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Published by André Duqum
Know Thyself is a community supporting you to KNOW the true nature of yourself and the world around you, THRIVE in your health, wealth, and relationships – ultimately empowering you to CREATE and share your true self with the world. Each week André Duqum interviews experts in their field; ranging from spiritual educators to cutting edge scientists, heart-led creatives & more on topics such as the true nature of ‘Self’, “what is reality?,” and exploring the fundamental pillars we all need to unlock our fullest potential. Contributing to birthing a more beautiful world, one episode at a time.
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John Wineland has spent nearly twenty years teaching people how to love more deeply, and in this conversation he lays out why intimacy has become one of the most demanding spiritual practices available to us. We talk about why relationships surface our oldest wounds, why the partner we choose so often mirrors the exact pattern we grew up in, and why that mirroring is not a mistake but an invitation to heal. John also opens up about his daughter Claire, who passed away eight years ago, and what her life and death taught him about grief, presence, and unconditional love. What We Dive Into: 1. John explains that whatever part of you remains unhealed keeps transmitting into the world, and it draws a partner with the opposite wound so you can replay your childhood dynamic together. He frames this pattern as an opportunity rather than a flaw, since the relationship that triggers you most is often showing you exactly what needs attention. 2. Years of unspoken fear shape how we stand, breathe, and hold tension, so real change requires more than insight alone. John describes training the nervous system through practices like breathwork and qigong so the body can stay open in moments that would normally trigger defense, attack, or withdrawal, which is where lasting change actually happens. 3. Reflecting on his daughter Claire, John shares that there is no end to grief because there is no end to love. He describes honoring grief as an act of self love rather than something to rush past, and encourages anyone facing loss to give that grief real space instead of staying busy to avoid feeling it. Know Thyself, but not by yourself. A guided space to return home to yourself. https://www.knowthyselfcollective.com ✨THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS: https://www.mudwtr.com/knowthyself Use code KNOWTHYSELF for up to 43% off sitewide https://www.oneskin.co/KNOWTHYSELF Use code KNOWTHYSELF for 15% off OneSkin ___________ 00:00 Intro 01:48 The Historical Evolution of Love 05:45 Why We Attract Our Reciprocal Wound 08:17 When Relationships Deepen the Wound 10:48 The ROI of Doing the Work 14:30 The Four Pillars of Divine Union 22:56 Safety, Belonging, and Being Loved 26:34 The Wound of Being a Man 31:47 Patterns in Men's Work 37:49 What the Manosphere Gets Right 40:03 Why Men Stay Silent 46:47 Masculine and Feminine as Universal Forces 55:12 Energetic Polarity and the Three Kinds of No 1:01:22 Liberation Through Relationship 1:03:23 Staying Connected Through Busy Seasons 1:10:14 John's Own Attachment Wound 1:15:51 What Claire Taught Him About Love 1:24:00 Should I Stay or Should I Go 1:33:41 Healing Generational Trauma 1:44:45 Preparing for Divine Partnership 1:49:02 The Practice of Incremental Improvement 1:52:01 Closing and Where to Find John ___________ ✨MORE FROM JOHN WINELAND↳Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/john_wineland/↳YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@JohnWineland↳Teacher Training: https://johnwineland.com/teacher-training/↳Men's Leadership Training: https://johnwineland.com/embodied-mens-leadership-training/https://johnwineland.com 📜MORE FROM KNOW THYSELF ↳Spotify: https://spoti.fi/4bZMq9l ↳Apple: https://apple.co/4iATICX ↳Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/knowthyself/ ↳TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@andreduqum ↳Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/knowthyselfbyandreduqum/ ↳https://knowthyselfpodcast.com/ 👁️MORE FROM ANDRÉ ↳Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/@andreduqum ↳Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/know-thyself-podcast ↳Book recs: https://www.knowthyselfpodcast.com/book-list
Dr. David Spiegel is the Wilson Professor and Associate Chair of Psychiatry at Stanford, the co-founder of the hypnosis app Reveri, and one of the world's leading clinical researchers on hypnosis. He has worked with over 7,000 patients across 50 years, and in this conversation he opened with something I did not expect: he tested my hypnotizability live on camera. I scored a nine out of ten. What followed was one of the most genuinely surprising conversations about the mind I have had on this show. What We Dive Into: 1. The self you walk around with is not a fixed structure. Dr. Spiegel calls it a convenient assumption, something the brain constructs to simplify experience. Hypnosis reveals this by demonstrating how quickly and completely a person can shift, often in a single session. 2. Memories are not neutral recordings. They are laid down and retrieved from brain regions that manage affect, which means the emotion and the memory are inseparable. Working with a memory hypnotically allows you to enter it, update its emotional meaning, and change how it lives in you. 3. The same capacity that lets a child survive abuse by mentally leaving their body can, in adulthood, become a habitual distance from experience. Understanding whether your detachment is a protective skill or an old survival pattern still running is one of the more honest questions this conversation surfaces. Know Thyself, but not by yourself. A guided space to return home to yourself. https://www.knowthyselfcollective.com ✨THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS: https://drinkLMNT.com/KnowThyself Try LMNT & get a free sample pack https://www.timeline.com/KNOWTHYSELF Save 20% off your Mitopure® Gummies ___________ 00:00 Intro 01:52 What Hypnosis Actually Is 05:34 The Malleability of Personality and Self 07:01 How Trauma Gets Stored in the Body and Memory 12:00 Hypnosis as the Oldest Western Psychotherapy 15:13 What Happens in the Brain During Hypnosis 18:36 The Default Mode Network and the "My Fault" Network 22:29 How Hypnotizability Is Measured 30:28 What High and Low Hypnotizability Looks Like in Life 33:58 Live Demo: Testing André's Hypnotizability 40:11 Dissociation: Adaptive Defense and Pathological Trap 45:50 How to Use Hypnosis for Stress and Performance 49:07 Hypnosis vs. Meditation: Being vs. Doing 54:41 Flow State, Golf, and the Art of Process Over Outcome 58:13 Believing Is Seeing: The Color Perception Experiment 1:01:00 Perception as a Generative, Interpretive Act 1:03:29 Emotions as Signals and Hypnosis as a Flashlight 1:07:01 Smoking, Self-Respect, and Reframing Addiction 1:09:08 Dr. Spiegel's Path: A Genetic Illness in the Family 1:15:44 Dissociative Identity Disorder and the Many Selves 1:19:54 If There's No Solid Self, Who Are We? 1:22:04 Collective Trance and Societal Hypnosis 1:26:50 Reverie and Empowering Innate Abilities 1:27:12 Closing Message: Learn More About Your Innate Abilities ___________ ✨MORE FROM DR. DAVID SPIEGEL ↳Reveri: https://app.reveri.com/ Use code KNOWTHYSELF20 for 20% off membership 📜MORE FROM KNOW THYSELF ↳Spotify: https://spoti.fi/4bZMq9l ↳Apple: https://apple.co/4iATICX ↳Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/knowthyself/ ↳TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@andreduqum ↳Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/knowthyselfbyandreduqum/ ↳https://knowthyselfpodcast.com/ 👁️MORE FROM ANDRÉ ↳Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/@andreduqum ↳Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/know-thyself-podcast ↳Book recs: https://www.knowthyselfpodcast.com/book-list
Rizwan Virk is an MIT-trained computer scientist, video game pioneer, and bestselling author of The Simulation Hypothesis. His work sits at a rare intersection: quantum physics, Eastern mysticism, and the architecture of video games, all pointing toward the same unsettling and strangely liberating conclusion. In this conversation, we explore not the nihilistic version of simulation theory, but the one that actually gives life more meaning rather than less. What We Dive Into: 1. The simulation Rizwan describes is not one where you are code running on a server. You are the soul outside the game, choosing an avatar and entering by choice. The body is the character. The player is something more. 2. Synchronicities, hunches, recurring patterns, these are not coincidences. Rizwan frames them as messages from a deeper intelligence, perhaps a future self, a guide, or the part of you watching the game from outside. The practice is learning to read them rather than dismiss them. 3. In a well-designed game, difficulty scales to keep you engaged and growing. Rizwan applies the same logic to life: the quests that keep returning are the ones not yet completed, and completing them is what the game is actually for. Know Thyself, but not by yourself. A guided space to return home to yourself. https://www.knowthyselfcollective.com ✨THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS: https://www.im8health.com/knowthyself code KNOWTHYSELF for an exclusive offer https://drinkLMNT.com/KnowThyself Try LMNT & get a free sample pack ___________ 00:00 Intro 01:46 NPC vs. RPG: Two Flavors of Simulation Theory 07:44 The Universe as Information: It from Bit 13:07 The Second Assertion: Information Rendered as Real 18:06 Non-Locality, Quantum Entanglement, and the Speed of Light 22:32 The Simulation Point: When VR Becomes Indistinguishable 26:44 The Third Assertion: The World as Purposeful Illusion 35:23 Awakening as Becoming Lucid in the Dream 38:52 The Fourth Assertion: You Chose to Play the Game 43:42 Life Selection, Forgetfulness, and the Bardo 49:28 Savant Children and the Autism-as-Backdoor Hypothesis 57:28 The Literal vs. Metaphorical Axis of Simulation Theory 1:01:52 Yogananda and the Film Projector Metaphor 1:07:34 The Life Review, the Book of Life, and the Karmic Database 1:13:47 Samskaras, Vasanas, and Yoga as Cessation of Whirlpools 1:17:34 Clues on the Treasure Hunt: Synchronicity and the Quest Path 1:22:38 The Simulated Multiverse: Running the Simulation More Than Once 1:30:09 The Tiger Swami: External Tigers and Inner Ones 1:36:23 Rizwan's Heart Surgery and the Course Correction 1:44:14 Karma, Dream Palaces, and the Questing Engine 1:48:49 Living the Life Review Before You Die 1:57:01 Kindness Is Enforced by the Architecture 2:03:17 Epistemic Humility at the Edge of Mystical Claims 2:14:22 What Is Outside the Simulation? 2:22:54 UFOs: Interstellar, Interdimensional, or Rendered? 2:33:09 Closing Message: Challenges Are Integral to the Game ___________ ✨MORE FROM RIZWAN VIRK ↳Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rizcambridge ↳YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@rizwanvirksimulation ↳X: https://x.com/Rizstanford ↳Buy The Simulation Hypothesis Book: https://www.zenentrepreneur.com/simulationhypothesis ↳https://www.zenentrepreneur.com 📜MORE FROM KNOW THYSELF ↳Spotify: https://spoti.fi/4bZMq9l ↳Apple: https://apple.co/4iATICX ↳Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/knowthyself/ ↳TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@andreduqum ↳Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/knowthyselfbyandreduqum/ ↳https://knowthyselfpodcast.com/ 👁️MORE FROM ANDRÉ ↳Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/@andreduqum ↳Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/know-thyself-podcast ↳Book recs: https://www.knowthyselfpodcast.com/book-list
Dr. Robert Lustig is a neuroendocrinologist, pediatrician, and bestselling author who has spent 45 years watching children get sicker despite his best efforts to stop it. His work connects the dots between ultra-processed food, mitochondrial dysfunction, dopamine hijacking, and the chronic stress epidemic in a way that is impossible to dismiss. In this conversation, we explore what he calls the hostage brain, what happens to a nervous system under sustained biochemical assault, and why so much of what we call personal failure is actually a systems problem. What We Dive Into: 1. When chronic pain, emotional or physical, goes unresolved, the brain reaches for anything that spikes dopamine to quiet it. Over time, tolerance builds and neurons die. Lustig's point is that this is not a personal weakness. The food, the screens, and the stress have conspired to put nearly all of us in some version of this state. 2. Dopamine drives wanting. Serotonin drives contentment. The loneliness epidemic is not simply a social problem but a neurochemical one. Cortisol reduces serotonin, dopamine antagonizes it, and ultra-processed food depletes the tryptophan needed to make it. 3. Lustig draws a clear line between primary needs, love, sleep, real food, and secondary desires, status, power, accumulation. Meeting the basics first is both the simplest and most radical act available. Know Thyself, but not by yourself. A guided space to return home to yourself. https://www.knowthyselfcollective.com ✨THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS: https://www.mudwtr.com/knowthyself Use code KNOWTHYSELF for up to 43% off sitewide https://www.oneskin.co/KNOWTHYSELF Use code KNOWTHYSELF for 15% off OneSkin ___________ 00:00 Intro 02:02 What Is Hostage Brain? 04:47 The Loss of Stress Resilience 09:15 Dopamine, Tolerance, and the Addicted Brain 11:26 The Five Causes of Hijacked Biology 13:08 The Amygdala: Fear Center, Air Traffic Controller, Buckshot 16:07 The Four Brakes on the Amygdala and Why They're Failing 22:13 From Real Food to Ultra-Processed Food: The Five Changes 23:51 Sugar: The Big Kahuna 29:57 Mitochondria, Body Temperature, and the Energy Crisis 32:33 The Corporate Machine: Big Food, Big Pharma, and the Atlas Network 36:26 Does Big Food Collude with Big Pharma? 40:51 Children Getting Sicker: The Systemic Failure 46:10 "Personal Responsibility" Is a Tobacco Industry Invention 51:44 Freedom of Choice Is Really Freedom to Blame 53:11 Loneliness vs. Solitude: The Serotonin Distinction 56:52 You Can't Love with an Inflamed Brain 57:25 The Gut-Brain Axis and the Light of Tryptophan 1:03:13 Orange vs. Orange Juice: Why Fiber Is the Point 1:07:44 BioLumen and Making Ultra-Processed Food Healthy 1:16:14 Insulin, the Three Fat Depots, and Thin Outside Fat Inside 1:25:10 How to Reduce Liver Fat 1:26:19 Sugar, ADHD, and the Prefrontal Cortex 1:26:41 Practical Steps: Phones, Plastics, and Environmental Toxins 1:33:18 The Four C's: Connect, Contribute, Cope, Cook 1:41:29 Community Questions: ATP, Cognition, and the Biological Basis of Consciousness 1:45:27 What Gives Dr. Lustig Hope 1:47:38 Closing Message: Tend to Yourself First ___________ ✨MORE FROM DR. ROBERT LUSTIG ↳Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DrRobertLustig/ ↳Metabolical Book: https://metabolical.com ↳https://robertlustig.com STUDIES MENTIONED: ↳https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41880620/ ↳https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/505/504/ ↳https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0306987726001544 📜MORE FROM KNOW THYSELF ↳Spotify: https://spoti.fi/4bZMq9l ↳Apple: https://apple.co/4iATICX ↳Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/knowthyself/ ↳TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@andreduqum ↳Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/knowthyselfbyandreduqum/ ↳https://knowthyselfpodcast.com/ 👁️MORE FROM ANDRÉ ↳Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/@andreduqum ↳Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/know-thyself-podcast ↳Book recs: https://www.knowthyselfpodcast.com/book-list
Jim George is a stillness coach, former animator, and one of the first guests ever to appear on this podcast. He has spent nearly 50 years developing what he calls practical spirituality, a way of working with the mind that requires no doctrine, no dogma, and no special belief system. What it does require is the willingness to get quiet enough to see what is actually there. In this conversation, we return to the most essential territory: the cost of mental noise, the nature of the ego, and what it genuinely means to be present for your own life. What We Dive Into: 1. The noise in the mind is not neutral. Every moment spent in a self-generated narrative about the past or future is a moment you were not actually there. At the end of a life of that, Jim says, there is a strange vacuum. 2. The drive for status was not a character flaw. It was, quite literally, a matter of life and death for our ancestors. Understanding that gives you room to stop being run by it. When you see the mechanism clearly, competition can begin to evolve into something closer to cooperation, which Jim argues is the actual path forward for the species. 3. Gratitude is not a feeling you perform. It is focused attention on what already is, and it shifts your neurochemistry from dopamine-driven wanting toward something more stable. Know Thyself, but not by yourself. A guided space to return home to yourself. https://www.knowthyselfcollective.com ✨THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS: https://www.im8health.com/knowthyself code KNOWTHYSELF for an exclusive offer https://drinkLMNT.com/KnowThyself Try LMNT & get a free sample pack ___________ 00:00 Intro 02:40 The Cost of Normalizing Internal Noise 06:07 What the Noise Is Made Of: Limbic Survival and Chatter 12:11 The Contrast Between Noise and Stillness 14:52 Status as an Evolutionary Artifact 24:16 Normalization and the Tiger in the Mind 29:18 Pure Stillness vs. Stillishness 32:37 The Ego Narrative and the Illusion of Separation 40:14 Everything We Want Is an End to Seeking 45:36 Simplicity, Dopamine, and the Holotropic Universe 49:27 What Happens When Subject and Object Dissolve 57:32 Stillness as Practice, Not Destination 59:24 Self-Love vs. Realizing Self as Love 1:02:08 How to Actually Do It: The Long, Short, and Micro Form 1:08:38 The Gifts of Headlessness: Harding's List 1:13:47 Physics, the Quantum Field, and the Non-Physical 1:25:15 How Far the Self Can Expand 1:37:08 Values Work: What's Actually Driving Your Behavior 1:47:18 Finding Your Me-Shaped Hole in the Universe 1:59:43 The Universe Conspires When You Commit 2:08:31 Closing Message: Quiet Down and Bring It ___________ ✨MORE FROM JIM GEORGE ↳Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jimgeorgeofficial/↳Contact: https://getstill.com/ 📜MORE FROM KNOW THYSELF ↳Spotify: https://spoti.fi/4bZMq9l ↳Apple: https://apple.co/4iATICX ↳Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/knowthyself/ ↳TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@andreduqum ↳Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/knowthyselfbyandreduqum/ ↳https://knowthyselfpodcast.com/ 👁️MORE FROM ANDRÉ ↳Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/@andreduqum ↳Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/know-thyself-podcast ↳Book recs: https://www.knowthyselfpodcast.com/book-list
Jahnavi Harrison is a Grammy-nominated artist, musician, and practitioner of Bhakti Yoga who has spent her life exploring sound as a path to the divine. Raised at Bhaktivedanta Manor in England, she grew up inside one of the world's most dedicated devotional communities, and in this conversation we trace how that formation shaped her relationship with voice, identity, approval, and what it means to offer your life as a prayer. What We Dive Into: 1. Most of us were told at some point to be quiet, to sound better, or to wait until we were good enough. That conditioning runs deep. Reclaiming the voice, whether through kirtan, song, or simply speaking truthfully, is one of the most direct paths back to a self that stopped performing and started expressing. 2. Bhakti is not a feeling you arrive at and maintain. It is a daily offering, something you return to moment by moment, especially when you have drifted. Jahnavi's framing is simple: make space for prayer in whatever form feels alive to you, and that space will become a source of nourishment that compounds over time. 3. The desire to be accepted can masquerade as discernment, as wisdom, even as calling. Jahnavi traces how much of her own journey involved slowly distinguishing the voice of genuine inner knowing from the much louder voice that simply wanted to be liked. That distinction is not resolved once. It is worked on for life. Know Thyself, but not by yourself. A guided space to return home to yourself. https://www.knowthyselfcollective.com ✨THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS: https://www.timeline.com/KNOWTHYSELF Save 20% off your Mitopure® Gummies https://www.mudwtr.com/knowthyself Use code KNOWTHYSELF for up to 43% off sitewide ___________ 00:00 Intro 01:36 What Devotional Music Actually Is 03:12 Sound as a Direct Path to the Divine 06:42 Sound as the First and Last Sense 09:15 The Sensitivity of Sound and Its Transformative Power 12:28 Why We Lose Our Voices: Fear, Shame, and the Voice Unsung 16:22 Finding Your Voice and Speaking Your Truth 20:17 Discerning Your Own Voice from the Noise of Others 23:46 The Missed Flight: Choosing Calling Over Convention 29:00 Life as an Offering: Dharma and Letting Go of Outcomes 31:54 The Intelligence of the Heart in Bhakti 36:22 Nature, Silence, and the Inner Life 42:39 Prayer vs. Meditation: Are They the Same? 48:32 Prayer as Relationship, Not Request 57:54 Kirtan, Mantra, and the Dissolution of Self 1:03:25 Kirtan at a Funeral: Sound as Communal Holding 1:06:15 Losing and Reclaiming Faith: The Reckoning with Tradition 1:13:33 The Role of Trusted Counsel Through Doubt 1:15:28 The Grammys and the Tension of Devotional Art in Industry 1:21:37 Fame, Ego, and Staying on the Right Track 1:25:40 Expanding Beyond Tradition: The Rise Album with Willow 1:35:36 Art as Revolution and Service 1:38:31 The Coldplay Concert and the Power of Mass Gathering 1:43:17 Current Projects and Dreaming Bigger 1:51:37 Closing Message: Make Space for Prayer Every Day ___________ ✨MORE FROM JAHNAVI ↳Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jahnavi_harrison ↳YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/JahnaviHarrisonMusic ↳https://www.jahnavimusic.com 📜MORE FROM KNOW THYSELF ↳Spotify: https://spoti.fi/4bZMq9l ↳Apple: https://apple.co/4iATICX ↳Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/knowthyself/ ↳TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@andreduqum ↳Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/knowthyselfbyandreduqum/ ↳https://knowthyselfpodcast.com/ 👁️MORE FROM ANDRÉ ↳Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/@andreduqum ↳Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/know-thyself-podcast ↳Book recs: https://www.knowthyselfpodcast.com/book-list
Anil Seth is a professor of cognitive and computational neuroscience at the University of Sussex and one of the world's leading researchers on consciousness. His central claim is both unsettling and liberating: we do not passively receive reality, we actively generate it. The world that appears when you open your eyes is not a transparent window onto what is actually out there. It is the brain's best guess, a controlled hallucination, built from the inside out. What We Dive Into: 1. Your brain is not reading out the world like a camera. It is making constant predictions about what is out there and updating them with sensory signals. What you perceive is much more a product of those internal predictions than of the raw sensory data coming in. In that sense, all perception is a form of hallucination, just one that happens to be grounded in reality. 2. Just as the brain generates a model of the external world, it generates a model of the self. The feeling of being a continuous, stable "I" is another best guess, not a fixed essence waiting to be discovered. This is both humbling and freeing, because a constructed self can be examined and updated in ways a fixed one cannot. 3. As AI systems grow more sophisticated, they will increasingly appear to have inner lives. Anil draws a sharp line between intelligence and consciousness, arguing that current AI lacks the biological, embodied, self-regulating properties that we believe underlie genuine experience. Confusing performance for presence is not just a philosophical error. It shapes regulation, design, and how we treat these systems. Know Thyself, but not by yourself. A guided space to return home to yourself. https://www.knowthyselfcollective.com ✨THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS: https://www.im8health.com/knowthyself code KNOWTHYSELF for an exclusive offer https://www.mudwtr.com/knowthyself code KNOWTHYSELF for up to 43% off sitewide ___________ 00:00 Intro 01:47 We Don't Perceive the World — We Generate It 04:29 The Brain as a Prediction Machine 07:22 Controlled Hallucination: What That Term Really Means 09:37 Reality Is Real, But We Never Perceive It Directly 13:25 Optical Illusions as Windows Into Perception 16:42 Perceptual Humility and Echo Chambers 19:34 The Perception Census: Mapping Our Inner Diversity 25:24 Perception, Priors, and Personal Suffering 29:17 Memory, Identity, and What We Expect to See 33:19 The Minimum of Consciousness: Bare Awareness 38:15 Pure Consciousness and the Feeling of Being Alive 41:51 Can the Contents of Experience Tell Us About Consciousness? 45:46 Out of Body Experiences and the First-Person Perspective 50:31 Psychedelics, Reality, and the Sense of Realness 57:12 Anil's LSD Experience and Mary's Room 1:03:47 Defining Consciousness: Nagel's "What Is It Like" 1:07:25 The Distribution of Consciousness: Animals, Trees, and AI 1:17:27 Steel-Manning Panpsychism 1:21:09 Pragmatic Materialism 1:34:23 Intelligence vs. Consciousness: Why AI Is Different 1:38:17 Why Current AI Is Probably Not Conscious 1:43:53 The Danger of Believing AI Is Conscious 1:49:24 What Happens When We Take the Self Too Seriously 1:52:01 Reflections on Death and What Dies 1:57:34 The Self as Process, Not Essence 2:02:00 Free Will as a Useful Perception 2:05:43 Closing Message: Celebrate the Everyday Miracle of Consciousness ___________ ✨MORE FROM ANIL SETH ↳Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/profanilseth/ ↳Books: https://www.anilseth.com/read/books/ ↳https://www.anilseth.com 📜MORE FROM KNOW THYSELF ↳Spotify: https://spoti.fi/4bZMq9l ↳Apple: https://apple.co/4iATICX ↳Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/knowthyself/ ↳TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@andreduqum ↳Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/knowthyselfbyandreduqum/ ↳https://knowthyselfpodcast.com/ 👁️MORE FROM ANDRÉ ↳Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/@andreduqum ↳Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/know-thyself-podcast ↳Book recs: https://www.knowthyselfpodcast.com/book-list
Dr. William Li is a Harvard-trained physician, co-founder of the Angiogenesis Foundation, and New York Times bestselling author whose work centers on one quietly radical premise: the power to stay healthy lives inside you. In this conversation, we explore the five hardwired defense systems the body runs continuously, angiogenesis, stem cells, the gut microbiome, immunity, and DNA protection, and what it looks like to actually support them through food, sleep, and daily choices. What We Dive Into: 1. You are not just one organism. You carry 39 trillion bacteria inside you, many of which send signals up through the vagus nerve directly to the brain, shaping mood, social behavior, and stress levels. 2. Your body was born with 70 million extra stem cells stored in bone marrow, ready to mobilize and repair damage whenever called. Sleep, food, and metabolic health directly influence how effectively they do their job. 3. The environment is full of things we cannot fully control, microplastics, toxins, pollution. What we can control is whether our internal defense systems are strong enough to handle the load. Chronic stress degrades those systems faster than most environmental exposures. Know Thyself, but not by yourself. A guided space to return home to yourself. https://www.knowthyselfcollective.com ✨THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS: https://drinkLMNT.com/KnowThyself Try LMNT & get a free sample pack https://oneskin.co/KNOWTHYSELF Code KNOWTHYSELF for 15% off ___________ 00:00 Intro 01:42 Health Is Not the Absence of Disease 05:24 The Five Health Defense Systems 07:14 Defense 1: Angiogenesis and Blood Vessel Health 09:07 Defense 2: Stem Cells and the Body's Repair System 14:01 Defense 3: The Gut Microbiome and the Holobiont 21:38 Defense 4: The Immune System as Inner Army 31:44 Defense 5: DNA Repair and the Iron Dome Within 36:48 Cancer Is Growing in All of Us Right Now 43:07 The Rising Cancer Rates and Why They're Skewing Younger 47:40 Microplastics: Where They Come From and Why They Matter 55:37 The Case for Keeping Your Shields Up 59:15 Practical Steps: Air, Water, and Food Quality 1:07:46 Sleep, Movement, and Stress as Health Defenses 1:11:04 The Danger of Chronic Overeating 1:19:09 The History of Abundance and the Clean Plate Myth 1:23:43 Bruce Lee and the Philosophy of Personalized Health 1:29:00 What Modern Medicine Got Right and What It Lost 1:32:42 The Interstitium, Acupuncture, and Converging Worlds 1:35:34 The Future of Cancer Treatment and Health Span 1:44:42 Dr. Li's Favorite Foods and Why He Loves Them 1:55:53 The Science of Dark Chocolate 1:59:00 Closing Message: Optimize Your Gut ___________ ✨MORE FROM DR. WILLIAM LI ↳Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drwilliamli/ ↳Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/drwilliamli/ ↳YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/DrWilliamLi ↳Eat to Beat Your Diet Book: https://drwilliamli.com/etb-diet-book/ ↳Eat to Beat Disease Book: https://drwilliamli.com/book-li/ ↳https://drwilliamli.com 📜MORE FROM KNOW THYSELF ↳Spotify: https://spoti.fi/4bZMq9l ↳Apple: https://apple.co/4iATICX ↳Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/knowthyself/ ↳TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@andreduqum ↳Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/knowthyselfbyandreduqum/ ↳https://knowthyselfpodcast.com/ 👁️MORE FROM ANDRÉ ↳Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/@andreduqum ↳Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/know-thyself-podcast ↳Book recs: https://www.knowthyselfpodcast.com/book-list
Dr. Justin Sledge is a scholar of philosophy and Western esotericism, and the voice behind the YouTube channel Esoterica, which has grown to over a million subscribers. He has spent his career studying the traditions that history tried to erase: Gnosticism, Kabbalah, Hermeticism, witchcraft, and alchemy. What We Dive Into: 1. Classical skepticism is not about debunking or disbelief. It is about bracketing your personal investment long enough to let the material speak for itself. 2. Newton wrote more on alchemy and the occult than on calculus. Descartes arrived at his famous method through a mystical dream. Stripping these facts from the story of modernity has cost us access to some of the most important spiritual technologies ever developed. 3. Every other starting point, certainty, comfort, doctrine, conclusions, has a gutter waiting at the end of it. Awe keeps the garden of curiosity alive. Know Thyself, but not by yourself. A guided space to return home to yourself. https://www.knowthyselfcollective.com ✨THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS: https://www.im8health.com/knowthyself code KNOWTHYSELF for an exclusive offer https://www.mudwtr.com/knowthyself code KNOWTHYSELF for up to 43% off ___________ 00:00 Intro 01:57 What Skepticism Actually Means 06:21 How to Enter Mystical Inquiry Without Collapsing Into Belief 08:03 Religion, Mysticism, and the Margins 11:24 Gnosticism: The World as Prison, Christ as Liberator 14:21 The Nag Hammadi Discovery and the Many Christianities 17:00 William James and the Four Qualities of Mystical Experience 21:50 Perennial Wisdom vs. High-Resolution Differences 26:44 The Limits of Propositional Truth 31:32 Irrational vs. Non-Rational: Why the Distinction Matters 37:10 The Danger of Universalizing Mystical Experience 44:34 The World Is Stranger Than We Assume 51:01 How the Myth of Rational Modernity Was Curated 59:35 Recovering the Suppressed Voices of Western History 1:00:45 Mary Magdalene: Not a Prostitute 1:14:22 The Suppression of the Feminine and the Road to the Witch Trials 1:18:55 The Malleus Maleficarum and the Anatomy of a Moral Panic 1:24:01 Poverty, Not Practice: Who Was Actually Accused 1:26:27 The Books Justin Brought: Agrippa's Three Books of Occult Philosophy 1:32:08 Agrippa and the Possibility of Induced Illumination 1:41:32 The Kabbalah and the Sefer Yetzirah 1:46:04 The Hermetic Tradition and Hermes Trismegistus 1:54:22 What Studying These Texts Has Done to Justin 1:59:51 Agrippa's Trilemma and the Limits of Reason 2:04:22 Hermeticism vs. Gnosticism: The World as Divine, Not Prison 2:13:11 Making the Best Case for the Transcendent Realm 2:19:54 Whatever Matter Is, It's Indistinguishable from Spirit 2:26:34 Justin's Personal Satanic Panic: The School Shooting 2:38:03 Generational Trauma and the Suppression of the Feminine 2:44:57 Truth as a Verb: Dialogue Across Difference 2:47:14 Are We on the Threshold of a New Renaissance? 2:58:39 Community Questions: The Most Meaningful Experience of Magic 2:59:15 When Justin Realized the Books Were Real 3:03:51 Finding the Clerical Necromantic Underground 3:04:26 Recreating Alchemy in the Modern Lab 3:07:11 Why We Want Magic: The Very Human Desire for Hidden Power 3:13:00 Modern Mythology and the Meaning Famine 3:20:10 Closing Message: Flourishing Begins in Awe ___________ ✨MORE FROM DR. JUSTIN SLEDGE ↳YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/esotericachannel ↳Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/esotericachannel ↳https://www.justinsledge.com 📜MORE FROM KNOW THYSELF ↳Spotify: https://spoti.fi/4bZMq9l ↳Apple: https://apple.co/4iATICX ↳Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/knowthyself/ ↳TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@andreduqum ↳Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/knowthyselfbyandreduqum/ ↳https://knowthyselfpodcast.com/ 👁️MORE FROM ANDRÉ ↳Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/@andreduqum ↳Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/know-thyself-podcast ↳Book recs: https://www.knowthyselfpodcast.com/book-list
Donald Robertson is a cognitive behavioral psychotherapist, author of over nine books, and one of the founding voices in the modern Stoicism movement. He has spent over 30 years studying how ancient Greek and Roman philosophy intersects with contemporary psychology, and in this conversation we start where it all begins: the maxim carved into the temple of Apollo at Delphi. Know thyself. We explore what it actually meant, who said it, and why it still matters more than most self-help advice written in the last century. What We Dive Into: 1. The Stoics drew a sharp line between what actually happens and the value judgments we add on top of it. To say something "is awful" treats our emotional reaction as a fact about the world. 2. Of all the emotions that derail a life, anger gets the least attention in therapy, self-help, and honest self-reflection. 3. In the ancient world, wisdom was not something you consumed or memorized. It was something you practiced daily. Collecting insights without changing your behavior is closer to what the Sophists sold than to what Socrates taught. Know Thyself, but not by yourself. A guided space to return home to yourself. https://www.knowthyselfcollective.com ✨THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS: https://drinkLMNT.com/KnowThyself Try LMNT & get a free sample pack https://www.timeline.com/KNOWTHYSELF Save 20% off your Mitopure® Gummies ___________ 00:00 Intro 01:53 Know Thyself: The Three Sayings at Delphi 07:44 What Philosophy Actually Means 11:17 Socrates vs. the Sophists: Wisdom vs. Appearance 18:05 The Stoic U-Turn: Reorienting What We Value 23:59 Self-Knowledge as a Mirror for the Soul 26:59 Values Clarification and the Eulogy Exercise 35:02 Ad: LMNT 36:03 Eudaimonia: Flourishing, Not Just Happiness 39:40 Hardship as Opportunity for Character 45:31 A Brief History of Stoicism 53:22 Ad: Timeline Mitopure 54:33 The Stoics Were Way Ahead of Their Time 59:30 Stoicism, India, and Alexander the Great 1:06:31 Early Christianity and Greek Philosophy 1:14:03 Marcus Aurelius: The Man Behind the Meditations 1:19:17 Philosophy Born from Injury: Marcus and Donald 1:32:52 Uppercase vs. Lowercase Stoicism 1:38:28 The Two Phases of Emotion 1:45:47 Prosoché: The Practice of Paying Attention 1:50:40 Appearance vs. Reality: The Stoic Core 1:56:34 Turning the Chinese Proverb into a Practice 2:02:44 The View from Above and the Acropolis 2:11:28 Premeditatio Malorum: Rehearsing Adversity 2:17:27 Anger as Temporary Madness 2:23:26 De-Romanticizing Desire 2:36:58 Sophists, Rhetoric, and Modern Influencers 2:44:47 Why Self-Help Isn't More Helpful 2:56:17 The Socratic Method as Cure for Conceit 3:13:19 The King Who Rules Himself 3:17:50 The Oracle of Delphi and Socrates' Mission 3:33:44 Injustice Harms the Perpetrator More 3:36:51 Donald's Own Life: Philosophy as a Path 3:38:46 The Eleusinian Mysteries and Marcus's Initiation 3:48:21 Learning to Die as Liberation 3:55:29 Marcus's Naked Soul: Transparency as Practice 3:58:07 What the Stoics Taught About Love 4:02:05 Rapid Fire: The Great Philosophers 4:16:00 Closing Message: You Underestimate Your Resilience ___________ ✨MORE FROM DONALD ROBERTSON↳Substack: https://donaldrobertson.substack.com/↳Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1732050.Donald_J_Robertson ↳Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/donaldjrobertson/↳YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DonaldJRobertsonAuthor/featured↳https://donaldrobertson.name 📜MORE FROM KNOW THYSELF ↳Spotify: https://spoti.fi/4bZMq9l ↳Apple: https://apple.co/4iATICX ↳Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/knowthyself/ ↳TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@andreduqum ↳Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/knowthyselfbyandreduqum/ ↳https://knowthyselfpodcast.com/ 👁️MORE FROM ANDRÉ ↳Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/@andreduqum ↳Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/know-thyself-podcast ↳Book recs: https://www.knowthyselfpodcast.com/book-list
Dandapani is a Hindu priest who spent over ten years as a celibate monk before devoting his life to teaching the world how to master focus. His central claim is simple but unsettling: most of us are not distracted by accident, we have spent years actively practicing distraction, often more hours a day than most people practice anything else they care about. In this conversation, we unpack what it actually costs to live a physically present, mentally absent life, and why that cost compounds with every passing year. What We Dive Into: 1. Whatever you do for hours a day, every day, you get good at. Most people have unintentionally practiced distraction more than they have practiced anything else, which is why concentration feels so foreign and difficult by comparison. 2. You cannot practice being present directly. Presence is simply the outcome of keeping your awareness fixed on one thing without it wandering. Trying to "be present" without training focus is chasing an effect while ignoring its cause. 3. When your attention bounces between unfinished tasks, each unresolved jump adds a small charge of anxiety that accumulates over the day. Learning to hold awareness in one place, even briefly, interrupts that buildup before it becomes stress. Know Thyself, but not by yourself. A guided space to return home to yourself. https://www.knowthyselfcollective.com ✨THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS: https://oneskin.co/KNOWTHYSELF Code KNOWTHYSELF for 15% off ___________ 00:00 Intro 01:29 What Distraction Costs Us 07:29 The Law of Practice 13:19 Life Is Finite, Not Short 24:08 Money, Purpose, and the Path of the Householder 28:08 Tasting the Super Conscious 32:21 Awareness, Anxiety, and the Roots of Stress 39:42 How to Train Focus: The Ball of Light 50:11 Eliminating Fear by Controlling Awareness 55:43 The Greatest Gift: Undivided Attention 1:01:36 Becoming a Monk: The Search for a Real Teacher 1:11:20 Choosing a Philosophy Before the Practice 1:23:26 Signs of a Maturing Soul 1:30:21 A Day in the Monastery: Practicing All Day Long 1:36:38 Intuition, Psychic Sensitivity, and Its Dangers 1:43:28 Going Narrow and Deep on One Path 1:50:14 Filtering the Mind Like a Kitchen Strainer 1:58:44 Building Willpower: Finish What You Begin 2:03:04 Reincarnation, Compassion, and Unresolved Baggage 2:13:29 How to Spot a Fake Guru 2:17:42 Ambition, Peace, and the Final Message ___________ ✨MORE FROM DANDAPANI ↳https://dandapani.org/know-thyself-podcast ↳Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dandapanillc ↳YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/dandapanillc 📜MORE FROM KNOW THYSELF ↳Spotify: https://spoti.fi/4bZMq9l ↳Apple: https://apple.co/4iATICX ↳Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/knowthyself/ ↳TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@andreduqum ↳Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/knowthyselfbyandreduqum/ ↳https://knowthyselfpodcast.com/ 👁️MORE FROM ANDRÉ ↳Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/@andreduqum ↳Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/know-thyself-podcast ↳Book recs: https://www.knowthyselfpodcast.com/book-list
Ido Portal is one of the most original movement thinkers alive. He has spent decades studying the body across martial arts, acrobatics, yoga, dance, and ancient movement traditions, not to master any one of them, but to ask a deeper question: what does it actually mean to move well, and what does the body reveal when you finally start listening to it? In this conversation, we go long, covering ground that most movement conversations never reach. What We Dive Into: 1.Most of us treat the body like a car to maintain, something we service occasionally for performance or appearance. Ido's entire framework starts from the opposite premise: the body is not a tool you use, it is what you are. That shift alone changes what practice means. 2.What we attend to grows. What we neglect crumbles. Ido applies this principle everywhere, from babies in hospitals to athletes on the field. Bringing undivided attention to even one part of your body for one minute, with no music, no phone, no audience, begins a transformation most people have never experienced. 3.The most important moment in Ido's own journey was admitting he didn't have what he was looking for. Not as defeat, but as a beginning. The person who thinks they already have a connection to their body is the one most closed off to finding it. Not knowing, and staying there, is the actual practice. Know Thyself, but not by yourself. A guided space to return home to yourself. https://www.knowthyselfcollective.com ✨THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS: https://drinkLMNT.com/KnowThyself Try LMNT & get a free sample pack https://www.functionhealth.com/KNOWTHYSELF Code KNOWTHYSELF25 for $25 off membership ___________ 00:00 Intro 01:44 How Most People Relate to Their Body 09:22 Movement vs. Practice vs. Exercise 10:27 Life Is for Practicing, Not Just Living 20:13 Attention as the Primary Tool 23:49 Stop Practicing for Exposure 28:12 How to Begin: Removing Leakage 35:22 Diagnostic Play and the Art of Seeing 37:30 The Ancient Schools of Practice 43:33 Tensegrity and the Body's Inner Models 49:28 Proprioception, Sensing, and the Pain of Feeling 1:02:05 Tension, Connection, and What the Body Actually Needs 1:08:00 Ido's Journey: Searching for a Real Teacher 1:13:15 Why Real Teachers Refuse to Give Clean Answers 1:23:49 What Am I Before Who Am I 1:29:23 The Chariot Analogy: Body, Emotion, and Intellect 1:36:42 Feeding the Emotional Body 1:40:14 The Weber-Fechner Law and Reducing Inner Noise 1:52:29 How the Body Reveals What We Hide 2:02:15 Pursuing Weakness Over Strength 2:05:46 Discipline, Motivation, and Real Will 2:16:02 The Practice of Sitting and Choiceless Awareness 2:37:22 What Inner Work Without the Body Misses 2:41:31 The Heart as the Missing Path 2:45:55 Community Questions: Practical Tools for the Body 2:57:18 On Animals, Archetypes, and the Spirit of Movement 3:03:02 Closing Message: Become a Practice ___________ ✨MORE FROM IDO ↳Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/portal.ido/↳https://www.idoportal.com 📜MORE FROM KNOW THYSELF ↳Spotify: https://spoti.fi/4bZMq9l ↳Apple: https://apple.co/4iATICX ↳Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/knowthyself/ ↳TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@andreduqum ↳Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/knowthyselfbyandreduqum/ ↳https://knowthyselfpodcast.com/ 👁️MORE FROM ANDRÉ ↳Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/@andreduqum ↳Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/know-thyself-podcast ↳Book recs: https://www.knowthyselfpodcast.com/book-list/book-list
Dr. Caroline Leaf is a cognitive neuroscientist and bestselling author who has spent over 40 years studying the relationship between the mind and the brain. At a time when neuroplasticity was still emerging as a field, she was already building clinical tools to help patients recover from brain injuries, trauma, and conditions that conventional medicine had written off as permanent. In this conversation, we go deep into a distinction that changes everything: the mind is not the brain, and once you understand that, you stop being a victim of your own biology. What We Dive Into: 1. The brain does not generate thoughts. It responds to the mind. Everything you think, feel, and choose originates in the mind and then gets coded into the brain and body. 2. Depression, anxiety, and other mental health labels are not diseases you have. They are signals pointing to an underlying thought that needs to be found and restructured. 3. You cannot change what happened, but you can change the impact it has on your present and future. Through a process of deconstructing and reconstructing toxic thought networks, the grip of the past loosens. Know Thyself, but not by yourself. A guided space to return home to yourself. https://www.knowthyselfcollective.com ✨THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS: https://www.bioptimizers.com/knowthyself Use code KNOWTHYSELF to save 15% at checkout ___________ 00:00 Intro 03:11 The Difference Between Mind and Brain 07:17 Why the Brain-Is-Boss Model Gets It Wrong 12:25 Consciousness Beyond the Physical Body 14:25 Quantum Physics, Microtubules, and the Mind 21:24 Science and Spirituality Converging 23:41 Early Research: Neuroplasticity and Traumatic Brain Injury 28:50 Mind-Driven Change: Telomeres and Cellular Health 31:56 Working in South Africa: Healing Through Mental Frameworks 34:31 The Origin of the Neurocycle 40:13 The Non-Conscious, Subconscious, and Conscious Mind 49:35 How Thoughts and Memories Build Into the Brain and Body 51:59 The Five Steps of the Neurocycle 57:01 Step One: Gather Awareness 01:00:24 Step Two: Reflect 01:02:10 Steps Three to Five: Mindstorm, Recheck, Active Reach 01:09:28 Community Questions: Fear of Losing Your Identity 01:14:32 Working Through Shame, Grief, and Emotional Signals 01:15:46 Retroactive Causation: Changing the Past Through the Present 01:19:28 Intelligent Design, Choice, and the Source Behind Life 01:22:45 Mindsets, Patterns, and Teaching Children 01:25:58 Stress as Intelligence: The New Book ___________ ✨MORE FROM DR. LEAF ↳Website (for books, courses, 1:1 coaching): https://drleaf.com/ ↳Neurocycle app: https://drleaf.com/neurocycle-app ↳Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-dr-leaf-show/id1334767397 ↳Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@DrCarolineLeaf ↳Neurocycle Certification: https://drleaf.com/certified-strategist 📜MORE FROM KNOW THYSELF ↳Spotify: https://spoti.fi/4bZMq9l ↳Apple: https://apple.co/4iATICX ↳Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/knowthyself/ ↳TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@andreduqum ↳Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/knowthyselfbyandreduqum/ ↳https://knowthyselfpodcast.com/ 👁️MORE FROM ANDRÉ ↳Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/@andreduqum ↳Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/know-thyself-podcast ↳Book recs: https://www.knowthyselfpodcast.com/book-list
Join our online community ↓ https://www.knowthyselfcollective.com Todd Rose is a Harvard-trained social scientist, former high school dropout with a 0.9 GPA, and co-founder of the think tank Populace. His research centers on the gap between what people privately believe and what they publicly say, and the profound consequences of that gap for individuals and for society. This is one of those conversations that reframes something you thought you understood and doesn't let you go back. What We Dive Into: 1. Your brain estimates group consensus using a simple shortcut: the loudest voices repeated most often. On social media, that is 10% of users creating 80% of content. 2. Belonging means being accepted for who you actually are. Fitting in means changing who you are to be accepted. 3. Authenticity is not about being perfectly accurate about who you are. It is about making choices you genuinely believe align with who you are right now. ✨THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS: https://www.mudwtr.com/knowthyself Use code KNOWTHYSELF for up to 43% off sitewide https://drinkLMNT.com/KnowThyself Try LMNT & get a free sample pack ___________ 00:00 Intro 01:27 What Are Collective Illusions? 02:05 The Cost of Self-Silencing 05:06 How We're Hardwired to Conform 07:40 Why the Brain Is Easily Fooled About Group Consensus 09:13 Social Media and the Amplification of Fringe Views 13:20 What Americans Actually Want in Private 21:01 Who Profits from Keeping Us Divided 23:52 Foreign Manipulation and AI Bot Farms 29:37 The Most Consequential Collective Illusions 36:38 What Authenticity Actually Means 41:15 The Coming Age of Courage 42:14 Belonging vs. Fitting In 49:44 René Girard and Mimetic Desire 59:43 How Collective Illusions Can Shatter Overnight 1:05:58 The Velvet Revolution and the Power of Authenticity 1:12:09 How to Build the Muscle of Living in Truth 1:20:25 Todd's Personal Collective Illusion: Faith and Identity 1:24:34 Spiritual Exploration and Holding Beliefs Lightly 1:32:23 Certainty and Knowledge Are Inversely Correlated 1:41:42 Fulfillment Over Achievement 1:50:31 Small Actions That Raise Collective Consciousness ___________ ✨MORE FROM TODD ↳Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ltoddrose/ ↳Populace: https://populace.org ↳https://www.toddrose.com/ 📜MORE FROM KNOW THYSELF ↳Spotify: https://spoti.fi/4bZMq9l ↳Apple: https://apple.co/4iATICX ↳Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/knowthyself/ ↳TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@andreduqum ↳Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/knowthyselfbyandreduqum/ ↳https://knowthyselfpodcast.com/ 👁️MORE FROM ANDRÉ ↳Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/@andreduqum ↳Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/know-thyself-podcast ↳Book recs: https://www.knowthyselfpodcast.com/book-list
Join our online community ↓ https://www.knowthyselfcollective.com This is a compilation episode, and it draws from some of the most honest and clarifying moments across recent conversations on the show. Nine different voices, each approaching the same territory from a different angle: what it means to stop being ruled by the outside world, to understand the patterns we inherited, and to come back to something more real inside ourselves. What We Dive Into: Thoughts arise whether you choose them or not. The shift is learning to observe them rather than be pulled by them. The nervous system learns what safety feels like early, and it keeps returning to that baseline even when it no longer serves. Your body, your beliefs, your identity, all of it was accumulated over time. Setting it aside, even briefly, creates the space to touch something underneath that is more stable. THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS: https://www.bioptimizers.com/knowthyself Use code KNOWTHYSELF to save 15% at checkout https://www.basedbodyworks.com Code KNOWTHYSELF25 for 20% off + free toiletry bag! ___________ 00:00 Intro 02:12 Shi Heng Yi: Master Yourself, Not the World 11:10 Dr. Sue Morter: The Hidden Truth Behind Your Triggers 19:04 Emily McDonald: Living from Feeling States, Not Outcomes 24:58 Joe Hudson: This is Your Sign To Be More Vulnerable 31:53 Sadhguru: How To Make True Impact 48:20 Henry Shukman: Tasting Awakening for Yourself 1:00:29 Nicole LePera: Your Childhood Beliefs Might Be Holding You Back 1:13:19 Lucy Hale: Remember To Accept Your Own Timeline 1:17:23 Wim Hof: It's Time for Love ___________ MORE FROM OUR SPEAKERS ✨Shi Heng Yi: https://youtu.be/Yg_vu7MelmU ✨Dr. Sue Morter: https://youtu.be/NAdU39m1Oxo ✨Emily McDonald: https://youtu.be/BS80CB3fgS8 ✨Joe Hudson: https://youtu.be/vF4R9uDje0E ✨Sadhguru: https://youtu.be/FMoXXb-wKE8 ✨Henry Shukman: https://youtu.be/ZMk3ztb66mc ✨Nicole LePera: https://youtu.be/BlpyzG5vV_o ✨Lucy Hale: https://youtu.be/MkNjs5vbG9M ✨Wim Hof: https://youtu.be/yjKoAXOFNqw MORE FROM KNOW THYSELF ✨https://www.knowthyselfcollective.com 🎙️Spotify: https://spoti.fi/4bZMq9l 🎧Apple: https://apple.co/4iATICX ✨Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/knowthyself/ 🎬TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@andreduqum 👥Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/knowthyselfbyandreduqum/ 🌐https://knowthyselfpodcast.com/ MORE FROM ANDRÉ ✨Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/@andreduqum 💼Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/know-thyself-podcast 📚Book recs: https://www.knowthyselfpodcast.com/book-list
Dr. Vasant Lad is the founder of the Ayurvedic Institute and the man most responsible for bringing Ayurveda to the West. He has spent over 40 years teaching this 5,000-year-old science of life to practitioners across the world, and in this conversation, we sat down together at SoHum Mountain Healing Center in Asheville, North Carolina, where I had just completed a week-long Panchakarma. What unfolded was one of the most quietly profound conversations I have had on this show. What We Dive Into: Why unprocessed emotions don’t simply pass — and how grief settles in the heart, anger in the liver, and fear in the kidneys until they’re physically released. How your tongue, pulse, and face reveal what’s happening inside your body, often before any symptom appears. Why your original constitution (prakruti) shapes everything from your digestion to your temperament — and how modern life pulls you away from it. The gap between two breaths, and why Dr. Lad calls it an ocean of awareness available to anyone willing to sit in it. THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS: https://sohumhealing.com/panchakarma-retreat/ Code AndrePK2026 for $500 off your Panchakarma https://www.functionhealth.com/KNOWTHYSELF Code KNOWTHYSELF25 for $25 off membership ___________ 00:00 Intro 01:58 What Ayurveda Actually Means 02:40 The Five Elements, Three Doshas, and the Body 06:18 Prakruti, Vikruti, and the Root of Disease 08:00 The Sankhya Philosophy Behind Ayurveda 13:33 The Goal of Ayurveda 15:26 Dr. Lad's Path: Guru, Calling, and Coming West 18:06 Where Western Medicine Falls Short 22:05 Ama, Agni, and the Ayurvedic View of Disease 25:56 Pulse, Tongue, and Face: The Art of Diagnosis 34:29 Reading Psychological Nature Through the Pulse 39:00 The Gap Between Breaths: Awareness and Mysticism 44:37 How Repressed Emotions Crystallize in the Body 47:39 Panchakarma: Physical, Emotional, and Spiritual Cleansing 51:52 Ojas, Tejas, and Prana: The Vital Essences 56:18 Sexual Energy, Celibacy, and the Cultivation of Ojas 1:00:07 Life as Meditation: The Unified Field 1:06:00 The Ayurvedic View of Death and Dying 1:14:56 Dinacharya: The Daily Routine as Spiritual Practice 1:18:48 The Doshic Clock and the Yugas 1:25:22 Relationship, Self-Knowledge, and the Closing Message ___________ MORE FROM DR. VASANT ✨Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drvasantlad 🌐https://ayurveda.com/about-vasant-lad/ MORE FROM KNOW THYSELF 🎙️Spotify: https://spoti.fi/4bZMq9l 🎧Apple: https://apple.co/4iATICX ✨Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/knowthyself/ 🎬TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@andreduqum 👥Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/knowthyselfbyandreduqum/ 🌐https://knowthyselfpodcast.com/ MORE FROM ANDRÉ ✨Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/@andreduqum 💼Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/know-thyself-podcast 📚Book recs: https://www.knowthyselfpodcast.com/book-list
Dr. Mei Rui is a Yale-trained molecular biophysicist, concert pianist, and clinical researcher at MD Anderson Cancer Center, where she runs trials on the measurable effects of music on the human body. In this conversation, we explore what actually happens in the brain the moment music enters it, why the auditory system is the first sense to develop in the womb and the last to go when we die, and how something as accessible as a curated playlist can outperform FDA-approved pharmaceuticals in reducing cortisol. What We Dive Into: 1. Music is not a supplement to healing. In the right context, it is the intervention. 2. The brain responds differently when you actually show up for the music. 3. A longitudinal study in twins showed that three to four years of musical training reduced the risk of Alzheimer's and cognitive decline by 64%, an effect size found in no other single activity. THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS: Oneskin — Code KNOWTHYSELF for 15% off - Limited time only! https://oneskin.co/KNOWTHYSELF BASED Body Works — Code KNOWTHYSELF for 20% and a free toiletry bag! https://www.basedbodyworks.com ___________ 00:00 Introduction: Dr. Mei Rui 01:44 A Life Between Music and Science 05:26 What Happens When Music Enters the Brain 07:26 How the Brain Processes Sound and Music 11:32 Why Minor Keys Feel Sad: The Science of Tonality 14:37 Live Piano Demo: Matching Music to Mood 19:06 Music in the Operating Room 27:41 Music as Medicine: Clinical Applications 29:10 The 32% Cortisol Study 31:19 The 16 Compositional Elements of Healing Music 35:11 Oxytocin, Familiarity, and the Parasympathetic Response 36:18 Timbre and the Cello's Resemblance to a Mother's Voice 42:31 Cymatics: Sound Made Visible 45:16 The Ancient Roots of Music as Healing 47:09 Listening vs. Playing an Instrument 55:33 The Musician's Brain: Structural Differences 57:46 Music Training and Protection Against Alzheimer's 59:44 Music, Empathy, and Neural Synchrony 1:01:36 The EEG Experiment: Reading André's Brain Live 1:18:21 What the EEG Data Revealed 1:22:26 Music, Flow State, and the Disappearance of Self 1:26:55 Music as Spiritual Medicine 1:30:23 How to Listen More Intentionally ___________ MORE FROM MEI ✨Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/@meiruipiano MORE FROM KNOW THYSELF 🎙️Spotify: https://spoti.fi/4bZMq9l 🎧Apple: https://apple.co/4iATICX ✨Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/knowthyself/ 🎬TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@andreduqum 👥Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/knowthyselfbyandreduqum/ 🌐https://knowthyselfpodcast.com/ MORE FROM ANDRÉ ✨Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/@andreduqum 💼Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/know-thyself-podcast 📚Book recs: https://www.knowthyselfpodcast.com/book-list
Arthur Brooks is a Harvard professor, social scientist, and three-time New York Times bestselling author whose life's work centers on a single, urgent question: what actually makes a human life feel meaningful? In this conversation, we explore why depression and anxiety have surged since 2008, how technology has hijacked the part of the brain responsible for wonder and meaning, and what it looks like to live, as Arthur puts it, like his great-grandfather Leroy, present, bored at times, and genuinely alive. What moved me most in this conversation is how Arthur bridges the ancient and the scientific without losing either. We get into the three components of meaning, coherence, purpose, and significance, as well as the dangers of extrinsic reward, the psychology of calling, and why the formula most of us are running on is just slightly off. His answer to the meaning crisis is not complicated. Use things, love people, worship the divine. But getting there requires honest self-examination, and this conversation is a strong beginning. MUDWTR - Up to 43% off sitewide (and a free frother!) https://www.mudwtr.com/knowthyself [Code: KNOWTHYSELF] Try LMNT & get a free sample pack https://drinkLMNT.com/KnowThyself BiOptimizers - Best magnesium to enhance your sleep https://www.bioptimizers.com/knowthyself Use code KNOWTHYSELF for 15% off at checkout André's Book Recs: https://www.knowthyselfpodcast.com/book-list ___________ 00:00 Introduction: Arthur Brooks 01:54 The Modern Meaning Crisis 02:47 Coherence, Purpose, and Significance 06:17 Why Meaning Collapsed After 2008 14:19 The Doom Loop of Technology 20:22 The Death of Boredom 25:13 Ad: Mudwtr 26:34 Living Like Leroy: The Case for Real Life 30:05 Six Practices for the Right Hemisphere 36:22 The Morning Routine and Brahma Mahurta 43:35 Ad: LMNT 44:39 Ad: BiOptimizers 45:47 Breaking Free from Your Phone 49:07 Romantic Love and the Paradox of Choice 54:59 Finding Your Calling 1:01:29 Progress, Arrival Fallacy, and Living Now 1:17:22 Enjoyment, Satisfaction, and Meaning 1:19:36 The External Scoreboard and Love Is Not Earned 1:25:10 The Four Idols 1:29:49 Self-Transcendence and the Divine 1:37:40 Marriage, Adoption, and Walking to Heaven 1:45:03 Suffering, Beauty, and Meaning 1:53:59 Use Things, Love People, Worship the Divine ___________ Episode Resources: https://www.arthurbrooks.com/ https://www.instagram.com/arthurcbrooks/ https://www.instagram.com/andreduqum/ https://www.instagram.com/knowthyself/ https://www.youtube.com/@knowthyselfpodcast https://www.knowthyselfpodcast.com
Dr. Paul Conti is a psychiatrist, trauma specialist, and author whose work centers on one deceptively simple idea: that understanding yourself is the most powerful thing you can do for your mental health. In this conversation, we explore how the unconscious mind quietly sets the boundaries for how we think, feel, and move through life, and how much of what we assume is just "who we are" was actually formed long before we had the words for it. What struck me most in this conversation is Paul's insistence that looking inward doesn't have to be frightening. He introduces the concept of the generative drive, the part of us that moves toward creativity, altruism, and genuine contribution, and makes a compelling case that this is what separates a life that feels full from one that simply accumulates. We also get into the myths we build from isolated facts, why the traditional psychiatric model falls short, and what it actually means to bring compassionate curiosity to yourself. BiOptimizers - Best magnesium to enhance your sleep https://www.bioptimizers.com/knowthyself Use code KNOWTHYSELF for 15% off at checkout Try LMNT & get a free sample pack https://drinkLMNT.com/KnowThyself André's Book Recs: https://www.knowthyselfpodcast.com/book-list ___________ 00:00 Intro 02:05 Assessing Mental Health Like Physical Health 03:04 The Unconscious Mind and Its Hidden Influence 06:30 How Identity Forms in Early Childhood 08:23 Compassionate Curiosity as a Practice 11:02 Empowerment, Agency, and the Healthy Self 15:34 The Assertion, Pleasure, and Generative Drives 24:26 What Humility Actually Means 27:09 Ad: BiOptimizers 28:18 Shame, Feelings, and the Lessons We Carry 35:10 How Memories Build the Myth of Self 42:32 Ad: LMNT 43:41 Waking Up vs. Growing Up 48:10 The Limits of Diagnosis-Driven Psychiatry 51:07 What We're Really Striving For 58:18 Self-Worth and External Achievement 1:02:12 Anxiety as Adaptive and Maladaptive 1:09:52 Defense Mechanisms and How They Shape Us 1:16:51 Tools for Self-Inquiry and Lasting Change 1:25:52 Repeated Patterns and Relational Wounds 1:29:45 Hard-Won Growth and Gratitude 1:32:12 Paul's Personal Story: Loss and the Path to Medicine 1:37:17 Presence, Suffering, and the Art of Helping 1:41:35 Closing Message: Your Mind Is Your Friend ___________ Episode Resources: https://www.drpaulconti.com/ https://www.amazon.com/Whats-Going-Right-Powerful-Optimizing/dp/1538776049 https://www.instagram.com/andreduqum/ https://www.instagram.com/knowthyself/ https://www.youtube.com/@knowthyselfpodcast https://www.knowthyselfpodcast.com
Emily McDonald holds two degrees in neuroscience and has become one of the fastest-growing science communicators on social media. In this conversation, we explore how the brain constructs reality from the inside out — not as a passive receiver of the world, but as a constant prediction machine shaped by memory, belief, emotion, and past experience. From color vision to the kitten experiment, Emily brings the science to life in a way that makes you ask: where am I the kitten in my own life? What I love about this conversation is that it doesn't stop at the intellectual. Emily shares how understanding neuroplasticity moved her from skeptic to someone who radically rewired her relationship with identity, money, and what it means to pursue something with passion. We get into the difference between harmonious and obsessive passion, how identity sets a ceiling on what we're willing to receive, and why processing time — the unstructured silence we've largely lost — may be one of the most important things we can reclaim. Oneskin - Use code KNOWTHYSELF for 15% off http://oneskin.co/KNOWTHYSELF Limited time only! BiOptimizers - Best magnesium to enhance your sleep https://www.bioptimizers.com/knowthyself Use code KNOWTHYSELF for 15% off at checkout André's Book Recs: https://www.knowthyselfpodcast.com/book-list ___________ 00:00 Intro 02:14 How the Brain Constructs Reality 13:50 Rewiring Beliefs Around Abundance 20:12 The Brain as a Prediction Machine 21:35 The Default Mode Network and Self-Concept 24:15 Science and Spirituality as Complementary Lenses 27:09 Ad: One Skin 30:19 Identity Beyond the Thinking Mind 41:44 Ad: BiOptimizers 42:52 Identity as the Set Point of Your Life 45:39 The Neuroscience of Habit Change 47:39 Desire, Fear, and the Energy Behind Goals 1:07:03 Living from Feeling States, Not Outcomes 1:13:58 Purpose Beyond the Self 1:24:21 Nervous System Regulation as a Foundation 1:27:52 Discipline as Self-Trust 1:33:51 The Three M's Morning Routine 1:39:05 Environment, Association, and Chemo Signals 1:42:20 The Necessity of Processing Time ___________ Episode Resources: https://www.instagram.com/emonthebrain/ https://www.instagram.com/planetempodcast/ https://www.instagram.com/andreduqum/ https://www.instagram.com/knowthyself/ https://www.youtube.com/@knowthyselfpodcast https://www.knowthyselfpodcast.com
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Observed September 16, 2026. Cached outside the daily freshness window; the positions keep the date they were taken on.
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