Yung Pueblo
Appearances
Modern Wisdom
#915 - Yung Pueblo - The Art Of Unlocking Your Inner Peace
Yeah, I mean, you literally end up building your piece brick by brick. And I love that you, you know, came to your own conclusion there. But it's like ignorance is not bliss, dude. Ignorance is suffering. It's just what I'm just going to be exhausted, stressed, full of tension, full of anxiety, always like missing the beautiful moment that's right in front of me. I don't want to live like that.
Modern Wisdom
#915 - Yung Pueblo - The Art Of Unlocking Your Inner Peace
I think that's one thing that's special about the time that we live in today is that being miserable, it's going out of style. It feels like so many people are exhausted by... I grew up in a way where if you had a mental ailment or a physical ailment, you were just going to have to deal with it for the rest of your life. But I think so many people are...
Modern Wisdom
#915 - Yung Pueblo - The Art Of Unlocking Your Inner Peace
looking at whatever it is that's ailing them, making life harder, and they're actively looking for solutions. And if there isn't one out there, they're building companies to find it. They're creating new science to do it. They're just like, no, let's find a way to live at a higher or optimal level. I find that really inspiring.
Modern Wisdom
#915 - Yung Pueblo - The Art Of Unlocking Your Inner Peace
But even what you were saying before, it's making me remember that we live in a society that...
Modern Wisdom
#915 - Yung Pueblo - The Art Of Unlocking Your Inner Peace
is trying to make everything easier for us every single aspect of you think about all the apps on your phone they're all sort of designed to make life easier so we live in this like uber door dash society and you can't bring that mentality into your personal growth you also can't bring that mentality into your relationship so there's definitely skills that you can develop but
Modern Wisdom
#915 - Yung Pueblo - The Art Of Unlocking Your Inner Peace
honestly, you have to build your piece brick by brick. And I think it's, I've noticed that over time, you know, like I've done so many meditation retreats. I've probably meditated for over 12, 13,000 hours. And it's like, you know, maybe after five, 6,000 hours when I was like, okay, my mind is very different from how it was before.
Modern Wisdom
#915 - Yung Pueblo - The Art Of Unlocking Your Inner Peace
And it was literally like, I'm training to live happier, to have more peace, to have more freedom. And it's the same way that you don't just run a marathon, you have to train for it. And you don't just like learn a language, you know, you have to learn it over time.
Modern Wisdom
#915 - Yung Pueblo - The Art Of Unlocking Your Inner Peace
And I think that's one of the harder aspects of self-development that people have to accept is that it's nice and slow and you gotta be there for the long journey. And, you know, and you know that something is good. Like I remember after that first 10 day retreat, When I left, my mind felt undeniably lighter, but only by like maybe 3%.
Modern Wisdom
#915 - Yung Pueblo - The Art Of Unlocking Your Inner Peace
But it was so noticeable to me because my mind felt so damn heavy before that. And that's why I was like, you know, I got to go back because I don't even really understand what I went through. I need to go learn more. And as I've gone, I still feel the same set of emotions like everybody else. But anxiety, sadness, these heavier things, I feel them, but I don't grab them.
Modern Wisdom
#915 - Yung Pueblo - The Art Of Unlocking Your Inner Peace
I don't throw more fuel onto that fire. I don't make them bigger than they need to be. I'm grateful that I put in the work because it was hard, man, but I still have a long way to go.
Modern Wisdom
#915 - Yung Pueblo - The Art Of Unlocking Your Inner Peace
Absolutely. And it's funny too, because like, as soon as you said that, it made me think like, no one's going to come save you, but there are going to be people that randomly appear that will inspire you. And they may even help you with whatever method it is that you're trying to learn, you know, like I wasn't going to. I didn't just teach myself meditating. I went to a teacher. They taught me.
Modern Wisdom
#915 - Yung Pueblo - The Art Of Unlocking Your Inner Peace
They corrected me over time. It took me years to be able to really make the actual practice of meditation much more efficient as opposed to making it clunky and... The mind doesn't want to observe the present moment. The mind is constantly trying to fight that. And it's really hard to just observe reality as it is. The mind is constantly trying to interject the past or the future onto that.
Modern Wisdom
#915 - Yung Pueblo - The Art Of Unlocking Your Inner Peace
And so it took a lot of teachers to, you know, for me asking questions and corrections, but ultimately who put in the effort, it was my own mind. No one's going to come and meditate for you, dude. No, no one, no one's going to give you their enlightenment. No one's going to transmit peace to you.
Modern Wisdom
#915 - Yung Pueblo - The Art Of Unlocking Your Inner Peace
Oh, that's really interesting. I think what's really worked for me is just honestly realizing how flimsy thoughts are, flimsy and insubstantial. So to me, when I find myself getting caught up in a thought stream or some narrative that's just building tension, I have to pull myself back and I'm like, wait, why am I hanging on to this thing that's so incredibly impermanent?
Modern Wisdom
#915 - Yung Pueblo - The Art Of Unlocking Your Inner Peace
Like, you know, you may have be around people who have great energy and are nonjudgmental, but those are very sort of temporary things. And I think it was, it was interesting. Like, I remember what, before I started meditating, I, um, I did mushrooms a few times, tried acid a few times, and I found that these were almost really pretty powerful intellectual experiences where I felt better.
Modern Wisdom
#915 - Yung Pueblo - The Art Of Unlocking Your Inner Peace
It felt better in my body, and my mind was just connecting to all these different ideas. But it felt like I was almost taking a peek at a new world and opening a window. But when I started meditating, it was like, dude, I cracked that window open and just put my legs right through and I was walking in a whole new world. And even days later, you know, I was like, everything is shinier and brighter.
Modern Wisdom
#915 - Yung Pueblo - The Art Of Unlocking Your Inner Peace
Like I literally remember, you know, after... I think on like day seven, day eight of the first course, and it still continues on now, I remember looking at a tree and being like, holy shit, I can see more branches and more leaves than I could before. Like my mind wasn't even able to cognize at that level because it was so busy.
Modern Wisdom
#915 - Yung Pueblo - The Art Of Unlocking Your Inner Peace
And I think it was a shock over time how our senses and literally all of our abilities are dulled by the tension that we unconsciously carry. Yeah.
Modern Wisdom
#915 - Yung Pueblo - The Art Of Unlocking Your Inner Peace
Why am I just allowing anxiety and tension and heaviness to just continue bubbling up in my mind when you know, I'm the one causing this tension, so let me let it go. It's wild to think how much stress and suffering we have caused ourselves. Yeah, and I think that's like the key medicine, right?
Modern Wisdom
#915 - Yung Pueblo - The Art Of Unlocking Your Inner Peace
who we allow to influence us, because I've seen that work in multiple ways. My wife and I, we both stopped drinking and just taking any intoxicants. It's been a number of years. It's been since 2016 since I last drank and smoked marijuana or did anything, taking zero intoxicants. And I've noticed over time, not only did I have to rebuild...
Modern Wisdom
#915 - Yung Pueblo - The Art Of Unlocking Your Inner Peace
friendships, because so much of friendship is pretty ritualistic. Like, you know, we come together, we smoke a joint, we come together, we have a drink. But I realized that, you know, my key friends, the ones that I've been friends with for years, after a few months, they really didn't care. They got over it pretty quickly.
Modern Wisdom
#915 - Yung Pueblo - The Art Of Unlocking Your Inner Peace
But there was an interesting dynamic where when my wife and I were, you know, we would go out to dinner with friends and whatnot, or be at a party. Like, One time we were talking, we were like, hey, are they drinking less than they normally do because they're around us? Are we having some sort of unsaid thing?
Modern Wisdom
#915 - Yung Pueblo - The Art Of Unlocking Your Inner Peace
We're not asking them not to drink, but just because we're around, they totally slow down and we find some sort of balance. And the other end of that is that in 2020, my wife and I, we moved up to Western Massachusetts. And this little town out here that's near the meditation center that we often go to. And out here, there are so many people who have been meditating for decades.
Modern Wisdom
#915 - Yung Pueblo - The Art Of Unlocking Your Inner Peace
Like people who've been meditating way more than I have, you know, like 20,000, 30, 40, 50,000 hours of meditation. I've been meditating for decades and decades. And these people are weapons. Like their minds are just literally, you would not believe how cultivated they are. And these are people who, they don't write books. They don't have Instagrams.
Modern Wisdom
#915 - Yung Pueblo - The Art Of Unlocking Your Inner Peace
They're just so, like all they do is serve others and they just, you know, they generate peace and they have simple lives and work, but they're such hardcore meditators. And being around these people,
Modern Wisdom
#915 - Yung Pueblo - The Art Of Unlocking Your Inner Peace
has helped sort of fire up and like give even more energy to that effort that i'm applying in my own mind because i'm around them and i'm like like i want to be like this dude when i'm 70. you know like this this guy's like when i think about like you know my teacher barry like this guy is just like he's 76 so unafraid of death like so kind doesn't want to hurt anyone and anything
Modern Wisdom
#915 - Yung Pueblo - The Art Of Unlocking Your Inner Peace
and is so simultaneously living in his power. Like he is a leader and he's just like, you feel his peace move with him and he doesn't get caught up in other people's sort of like energetic troubles. And it's awesome. So to me, I'm like, damn, I'm trying to be like this dude.
Modern Wisdom
#915 - Yung Pueblo - The Art Of Unlocking Your Inner Peace
Yeah, I think it's because you end up changing the play. I think normally when we have long-term relationships or friendships, we sort of fall into this rhythm of how we do things, the things we joke about. And when you start really applying the fact that identity is flexible, that your preferences can evolve, that you can change your emotional skill set and improve it,
Modern Wisdom
#915 - Yung Pueblo - The Art Of Unlocking Your Inner Peace
It's really hard to accept the fact that like the person who hurt you can't heal you and ultimately your perception and your reaction, all of this of which is happening inside your own mind, that's where the real trouble lies. You know, when you understand that your perception is coded heavily by the past and that it's influencing the way you're seeing things in the present moment.
Modern Wisdom
#915 - Yung Pueblo - The Art Of Unlocking Your Inner Peace
then that's going to, you know, it's going to directly impact the way that you behave and show up in interpersonal situations. Some people are taken aback and have noticed that, you know, like I remember when I stopped, when I first stopped doing cocaine, like back in like 2011, like I used to party all the time. And I remember this one guy who, he was stressed that I stopped.
Modern Wisdom
#915 - Yung Pueblo - The Art Of Unlocking Your Inner Peace
He was like, just so like some, it was calling to him. And I remember he like screamed at me and was like, dude, stop being a bitch. Like do, you know, just like do the line.
Modern Wisdom
#915 - Yung Pueblo - The Art Of Unlocking Your Inner Peace
Yeah. And I'm like, haven't seen this guy since. He's just on the other side of the world. I don't even know where. I wish him the best. And I can tell that it wasn't really about me. It scared him about himself. But I think when you start changing, yeah, some people are going to be absolutely repelled, but also new people are going to appear.
Modern Wisdom
#915 - Yung Pueblo - The Art Of Unlocking Your Inner Peace
I think it was at that same time that I ended up meeting one of my best friends, Anwar, who is just so dedicated to his personal growth and his fitness. And it was like, this is like the exact friend that I needed at that moment when I was trying to develop a healthier mind and a healthier body.
Modern Wisdom
#915 - Yung Pueblo - The Art Of Unlocking Your Inner Peace
And you're not actually seeing them clearly. You're just seeing them through this like heavy coated lens of old pain, old sort of inclinations, sort of defensive, like survivalist mode of living. Makes it really hard to engage with something genuinely. So I honestly, when people, you know, ask me, how do you become happy? Well, you have to embrace mental training. You have to train the mind.
Modern Wisdom
#915 - Yung Pueblo - The Art Of Unlocking Your Inner Peace
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Modern Wisdom
#915 - Yung Pueblo - The Art Of Unlocking Your Inner Peace
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Modern Wisdom
#915 - Yung Pueblo - The Art Of Unlocking Your Inner Peace
,,,,,, ,,,,,, ,,,,,,, ,,,,,,, ,,,,,,, ,,,,,, You know, that's real wisdom right there.
Modern Wisdom
#915 - Yung Pueblo - The Art Of Unlocking Your Inner Peace
Yeah. Yeah, you know, I've been noticing more and more lately that I try to lean in on like the three internal guides, which are your values, your intuition, and your nervous system. You know, so when I'm trying to make like big decisions, I have a set of values, right? Probably the most important one is like, I don't want to hurt myself and I don't want to hurt other people.
Modern Wisdom
#915 - Yung Pueblo - The Art Of Unlocking Your Inner Peace
So that's like a key framework that I try to exist inside of. And then the other end is like, is my intuition pushing me towards this direction? Does this feel correct? And the other side of that is with your nervous system is like, Am I already so overworked that I feel fried? Like, do I feel fried already? And if I add this, is it going to make things worse or better?
Modern Wisdom
#915 - Yung Pueblo - The Art Of Unlocking Your Inner Peace
And using those three guides, I think has been super helpful because Like I said before, thoughts are flimsy. I don't give them a lot of credence. They're not very, you know, stable. But I think with, you know, intuition hasn't really led me astray. It's really been, and it's not like, it's not an often thing. It's not like something that, you know, it's not telling you left or right.
Modern Wisdom
#915 - Yung Pueblo - The Art Of Unlocking Your Inner Peace
It's just, it will come slowly, especially with big chapters. Like it'll help open up new chapters in my life. And I'm glad I've been able to listen. Where does self-love come from, in your opinion? I think it just, it comes from embracing the fact that there's a lot inside of you.
Modern Wisdom
#915 - Yung Pueblo - The Art Of Unlocking Your Inner Peace
I think self-love is literally just turning that lens inward and you having deep, deep acceptance over your emotional history. You know, the good things that have happened, the tough things that have happened, you're sort of cognizant of it, you're aware of it, you're able to hold that history inside of yourself and you're simultaneously saying, okay, I've felt a lot of pain in the past.
Modern Wisdom
#915 - Yung Pueblo - The Art Of Unlocking Your Inner Peace
I'm very imperfect, but I'm going to choose to start developing qualities that are going to help me make better decisions in life. So it's a mixture of self-acceptance and embracing personal transformation. And I think it comes from what we were talking about earlier. People are just exhausted by being miserable.
Modern Wisdom
#915 - Yung Pueblo - The Art Of Unlocking Your Inner Peace
It felt like when I was growing up in the 90s, it didn't feel very emotionally hopeful, if I were to say. It was just like, You're kind of stuck. Whatever their situation is, is what you have. And I think part of the reason that this wellness movement has exploded is that people are like, I need to figure out how to be happier.
Modern Wisdom
#915 - Yung Pueblo - The Art Of Unlocking Your Inner Peace
And part of that has been interesting is figuring out, okay, I need to spend more attention on myself and try to cultivate myself. But that immediately, that personal inner work shines a light on what you can do better in your relationships.
Modern Wisdom
#915 - Yung Pueblo - The Art Of Unlocking Your Inner Peace
I think so, yeah. I mean, it's tricky too because you want to be able to accept yourself and part of self-love is that deep self-acceptance. But human beings also, we like a project. I think we, whether it's work or outside of work or personal or hobby, whatever it is, we like having things to do.
Modern Wisdom
#915 - Yung Pueblo - The Art Of Unlocking Your Inner Peace
And I think a lot of us, when we notice how much of life is relational and interpersonal, it shines a light on the fact that it's worth your time to put effort into like, improving whatever it is that's making your life harder because you're the maker of your own suffering by large. So understanding where am I creating points of difficulty for myself and what can I do to remove them?
Modern Wisdom
#915 - Yung Pueblo - The Art Of Unlocking Your Inner Peace
But you have to balance that out because you're simultaneously enough and you also have room to grow.
Modern Wisdom
#915 - Yung Pueblo - The Art Of Unlocking Your Inner Peace
it was initially translated as misery or suffering. And that sounds so intense. It sounds like- Super not dialed. Right. And I think that's the reality for some people, for sure. Their lives have been horribly difficult and if they were to give it a word, they would give it suffering. I think for a lot of us, it's on the other end of the spectrum where
Modern Wisdom
#915 - Yung Pueblo - The Art Of Unlocking Your Inner Peace
dukkha can also be translated into stress or dissatisfaction, where instead of saying life is suffering, it's like life is dissatisfactory or life is stressful. And that I can definitely relate to. There's definitely been parts of life that have been full of suffering, but I think the vast majority of the time, there is that sense of dissatisfaction.
Modern Wisdom
#915 - Yung Pueblo - The Art Of Unlocking Your Inner Peace
And like being aware of that has been so helpful because you can live in a life where, you know, you can have the type of life where a lot of things just don't work out for you and it's a constant struggle and you could recognize that as dissatisfactory. But then there's also the times when Things do go well for you and you do accrue victory after victory, but you're still incredibly dissatisfied.
Modern Wisdom
#915 - Yung Pueblo - The Art Of Unlocking Your Inner Peace
You're still looking to build another business. You're looking to do your next big thing and you're just appreciating nothing. So that's another type of suffering. And I think being aware of that helps build
Modern Wisdom
#915 - Yung Pueblo - The Art Of Unlocking Your Inner Peace
create the beginning of peace really because when you understand how the mind is geared towards dissatisfaction when you're able to relieve those attachments and you make the mind lighter what you end up getting are what's called the brahma viharas where it's just uh the divine abodes where you get so much more equanimity so much more loving kindness so much more compassion and um
Modern Wisdom
#915 - Yung Pueblo - The Art Of Unlocking Your Inner Peace
joy for the happiness of others which is like you know one of the key elements of friendship like to be able to you know have victories like one of our mutual friends like sahil bloom right um he was telling me how you know he had a great time talking with you and then i was just talking into talking him to with him today and we were celebrating that he was on the new york times bestseller again and you know we were like myself and our other friend sarah kubrick we were like
Modern Wisdom
#915 - Yung Pueblo - The Art Of Unlocking Your Inner Peace
both in the chat room and it was like, we felt so much joy for this guy. No jealousy, just pure joy. Like he worked so hard for this victory and we're celebrating him.
Modern Wisdom
#915 - Yung Pueblo - The Art Of Unlocking Your Inner Peace
And I think those, those things are hard to have without recognizing first that life has this dissatisfying quality, but if you put right effort into it, then you can relieve that tension so that you can have these different types of joy, different types of peace.
Modern Wisdom
#915 - Yung Pueblo - The Art Of Unlocking Your Inner Peace
Right. And I think, I mean, you're hitting on a key thing too here where letting go is not a one-time event. So once you kind of see yourself going into the loop, jumping back in, sort of like... giving power again to like the old traumatic moment of someone hurting you. Like, yeah, someone did hurt you, but who's the one picking it back up?
Modern Wisdom
#915 - Yung Pueblo - The Art Of Unlocking Your Inner Peace
Like, who's the one, like, you know, it's encoded in your perception and then you keep reacting to that emotional response to it over and over again. And that's what's making your mind heavy. And I think instead of just sort of existing passively in that, you have to kind of take your power back and tell yourself, okay, what is my mind clinging to?
Modern Wisdom
#915 - Yung Pueblo - The Art Of Unlocking Your Inner Peace
There's this element that's clear in all the examples that you gave where human beings are sensation-oriented, where we crave pleasant sensations. That's why we're trying to heighten what you were mentioning, to bring ourselves to the present moment.
Modern Wisdom
#915 - Yung Pueblo - The Art Of Unlocking Your Inner Peace
and because we're really craving and seeking after these moments of deep deep pleasure literally like the feeling of pleasure in the body that can manifest as a lot of different ways um and that's the thing that we get attached to is like we we crave the things that feel good literally at the level of sensations and we hate the things that don't feel good at the level of sensations um
Modern Wisdom
#915 - Yung Pueblo - The Art Of Unlocking Your Inner Peace
when the Buddha was meditating, what he realized is that his way to freedom was not only in the body, but was through the level of experiencing sensations and being able to be fully observant and to see them as they are. And part of that was bringing in the element of equanimity, the element of mental balance, where you're not reacting to something, you're just observing it as it is.
Modern Wisdom
#915 - Yung Pueblo - The Art Of Unlocking Your Inner Peace
And I think from the time deepest inside out, it's almost, you become a lot more successful when you can develop that sense of equanimity with all of your sensations. When you're able to just like feel, you know, you feel something painful and you're like, okay, that's painful, but you're not necessarily reacting to it. And the same thing with, you know, the things that are super pleasurable.
Modern Wisdom
#915 - Yung Pueblo - The Art Of Unlocking Your Inner Peace
And it's quite powerful, man. Like, you know, when I go away to the longer retreats, like we're essentially cultivating that level of equanimity with anything that we feel. And the mind gets so heightened.
Modern Wisdom
#915 - Yung Pueblo - The Art Of Unlocking Your Inner Peace
It gets so powerful over time, especially if you spend, you know, these longer 45-day retreats, you spend 15 days being aware of the breath and taking that ability to concentrate to a whole nother level. And then you take the last 30 days where you take that concentration and turn it away from the breath, but into the body.
Modern Wisdom
#915 - Yung Pueblo - The Art Of Unlocking Your Inner Peace
And if my mind is clinging in this moment, what does that mean? I'm no longer in the present. I'm like swimming around in my mind. And it's the same way where either dealing with trauma from the past or with dealing with attachments of the future. Like I want...
Modern Wisdom
#915 - Yung Pueblo - The Art Of Unlocking Your Inner Peace
And it turns the mind into like a cannon where you can feel the body at a level that's just so more oriented to ultimate truth because your hands and the rest of your body, it doesn't feel like it's solid. It feels like it's just changing vibrations that are moving at incredibly rapid speeds. And I think having those experiences has been really helpful in the moments where
Modern Wisdom
#915 - Yung Pueblo - The Art Of Unlocking Your Inner Peace
you're a little more sensitive in a positive way where you can just like feel, you know, the breeze that you were talking about. You can feel, you know, a friend having their hand on your back and everything just becomes shinier and more vibrant, but you're also a lot less attached to it because you understand that all of these things are highly impermanent.
Modern Wisdom
#915 - Yung Pueblo - The Art Of Unlocking Your Inner Peace
And there's some, you know, because a lot of the things I'm curious about your sort of meditation background, because there are different forms of Vipassana from the Theravada Buddhist background.
Modern Wisdom
#915 - Yung Pueblo - The Art Of Unlocking Your Inner Peace
And there's so many different styles of meditating, but some of the Vipassanas are a little more mind and thought oriented and others are more feeling oriented, where it's like you're just directly going into the body
Modern Wisdom
#915 - Yung Pueblo - The Art Of Unlocking Your Inner Peace
X and Y, you know, like all these things to happen in a very particular way and you're craving all of that, then the mind is just riddled with tension. But I think it's a difficult thing because sometimes people go to an extreme where they're like, oh, so what does that mean? I do nothing, want nothing. It's like, no, it's having desires and goals in a balanced manner.
Modern Wisdom
#915 - Yung Pueblo - The Art Of Unlocking Your Inner Peace
You know, it's funny. It's like, I think people do, do feel like that. I think meditation has a way to, you know, grow in the culture, but a lot of these traditions, you know, with chins and young with go Anka with, um, Joseph goals, you know, like all these different traditions that are out there with Jack Kornfield, um,
Modern Wisdom
#915 - Yung Pueblo - The Art Of Unlocking Your Inner Peace
a lot of it is really result-oriented and it's really based in like regular mundane life. You know, it's not like some like spiritual esoteric thing that's way out there. It's more so based on like what qualities you need to cultivate. Because honestly, really like when I go to retreats, it's just the mental gym.
Modern Wisdom
#915 - Yung Pueblo - The Art Of Unlocking Your Inner Peace
It's literally like you're going to the gym, you're building awareness, you're building equanimity, you're building compassion, and then your life changes after that. But I'm always like, I mean, that's one of the reasons why I was so...
Modern Wisdom
#915 - Yung Pueblo - The Art Of Unlocking Your Inner Peace
I felt at home when I got there into the meditation hall because there were people there who were like doctors and consultants and people who like, I don't know, people who had big jobs, small jobs, teachers, professors, students. It was all of these regular people and you're being given a teaching that isn't trying to convert you into Buddhism or anything like that.
Modern Wisdom
#915 - Yung Pueblo - The Art Of Unlocking Your Inner Peace
So I don't think of myself as a Buddhist, but I do... have a high respect for the buddhist teaching like i i personally believe the buddha understood the human mind better than anyone else in human history and um but you know i don't need to like convert into a religion to like make use of that teaching yeah
Modern Wisdom
#915 - Yung Pueblo - The Art Of Unlocking Your Inner Peace
They can come on Instagram, youngpueblo, Y-U-N-G underscore P-U-E-B-L-O. Also on Substack and my new book, How to Love Better, which is basically a bridge between personal growth and new harmony and relationships. You can find that in bookstores, on Amazon, wherever books are. But thank you, man. This has been a real, real joy. I feel like we can just keep wrapping on. Well, we will do.
Modern Wisdom
#915 - Yung Pueblo - The Art Of Unlocking Your Inner Peace
I'll see you very soon. I appreciate you, man. Awesome. Thank you.
Modern Wisdom
#915 - Yung Pueblo - The Art Of Unlocking Your Inner Peace
Like, can you move forward towards your goal in a strategic way without causing yourself tons of suffering in the process? And I think that's something that, you know, honestly, I've had to learn the hard way because I have goals, but I realize, you know, with each book launch, I'm realizing like, how am I handling this? Am I handling it a little better than before?
Modern Wisdom
#915 - Yung Pueblo - The Art Of Unlocking Your Inner Peace
And I can really measure that by the mixture of productivity and what the stress level is.
Modern Wisdom
#915 - Yung Pueblo - The Art Of Unlocking Your Inner Peace
Yeah. And honestly, another higher level of that, too, is like I'm actually noticing that I can be more productive with less stress if I just allow myself to do my best in each situation and then let it go. It is what it is.
Modern Wisdom
#915 - Yung Pueblo - The Art Of Unlocking Your Inner Peace
It's quite a challenge, too, because I think a lot of times when we get caught up in the social aspect of life where, you know, the things that you're trying to achieve, the circles that you want to be a part of, just, you know, the value that you want to bring to the world, I think it's really... And this happens to so many people that...
Modern Wisdom
#915 - Yung Pueblo - The Art Of Unlocking Your Inner Peace
their success, they can't even enjoy it because the mind is so untrained. The mind is so geared towards, okay, I accomplished this, what's next? What else can I do after that? And there's very little joy in that. So I think like one thing that I found pretty often was when I go away to meditation retreats, I'm going, and it's basically, I'm taking myself to a mental gym.
Modern Wisdom
#915 - Yung Pueblo - The Art Of Unlocking Your Inner Peace
I'm specifically focusing on cultivating three qualities, cultivating awareness, cultivating non-reaction, and cultivating compassion for myself and others. And those three qualities, over time, yes, you can become an extraordinarily elite meditator, can really walk this path that leads to the end of suffering, but in the process, what it really does is it just makes life brighter, shinier.
Modern Wisdom
#915 - Yung Pueblo - The Art Of Unlocking Your Inner Peace
It improves your decision-making. It makes you way more productive with way less tension. And I think to me, it's like, it's the best investment I've ever made. You know, it's like better than investing in the S&P 500 for 20, 30 years. So to me, when people ask me, they're like, why do you meditate daily? It's, you know, you're so busy. It takes up so much time.
Modern Wisdom
#915 - Yung Pueblo - The Art Of Unlocking Your Inner Peace
And I'm like, because it improves every facet of my life. And it makes the moments of victory so much sweeter. Like the moments that I get to spend with my parents, with my wife, with friends, You know, when I am able to accomplish something, it's like I can be with it and engage with so much more presence. And then when it's done, it's done and I'm okay.
Modern Wisdom
#915 - Yung Pueblo - The Art Of Unlocking Your Inner Peace
And I can move forward, but in a way where I didn't miss the previous moment, if that makes sense.
Modern Wisdom
#915 - Yung Pueblo - The Art Of Unlocking Your Inner Peace
Yeah. Thank you. I mean, you broke it down really beautifully and it's like, hopefully this sentence builds a little bit of self-awareness, right? Because we're highly imperfect and we're bound to make mistakes.
Modern Wisdom
#915 - Yung Pueblo - The Art Of Unlocking Your Inner Peace
That's one of the saddest moments in life, too, because I've gone through the same thing, where I've had beautiful moments. People or friends are coming together to celebrate my birthday, and before I started meditating, you know, I'd look around all these people wanting to share and joy. And my mind is only thinking about the one person who's missing or, you know, why is X, Y, and Z not here?
Modern Wisdom
#915 - Yung Pueblo - The Art Of Unlocking Your Inner Peace
And it's like, dude, you missed it. You missed it. You missed literally the miracle of even having people who want to come up and show up for you. And To me, honestly, that was exhausting. And it was simultaneously sad, but also empowering. When I did start meditating, I did my first silent tender retreat in July of 2012.
Modern Wisdom
#915 - Yung Pueblo - The Art Of Unlocking Your Inner Peace
And it hit me right off the bat how superficial all of my relationships were, like how superficial my relationship was with my wife, with my parents, with my friends. And I was like, but I noticed off the bat, I'm like, oh, it's because I'm highly disconnected from myself. I've spent years running away from my emotions.
Modern Wisdom
#915 - Yung Pueblo - The Art Of Unlocking Your Inner Peace
And as soon as I saw my emotions, I was like, oh my gosh, I'm terribly disconnected.
Modern Wisdom
#915 - Yung Pueblo - The Art Of Unlocking Your Inner Peace
But the reality is that in the process of accepting how imperfect you are, it's almost like you take your power back and you're like, okay, well, I know what I'm good at and I know what I'm not good at. So let me try to build some new, you know, some new skills along the way.
Something You Should Know
Why Your Memory is Perfectly Imperfect & How to Love Better
We've been so impacted by romantic comedies and what we see on television, and it just makes love look so easy. But the reality of love, especially when you talk to people who've been married for 20, 30, 40 years, it's like...
Something You Should Know
Why Your Memory is Perfectly Imperfect & How to Love Better
of course there there are consistent disagreements similar fights will pop up over and over again but they've learned they've developed their own sort of systems their own culture between the two of them to be able to handle that so that there's some productiveness coming out of these arguments so what you just said i mean i think if you were to ask people
Something You Should Know
Why Your Memory is Perfectly Imperfect & How to Love Better
Yeah, the mind loves to cling and it will sort of slip into attachment very unconsciously. And I think it's hard. I wish I can give people an easy answer that like, oh, these are the five steps of letting go. And for any mind on the earth, this is what you can follow and do. But that's just not realistic.
Something You Should Know
Why Your Memory is Perfectly Imperfect & How to Love Better
I think one of the special things that we don't quite fully accept and understand about this historical moment is that There are so many different modalities that people are encountering and using and utilizing to really improve their lives. And through different therapy methods, you can learn how to let go. Through different forms of meditation, you can learn how to let go.
Something You Should Know
Why Your Memory is Perfectly Imperfect & How to Love Better
Even through self-reflection and simple acceptance of the past and letting the past be what it is. But I think we live in a special time where people know that they should let go They know that the idea of letting go would be beneficial in their lives. And then they find their own route to get to that point.
Something You Should Know
Why Your Memory is Perfectly Imperfect & How to Love Better
Even that, right, we were talking about that sort of like evolutionary tendency and it feels almost animalistic when you are, you know, you've fallen into an argument and all of a sudden you feel like you're in a battle and the only option is to gain dominance, to like, you know, have your viewpoint be the dominant one and for the other person to yield.
Something You Should Know
Why Your Memory is Perfectly Imperfect & How to Love Better
And what my wife and I learned over trial and error and over years of making these mistakes is that when we're both trying to win, we actually both lose. We leave the argument dissatisfied and sure, there are times when people have to apologize, but
Something You Should Know
Why Your Memory is Perfectly Imperfect & How to Love Better
there's still a great value in switching the framework from trying to win to trying to understand each other and taking literally taking a moment to try to understand where she's coming from, understands like, you know, how did the series of events move for her and get to this point and how, and you know, why is she feeling like this in this moment?
Something You Should Know
Why Your Memory is Perfectly Imperfect & How to Love Better
And then simultaneously her giving me that opportunity to share and show that you know, how I got to this point.
Something You Should Know
Why Your Memory is Perfectly Imperfect & How to Love Better
And there's this magic that happens when you really try to understand each other, because when you can really see a person and where they're coming from, yes, there may still be a need for accountability, for apologies, but the attention fizzles out and evaporates much more easily when you can see each other clearly.
Something You Should Know
Why Your Memory is Perfectly Imperfect & How to Love Better
You know, it happened over weeks and months. A lot of the times what would happen is that our minds, you know, we'd wake up in the morning and we weren't really aware of how we felt. And then whatever tension we were feeling in the mind would try to make itself into more tension. And they would try to find reasons to figure out how is this tension in my mind her fault and vice versa.
Something You Should Know
Why Your Memory is Perfectly Imperfect & How to Love Better
And it was a very interesting dynamic where we found that in both our minds, we would try to jump through hoops to be able to blame each other. And sometimes it was legitimate, but a lot of the times it wasn't. And what we found to counteract that was, okay, how about when we wake up in the morning, let's just let each other immediately know how we feel.
Something You Should Know
Why Your Memory is Perfectly Imperfect & How to Love Better
Like, oh, I feel good today, or I'm feeling a little sick, or I'm feeling tired, or what happened at work the previous day is still nagging me. Just having a little bit more of information. Now that I know if she's feeling down, to me, it's like, oh, great.
Something You Should Know
Why Your Memory is Perfectly Imperfect & How to Love Better
Now I know that I have to support her a little better through the day, move around her a little more gently, and just give her her space if that's what she needs. And I think that it's been really helpful.
Something You Should Know
Why Your Memory is Perfectly Imperfect & How to Love Better
Yeah, Mike, and it's devastatingly simple, right? It's like so, so simple, but we forget that we can just speak it. And there's so much power in, you know, if I'm the one that's feeling down that day, or I feel a lot of anxiety moving through me or sadness or, you know, whatever emotion it could be. But in the act of naming it, I'm helping myself and I'm helping her.
Something You Should Know
Why Your Memory is Perfectly Imperfect & How to Love Better
Like I'm becoming fully aware. Okay, you're accepting how you feel and you're aware of it. So be mindful of what's happening in your mind. What stories is your mind creating to make that feeling worse? And simultaneously, she has the information she needs for the both of us to be on good footing with each other.
Something You Should Know
Why Your Memory is Perfectly Imperfect & How to Love Better
yeah so impermanence what i really mean is just the fundamental law of change right like in this universe that we live in everything is constantly changing at the atomic level the biological level the cosmological level everything is in motion it's it's changing and when you start really embracing that you see that
Something You Should Know
Why Your Memory is Perfectly Imperfect & How to Love Better
the difficult moments in life, like they're going to change at some point that no storm in the history of the universe has lasted forever. These storms have a beginning and they have an end. So that means the tough times in your life, the dark moments in your life, they'll have a beginning and an end, which when you really embrace that truth, it makes it a little easier to move through the storm.
Something You Should Know
Why Your Memory is Perfectly Imperfect & How to Love Better
all good moments also have a beginning and an end and what that does instead of scaring you and making you feel fearful that everything good that you like will go away it actually should inspire you to be more present because you know the moments that i have with my parents the moments that i have with friends like i don't those moments are not infinite so if i'm with them let me be very aware and present with them so i can really enjoy that connection and
Something You Should Know
Why Your Memory is Perfectly Imperfect & How to Love Better
I think in terms of a daily example, my wife is also like, we're a team together. So a lot of life has just become problem solving together. So if we have some issue with the car or something happens, and instead of just reacting with anger, it's like, okay, let's slow down a second and let's see. Let's calmly figure out what we need to do to move this situation forward.
Something You Should Know
Why Your Memory is Perfectly Imperfect & How to Love Better
Who do we need to call and find some solution where we would have done that anyways, but instead of rolling in anger and rolling in tension, we solve it with a little more peace.
Something You Should Know
Why Your Memory is Perfectly Imperfect & How to Love Better
I think what we try to do is we check in with... How important is it to you? It could be something minimal where it's like, do you want to watch this movie? Do you want to watch that movie? And it just depends on who wants it more and who cares about it more. And usually we let that person take the lead.
Something You Should Know
Why Your Memory is Perfectly Imperfect & How to Love Better
And if it's something really oppositional, if it's like a big work decision or something like that, I think we try to find a middle ground that actually feels good to the both of us. And if there's something that she totally disagrees with, then I trust her wisdom. And I will really take into account and sort of examine in myself, am I missing something here?
Something You Should Know
Why Your Memory is Perfectly Imperfect & How to Love Better
And we'll have longer conversations about it. But normally, if it's something small, we let whoever cares about it more take the lead. And if it's something big, we don't mind slowing down before we make a final decision.
Something You Should Know
Why Your Memory is Perfectly Imperfect & How to Love Better
I think it's easy. It's like, I check in within myself if it's, you know, if she really wants to watch Pitch Perfect, like it's not my favorite movie, but if that's what, if she really feels like she wants to enjoy it, then, It's fine with me. I think we both just sort of check in, like, how is my sort of inner resilience today? And I know that this will give my partner great joy.
Something You Should Know
Why Your Memory is Perfectly Imperfect & How to Love Better
And then, you know, see if you can actually just support them and giving them that hour and a half of joy that they want.
Something You Should Know
Why Your Memory is Perfectly Imperfect & How to Love Better
Yeah, the biggest question I get is, should I break up with my boyfriend? And my answer is, I don't know. We just met. I have no idea. Yeah, I think a lot of these things are, you know, people like we live in a culture where so much of it is designed to make life easier for things to be faster. Like we live in the culture of Uber and DoorDash, right? Like everything is just super fast and easy.
Something You Should Know
Why Your Memory is Perfectly Imperfect & How to Love Better
But relationships are not like that. Personal growth is not like that. These are things that are gradual. These are long journeys. So I try to remind people that, yeah, You have to throw away the attachment to perfection because even the most epic, beautiful relationship that you could have is going to have down moments. It's going to have challenges.
Something You Should Know
Why Your Memory is Perfectly Imperfect & How to Love Better
There are going to be moments where it's very trying and you have to see if it's right for you to continue. And I just think the most beautiful things of life, like if you want to build inner peace, if you want to build harmony, harmony in your relationship, if you want to build better connection with friends, these are all things that are gradual. They take time.
Something You Should Know
Why Your Memory is Perfectly Imperfect & How to Love Better
It's very consistent. And the former question that I used to get, you know, back in like, uh, Probably from 2017 to 2020, it was like, how do I let go? Which I'm glad we talked about. But lately, I think in the past four years, that's been the number one question is like, my boyfriend does X, Y, and Z, and I'll get a big paragraph about it in the DMs. And I have no idea. I don't know.
Something You Should Know
Why Your Memory is Perfectly Imperfect & How to Love Better
And if anything, I'm only seeing one side of the story. I have no idea.
Something You Should Know
Why Your Memory is Perfectly Imperfect & How to Love Better
Yeah, we've never met. Like, yeah, that's really funny. But I think I'm always trying to, you know, My hope is to inspire people to take back their power. So ultimately, I've written articles about it and pieces about it, but you have to get comfortable with leading yourself.
Something You Should Know
Why Your Memory is Perfectly Imperfect & How to Love Better
You have to get comfortable with checking in with your intuition, checking in with your values, checking in with how you feel next to a person. Do I feel calm around them? Do I feel safe around them? And then make the answer for yourself.
Something You Should Know
Why Your Memory is Perfectly Imperfect & How to Love Better
yeah yeah and i think what i've learned that's really key in letting go is simply acceptance it's you know oftentimes we'll have a very tumultuous relationship with the past especially if someone made some you know egregious error or hurt us in some way but
Something You Should Know
Why Your Memory is Perfectly Imperfect & How to Love Better
when we can really fully just accept what happened you know and you'll notice this whether you're you know working with a therapist or you know working with um in a meditation tradition or something but Peace becomes available to you after you accept what is. And there may still be more to do, but this acceptance aspect is just fundamental in being able to open up to a new chapter.
Something You Should Know
Why Your Memory is Perfectly Imperfect & How to Love Better
Yeah, it's not necessarily forever more intellectually ruminating on it. That's not quite as helpful. It's more so like a feeling tone where you... when the memory comes up, you've realized that you have gained enough. You're no longer fighting it. Whether you like it or not, you're just like, okay, this was part of my history. This was part of what helped form me, but life is still okay.
Something You Should Know
Why Your Memory is Perfectly Imperfect & How to Love Better
I'm still able to move forward. I'm still able to have good relationships. There's so much to be grateful for. And
Something You Should Know
Why Your Memory is Perfectly Imperfect & How to Love Better
and it hasn't broken me it hasn't stopped me so i think developing a a good relationship with um what happened in the past where it's not like accepting as in like you're becoming passive but it's just like this is something immovable immovable in my history and it's not going to stop me from thriving
Something You Should Know
Why Your Memory is Perfectly Imperfect & How to Love Better
Yeah, thank you so much. This was really fun.
Something You Should Know
Why Your Memory is Perfectly Imperfect & How to Love Better
The difficult moments in life, they're going to change at some point. No storm in the history of the universe has lasted forever. So that means the tough times in your life, the dark moments in your life, they'll have a beginning and an end, which when you really embrace that truth, it makes it a little easier to move through the storm.