do this every time. I asked for signs and I got them.

And maybe that's what he's remembering. I don't know if you saw that Peter Jackson movie, forget the name of it, but he took all this World War I footage and remastered it. So he put it in color and smoothed it out. Really interesting. But the film starts with all these voiceovers from British soldiers. And they're obviously recording this when they were very old in their 80s probably.

And we all know that World War I is considered the most brutal war in history. Every single soldier essentially said, oh, that was the time of my life. That was the great adventure. They loved it. And you think, okay, maybe it's a lot of what you're saying, but- They were alive and they were up against death.

And yeah, in the moment, there's all this horror, but there is something about, I mean, I don't know how you feel, but there was a part of me when I was a younger man that felt sad that I never got to experience war. Me too. It's like, I want to know what that feels like. And I'm never going to get to know that. And there's something that I think is lost.

And I've certainly played out in our lives in all kinds of different ways, but it's not the same. My life is not at stake. I'm not walking into a situation where I could be killed or I have to kill and have to feel what that is.

Like the week after I asked for signs, the three people that I know in Mexico all came up in conversation with strangers. It's like we ended up knowing. I'm like, you know that guy? I know that guy. Yeah, he's a friend of mine, lives in Mexico. Like that in the same week. That kind of shit happens to me all the fucking time. I can't explain it, Chris. I don't know what it is.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, there's no, you know, light without dark. There's no peace without war. So it's part of it. I personally love the chaos as well. I mean, it's I like because it takes you out of control. And you find out things about yourself when you go out of control. And it can be exciting. It can be scary. And we can get addicted to it. I think that can be an issue.

I've certainly suffered from that. And I have to find the balance of it. But there's a lot of life in it. And I think it's... I don't know. My feeling is I think it's important to go a little insane sometimes. We have to lose our mind. We have to lose ourselves. There's a lot of different ways that we can do that.

It can be in our work or through some kind of spiritual practice or running a marathon, these kind of things. But I think it's really important, particularly for men, to put yourself in situations where you face overwhelm. You're at your edge and to not judge it. as you said, to accept everything that's happening in the moment. I mean, that's what peace is, I think.

It's just the acceptance of what is and being okay with it.

I'm sure there's a lot of doubters out there, but that's how I do it. When I have a strong intuition, I ask for signs and almost always I get them.

Well, I guess I'd talk about it through the framework of my work. And it goes back a little bit of what I was saying earlier about we repress, deny, shame, disassociate from certain aspects of ourself. Feelings, impulses, desires, needs. When we're children, we all do it. Um, and so in that place, we, we form a defense or maybe an idealized self image or a mask.

And that's sort of our operating system for the world. And we become identified with it and it feels like who we are, but very often there's, um, we hit a certain point in our life where things aren't working or, or, you know, we, we experienced some frustration or dissatisfaction. We see patterns, um,

that are happening and they they happen over and over again at a certain point you realize well this this must be me there must be something going on in my unconscious that i have to confront because this you know i'm creating this and so what you know that you're in that moment that you're not you're not present right you're not present with some aspect of yourself there's something in your unconscious that's guiding you and so the work for for me is to help people um

feel what they had to repress right feel the the pain feel the rage feel the fear like feel it like literally in their body like liberate all those emotions that we hold on to that are stuck there and creating the cognitive distortions and so it's for me presence is an embodied experience it's the willingness to um feel everything

inside of us like life happens and we have feelings and there's a certain tendency to want to control those feelings or manage those feelings and and i think that there's a wisdom in that but if you do that from a state of uh repression or fear it doesn't work

And so in the place where I'm not present, let's say with my wife, it's because there's something inside me that I don't want to face or feel. That's it. So that's the frame that I put on it. And the question I ask is, well, what is it that you're unwilling to feel? Because it means that there's something in the present moment that scares you. Now, it might be irrational.

It might not make sense to your conscious mind because you're a grown man, but it might be the fear of the child that's coming up in that moment. And so I work with presence through people's emotions, through people's feelings, and all the distortions that get created. Does that make sense, what I'm saying?

I mean, I've been around. I'm 55. I've lived a life, ups and downs, success and failure, rich and poor. And you start to learn how to just go with it all, go with the flow. And then when you look back, you see that there was a logic to all of it. It was all working in your favor somehow, even the tragedies, even the failures. And

Really the work, because feeling feelings that scare us, we're forced to be vulnerable. What does vulnerable mean? To me, it just means openness and truth, right? And so there's a strength that it requires in order to be vulnerable. And that was a reframe that I had to make for myself because I had all of those typical masculine images about what strength meant.

And then I realized the strongest thing that I can do is to tell the truth and to reveal myself, like to be honest about what's actually going on inside me without shame. And again, that creates all kinds of images. I can hear the men in your audience say, well, what are you supposed to feel all your feelings? Well, it's not exactly that, but to be with them, to learn to be with

to learn to build a container for them, to not be ashamed of anything, really, your light and your dark. And I think there's so many ways that we avoid vulnerability. We avoid showing our shadow. We avoid showing our pain. We avoid acknowledging our fear. And probably the deepest one for most people is we avoid feeling how much we love.

Because there's nothing more vulnerable than letting your love, your passion, your light shine through. Most people's major problem is they protect it. Because once you're all the way here with all of who you are, you're not in control anymore. Like you're completely exposed. That's the only way to be fully present in the world is to be completely exposed.

And most people are unwilling to tolerate that level of vulnerability, myself included. That's all I'm working on, you know, like because...

that restriction i can see fractal out into all of the things in my life right it fractals out into my career fractals out into you know the work and how i'm approaching it it fractals out into my relationship so it really for me becomes about one thing it's like can i can i risk exposing um revealing maybe as a better word um all of of who i am the good the bad the ugly

That's usually enough. I understand why your heart is broken. Not get over it, motherfucker. There's another girl out there for you. That's how I approach all of my sessions with people. They have a story about what happened to them. I'm not necessarily validating their interpretation of events, but I'm validating their feeling, their experience of that event. And because that's real for them.

I think ultimately, you go back to authenticity and confidence, and I said the word faith, it really is about faith. That's what I've learned at this point in my life. Your faith will make it so. And the faith in something, like a faith in yourself or a project that you're engaged with, there's a vibration, there's an energy in that that I think makes things manifest.

I mean, you can't argue with somebody's feelings. And so once they're, once they feel seen and acknowledged in their feelings, I think that creates a kind of a safety and a resonance that then they can meet, go meet the challenge or take responsibility. But until that happens for a lot of people there, they get stuck in the feeling.

right and um they don't they can't move past it and they attach it to a story so i mean that that's it's and it's as simple as that just acknowledge your feelings within yourself that's all you have to do i'm sad that's it that's you're good bro you know this girl broke up with me my heart is broken it's like that's fine you know just just acknowledge it within yourself and be with that for a second don't don't um

Romanticize it. Don't succumb to it. Don't indulge it, but be with it. Like, of course your heart's going to break. I mean, are you human if your heart's not going to break? I mean, it's a beautiful thing to have a broken heart. Like let yourself be in that experience of it. Right. Eventually, you're going to move on from it or whatever. I'm filled with rage right now.

I want to fucking kill the world. Just be wherever you are with what it is you're feeling. If you presence that, if you let yourself be with that, what you'll find is that you'll move very quickly out of that into the next thing.

Well, the illusion is we're stuck in it forever. And because that was, not to bring it back to the therapy model, but that was the child's experience. Like when you're a little child with your parents, you are stuck in that situation. You're stuck there forever. So the feelings you have there feel like they're forever, they're eternal, that you can never get out of that situation.

And because that actually is in fact reality. It's not true anymore as an adult, but that fear that I'm gonna be stuck in this

is forever like when i'm working with people very often it's you know if i'm encouraging them to to go into their their rage or their their sadness whatever it is very often the reaction is like i feel if i go into this it's never going to end like it's a bottomless pit and it's going to it's going to completely consume me and that's the illusion that they're living in it's not that way at all once they allow themselves to go there and express it and feel it and let it move through them usually what happens is they

they feel lighter obviously, but they come into more connection with, with themselves and then with other people because they're not carrying this around, you know, they're not weighed down with this, with this burden and, and, and using all of this energy, you know, physical and psychic energy. They're not using that to, to repress it anymore. So they're, they're lighter, they're more here.

And I think, you know, that's, again, it's, it, it,

know the work that i do is it's so unique in that way because of the the tools that we use you know i mean breath work is becoming really popular now and i think that's that's great but uh there's not really many places where you can go to really like get it all out you know to really like express it like unbridled whatever it is i mean that's always the invitation at my workshops

And it's also very attractive. somebody who has faith. And so you end up attracting people to you because I think when you're in that state, everybody wants that. Who doesn't want to have absolute faith, right? Like, which is trust, right? Which is the absence of fear. And I, you know, to use a sports analogy, I used to be a hockey player and, you know, I was okay.

don't hold anything back. And people are like, what do you mean? I'm like, you don't have to hold anything back, anything at all. In any moment, you can just let it come through. And obviously, there's certain rules and a container that we could create, but that is... you know, terror it's, it's liberating on one sense.

It's like, oh, that sounds exciting, but it's also terrifying because, and I'm there to challenge you when I feel like you're holding back, like, what is it you're holding back and why?

Well, I know why, because you're afraid, you know, and if you didn't hold back what, and they have all kinds of images about what's going to happen, but you know, on the other side of it, they're just, it's, it's, yeah, they're free.

Go to my website, davidsutcliffe.com. It's all there.

Appreciate you, man. Thank you for having me.

But the worst thing was coming up against a guy who had absolute faith in their ability or that they were going to win. Like you just realize I can't knock this guy off his game. There's nothing I'm going to do to this guy.

Exactly. And that I realized was the strongest quality in a player. You don't want to come up against a guy who has absolute faith.

Yeah, Bill Burr is a very wise man. That's how I am with the belief in God. I mean, belief in God makes me feel more powerful. So why not believe in God? It's really that simple for me. I mean, there's other things for me I've had experience.

Right. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. God is on my side.

Well, that's a big question. I mean, it goes back probably to childhood. I mean, we all have fear. We come into the world, we're vulnerable, totally helpless, totally dependent. That's a scary thing. And if we don't get the attunement we need, the love we need, the comfort we need, the needs that we need, there's gonna be fear there.

And so I think it's built in in some way, like this feeling of like, I'm not entirely safe. And you can have the best parents in the world, but I don't think there's anybody walking around who doesn't have some kind of issues or fear around, unconscious fear around their own safety that they then project

There's so many ways that we leave, whether it's through distraction or drugs or alcohol or pornography, or we get lost in our mind. So part of authenticity for me is just being embodied, being here, being present, being in the moment, telling the truth as best we can. And I think that's empowering. I think that leads to an empowering life. And it's really what I try to teach people.

on to the world and of course we live in a culture particularly with the media that um weaponizes fear to keep you watching to keep you under control and so you know i'm i'm reading uh the screw tape letters right now and it's it's uh you know all about the devil essentially and it's all about fear if you can keep a person in fear you can control them so fear is really the biggest battle that we're all facing and um

we don't want to feel it. That's really what it is. Like if you're not afraid to feel, what are you actually afraid of? Right. And so we, we, we do so much to avoid feeling our fear. And so one of the practices that I've done and is, is,

and I encourage other people to do, is to constantly put yourself in situations where you're confronting your fear and then go through it and feel the panic, feel everything that comes up. And then on the other side of that, you realize very quickly, it was all an illusion. It was all in your head. It wasn't real in the way that you thought it was. So how do you confront it?

You have to take risks. You have to be willing to move towards your fear. There's really no other way to do it. And to understand that there's a very strong force within you You know, which I call the lower self. You might call it the shadow that is afraid and is doing everything that it can to what it thinks is protecting you. So it's going to convince you. It's going to tell you stories.

all kinds of stories about why you shouldn't do that or why that's scary or why that woman that you want to ask out is probably a bitch, so what's the point? Or it's never going to work out. This is the voice of fear. So you have to start to understand that your negative thoughts are actually just the voice of your fear and then understand that the culture is trying to keep you afraid.

And so it takes a lot of work. I mean, I think you have to work every day in some way to mitigate against all of that fear.

Well, I guess I try to be as authentic as I can. I don't know if that's a thing that we can ever do perfectly. And we have to be discerning about where we want to be authentic. But as long as we're making choices... meaning I'm not gonna show up at work and always be my authentic self.

No, you can't solve a problem of the mind with the mind. It has to be through action. You have to be willing to take action. You have to do something different. The mind is tricky. The mind is not a reliable narrator of your experience. That's one thing that I've come to understand. I don't necessarily trust... my mind, particularly when I'm in a state of anxiety or fear or confusion.

That's when it's the least reliable. It's most reliable when I'm feeling good, when I'm feeling aligned, when I'm feeling connected, let's say. And so I think, yeah, you have to be willing to

do things right take risks take action um move your body in in some way um i mean you you probably know this because you know huberman talked about a lot this this um when we're in a fierce state um we're agitated or frustrated or whatever it is if you go for a walk it solves the problem instantly, because what are you doing?

You're walking forward in space, so that's telling your brain there's no fear there. So you can be lost in something that's overtaking you, that's consuming you, negative thoughts, and you can go for a walk, and literally five minutes later, it's clear. So that tells you, just a walk. can solve most of your problems.

How do we find our authentic self? I know it's an overused word, but... I think that's what we're all longing for because we're aligned in some way within ourselves. We're true to ourself and that feels good. So even if things go badly, at least we're true to who we are. We're making our own mistakes, not being guided by some idea of who we're supposed to be or what we're supposed to be doing.

So this is really, I'm going to say this a lot. This is the heart of my work. I said, my clients make fun of me. I'm like, this is the most important thing you have to understand. But we all had to betray ourselves as children in order to stay in connection and in favor with our caregivers. There were certain things that they wanted from us. And so we gave them that.

And there were certain things we intuited or were told directly that they didn't like about the way that we were. And so that betrayal process starts at a very young age. The primary survival strategy for any child is to stay in connection and favor with their caregivers. So they have no choice but to betray themselves. So that self-betrayal becomes a pattern. It becomes a way of being.