087 Jeremy Lipkowitz: Rewiring The Mind, Mindfulness

The experience of craving itself is actually very unpleasant.

When you're thinking,

I want that in that sort of craving thirst filled way,

It's a very unpleasant experience because you're filled with suffering because you're in this state of mind that says,

Unless I have that,

I can't be happy.

And Suzuki Roshi had one of the best answers I've ever heard.

And he said,

You're perfect the way you are,

And there's still room for improvement.

And that's the model I go off of.

It's like,

How can we continually learn to embrace ourselves and love ourselves,

And at the same time notice that there are things we can do to improve our life?

It's in that holding both of them together that a lot of freedom and development can be found.

And so we're heading to this really scary place where,

You know,

So many people are getting addicted,

But instead of addressing the root cause of the problem,

We're using pharmaceuticals to just kind of put a bandaid on it.

All right,

Jeremy,

It's great to have you here.

It was funny.

I mean,

I don't mean to tease you off the bat,

But everyone as soon as we start recording reaches for their cup.

So almost every one of my video podcasts start with,

Sometimes myself,

I'll hit play and then I start with the cup in my mouth.

Anyway,

Random thing.

But it's good to have you here.

I think it's a fear response.

It's like,

Oh,

Got to get hydrated before it starts.

Maybe.

I was thinking like,

In the seconds of like waiting,

It's like checking my phone,

At least when I do a solo podcast,

I notice I always start it with a cup in my hand.

I was like,

Why do I do this?

Yeah,

Interesting.

Yeah.

Anyway,

I want to talk to you about phone stuff,

But we'll get to that.

It's great to have you.

I knew a little bit about your porn addiction story.

I saw your group with Airmo and I know you're speaking about like sexual cultivation and stuff.

But then I really learned about it when I saw the Men's Health article.

You were interviewed,

Is that how that came about?

Or you wrote it yourself?

It wasn't clear.

It's like first person.

Right.

It's an interesting,

It was an interview.

Basically,

They sent me a bunch of questions and I answered the questions and then they stitched it together into a kind of a coherent story.

Yeah.

Cool.

Cool.

So you mind starting with that story?

I thought it was very powerful and you know,

Kind of a marker,

Kind of an epidemic,

I think of our generation.

Yeah,

Yeah.

It's a huge epidemic.

Very,

I would say one of the most unaddressed issues that people are facing today because it's such a such a shameful thing for a lot of people.

People just don't want to talk about it.

So it doesn't get addressed,

Even though it's really widespread.

Yeah.

So you dealt with porn addiction and that led you to mindfulness.

Do you mind walking us through?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So I mean,

It started just the way it starts with every young boy,

I think.

I mean,

Most,

You know,

Sexuality is so normal.

And so when you're a young boy,

You just get curious about sexual things,

You start touching yourself,

You start looking at images.

And for my started with comic books,

And you know,

The Macy's catalog and Victoria's Secret catalog.

Yeah,

I remember you mentioned Psylocke.

That was definitely one for me to that's kind of an obscure X-Men character,

But always naked or partially naked.

Yeah,

Yeah.

I mean,

Comic books,

There's just a lot of very attractive superheroes,

You know,

And when you're young,

You just get interested naturally.

And that,

You know,

Slowly developed into just looking at the lingerie section.

And then over time,

As the internet progressed,

I remember having AOL dial up internet,

And downloading,

You know,

Photos of people in lingerie or in bikinis,

Women in their underwear.

And over time,

You know,

Through college,

It just kept progressing into what we see today,

Which is kind of hardcore internet pornography with the tube sites.

And,

You know,

It's the same way I mentioned this in the article,

But it's the same way that if you slowly gain weight over the period of a couple months,

Or maybe a year,

You don't actually notice you're gaining weight,

Because you see yourself every day,

Right?

So in the same way,

I hadn't really noticed that anything was changing,

Or that I was developing any sort of addiction,

Because it was with me my whole life.

And so it kind of came at me out of us,

You know,

All of a sudden,

Where I realized that I had a problem in college.

Yeah,

It's interesting you mentioned that you're 32,

Right?

As well,

Actually just turned 34 a couple weeks ago.

Okay,

Gotcha.

So we're about the same age,

I'm 32.

And I can't,

You know,

We were going through puberty around like file sharing,

I guess,

Before the tube sites.

I remember like,

When my parents were in home,

Or maybe like,

We had a day off from school,

My parents went to work,

I couldn't wait for them to leave.

And then I would download a photo for like 10 minutes.

And like,

That's like,

That was like the highlight of my day.

And if I'm honest,

I kind of cherish those memories.

Remember that the amount of excitement it was like,

You know,

It's Christmas for the slightly older pubescent boy.

And I can't imagine like the slightly younger men than us who already have the tube sites.

I mean,

At least we developed some level of patience.

And I had to decide like,

What photos did I want to,

You know,

If I wanted to download a video that could take half the afternoon,

Like,

I mean,

Because I know you work with a lot of guys with porn addiction,

I've been curious if you've noticed a difference between guys our age and maybe 25 year olds or 22 year olds,

Because technology has advanced so greatly and must have effect has affected our upbringing slightly differently,

If not greatly.

Yeah.

Yeah,

I would say greatly differently.

I mean,

There's,

They're finding out through a lot of the research they're doing now that the,

The invention of these tube sites and the sheer volume and diversity of porn that's available now is what's mostly responsible for a lot of the damage we see in terms of what's going on in your neural development.

So back in the day,

When you had to go out and buy a magazine,

And you had one magazine that you held on to for like a year,

It was a very different thing.

And it had a very different neural consequences,

I would say.

So you do see a lot of differences in terms of when people start watching high speed,

Hardcore pornography.

But what we see is that if you are watching it,

You know,

You see a lot of the same things,

Whether you're 55 or 25.

It just depends on the degree to which you watch it.

And it's,

It's just so interesting to see how much porn has evolved.

I heard one statistic that there are more porn sites on the internet than non porn sites.

And it's believable,

You know,

Like,

Yeah,

When you when you get into it,

You know,

What's out there.

There's just,

It's just a vast ocean of porn out there.

Yeah.

And they must make so much money,

Because even when we think of Facebook being so addictive and having all these behavioral scientists to get us addicted,

It can't possibly be as addicting as every kind of sexual thing you can imagine.

Like,

I know,

I don't know if you run ads for your business,

But like ads on porn sites,

It's actually a way easier experience than running ads on Facebook.

Like,

Running ads on Facebook is such a nightmare.

But running ads on porn sites is very simple.

It's very cheap.

You can get like,

Thousands and thousands of hits of traffic.

And it's kind of the Wild West because you know,

People are there like they're hooked.

And it's just like another level of drug.

I should totally believe that there must be no porn than non porn.

Yeah.

And we're living in,

You know,

What's called the attention economy.

So what people are selling now is your attention.

And that's the most valuable resource.

And so porn hooks you in like another thing because it taps into I mean,

This is something you know,

So well,

And all your followers know so well that our sexual energy is one of our deepest,

Most primal energies,

You know,

It's this super strong force.

And so when you tap into that into,

You know,

The brain,

It's just,

It's powerful.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I wonder,

Because when I think about like,

I'm gonna ask you about like some of the pharmaceutical stuff in a second.

I know we kind of went off your story.

We'll get back to it too.

But the thing you just mentioned the attention economy on how,

You know,

This is shifted and porn has developed this way because there's money involved,

Right?

Like people aren't trying to get kids addicted to porn,

But they happen to profit from it.

Like they profit from us being on Instagram.

And I wonder if there's any sort of like economic shift that would actually incentivize the money makers to do what's right.

I mean,

Not just with porn,

I guess with everything is true.

I mean,

Maybe that's just not possible.

I'm not sure.

But yeah,

I didn't,

I never thought about the attention economy side of it.

Yeah.

You know,

It's a really interesting question.

And,

And I haven't thought much about it either.

But there's so much momentum going in the opposite direction.

It's essentially the same as asking,

You know,

Is there a way where Facebook would want to have users using it less often and having less attention devoted to Facebook and Instagram?

And that's their primary source of income.

So it's a very hard thing to actually,

I mean,

You know,

In the same way that many of us are addicted to porn,

The technology companies are addicted to users attention.

Right.

So getting them unhooked from that is a very difficult thing.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Anyway,

Thanks to Ponder.

But so you dealt with what many men our age have dealt with on some level.

You experienced some like,

I guess you call it a rock bottom to use the addiction term.

Is that fair to say?

Yeah.

And then that switched to I believe it was Matthew Ricard's book.

Yes.

Matthew Ricard.

That book was pivotal for me.

And so I hit,

I've hit multiple rock bottoms in my life.

But that first one was so visceral.

It was,

You know,

I can just tell it for your audience.

Basically,

I was in my I was about 21.

Maybe I graduated already from college,

But staying on a year to do research.

And so I was in this small college town and you're a genetics,

You're studying genetics,

Right?

Yeah,

Yeah.

Studying sciences and genetics and evolution.

And a very successful student,

You know,

Graduated with highest honors,

All these things.

And I remember is a beautiful sunny day.

And I was just walking down the street.

And in front of me,

I saw these two girls walking in the same direction.

And they were,

They must have been freshmen or something 18 years old and wearing,

You know,

These tight black spandex yoga pants.

And I could not help myself just uncontrollable desire to look at,

You know,

Their butts as they walked in front of me.

And it was it was just this animalistic urge of just this kind of black hole opening up in inside of me just screaming like,

You've got to have that.

And I couldn't control myself.

I couldn't actually,

Even though I knew I didn't want to objectify women in that way,

I didn't want to like stare at them.

In that way,

I wanted to be more in control.

I couldn't help it.

And it was in that moment when I realized a couple things.

One is that the experience of craving itself is actually very unpleasant.

When you're thinking,

I want that in that sort of craving thirst filled way.

It's a very unpleasant experience,

Because you're filled with suffering,

Because you're in this state of mind that says,

Unless I have that I can't be happy.

Or until I get that,

You know,

I won't be happy.

And so I experienced that,

Wow,

This is so unpleasant.

And then I also realized that if I didn't change something about my life,

If I didn't change something drastically,

That was going to be my future.

And I was going to end up as some,

You know,

70 year old pervert,

Trying to hit on 18 year old girls at college bars,

Like that was so,

You know,

The imagery of that was so visceral to me to see that that's where I was headed.

And that's when I realized,

I don't want that future for myself,

That I need to make a change.

So that's what,

That was kind of this rock bottom moment of realizing.

And that led to another realization of just that I wasn't happy,

You know,

Wasn't actually fulfilled in my life,

Despite being incredibly successful,

You know,

So I was super high achieving student setting all the curves in my classes,

I had a lot of friends,

I was captain of a sports team,

You know,

It's very fit.

All these things were going well in my life.

But I was miserable most of the time,

Because I was always looking at what I didn't have,

Or how I should be doing better.

This,

That's what really got me into this whole field of mindfulness and Buddhist philosophy and what is the meaning of life and happiness.

How do you differentiate between,

I don't know if you do differentiate,

But between a craving and let's say a healthy desire,

Or like,

Ambition?

Yeah,

That's such a great question,

Because it's one of the biggest misconceptions in the world of Buddhism.

And a lot of people think that Buddhism says desire is bad.

But there's a huge difference between desire and craving or thirst.

And,

You know,

The way I like to describe is that there are many desires out there that are actually very wholesome.

So desires,

Like the desire to end world hunger,

Or the desire to be free from,

You know,

Addictions or the desire to do good in the world,

These are all healthy desires,

Or the desire even just to connect with another human being.

So there are many wholesome,

Helpful,

Healthy desires that we can cultivate.

Craving is a slightly different form of desire.

It's a form that's very constricted,

And basically says,

I must have that and unless I have that,

I can't be happy.

So it's this very tight,

Constricted,

Narrowly focused kind of desire.

And it's often,

You know,

It's often related to kind of egotistical or self centered,

Like,

I want to have more pleasure for me.

But you can even have forms of craving that look like healthy desires.

You might want to,

Let's say you want to connect with people in a meaningful way.

And that can be a healthy desire.

But let's say it becomes this obsession,

Where you just cannot be happy unless you're connecting with somebody on a deep and meaningful way.

That can,

So it's really the flavor of the craving,

And the flavor of that desire.

Yeah.

So from what I'm hearing,

The difference is that it becomes like a condition for your happiness.

Is that fair enough to say?

Exactly.

I saw your video on relapsing.

I want to ask you about that whole concept.

But the big thing that I heard from you,

And actually,

Like one of my criticisms of the whole no fap world and like the anti PMO thing is I think they kind of go a little too deep on the addiction model of like,

Yeah,

You see,

I mean,

I've been on a bunch of these forums and groups and I've talked to a lot of guys in these communities and like,

They're just like white knuckling through life of like,

If they're almost craving their day count,

And they're not really living their life.

They're just like,

I'm not watching porn.

I'm not like,

Oh,

Should I relapse?

Like life is over.

I hate myself.

But like,

Maybe maybe that's not.

I mean,

There's a better end game.

I always think like,

There's something to put your attention on more than not doing this thing that's not good for you.

Because there is there just being in my opinion,

Dry drunks.

But yeah,

So could you because the thing that I heard in that video was like,

A lack of shame or like a way to drop the shame which maybe is causing the addiction in the first place?

Yeah.

So I,

First of all,

I'll just say I totally agree with you about the no fat movement and the you know,

The non PMO movement.

There's a lot of it that's has a good intention,

But is misguided in terms of its strategies.

And you do see a lot of this white knuckling,

You know,

Counting your days.

And it's,

I think it's just not very useful.

It doesn't actually work as well as learning how to open up to yourself learning how to embrace your sexuality.

I think that's one of the big things is is learning that sexuality is not bad,

The desire to watch porn actually comes from a very healthy place.

It's a desire to connect.

Even you know,

Porn itself,

It's like,

There's no,

There's no problem with sexuality.

It's just that sometimes it gets out of control.

So how do we learn how to get ourselves back into balance?

And so I'm also not really a huge fan of counting days and all that.

And even the relapse,

You know,

I think it's more important.

When we talk about relapse,

It's more about how can I make sure that I'm not cheating myself,

Because I had noticed that when I relapsed,

I forget when it was maybe a year ago,

Two years ago,

Maybe more recently than that,

I noticed that I was allowing myself to get sucked back into forms of addiction that were unhealthy.

And that was the problem is that I was kind of lying to myself like,

Oh,

It's okay,

It's okay,

It's okay.

And it is okay.

But if you keep telling yourself,

It's okay,

And you don't make any healthy changes,

That's where it can be problematic.

You had a second question there that I think I'm forgetting.

Cravings,

The word relapse,

Shame.

Oh,

Shame.

Yeah.

That's such a huge,

You know,

It's so pivotal to breaking free from any addiction is letting go of the shame you feel.

And that's what causes so many addictive tendencies is feeling like,

Oh,

I'm a bad person for doing this.

And it's one of the reasons why in the work that Ermo and I were doing,

You know,

In Thailand,

And the work that I'm doing still online,

One of the most beneficial things for people is just having a space to talk about these things openly with other men,

Or,

You know,

Women in talking about it openly as well.

But being able to realize that you're not alone,

That you're not an evil person,

You're not a messed up person is so healing for so many people that shame is one of the biggest things that holds people into addictions.

And so a lot of the work I do is around helping people to let go of that shame.

Yeah,

It can be kind of like a mindfuck,

I think for a lot of people,

If like,

They're like,

Okay,

Identify that this behavior is really bad for me.

And I'm aware of it now,

There's porn or whatever.

Okay,

So that means I need to stop doing it.

And then if you do it,

Well,

Then this means I'm a bad person.

And like,

The logic checks out.

But the irony is like,

You only break the cycle by forgiving yourself for the time you messed up.

You know,

It's,

Yeah,

Exactly.

I mean,

I don't,

I don't speak about addiction so much,

But I help a lot of guys with arousal control.

And I see it all the time where a guy will,

You know,

He'll just,

You know,

Come,

It's a normal thing that happens sometimes.

And then he'll be,

He'll like,

Cite all these statistics about how bad it is for you to do it.

And then like,

He'll be out of like,

His life for seven days.

And I'm like,

It shouldn't be that bad.

Maybe you feel sleepy for a few hours.

Like,

It's not,

It's not that serious what's keeping you in it is this self flagellation that you think you did this horrible thing.

Yeah,

Yeah.

It's you know,

It's one of my favorite paradoxes in the whole world of kind of self help and personal development is,

You know,

And particularly in Buddhist philosophy,

You know,

There's this great story of Suzuki Roshi,

And he's a famous kind of Zen teacher who from Japan,

But moved to San Francisco.

And he was teaching then to a lot of people in the 1950s,

1960s.

And one student came up to him and said,

You know,

Suzuki Roshi,

I just don't get it.

Is this path about,

You know,

Becoming the best version of yourself?

Is it about,

You know,

Removing mental defilements and,

And being a better person?

Or is this a path of loving yourself just the way you are and accepting who you are,

Just as you are?

And those feel very opposite.

One is accepting the way you are,

You know,

With all your flaws and everything and the others,

How do you,

You know,

Become a better person?

How do you remove mental defilements?

And Suzuki Roshi had one of the best answers I've ever heard.

And he turned to the student,

He said,

You're perfect the way you are,

And there's still room for improvement.

And that's the model I go off of.

It's like,

How can we continually learn to embrace ourselves and love ourselves and tell ourselves that we're not a bad person,

And at the same time,

Notice that there are things we can do to improve our life.

And it's a,

It's a total,

It is a mindfuck.

It's a paradox.

You know,

It's things you have to kind of hold equally that can't fully coexist.

But it's in that holding both of them together that a lot of freedom and development can be found.

Yeah,

I mean,

On a rational plane,

Like,

You know,

On paper,

They seem to go against each other.

But their experience,

Like even just what we're talking about,

You're probably more likely to naturally do the things that are,

Will better you if you accept who you are.

Like,

I think a lot of people even like to use the weight gain analogy,

Like,

If they really appreciated their body,

Maybe they would take it to the gym or they maybe they would stop stuffing.

It's like the shame makes it gives you more to feel shame and full about.

Which is yeah.

In that article,

You mentioned rewiring the mind.

And I'd love if you could speak a little bit about that,

Because,

Yeah,

It just it's just a fascinating way to look at personal growth.

Yeah,

It's one of the things that opened up my eyes when I read that book by Mitzi Ricard was realizing,

You know,

This concept of neuroplasticity,

Which is that in every single moment,

We're actually,

You know,

Strengthening or weakening certain neural connections based on what we're doing.

And it's not just based on what we're doing.

Even what we're paying attention to or what we're thinking about is strengthening or de strengthening neural connections.

So,

One of the things that I realized is that over these,

Maybe the decade that I was watching porn every night for two or three hours a night,

Every time I watched porn,

I was strengthening the neural connections for lust,

You know,

Strengthening this pathway for that form of desire and craving that is very unhealthy,

Which was,

You know,

Strengthening the idea that until I have this,

I can't be happy.

And what's cool about neuroplasticity is that you can,

You know,

It can be very harmful if you're not paying attention.

And you can be hardwiring and strengthening things that are leading to your suffering.

But you can use it to your advantage.

And you can say,

Oh,

If I understand that what leads to genuine happiness is connection and compassion and patience and humility,

You can intentionally strengthen those neural connections.

You can say,

Oh,

This is a good quality.

In my meditation,

Can I spend the time strengthening patience?

So every time you sit down to meditate,

And you have this urge to get up and stop the meditation,

You can say,

Oh,

Let's see if I can strengthen my patience.

Can I sit here even if it's uncomfortable?

And in those moments,

You're actually hardwiring in new patterns of behaviors.

And that's where you can start to really affect your life if you do it consistently.

Yeah,

Yeah.

I had Mark Lewis,

Who's an addict,

She writes about addiction a lot on a couple weeks ago.

And one thing I got from him was this idea that we practice emotions.

This is these are not his words,

But like just the idea is basically what you said,

Like,

If you practice a certain reaction to a thing,

It becomes easier just like lifting a weight or a skill.

And the porn thing is something that happened to me recently.

I mean,

I don't watch porn very often a couple times a year.

But whatever the circumstances where I watched it one time,

I was like,

Okay,

This is fine.

I stopped at an appropriate time.

I didn't ejaculate blah,

Blah,

Blah.

And then so two days later,

I'm like,

Well,

I could do it again.

I did it two days in a healthy way.

And it was a little more mindless.

It wasn't terrible.

It was a little more,

You know,

It was down and not a great path.

And I noticed the next time I've been seeing this woman,

The next time I saw her,

The way I behaved with her was totally different.

After two times,

Maybe a total of 40 minutes of stimulation.

She was like,

You're going way too fast.

Like what's going on?

Like she noticed something was wrong with me.

Because maybe it triggered this old,

You know,

Click,

Click,

Click,

Click thing that had been wired into me at a young age.

Yeah,

I mean,

There's so much there to unpack.

It's so interesting.

And first,

I would say that I'm not,

There's a lot of people in the porn movement who are very anti porn,

And they're like porn is evil,

You should never ever watch it.

And I'm more agnostic about it.

Like,

If it works for some people,

It works for some people,

You know,

Not,

Not everybody who drinks alcohol is going to become an alcoholic.

And not everybody who eats sugar is going to develop diabetes and be a sugar addict.

So I'm very neutral on porn.

But it's noticing those tendencies and when they start to become out of control.

And it's so interesting that you notice that kind of moving faster,

Or that your partner noticed that moving fast,

Because that's one of the main problems with the porn that I see is that it's just such a poor representation of what genuine intimacy is,

You know,

It's so focused on the male perspective,

It's focused on this kind of just,

It's just violent in so many ways.

I mean,

You can find some some nicer stuff on there,

But it affects your brain in so many ways.

And so when you take someone who isn't like you,

Who's more out of control,

And is watching two to three hours a night for a decade,

It just totally fucks with your brain in terms of when you're in an authentic and real,

You know,

Sexual experience with another person.

Your mind is totally warped on what genuine intimacy is all about.

Yeah,

Yeah,

I think it's an issue with all screen interaction.

Because when there's no real feedback,

I mean,

It's a couple of things,

There's no real feedback.

Even if like,

Even if you watch the most wholesome porn,

There's no real feedback.

So like your sense of time isn't isn't right.

And also,

There's nothing physical going on.

Like in a video game,

Even or YouTube,

Like you can transport your mind to a million places that your body couldn't possibly do in an hour.

And I just like,

Yeah,

It disconnects you from reality,

Which is why I think,

You know,

Porn and video games like stimulate these circuits in us that are genuine,

I think,

In men for adventure and to make love,

But they take us to places way beyond our body.

So obviously,

There has to be disconnection.

Yeah.

And the other interesting thing that they were doing some research on when people are watching porn,

And they found out that when you're looking at porn on a screen,

You know,

When you're not in a real actual sexual experience,

The way you're relating to the person that you're seeing is the way that you relate to objects,

As opposed to the way you relate to another person.

So when you're sitting in front of someone talking to them,

You actually have certain kind of neural connections being activated,

That are associated with how you talk to a human being.

But when you're watching porn,

The kind of neural networks that are activated are the ones that are associated with how you deal with objects like pencils and cups and things like that.

So there's a real sense of changing our relationship to our sexual partners,

Where it becomes more about this person is an object that's going to give me what I desire.

And that's what I noticed in my experience.

It's one of the reasons I was so afraid is realizing that I was sleeping with so many attractive women,

But they were just objects to me.

You know,

It was just like,

Okay,

Let me find a new person to sleep with.

And it wasn't fulfilling.

It was just like,

Trying to feed this thirst and this craving that was never going to be satisfied.

Have you heard the statistic that one in five millennial men have a sexual dysfunction?

I haven't heard that,

But I totally believe it.

Yeah,

Actually,

I remember now the place I saw that was in an ad for these Viagra dispensaries.

I don't know if you see them.

There's like Bluechu and Roman.

I'm surprised.

Some of them are funded by major incubators.

They're just pumping out Viagra subscriptions to young guys.

I guess you're just hearing about it now.

I'm wondering what you think about that.

Well,

You know,

It's interesting because in the work that we do with getting guys off of porn addiction,

When guys finally stop watching porn,

And let's say they go for like a 30-day reboot or a 90-day reboot where they're cutting porn out of their life for 30 days or 90 days,

You see so many times guys actually re-energizing their sexual apparatus.

So,

If they're experiencing any sort of like delayed ejaculation or erectile dysfunction,

And when you take porn out of it,

It allows the body to reboot.

And so,

You see guys who are like,

I've never had an erection this hard naturally before,

Feeling so much lust for my partner,

All this kind of stuff.

So,

It totally,

I believe that one in five people have some sort of sexual dysfunction.

And it's a scary place that we're heading to,

You know,

Where more and more people are getting addicted to porn.

And we're using pharmaceuticals essentially to try to put it,

Okay,

Go.

Okay.

And so,

We're heading to this really scary place where,

You know,

So many people are getting addicted,

But instead of addressing the root cause of the problem,

We're using pharmaceuticals to just kind of put a band-aid on it.

So,

We're not addressing the actual issue,

We're just saying,

Okay,

How can we use drugs or pharmaceuticals to address the symptom rather than addressing the cause of what's happening?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean,

I think it's really terrible.

I mean,

It goes along with many,

You know,

Band-aid solutions with antidepressants.

It's not to say that those are bad,

But it's like a quick fix when there's maybe a more sustainable,

Less chemical solution.

Yeah.

And I'll just say,

You know,

Also,

I'm not against drugs,

I'm not against antidepressants.

I know it's saved the lives of a lot of people.

And I would say,

Those are definitely good options for some people.

I'm just kind of wary of over,

Over prescription of a lot of these things when a lot of it can be done in a healthier way.

Yeah.

Can you say a little more of what you got out of the Happiness book?

Because I read one of his other books,

The Quantum and the Lotus a long time ago.

And honestly,

I think a lot of it went over my head.

But I'd love to,

Because it's pretty rare,

I think that someone reads one book and then they go in a different direction,

Or maybe at other forces going on.

But yeah.

Yeah.

Well,

I would say,

So that book,

For me is so,

It was so beautiful and so timely.

And one of the reasons is Mathieu Ricard himself,

You know,

Up until that point,

I was a very non-spiritual person.

And I'm still mostly a non-spiritual person.

But I've been a scientist my whole life and very much in love with reason and rationality and the scientific,

You know,

Movement and all these things.

And I always thought that anything spiritual was just kind of fluffy,

Hippie-dippie nonsense.

And so I never allowed myself to get into any form of wellness or spirituality because I thought it was all just new age kind of bullshit.

But this book by Mathieu Ricard,

The cool thing is that Mathieu himself used to be a scientist.

So he got his PhD in molecular biology and then traveled to Tibet and to India and became a Tibetan monk.

And so the book very clearly lays out in a very rational and scientific way,

The causes of suffering in our lives and the pathway leading to happiness.

And for me,

It was so beautifully laid out.

It was such a logical explanation of saying,

If you're suffering,

These are the causes of suffering.

And if you would like to be happy,

This is what leads to happiness.

And it was logical.

It wasn't like,

Here's the dogma,

Here's the doctrine,

Believe it,

And the thing it was,

This is the way your mind works.

You know,

If A leads to B and B leads to C,

Then A leads to C.

You know,

It was just it was laid out in this beautiful way that I couldn't actually argue with.

It was so scientific,

It just blew my mind.

And it made me realize,

The main thing that I took away is that the mind is so important.

And I used to just think that if I could just fix my external world,

If I could just get the most beautiful girlfriend,

If I could just get the best grades and all the classes,

I could get the best body,

Then I would be happy.

Not realizing that my relationship to the things in my life was infinitely more important when it comes to happiness.

You know,

You can have all of the riches in the world.

But if you don't have the skill of appreciation,

If you don't have the skill of contentment,

None of it will matter.

So you can have all the sex in the world.

But if you're constantly hungry for more,

You're never going to be satisfied.

And you're always going to be in this state of suffering.

And that's what this book helps me realize.

And that goes back to this Suzuki Roshi thing you're saying of,

I guess,

Not just loving yourself the way you are,

But loving your reality the way it is.

It sounds like.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So spirituality,

I mean,

I think that,

I mean,

That word is very often,

If not,

It's very often attached to mindfulness.

So I was kind of like,

Oh,

You're not spiritual.

I mean,

Mindfulness is in your Instagram handle,

You know,

Like,

It's like for them,

They're not synonymous or in the same bubble.

You know,

It's all semantics.

So spirituality,

It totally depends on your own personal definition of it.

I find for me,

You know,

Mindfulness is very much a scientific pursuit.

Buddhism actually is for me,

A science of the mind.

It's about understanding the way your mind works and how you experience your reality.

So for me,

Buddhism,

There are many forms of Buddhism,

There are,

Sometimes we say there are many Buddhisms.

And some of them do get into more kind of spirituality type things,

You know,

There's reincarnation,

And there's different realms of existence,

And I'm not into that at all.

And you don't have to be.

What I'm into is understanding the way your mind works and the sources of suffering.

So understanding where suffering comes from,

And understanding how to cultivate more genuine inner fulfillment.

So for me,

My spirituality is very much a scientific exploration of my own inner landscape.

And that's really what it's about.

And I do think there's some kind of,

I've softened a bit more.

So now,

You know,

This like interconnectedness and,

You know,

Compassion and altruism,

And those are things but in terms of like,

The universal cosmic consciousness,

I'm not really into that stuff.

Like,

There's a lot of kind of stuff out there that I'm just,

It's not really my cup of tea.

It's for other people.

But for me,

It's a very pragmatic,

No bullshit,

No kind of woo woo spirituality.

It's just understanding the way your mind works.

Yeah,

It's interesting hearing you say that because,

Like,

As I've gone in other directions,

Like away from spirituality,

Like I got really into Carl Jung last year,

But going deeper into that,

Which I mean,

It's called psychology or science.

I mean,

So it seemed,

But the deeper I went into that,

The more it brought me back to kind of spiritual beliefs,

Like a lot of his beliefs were based on stuff we can't prove.

And even like you brought up altruism,

Like the most real argument for altruism for me was this perception that I'm the same person as the person I'm with.

So I'm actually being,

I'm actually serving myself,

Like that's kind of like what,

When I'm at my best headspace,

That's what gets me over this dichotomy.

Yeah,

And it's,

It's so interesting,

You know,

There,

There are many different ways to connect with kind of motivations for doing these things.

And when,

When we look at something like altruism,

You know,

The way that I connect to that of why to be altruistic is the Dalai Lama,

I think even said this,

That actually,

I think this was Denzel Washington.

One of the two great men of our generation.

Exactly.

But I think,

I think Denzel Washington said,

The most selfish thing you can do is to help other people.

And what he means is like,

You can just notice in your own experience that when you're helping someone else,

It makes you feel good.

You know,

It's like,

The amount of genuine inner fulfillment and inner peace and joy you get when you're being of service,

When you're helping someone,

It makes you feel better than any sort of sense pleasure you could imagine.

And so if you want to be happy,

It's like,

You don't even,

You don't even have to believe that we're all interconnected.

You could just look at your own experience and realize that,

You know,

The,

One of the core foundations of Buddhism is just this understanding that we all want to be happy.

You know,

We're all trying to be happy in certain ways.

Everything we do is,

You know,

Has this veil of,

You know,

Other intentions,

But it's because we think it will make us happy in some way.

And if that's truly your goal,

Then looking at what things actually bring more happiness.

And that's why it's a science of the mind.

It's just looking at your experience and realizing,

Does this bring happiness?

And I realized,

Looking at porn,

It wasn't bringing me happiness.

You know,

Trying just to have as much sex with as many beautiful women as I could,

It wasn't bringing me lasting happiness or fulfillment.

It was a short term hit of dopamine that temporarily kind of like,

Made me zombie out and forget what was going on.

So it's a bad investment of time.

Yeah,

Exactly.

Yeah.

Yeah,

It reminds me of a couple,

I guess it was last year I had a guy who was speaking on this idea called the abundance model,

Where like,

He suggests that people give a percentage of their income to things that are good for the world.

And you know,

He has this,

What a lot of people call a mystical belief system of like,

You know,

Basically karma,

You're going to get it back.

And like,

He has a lot of,

It's kind of in depth,

You know,

It's hard for me to buy it.

But the thing that kind of sold me on it was just the idea that when you delight someone who needs something more,

Or whatever,

Giving in a way that feels good,

You're paying for something,

You actually feel good.

You spend $100 for $200 worth of joy,

Then that's it,

You don't need to get it back.

So that's,

Yeah.

Yeah.

And that's,

You know,

I love talking about karma,

Because I feel it's so misunderstood.

What karma is in that situation is,

You know,

A lot of people think karma is like,

If you save,

You know,

If you do good things,

Then like something totally random is going to good is going to happen to you later.

And let's say if you tell a lie,

Then like a piano is going to fall on your cat,

Right on someone's like,

Oh,

Well,

That's his karma.

And karma has nothing to do with that kind of magical system.

Karma is simply the law of cause and effect.

Karma is that whatever you do,

You know,

Has consequences down the road.

And everything that exists in this present moment is because of the causes and conditions that come before it.

So it's a lot like pool or billiards,

Like the position on the of the balls on the table is because of how it was hit before and just all the geometry and everything.

So in this example of doing something nice for someone like buying something for someone,

The karma there is that when you have that act of generosity,

There is the immediate consequence of the joy that comes from thinking of someone else.

And that is the karma.

That's the joy that comes that's the consequence.

And maybe it'll come back to you later,

But maybe not.

And wondering now with a sick the opposite,

Where someone,

You could say that the bad karma is your conscience,

Like immediately punishing you for doing a thing that you knew is not good,

Right.

But I'm thinking about like,

Going back to the shame thing,

We're talking about a guy who makes himself feel bad because of maybe bad wiring or conditioning or or anybody who makes themselves feel bad because they,

You know,

They think,

Oh,

I wore a skirt this long,

I'm going to hell,

Like,

That's not,

That's a maybe a misdirected conscience or,

Or,

You know,

It's up to opinion.

It is Do you have any thoughts on maybe wrong wiring or people in the wrong reality or,

Or experiencing effects that shouldn't be the right,

Isn't the best,

You know,

It's like a self directed cause and effect.

Yeah,

And that's where,

You know,

This kind of self directed cause and effect is understanding that there are certain things that will lead to more happiness.

So for example,

Forgiveness,

You know,

Like,

Let's say you do something that you're not proud of.

In that moment,

You have two options.

I mean,

You have infinite options,

But you can,

For,

You know,

Simplicity,

We can say you have two options.

One is to continue berating yourself and,

You know,

Whipping yourself on the back like bad person,

Bad person.

And the other option is you can decide to have a moment of forgiveness and say,

Oh,

I know that wasn't skillful,

But I still love myself and I know that I'm a good person.

And in those two different options,

You know,

They lead to very different futures,

But they,

That's your karma is the choice you make in that moment has downstream ripple effects.

So choosing to say,

Oh,

That wasn't skillful or I'm not proud of that,

But I'm not going to hold onto it and continue to,

You know,

Shame myself or judge myself.

I'm going to let that go is so,

You know,

When we talk about karma,

We say karma only really comes from intentional actions and it's these intentional actions of saying,

Oh,

Okay,

I'm going to choose to do something.

So if you accidentally step on an ant and you don't even see it,

You don't even know it's there.

Like it's not,

You're not going to be affected by that karma.

The world's karma might be affected.

We can talk about universal karma,

But that's the totally different thing.

But in terms of your wellbeing,

You know,

Comes from intentional actions.

If you see an ant and you step on it because you want to kill it,

It's a very different thing.

And so it's all about the choices that we're making and what are the consequences of where we're placing our attention and what we're choosing to do.

I have a question now on the whole goal setting and achieving thing because right now I've kind of connected with some friends here.

We,

You know,

We're kind of living together in quarantine.

We have a board with all our goals and we're going to support each other with the goals and we're all getting really excited about it.

Then I'm realizing from this conversation,

Maybe I'm being a little too externally focused because the times I've been really successful or happy,

I've kind of been more self validating,

Independent of my goals.

I'm just curious how,

I don't know if you have an answer or anything,

But how do you set goals?

Do you even bother setting goals?

Like what is,

What is your take on that whole thing?

Yeah,

Such a good question,

Especially for all of us kind of more entrepreneurially focused people or driven people.

The way that I like to frame this is connecting to your deeper intentions.

You know,

I think goals are fantastic and I do set goals.

Looking at why am I setting this goal?

You know,

What am I trying to accomplish?

And there's a,

You know,

Let's say your goal is to write a New York Times bestseller,

Right?

You're like,

Oh,

I'm going to write this book.

I'm going to get it published.

What's the intention behind that goal makes a very big difference.

If your intention is I'm going to write a New York Times bestseller so that I can have all the money and I can,

You know,

Travel to nice beaches and lounge around.

It's very different from I'm going to write this New York Times bestseller because I believe that this can help other people.

And so the way that I like to look at it is just continually connecting with what's the intention?

What's my ultimate goal?

Why am I doing this?

Understanding that the more that we can step into this place of connecting with other people and really being of service,

The more happiness we're actually going to find for ourselves.

If our goal is just selfishly motivated,

Like I just need more money for myself,

It generally doesn't lead to as much fulfillment and ease and happiness.

So I think goals are great,

But you can you see the difference,

Right?

Like,

You know,

When you listen to a podcast from someone who you feel has a really good heart and wants to help the world be a better place,

Versus when you listen to a podcast from someone who's just trying to sell something and just wants money,

You feel the difference there.

You can feel that like,

Oh,

I trust this person,

Versus how this person feels kind of sleazy.

You know,

Do you always think that the service motivation is better than the collective motivation?

I know you I didn't watch it,

But I know you have a video on setting boundaries,

Which I think,

You know,

A lot of people over give and like,

Maybe they shouldn't give so much or be so out reminded.

I mean,

How do you differentiate totally?

That's a good question.

And it really speaks to the nuance of what I just said previously,

Which is the understanding you have to take care of yourself first.

And so the like,

Wanting more money is not inherently a bad thing.

You know,

If your goal is like,

Oh,

I want more money,

Because I know that it helps me to be financially secure.

And I know that I can be more,

You know,

A better person in this world and lead to better outcomes if I'm not feeling stressed about money.

And so taking care of yourself,

Which includes,

You know,

Wanting more kind of pleasant experiences and,

You know,

Setting boundaries with certain people that need boundaries.

That's a totally wholesome thing to do.

Right?

It's like,

Setting boundaries is fantastic.

Like we need to set boundaries when something is getting out of control.

And knowing when to do that is just takes kind of practice.

Are you familiar with Taoism at all?

Or do you?

Only from like the little quotes I see on.

Okay.

Gotcha.

Like,

The idea of like,

Even an addiction,

Like the higher power,

Like,

There's something that's not you or other people.

There's like,

Even if it's just a concept,

There's something else or a way of the universe to follow.

Are you into that paradigm at all?

I don't really totally connect with that kind of stuff,

Just because it's usually a little too fluffy for me.

Like,

Sometimes I'm like,

Oh,

Yeah,

That sounds really deep.

And sometimes I'm just like,

Well,

Does it just sound nice?

Like,

Maybe just sounds nice.

And it's not really anything real.

I think whatever helps people find more connection,

Why they're with themselves with other people,

Like,

Then then go for it.

A lot of Taoism that I see a lot of the quotes I see and the things I read about it,

It,

It's beautiful.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Tao Te Ching,

Full of great one liners that fit perfectly on Pinterest.

Yeah,

Exactly.

Yeah.

I know you had a thing on spiritual materialism as well.

I know,

Especially you speak about mindfulness,

You have a very grounded demeanor.

I wonder,

Can you speak,

Say a little bit about how that comes across in your work and your life and I guess your communities?

Yeah,

Well,

I would say it doesn't,

Spiritual materialism doesn't come up too much in terms of the work I do with guys with porn addiction.

You know,

It's really interesting,

A lot of the work I do with guys around porn addiction,

It's very grounded.

It's just like,

Really normal guys who are like,

This is a problem in my life.

I can't keep working like this.

And it's not this kind of more out of this world stuff.

Spiritual materialism does show up a lot in the meditation space and whatever kind of meditation world you're in.

And it's essentially it's like using your spirituality or your spiritual practices in a materialistic fashion,

Like wearing it on your sleeve,

You know,

So it's like,

Or walking around with the mala beads.

Exactly.

Mala beads is like one of the best examples.

Yeah,

Mala beads can be used in a very meaningful way,

You know,

Like you can use it for your practice.

But if you're wearing it to signify to other people how spiritual you are,

That's where it's like,

And we all do this to some extent,

Right?

Like,

You know,

I even have a little white cord from my last Vipassana retreat.

But the intention is not to signify to other people like,

Hey,

Check me out.

I'm a spiritual person.

It should be used for your own kind of personal like,

Like,

For me,

This is a reminder of certain things,

Like there's little three little knots tied in,

And it reminds me of those things.

So spiritual materialism,

You see it a lot where people are like,

Oh,

I'm so spiritual,

You know,

And spiritual bypassing is a related,

Do you know the spiritual bypassing?

Yeah.

So that's a related thing you see where people kind of use spiritual concepts that sound good,

As a way to actually dismiss the suffering of people or kind of pass over things that need to be dealt with,

Like,

Oh,

We're all one.

So we don't need to,

Like,

I don't see race.

We're all one.

You know,

It's like,

Oh,

Racism is real.

You can't just like say,

We're all one.

It's not a big thing.

So it comes in many different forms.

And it is one of my biggest pet peeves.

Yeah.

Do you ever watch JP Sears?

You know,

I love him.

Yeah,

He's great.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Trying to get him on some point.

Yeah,

This has been great.

I'm glad we got to catch up.

And where can people find out more about your work?

Yeah,

You can just go to JeremyLipkowitz.

Com.

And you can find out,

You know,

Some of the different things I do some of my blog posts.

You can find me on Instagram for now at Jeremy mindfulness.

And yeah,

Do you say for now because you're getting off Instagram?

Yeah.

Have you read Digital Minimalism?

Yeah,

Cal Newport.

Yeah,

Yeah.

It's I'm starting to think about maybe getting off some of this stuff soon.

I have also I mean,

I haven't posted in a long time.

Like I have my assistant take clips,

So I don't have to interact with it.

But then of course,

I can't help it if someone I know they messaged me,

I go on and then end up on my feed.

I've actually been thinking the same thing.

And I'm not really sure what to do because you know,

When you're in the industries that we're in,

We kind of rely on how else I mean,

I can't have a written newsletter,

You know.

So I don't know how much I might actually want to ask you about that maybe later because I'm also struggling with what to do about it.

A lot of my Instagram posts say please don't scroll further,

Which I know is terrible for my analytics.

I mean,

We could have a podcast one day on Digital Minimalism and just talk about,

You know,

What does it mean and all that stuff.

Yeah,

Yeah.

I'm going to message you about it.

I'd be curious to see what you're doing with that.

Cool.

So Jeremy with livequiz.

Com.

Jeremy mindfulness for now.

For now.

As of June 2020.

All right,

Awesome,

Man.

Yeah,

Thanks again.

Yeah,

Thanks for having me.

It was a pleasure to talk with you.