Engineer Your Body To Improve Your Mind - Aaron Alexander

Aaron Alexander 0:00 ... 100% of the time, you are under a state of construction, and all your body knows is environmental stimuli. And so you have this amazing opportunity to, through exposure therapy, you can start to make yourself be stronger or weaker. So if you don't expose your body to enough exposure in the form of heat, in the form of cold, in the form of some type of hermetic stressor, then the body will start to atrophy, because it's inherently incredibly lazy.

Chris Williamson 0:27 (wind blowing) Th- th- there won't be a single shot where I can put my hand in all of these, will there? (hands clapping)

Aaron Alexander 0:33 No, not really. I mean, I guess there's this kind of (overlapping) . Oh, d- d- do you need to see it? I thought it was just an audio thing.

Chris Williamson 0:39 Well, no, because what you're trying to do is you're syncing-

Aaron Alexander 0:41 So you're seeing a blip.

Chris Williamson 0:41 You're syncing the audio with the video.

Aaron Alexander 0:44 You can see it.

Chris Williamson 0:44 You can watch it.

Aaron Alexander 0:46 Oh. I thought it was just an audio blip, but yeah, you're right. God dang it.

Chris Williamson 0:51 What can I say, man?

Aaron Alexander 0:52 I'm not a videographer.

Chris Williamson 0:53 No, no, but that's-

Aaron Alexander 0:54 I just like clapping.

Chris Williamson 0:56 Y- just here to clap.

Aaron Alexander 0:56 Maybe we both clap. (hands clapping)

Chris Williamson 0:58 Yes.

Aaron Alexander 0:58 Boom!

Chris Williamson 0:58 Fucking-

Aaron Alexander 0:59 All angles!

Chris Williamson 1:00 Podcast time.

Aaron Alexander 1:00 We're in!

Chris Williamson 1:01 Podcast time.

Aaron Alexander 1:02 Yeah, we're locked in.

Chris Williamson 1:03 Aaron Alexander, welcome to the show.

Aaron Alexander 1:05 Christopher, thank you for making this happen. It's been a got-dang pleasure getting to know you over the last few weeks.

Chris Williamson 1:10 So good, man.

Aaron Alexander 1:11 Yeah?

Chris Williamson 1:12 Yeah. The bromance has happened quickly.

Aaron Alexander 1:14 Bromance is real.

Chris Williamson 1:15 It's got serious-

Aaron Alexander 1:16 Yep.

Chris Williamson 1:16 ... very fast.

Aaron Alexander 1:17 Yep. We're moving quick.

Chris Williamson 1:18 How would you describe your

Chris Williamson 1:21 approach to fitness? I've been very interested since I've been out here, we've trained a fair bit. We've done some sessions barefooted in, on it, doing sprint training, and contralateral movements, and all manner of different things that, as someone that's spent a lot of time training, I've seen online, but I'm n- not really been exposed to very much. And I'm quite interested to work out how you arrive at whatever view of health and fitness it is that you have.

Aaron Alexander 1:47 Yeah. Um, so my... First, thanks for doing this. I appreciate it. Uh, my background mostly was in manual therapy. Like, my main field of, of specialty is working with people from hands-on body work. Uh, and s- before that, it was, it was training. Uh, but my main interest really has been helping people come into alignment with their bodies, uh, so that we can get them to a point that when they move through their lives, uh, as they are breathing, as they're just living their lives, they can be almost self-organizing into a greater place of alignment, of balance, of homeostasis, just through their existence. And that sounds a little bit maybe like meta and out there, um, so specifically what that means is looking at what are the, the variables, the environmental conditions that are forming the body to fit into the positions that might create discomfort or dis-ease. And so my approach to fitness, um, isn't so much about what we're doing in a gym, it's more what we're doing for all the times that we're not in the gym, and I consider the, the gym to be... For me, the gym's like, uh, my buddy Kelly Starrett, who he did the, the forward for my, my book coming up, um, he calls it, like, classical ballet. You know, so when you're in the gym, you're working on these classical forms to bring your body into balance enough that you can go out and do modern dance, you know, modern dances the rest of your life. And so what I'm really interested with, with fitness predominantly is, uh, how do you start to integrate the concepts that you'd learn in a gym, in a yoga studio, um, in a martial arts studio, into the way that you show up in business, in, you know, when you're out on a date with somebody, when you're s- at your house watching Netflix? All of that is fitness, and your body doesn't know the difference between, "I'm in a yoga studio," or, "I'm just, you know, at my, my house in my underpants."

Chris Williamson 3:53 What would you say to someone that says, "Fitness and my training in the gym has nothing to do with how I show up in business. Fitness is for fitness, and movement is for movement. Why does it matter about how I train in the gym relates to how I show up for a date?"

Aaron Alexander 4:06 Yeah. (laughs) So, it's like the, the idea of, you know, being, uh, taking 20 years to be an overnight success. You know, we're cultivating, we're, we're grooving paths, you know, neuro- neuro- neurological paths, muscular paths, neuromuscular paths every day, throughout every moment, you know, so your body doesn't know an off and on. Right now, as we're sitting in this position, you are generating electrical stimuli in around your hips and any place that your body's coming in contact with the, with the chair. You know, so the, the term for that is mechanotransduction. You're squishing cells. You might be shearing cells. You might be twisting cells, and then there's gonna be a chemical response, a chemical translation to that. And within that, that pushing that's happening against your hips, there's electrical charge around that space. It's called piezoelectricity. That's gonna be sending a signal to the cells that would be building connective tissue, or bone tissue, or muscle tissue, or fascia. And what you're sending within these signals, you're, you're like the engineer of your body. You're saying, "Okay, we need to beef up in this space around maybe," you know, maybe you have bunions in your feet, so you actually can see like a callusing of specific tissue. That's just wear and tear in that specific range of motion. So you're sending that electricity based off of the way that you live your daily life, and then, you know, the fibroblasts and the fibroclasts, these little cells that either add tissue or take tissue away, they respond accordingly. Uh, and you are structuring yourself just by sitting in a chair. And so when you take that mindset of like, "Holy crap, like right now, I'm literally under a state of construction." When you get up off of this chair, you're, you're tuned up to perform in the shape that you've been practicing most.You know, so a thing that you might have heard is practice doesn't make perfect, practice- practice makes permanent. So throughout the day, you're continually practicing how to engage or inhabit your physical body. And then when it does come time to show up in a meaningful way, you got to pick up a, you know, a heavy trailer, you know, or something, you know, you got to suddenly sprint across a parking lot or whatever it may be, your body is tuned up and cued up to be able to perform because you spent the last day, week, month, year in more of like a kind of like a ready position. And then you can be too ready, you know, where you're too cued up. You're in like sympathetic overdrive, and that's gonna be too much. If you're adding too much stiffness into the system, then the system can't, uh, rest and digest and heal and repair, you know? So this isn't... What I'm saying doesn't mean that you always have to have like a stick up your ass and have like axial extension like, "Your spine's back!" You know, you look perfectly enlightened in samadhi and spiritual and strong and stable. Uh, it's being able to relax, but being able to relax into functionality. The way that we can relax into functionality, uh, you know, there's specific things that we can talk about.

Chris Williamson 7:15 What would you say, looking at the

Chris Williamson 7:17 current trends in fitness and training, what would you say are the main areas that people are missing out on? Or what are the main problems that you're seeing with most people's training programs?

Aaron Alexander 7:28 Well, I mean, there's a lot of things. It depen- it really depends on what gym you're in, you know? So if you go to a most traditional, you know, like a 24-hour fitness type space, um, there's a lot of disintegration or myopic focus on specific muscles without much awareness to integrating the whole, putting the whole body together to work as- as- as one- one integrated body. Um, so when you're excessively focused on myopically breaking down individual, like a muscle by muscle approach, you just can't do it. Like you can't organize 640 odd muscles, depends on the specific individual, you know, 360 joints, it's just... It's too much chaos. And so for you to be able to go in and really think like, you know, joint by joint, muscle by muscle, "I'm gonna be engaging these and then I'm gonna... It's just gonna magically all come together," um, that can be confusing for the body, you know? So-

Chris Williamson 8:28 What do you mean by confusing?

Aaron Alexander 8:29 ... it can be confusing for the body in the sense that if you don't train athleticism, you won't just self-organize and be athletic.

Chris Williamson 8:39 Okay, so breaking the component parts of a musculature apart-

Aaron Alexander 8:44 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 8:45 ... and training biceps and triceps and overhead extensions and chest press-

Aaron Alexander 8:49 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 8:49 ... blah, blah.

Aaron Alexander 8:49 Yeah. So if you're excessively aesthetically focused, it's completely fine. There's no mor- no moralistic judgment. Um, Jujimufu is a good example of this, where he has done a-a-a pretty good job of integrating, um, athleticism and calisthenics and gymnastics and powerlifting and bodybuilding, you know? So he's a bit of an oddity in his ability to- to juggle a lot of variables, and it's really beautiful to watch.

Chris Williamson 9:18 He calls himself a hybrid athlete, right?

Aaron Alexander 9:20 He is.

Chris Williamson 9:21 That's what he refers to himself as.

Aaron Alexander 9:21 Yeah, that's what- that's what he is.

Chris Williamson 9:23 A polyathlete, I can't remember.

Aaron Alexander 9:24 Yeah, you know? And then within- within that, I would say, you know, athletics goes beyond just, you know, musculoskeletal integration, but also, um, you know, how's your response to, uh, cold temperatures? How's your response to heat?

Chris Williamson 9:42 Why is that part of fitness? Why would someone who says, "I- I do fitness, I've got a fitness plan." "Do you do hot and cold exposure?" "No, I don't." "Okay." What- what would you say to someone who says that?

Aaron Alexander 9:51 The same way that your body has a physiological adaptation, you know, a hermetic stress. We were talking on my podcast before this about hermetic stressors in our lives. The same way that you'd have that to develop, um, muscle cells to be able to be stronger in a specific position as a product of going through, you know, a bicep curl or deadlift or whatever you're doing. Uh, your body has similar physiologic response to being exposed to cold temperatures. Has a similar physio- physiological response to being exposed to heat, has a similar physiological response to being exposed to altitude, you know? And so your body is continually changing. And this is the thing that we- that we started off with. 100% of the time you are under a state of construction and all your body knows is environmental stimuli. You know, so you have this amazing opportunity to, through exposure therapy, uh, it just... You can start to make yourself be stronger or weaker, you know? So if you don't expose your body to enough exposure, um, in the form of heat, in the form of cold, in the form of heat, in the form of some type of hermetic stressor, uh, then the body will start to atrophy because it's inherently incredibly lazy, and that laziness, it's- it's- it's like one of the key features in our capacities to survive.

Chris Williamson 11:09 What would you say... Let's talk about some physical practices-

Aaron Alexander 11:13 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 11:13 ... for a bit.

Aaron Alexander 11:14 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 11:14 What are some of the physical practices that

Chris Williamson 11:17 you think... I know that you're big into groundedness and getting hips below knees. That's one of them.

Aaron Alexander 11:21 Yeah, it's a thing.

Chris Williamson 11:22 What about that and some of the other physical practices that you think people should just play around with a little bit more when they're in the gym? The sense of play itself is also another part of what I've noticed in the sessions I've done with you,-

Aaron Alexander 11:33 It's huge. Yeah.

Chris Williamson 11:33 ... uh, is- is a rarity. So let's talk about that.

Aaron Alexander 11:36 Yeah. So we... All human beings are riding on millennia of spending time with our hips below our knees, spending time moving along, you know, not necessarily like crawling along the ground. All that's a part of your- your developmental patterns and depending upon your belief system, evolution, that was probably a thing as well, and you're probably swinging through trees if you believe in evolution as well, you're an arboreal creature. And, uh, you know, and then that transitioned to being a bipedal mammal cruising along the land. Um, you know, but that's... A lot of that's kind of-It could change depending upon, you know, what, what you think, so it's, it's all hypothetical, like, where exactly where we came from. Um, but getting down on the ground, if you just look at, like, present day, thoughts on evolution aside, look at any child. The way that a child navigates their own physiology and their own construction of themselves is they will squat, they will sit, you know, in, like, kind of, like, a cross-legged position, maybe a straddle position. Uh, maybe at some point they'll start to kneel. Uh, and so they're spending a lot of time in that low position, and that's what you see as well looking at hunter-gatherer tribes. Specifically, the, the Hadza people in Northern Tanzania is where there's been research about this, uh, from University of Southern California, specifically is where this came out of. Uh, researchers went out there and measured the amount of time that Hadza people were spending in resting positions, because the big idea is like, you know, we're, like, this culture of sedentarism, it's killing us, it's causing all of our issues and metabolic disease and depression. Uh, but if you look at hunter-gatherer tribes, Hadza specifically, uh, what you'll see is they spend about 9.82 hours, was the averages th- that they gathered, in resting positions. So right now, we're in a resting position. The difference is we're up on chairs, you know, so we're forming our body into a certain way in this position. Hunter-gatherer tribes, Hadza specifically, would be in kneeling positions for a good chunk of the day. They'll be in squatting positions for a good chunk of the day. They'll be in, you know, essentially all the same positions you see your, your child in. And when you're in those positions, uh, one, it's just, it's helpful with circulating blood, circulating lymph, you know, like, ankles are unattractive, but they're also incredibly unhealthy. It's an indication, it's like, "Oh, we're in trouble." You know? And so what that does outside of just being, you know, making you feel energetically lighter, you know, and, and more attractive 'cause you don't have, like, big, thick ankles, um, you're setting yourself up to stay athletic all the way through your life. You know, so when you start to limit range of motion in the ankles, limit range of motion in the hips, um, that affects your gait pattern, the way that you walk, the way that you move throughout the world. Um, also, uh, elderly needing assisted living, the number one leading reason for that is they've, you know, they fall and they can't get up.

Chris Williamson 14:36 Falls, yeah.

Aaron Alexander 14:36 So fall risk is this massive thing that's completely specific to Westernized culture, abandoning the ground. It's, like, unbelievable when you think about it. Like, if you really give that a moment of the amount of sovereignty that's been lost and the amount of, you know, time and money and energy and worry, um, and it's (laughs) like all of that is wrapped in, i- is wrapped up in us literally making an, an unconscious, um, move away from where we came from, which is just naturally resting in those positions throughout the day.

Chris Williamson 15:18 So what would be the prescription? Let's say that someone listens and they go, "Okay, yeah, that, that sounds good."

Aaron Alexander 15:23 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 15:23 "I want, I want to get rid of my ankles. I don't want to be-"

Aaron Alexander 15:25 Sure. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 15:26 "... falling and, falling and hurting myself when I'm 70 years old."

Aaron Alexander 15:28 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 15:29 What's a good way that someone can integrate these practices into their day?

Aaron Alexander 15:32 So just changing your environment, you know. So have you done one with Bruce Lipton?

Chris Williamson 15:36 No.

Aaron Alexander 15:37 Okay. I think we've talked about him. I did a podcast with Bruce Lipton a year and a half ago or so. And what, he's, you know, big, has been massive in championing the concept of, of epigenetics, you know, and how our environment changes our genetic outcome. And one of the things that he mentioned to me was, you know, when he was studying cells in, in Petri dishes, if he wanted to change something about the cell, he wouldn't do anything specifically to the cell itself. It would be changing the culture that the cell exists in. You know, so within your own body, if you're just focusing intrinsically on what's happening inside the body itself, that's a great start. It might get you somewhere, but until you actually change the environment that's forming the body and, and the mind and, you know, your s- your perception of self and all that to fi- to fit that mold, you're just gonna keep falling back into the same position. You know, so you can do all the, the calf raises or all the, you know, the couch stretches or all the different kind of therapeutic rehab, prehab exercises you want, but what got you into that position in the first place, you know? And so the first place that I would start is saying like, okay, like just create a space in your home. It could be in front of the couch, you know, get yourself, like, a comfortable rug so it's inviting to get down to. Um, you could put, like, self-care tools in your house, have, like, a foam roller lying around, or get one of those, like, percussor guns or, you know, a softball to kind of do some myofascial release stuff on. Get some Moroccan poofs, you know, or, like, floor cushions. So suddenly, the culture that your cell is inhabiting itself within, uh, is shifted to invite the cell to create change in itself just with these, like, really basic visual cues. You see, you walk into a space with a, a pull-up bar hanging through some doorway, just naturally-

Chris Williamson 17:32 Everyone does pull-ups.

Aaron Alexander 17:32 ... and innately, you will have the urge to let your arms, like, suddenly levitate over your head.

Chris Williamson 17:38 Yep.

Aaron Alexander 17:39 You're like, "Oh, I'm, I'm on the bar." (laughs) Like, "W- how did that ha-" It's like, it's magic. The bar is there, hands on the bar.

Chris Williamson 17:47 Yeah.

Aaron Alexander 17:47 I didn't have to give you any reps or sets or tell you, you got... And that's the element of, of, of play, you know? So if we can start to make the, the movement landscape, you know, the, the environment that we inhabit ourselves in, suddenly it's like we become moved by the environment, right? So when you walk outside, if it's kind of cold-... and you say, "You know what? I'm gonna, I'm gonna do a little, a little cold thermogenesis here. I'm not gonna put, like, all of the layers on." You know, you go out there and you get moved by the cold. Suddenly, you know, you have this horribilation and your hair kind of sticks up and your body activates its own insulation system by causing your hair to raise up. It's like a d- it's like a, it's like a, a down sleeping bag on top of your body. Like, whoa! It's pretty cool that we have that capacity. We just need to place ourselves into the environmental conditions in order for our body to show up. But inherently, your body wants to show up. It's just, we have done such a tremendous job at outsourcing our body's necessity to show up to, you know, to machine or to Amazon. Nothing wrong with that. It's actually brilliant. It's like, it's, it's freaking amazing that (laughs) that the human mind has been able to outsource almost everything, to the point that you can lay on a couch, press buttons on your, your phone-

Chris Williamson 19:10 And not die.

Aaron Alexander 19:10 ... and have food delivered to your face.

Chris Williamson 19:12 (laughs)

Aaron Alexander 19:12 Have sex delivered to your face. (laughs) Like, it's pretty freaking impressive. Like, I'm not mad at it. You know, I'm, I'm really just, like, in awe, like, like, whoa! Starting from, like, whacking rocks together to create fire, you know, however-

Chris Williamson 19:27 To sex in the fa- sex in the face.

Aaron Alexander 19:28 ... to sex in the face off of your blue-lit screen, like-

Chris Williamson 19:32 Good effort.

Aaron Alexander 19:33 Good effort. And, um, those parts that, uh, we've outsourced, not only is it work, but, but work is therapeutic. You know, and so we can experience that or, or, or witness that in the physical body, in your biology, um, but you can also experience that just in your day-to-day life. In, in, in my podcast before this, we were talking about purpose, you know, and like, the, the pressure to, to have purpose. You know, and when a person feels like they are living a, a, an hour on purpose or a day on purpose, or a life on purpose, it's gratifying, you know? And usually what that is, it's like, you did work.

Chris Williamson 20:12 Yeah.

Aaron Alexander 20:12 (laughs) You know?

Chris Williamson 20:13 But that's it.

Aaron Alexander 20:13 You, you were here and you moved yourself to there and you're like, "Ah, I feel better."

Chris Williamson 20:18 I did a thing, yeah.

Aaron Alexander 20:19 I did a thing.

Chris Williamson 20:19 Yeah. I, um, this is

Chris Williamson 20:21 something increasingly that I've realized is an important, an important, uh, uh, consideration when doing any sort of practice. And especially since we've been out here, me and you have spent a lot of time at Kuya, which is a hot and cold exposure place next door.

Aaron Alexander 20:34 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 20:34 Uh, but even training as well, that if you do a training session or any sort of physical practice, the best judge of whether or not it was right for you is whether you feel good afterward or not.

Aaron Alexander 20:45 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 20:46 Do I feel good-

Aaron Alexander 20:47 Right.

Chris Williamson 20:48 ... after I've completed this?

Aaron Alexander 20:49 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 20:49 Because if I don't, then what, what, why, why am I doing it? We go out of next door having done three rounds of, what, 20 minutes hot, three minutes cold-ish, something like that on average.

Aaron Alexander 21:00 Yeah, yeah.

Chris Williamson 21:01 And I feel on top of the world. Like, I feel phenomenal. Like, the, the best post-sex glow without having to find someone else to do it with.

Aaron Alexander 21:09 Isn't that great?

Chris Williamson 21:10 Outstanding.

Aaron Alexander 21:11 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 21:12 Like, and that's just ... Like, you haven't, you haven't put anything in your body, haven't taken anything. This is completely internally generated-

Aaron Alexander 21:18 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 21:19 ... from doing that. And then the same with some of the sessions of training, you know, I came up with this thing called the manopause, right? Which was the-

Aaron Alexander 21:27 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 21:27 Toward the end of their 20s, uh, I saw a lot of guys, m- myself included, having trained doing, like, bro split lifting for decades maybe, 'cause we wanted to get big and be attractive to girls or whatever, and then you realize, "Oh, I get out of breath going up a set of stairs and I can't touch my toes anymore. And I'm pretty sure that my body is meant to do more than just bicep curls." And you start to revert back to other modes of training, so maybe you do Brazilian jiu-jitsu or, uh, Thai boxing or yoga or CrossFit or functional fitness or fucking running or athletics, whatever, right?

Aaron Alexander 22:04 Yep.

Chris Williamson 22:04 Um, and I found that my satisfaction after doing those sorts of sessions was so much higher.

Aaron Alexander 22:12 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 22:13 So much higher after doing that kind of a workout. And I ... It just made me think how many people are doing a training modality that they really genuinely don't enjoy, and that their body is telling them that they don't enjoy, but that they just stick at it because ... And this is probably correct, that something is better than nothing. But that if the end goal of your fitness is to make you be, like, a happier, healthier, stronger human being-

Aaron Alexander 22:36 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 22:37 ... then you can just use how do I feel post-workout as a pretty good judge of whether or not my training modality at the moment is working.

Aaron Alexander 22:44 Yep. Well, it's like we were talking about before as well. It's like you don't know what you don't know, you know? So if you are, have been, you know, whatever workout dogma or regimen you've subscribed to over the years, you kind of have, you're just, like, getting work in, just like getting it done. Um, that's great. I'd rather someone have ... Oh, thanks. You turned my gain up.

Chris Williamson 23:06 Yeah, just a little bit.

Aaron Alexander 23:07 I was noticing it was a little low on this side.

Chris Williamson 23:08 You were a little bit quiet. It's fine.

Aaron Alexander 23:09 Damn, I was noticing that the whole time. Um, yeah, so some work is better than no work. But you can paint yourself into a corner with your work that eventually you might have to reverse engineer to get yourself out of that corner.

Chris Williamson 23:29 What do you mean?

Aaron Alexander 23:29 So, so say, Ronnie Coleman would be a great example of this. You know, have you, have you watched any Ronnie Coleman stuff?

Chris Williamson 23:36 It's kind of sad to see him now, yeah.

Aaron Alexander 23:39 Super sweet guy. Like, really, like, beautiful heart. I don't know him personally, but you know, I, I, I spend, I've spent enough hours watching, like-

Chris Williamson 23:47 Yup!

Aaron Alexander 23:47 (laughs) Yeah, exactly. I'm like, he's like a sweetie, you know? But he would be a great example, you know, of he's, he's, he did it, you know? He like, like, goal arrived at, you know, smashed, smashed the goal.

Chris Williamson 24:01 Did you hear that the, the only thing that he ever regretted in his entire bodybuilding career was not doing 800 for five?

Aaron Alexander 24:06 Right, exactly.

Chris Williamson 24:07 He did it for two and he was adamant that he could have back squatted 800 for five instead.

Aaron Alexander 24:10 Right.

Chris Williamson 24:10 He's like, "I knew I had another three in me."

Aaron Alexander 24:12 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 24:12 Ronnie, you're, you're bed-bound with 75 steel screws in your spine and-

Aaron Alexander 24:16 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 24:16 ... you live on the highest dose of painkillers that is legally allowed.... and your one regret is that you didn't do 800 for five instead of 800 for two.

Aaron Alexander 24:25 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 24:25 Yep.

Aaron Alexander 24:25 So, for him, he won. Like it ultimately, it's all perception and filters, and you know, how we, it's like what are your goals? So, I think the first thing for someone is to, to have a definitive goal of what it is that you, where do you want to arrive? And I, I think it would, it would behoove people to draw beyond just where do I wanna arrive aesthetically, but also come from a place of, of feel. You know, so how do you want to feel in one week, one year, you know, 30 years? You know, what, what are, what are the, the values that are actually in fact the most important for you? You know, and I think if people are, a lot of people are honest, or really feel into that question, you probably wanna, you know, be, feel, you don't wanna feel a bunch of pain. You know, you wanna feel light in your body. You wanna feel flexible in your body. You wanna feel maybe adaptable. You wanna feel strong. You wanna feel confident. You wanna be able to play with your kids or your grandkids or be able to get down and pick up a dog. Uh, like, those things matter. And so, I would, I would, I would think about how do we start to reverse engineer a program to make sure that we have some of those staples ingrained into the system. And what's that gonna look like is, well, you're probably gonna be walking. You're probably maybe gonna be like lunging, you know, keeping that s- that spaciousness open in and around the ankles and around the hips, um, keeping flexibility and adaptability throughout the spine. You know, when the spine is, is impinged, or i- impinge is a fine word for it, uh, or off neutral would be another way of, of, of saying, it feels unstable, it feels unsafe. It doesn't trust you to be strong. And so, if you're moving through the world in say like a, you know, like a forward head posture-type position, or your shoulders are collapsed forward, or you have, uh, excessive extension in the lower back and lumbar spine, um, that's sending the signal to your central nervous system that it's not safe to go, you know, deliver power through this system.

Chris Williamson 26:29 Yep. Just switches it off.

Aaron Alexander 26:30 It just switches it off. Super amazing. (laughs) Like, you're like, "Thank you." (laughs) Because I'd much rather you, I have some type of parent figure for my, the, the function of my nervous system-

Chris Williamson 26:45 Yep.

Aaron Alexander 26:45 ... because I'm not responsible enough for that.

Chris Williamson 26:47 Mm-hmm.

Aaron Alexander 26:48 It's the same-

Chris Williamson 26:48 There's a-

Aaron Alexander 26:48 It's the same thing with breathing. It's the same thing with, you know, cardiac function. The same thing with lymphatic function. You're not responsible enough to govern all of these systems.

Chris Williamson 26:57 So, you have to have the quality control manager that oversees it all?

Aaron Alexander 27:00 Yeah. So, if you're wondering why maybe you feel stiff chronically, or maybe you feel like, man, I've like reached this plateau and I just can't go beyond it, there could be a conversation around joint balance or centration. Centration just being a 50-cent word for, for balance, really. You know, having maximum range, having joints oriented so that I have match- maximum capacity to move in all directions. That's athleticism. That's adaptability. If my joints are pinned up to, you know, the edge, they're on like the precipice of disaster, if I go any further in this one direction, but then I have excessive mobility in the other direction, then inevitably, your body, because it loves you, it's gonna put you into bracing and tension. Now, all of a sudden, an analogy for that would be like, it's like you left your house with the, with the lights on.

Chris Williamson 27:51 Yeah.

Aaron Alexander 27:51 So now, throughout the day, your lights are just brrr. You got the air conditioner running. You got the lights on. Vacuum cleaner just brrr. Just, just, just vacuuming nothing. (laughs) Because your body's like, you're just like, uh, it's holding that, it's, it's holding itself together, because ultimately, it's, it's received the message that if it lets go, um, that would be unsafe.

Chris Williamson 28:14 There's a good story that Stu McGill uses about one of the World's Strongest Man events from a few years ago, and I want to say it was, it was either a, they were back squatting a car or they were overhead pressing, like axle pressing a car, and, uh, he said, "If you watch the event, you can see the rep before the guys about to fail." It must have been, it was back squatting. You can see the rep before he fails. Every single person, and this is true, you can go back and check it, every single person when they reset from the penultimate set, uh, penultimate rep before they fail, all of them take a big breath in and just shift their hips a tiny little bit.

Aaron Alexander 28:55 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 28:56 He's like, "That is the spine saying, 'Buddy, you've got nothing left in the tank.'"

Aaron Alexander 29:00 You're done.

Chris Williamson 29:01 Yep.

Aaron Alexander 29:01 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 29:01 So, I'm gonna kill the power.

Aaron Alexander 29:03 Yep.

Chris Williamson 29:04 Zhoom.

Aaron Alexander 29:05 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 29:05 And then, when they go to power out of the bottom, maybe their legs have got something in it, but the spines decided to pull the, the kill cord-

Aaron Alexander 29:12 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 29:12 ... and there's just nothing left.

Chris Williamson 29:14 So, let's say, let's say that somebody that, that's listening does a lot of training and they think, "Right, okay. This sounds, Arran, this sounds great. Like, I, I need to be functional. I should move in a more holistic manner. I like the idea of creating an environment in my house that kind of engenders a, um, parasympathetic, very calm, self-love, self-work kind of environment. Um, what else can I do? Like, give me some practices, give me some takeaways-"

Aaron Alexander 29:40 Sure.

Chris Williamson 29:40 "... that I can do to encourage a more holistic aligned body protocol."

Aaron Alexander 29:45 Yeah, yeah. Well, so, two of the things we mentioned is just making, orienting your space so that you just get your damn hips below the height of your, your knees every now and again. Like, just get yourself down there. Um-

Chris Williamson 30:00 So, it's in that sort of upright squatting position. I know, I noticed that you do that-

Aaron Alexander 30:03 Yeah, sure, or anything.

Chris Williamson 30:03 ... you, you do that sometimes leaning up against a wall, so someone could just get down off the couch and then just lean up against the couch with, in that bottom-

Aaron Alexander 30:10 Anything.

Chris Williamson 30:10 ... squat position.

Aaron Alexander 30:10 Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Just be i- i- and then so a part of that as well is, is, per mentioned before, like e- engendering a bit more of this, this nature of play-... into your life. You know, inviting that into even, inviting that into conversations. You know, not being so damn stuffy and serious. You know, the way that we communicate to each other, if you look at, and this is going out of like, well, this is kind of, kind of s- practices that are in the book, or at least conversations or philosophies of the book, um, you know, different cultures gesticulate. They use their hand gestures or facial expressions more or less than others. You know, so you go to Italy, suddenly it's like, you're out here, and then here, and then here, you know. Like, "Ah," somebody grabs you by the shirt and like pulls you in.

Chris Williamson 30:56 (laughs)

Aaron Alexander 30:58 You know, it's like, that's just how we communicate. Like that's, I'm just expressing, you know? And you maybe go someplace else, maybe like, I don't know, you know, I don't know, some place in the United States, or maybe like a Muslim culture would be different, like a, like a Buddhist culture is gonna be different than a... You know, each place has their movement signature, and there is, there are, are re- there are implications and repercussions of, of each of these, you know? And it's like the, what do they, what do they call it, the French paradox. It's like, how are these damn French people eating all these baguettes, and they're still like pretty darn healthy?

Chris Williamson 31:32 How is it, how is it that they manage to eat all these baguettes and they're healthy?

Aaron Alexander 31:34 I think there's a lot of, you know, there's a lot of elements in that, and I think community is the main one. I think people run on community. We run on purpose, we run on community, we run on the sensation that, uh, um, "I've got your back, you've got my back." You know, and I think that when that, when we have that sensation of, of safety, again, safety, central nervous system, neutral spine, right? When we come into that place of feeling safe with my community, it allows me at a, a neuromuscular, cellular, like all the way down into ourselves level, uh, to be able to relax, to be able to breathe, to be able to, you know, have that... (sighs) And so I think the French paradox has a lot to do with people just getting out and eating together and drinking together and smoking cigarettes, and-

Chris Williamson 32:22 Mm-hmm.

Aaron Alexander 32:23 ... you know, whatever brings people together. Like I would take a, a, a smoker ideally with like some organic cigarettes that are just mostly exclusively tobacco and not a bunch of chemicals, uh, that gets them to go outside-

Chris Williamson 32:34 Yeah.

Aaron Alexander 32:34 ... and take a walk.

Chris Williamson 32:35 Yeah.

Aaron Alexander 32:36 And connect and like, you know, have a shoulder to lean on, and get some natural sunlight exposure to their eyeballs, and maybe get a little cold thermogenesis or maybe a little heat, and you know, they have their vice-

Chris Williamson 32:49 Yeah.

Aaron Alexander 32:49 ... in quotations. Uh, I would take that person over the, um, orthorexic person.

Chris Williamson 32:57 What's that?

Aaron Alexander 32:58 Orthorexic is a person that's like, has an unhealthy obsession with health.

Chris Williamson 33:01 Okay.

Aaron Alexander 33:03 I'd take that person any day for, to be on my kickball team, to be on my, you know, my, in my, my, my business, to be in my-

Chris Williamson 33:10 Over the person who's obsessed with health, but spends all of their time on their own or staring at the screen and never getting their hips below their knees and doesn't have a culture and doesn't-

Aaron Alexander 33:16 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 33:16 ... have community and doesn't-

Aaron Alexander 33:17 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 33:17 ... have support structure.

Aaron Alexander 33:18 Yeah. So again, I'm not advising that people take up tobacco, um, but if you look at that tobacco, what is it? The tobacco, in, in the last conversation we were talking about dogs, you're moved by your dog.

Chris Williamson 33:31 Mm-hmm.

Aaron Alexander 33:32 Dog comes into the room, you don't just sit there aimlessly, you know, kind of like monk-like staring forward, you react and engage with the dog. So suddenly your facial patterns change, and suddenly your voice tonality might change. You know, there's a Steven, Steven Porges, he, he's the guy that, that, uh, came up with the concept of polyvagal theory, calls it the, Your Voice-Procity. So when we're communicating, we're literally tuning each other's nervous systems based off of the tone of our voices. You know, so there was a professor from, uh, uh, a professor of psychology in the '60s called Albert Mehrabian. I know I'm jumping around a little bit, but it's going to maybe wind back to something. Um, came up with a thing called The 55/38/7 Principle, and what that suggests is 55% of our communication comes from body language, and then 38 is coming from the, the tone of our voice, and then there's the, the last little 7% is like the actual words that we're conveying. So if there's incongruence between what the body is saying and the words, with at least... I mean, I think it's, I mean, unless you're a complete dummy, I think it's higher than 93%, but you're gonna trust the body 93% of the time. You know, so the cigarette, (laughs) not condoning cigarettes, you know, but it, it, it's, it moves the person. Say, "I got the cigarette. Okay, we can't smoke inside. I'm walking outside." Ah, dog comes into the room... You know, if you're like a, a, a, you know, a, a lar- you know, an overweight person that's stuck in your house staring at TV all day long, stressing out about the computer, one of the healthiest things you could probably do for yourself is just start by getting a dog.

Chris Williamson 35:15 Buy a fucking dog, man.

Aaron Alexander 35:16 Get a dog. You're doing all this stuff, you know, you're getting your protein shakes and you got your creatine, you got your glutamine, you know, you got the trainer that you go see th- three times a week and, you know, none of them are gonna create the difference that would manifest in your life by having that, just having that accountability and that relationship with that dog. And that's, you know, not even, it's excluding all of like the, the immune benefits of a dog bringing, we were talking about this as well, bringing nature into the house.

Chris Williamson 35:46 Mm-hmm. What about,

Chris Williamson 35:51 a little bit of a pivot, what about sex and what about relationships?

Aaron Alexander 35:54 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 35:55 With the work that you've done, have you seen a... What dysfunctions do you see with regards to people and their relationship to sex and to their own body and to the way that they judge other people's bodies as well?

Aaron Alexander 36:08 Well, definitely not my field of depth. Um, but I think it's very, an interesting conversation that is a physical conversation around that. Not that sex isn't physical, uh, but more like anatomical, would be the way that shame manifests in the body-You know, so growing up in a culture that doesn't have maybe full ease around sex, you know, or menstruation, or having a penis, or having a- an anus, or all of these things like, "Ugh!" Like, everyone gets a little uncomfortable if you say anus. (laughs) You know? It's like, "Whoa! Pull it back!" It's like, yeah, you got one, I got one. Like, I took a shit four hours ago. You know, but it's like, to- to- to talk about that or to think about that, it's like, "Oh my God." It's like, what if I didn't take a shit today? It would be dramatically... W- what if I didn't take a shit for a week? It would be like my whole life would be in shambles. (laughs) You know? And so, I think sex is one of those things. It's like our- our nether regions, you know, that part of our body, it's- it's, uh, we're- we're not really, um, inculcated for the most part, at least I wasn't, uh, into a culture that has a lot of acceptance of those spaces. You know, in the way that shame manifests in the body, just look at it physically. If you're ashamed, if you're embarrassed, you know, without getting metaphysical, you know, saying like, "Oh, shame, there's deep tension in the perineum and the cells in the root chakra," or any kind of, just kind of random- random bits. Feel in your body what does shame feel like? You know, like for- for you, if you suddenly felt-

Chris Williamson 37:56 Like a tightness. It's like a sort of a stiffness-

Aaron Alexander 37:57 Yeah. Stiffness.

Chris Williamson 37:57 ... and a tightness in the- in the stomach, in the head.

Aaron Alexander 38:00 Yeah, or maybe a collapse could be a flavor of it.

Chris Williamson 38:02 Falling forward. Yeah.

Aaron Alexander 38:04 Yeah. Right? You know, what does, um, uh, s- s- pride, what does strength feel like? What does sadness feel like? You know, the whole gamut of emotions. And that's- that's, um, Sir William James, who's, he's like widely known as the- the father of modern psychology. He was one of the- the preeminent leaders in, uh, the conversation of not just a- a top-down physiology, being like the mind affects the body. You know, so we see a bear. I'm scared, I run. You know, and I respond. Uh, we could just as easily flip that around, and go bottom-up and say, "I see a bear. I have a physiological response. It moves my body into this state that we deem to be fear, and that perpetuates the feeling and the emotion, and then that winds back and it's this ping-pong, boom, boom, feedback system back and forth." Mind, body. Mind, body. Mind, body. It doesn't matter where it starts or where it ends, like the chicken or the egg question. It's like both, what, like, doesn't matter. They're inextricably tied. So if we grow up in a culture that inherently there's a, maybe it's not overt shame, but maybe just like shadow, you know, or blank spots. Like, there's some pages in our physiology, in our anatomy that aren't as well filled out. You know, so there's a- a term, ever heard the term homunculus?

Chris Williamson 39:37 No.

Aaron Alexander 39:37 Homunculus means little man. And essentially it's like, well, just flip my- my, uh, toothpick here. Uh, homunculus means little man, and it's- it's essentially like the- the way that... It's like the neurological real estate that our body has to sensation, uh, or the... Of how different appendages experience sensation, the amount of real estate that's offered to that sensory reception in those various different parts of the body. You know, and so your fingers will have... I mean, this little man image, it's like literally up... You could, we could, you could look it up, it's a really interesting th- thing to see. Um, they've got like really big lips, you know, and they've got like really big hands, and you know, pretty reasonably sized genitals, actually. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 40:17 (laughs) He's got a piece.

Aaron Alexander 40:18 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 40:18 He's got a piece on him.

Aaron Alexander 40:18 He's got, he's got a piece on him. (inhales deeply) Um, you know, so that distribution of sensory awareness can change depending upon a person's, uh, life experience. And so there's some places in the body that, for some people, it might literally be like a shadow place, like you could numb that space out. You know, some people don't have a lot of sensation in certain parts of their body, like maybe like their back. You know, you could rub a, you know, a- a- a paperclip or a feather or something in certain parts of the body, it's like, now I've literally shut that part down. And then it becomes this whole process of re-engaging and reintegrating that- that aspect of yourself-

Chris Williamson 40:56 Do you think-

Aaron Alexander 40:56 ... back into the whole-

Chris Williamson 40:56 ... symbolically that can happen with regards to shame around sex and our bodies, not just in terms of how we perceive them physiologically, if we can touch them and if we can get feedback, but how we see them symbolically in our minds?

Aaron Alexander 41:12 I think so. What do you think?

Chris Williamson 41:15 Yeah, certainly, man. I mean, the... S- definitely since being out here in Austin, fuck, like people here have got a- a very l- some people here have got a very liberal, very open, uh, relationship to sex and sexual practices and talking about sex. Far more, I don't know whether it's a British thing, maybe it is a little bit, but far more than I've been used to in the UK. And I'd say I'm, you know, relatively open about being happy to talk about things that have gone well or badly, or that I like or don't like during sex, but-

Aaron Alexander 41:46 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 41:46 ... fuck, out here's a- another level. I don't know whether that's, I don't-

Aaron Alexander 41:50 And just 'cause you talk about a thing a lot doesn't mean that you have a healthy relationship with it.

Chris Williamson 41:54 Oh, yeah. But I mean, the s- not being able to talk about it at all probably isn't a sign of a good relationship with it.

Aaron Alexander 42:00 Also not.

Chris Williamson 42:01 Yeah. So yeah, i- it's been- it's been interesting being out here, um-

Aaron Alexander 42:06 It's the flexibility. Again, it comes back to- to adaptability and flexibility. If you're, if something makes you uncomfortable, if I say a word, you know, any of the words I said previously-

Chris Williamson 42:17 Mm-hmm.

Aaron Alexander 42:17 ... and you go, "Whoa!"

Chris Williamson 42:18 Yeah. Anus.

Aaron Alexander 42:19 A little bit.

Chris Williamson 42:20 Yeah.

Aaron Alexander 42:20 Just a little bit. You know, "Ah," (fingers snapping) cool. That's a place that there is, if you choose to take it, an opportunity probably for you to uncover some, um, you know, internal impingement-

Chris Williamson 42:31 Hmm.

Aaron Alexander 42:32 You don't need to address it, but it's, it's there. If someone pisses you off, you know, or if someone makes you feel a way, it's probably some reflection back into some insecurity within yourself, or else there wouldn't be a, a charge around it.

Aaron Alexander 42:47 So-

Chris Williamson 42:47 What are you working on at the moment, personally? Like, what, what's the next... 2022, if you were to look back at the end of 2022 and consider it a success, what would have been a, a development that you would have gone through?

Aaron Alexander 43:02 Well, I mean, something that we've talked about previously is I- I have a, a bit of a, a tendency of, uh, in... I don't know if I enjoy it, but I have a proclivity towards chasing, you know? And that was kind of something that we've been talking about in relation to, like, to female relationships, and something that I'm observing in myself. You know, when something is unavailable, it becomes highly prized. And when the availability begins there, sometimes I, I, not sometimes, I can completely notice, um, the opportunity to work with that for me is, is resistance around that, or a disinterest, uh, kind of like a, like an avoidant-type pattern, you know? And so for me, it's like, "Aha, okay. Well, the- there's, there's the work." You know? So now, it's, it's my... The onus is on, on me alone to engage with it, um, or to go to the next and re-perpetuate patterns. Yeah, so that, for me, it's like looking in and, and really being honest with what that is. Um-

Chris Williamson 44:09 What do you think it is?

Aaron Alexander 44:12 Likely, my story for that, which I think that's another thing to be cautious of, is being-

Chris Williamson 44:19 Over.

Aaron Alexander 44:19 ... too attached to our stories.

Chris Williamson 44:21 Yeah, over-rationalizing or over-narrat- narrati- narratizing whatever-

Aaron Alexander 44:24 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 44:24 ... it is that you're supposed to do.

Aaron Alexander 44:26 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 44:26 Yeah. I know what you mean.

Aaron Alexander 44:27 And that's when things, things that kind of trump our stories, like maybe some type of, you know, breath work ceremony thing, or some life event that was life event-

Chris Williamson 44:36 Drags you outside of the narrative that you've tried-

Aaron Alexander 44:38 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 44:38 ... to wrap around and rationalize a story with.

Aaron Alexander 44:41 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 44:41 Yeah, that's an interesting way to put it.

Aaron Alexander 44:42 Yeah, yeah, whatever it may be. Suddenly you're like, "Oh, okay, story out." You know, "Story on the side."

Chris Williamson 44:47 Yes.

Aaron Alexander 44:47 Now, here's, like, God.

Chris Williamson 44:49 Reality.

Aaron Alexander 44:49 (laughs) Yeah, like there's like ano- there's this, like the higher purview comes in. It's like, "Okay, we don't need words right now, little Aaron." (laughs)

Chris Williamson 44:57 Yep, yep.

Aaron Alexander 44:57 You know? This is, we're just on truth.

Chris Williamson 44:59 Mm-hmm.

Aaron Alexander 45:00 You know, and I think that those moments happen when they happen. Um, but for me, the narrative that I have, that I think probably has some level of sense to it, is I think that my mother was who... I've did- I've done actually a full, like, I don't know, like 90-minute podcast with her. And I was like, I think it's a f- I know it was the only podcast that I've ever like really properly broke down, wept in, a couple times. Um, and, uh, she had a, a background of, um, some level of a- abuse. I'm not sure if I shared in the podcast or not, so I don't know if it's appropriate to share, but, uh, she learned that it's not appropriate to not be okay. You know, so kind of like good vibes only-

Chris Williamson 45:51 Mm-hmm.

Aaron Alexander 45:51 ... type thing, which is incredibly dangerous, you know? 'Cause then you, you lack decompression, you know? So suddenly, you look, you pin it up, you know, any of those sensations that would be deemed unfavorable. It's just like, "Okay, those don't go out, they go in, and now they just sit and fester and kind of ferment." Um, and so getting the signal that everything needs to be okay, everything needs to be, like be all righty. Um, I think that there was a certain level of... She was very caring and very sweet, you know, always made me sandwiches and always, like had my back. Uh, but I think there was a certain emotional vulnerability that was, um, challenging for her to access.

Chris Williamson 46:34 Mm-hmm.

Aaron Alexander 46:34 And I think I subconsciously picked that up. And so when there is emotional vulnerability, specifically with a female, um, it's, it's scary to me, you know? And so I'm like, "Oh, this is, like, a lot." You know? And so within that, I think I've adapted, and a lot of people have, have done this. You know, I've adapted to be able to create rapport with, with quickness, you know? So what I've, the... Because of a general avoidance of depth, I've reintroduced that bandwidth into, like, superficial. And so I think you have, have this as well, probably for different reasons. Um, but a, an ability to connect with new people and find common ground pretty quick, uh, and feel like-

Chris Williamson 47:20 But yours, you think is maybe part of a defense mechanism?

Aaron Alexander 47:22 Yeah, for sure.

Chris Williamson 47:23 That's interesting.

Aaron Alexander 47:24 Yeah, definitely.

Chris Williamson 47:25 Fuck, that's interesting to think-

Aaron Alexander 47:26 And then when it goes to a certain level, I'm like, "Okay."

Chris Williamson 47:28 Too far, too far.

Aaron Alexander 47:30 Too far. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 47:30 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Aaron Alexander 47:31 But we're like, you know, like fast bros, or fast, you know-

Chris Williamson 47:34 Yep.

Aaron Alexander 47:35 ... bro and, bro and sister, like real fast. And then there's a certain level, 'cause that, that part's so well-developed-

Chris Williamson 47:42 Yeah.

Aaron Alexander 47:42 ... there's a certain level that it's, it's kind of like, "Okay."

Chris Williamson 47:44 And as soon as you're outside of that safety position. Yeah, I am-

Aaron Alexander 47:49 Hopefully that wasn't too much information about my-

Chris Williamson 47:50 No, not at all.

Aaron Alexander 47:51 ... my area.

Chris Williamson 47:51 I think it's fucking interesting, man. Like, it's really interesting to think that you could compensate for a fear of depth, or a, a hesitation around depth, by over-selling on rapport-

Aaron Alexander 48:05 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 48:05 ... or over-selling on, uh, immediate connection.

Aaron Alexander 48:09 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 48:09 And that makes a lot of sense. Um, I, it doesn't resonate with me personally, but I can absolutely see how it would happen.

Aaron Alexander 48:15 Hmm.

Chris Williamson 48:16 Um, so getting through that, trying to get yourself past the slightly more, I guess, juvenile areas of, of the avoidant attachment-

Aaron Alexander 48:27 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 48:28 ... side. I mean, I have a ton of friends, and I think that this is... I'd be very interested to find out how this relates to people that are whatever, high agency or high achieving guys. Um, a lot of my buddies that-... are high achievers also have that attachment style.

Aaron Alexander 48:44 Sure.

Chris Williamson 48:44 Which is funny because people are prepared to, uh, push their limits in so many places, you know. I- if we needed to do a- a 24-hour workout or a, you know, an unbelievable sauna and cold session, or whatever, like pick what, pick whatever challenge it is that you want to do, uh, and yet there are these sort of deep dark holes that sometimes don't get uncovered quite so easily. Maybe they're a little bit more difficult to see what's going on. Maybe they're just, uh, uh, an area of the territory that we can't get rid of as simply, but it is strange that there's-

Aaron Alexander 49:24 There's nothing to get rid of.

Chris Williamson 49:25 Okay, to deal with, perhaps.

Aaron Alexander 49:26 I know that you heard yourself probably as you were saying that.

Chris Williamson 49:28 Yeah.

Aaron Alexander 49:28 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 49:29 Um-

Aaron Alexander 49:30 To- to- to come into healthier relationship with.

Chris Williamson 49:34 To face, to face (...)

Aaron Alexander 49:34 And healthy just means whole. That's like the original meaning of health.

Chris Williamson 49:38 Does it?

Aaron Alexander 49:39 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 49:39 Okay.

Aaron Alexander 49:40 Yeah. So whole, coming back to the body, integrated. So if I disconnect the parts, you know, I got my bicep brachialis, and I got my triceps, and I got the, you know, the- the multiple heads of the quads, and I got, you know, really s- specifically breaking down those individual points, um, that can potentially lead to a- a- a disintegration of the- the whole body working together.

Chris Williamson 50:07 Mm.

Aaron Alexander 50:08 And then that creates, you know, cacophony.

Chris Williamson 50:10 But there's something about the fact that a lot of my friends that can push themselves in many other areas still have as their, one of the final bastions of challenge is their avoidant attachment.

Aaron Alexander 50:24 Oh, yeah, it's the big one.

Chris Williamson 50:26 You think that's the, whatever, the Achilles' heel?

Aaron Alexander 50:29 It's not the ... I mean, everybody's got their own thing, you know, but it, that- that's, I think, relationship is one of the ultimate reflections upon yourself, you know, and getting into deeper awareness or more authentic awareness with your relationship to your parents, and I think a lot of it comes back to that. You're like, "Oh, okay, interesting." You know, and so if you do allow ... If you, you know, if you, you do play the game, and you actually say, like, "Cool," like, all right, pushing chips in, you know, and- and actually be there for it, um ... Yeah, I mean, if- if you really ... How many people really want to look at themselves? Like, I think we all say that we do, but I think the- the only reason to be afraid of a psychedelic trip or maybe a relationship or, you know, psychedelics are- are another really good example of that. Like, I think a- a bad trip, most people that I've talked to that have had bad trips, like I've had things that I deemed like, oh, that one felt pretty, like, bad. Um, it was just an exposure to some aspect of my- myself or my orientation to the world that I was uncomfortable with and I didn't want to look at, and I was in that ti- in that- in that moment, I was kind of almost felt like forced to be in that- that space to say like, "Okay, here you are. Here's your relationship with, you know, fill in the blank, whatever the thing is." Um, and then wanting to get out. But the- the way to get to the other side of that and to, you know, finding, like, healing and ease and, you know, all of that, holism, health, um, is through it. And it's ... You can either, you know, wrestle the relationship, or wrestle the mushroom, or wrestle, you know, whatever, which you will not win. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 52:20 I've tried. I've tried.

Aaron Alexander 52:21 Like-

Chris Williamson 52:21 I've had- I've had a couple of-

Aaron Alexander 52:21 I can guaran- I can guarantee it with- with- with the mushroom.

Chris Williamson 52:25 Yeah.

Aaron Alexander 52:25 You will not win.

Chris Williamson 52:26 The analogy that I used was, it's like being sat on a- a firework, and as you try to steer it to the left or the right, it goes whoo.

Aaron Alexander 52:33 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 52:34 And just spirals off.

Aaron Alexander 52:34 It only makes, it only makes it worse.

Chris Williamson 52:36 Yeah, it was-

Aaron Alexander 52:36 It only gets bigger.

Chris Williamson 52:37 Wasn't a good strategy for me.

Aaron Alexander 52:38 You know, it's like the ... What's the- what's the s- what's the- the- the gal with the snake heads, you chop off the snake heads?

Chris Williamson 52:44 Medusa.

Aaron Alexander 52:44 Is that one? When she's got, like, tons of snake heads, you chop one off, it grows one-

Chris Williamson 52:47 I think it's a hydra when you-

Aaron Alexander 52:48 Yes, the hydra.

Chris Williamson 52:49 Yeah.

Aaron Alexander 52:49 Yeah, it's the hydra.

Chris Williamson 52:50 Yeah.

Aaron Alexander 52:51 You know, so ultimately, I'm trying to, you know, hopefully not getting, like, excessively metaphysical or esoteric, but, you know, ultimately, I think a l- a relationship is an opportunity, um, you know, just like a s- like a, like, you know, the mushroom thing, you know, surrender. In my experience, surrender has been, um, the ticket to ease, you know, like s- like not fighting. You know, in that moment it's like, cool, whatever the thing is, uh, you don't need to fight. And man, it's interesting. Have you had that experience with yourself at all?

Chris Williamson 53:29 I think I-

Aaron Alexander 53:29 Wrestle- wrestling a thing, and instead of fighting the thing, coming to a place of just, like, "You know what? Take me."

Chris Williamson 53:36 Yeah, I mean, my first ever mushroom trip was precisely this, and I just refused to let go.

Aaron Alexander 53:43 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 53:43 So for, whatever, five hours, I just wrangled everything-

Aaron Alexander 53:46 Right.

Chris Williamson 53:46 ... and just kept s- kept that puppy kind of as under as much control as I could, which would just made for a very, very uncomfortable-

Aaron Alexander 53:53 That's what Terence Mckenna said, "The only thing you can do ... The only mistake you can make with- with psychedelics is not taking enough."

Chris Williamson 53:59 (laughs) Well, that was five grams for my first ever time.

Aaron Alexander 54:02 Oh.

Chris Williamson 54:02 And even with that, I was like, "I'm a f- I'm gonna fucking wrap you up in a big, big prison, and see if I can hold on."

Aaron Alexander 54:09 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 54:09 And I'm, pretty much managed to, which was just like, looking back, but- but then you're not- you're not exactly super lucid at the time. Uh, yeah, I don't

Chris Williamson 54:18 know, man. I- I certainly resonate with when you, when you think about being in the body, right, and you notice that you've been sat in a meeting or in a situation with someone and you've been tense, and then you kind of check in with yourself and you- (sighs)

Aaron Alexander 54:33 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 54:34 And everything just eases up a little bit, or you open your gaze. The best cue that I've learned about this, I learned this this year, uh, from an embodiment coach, was about, um, just using the peripherals of your vision.

Aaron Alexander 54:44 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 54:44 So just using that open gaze. And man, I love that cue so much. It just reminds me that, look, there's so much more going on, you do not need to focus just there. You can have all of this beautiful vision outside of you.

Aaron Alexander 54:55 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 54:56 Um-

Aaron Alexander 54:56 There's a whole chapter in the, The Align Method book about that. That's, yeah.

Chris Williamson 54:59 All right, tell me.

Aaron Alexander 55:00 Andrew, Andrew Huberman who, he's, you know, popularized a lot of these conversation

Narrator 55:04 (laughs)

Aaron Alexander 55:04 ... last reason he thankfully, um, edited through the whole thing for me and kind of, you know, like, pointed me in the right directions. That, and I've, I've been just, I owe so much to his mind and his, his research. Um, but yeah, I mean, the way that you use your eyes, your, your eyes are continuous with your central nervous system, you know? So similarly, this is one of the things I was g- I was gonna eventually likely get to in relation to environmental conditions, changing the visual environment isn't just adding visual cues that cause you to do what would look like mobility or exercise, it's also changing the, the visual environment in the sense of, like, you know, open some windows. Um, i- ideally get full spectrum light into your eyeballs, you know, so it's not just when you're, when you're looking at light through windows, it's going to be blocking some percentage of the, of, of the either UVA or UVB spectrum out. Um, and being able to relax your eyes and awareness that when I am in that panoramic, like (sighs) I'm just taking it all in, that, that lens of perception, it's sending a signal into the rest of your physiology, which is probably an anchored pattern for, again, millennia back, like, you know, generations, generations, like forever, that when you are just taking it all in, just spacing out, probably almost never in history have you just spaced it out and taken it all in and been under attack, right? And so it's a similar thing talk- And then when you're myopically focused in suddenly, okay, cool, we're taking it all in, we're just gathering information about the whole... Or maybe not gathering information, screw that, we're just, (sighs) we're just basking in the moment, we're fed, you know, we've hunted. (exhales) And then suddenly there is a threat, what do your eyes do? (whooshing sound) You know, it all focuses in on that single point. So-

Chris Williamson 56:56 I've been thinking about this to do with smartphones.

Aaron Alexander 56:58 Oh, of course, yeah.

Chris Williamson 56:59 So much of our time is.

Aaron Alexander 56:59 And you're looking down, and you're looking down into the right, you know, so you're looking down or, you know, if you're lefty, you know, which would be more rare, but you're looking down into a specific direction. So your eyes act like reins to your neuromuscular system. So you can do this, you know, put your, your fingertips back at the bottom of your skull, it's called the suboccipital ridge, and just look up and down, and you'll feel those muscles, those-

Chris Williamson 57:25 (laughs)

Aaron Alexander 57:25 ... called suboccipital muscles engaging, right? Yeah. So your eyes-

Chris Williamson 57:29 That's so funny.

Aaron Alexander 57:29 So same thing in, in, um, it was in chimpanzees, this has been researched there, (clears throat) the, the cochlea in their ear will change direction with the eyes. So when you are l- looking to the right to, to some potential threat or whatever the thing is, literally even their, their auditory system-

Chris Williamson 57:50 Also, their hearing opens up as their eyes move almost.

Aaron Alexander 57:53 ... it will, it will orient towards that thing.

Chris Williamson 57:56 No way.

Aaron Alexander 57:57 Which is kind of an interesting thing for people that are like, you know, into jujitsu and wrestling and have like cauliflower ear. I wonder how that affects, affects things, but, um, yeah, man, your, your visual system is so deeply tied into your sense of, uh, either, you know, alertness or, um, you know, executive function, get 'er done, or relax, digest, rest. Uh, you know, so that's in, in the book, in The Align Method, the, the, really, the intention of it isn't so much to have like a step-by-step method, it's more, uh, you know, a, a philosophy to reorient the way that a person engages with their body in any situation. You know, so are you from Viktor Frankl?

Chris Williamson 58:44 Yes.

Aaron Alexander 58:44 Logotherapy, man's search for meaning. Uh, one of the things that he said that I align with is, uh, that he said he's, he's more like an optometrist than, you know, like a psycholo- psy- psychologist, you know? So he's just, he's just working with people's perception of the world, you know, the way that they process information, their filter, you know? And so I think that that's a really valuable approach to one's fitness. You know, it's, fitness isn't a thing that I do, fitness is a thing that I am. You know, so all the time throughout every day, they're all a bunch of opportunities if you have the education on how to engage with those opportunities. You know, so you're just filled with these fun li- fun levers all over your body. So your eyes, they will change the way that your, your, your mental emotional state based off of the way that you use them. If you have that information, you can leverage it. Same thing with your auditory environment, same thing with your, you know, the, the sense of touch, certain sensations or textures will make you feel one way, certain sensations and textures will make you feel another way, uh, your visual environment. An interesting thing that you have to fact check, fact check this one, but I heard, uh, with real estate, if you're selling a place and you have like, like pointy plants out front, that sends an indication to potential buyers to, to stay away.

Chris Williamson 1:00:00 No way.

Aaron Alexander 1:00:01 I mean, you gotta look it up. There's, there's a, there's a whole field of, of state you'd probably appreciate called em- embodied cognition. Embodied cognition essentially is, is the way that, um, we, we, we think and feel, uh, based off of our, our, our physical experience. You know, so I'm, I'm sure you've heard of like the clipboard studies, you know, where if you give somebody your resume and it's on like a big thick beefcake clipboard, they're like, "Oh fuck yeah." Like, (laughs) "This guy's really knows, you know, he's, he's serious, you know, he's stable, he's supported."... I like this guy, right? If you, and so that's that tactile experience of like, "Man, this guy feels like a, oh, I could trust him." Right? Same thing with, you know, people that are, tend to be taller or, you know, lower voices is something we were talking about before. It's like, "Oh, that guy, there's something trustworthy about that." Like, it feels like, it feels powerful. You're like, "They might just be a tall asshole." (laughs) Like, it doesn't necessarily mean anything. But the way that we cognate that, or the way that you're... Our, our embodied experience of that is like, "Oh, yeah. I trust it." You know, the same thing with if we're, we have a cold beverage when someone goes into a job interview, or a warm beverage. If right now we had icy, you know, whatever, some, some lemonades or something like that, but like, icy cups, uh, based off of research, we would perceive this experience as being a little bit more... That's why I was noticing the temperature of the room. We ex- uh, perceive this experience as being a little bit kind of like more closed, a little bit colder. If you give me like, a hot cocoa, and it's warm, and we got a, a fire going in the background, and we can hear the crackling of the fire, suddenly that's changing my perception to say like, "Wow, man. I just feel so safe here. There's something about you, Chris, that makes me feel safe." It's like, is it me or is it just the environment that we're having this mutual experience? Shit's crazy, man.

Chris Williamson 1:01:53 This more holistic view of the body overall and of fitness is something that, I don't know, maybe to you and maybe the people that you're speaking to, it's kind of, uh, how would you say? Obvious or it makes a complete amount of sense. But to me, this is like an entire new world.

Aaron Alexander 1:02:11 (laughs) That's great.

Chris Williamson 1:02:11 Like it can b- uh, a whole new world, yeah.

Aaron Alexander 1:02:13 It makes sense though. It's simple.

Chris Williamson 1:02:14 Well, the human system-

Aaron Alexander 1:02:16 I hope.

Chris Williamson 1:02:16 ... the human system is, is one thing altogether.

Aaron Alexander 1:02:18 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:02:19 It's broken up into component parts, but working on each component part without taking into account all of the other things doesn't really seem to make sense. And do you-

Aaron Alexander 1:02:27 Right.

Chris Williamson 1:02:27 ... some of the things that you've mentioned to me since we've been hanging out to do with, um, you can tell a lot about a person's personality by the way that they move, when they walk into a sauna or a, a, a restaurant or sit down at a date, or the way that they hold themselves, or the way that they gesture or whatever, right?

Aaron Alexander 1:02:43 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:02:43 Like, that, why? Why is that the case? If it wasn't that we were such a global system where our cognition and our physicality and our emotions and our social status and our confidence and our blah, blah, if it wasn't the case that all of those were together, why would it be that from something I can induce how somebody is in a completely unrelated area, so to speak?

Aaron Alexander 1:03:07 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:03:07 It's not. It's, they're one closed system.

Aaron Alexander 1:03:09 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:03:09 Um, so you've got a special revised paperback edition-

Aaron Alexander 1:03:15 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:03:15 ... of the Align Method coming out. Where can people get that?

Aaron Alexander 1:03:18 Uh, you know, I, hopefully your bookstore would be great. That would be very Align Method-esque of you to take a walk outside, uh, ideally remove sunglasses, you know, get full spectrum light.

Chris Williamson 1:03:29 There's a lot of British people listening to them-

Aaron Alexander 1:03:31 The old-

Chris Williamson 1:03:31 ... that don't need sunglasses in the morning.

Aaron Alexander 1:03:32 Yeah, right. Exactly. I mean, that's a, it, it, I mean, it tunes your, your neurochemistry, you know, that, that light penetrating your eyeballs. A reason that I know that that was a cue to wrap up, so don't say, don't spout more, more factoids.

Chris Williamson 1:03:45 Fire, fire away, man.

Aaron Alexander 1:03:46 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 1:03:46 Factoids. We're here for the factoids. Fucking keep them coming.

Aaron Alexander 1:03:49 (laughs) But you're, uh, a, a big reason that, that such a high percentage of, of people, uh, are becoming myopic, you know, specifically like China, something like 93%, like a really high percentage of adolescents are becoming myopic. Um, same thing.

Chris Williamson 1:04:06 How do you define myopic?

Aaron Alexander 1:04:07 Nearsighted.

Chris Williamson 1:04:08 Okay.

Aaron Alexander 1:04:09 Yeah. We, we see near well, far not so easy. Uh, so one potential conversation there would be that we're just practicing nearsightedness all the time, so those ciliary muscles and all the muscles that help change the shape of the lens to be able to refract that light so it comes into clear vision. We're like, "Well, you're only using the close ones, so you're gonna have problem with the other ones." Uh, but a, a, a bigger part of the conversation is, is the, the impact that natural sunlight has on the, the structure and the shape and the, the, the chemical structural makeup of your eyeballs. So sun, it literally, the exact process I can't go through 'cause I'm, you know, that's not like my, my specialty. Um, but sun literally, it changes. It, it, it's, you know, it's a physical thing. It's like a nutrient, you know, and it changes the structure and the makeup of, of your eyes. You know? And so when you're going outside, it's not just like a relax the eyes, you know? It's an opportunity to down-regulate the nervous system or calm the freak down. It's literally, it's like you're, you're nourishing the, the structure of your eyeballs through that exposure to the sunlight. You know? So sunlight, it just, it, it's so healing in so many capacities and I know I didn't, you know, break down exactly what's happening within that system, so maybe come back. I'll, I'll go deeper in the research of what that system is exactly. Um, but experts pretty much unanimously align that sunlight, it, it changes the structure and the makeup of your eyeballs. And so you, you need it for healthy eyes, you need it for healthy everything.

Chris Williamson 1:05:43 Doing a morning walk here in Austin because the weather tends to be... It's a bit muggy sometimes on a morning, but maybe 50% of the days it's sunny.

Aaron Alexander 1:05:49 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:05:49 A morning walk with sunshine is so good.

Aaron Alexander 1:05:51 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:05:52 I always do the walk anyway, but in the UK if I was to do it at the time I'm doing it out here, it would still be dark.

Aaron Alexander 1:05:56 And that infrared light specifically in the morning you're, you're setting, and I think a lot of people listening to this by, you know, by now they know about this. Uh, but you're setting the circadian rhythm for the rest of the day. So when you're waking up, that, that light when the sun's first coming up, it's tuning your whole neurophysiology, your neurochemistry, your hormones, your endocrine system, to be alert, to be up. You know, it's like this. It's, it's, it's like the, it's a, it's a, a bookend start of the day.

Chris Williamson 1:06:24 I only learned recently that the reason that we get a burst of energy after the lights go out is that that would be adaptive for our ancestors to get themselves home-... while the sun was setting.

Aaron Alexander 1:06:36 Mm. That's cool, I never heard that.

Chris Williamson 1:06:38 So, this is in Johann Hari's Stolen Focus, which is coming out in the new year. It'll be really good. I've read half of it. Um, and he mentioned that one of the reasons that we're struggling to have attention at the moment is because of a lack of sleep, and the lack of sleep is partly due to the fact that we use blue screens at night. But what is the reason that blue screens have such an effect on our energy levels and our ability to fall asleep easily?

Aaron Alexander 1:07:04 Hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:07:04 Uh, and one of the proposed reasons for this is that when we go from light to dark, our bodies get a kick of energy. Why would that be useful? Well, if you're out hunting or not in your cave, or not at your camp-

Aaron Alexander 1:07:20 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:07:20 ... it would be pretty good for you to just get a little extra kick.

Aaron Alexander 1:07:23 I've had that experience many times. Like, camping or, you know, rock climbing or something where you're out in the woods-

Chris Williamson 1:07:29 The sun sets and then you're like-

Aaron Alexander 1:07:29 ... and the sun goes down. You're like, "We gotta go."

Chris Williamson 1:07:32 Yep.

Aaron Alexander 1:07:32 (laughs) And suddenly we're running, you know.

Chris Williamson 1:07:35 Yeah.

Aaron Alexander 1:07:35 And you get that, that full sympathetic burst-

Chris Williamson 1:07:38 Yep, response.

Aaron Alexander 1:07:38 ... of like, yeah, we got to get to where we're gonna sit. I never thought about that.

Chris Williamson 1:07:41 What Johann's saying is that, let's say that you're using your phone or watching Netflix until you go to sleep, and then precisely at the moment when you're about to try and sleep-

Aaron Alexander 1:07:48 Wow, you get a little juiced up.

Chris Williamson 1:07:49 Precisely.

Aaron Alexander 1:07:50 That's really fascinating.

Chris Williamson 1:07:51 Some interesting stats around, uh, e-readers, that it doesn't seem like they have the same sort of response.

Aaron Alexander 1:07:56 Yeah, they're not emitting that light.

Chris Williamson 1:07:57 I, I need to speak to Huberman about that.

Aaron Alexander 1:07:59 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:07:59 Um, but I don't think that they have the same effect.

Aaron Alexander 1:08:03 The other thing that's interesting that I wanted to, to mention in relation to eyes that are just, I think it's just so cool, is that humans are one of the only mammals to have, uh, white scleras. That, that, the white part. So we can see the orientation and the positioning of our eyes.

Chris Williamson 1:08:18 Mm-hmm.

Aaron Alexander 1:08:18 It's called the, they call it the eye coe- eye coordination hypothesis, I think is the, like the, the 50 Cent term for it-

Chris Williamson 1:08:25 So that we can see, other people can see what we're looking at.

Aaron Alexander 1:08:27 Yeah. And so the, the, the potential suggestion for that lev- like a, like an evolutionary adaptation would be to be able to signal to each other for hunting. You know, and so you'll see this-

Chris Williamson 1:08:37 Oh, wow.

Aaron Alexander 1:08:37 ... and the reason they would suggest that is, is you see this with, with certain dogs. So like, more like pack animals. They also have that indication to be able to see where their eyes are, are oriented. Uh, and then also to be able to see the, the wellness of a person. You know, so and s- and this is, becomes interesting in the whole, you know, like the, the year of the lockdowns and everything. It's like, we have were pretty good senses when someone's unwell.

Chris Williamson 1:09:03 Yep.

Aaron Alexander 1:09:03 Like, you know, and that's, that's body language, that's voice tonality, that's reading the scleras of somebody's eyes, that's, you know, we go Chinese medicine route and, you know, see the, what's the, they have like some furry stuff on their tongue, or there are cracks in their tongue. We've all of these millions or billions of bits of visual information, and olfact- olfactory information as well, the way we smell, uh, suggesting whether that person is healthy to be close to. Somebody has terrible breath, you're like, "Get the hell away from me." Terrible body odor, you're like, "Please don't give me a hug."

Chris Williamson 1:09:37 No thank you.

Aaron Alexander 1:09:38 If someone's sniffling, you're like, "Not interested." If someone's got bloodshot eyes or they have like yellow eyes and you're like, "I don't know what's going on. Is this hepatitis? Is this like ... there's something going on here, I would love for you to visit a doctor. I love you, you know, but you need to go." (laughs) Like, you gotta sort this out, and then come back to the tribe. And then even if within yourself, if you are that guy or that girl, you're like, "Okay, I need to pull myself out of the tribe."

Chris Williamson 1:10:10 Self-regulatory.

Aaron Alexander 1:10:11 "I need to sort this out." You know, and so our subconscious intuition is just so fucking cool. (laughs) We've just learned to, you know, kind of outsmart ourselves. And you will never outsmart yourself. It's the same concept of trying to put together your 640 muscles and your 360 joints. You will not be successful. But if you allow yourself to kind of listen to that inner wisdom, you know, and the, the integration of the inner wisdom and the modern wisdom, ultimately the modern wisdom would be that, that inner wisdom. Um, I think suddenly, it's like maybe surrendering to that, which is a surrendering term, I think, that's, that can be kind of funny for some people. Um, but behind that, uh, that's, I think that's where true wisdom is.

Chris Williamson 1:10:58 Aaron Alexander, ladies and

Chris Williamson 1:11:00 gentlemen. Align podcast.

Aaron Alexander 1:11:02 Mm.

Chris Williamson 1:11:02 Align Method book.

Aaron Alexander 1:11:03 Mm.

Chris Williamson 1:11:03 Everything will be linked in the show notes below. Any other stuff that people should check out?

Aaron Alexander 1:11:08 No, I think that's it. I mean, thanks again for making this happen, man. I really enjoyed this. That was a really, a really fun conversation. I appreciate the way that your mind operates, and the way that you create space for, uh, other minds to, to turn the way that they do. So, thank you for creating the space for this. Um, yeah, go check out the Align podcast with you. I really enjoyed that conversation.

Chris Williamson 1:11:31 Yep.

Aaron Alexander 1:11:32 Um, another one that they could check out would be the, the Bruce Lipton conversation, if they want to go deeper into some of these topics. And then the Align Method book is coming out January 11th. And so they could get it, this is before that, they can pre-order it. It's on Amazon or, you know, Barnes & Nobles or whatever. And I think that's it, man. I appreciate you.

Chris Williamson 1:11:50 Awesome, dude. First of many.

Aaron Alexander 1:11:52 Yeah, let's keep doing it. All right. Over and out. Pa-pow.

Chris Williamson 1:11:56 What's happening, people? Thank you very much for tuning in. If you enjoyed that episode, then press here for a selection of the best clips from the podcast over the last few weeks. And don't forget to subscribe. Peace.