Russ: Sarah, your bright and shiny face is here. And by the way, you look like you’ve gotten some color. I see that you’re in the sun enjoying life as you, it’s amazing.
Sarah: Yes, of course I’m at my favorite spot at the beach. So everything’s good.
Russ: Beautiful, the beach does you well. Thank you for joining today. It’s one of these things where I know you’re always going to join but I anticipated because I’m like, Sarah’s gonna join I’ve got to be on my game I got to stretch. Get my sweats off, get my trainers on. I never know my stuff. My pre work is I do it on the fly.
Sarah: Right. Okay, of course. We’re all blagging it.
Russ: Oh, that’s yeah, it’s so. But speaking about today’s guest I did do some research.
Sarah: Speaking about blagging it, this week’s guest is Brett Moran. He’s a dear friend of mine.
Russ: That is my middle name. I wanted, was going to say Sarah, we should probably change the name of the season to amazing humans. Because I mean, truly, I haven’t done some research on Brett. I mean, he’s an amazing human. Everyone we’ve talked to is, but I mean, seriously. Amazing!
Brett, what makes you so amazing?
Brett: Wow, nothing I’ve ever been asked that question, Russ. That’s a good first question. What makes me so amazing, is that I don’t really care. And I really mean that from like, a lovely place. I just, I really just love life. And
I just have so much fun. And I, I do the things that I do, but I’m not so attached to it, I don’t really care about it. And I actually find that, I enjoy it a lot more than more I don’t care about it. Wherever it is a relationship or a business or just life like, just very, I think we take it too seriously. So I think that makes me amazing.
And people find it nice to be around. Because I’m a bit light hearted and a bit jokey, especially in the world nowadays.
Sarah: Exactly. Yeah, that’s exactly what we need for sure.
Russ: You know, being light hearted in life is interesting. Because there’s, I think people worry so much about consequence that, if I don’t do this, something bad will happen. Or is there’s going to be a resulting consequence. So when you live your life, it’s not careless, but it’s not putting meaning on everything. How do you get away from worrying about the consequences of things?
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Brett: No, I heard something recently, actually, which is beautiful, it was basically that there isn’t any wrong choices in life, we’ve labeled everything good and bad, dark and light. And this yoga teacher was basically saying, it’s just there’s just a different path. So whatever choice you make your life, there’s just a different outcome. And then you just deal with that outcome as you go along. And so I think the key really is just to take a moment to think about the choices you’re about to make, because most of us are just constantly on autopilot, making choices about what we’ve been told the choices we need to make nowadays. And you lose that sense of freedom. If you just sit down and think okay, what that choice is going to take me left and that choice is going to take me right, which one gives me the goosebumps, which one gives me more excitement, I’m going to go left because that’s the one I want to do. And that’s just how I’ve lived my life really, sometimes. And people get hurt along the way or they get offended. They get triggered, but you just got to live your life according to you. You’ve got I think you’ve only got one shot at it. So do what make you feel good. And isn’t really a bad path. It’s just the consequence.
Russ: You’ve said, I have extremely compassion for other humans. And I think if you couple what you just said with having compassion for others, then the decisions you make are meant to not hurt others. But help others. If you’re keeping that in mind, then your decision making becomes about not hurting people.
Brett: Yeah, they’re beautiful. I think just to kind of reframe, or maybe explain a bit more, when I say you make choices. When you make these choices where you don’t care, like you don’t care about it’s not that you don’t care about people. It’s not about I don’t care about this self, and you’re selfish in that way. It’s actually the opposite. It’s like, I really care. Like I can’t even kill a mosquito, mosquito sucking my blood. There’s lots of mosquitoes, I’m based in Thailand. I genuinely it hurts when I see people killed these little ants and bugs. It’s not that I don’t care in the careless way. It’s actually the complete opposite.
I care so deeply that when I make those choices, like well actually think you need to be selfish in this world nowadays. And I know it’s such a cliche, but then you become very selfless.
If you really tuned into that compassion and that love. Life is just so simple and obvious. It’s like, well, my choices do affect everyone else. But let me make sure I’m really practicing this self-care for me to self-love for me, number one, first of all, it’s like that plane analogy, you’re in the plane, and that that mask drops, you’re supposed to put it on yourself first, not your children. Because if you panic, you’re no good to your kids. So for me, I’ve just been practicing that for 20 years. And then it actually brings around a lot of compassion and a lot of love and a lot of peace, for me, for the mosquitoes and just for anybody else that I’m around. It doesn’t mean that you become a doormat in life, I don’t kind of take it from people when they want to just kind of like walk all over you. But you just become a very compassionate human being when you realize actually, you’ve really got to look after yourself first, then the rest is a lot easier. I find I’m not sure if that’s for everyone else. But when I watch everybody else trying to look after everyone else, or change the world out there and make the money wherever it is share a message from a positive place. It’s like you’re still lost in this kind of outside world.
Russ: Yeah, there’s a confusion. Because we learn a lot about codependency and taking care of others. People think that that’s being good and being helpful for others. But the thing about codependency is that you do that for yourself. It’s an internal need that you need, you need to be needed, so you take care of other people. And the being needed part means you’re not giving yourself the self-love. So you need other people to give you admiration means that you don’t love yourself. You need other people to love you to give you validation. And I think there’s a difference. And that’s not really being a good human, is being codependent and taking care of people so you can get the love from them. It’s just selfless love. It’s like, “I love you, Brett.” Because you’re a human, you’re another fellow human and you help others and you’re gonna pass it on to somebody else. You’re gonna share that love with somebody else. It’s hard. I have many a codependent in my life that and I’m a recovering codependent. And I think a lot of that is no, people start to lose respect for you, because you don’t love yourself. You don’t care for yourself. And you’re just taking care of them. And they’re like, I don’t want you to take care of me. I can take care of me. Take care of yourself.
Sarah: I’d like to ask you, like, how do you build up a practice of that? Because, like you said people have conditioned reactions or quick to respond. So do you have techniques that enable you to kind of pause before you make a decision, like you just said, or think about things differently? Or do you have a meditation practice that allows you to have that kind of knowledge in yourself that you are totally capable? You are enough. What’s your thing?
Brett: Yeah, definitely. There’s definitely a meditation for me, like there’s many techniques. And I read loads of books, and I go on all these retreats. But one thing that has stayed with me for like, nearly 20 years, is sitting down everyday meditation. And I think people might have this misconception that meditation is either religious or spiritual, or it’s about stopping your thoughts and thinking.
I genuinely meditate because I think that we are like ticking time bombs. I don’t think people generally understand who they are, what they are, and that brain, it can switch in an instant, whether that’s shouting at somebody and that you love, whether it’s going off and taking the drug, or whether it’s wasting your whole life in a system that is not, obviously there’s an agenda.
I’m not going to go into that but it for me it’s like I’m I generally sit down on that yoga mat meditators to work out what on earth is going on. This brain is all over the place. And so I just find sitting down, even if you just sat down for 10 minutes a day and just calm the mind, teach not Han says breathe in, I’ve arrived, exhale, I’m relaxed. And I just practice that I’ve arrived and relaxed. And I do it. And even like, I’ve been doing it for 20 years, I went out last night with my friends for some vegan burgers. And I still felt a little bit uncomfortable in a social situation, I still felt a little bit triggered by what somebody said. But thankfully, because of meditation, and because of this awareness, I don’t have to act like a robot, I can come home and self-reflect on it. So I think that’s what the true meditation for me is. I mean, you can empty your mind and you can go to these different states, but it’s just starting to understand what is this biology? What is this mind? It’s not ours, it’s not ours. So who am I, and it sounds pretty deep. But I think that I practice that mainly for me just to kind of like cultivate that self-practice. And then naturally, whatever something is inside us, I think there is some kind of light within us, that then starts to become a better human being. It organically evolves and grows into a nicer human being. And I can honestly safely say that because I wasn’t a nice human being 20 years ago, from violence and drugs and sexual images, or even the films I used to watch. Now again, I can’t even kill mosquito, I cry at the flowers. I’m like, “Oh, my God, bro, you like where did this come from?” But I feel like, I’ve never felt more whoever I am, I felt more who I am now, because of meditation. Before it was just a lie. It was just conditioning. It was programming. It was what society expected or parents conditioned us to be. So I think for me meditation, if you’re not meditating now, in this day and age, 10 minutes a day, like your mental health is going to suffer your emotional health, spiritual health, whatever that means to you. Like, you’re going to be lost in samsara, the disillusion. Like, if you’re not meditating, I think it could be in a big bang in trouble. So, that’s my positive way of getting people into meditation. Do it or die.
Russ: You’ll be sitting in a black hole of eternity and never get out of it.
Do you need to know that to balance that out? So do you need to have that negative side of having hit rock bottom, having spent time making terrible decisions, to appreciate and get yourself to a place where you can be here? Because if you spent your whole life, meditating, and never living the unbalanced life, would you feel? Would you have a desire to want to make a bad decision here and there, do drugs here and there, do something awful, because you’ve never done it before. Or do you need to balance that out?
Brett: That’s a good point. I literally have two ways to answer. I literally just read a really powerful book. And it takes me a while to read books. But I read this book in two days, I literally stopped and just read this book. I’ve been in tears of joy, tears of anger, tears and just loads of awareness. And the book is called The Choice and it’s by a survivor from Auschwitz - a little bit heavy right now. But she was a 16-year-old girl, she literally watched a mum walk into a gas chamber. She watched people die all around her. She suffered for years and basically cut a long story. Right at the end, just she’s laying in the pile of bodies. And just right at the end of the GI the Americans shot soldier comes into, save them, but he just thinks it’s just a part of their body. She can’t say, she can’t even lift her hand up to say, she’s alive. And it’s horrifying. It’s like one, but honestly it’s one of the most amazing books I’ve read. At the end she musters up this last little bit of energy just to lift a finger and this soldier saves her, literally sees her and then they save her. She’s now this kind of psychologist, I think she’s still alive. She became friends with Viktor Frankl who wrote that Man’s Search for Meaning. And both of their books, both of their books are simply talking about freedom in the mind, talking about choices in the mind. And as crazy as that sounds that story, I’m getting goosebumps and shivers as I talk about her story, because it still hasn’t left me like, I only put the book down yesterday, and I don’t think I’ve processed most of it. She said that she wouldn’t change that. Basically, she said that, that Holocaust and that out switch has helped her create that freedom in her mind. And I think that everything that we go through we think is bad situation, I mean, I don’t think you can think of anything worse than what she wrote about in that book. That’s horrifying. But she still was somehow able to turn that around into a choice in her mind that she didn’t lose that power inside her. She still had that freedom within her mind. And she’s basically saying all of these monstrosities or these evictions or these crazy how It’s some patterns or business failures, or breakups or divorces or losses that we go through basically traumas that we experience in life. They actually can be gifts. I think there’s a second book, I’ve not read, it’s called The Gift. And I think she’s about to switch and what excuse whatever. What is anybody really ever got, not being rude and dismissed, not taking it away, or people’s traumas and stories away from them, but I just do think it’s a choice inside the brain like, “Wow, this is a gift!” I needed all of my addictions, my habits. I went to prison a couple of times, and I still mess up and now, I welcome those. I welcome them as gifts. I’m at all you just screwed up again, Brett. On the other side of it, if you’ve got that right mind and you train yourself, there is just so much freedom. There is so much joy. And the second way that I wanted to answer it about two years ago before this, apparently there’s a flu going around the world. But before that flew kicked off. I was sitting on a beach with a street dog called Titi in a lovely tropical island in Ko Pha-ngan in Thailand, and I’m sitting there meditating all day long Russ, the trees are blowing, the sun is shining, the dog’s just laying by me and I’m in an absolute bliss. I’ve worked so hard to get here. I mean, like inner work. Sarah knows that every work, how have an outside, I’m always blagging that, but my work is the inner work. So I’ve worked very hard to get to that contentment, and sitting on that beach and that bliss from all the things that I’ve been for. But when that flu kicked off a couple of years ago, I was just like, “Am I really, can I just sit on this beach for the rest of my life and not learn anything else? Or can I get off my butt and start sharing these meditations and start helping people?” And I generally there was a part of me there’s like, now let’s just sit on the beach and drink coconuts. But I tell you something, I don’t think you’re going to sit on a beach and drink coconuts or live in a monastery or an ashram and meditate on emptiness and happiness and blissful day, I don’t think you’re going to get these lessons these challenges in life. And there is a define your character and help you grow. As long as you’ve got that mindset of who we are.
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Russ: Prison is an interesting word, you can literally be in a prison, or you could be imprisoned in your own mind. You can be imprisoned by your inability to get up off the couch, or your inability to go speak publicly. Those are all prisons that you set on yourself. So it may be it’s at extremes, but like someone may be living in prison and not making terrible choices, they’re just imprisoned by your inability to make a choice. And so, to have that freedom, to not live inside your head, but live outside of yourself, maybe that it doesn’t mean, whatever the extreme is, if you hit rock bottom financially, you got divorced or are in jail or you are struggling with some of the other stuff. All of this helps to balance that out. So I think it is about balance, though. It’s not, you’re not always going to be like on the rise. You’ve got to, it’s waves, right? Life is waves and maybe, I don’t know, you’re an expert here. I’m just the novice. I’m learning as I go.
Brett: 100% It’s like a roller coaster. And sometimes you enjoy you enjoy the twists and the turns and when your belly gets somersaults, and sometimes you scared and sometimes you’re nervous. And yeah, the more you meditate, and you study this stuff, the crazy you can become as well. It’s a journey. I’ve definitely not got it. I always feel like I’ve just every today I woke up and I’ve started again, it’s just one day at a time. Like they say in recovery, I’m going to do my best today.
Russ: What about fear?
Brett: Fantasized experience appearing real, F-E-A-R, that’s what Jack Canfield says. I think that when you’re in the emptiness, or when you’re just in your spirit, your soul, God, wherever you want to label it, if you believe in, or even if you just in the neurological chemicals inside the brain, when your brain is just in a nice kind of calm state. And there’s not stuff going on. Basically, it’s not thinking and its kind of free. There can’t really be any fear. But I’m not saying that take that away from somebody. Again, if you’re in a concentration camp, you’re in a prison or your husband’s just left, your wife just walked out, you’ve got no money in the bank account. If we keep your room bring closer to home. Most people are just trying to get through the month to pay the bills, or they’re watching the news. And it’s all of this fear. It feels so real.
It’s so real, and then you act from that place. And according to the yoga system, there’s these different chakras, energy portals in the body. And the lowest energy portal is right down in the Root Chakra. It’s where your sexual organs are. And they basically say that that’s all to do with survival to do with money, to do with sex, animal instincts, and if you look at society is constantly brainwashing people to live in that lowest state, and it’s all to do with fear. Now I’m not really into I’m not saying it’s true. I just like reading this stuff. But when I look around, I’m like, “Wow, we are actually living in a fear based society.” It’s very survival. It’s very, whatever we’re doing. So if we can wake up and actually back to what that lady saying, the author of that book, the choice. She’s basically saying, like, you can choose something different inside for yourself, you can choose that you still got to pay the bills, but I’m not gonna allow it to affect me emotionally. He has walked out on me, but I don’t have to kind of like be bitter and angry about it. My past was horrendous, and I was abused or traumatized. But it doesn’t define me. And she’s always saying, it’s a choice. So I think fear, obviously, Kemp’s error can tell you a lot more than me like chemical reactions, and serotonin, all the stress and stuff is going on in the body to say that it doesn’t exist. It’s silly to say that this life is an illusion is silly, because we’re still experiencing it. But I do think that we could handle it better if we meditated and practiced, and just maybe reframed it in the mind, “Yeah, I’m having this sensation. But how do I go beyond it?”
Sarah: That’s cool. I’d like to know a bit more about how you actually do that practically. Because of course, everything I’m totally bought into everything you’re saying, what you sniffing, by the way? What you got there?
Brett: It’s cocaine.
Sarah: Oh, it’s just that. That’s alright.
Brett: It’s stuff you get in Thailand. It’s like, plants. It’s nice.
Sarah: Yeah. I like the aromatherapy vibe you got going on there.
Russ: It’s the morning there. He’s waking up. He doesn’t drink the coffee you and I drink.
Sarah: Yeah. Or the chocolate! How do you start people off? Because I know that we have people listening. And it’s great to talk about all this stuff. But practically, how do you deal with it? Because that you say people can be sitting there doing their 10-minute meditation, and then bang, they’re hit with the news, or someone calls up or something, and you’re straight back in that other state. So how do you coach people through it to try and get to that state of awareness where you can actually make that choice?
Brett: Yeah, I think it’s a really good question.
I think the main thing is just an obvious answer is that you have to really prioritize your practice, like, you need a 10-minute practice every morning or a 10-minute practice every evening.
It’s generally for that to then allow the brain neuroplasticity to allow the brain to start to change. Also, I believe so then. So you can start to experience a bit of the silence, or you can connect to something deeper than the voices inside your head. So I think if you haven’t got the practice, like a daily prioritize practice, then it’s going to be very difficult, you’re always going to be triggered a lot easier than the average person that is doing a meditation every day. That to me, meditation basically just creates a window of opportunity before you react. It’s like you’re just about to react. You’re just about to go into that. You can just stop. I’m just about to, whatever it is I’m about to do take a drug, look at some pornography, spend the money on the credit card, shout at him smack the kid and like, ‘Whoa!’ What I’ve just found over years is because I’ve been meditating for so long, it stops me in the moment. And it gives me a little moment to pause now doesn’t mean you’re perfect. You probably can repeat the pattern 1000 times. But if you keep prioritizing the practice that window of opportunity, that gap, that gap, that gap, that gap, that gap, it just gets bigger and bigger. And in the end is that “Oh, it doesn’t actually bother me anymore.” Oh, I’ve just found all of my addictions have faded away. I love what Wayne Dyer says. He says, “Have that awareness that it’s there.” And then just love it. And I’m not here to say that to a heroin addict. Love your heroin addiction away. They’re like, “You are mad mate.” But now looking back after many, many years, and I’ve actually learned just to love all these things. I’ve learned to love fear. The other day, I’ve been honest and vulnerable with you guys. I’ve spent quite a bit of money on some marketing. And basically, the guy kind of didn’t really, he didn’t really fulfill the work and I spent a lot of money. And that’s okay, but he over promised and under delivered. And I’m sitting now I’m in this bubble of bliss. Remember, I’ve been meditating for 20 years, and I’ve generally prioritized my practice. It’s a lot longer than 10 minutes. I’m sitting on my cushion. This is last week’s era, I’m sitting on my cushion, is turned into a Quentin Tarantino movie in my head, like I got a nice, I’m gonna cut his fingers off. You mug [unclear 24:04] turned into some London, from London. I’m from the outskirts. And I’m like, in my brain, I’ve got this whole scenario of angry violence is going through my brain, because he’s took on this thing that society has brainwashed me to believe is important, called money, pieces of paper with dead people’s heads on it, and numbers in a bank account, but they’ve brainwashed me and I’m so hooked on that anger. But on a serious note, all jokes aside, even though Quentin Tarantino is playing out like Pulp Fiction in my brain, I’m killing somebody, just because he took some money off me. I genuinely felt very sad about that. I was scared. Because I was like, well, that anger that violence is somewhere inside me. It’s not him. That was my trigger and my response. And so I have to sit with that. And the reason why I sharing this, this is the most important reason is because I think most people, they might not even be aware that that’s going on and they might act out and they do some horrible things like when I read that book about The Holocaust like you can’t judge those Nancy’s and the things that they did, don’t get me wrong. It was crazy. But it’s like that they were they thought I sort of mean we’re ticking time bombs. And I’m like, well, I can’t judge myself for being Quentin Tarantino wanting to cut his fingers off because he’s taken some money. But what do I do with it? I can’t. It’s not him. So I honestly, I know it sounds a bit woo, woo. I sat there, you asked what I do have it. It’s definitely a daily practice. I sat there and I just looked at this. It was like an energy’s; the only way I can describe it like a shadow. And I just said, “I love you.” Come in, I don’t want to be that person that kicks off and shouts at him because he’s taken money or locked him in the bedroom and ties him up for six weeks. It was Brett, he’s taking somebody hostage. I thought he was a meditation teacher screw that, he is now a murderer. And so I on a serious note, I think this is very important for anybody listening, because some people don’t share this stuff. I probably wouldn’t share that I have these mad thoughts in my head, or I have these horrible feelings many years ago. And we keep it inside us. We have some mad stuff going on inside us. And I just like to expose it. I like to share it because, again, I think it naturally fades away, the more you do that. And then we realize that we’re all in this together. We’re all having these feelings in these minds. And so I literally asked that shadow self that angry darkness, that violent thing. I said, “Come in, I love you. I think you’re amazing.” I want to understand and I said, “Imagine me in us speaking like the light and the dark. Imagine me in you becoming one. Imagine how stronger we would be; how much more confidence we’d have.” And it came in it was like I had tears in my eyes. It came into my body, this black dark energy wherever you want to lay with it. It came in, I became one the light one. It was like somebody switched on the lights and a very dark room. The next day, I had that meeting at eight o’clock was that guy, and I was just full of love. I didn’t raise my voice. I was calm. I still was assertive again, you don’t need to be a doormat. I said to him, “Look, you didn’t really fulfill them. This is the job that you said you didn’t do it.” And we had that lovely conversation.
Brett: And then what you’re doing is you’re putting another little bit of negative energy out there teach not harnesses in order for us to end these wars, we’ve got to end the battles inside ourselves. And that battle was with me was nothing to do. He’s actually a very, very beautiful, calm, placid human being. So I realized that I was going crazy, it was all to do with me. So
I think it’s very important for all of us to understand, because we’ve all got a battle going on in some way. And we can either let that energy go out there and kick off or we can just invite that darkness in and start to love it.
I don’t think you’re gonna beat the system. But I know that you can master yourself. And when you master yourself, you beat the system, you’re free.
Russ: There’s something about shining the light on the shadows. I don’t know what the quote is. But like, when you shine the light on the shadows is that darkness that gets inside of you. It just sorts of goes away. It’s just all of a sudden, you’re just like, well, you know, like, I mean, and also it’s like acknowledging it. It’s acknowledging that like, ‘Wow!’ I was going to react to that by acknowledging it, you’re shining a light on it right, though.
Brett: I can’t even watch violence. I don’t even watch movies on TV with violence or sexual images. So when it came up to me, it literally, it was like a trauma. It shocked me I was like, obviously I’ve watched so many films. So just going back to Sarah’s question like that’s how I would generally deal with it. That’s coming from somebody, been meditating and looks like he’s living a very peaceful life. Make sure you prioritize your practice because again, I think we’ve all got that ticking time bomb within us in some way. And when it does come up, you go and find a quiet place and you invite it in for a cup of tea. You get to know that shadow or coconut wherever you live in and you say, “Hello anger, Hello sadness, Hello depression, Hello, anxiety. I want to understand you and I want to get to know you want to be your friend” and you literally you cuddle it, you hold it like a baby Eric Butterworth says, “The darkness is just the absence of light.” There is only one force in this universe. There’s only one power it’s light, any darkness anything that we do is just an absence of that love and that light. Not sure whether it’s true but in my little life, in my little experience, I’m just trying to bring more light into it and I do find that the darkness, the addictions, the angers, they sort of disappear or you don’t react to them.
Sarah: What feedback do you get from people because that’s your direct experience? What feedback do you get from other people doing it? What’s your experience?
Brett: I mean, honestly, I’m not trying to blow my own trumpet. You know me, Sarah. I’m just a normal dude that woke up in a prison cell. And it’s just spreading a bit of love. And we get hundreds of getting goosebumps. We get hundreds of messages every month from people that we’ve got two nine-year-old children on our meditation course at the moment. They’re going through a 10-week program with their mom, they’ve got their own little mentor from our company. And they’re teaching meditations to each other, one of the little girls called Lily, she actually messaged me, and she said, “Brett, a girl at school is being bullied, can I teach her to meditate?” She’s nine. It’s amazing. And I think obviously, you get it into the kids. It’s the next generation. And I think, that’s when we start to lose it. So we get hundreds of testimonials from people. And I think if I’m honest, we’re all going through the same stuff, whether you’re nine, we’ve got 60 year olds on the course. We’ve got single mums. We’ve got geezers on the course like I used to be, or probably still, we just got a very mixed array of people on the course. And yes, the stories are different. Yes, the amount of money, yes, the person’s name is different. Yes, my situation with business and kindness, things of it, all the stories are different. But I think we’re all going through a couple of the same things very, very simple, dark. And if you just sum it up, it’s fear, or greed, or it’s darkness, or it’s light, or it’s love, and it’s hate, and the stories what society has created. Now, because we live in a very busy world full of stories, it’s just taking us forever away from like, the actual problem we need to work on. So I think for our meditation program, or my course, it’s a lot simpler, most people think, come back inside yourself, you’re never going to change anything out there. Close your eyes go within, and then find out what that darkness is within you. And then back to that book earlier. It’s an absolute gift. I am so grateful that darkness came in. Because I was allowed, I was able to love a person and not let that darkness beat me or let the system beat me. I’m so grateful that we have these meditation courses. And I actually say this stuff to them. Like, look, guys, I’m still mental just like everyone else. We’re all crazy. And when we all share that as a group. I don’t know, I’d literally the other day, I told two men, I test this stuff out all the time. So I literally had two different encounters with two different men. And I told two men about this mad story that I had going on in my head. And I just wanted to test to see the reaction. Both of those men opened up to me and told me something that they were going for. And we created this space together. And I was like, Isn’t that funny? When one person is brave enough, and I’m not trying to get a Blue Peter badge or a pat on the back. But when one person is brave enough to say, look, I’m crazy. Or look, I’ve got this emotion or look, I’ve got this struggle. It just creates a little bit of permission for another person say, Well, I’ve been going through that in silence. This is what mental health is doing. Most people are suffering in silence. I just think the opportunity from these meditations and the coaching is that I just try my hardest to be authentic and real. I’m not trying to be a guru put myself on a pedestal. And we’re just getting hundreds 1000s testimonials over the last couple of years. Just like, this is amazing. It’s changing my life like yes, it’s phenomenal, it is phenomenal. And again, it’s not about [unclear 33:08] it’s about this energy of channeling through us all of us it’s light is waking up.
Sarah: Yeah, that’s fabulous. Wouldn’t it be great if they taught it in schools if we all did it at nine years old?
Brett: They really are now that one of the other girls she was 12 she came on a course in our schools letting a teacher at school so I know I might be a bit naive in the world again, is going through some crazy stuff but it’s like, you look at a piece of paper I’ve got a piece of paper here and I just put like one little, if it’s a blank piece of paper, I put like one little dot on it, everyone just focuses on the dot but there’s a whole piece of paper here we just were focused on that one, you’re walking down the road you make what 50,000 steps every day and you trip over once and then you just, “Oh my God, did anybody see me?” You’re mortified by the one little mistake and I think that if you look at like society on the bigger picture, it’s like there is a lot more beauty and there’s a lot more miracles going on than the bloody flu in the news.
Sarah: We are very one track minded and focused but I think that’s just human you know humans tend to focus on the negative because you want to see something is a snake rather than a rope.
Brett: You are scientist Sarah, you’re the brainy one out of us three definitely, me and Russ. I love you Russ but bring in the shadows. On a serious note, do you think the brain is just a problem solving machine because I’ve been sitting on a beach with nothing to do and absolute bliss and then I might start working out something because the brain, does you think is it just because it’s the brain is just active or time or busy?
Sarah: Yeah. Well, I mean, that’s why we have a brain, I think to solve problems and like I said, I think we do tend to have a negativity bias but that is a survival mechanism. Because if you wake up in the middle of the night especially you’re in Thailand and there is a bit of rope there you better off seeing the negative and thinking it’s a snake first because ...
Brett: Save yourself.
Sarah: Yeah, because it can kill you if you make a mistake. And it’s only a rope. Well, never mind, that’s not life threatening. So I think this whole thing that we always focus on the negative. Yeah, we do, but that’s a human thing. But you’re right. It’s about having awareness, as we’ve always said, awareness, awareness, awareness. Okay, yeah, that’s the immediate response, but it doesn’t have to then carry on and affect everything else. And I think the brain is just a pattern recognition, you’re just constantly looking for patterns constantly trying to fit something in, constantly trying to make sense. And maybe that’s what you’re doing with your meditation, allowing that expansion to allow other ideas to come in. And other patterns, new patterns, of course, because otherwise, it’s a well-trodden path. If you just do the same thing all the time.
Brett: The whole story of the brain and starts beating yourself up because it’s like, “Oh, I’m repeating these patterns. I’m self-sabotage.” It’s like no, your brain just doing it. You just need to change the brain. And that’s why I think the daily practice gives you that window of opportunity to see these patterns too. Because like you said, I don’t think the brain is against us, even when we sabotage even an addict. It’s like, we’re just trying to protect ourselves. We’re doing it for a reason. But you’ve got to find that new groove.
Sarah: Yeah. Find that new groove. And I think that’s exactly what you’re doing. Well, we ask our guests to give us a seven-day challenge, Brett, because Russ, and I try and do something that the guest recommends, because we’re constantly trying to up our game. And also, it’s very difficult to recommend something to everybody out there when you haven’t done it yourself. So you can give us a challenge wherever you like. And we will do it over the next seven days. And then we come back and we say, “Yeah, well, you know what, you know, how it was all very well and good, but we couldn’t do what you said. Or actually, it has changed our lives.”
Brett: What about a headstand, you can use the wall, you can just do a headstand, a nice little headstand for at least a couple of minutes. It would be amazing and try and use it as a meditation. In yoga traditions, they would get people to do headstands for like 30 minutes, because it really changes even the blood flow of the body.
Sarah: Of course, the pressure on your heart, the pressure on your brain, everything. I’m not entirely sure I can do a headstand though!
Brett: You can even just put your head on the floor so that the crown of the head is on the floor. And then you just walk your feet as close as you can towards your chest. Or you can use a wall, you just flip up and use all and literally try and do every day for like two minutes. But use it as a meditation and focus. Like set your intention as the energy and the blood and all of the whatever it is coming from the feet all the way down the body all the way down to the crown of the head. And it’s just amazing. I remember years ago, Sarah, you used to like, come up with different crazy ideas. I’m gonna get out of bed on the other side, I’m going to brush my teeth with my other hand. I’m gonna put my shoes on the other way around. And it was all for cognitive health or brain stuff, and I loved it. And it’s the same. It’s like, okay, right, where we stand on our feet. We’re always looking at it like this. Let’s just and honestly, I’ve been doing it for ages. And it’s like, I feel a difference. So maybe there’s my challenge, if you can.
Sarah: Alright, I’m up for it. I’m actually at the biohackers event this weekend. So I’m sure I won’t look at all strange actually doing that against the wall. Because there’s all kinds of people doing all kinds of things there. So this is probably a good week for me to do it. I accept the challenge. How about you, Russ?
Russ: I have already accepted it. I’m upside down right now. I’m in. Again, Sarah, thank you for sharing your world with me. Brett, thank you for sharing your world with us multiple times. And it’s been amazing. I really appreciate you as a human. Thank you.
Brett: You welcome.
Sarah: Tell people where they can find you, Brett before we sign up.
Brett: Yeah, the best thing to go is to Instagram if you have an Instagram account. It’s just Brett Moran. I do live meditations on Instagram, Monday to Friday, nine o’clock in the UK. Lots of rants and lots of concepts that I try to be mystify. And also just take people on a journey and have some fun. So I think Instagram where you can get a lot more, but then we have a Facebook group, which again is Brett Moran. And then there we have like over 1000 people in this meditation group. And we’re just sharing meditation as much as we can. So yeah, social media is probably the best way really.
Sarah: Okay, brilliant. And we’ll put it in the blog that will go out and just after this episode, so that’ll be cool. We’ll try and point people your way. Because I think the more people can start to get their head around that the better people will be.
Brett: And can I give a challenge to any of your listeners. And if they’re not already meditating, just a little challenge for them. Maybe a headstand sounds a bit Woo. But I think everybody, or most people will struggle with some kind of mental health, some kind of emotional health, and they’re obviously listening to you guys to learn and to grow. So my challenge to the listeners, if you’re listening, is to literally sit down for eight minutes every day, you can set an alarm on your phone, and just try and time eight minutes every day. And do it at the same time. If you do it at eight o’clock in the morning, before work, make sure you do it eight o’clock every day. And just do it for seven days. If you can do it for 30 days, and I’m sure you’ve probably shared meditations or other guests have shared stuff like this, but just really prioritize your practice this week. Because I think we prioritize so many other things in life, we just forget to prioritize our mental health, our emotional health or even ourselves, so, eight minutes a day is a magic number. Because there was a study that showed, I think it was after 36 days or something like that, that the neurological pathways, Sarah could probably tell you more than this, again, the brain started changing, and they started to see a significant difference of just an eight-minute meditation. I think we probably scroll through social media a lot more than eight minutes a day.
Brett: Lovely to connect with you guys. Thank you so much. It’s amazing.
🚨 7 DAY CHALLENGE 🚨
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Russ: I’m stuck, I’ve been stuck, seven days I’ve been stuck in a headstand. I can’t get down. I’m frightened that if I try to get out of it, I’m gonna break something, hold on. I’m going to get out of this. Okay. All right. I’m here. I’m here. I’m here. Okay, good. Wow, that wasn’t real.
Sarah: Brett! What a gem.
Russ: He was. God, I mean, so much to say about him. I mean, an amazing story, I guess, story of recovery and reawakening and all of that, but just the fact that he’s truly living it, and he’s such a kind human being and you know him well.
Sarah: Yes. I can totally vouch that that is how he lives, you know that he definitely is totally authentic, genuine, he walks the walk from dealing to healing. What a brilliant strapline that he’s got. But yeah, fabulous guy. And he’s been a light showing the way.
Russ: Really, we’ve talked a lot about all of our guests that we’ve had, and it’s just you get to a place where you’re just, you see someone that’s truly found something unique, and makes them happy. And you could do with this stuff, we’ve meet a lot of people who do this as their job, and they’re intense about it, and they want to go punch someone in the face, because I’m going to show everyone, this is how I biohack or go meet Brett Moran. And they’re doing it with kindness. And they’re compassionate, and they care about people. And it’s not about making a dollar. It’s just about sharing what he knows with other people. I like that.
Sarah: Yeah. And like you say, Brett and I have been friends for a very long time. So I’ve kind of seen that transition. And that’s the loveliest thing for me to be in this place now where I can interview him on being a meditation teacher, going from where we were to, to that, that’s super cool for both of us, actually, for both of us, we’ve made that kind of development, so it was very special for me to be able to interview him is very special guy and definitely if you want some down to earth advice, learn how to meditate and do it with someone who you know, is genuinely made that journey themselves. Highly recommended. I mean, definitely, everybody should do this course.
Russ: Yeah, I agreed and let’s talk about the headstands. Share with me your thoughts on it?
Sarah: Well, I’ll do more than I’ll share the photo soon because I have photographic evidence. But actually, I thought I could do it. But I can do well, at least I can do one up against the wall. I wish you’d give me this challenge just before I was going to see Eugene, the yoga coach, because we did. I did a handstand on his hands. So that was pretty cool.
Sarah: But I’ve been doing one the beach here. So I’m gonna take some pictures, I actually, can recruit some people to do the handstands. But more than what I took away from the Brett interview, as you know what he was saying about putting yourself first and kind of having being selfish in a good way. Because over the last weekend, I have thought about that. And there’s been several times where I’ve thought, “No, I do need to do this thing for myself so that I can show other people,” because I do I think I’m one of them. I don’t want to offend people. And I’m always putting myself second because I think that maybe other people need things more than I do. But I think that’s a lesson is that kind of good form of selfishness, putting your own oxygen mask on before you deal with other people. Because unless you are coming from your best place, your optimal place, you cannot help people in that most optimal way. Because you’re burned out, you’re tired, you’re not living your, your most potential. So the handstand was called and it was good. And I did the 10-minute meditation. But for me, really what I took from the interview was that piece and that’s something that I’ve come back to over the week.
Russ: Yeah, no, I absolutely agree. I’ve lost my free time, over the last couple of months. And I’ve really felt not meditating and just being consumed by this thing that I’m doing. And it’s consumed me, it’s sucked all of me away, and I’m giving it to something else. And the reality is, is that if you don’t make the time for that, you do suffer.
Sarah: Yeah, you suffer in the long run and you also diminish your ability to help other people if you’re not helping yourself first. Because you need to come from that place of being healthy, of being rested, of actually having the time to think through what you’re doing. So you can make the best choices for yourself and everybody else.
Russ: Yeah. And there’s something to be said about longevity here, right our eye if there’s something that we want to set our goal to, and maybe we set our goal in this next season, because our first goal was to introduce all of this biohacking stuff to everybody and let them understand it so they can trial it and try it and understand who they are. But I think that ultimately, it’s longevity, everybody wants to live longer and healthier, and happier. So if you listen to our podcasts and all of our old episodes, and you take notes, you will live longer, we can guarantee that, you will live longer, if you take your notes.
Sarah: Yes, you’ll live longer with a better quality of life. Because no one wants to live longer and spend 30 years in like an old people’s home, you want to live longer and be active and be happy and healthy. So really, that’s what we’re about having a longer, better quality of life.
Russ: And I will say, I have fallen off the train and I need to get back on the Rebel Scientist train. I’ve had a rough go for the last couple of months. I’ve just been working hard. It’s crunch time that one of the things I do and I’ll get back on and it’s the exercise thing that gets me.
Sarah: Yeah, you need to get back to the Boomer episode where he talks about little micro habits, fitting little things in around your meetings, doing your star jumps in between, but it happens to the best of us, and I think that’s good admission from you. Because even though we’re in the middle of it, it still takes constant work to do this to really make the time for yourself.
Sarah: Thank you, Russ. Take care of yourself and see you next week.
Links: Book recommendations from Brett:
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