Ep 6: Spirituality Without the BS: Finding Inner Stillness When You've Tried Everything

You've got the career. The house. The family. Maybe even the body you wanted. So why do you still wake up feeling hollow? Why does every achievement feel like it's leading nowhere? And why can't you sit alone with your thoughts without your mind tearing you apart?

Most high-achieving men are chasing the next win, the next milestone, the next validation—believing that more will finally fill the void. But here's the brutal truth: You're optimizing your life while ignoring your spirit. You're a human trying to have a spiritual experience when you're actually a spirit having a human experience.

In this episode, Dennis Procopio (The Bro Coach®) sits down with Andrew Bontz, COO of Man-UP! Life Coaching, for a raw conversation about the decline of religion in America, what men are really searching for, and why success without a spiritual practice is just noise.

You'll learn:

• The critical difference between religion and spirituality (and why you don't need doctrine to have a spiritual identity)
• Dennis's journey through every major religion and what he discovered about the common thread
• Why "I identify as we first, then me" is the shift that changes everything
• The uncomfortable truth about meditation, stillness, and silence—and why high-performers avoid it
• How to move from egocentric identity to collective consciousness without losing your masculine edge
• The simple daily practice that reveals what success never will

This episode is for you if:

• You've achieved everything you thought would make you happy—and you're still miserable
• You can't sit in silence without your mind attacking you
• You've walked away from religion but feel spiritually adrift
• You're tired of the grind feeling meaningless and you don't know why
• You're ready to understand what's missing when you "have it all"

Whether you're a high-achiever feeling hollow, a man questioning what comes after success, or someone ready to stop running from stillness and start embracing it, this episode offers the blueprint for building a spiritual practice that actually matters.

Because at the end of the day, you can have everything and still feel empty—or you can learn to listen beyond the noise.

Not red-pill. Not therapy. Just the evolved man's blueprint for spirit, stillness, and real fulfillment.

Subscribe and join the conversation at brocoach.com

Want to dive deeper? If you're ready to optimize every area of your life, schedule a complimentary 30-minute strategy session at www.manuplifecoaching.com/application

Transcript

00:00:00:00 - 00:00:23:05
Unknown
Most men want more. More clarity. More respect. More control over their lives. But few know how to get it. Welcome to the Bro Coach podcast with Dennis Procopio, the founder of Man Up Life Coaching and the man behind thousands of Transform Lives. Not Red pill, not therapy. Just the evolved man's blueprint for strength, presence and purpose.

00:00:23:05 - 00:00:54:19
Unknown
Welcome to another episode of the Bro Coach podcast with Dennis Procopio I am Andrew Barnes. The CEO of Man Up Live Coaching. And I'm here with Dennis. So thanks for being here. Dennis. Hey, thank you for being here, Andrew. So yeah, the Bro Coach podcast is, something that we are rolling out so that guys like yourselves, have something to tune into that maybe is relatable and, helps you get through a day.

00:00:54:19 - 00:01:29:02
Unknown
Andrew, what are we talking about today? But are an episode six. And I was at the gym this morning and I saw, a fancy headline on the, on the TV. And we all love news headlines. Right. But it talked about how the shift in people identifying as Christians has changed from 22,004, which is like 82% or something like that of people in America identified as Christian.

00:01:29:04 - 00:02:03:10
Unknown
Now 2024, it's dropped to almost 60%, right? So I saw that and I was it got me thinking about what men, the men in our community need to know about this, or at least their influence over it kind of. How has that reflect in how we go about our lives? And of course, we're talking about spirituality and and religion, which is, you know, not necessarily recommended at the, at the your, your Christmas party or whatever.

00:02:03:10 - 00:02:22:24
Unknown
But here at the Pro Coach podcast, we talk about some of the issues that a lot of places you're not talking about that. So I wanted to get your take on spirituality because and that's what men need to know about this, because that's been a big growth of mine with having these conversations in our one on one sessions and stuff.

00:02:22:24 - 00:02:51:13
Unknown
So I wanted to hear your insight and your reaction to kind of like, what's happening in the state of American men when it comes to this topic. Okay, so what happened for me was, hey, it's Saturday, I'm going to make a podcast with my buddy Andrew and Wham! What do you think about religion? Ready? Go. Well, all right, I can do this.

00:02:51:15 - 00:03:37:11
Unknown
So one of the things that I should probably share about myself as a way of sort of edging into this topic is that, I am ethnically Jewish. On my mother's side. She is an Ashkenazi Jew from Europe. My father, and family are South Philly Roman Catholic Italians. Bada bing, Google. And somewhere along the way, my mother decided to move away from traditional Judaism, which had been her cultural identity, and to embrace Catholicism.

00:03:37:13 - 00:04:21:12
Unknown
So I was, baptized Catholic. And in fact, I went through holy confirmation and took communion and my confirmation name is Joseph. So very Italian. Dennis, Anthony, Joseph, Procopio, but still ethnically Jewish. And my, my young mom, who was also. I'm not bragging or nothing, but was also, you know, bipolar and schizophrenic, took me on a journey that I never asked to be on through every religion and in the 70s and 80s, so we were in ashrams.

00:04:21:12 - 00:04:56:09
Unknown
We were, you know, banging drums with Harry Krishnas. I learned about Hinduism. I learned about Zoroastrianism. I got into Buddhists. I learned about you know, the power of manifestation and Scientology, like it was a wild ride. So I feel like I got a sidewalk university degree in theology by the time I was, like, 20 years old.

00:04:56:11 - 00:05:31:12
Unknown
And then in art school in Manhattan, started exploring some of these themes academically. And I think that all of the understanding that I gained from that, helps me to coach guys who come from all walks of life, life religiously. Okay. So that's just a here's my here's my disclaimer of who I am and where I come from.

00:05:31:14 - 00:05:54:07
Unknown
So yes, I know what you know, you know, the I know the, your father, I know the Hail Mary, I know all the books of the Bible. I know the Old Testament, I know the New Testament. I've read the Bhagavad Gita. I am familiar with the Talmud and the Torah, the all of that, all of that 50, 55 years old this December.

00:05:54:07 - 00:06:31:21
Unknown
And there's a lot of religion in in my databanks. If you were to ask me at this moment of my journey, are you religious? I would say yes and no. If by religious you mean do you follow a prescribed, doctrine legalistic Catholicism, Pentecostalism, Orthodox Judaism, Islam, what have you? I would say no. The answer to that is no.

00:06:31:23 - 00:07:06:07
Unknown
If you ask me, are you do you prioritize your spiritual identity? I would say I not only prioritize it, that's the lens that I see the world through. I don't understand life except as a spirit. Having, a human experience rather than a human having a spiritual experience.

00:07:06:09 - 00:07:29:00
Unknown
So when you ask what is the feeling that you have or thought that you have associated with, a decline in conventional Christianity? I guess my answer is.

00:07:29:02 - 00:08:18:08
Unknown
Well, different religious doctrines have historically campaigned to have the largest followings, because every doctrine is a path to the indefinable. I'm not comfortable using language that excuses one label over another label, but we all know what we're talking about. For some claim. Oh, he's a shame to say God, that's a sin. Well, no, but I could just as easily say, oh, Lord, I could just as easily say Hashem.

00:08:18:10 - 00:09:06:20
Unknown
I could just as easily say the Great Spirit. These are manmade terms created as a rapper in an attempt to understand. From a personal perspective, that which is our highest identity. And I have learned that the game we play as a practitioner who is attempting to graduate from a local egocentric identity to a higher collective hive mind, use the force.

00:09:06:22 - 00:09:29:24
Unknown
Meta identity is. Learning to identify as we first and then me. So what do I think about Christianity? Losing numbers. I think that's been going on throughout history.

00:09:30:01 - 00:10:01:08
Unknown
You know, do I think Christianity is going to go out of business? I don't think so, do I? I think it's important for Christians to win the game and for the entire globe to be Christian. No, I don't do I think it's important for Muslims to win the game and for everyone to be Muslim? No, I don't do I think it's important for everybody to be Jews and win the game.

00:10:01:10 - 00:10:25:10
Unknown
Not only do I not feel that way, clearly Jews don't feel that way because nobody's knocking on your door saying, come join my Jew call. That's just not a thing. It's not a thing. You know, you know, Jehovah's, do not go banging on your door and say, here, put this poorly designed little hat on your head.

00:10:25:12 - 00:11:04:09
Unknown
So, so what I do think is imperative is that we are all working to understand and practice the foundational premises that are archetypal and are somatic throughout these religions. What are your thoughts there? And I know I just lost some people with that. I am 100% sure that that was a filter, because there's somebody who's going, my Lord and Savior, blond haired, blue eyed, white skin, Jesus Christ from the desert died on the cross for my sins.

00:11:04:09 - 00:11:25:13
Unknown
And if you don't believe that, well, then I got a shotgun waiting for you. Because what would Jesus do? He turn the other cheek. Okay. Sounds good. Someone out there. There's a muslim saying, if you're not a fundamentalist Muslim. Now, I'm not ripping on Islam, but there's a fundamentalist Muslim saying, if you're not with this, you're against us.

00:11:25:15 - 00:11:48:17
Unknown
Somewhere. There's a Buddha sitting looking at a wall. I'm kind of more like that guy. Well, I think that, you know, when I was looking at it and thinking about this conversation this morning where what people are moving to is more atheist, right? I was like, that was kind of like going away from Christianity to kind of not believing in anything.

00:11:48:19 - 00:12:14:09
Unknown
Right. And I was trying to put myself in the shoes of the bro coach community and the men were there in their community. And we're I trying to get to our community and like that void of not really believing in anything to kind of like, what does it mean? What does it mean to us? Right. So it's like there's this gap, right?

00:12:14:09 - 00:12:41:23
Unknown
And it might be connected to and my, my thesis is it's connected to a lot of men. They, they're stuck in this. Like why. You know, the midlife crisis moment where it's like, okay, I have all the stuff, I have success, I have a wife and a family and a nice car and a house and all of these things, and I still feel empty inside.

00:12:42:00 - 00:13:15:19
Unknown
And I think there's some correlation between this movement of away from maybe, you know, whatever religion you could Christianity because we're in America. Right. But to believing that there's nothing. Right. So I think that that's what that was the thread that I wanted to pull on more in this conversation and not necessarily go to the why of it, but like, what do the men in our community, how does it inform how they live their daily life?

00:13:15:19 - 00:13:40:05
Unknown
Right. And how is it a form from a culture's perspective? I'm like, how do we connect the dots between, you know, some of the more global things out there that, you know, why I'm I've reached this pinnacle of success and I still feel empty. So maybe more success will get me, which is kind of been a topic we've had in, the previous few episodes.

00:13:40:07 - 00:14:15:21
Unknown
And like, how is spiritually spirituality involved in that? Okay. If I'm to answer the way, I'd like to answer, then you've left, a lot of work for me here. You just handed me a bag of bolts and scrap metal and said, here's your tractor. And now, like, like Ikea level 9000. And so just go ahead and put that together for our listening audience real quick.

00:14:15:23 - 00:15:03:17
Unknown
I'm, but but I could do it. I could do it because the eraser here, the common denominator is and always has been brotherly love. The reason I'm from Philly to Philadelphia, literally from the Bible, means City of brotherly love. And. When I say brother, I don't mean like. Hey, bro. When I say brotherly love, I mean love for everyone, including that lovely daughter of yours who just, moved like an apparition through your shot there.

00:15:03:17 - 00:15:40:21
Unknown
Which one of your daughters is that? Lilliana? Lily on high blue. Yeah. The term holy became interesting for me after a dude by the name of Curtis. I was living in New York, city, circa, early 90s, late 80s, early 90s, and, New York was Gotham City for sure. Mayor Dinkins was this is pre Giuliani.

00:15:40:21 - 00:16:09:24
Unknown
Some Mayor Dinkins was this guy who just sort of allowed a lot of decay in Manhattan to happen on his watch. And so here's this dude Curtis, and he's out there is this homeless guy doing push ups on his knuckles. For money. His knuckles are bleeding. He's doing push ups on his knuckles out in front of, all the bars on the Upper East Side.

00:16:10:01 - 00:16:36:14
Unknown
But you yuppies out there. So. Yeah, go, go, go. And throwing money at, And it's very Wolf of Wall Street. It's gross. Right. So I would always see this guy, and I had compassion for him because in a way, I kind of felt socially isolated in the way I could see he was socially isolated and, this call me Big Chief or Rambo.

00:16:36:14 - 00:16:57:18
Unknown
Every time he saw me coming down the streets, they'd been at a time like this. This was our voice out. Hey, big chief, here come Rambo, the cop Rambo. And, was that Rambo? And I started talking to him for real, real like looking in this eyes. And he dropped the act, and I dropped whatever act I had.

00:16:57:18 - 00:17:22:08
Unknown
He stopped being, you know, tap dance and, you know, street performer. And I stopped being fluffed up, tough guy. And we just talked and he told me, like, I hate what I have to do out here. I need money. And these waters are cold and deep cold in deep big teeth. These waters are cold and deep. And there's sharks in the water.

00:17:22:10 - 00:17:46:05
Unknown
He's like. He's like, do you know how much I have to drink just to get up the courage to be able to do this shit? And then he pointed up to this sky, right. This is up around, I want to say, like 91st, 92nd. It was somewhere between the 90s, the 70s and the 90s on, yeah, on Second Avenue.

00:17:46:07 - 00:18:13:22
Unknown
And he pointed up to this high bar because, you know, my wife still lives up there. She took me for everything. I know. She can see me down here, but I used to live up there. I had a good job. I was just like these dudes. And I gave up. And. I felt such compassion for him. But I also felt sadness for myself in that moment because that was, like, relatable.

00:18:13:24 - 00:18:35:05
Unknown
Like I was hanging on by a thread. I was one, I was a I was a rent payment away from homeless myself at that time while going to college. But I was alone out there and I would start come and talking to this guy every day, and I'd just to bring him food, start bringing the money. And he said, you know what, big Chief?

00:18:35:07 - 00:19:12:07
Unknown
Every time we meet, this is holy space. You know, holy stands for big Chief here. One loves you. And I get tears in my eyes remembering that, like, I'm literally like fighting tears, saying this because it's such a visceral memory. In the moments where he and I met with each other, we were spiritually supporting each other through the chaos of the world and the space that we met on the ground that we met on was holy, because each of us understood from the other.

00:19:12:07 - 00:20:02:00
Unknown
Here one loves you and that is the foundation of brotherly love. And to stick to landing on this thing. When I meet with my clients, whether it's an Orthodox Jew wearing his, kippah, and, you know, getting ready for Yom Kippur, whether it's an, you know, a practicing Muslim who's getting ready for, Ramadan, whether it's a, you know, Christian who does Bible study with his family and has kids with names like, you know, Malachi and Enoch, no matter who it is.

00:20:02:02 - 00:20:26:07
Unknown
I always think to myself, this is a holy space, and here one loves you, and I do the best that I can to be a mirror in which that person sees God's love for them. In my reflection, and the devil's in the details. Thoughts.

00:20:26:07 - 00:20:49:02
Unknown
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00:20:49:02 - 00:20:56:04
Unknown
This call could change your life. Man up life coaching. Elite life coaching for men by men.

00:20:58:21 - 00:21:19:16
Unknown
It makes you think where the connection between it maybe makes me think about a video I saw on TikTok. All informative social media, right? I was going to say. Did it involve a chick in a bathing suit? I think I might have seen that one, too. Booty shaking. Yeah. No, not that one. There's plenty of those around, but there's this guy.

00:21:19:16 - 00:21:46:12
Unknown
I don't even remember his name, but he talked about the Bible and how important the Bible is and how much influence it has. But he also made the point where, like, Jesus didn't write the Bible, right? The the Bible was written hundreds and hundreds of years after Jesus had died. And it was written by politicians and, you know, aristocrats and senators and, and, you know, assembled all of these stories, right?

00:21:46:12 - 00:22:25:21
Unknown
And one of the key points he talked about in the video was that Jesus his way was just love like that, you know, love the person in front of you. And I'm probably butchering the the theology here because I'm not a theologian, just just talking about my reaction to that and then connecting it to this towards the the bro coach kind of like spirituality thing that I had not necessarily been, had been in, but across my life until I met you is is this.

00:22:25:23 - 00:22:54:07
Unknown
You know, bringing in kind of like the hive mind conversation of we're all energetically connected as human beings, right? And the thing that connect us connects us is love. If we choose to do it right versus if we don't choose to do it. Or a lot of people, though, they'll hide behind whatever they want to hide behind or make excuses or in isolation.

00:22:54:07 - 00:23:24:12
Unknown
Right? They choose isolation. They choose the lone wolf mentality towards like, I will succeed at the cost of anything, including the brother standing beside me. But they sacrifice that spiritual moment of the the brotherly love or the love of your common man next to you, right where what you're talking about is, you know, the arm in arm community, tribal love that men.

00:23:24:12 - 00:24:14:17
Unknown
I think a lot of us are missing, in this like, loneliness epidemic and like, the connection to the lack of spirituality in many men's lives. Right? Or maybe they thought what they think. What spirituality is, is something like this rule, the set of rules you have to follow to enter into this special place one day. If you give X amount of money and do certain amount of tasks and don't do all of these things, but they they lose the concepts of just loving the person in front of you and the story you just shared about this gentleman and the love you showed to him of just giving, you know, giving him that moment, those

00:24:14:17 - 00:24:43:11
Unknown
moments of treating him like a human right and, and having what a gift you just gave that man. What a gift. And how often do we give that gift as men to people around us? Because, you know, it's not necessarily something we're taught as being part of a man. Right? Like being part of a man is not, you know, it's often like strength and leadership and discipline.

00:24:43:13 - 00:25:16:04
Unknown
But how often is it talked about where, like the connection between love and spirituality and kind of like that mission being a thread that we, we follow in and part of our process. So that's my reaction. So you said some things there, and I'm taking notes so that I can be a good listener. And then sort of go back and address the things I think you and I have in common that we, have big thoughts.

00:25:16:04 - 00:26:03:03
Unknown
And so we don't exactly talk and read, you know, sound bites. So hopefully anybody who's listening appreciates that format and is figuring out and will say a lot of stuff, and then Dennis will say of stuff and then Andrew will say a lot of stuff rather than interrupting each other, like, like, you know, Easter at my Italian family's house where everybody's interrupting each other and it's like the Last Supper, you know, you know, short attention span theater, you know, and and frankly, considering how we're being conditioned to have short attention spans, I think it's a good practice to force yourself, especially considering how many of my clients and listeners are ADHD.

00:26:03:03 - 00:26:26:18
Unknown
You know, nobody is, to listen to these long, ideas and to sort of think about them with the relaxed attentiveness as sort of a fireside chat. So what I heard you say, and I want to address in that one thing you said that I want to jump on.

00:26:26:20 - 00:27:18:03
Unknown
You framed my talking to Curtis as, quote, treating him like a human. And I think that it's important to recognize that he also treated me like a human. Because I think the perspective of many average college students or employed people walking down the street and seeing a dude in black Air Force ones and dirty jeans and a jean jacket, doing, you know, with cat attracted eyes smelling like, you know, bottle Thunderbird and doing push ups on his calloused knuckles.

00:27:18:05 - 00:27:50:11
Unknown
I think it's easy to make a judgment about that person. And similarly, this dude who does not advertise that maybe he was the straight-A student in school. You know, maybe he was raised in an upper middle class household. Maybe he was living the exact same quality of life up in that tower. That they are before he got whacked with a divorce that he couldn't emotionally recover from.

00:27:50:13 - 00:28:08:12
Unknown
Probably as jaded and has a narrative that is judging everybody walking down the street. And so he's similarly not treating them as human or.

00:28:08:14 - 00:28:42:22
Unknown
As equal or whatever. You know, with respect. Right. You said and what started this was you saying you launched from essentially what is that string that connects us? Because that's really foundationally what we're talking about here. You start with why is Christianity in decline? And I'm like, I don't care. Like I really, you know, why is faith in decline?

00:28:42:24 - 00:29:04:23
Unknown
That's a concern. You said I think people are moving in the direction of atheists. So I, I, I would reframe that. I would say that people are moving because atheism implies, a.

00:29:05:00 - 00:29:45:06
Unknown
Disbelief in kind of everything, which is a bizarre idea. You don't disbelieve in everything cuz you clearly believe in something. There's a there's a story you're telling yourself. There's a, there's a model you something's holding your world together. You have a conceptual model. So you do have a belief system, maybe your belief system, the science. And if you go up, if you go deep into science, maybe a belief system is that where, consciousness is a quantum entanglement situation.

00:29:45:08 - 00:30:18:05
Unknown
And if you keep going into that, you'll eventually find that you may have more in common with practitioners of Christianity. And Islam and everybody else than not. So I think it's hard to find an actual atheist. I think what you find is an agnostic. That's what I think you find, who understands necessarily that there's more to this than just them, but they don't understand what that is.

00:30:18:10 - 00:30:44:04
Unknown
So being that person, then not having that script and not having that container and therefore not having those rose colored lenses, when I die, I go to heaven, right? I'm going to get raptured up. I'm going to get 99 virgins or whatever the African thing is, right? You're just some brutal pragmatist who's like, maybe we just live and then we die.

00:30:44:06 - 00:31:20:15
Unknown
And when you're there, then we get the oh oh, oh, there comes the existential crisis. And so you did exactly what I expected you to do. You got into the what connects us. You defined it as love, but I don't I want I want to walk that back. I believe that love, brotherly love, is the way that we.

00:31:20:17 - 00:31:32:00
Unknown
Unite rather than divide. I think that's a critical modality. However.

00:31:32:02 - 00:32:27:08
Unknown
I think that authenticity is arguably more important as a cornerstone to your. Cosmology than love. And the reason I say that is because it's been scientifically proven that the vibration of authenticity is the highest vibration that we can put us, even more so then love and authenticity tends to be what we experience when we remove the affectations that are associated with our personal identities.

00:32:27:08 - 00:33:03:11
Unknown
What I like to call ego claims examples doctor Seuss snitches. They are the plain bellied snitches, and they're the star bellied snitches and they end up having a social divide because of the implications of either having a star or not having a star. Removing the identity claim is saying it doesn't matter if you have a star or you don't have a star.

00:33:03:13 - 00:33:43:03
Unknown
What matters is that your speech is so Andrew, we are snitches. All of us. And naturally, love is recognizing that regardless of our individual identity claims and efficacious. I'm tall, I'm short, I'm black, white, Mexican pride, freaking, you know. Well, in Norway we blah blah blah blah blah. And when you when you get rid of all of the things that are identity claims and notice that I said Mexican pride, black pride, right, right.

00:33:43:05 - 00:34:19:04
Unknown
All right. Is associated with individual identity. What's the opposite of pride? Humility. So what is humility? Humility is having faith in what's left when you dare to remove all of your identity claims. And the best way to do that is through empathy. What is entity other than allowing yourself to feel what another feels without interjecting your own shit?

00:34:19:06 - 00:34:39:13
Unknown
Now I think it's time for us to pass the collection basket. Because it's churches are free. But no, that's really what it is. So it's not about love. Love is an aspect, but it's about authenticity. Because what connects us.

00:34:39:15 - 00:35:25:11
Unknown
Is not the question what are we? Is the connection. And if you meditate for long enough, you learn that the real question isn't what are we? It's not even what am I? It's that there really is no question because the moment you ask a question, you're trying to do something. And since creation is there's nothing to do, and if you share space with another person who gets that?

00:35:25:13 - 00:36:00:08
Unknown
Then you get that. Dude, I know some dudes under a car with a wrench. Go. What the fuck is he talking about? Sounds pretty woo woo to me. Sounds pretty rude of me. Go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and think that. But at the same time, if you spend time under that vehicle for long enough, except that you're probably not going to get that rusted bolt off right now, put the wrench down and just lie there under the car, hiding from your family.

00:36:00:10 - 00:36:24:02
Unknown
And just look at that oil pan. You'll start to hear everything going on in your neighbor, in your house, in your garage, in your neighborhood, in your heart, in your mind. And after you get over the anxiety, you'll hit a place of peace. Once you hit that place of peace, that's over 9000 and you don't have to do anything.

00:36:24:04 - 00:36:45:15
Unknown
Just get out there and share that with the next person that is spirituality. Now, to look back to your original question, how do we.

00:36:45:17 - 00:37:34:05
Unknown
How do we foster a community here at Man, a life coaching that. Encompasses that without drama between our Orthodox Jews and our and our fundamentalist Islamic clients. I'm just pick a that as a as an example because it's kind of a hot topic, right? I could also have said Catholics and Protestants, right. Or even go political and say libs and, you know, whatever Republicans or whatever conservatives.

00:37:34:07 - 00:38:20:24
Unknown
Cheer it. Man up. Life coaching or here in a in in my culture, this culture that we've created. My Islamic clients love my Jewish clients love them, just love them with their whole heart and vice versa. I can't speak for everybody, but I can speak for the guys that are here. There is there is no there are no two dudes in my organization that don't see each other through the eyes of love first, and then use reason to work out, negotiate their differences.

00:38:21:01 - 00:38:24:04
Unknown
If we could scale that.

00:38:24:06 - 00:38:31:10
Unknown
I don't think it would matter whether we were Christian or it doesn't matter.

00:38:31:12 - 00:38:48:12
Unknown
The result is harmony and peace and peace starts with you. What are your thoughts on that? I just I was taking notes in the some of the threads he talks about, where it's like.

00:38:48:14 - 00:39:32:08
Unknown
Starts with authenticity. And part of the part of that, or at least figuring out that on to authenticity needs to happen in silence or in quiet. Right? And. We as men in today's world, don't have a lot of quiet spaces unless we seek it out. Right. And he talked about meditation for a moment. There. And how that, you know, that kind of connection, I think that that quiet space or meditation in its connection to spirituality.

00:39:32:08 - 00:40:01:21
Unknown
Right. But I hadn't I haven't heard someone kind of connect those dots towards like, oh, hey, if you want to live a better life, you should meditate because you know it's important, right? But being able to connect that to spirituality, to where it's like you first have to be good with yourself and good and the space of silence, you know, being good alone with yourself, right?

00:40:01:21 - 00:40:46:20
Unknown
You kind of have to fill that cup up to be able to be in a space to love or to be authentic with someone next to you, because you first have to understand it. They have to love yourself first to be able to, to then be authentic and have connection with the person next to you, and also have the skill set to be able to understand that, hey man, we're going to we're going to be agree that we can come to the agreement that we're both human and that we both want a lot of the same things, what we call stuff, the labels we attach to it, the identities, the ego, the pride we attach

00:40:46:20 - 00:41:00:09
Unknown
to all of these divisive things. Is is not the recipe, right? It's it's first starting within and then.

00:41:00:11 - 00:41:35:17
Unknown
Connecting it to the outside to going forward for that. So I think to me it really speaks to me towards like first of the you have to lead yourself first. And that's a really complicated thing to do because we have all of this narrative and head trash and stuff, right? Where it's like, no, I'm this, I'm conservative or I'm liberal or I'm a muslim, or I'm a, I'm a this in me attach so much emotion to that identity without necessarily taking a step back and saying, okay, like that is true.

00:41:35:17 - 00:42:10:23
Unknown
But how do we meet more in the middle of like, oh, well, actually we have a lot more in common than we than we think we do. Right? And if we can lean into that more than, you know, the where the media and all of the fearmongering and stuff that gets thrown at us. And like between men and women, between all of these different things, you know, that that it just speaks to me in a different way that I really appreciate.

00:42:11:00 - 00:43:00:08
Unknown
So let me let me simplify this. And I want to I'd rather not over pet the cat here. I actually want to close this one up sooner rather than than later. Because if what we're saying is meditate, then two hours of a guy analyzing what could happen when we meditate is probably less useful than saying, hey, y'all, whether or not you believe in Santa Claus, the idea of Santa Claus is adds value to our world because of what Santa represents.

00:43:00:10 - 00:43:41:10
Unknown
Whether or not you believe in Jesus in a literal sense, I love the idea of Jesus as an archetype, being someone who had at least learned some of the ideology behind, meditation. Had disciples following him because they were basically just people who wanted to who saw the results and wanted to practice the same disciplines. And the discipline was meditation.

00:43:41:12 - 00:44:23:23
Unknown
It really was. It was meditation and removing all of the narratives that would cause you to see your brother as anything other than your. Your identity in God, quote unquote. And so in the New Testament, and again, here we go, Jews for Jesus or whatever. But in the, in the New Testament, you know, which I'm familiar with as a book, the way I'm familiar with all the other books that have been written by guys.

00:44:24:00 - 00:44:48:03
Unknown
In the New Testament, there's a famous story of Jesus sitting for 40 days and 40 nights in the desert. If you know anything about me, I live in the desert, and I've been here for two and a half years, so I'm trying to be this high score. But but the idea of the desert is that it's desert.

00:44:48:03 - 00:45:23:22
Unknown
It. And in the desert, you are removing all of the things that reinforce your narrative of what the world is. And in meditation, I am convinced through practice that there is a, There's an moment, whether you think of it is as.

00:45:23:24 - 00:45:30:10
Unknown
Enlightenment, or whether you think of it as.

00:45:30:12 - 00:46:14:12
Unknown
Revelation, whether you think of it as being born again or saved or whatever, there is an inversion of understanding where what we think of as reality turns out to be a sort of temporal situation that is informed by what we think of as fantasy or daydream. I'm going to end this with a, with a tiny little passage.

00:46:14:14 - 00:46:41:03
Unknown
Readers may or may not. Our readers, listeners rather may or may not be readers. And if you are, you may or may not be familiar with a guy by the name of Krishnamurti, J. Christian Krishnamurti was popular in the 30s. He died 8586. He's one of my favorite seekers because he was just an asshole the whole way.

00:46:41:05 - 00:47:09:18
Unknown
Like he he wasn't, you know, the the whispering self righteous guru guy. This is a dude who were fighting and screaming and kicking and screaming the whole way and wanted to challenge everything. If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him, you know? And so and so he's somebody who I think might have arrived at enlightenment kind of in spite of himself.

00:47:09:20 - 00:47:38:19
Unknown
He was just the epitome of sort of quote unquote, doubting Thomas, who was aggressive, doubting, led him to sort of checkmate himself and to go and trap, as I think I am forced to accept the thing I've been trying to disprove. There's a book that was cobbled together called The Book of Life, and it's put in, there are 20 or.

00:47:38:19 - 00:47:49:23
Unknown
Sorry, let me see. There basically is 365 days of passage. Passage passages. I'm going to share just the first one.

00:47:50:00 - 00:48:19:24
Unknown
The book starts out beyond the noise of words, and dude says, listening. Or not? Rather, I'm going to go back even further. I'm going to start with with January 1st. Okay, maybe I should buy this book and read it one a day. Coming into the New year. Or maybe I should just meditate. Listen, with these, have you ever sat very silently?

00:48:20:01 - 00:48:49:20
Unknown
Not with your attention fixed on anything. Not making an effort to concentrate, but with the mind. Very quiet. Really. Still. Then you hear everything, don't you? You hear the far off noises, as well as those that are nearer and those that are very close by. The immediate sounds. Which means that really you are listening to everything. Your mind is not confined to one narrow little channel.

00:48:49:22 - 00:49:44:18
Unknown
If you can listen in this way, listen with ease, without straying, you will find an extraordinary change taking place within you, a change that comes without your volition, without your asking. And in that change there is great beauty and depth of insight. I'm going to leave it right there. It's that's it, that's it. Whether you're, you know, a guy in a robe and flip flop, sitting cross-legged in the desert for 40 days or 40 nights or, a Japanese practitioner, sitting zazen on a pillow facing a wall, or a Tibetan monk with a singing bowl or a Tuvan throat singer or, a little girl on her knees at her bedside with her little

00:49:44:24 - 00:50:16:11
Unknown
head in her folded hands, saying prayers to, you know, to God to protect all of her, her bunny and her kid and her. You know, there's a there is a power that is revealed in silence and stillness. And those who would practice will recognize each other.

00:50:16:13 - 00:50:56:08
Unknown
Reflect their understanding in a useful way and are at the forefront of the most important work that we can do, both individually and collectively. Men. Andrew, I'm going to let that one ring play us off stage. Oh man, made to this point. We appreciate you invite you to continue to join the Bro Coach community. Subscribe and follow us on social media.

00:50:56:10 - 00:51:20:15
Unknown
Or we can we dive into several, you know, maybe taboo subjects like this and help share the lens a different lens on it, maybe. You know, I appreciate the courage and the bravery of this conversation, and it just I feel blessed to be here in this moment and best be part of this community. So thanks for leading the way.

00:51:20:15 - 00:51:43:03
Unknown
You do, Dennis. And, being courageous to just speak your truth. And I think that's that's that's very admirable. And I appreciate I appreciate it a lot. So thanks, man. Just doing my job. Just doing my job. Okay, guys, listen, I'm going to do this out. I got to see a man about a Jeep. So, that's a true story.

00:51:43:05 - 00:51:51:16
Unknown
And, so, remember, come back like, follow and subscribe because here one loves you, brother in.