EVERY SPOKEN WORD
70 min read · 13,816 words- 0:00 – 0:21
Intro
- CWChris Williamson
What's happening, people? Before we get into the episode, I wanted to give you a disclaimer. David didn't show his face when we were recording. David's a pretty esoteric guy, decided that he's gonna retreat from the world. He's living in a house in the middle of nowhere in Florida, I think. And even though it might have been nice to have seen his face, it's completely on brand. So we've tried to make it as engaging as possible. I hope you enjoy the episode.
- 0:21 – 5:48
What Is a “Man of Zero”?
- CWChris Williamson
What is a Man of Zero?
- DDDavid Deida
Well, to me, a Man of Zero is somebody who has come to the point in their life where their motivation s- has evaporated or isn't there. Uh, they feel they still may be very active. They may be, uh, you know, married. They may have children. They may have businesses. They may be creative. Uh, but under it all, there's just a feeling like, "Why am I doing this?" And part of me would rather not do anything kind of feeling. And I noticed a lot of men feeling that that I was interacting with over the years, and so I wanted to address that.
- CWChris Williamson
Hmm. Is this the next stage after The Superior Man? Is this a spiritual sequel to The Way of the Superior Man?
- DDDavid Deida
It's a kind of sequel, but it's not necessarily a stage progression. So somebody might go into the phase, I'll use the word phase, of a Man of Zero, and then after a month, a year, a decade [chuckles] , whatever, they may come back to being The Superior Man. To me, what a Superior Man is, is a man who is motivated by a deep sense of purpose, and that sense of purpose might be to discover their purpose. But they're motivated by a sense of purpose, often to serve the world or to, to give their gift or to, to make things right. And when that evaporates or when they no longer feel that, that's the beginning of the phase of the Man of Zero. Now, it may last a very short time. It may last a long time, the Man of Zero phase. So they may eventually go back to, oh, a new purpose. Uh, for instance, for myself, this book emerged, uh, out of nowhere as a kind of, "Oh, I, I should write this book. I need to write this book." So it just came out of nowhere. And then, you know, the discipline of writing a book, of working with publishers and all of that, that takes effort. So that came up. You know, I was working as kind of a Superior Man phase for a while, and we'll see if I can get through this interview without resting back into this.
- CWChris Williamson
[laughing] Okay, if you de- if you degenerate into total apathy, we'll know that you've gone back into Man of Zero phase.
- DDDavid Deida
[laughing] It's not exactly apathy. I'm glad you said that. It's a kind of... It's a clarity. It's pure presence. It's pure awareness. It's being absolutely present with the moment, but just not having an urge to, uh, push and change things. Like you're deeply content with the way things are, but that doesn't stop you from changing things. It just means you're not stressed. You know, most men have a kind of kernel of stress in their gut or their heart or their solar plexus that moves them to do something. Well, the Man of Zero is what happens when that stress isn't there. What are you moved to do? Like, how does the universe use you? How-
- CWChris Williamson
Hmm
- DDDavid Deida
... how does, you know, that deeper thing that's beyond you move through you? Because in the Superior Man phase, one is motivated mostly by their personal sense of purpose rather than being kind of used by something or much larger if, if shape, if size even has meaning.
- CWChris Williamson
I think it doesn't exactly paint a very flattering picture of where most people's striving comes from. You know?
- DDDavid Deida
What doesn't paint a flattering picture?
- CWChris Williamson
The fact that when you get to this restful, um, no longer needing to prove yourself, you notice how much of your ambition and your pushing seems to fall away. What that would suggest is that without some of the drives, uh, needs for validation and recognition, uh, past patterns that are puppeting you, maybe you wouldn't be pushing quite so much.
- DDDavid Deida
Definitely, but I don't think that's a negative thing. That's just a, an evolution, a way of growth. I mean, some of the, some of my favorite music, say, was probably created by artists who were doing it so they could get laid. You know, like there... Some- sometimes people do something for money, but it's really a work of art. It's really a beautiful thing that they're creating. Some people have a sense of s- lack of self-worth, let's say, that they inherited from their childhood, and yet that lack of self-worth motivates them to create real art, really beauty on Earth, real beauty on Earth. So it's not necessarily a negative thing that people are motivated. It's just at some point I wanted to account for what happens when those motivations are no longer sufficient to move you.
- CWChris Williamson
Oh, I agree. Uh, the, the world is shaped by people trying to prove themselves to themselves and others. And-
- DDDavid Deida
Yes
- CWChris Williamson
... m- much of that motivation is running away from something that you fear, not just towards something that you want. It's trying to disprove your doubters or critics or alchemize that chip on your shoulder. Uh, it, it, and it... The world com- will become fundamentally a better place. But I think when you start to look at it from the perspective of the individual, the one person, it starts to look a little bit different, and it does look like a, a kind of evolution, uh, internally.
- 5:48 – 11:49
The Signs You’re Becoming a “Man of Zero”
- CWChris Williamson
Well, I gue- I guess, what are the indicators that you've reached this stage? Let's say that you were to explain to the avatar of the person that's going through it. How would they know? What, what are the indicators that you're becoming a Man of Zero or become one?
- DDDavid Deida
Well, the first part of the book, The Man of Zero, is sh- several chapters dedicated to this. Um, basically, you're just no longer motivated like you used to be. You might look at your friends, say, and they seem motivated. They seem okay. They seem like they have a reason to get up in the morning and go forward. Why don't you? Um, there's a kind of... Well, you could either call it peace or you could call it lack of stress in your heart or in your depth. Um, and many people then or many men then assume that's an issue, that's a problem, because they've been motivated, like you say, for many reasons. And suddenly they're just not... There's, it doesn't move the-- it's not sufficient to move them anymore. It feels false. It feels like a false life. It feels like they're not living true to their deepest self. And temporarily, their deepest self wants to do nothing, which to me is a portal. Like if men learned how to do nothing impeccably, so not get on their phone or look at pornography or watch movies or whatever people might do when they don't wanna do anything. If instead men just took a moment and really were present, totally aware, like crystal clear, not pulling away, not pushing anything, something emerges from that. So when you're able to just sit or, or you could do it walking or it doesn't matter at all. But if you could just be, that being then begins to unfold through your life, through your body and mind. Um, so and your body and mind are conditioned, like your body and mind are trained a certain way. So when that being flows through your body and mind, it'll look different than when that being flows through my body and mind.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- DDDavid Deida
Um, I'm not sure if that's answering your question.
- CWChris Williamson
It certainly does. It's a kind of stillness indicator would be you're comfortable with peace. But it, it seems to me that it's almost like a, it feels like a deceleration in striving is one of the sort of core components here. The need to do, the need to be busy.
- DDDavid Deida
That's a core component. The, the sense of seeking for something, whether it's self-validation or peace on Earth, whatever you're seeking just somehow dissolves and you're left, you're left with just being. Uh, so again, most men, they get to that place of just being and they think it's negative. Like, uh, you know, "I need to take testosterone," or, [chuckles] you know, "I need to f- uh, drink more caffeine," or, uh, whatever. They, they feel like they need to do something to get their mojo back, where in fact that is their mojo. Their mojo is leading them to relax their body and mind to become transparent to their being, their deepest being. And it take, it could take time. It might not take time. It's not predictable. But once you're living from that place of being, there's a through and through sense of authenticity. There's not a sense like something's lacking that you're trying to fill, uh, or stress that you're trying to release. It's just a fullness of being that's living your life. It's the same you, you experience it. It's the same force, let's say, that's growing, growing trees and moving your blood and, you know, your thoughts are just appearing out of nowhere. Nobody knows what they're about to think. Nobody's actually planning on... You know, it just their thoughts come out of nowhere. Their body comes out of nowhere. Their experience of everything, what they hear, what they see is just appearing. And when they could stay there because they have no motive to move, then that appearance, you know, you begin to see some principles of those appearances, but you're free. Things are appearing.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- DDDavid Deida
You may act on them, but the essential feeling is one of freedom.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. I, I think what's really interesting here is it feels like the moment when your success stops feeling meaningful and your striving is no longer rewarding you in the same way. And what you're saying is that some men kind of get to there. They get to this escape velocity where they are in this phase of zero, this man of zero moment. And what they do is because for almost all of their life, where they have taken meaning from has been progress, difficulty, hard charging, driving forward, doing things, making shit happen, fulfilling their ambition. And when it's gone, they don't think, "Oh, wow, I've completed that video game." They think, "I need to change my conditions with caffeine or imagined or real enemies or higher testosterone level or a divorce or whatever it might be in an attempt to reignite this, the heart of this dead star that is supposed to kind of be let to cool for a little while."
- DDDavid Deida
Yes, exactly. They-- It's healthy and appropriate for the motivations of your body and mind that have moved you in the past to come to stillness and then to discover the truth of what's left.
- CWChris Williamson
That's so good.
- 11:49 – 13:33
Why Success Starts to Feel Empty
- CWChris Williamson
So question on this. Why does success eventually feel empty?
- DDDavid Deida
Well, it only felt full because you had these thoughts and, you know, feelings of lack and goals that you described. Um, there's never... Anyone who's succeeded any, at anything knows that it's not su- [chuckles] you know, the first thing you discover when you succeed at anything is, "UhUh, okay, you know, I've made zillion dollars, I've got the beautiful woman, or whatever their thing is, and there they are. They're the same one. They're the same being-
- CWChris Williamson
Was that it?
- DDDavid Deida
... that they were before.
- CWChris Williamson
The question, was that it?
- DDDavid Deida
Yeah. Well, it wasn't. [laughs] I mean, you had to do it. You ha- There's no reason to not. Like, if you're motivated to make a lot of money or you're motivated to find a partner or to have sex with a lot of people or whatever one's motivation is, y- you can explore that. I mean, that's what human birth is for, to, to explore all the possibilities of being human. But there comes a point if you, y- if you mature, and it could be at any age. A lot of people, due to psychedelics and s- all kinds of things, are coming to this point early in their life. But there comes a point where they're just ... It's just emp- the emp- it feels empty. The tone is emptiness, meaninglessness. They're just, they're there in their mansion, you know, whatever their situation is, and it's like they, they... Nothing really has changed essentially. Things have changed externally.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- DDDavid Deida
Bigger house, whatever. But essentially they're the same one, and that's disappointing to people. They think there should be s- some feel differently.
- 13:33 – 17:49
Does Achievement Lead to Being a “Man of Zero”?
- CWChris Williamson
Does this mean, therefore, that becoming a man of zero is more common among people, guys who have achieved? That in order to realize that success is empty, you need to have achieved some success. If you're lower down the sort of ladder, still striving with more unfulfilled desires and goals and accomplishments that as yet you haven't reached, you're more likely to keep playing that game as opposed to arriving at this position of stillness?
- DDDavid Deida
I think a large percentage of these men have achieved a modicum of success and have come to that point of meaninglessness. However, I think more and more younger men before they've flexed their muscles in the world, before they've achieved success, often due to a meditative experience or... I mean, people can have these deep experiences now cheaply. [laughs] So they could have a unearned glimpse-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm
- DDDavid Deida
... of, uh, infinity, and they could come to a place of why do anything very early in life before success, and their practice would be the same as the successful person's practices as outlined in, in The Man of Zero book.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm, yeah. It's, uh, referred to as spiritual bypass by some of my friends that sort of do a lot of psychedelics. Uh, people go away to the Amazon rainforest. They sit with the shaman. They have this transcendent experience. They touch the divine. They feel the infinite. And then they come back, and they're the same prick that they were two weeks ago. There's no integration. Nothing changes. [laughs] They've just had, like, visited this p- this peak moment kind of like a tourist going on holiday to come back and go back to their normal day-to-day life.
- DDDavid Deida
Yes. And the key insight in that, and psychedelics altogether, m- is that you're... You said, like, you're the same... I don't remember what you said.
- CWChris Williamson
Right.
- DDDavid Deida
You're the same prick you were beforehand, something like that. Um-
- CWChris Williamson
[laughs]
- DDDavid Deida
The thing to recognize is you are the same one.
- CWChris Williamson
[laughs]
- DDDavid Deida
Whatever that is, you don't have to call it a prick, but you actually are the same one. So no experience changes yourself, your being as like... Let's just call, you know, it doesn't matter what we could call our deepest being, being or aware being. It's what's always there. It's what there w- when we were five or 10 years old or it's what's there now in this moment, in this moment, in this moment. Things keep changing. Our experience changes, but that sense of I or being is continuous. So if you could really recognize that, if you could use, say, psychedelics and go, "I'm the same being before I took psychedelics, during the trip, and afterwards," then the practice is to rest as that being. So the psychedelics themselves may a- afford healing of different kinds of the body and mind. It may give you visions of kind of parallel worlds to the one w- our waking state is used to. Those can be interesting. They could be useful. But the one who's having those visions is the same one who, uh, you know, eats lunch and takes a shit.
- CWChris Williamson
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- 17:49 – 19:34
The Psychological Experience of Hitting Zero
- CWChris Williamson
What's the psychological experience of hitting zero? Does... I imagine this gets confused for depression a lot.
- DDDavid Deida
Definitely. Um, so there are some cases of true clinical depression. For instance, biochemical imbalances that could be addressed through pharmacological means. Um, or you can go into a kind of depression because you lose someone you love or, uh, fail at something that you've spent years trying to succeed. Um-Sometimes those are what I would call true depression. But what most people experience in my, what I'm trying to describe is that they come to a point where their actual life is, is meaningless, that it, there's no more meaning anymore. And so they feel, "What do I do now?" And then what they add is a sense of collapse. So being being, just being your deepest self without collapse is the Man of Zero. Being being and then collapsing, con- literally collapsing, contracting in your solar plexus, hunching over, kind of getting in that dark mulling, you know, "What am I doing?" So, you know, mulling things over, thought. That's depression. So if you subtract the doing, if you go to true zero, so you're not even doing contracting, you're not doing slouching, you're not doing the mulling of the thoughts, then what's left is being without collapse, and that's the Man of Zero.
- CWChris Williamson
Hmm.
- 19:34 – 25:11
How to Make Peace With Hitting Zero
- CWChris Williamson
How do people distinguish that in the moment? Because I think the fear that's going to come up, it, it sounds great. We can r- rationally identify, well, the, the main difference is the collapse, the, the s- the stillness, uh, the deceleration, becoming comfortable with it. But in the moment, you're not gonna be thinking rationally at all. You're gonna think, "Where did all of my drive and ambition go?" And you're gonna look around at all of your friends who you used to work with or compete with or have a rivalry or a friendship with-
- DDDavid Deida
[chuckles]
- CWChris Williamson
... and go, "They're still congruent. They're still aligned. Their thoughts, words, actions, beliefs, direction in life is all moving in the same direction. And I, I, I don't even know, I don't even know what I'm supposed to do. I don't get up. I d- I'm not driven by the same things anymore. This feels like depression. This must be what depression is." So how would you advise someone in the moment to n- to have faith that this is an evolution, not a devolution, progress, not regression?
- DDDavid Deida
One way, there are several ways, but one way would be to... So let's take this moment now. If you're thinking thoughts in this moment, let's say those thoughts were, "My friends are succeeding," or, "My friends..." You know, everything that you just said, those are thoughts that are going by. If you can see those thoughts or witness those thoughts, y- you see them come and go. Like, there's a beginning of a thought, there's a thought, it's over, now there's another thought. So there's these thoughts that are moving, and it's not that difficult to see that you're still there. [chuckles] The thoughts are changing, you are not. Y- you are experiencing those thoughts. The experience changes, the thoughts change, but you are not. And so you, it's, uh, it's hard to put words on, but you sink into that being or you rest as that being or you relax as that being, and then you s- those thoughts may or may not continue. Um, but if you buy into those thoughts, that's what contracts you. So if you start getting lost in the thoughts or lost in anything, lost in a sexual relationship, lost in your work. But when you get lost in those thoughts, you feel suffering because you're not yourself, true self. You're-
- CWChris Williamson
Hmm
- DDDavid Deida
... lost in the stream of thoughts. So the checking is, are you free? Even if thoughts are moving, are you free as they move? Are you the awareness or the space of awareness, however you wanna say it, in which those thoughts are moving? And if you can stay there, just rest, relax there, it's effortless.
- CWChris Williamson
Hmm.
- DDDavid Deida
It's just what you always are. So if you feel that effort coming up, you know you're missing the mark.
- CWChris Williamson
It's interesting that, um, so much of what I think a lot of men do is hide away from the fleeting thoughts, the scary fleeting thoughts, and the patterns that only come up in moments of stillness and quiet by staying busy. So this must be... It's almost like a, a perfect storm. The drive that kept you busy is no longer there, and as the busyness falls away because you're less driven, the quiet fleeting thoughts come up, which you've been hiding away from for a long time, which is even scarier. And that then gives you more to contend with, which incentivizes you even more to push away the phase of zero and go back into the drive and the pursuit.
- DDDavid Deida
It's kind of worse than that. [laughs]
- CWChris Williamson
Brilliant.
- DDDavid Deida
Um, because we've suppressed a lot. So, so let's say you told a lie to somebody. This is just one example. Let's say you told a lie to a business partner or to your wife or who- whoever, or maybe just to yourself, but you've told a lie. And then for some gain, personal gain, you know. So you told a lie, and now that moment has passed, but you know you've told the lie. That creates a kind of contraction or tension in your body and mind.
- CWChris Williamson
Hmm.
- DDDavid Deida
And when you come to this place of zero, all of those tensions from your entire life, all the ways you've lied to yourself and others come back to the surface. So you'll be sitting there and a memory of this person you lied to will come up. It could even be deeper than that. So we have a genetic past and an epigenetic past and an ancestral past. And so just even at the mammalian level, we have mam- ma- you know, mammals. We're mammals. So, and mammals fight and fuck and run. And so you'll be sitting there and mammalian urges to kill and fuck and they'll arise andThe moments you've lied to people and hurt them, those moments will arise, and they're arising to your awareness to be released. It's a kind of purification.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- DDDavid Deida
Like you said, they've be- they've been stuffing them down. So it is. It's a, it's quite the ride. [laughs] You know?
- CWChris Williamson
[laughs]
- DDDavid Deida
It's not, it's not like a vanilla... [laughs] You know? So you, you have to be-- That's why I, I wrote the book, because I want men to understand that and be able to tolerate that unfolding.
- 25:11 – 29:20
Does Effectiveness Decline Over Time?
- CWChris Williamson
Does real-world effectiveness become less for a while?
- DDDavid Deida
I, I would say the interest becomes less, but if you've become effective, that stays there. Your, your skills aren't diminished.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm. Mm.
- DDDavid Deida
So, so your, your skills-
- CWChris Williamson
It's-
- DDDavid Deida
You know
- CWChris Williamson
... what's the judgment by which we're saying effective is or is not here? If it's playing a game that you've now liberated yourself from, then yeah, you're less effective at playing the game, but you've also transcended it.
- DDDavid Deida
Yeah. I'm not even sure you're less effective at playing the game. You're just less moved to. But if the game is kind of put on you-
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah
- DDDavid Deida
... you might even be more skilled because you're less wound up in your own issues.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, that's fun. That is fun. So I, I mean, what's so cool about this, I've been doing this live show. Um, I went to Australia, New Zealand, and Bali. I just got back from there. And on stage, I was trying to thread a needle that was, uh, potentially really unpopular and also really hard to do, and it was basically warning people of the hollowness of arriving. And it really feels like there's something there in the ether that you're, you've definitely touched with this, and I think I was trying to get to as well. One of the challenges, I think, when it comes to people learning this stuff is if you haven't yet got there, if you haven't yet got to the point where you've felt enough success and achievement to peer over the top of it and see that it might not be all that you thought or you hoped that it was going to be, if someone who appears to have already made it to the top of the mountain is telling you that the view from the top is not that good, what it feels like to you is someone sucking the oxygen out of your fuel tank, that people respond to this-
- DDDavid Deida
Mm
- CWChris Williamson
... with an awful lot of, of distaste. "Oh," like, "what a luxurious position to be in," or some other version of, "Well, if, if I'd got there, that would fix my internal need, my desire for validation. That would be solved by the 10,000 square foot home, or the supermodel girlfriend, or the Ferrari, or the th- thousand monthly paying subscribers on my app," or whatever it might be. And, um, I think it's, it's a rare person who is able to face this and go, "Huh, maybe the things that I'm pursuing at some point in future will be hollow," as opposed to just, uh, uh, they, they just need to push harder. They just need to man up and go through it.
- DDDavid Deida
If they feel they need to man up and go through it, they should. I mean, that's a true phase. So if somebody really feels that, I would recommend that they man up and go through it.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- DDDavid Deida
Um, to others, I would say it's not so much like when you reach the top, like you arrive and then you see it's empty. Right now, in this moment, whoever's listening, I mean, this very moment, feel what's happening. Notice what's happening. There's something happening. You're, you're hearing vo- my voice and your voice. Uh, there's a visual perception they're having. But none of that is changing them. They're the same one listening that they were yesterday or 10 years ago or 10 years from now. And so in this very moment, they can relax or notice that one, and instantly in that noticing, all the stuff they're doing and thinking becomes empty. Not, not in a negative way. It's just stuff that's happening. It's like watching a river or watching the clouds. Um, it's still happening, but it's flowing through you. There's... So, so there's no need to feel like when I achieve or when I'm on have arrived.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- DDDavid Deida
Right now you're in that condition. But you may also have motivation. So right now everyone is in the condition of, of being aware. To some people, that is sufficient. To other people, they need to add stress and seeking.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
- 29:20 – 30:30
Is Self-Improvement Delaying Your Freedom?
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm. In that way, do you think self-improvement and the pursuit of self-improvement can sort of delay real freedom, making us believe that we're the unfinished article until... Even if that's not true, the belief in it means that we put off asking the deeper questions or sitting with the stillness?
- DDDavid Deida
Um, I don't think... Uh, if somebody wants to self-improve, they should, as we said earlier. I mean, that's what makes the world go round. So people, people who are moved to self-improve or improve the world, which tend to go hand in hand, um, they should. Uh, s- there's no reason not to. I don't see it as a block to this. I think sooner or later, most men come to a point of whether, however active they are or however improved they are or not, of feeling its emptiness. Like in, again, in this moment, most men would be able to feel that spacious emptiness, that awareness. It's a- aware. It's got a... There's an is-ness. It's hard to put words on this obviously, but-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm
- DDDavid Deida
... a lot of men have experienced
- 30:30 – 39:13
How Sex Changes At Zero
- DDDavid Deida
it.
- CWChris Williamson
What changes around sex?
- DDDavid Deida
Well, a third of the book is about sex [laughs] um, of the, the book The Man of Zero, because a lot could change, because a lot of our sex is based on-Uh, our past, our mammalian past, as I said, um, our psychological past, the way our parents treated us, our first sexual relationships. Um, as we rest at zero more and more, more stably, more frequently, those no longer motivate you. So what men often feel as they approach this phase of the Man of Zero is less actual desire for sex, but more sexual fantasies coming out of those depths that I described earlier, like that we stuffed down. So they might be sitting there and they may have all kinds of weird sexual fantasies and thoughts, but when it comes to actually having sex and having a relationship, all they know is what they see in their friends or what they did in the past, which is based on these conditionings from their past, their, their mammalian conditioning, their personal past, their childhood traumas. And those just are no longer an interesting way to have sex. So a lot of men go, "You know, I'm, I'm losing my sexual desire. I need to get it back." Whereas, as I describe in the book, there's... what turns you on now is not as much, uh, you know, what turned you on before, lingerie and porn or whatever.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- DDDavid Deida
But a, a partner, I'll say woman, it could be any sex, but a partner's actual love, her devotion, her surrender. So when you feel someone's devotion to love or op- surrender, opening their body to love, that brings a part of you to the fore that could become sex from zero. Like you're rested at zero. You're, you're not pushing. But from that place comes a polarity or sexual attraction. There's a lot in the book about that. We can unpack it more now if you want.
- CWChris Williamson
Absolutely. Yeah. I think, uh, the role of sexual polarity, obviously massive part of your first book, and then to see it, you might think that the amount of stillness would kill the polarity, but you're suggesting that that's not the case.
- DDDavid Deida
Stillness is one side of the polarity. The other side is fullness or energy, and that's... You know, I use the word masculine and feminine. It's problematic for some people. But the way I'm using that word is that the masculine is that unchanging stillness that we can all experience, and the feminine is everything that moves, is life force, is energy, um, is the fullness to the emptiness. And so as you rest in emptiness through polarity, you tend to attract fullness. So y- if in a heterosexual relationship, you will tend to attract to you women who are, you know, very active. They like to talk. They, they're f- they like to socialize. Just, just as you're feeling, "I don't wanna talk, [chuckles] I don't wanna socialize." And so it's important to learn to embrace that polarity, but it's still a polarity. And ultimately, the polarity is being the fullness of your depth, of your awareness, and attracting to you a woman who's in her fullness of devotion. That is, her heart is open and full of love that she also wants to share, but she's not driven by a sense of lack. So she loves you but doesn't need you, and vice versa. And that, that's a very strong polarity. Your depth of stillness is in polarity with her radiance, her power. Um, I see it even coming out as more and more women, I'm sure you know this, you know, there are more girls who graduate high school than boys. There are more women in law school and medical school than men. And I think it's gonna keep going in that direction. I think that over time, women will be much, and already are, will be m- more-- there'll be more women leaders than men. There'll be more successful women than men. The pendulum will swing. And then men will need to learn how to rest as this Man of Zero in depth because then they still have polarity. It's very valuable when a woman-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- DDDavid Deida
-who's very strong and powerful kinda comes home from work, if we wanna use that metaphor, like she comes home from a day of being in the world, and there you are completely present, rooted in the deepest sense of being, absolutely attentive to her without being clinging because your awareness is free. She feels that is the greatest gift on Earth. So she moves from being attracted to a man who, whatever, makes a lot of money and is socially charismatic to a man whose polarity matches her at the level of being and doing or emptiness and fullness.
- CWChris Williamson
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- DDDavid Deida
Mm-hmm
- CWChris Williamson
... even if you're not doing as much doing as the woman in your life, the fact that you're able to be so still and so comfortable with it commands a kind of masculine power and respect that kind of means that no matter what happens in the outside world, the protector provider, the socioeconomic balance or imbalance, uh, it's always still you in a position of masculine frame holding.
- DDDavid Deida
Yes, because awareness is where everything happens. You wouldn't be aware of something unless it happened in awareness, and you're that awareness. So you are the ultimate frame, if you will. And this could even apply sexually. So let's say you're laying in bed with a lover. Um, in the past, you might initiate sex and, you know, you might be kissing and touching and foreplay and building up tension, maybe spanking, I don't know, lovingly being together in all kinds of playful ways. But, uh, for a man of zero, he might be laying there feeling like, "I, I don't wanna do anything. I don't wanna move. I love her. I love being here with her. I don't wanna do anything, though." And I would say to that man, "Okay, don't do anything. You just lay there in bed, hold her in your arms, but completely feel her. Feel her body. Notice the tensions moving through her body. Feel her emotions. Feel the ongoing yearning in her heart." Just... And in the book, I give details, but you, you learn how to feel into her effortlessly, just in a completely relaxed way. And then she feels your presence. She feels you feeling her. Sh- she feels you knowing her. And that is incredibly valuable, even sexually. So now you're just laying there holding her with her, but she feels you deeply knowing her, probably deeper than if you were pumping her, you know. So she's feeling this deep sense of you being inside of her. You're still penetrating her, but you're penetrating her with your love, with your feeling awareness. Um, and so sexually, the less you do, the more she feels fucked by you.
- 39:13 – 43:14
Why Do Men Struggle to Talk About Intimacy?
- CWChris Williamson
You said before about how sort of the, the previous things that men were-- would be turned on by in sex, maybe you could categorize them as a bit more obvious, a little bit more shallow. I, I can't think of a better word. A little bit more shallow. When you're then talking about sex at zero is much more intimate. Why do you think talking about intimacy when it comes to sex is hard for men? Talking about sleeping with women is pretty easy, almost sort of bragging about what you got up to last night if you're in your twenties. But talking about true physical intimacy as a man, a lot of the time, I think makes men uncomfortable. Women have a not horrendous archetype for this, you know, the transcendent, deeply desired. It's making love, not having sex. But for men, true physical intimacy and making love is... I don't know. I, I, I don't hear many men talking about it, and when they do, I think that there's a kind of uncomfortableness around it.
- DDDavid Deida
Well, that's a-- As you know, a lot of my work in the past has been on sexuality and spirituality, um, so we could spend, you know, months [chuckles] unpacking this. But-
- CWChris Williamson
Hey, it's your first pod- it's your first podcast in ten years. I don't know whether you knew, David, but this actually does last for months, so I hope that you've locked in.
- DDDavid Deida
[laughing] That's fantastic. Because of the way evolution works, I'm sure you know this, uh, for male bodies, all they need to do is ejaculate in order to create the next generation. Whereas women need to raise-- you know, be pregnant, eat enough while they're pregnant, survive pregnancy, raise the child nursing. There's a big difference, if you will, in potential cost, evolutionarily speaking. Um, so m- men are built to be aroused sexually. So sexual arousal, you know, men are almost always able to be sexually... You know, they're fantasizing about sex a lot. Uh, sexual arousal is easy, um, so it's easy for them to talk about that part, sex. It's easy for them to, to say what they like s- sexually. Intimacy often involves [sighs] emotional sensitivity, um, feeling the other person, obviously. And most men during sex, because of their evolutionary past, get so wrapped up in the physical sensations.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- DDDavid Deida
"I have an erection. I'm gonna ejaculate. Look at her breasts. Look at her ass." Like they're s- they're in this evolutionary churn that most men know. We all know that. Um, so it makes it easy for them to talk about sexuality. But because they're deeply identified with nothingness, so, you know, at the depth of man, of the masculine, is this emptiness, this nothingness, and the emotions are anything but empty. They're, they're what fill the emptiness. Most men, because they don't really realize how much they love the nothingness, they don't like filling it with emotion. So often a, a woman will ask a man like, "What are you feeling?" And he'll go, "Well, nothing." And he's not lying. Or, or, you know, "What do you feel about this?" And he might say, "I don't have any feelings about it." Often they're not lying. They're really feeling this kind of sense of emptiness or f- not in a negative way, just it's a nothing. It's a aware nothingness, and they're not feeling an emotion. And so the, the woman will feel like he's not sharing with me, and the man will feel like, "Why is she doing this?" You know, "Why is she creating a problem when there is none?"Um, so there's a big difference between the way in-- typically the masculine, feminine communicate and, and why that difference
- 43:14 – 50:47
The Best Ways to Move From Sex to Real Intimacy
- DDDavid Deida
is.
- CWChris Williamson
What is your advice for a guy who wants to move from just having sex to proper intimacy?
- DDDavid Deida
When one is in the Man of Zero phase, one of the obvious things is that that beingness or awareness, being aware is in all beings. Like you could look into a dog's eye and see their awareness. You could look into, uh, you know... You, you're feeling that awareness in all beings, including your lover. So feeling, like loving the love in your lover or being aware of the awareness in your lover. So she's aware of you, you're aware of her, you're aware of her being aware of you. That mutual awareness is love or that mutual we are the same being. It's not a thought like that. It's just a feeling. Again, you could feel it with an animal. You could feel it with a plant. You could feel it. But that being that I am the same as you at depth. We're different at our surface. Our minds are different. Our bodies are different. But at depth, when you look in, say, look into the eyes of, of a dog even, you can feel love. You could feel them connecting with you. There's a being there. And that recognition of shared being, which we could call love, might manifest as, you know, wanting to be physically intimate in the case of polarity. Unless, you know, you don't necessarily have polarity with a dog, but if-
- CWChris Williamson
Or a plant
- DDDavid Deida
... you're with a human [chuckles] or a plant, although some people do, you know. So but i-if you have that polarity with a human and you're in your nothingness, that means you will attract somebody in their fullness, and that connection is love, even though you're playing the opposite poles. So one feels that love and is still and silent and is n-not in the mood to communicate emotions. They're not in any mood. There is no mood. And the other is flowing with feeling, bursting with emotions, and highly responsive to life. Um, and those tend to make, you know, a good pair in terms of polarity. So you, you recognize the unity of heart, I am you at depth, but then you recognize the reciprocity in body and mind. She's radiant, I'm still. You know, she loves to dance, I love to watch her dance.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm. [chuckles] Let's say that there's someone-- Let's say that there's a man who hasn't yet hit the Man of Zero thing, that sex at zero also not there. Are there some, are there some practices that you think help to push someone who isn't already in stillness, a man that isn't already in stillness, towards sex being a vehicle for, um, experiencing deeper intimacy and then also perhaps moving through some of the patterns that he, he has to work through in order to get to that Man of Zero point?
- DDDavid Deida
Yes. Um, again, my previous 10 books were focused on this.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm. Congratulation on 11, by the way.
- DDDavid Deida
[laughs] Thank you. You know, men shouldn't push their stage or phase. Like you, you should live it fully. The, the best way to grow out of it is to grow through it.
- CWChris Williamson
Yep. I agree.
- DDDavid Deida
Like, and so if you really are motivated to just have physical sex, you know, wham bam, thank you, ma'am, just quick, you know. Then if that's where you're at, do it until it becomes obsolete for you. Um, when a man begins to become ready, there are all kinds of practices he could do. One-- I mean, I'll say some of them, but again-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm
- DDDavid Deida
... there's a lot of them. Um, one thing is for him to learn to take his attention off himself, off his own body, and onto her, his partner's body, even in sex and not in sex. So let's talk about sex. So to feel your partner's body more than you feel your own. To feel the tensions and relaxations in your partner's body, to feel the breath moving in and out of your partner's body, to feel the emotions moving through your partner, rather than your attention locked into your own sexual sensations. So one would just be to learn to liberate your attention to at least feel her more than yourself. Um, another thing to do is to create a kind of resonance, so often breathing with your partner sexually. So when she inhales, you inhale, and she exhales, you exhale. And then, of course, you might need to take catch-up breaths because you don't have the same metabolism as your partner. But creating a kind of resonance of breath helps deepen sex beyond the merely physical. Going deeper in the body. So, uh, you know, some men only play on the surface of the woman's body. They kiss her lips. They-
- CWChris Williamson
David, I'm going as deep as I can
- DDDavid Deida
... kiss her.
- CWChris Williamson
I'm, I'm really trying. I've been trying for my entire sexual life to go as deep as I can. [laughs]
- DDDavid Deida
Congratulations. [laughs]
- CWChris Williamson
Sorry. Sorry, I had, I had to. Go on.
- DDDavid Deida
[laughs] Was that... Do you want me to comment on that?
- CWChris Williamson
I feel-
- DDDavid Deida
I'm not sure what it means.
- CWChris Williamson
No, no, no, no, no. That was just... I'm sorry. I just... The, the thought arise, a-a-arose in my mind, and I couldn't not make a deep joke. So, uh, you, you were saying, uh-
- DDDavid Deida
[laughs]
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah
- DDDavid Deida
Well, well, that's actually true. I mean, a lot of men just at the physical level have an impulse to go deep. They wanna press, you know, in terms of actual sex, they wanna press their sexual organ deep inside a, a woman. The feeling of going deep is the essential masculine urge, going deep into her, going deep into self, going deep into being. So that sense of wanting to go deep is a kind of native expression of the masculine.
- CWChris Williamson
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- 50:47 – 57:57
What Comes After Hitting Zero?
- CWChris Williamson
So things change and drop away. Uh, ambitions, drives that we used to have may... They're just not there in the same way anymore. They feel hollow. You're not driven to do the same things. You may be more skillful because you're not pushing in the same sort of a way, but the drive to do the thing that you're skillful at may be diminished or entirely absent. Uh, there's not a collapse because the collapse would be depression, but there is a kind of emptiness, and sitting with that in stillness is important. Also, the way that you show up and the way that you feel around sex may go from shallow to deep. It may feel significantly more intimate, less physical, more bound together. How does this get integrated? What, what, what, what do you do next?
- DDDavid Deida
Over... It takes quite a while for the stability of your being to infiltrate through the patterns of your body mind. So we have all kinds of patterns in our body mind. We have traumas. We might feel aggressive because of the way whatever our father treated us. We might feel aggressive because we're mammals, and we've inherited a certain degree of aggression. Well, as we rest as being more and more, as we become stable, as recognizing ourselves as that simple awareness or presence, those patterns become integrated naturally, if you will, because they're not... Tension isn't being added to them. You're not rewinding them tighter and tighter. You're letting them uncoil in the space of your awareness. Now, some people might have such a tight knot in their body or mind that they need a form of therapy. So they may need a, you know, whatever, a form of somatic therapy to unknot their body, or they may need a form of cognitive therapy to help them unknot their mind or, or release a trauma. They might wanna do trauma therapy. But what the... All of that is just for to help loosen that relaxation in the openness of their presence. So over time, it slowly becomes integrated, and it's slow. Another thing that people don't really understand is, you know, you could have this kind of recognition of being, and yet your body and mind continue with the patterns they have before, and your body is the last to change. Your, your mind may change first, but you find your body doing things your mind doesn't want to anymore. So you, you have to have patience and compassion for yourself and others as these patterns in your body mind continue to unfold. You might find yourself lying even though you don't want to lie. You might find yourself hurting someone even though you don't wanna hurt them. Um, so you compassionately allow these past contractions that you stored in your body and mind to open in the spaciousness of your present being, and that takes years. I mean, there are all kinds of stories, as you know, of people of supposed spiritual depth-
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah
- DDDavid Deida
... who act in, you know, not integrous ways.
- CWChris Williamson
Pretty much every leader of some spiritual movement or yoga, uh, cult for the last, like, three decades is basically, or like fifty decades perhaps has done that.
- DDDavid Deida
Pretty much because it's universal. I mean, th- it just doesn't change. People who... It's a false, uh, hope, I guess, for it to change. So there are some highly integrated people-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm
- DDDavid Deida
... who are not that deep.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
- DDDavid Deida
Some are deep, some are not that deep.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- DDDavid Deida
But there are also very deep people-
- CWChris Williamson
Well integrated
- DDDavid Deida
... who are not very integrated. They may have... They may be alcoholics. They may be, uh, you know, cheating. You know, they may have sex with all of their students or, um... And those... That doesn't mean they're not... They don't recognize the nature of their being. It just means that their pattern has yet to unfold, and you need to be careful. I mean, you couldPut structure so that pattern doesn't hurt people, or you could make amends as those patterns inevitably hurt people. But that's the usual. That's not the exception, as you say.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- DDDavid Deida
People have a kind of recognition that they can share with others, and yet it's just like being an artist. How many artists can essentially create? Let's take a musician. They could, they could make divine music, and yet they themselves in their personal life are pretty messed up.
- CWChris Williamson
I wonder, I... This is why I said about real-world effectiveness, right? That so much of the best analyses, the best philos-- There's this great line, "If you are, if you marry well, you will become happy. But if you marry wrong, you will become a philosopher." And-
- DDDavid Deida
[laughs]
- CWChris Williamson
I, I, I think what that's sort of speaking to is when you're pushing up against the grain of life, when it feels like you're swimming into the stream, when it, s-stuff's just not quite cohesive in the right way or y-you, you, you still have these patterns to work against, these resentments from your past, this bitterness, this sort of un-alchemized, untranscended and included problem. You... Because things aren't going easily, because things aren't going well, you tend to look at your, your world and yourself with so much more dexterity and resolution and obsession. That's where the art seems to come from. You know, how many songs have been made that are wonderful and unbelievably deep about everything's going well, and my wife's happy and healthy, and I've got these new kids, and the field outside is really bright today, and the weather's good? It's like, no. So much of what births great creative insight and that desire to make things at a level that would be unreasonable otherwise is the fact that you're brushing up against the grain of life. And that's, I think, what I was trying to get at, that as this stuff drops away, maybe your, your, if your ability to be effective includes your drive to do the thing, your output may change. The outputs that you get may, may, uh, diminish.
- DDDavid Deida
It's... First of all, I agree with you that suffering is the trigger for a lot of depth and a lot of art, which to me are the same thing. Good art comes from depth. So I agree with you, and that's why I don't think people should rush through these phases and also why I don't think people should assume someone has depth, it means they're an integrated character. I would say that a lack of integration often creates art more than an integrated human.
- 57:57 – 58:58
How to Tell If Someone Is Truly Integrated
- CWChris Williamson
Can you highlight the difference-
- DDDavid Deida
And-
- CWChris Williamson
... between somebody who is, uh... H-how do we identify somebody that is integrated and isn't?
- DDDavid Deida
The way I'm using that word is that they're socially skilled. They act with deep morality. Uh, people who are good people, a mensch, you know, someone who you could trust. And a lot of these teachers you wouldn't trust or a lot of these musicians or artists or whatever form they take, you might trust their art, but you wouldn't trust them, whatever, with your wife or with your bank account or with, you know, you, you have to use your discrimination. Um, and luckily, that's doesn't stop. As I said, even when you're rested at zero, those patterns continue, and they continue to cause trouble. And so the source of art that you're referring to doesn't cease.
- CWChris Williamson
Hmm. Yeah. Yeah, I understand.
- DDDavid Deida
Your access to depth becomes more stable.
- 58:58 – 1:01:26
The Role of Discipline After Purpose
- CWChris Williamson
What role does discipline play after purpose ends?
- DDDavid Deida
Well, the body and mind continue to require discipline. You know, if you want to become stronger, you lift weights regularly. If you want to think about something more clearly, you may read books. So you, you may say that x hours a day, I'm gonna lift weights or read books or... So, so there's still a sense for your body and mind to train how your... You know, to, to learn to golf takes discipline, repetition. Um, so your body and mind still require discipline, but y- the discipline is no longer to be what you are. You recognize you are what you are, so it's effortless. So the, the being depth is effortless. There's, you don't... If you're doing something, you're missing it. So in this moment, if you're trying to be being, then you're trying.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- DDDavid Deida
You're not being. So you... Effortlessness is the key to knowing that in this moment you're just being. But that doesn't mean that within that effortless being, you might still decide, you know, "I want to paint something," or, "My kid needs to be picked up from school," or, um, you know, "I want to build a business." And all of those things require, you know, repetitive action or discipline.
- CWChris Williamson
It's a very different sort of drive to get there, though, right?
- DDDavid Deida
Different from what? What's different from what?
- CWChris Williamson
Well, i-in order to do this, it seems like there's kind of bottom-up motivation, which is, uh, less conscious, and it's driven by need for recognition. It's driven by past patterns. This is much more dictated. Like, I don't need to paint, but I'm going to. I, I want to paint. I don't need to go to the gym, and need to go to the gym is because if my body is better, then I will look good to the person that I love, and she will find me attractive and da, da, da, da. As opposed to just, "I'm doing this because I want to."
- DDDavid Deida
Yes. No, I agree with that. Yes.
- CWChris Williamson
You've been thinking about... How long have you been writing about men and women?
- DDDavid Deida
Forty-some years.
- CWChris Williamson
Okay.
- 1:01:26 – 1:03:32
How Culture Around Men Has Shifted
- CWChris Williamson
We are, you mentioned it earlier on, at least at what feels like a bit of a transitionary period, especially for men. For women too, but especially for men. I think women had a big transitionary period about 50, 60 years ago. What do you see or what are you hopeful for and worried about with the current culture around men?
- DDDavid Deida
I, I wouldn't say I'm worried about anything, but I would say that as women take over the functions that men once had, men will have to find a, the deeper reason for being. And that deeper reason is what we've been talking about this whole time, to, um, frame everything, to hold everything, to be presence, to be depth. So whatever somebody's doing, your presence deepens them, so their doing becomes deeper. And that involves a different form of, uh, self-worth, if you will. Like, you're not measuring yourself on, you know, how much money you have or how much weight you can lift. You're kind of measuring yourself on, if, if you wanna use that word, on your stability be what you are, and rather than getting lost in thoughts or in activities.
- CWChris Williamson
What's the core of masculine essence, in your opinion?
- DDDavid Deida
Well, the way I use that term is identifying more with the emptiness aspect of being than the fullness aspect of being. So the feminine is all into growth and change and flowering and fullness and eyeing, and the masculine is more oriented to timelessness and peace and being. Um, so there are two different orientations, emptiness and fullness or presence and radiance.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- DDDavid Deida
There's different ways of saying it.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
- 1:03:32 – 1:07:51
What’s David’s End Goal?
- CWChris Williamson
It feels to me like you've lived 30 different lives. I did a little bit of research. You, apparently you instructed in artificial intelligence, researched neuroscience, developed yoga techniques for intimate relationships, wrote PhDs that got a award from the French government, published academic papers, studied spirituality, and then wrote 11 books as well. I'm sure I'm-
- DDDavid Deida
[laughs]
- CWChris Williamson
[laughs] I'm sure I'm missing an awful lot. What's the, what's the through line with this? You know, you're kind of a, especially now with not showing your video, living in the middle of nowhere in, in God knows where with trees that are, are blocking your internet signal. Uh, you're almost sort of this esoteric masculinity wizard, uh, [laughs] who has been-
- DDDavid Deida
[laughs]
- CWChris Williamson
... been working on this stuff for so long. Like, what, what's the through line? What, what do you want your career to be about and be remembered about?
- DDDavid Deida
I don't really think of it in those terms, but there's definitely a through line. Um, uh, for whatever reasons, these thing, this, this desire to understand reality or who I am or who we are has started very, very early in my life. Very early. I mean, I remember being in the crib. I re- remember being diapered and feeling like, ooh, you know, like there's pers- I remember learning what perspective is or crawling on the carpet at my grandparents' house and realizing that what size meant. Like, some things were bigger than others. Like, I, uh, it's just something I've been interested in all of my life. And so at some point in my life, that led me to mathematics. I, I, uh, developed the indicational calculus, which is a calculus of distinctions, how distinctions arise in consciousness, published papers in that. That also, that became biology and immunology. Um, I worked in labs. I worked in a sleep lab to study sleep and dreams. Um, they... These were all unfoldings to me of the same thing. And during all of that, my main interest was just like, what is this? Like, what is the nature of being, of reality, of me, of the world? Like, why are we here? What is the meaning? And not in an intellectual sense, but to, to be able to do it, to, to write a computer that could think. Back then, I was working on early artificial intelligence or, uh, you know, in the immune system I was working is how does the immune system recognize self from other? You know? So I was always motivated by that. And through that, I was also meditating and doing yoga. Like you said, I had a yoga school. Um, but all of those to me were the same thing. They were different ways just that my personality or manifested this discovery, manifested this, uh, exploration, and still is. So for the last couple of decades, I've been... It just naturally came. I've been living in mostly silence and a kind of retreat-like life, uh, but, uh, not because I'm avoiding anything. It's just I succeeded at every... You know, I accomplished what I needed to accomplish, and it came to a point of being, of rest. And that's where this book came from because the men I was seeing were struggling with that transition.
- CWChris Williamson
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- 1:07:51 – 1:19:37
How to Stay Fulfilled Long-Term
- CWChris Williamson
What is it that you attribute your ability to stay in touch with what you're truly interested in to?
- DDDavid Deida
I never had an option. I don't know how to say it. Um, it hurt me too much. Uh, for instance, um, I, I went to... When I went to college at 16 years old, I entered a program that was a combination of medical school and undergraduate school at a very young age. So I was going to medical school very early and studying science and all of these things, and at one point, I remember just sitting there in the library studying. I, you know, I was dissecting brains in labs. I was in it deep. And suddenly it was just like, "I can't do this anymore." Like the, "I've outgrown this," or, uh, "It's become obsolete for me. As much as I loved it until yesterday, today-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm
- DDDavid Deida
... it's done." And I, for some reason, I was able... I mean, I didn't just quit. You know, I let things go in an easy way and a responsible way. But it became clear to me that that phase had ended, and usually I don't know what the next phase is. I spent a year living under a tarp on a beach on a deserted part of Hawaii with no money at all, and that, out of that year came my first book. So I didn't know that. I just thought, "I'm done. I'm gonna just live under a tarp cheap as possible." So I did, and then just started writing. I didn't plan on it. And I began to realize that if I could surrender to that process and not be lazy, to really put in the work as things arose for me, that what I created from that place of depth was worth something to people. So I learned to make a living doing what I love.
- CWChris Williamson
Hmm.
- DDDavid Deida
I don't know if that's answering your question.
- CWChris Williamson
It, it, it does. I think it might be difficult for you to, [chuckles] to see why waking up one day and feeling like your work in the lab is no longer fulfilling you in the way that it used to, but not continuing because of sunk cost fallacy or loss aversion or fear of what people will say or not being able to beat your previous career or whatever, uh, it, it seems like that comes pretty naturally to you because the pain of being out of alignment is greater than the pain of change. Uh, but I, I don't think that that's the case. I don't think [chuckles] that's the case for most people. I think, I think most people are pretty ridden, riven by that stuff.
- DDDavid Deida
Yes. I would say that the pain of l- living an untrue life for me exceeded the fear of what might happen if I do.
- CWChris Williamson
Yes, yes, yes.
- DDDavid Deida
So, so, you know, I was willing to risk everything because I just didn't have a choice. Like it hurt so much. Literally hurt, like my body hurt. Every... The... You know, going to do these things hurt, uh, to do. Um, I don't, I don't know how to describe it, just the pain itself. Suffering, like you say, is the root of a lot of exploration and creation and art, and the suffering just became so intense that, you know, when I ended a phase, that I had no choice but to f- allow the new authenticity to find a way to express itself.
- CWChris Williamson
Hmm. I, uh, I did a retreat. Do you know who Joe Hudson is by any chance? Are you familiar with him?
- DDDavid Deida
I don't. I'm not familiar.
- CWChris Williamson
So Joe is a... Spiritual teacher makes him sound... It's far too two-dimensional for what he does, but, uh, Eastern, Western, lots of therapeutic modalities, does retreats. He's also, uh, head of human culture at OpenAI. He's Sam Altman's coach. He's also my coach. And, um, he is, he's a, a wonderful, wonderful man. And I did a retreat. It was my first sort of deep emotions boot camp retreat, and I did it on a flower farm in, uh, Santa Rosa in California last year. I did it in, I did it in September.
- DDDavid Deida
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
And I haven't done Hoffman Process. I haven't done IFS. Th-this is the first thing of its kind that, that I've done. And, you know, by day four of seven, you're pretty cracked open. By day three of seven, you're getting there, and by f- day four of seven, you're pretty cracked open. 12 hours a day working on anger, working on grief, working on sadness, working on upright communication and, uh, and apologies. And it's what you said earlier on about the pain of when you tell a lie, sort of it comes back to get you when you get to this-
- DDDavid Deida
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm
- CWChris Williamson
... this phase of zero, because that was kind of like speed running to zero, uh-
- DDDavid Deida
[chuckles]
- CWChris Williamson
... but without the psychedelics. And-
- DDDavid Deida
Mm-hmm
- CWChris Williamson
... what I found when I got out was all of the ways that my patterns and incongruence andLike just all of the things that I did in the world, the conversations that I would have with, with my staff and the small ways that I might, I might lie because I didn't want to hurt their feelings. Um, I, I, I didn't want to say something that might make them uncomfortable, so I didn't say what was just true or my truth. Uh, or the way that I might, uh, deal with a friend who was late for dinner or, or, uh, an interaction with, uh, somebody that I'd just met or whatever. All of these different ways. There was this... And he used the word constriction, which is the perfect word for it. There was this sort of tightening, and it feels like, it feels like a wet rag. If you imagine a wet rag that sort of goes from the back of your mouth to the middle of your stomach, and it, it feels like some-- it, it feels like someone's sort of twisting it like this. And, um-
- DDDavid Deida
Yes
- CWChris Williamson
... I'd never had-- I mean, I always, I, I try not to lie as best I can, and I'd always known that it was something that didn't make me feel great. I'm a horrendous liar. I'm a really, really, uh, unsophisticated liar. And this extra level of sensitivity, you know, this attunement that I had from stripping away, opening my heart, doing all of this work for, you know, a full week just meant that, that, that level of sensitivity to the, the, the rag being, being squeezed inside of me was so... It was so fucking hypersensitized. It was insane. And, um, I kind of imagine, I just have to assume that this is, this is maybe what it's like to be David Deida. That, that level of sensitivity-
- DDDavid Deida
[chuckles]
- CWChris Williamson
... to the pain, the pain of misalignment. I was having a conversation yesterday about why, why I'm glad that I get such bad hangovers, which is, uh, the cost-benefit analysis or the, the, uh, reward-punishment balance for me for drinking alcohol is just way off. It was never great, and now I'm in my thirties and, and it's, it's gotten even worse. I'm kind of glad because what that means is the likelihood of me ever becoming an alcoholic is super low because the pain. I wouldn't even be able to get to the point of dependency because I'd be so miserable after day three or four. I'd be like, "I can't. I cannot fucking do this anymore." Um, this, what you have here is maybe and if you do the work, the opening, the freeing, uh, the, the attunement, that's kind of the same thing. It's a very high level of pain when you do something that you shouldn't be doing, and that whether it's through, uh, training or just a, a, a, you know, fortune gift that you've been given, uh, means that when you start to do stuff that's out of alignment, you feel it very harshly, and that has pushed you through what to, to me from the outside looks like, again, 30 different lives that you've lived. But to you just feels like, well, I was just, I was following what I was interested in. I wanted to understand myself and the world around me, and I kept going.
- DDDavid Deida
I was trying to keep that rag untwisted-
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah
- DDDavid Deida
... that you described, the wet rag. So, you know, you, you did a process, a week-long whatever process to feel that, which is great. Um, but you can also feel that at, at any time. So right now you can feel the extent to which that area of your body from your throat down or which is the typical place people feel it. I talk about that in the book a lot, the Man of Zero book. So that contraction in the front of the body from your throat down your solar plexus and down even deeper, that's the sig- that's a signal for you and many men that they're out of line. Now, if their mechanisms like their need for self-worth is so intense, it could push them to ignore that for years and years, and then you have to do what you did. [chuckles] You know, you have to go to a training and have it unpacked, which is very useful. I've done those kind of things. So you, you could do it in an intensive kind of way or you can, or and you can learn to feel that tension, constriction, contraction as it's happening and, and you're reading that. It's like a meter. It's like flying an airplane by instruments. You're feeling the tightening of that and you're going, "Okay, you, you might not be aware of why it's happening, but right now I'm living off the mark."
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- DDDavid Deida
"I'm, I'm not living on point." And then they accumulate less. But it doesn't matter how you come to that place. Like you said, I mean, you could do it through a process, which you did, which is great. You could do it through... Some people feel it through psychedelics. Some people just feel it through the school of hard knocks.
- 1:19:37 – 1:24:46
The Top Practices to Maximise Your Development
- CWChris Williamson
Speaking of that, I, I know and I appreciate you, uh, not encouraging people to growth hack or speed run their way through phases that they're not yet in, right? That kind of you'll get there when you need to get there, and the dose that you need to take in order to get to your next level of development sort of arrives at the pace that you're moving through life, and maybe trying to speed run that is actually not, not a, a great, a great idea. But across all of the modalities that you've tried, all of the different techniques that you've employed, what are the ones that you attribute the most amount of... I don't want to use the word progress because that sounds like more speed running, but the most amount of development to? What are the ones that you come back to the most? Or the ones that looking back you go, "Wow," like, "those things that I did were, were very worthwhile, and I'm glad that I did them"?
- DDDavid Deida
Well, again, this is different from man to man, so I wouldn't want any man to model me or you or, you know. The, every man has to discover this for themselves. But for me, um, I would say one intimate relationship. So I've been in long, intimate relationship and having a partner... So you described that part of your body twisting, but it could be your partner twisting. It could be your partner contracting as a reflection of you being off, and it's harder to bypass your partner's complaints, [chuckles] your partner's contractions. And so I would say that the wisdom of my intimate partners, just in their natural reflection and depth and love, has probably informed me, uh, one of the most. And then together with that, I would say working with a teacher and, you know, I've worked with just a few teachers, long-term teachers. I don't mean just, uh, learning guitar or something. I mean, s- so long-term teachers usually could reflect to me areas that I can't see myself or that I'm not willing to, um, and, and lovingly continue reflecting that to me until I pick it up. So I would say that my relationship with, you know, a loved one, a, a intimate partner, and a relationship with a teacher more than a specific technique. Although, you know, I've, I, as I said, you know, I had a yoga s- I, I've done a lot of things like Hatha yoga and Tai Chi and Qi Gong and moving energy through my body. You can also feel those contractions as you can. So feeling that contraction in the front of the body, learning how to open that, feeling what's forming that. Um, but in, for me w- the love, my partner's love and my teacher's love would probably be the most effective ways that I... I, I know what you mean u- using the word effective is kind of weird.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
- DDDavid Deida
But yes, that, those would be the modalities.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm. Yeah. If you marry wrong, you'll become a philosopher, but if you marry well, you will become a yoga teacher. Is that your-
- DDDavid Deida
[laughs]
- CWChris Williamson
[laughs] Yeah. Uh, David, uh, let's leave it there, mate. You're, you're wonderful. Your work over the last, you know, however many decades has just been so great and, um, it's great to speak to you. You know, you didn't need to do this. I, uh, I, I really appreciate you giving me your time. If, if, if you give, what's this, an hour and a half. If you do 90 minutes a decade of, uh, of podcasting, I, uh, I hope that this one was worthwhile.
- DDDavid Deida
[laughs] W- well, you seem authentically and genuinely committed to truth. Um, that's pretty rare. You know, you're, you're good at what you do. Y- you know, you have this podcast, you've been highly motivated to create this thing, but you're also, your heart is in it. And so I felt moved to connect with you like this mostly because I agree, uh, with your heart. I, I resonate with your heart. I appreciate you, Chris. Thank you.
- CWChris Williamson
I appreciate you too. I, uh... This podcast is a thinly veiled autobiography masquerading as a-
- DDDavid Deida
[laughs]
- CWChris Williamson
... as a, a conversation with... You'll be episode 1,100 maybe over the last eight years. So, uh, yeah.
- DDDavid Deida
Hmm. Hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
This is the, this is the vehicle that, that I've chosen, at least for now. And, um-
- DDDavid Deida
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm
- CWChris Williamson
... I, I'm trying to find out what's true. I'm trying to understand myself and the world around me, and I'm asking people who I think have got at least a few of the answers. And if I can hold on to 1% of all of the stuff that I've learned, then I, you know. You said about teachers. I guess I'm just cycling through t- I'm serially monogamous with, uh-
- DDDavid Deida
[laughs]
- CWChris Williamson
... 1,100, 1,100 world experts on a variety of different topics, and we'll see what sort of horrendous Frankenstein's monster gets, uh, constructed out of this by the time that I finish.
- DDDavid Deida
Fantastic. Well, trust your heart in the midst of all of it, and you'll go the right direction.
- CWChris Williamson
Beautiful. David, you're wonderful. And, uh, let's keep in touch. I'd really love to keep in touch with you. Appreciate you, mate.
- DDDavid Deida
Me too. Thanks, Chris. [outro jingle]
- CWChris Williamson
Thank you very much for tuning in. If you enjoyed that episode, another one that I know you'll love is just here.
Episode duration: 1:24:48
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