Speaker A
Keys to bringing people into a circle is you want basically a combination of three emotional tones as they're coming in. Number one is the sobriety, the gravity of what you're doing. Number two is fear. Fear is the gateway emotion to
Angelo DiLullo shares his awakening journey and transformative practices in The Container's ultimate transformation process.
Key Takeaways
- Transformation requires engaging sobriety, fear, and wonder to open people to change.
- Personal suffering can be a gateway to awakening when approached with the right tools and mindset.
- Meditation and Eastern teachings provide foundational support but awakening is a deeply experiential process.
- Shared relational spaces like circles and We Space practices enhance collective transformation.
- Awakening is accessible and relevant beyond spiritual or esoteric contexts.
Summary
- Angelo DiLullo discusses the emotional tones needed to bring people into a transformative circle: sobriety, fear, and wonder.
- He shares his personal awakening story, influenced by Eastern thought and a painful breakup that catalyzed his spiritual journey.
- Angelo highlights the importance of meditation and how it initially helped him manage internal strife and anxiety.
- He explains the concept of kensho in Zen and how reading enlightenment stories illuminated his path.
- The process of awakening is described as deeply personal and transformative, beyond academic or conceptual understanding.
- Angelo emphasizes the significance of shared relational space and We Space practices in collective transformation.
- The conversation touches on how trauma and internal psychological patterns can be addressed through these practices.
- The video explores the balance of mystery, fear, and possibility as key emotional states in transformation work.
- Angelo’s approach is grounded, accessible, and avoids esoteric trappings, making it relevant for people from all walks of life.
- The Container podcast and Angelo’s work offer valuable insights into awakening and transformation.
Chapters
- 00:00Emotional Tones for Transformation Circles
- 05:07Angelo’s Awakening Story Begins
- 09:46Reading Enlightenment Stories and Initial Insights
- 14:13Personal Experiences and Conversations on Spirituality
- 18:40Exploring Thought Patterns and Psychological Insights
- 23:23Meditative Return and Meta Awareness
- 28:15Learning the Mechanism of Awakening
- 32:31Facilitation and Working with Trauma in Transformation
- 41:29We Space Practices and Collective Transformation
- 47:10Integration and Alignment in the Transformation Process
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
Speaker A
the magician archetype. And the magician archetype is the archetype of transformation. And then, uh, wonder, awe, possibility. That's the other side of the magician, is like, I don't know what we're going into, but I'm, I'm, I'm on board. I'm on this journey. I want to go
Speaker A
on this journey. So those really are kind of the three emotions that we sort of instill in people as we're putting them through this initiation process.
Speaker A
[music] Here we enter the container. [music] The container is now open. So wake up from the dream of separation.
Speaker A
That is the message of our guest today, and it's the fruit of the process he calls [music] awakening. So whether he's writing, uh, a book or hosting a podcast or giving teachings and hosting, um, circles, um, he's teaching awakening from what I
Speaker A
think is like a really, um, powerful perspective that's really grounded and, um, it doesn't lose itself in esoteric trappings. It is for people from all walks of life, and, um, yeah, his podcast Simply Always Awake. It's just a
Speaker A
treasure trove of these insights. That's how we first got to know about Angelo's work. Uh, and then we found out through, um, a, a really powerful energy healer who, who weirdly knew Angelo that, uh, he does We Space practices,
Speaker A
um, which we are obsessed with at the container, so we had to have him on. Um, so yeah, today we're going to talk about this process of awakening and then how we can, you know, bring all that kind of
Speaker A
knowledge and wisdom into shared relational space. Yeah. So with that, hello Angelo. Hello. Thanks for having me. It's been nice meeting you both, and it'll be nice to get in into it. Yeah.
Speaker A
Yeah. So I guess, like, the best place to start is at the beginning with your story of awakening, like how you became Angelo Dulo that we all know.
Speaker A
Sure. Like, what was that process? Oh sure. Um, I think, uh, maybe one of the most simple ways to explain it is from my perspective as I was growing up, I, I was interested in Eastern thought. I was interested in
Speaker A
like Daoism and Buddhism. Um, but not academically. I didn't go out and learn about them so much. I just, there was something energetically perhaps or something intuitively interesting about Eastern thought or maybe Eastern even mystical stuff, but I didn't really know
Speaker A
why. And I would do things like read the Dao De Jing, and I didn't get it. I'll be honest. Like there, I thought, excuse me.
Speaker A
I thought, you know, there's something here for sure. There must be, but I, I'm not, I'm not getting it. I don't have a sense of what this text, these phrases are actually trying to tell me to do or
Speaker A
they just didn't seem illuminated or open, and yet there was some instinct that there's got to be something here.
Speaker A
So, that happened a lot. It was kind of frustrating at the level of thought or mind or understanding.
Speaker A
Uh, and that was kind of throughout my teen years. I would say maybe my early 20s to some degree. I did learn to meditate when I was 19. Uh, that helped a lot. And when I say helped, I mean
Speaker A
when I was growing up, I had a lot of, uh, internal strife. Um, I could tell early on that thoughts were uncomfortable, but I didn't realize the degree to which I was like hypnotized by my own thoughts.
Speaker A
Um, you could traditionally or therapeutically or psychologically it might be called anxiety, but it seemed worse than that somehow. It seemed like there was something just not fully, um, integrated happening. There was something about the way I was feeling as
Speaker A
myself in this world just was thoroughly uncomfortable. So, um, when I learned to meditate, there was some help there.
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Like it, it definitely relaxed me while I was meditating. Um, maybe even got into some mind states that I hadn't experienced before, some sort of transcendent states, but there was certainly no fundamental change in my sense of self, my sense of life and
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reality and all. Um, fast forward to when I was 24 years old, uh, what got the ball rolling, I think at this point was a breakup. So, I had a, a breakup with a romantic partner, and there was something exquisitely painful
Speaker A
about it. And at the same time, paradoxically, I knew this had to happen. And I could tell that there was something sweet about it in a way. It, it didn't make sense. It wasn't a personal thing. It was almost like the personal
Speaker A
side of me felt kind of devastated or something like that. But this maybe impersonal side or something bigger than me, something beyond my dimension experientially felt like it was starting to happen. Um, and the only thing I could think of to do about it was to
Speaker A
like pick up a book or, you know, I had this bookshelf with some Buddhist books and so forth. And I picked up a book called The Three Pillars of Zen. And there's a chapter in there called, um, enlightenment accounts, I think,
Speaker A
enlightenment stories. And it's a group of people telling their story of going through this process they called kensho in Zen, in traditional Zen practice in Japan. Some were American, some were Japanese. But the point is the stories were written in a very personal way.
Speaker A
They weren't like, you know, praise Buddha talking about Buddhist doctrine. It wasn't like that at all. It's like this is what happened when I went home and my wife looked at me this way and I did this and I felt that, and it was just
Speaker A
a very simple subjective experience, and every single one of them shared that they went through this very profound transformation.
Speaker A
Um, [clears throat] which is pretty hard to describe what it is until you actually experience it. But I could feel like tremors coming. I could feel that there's something here they're talking about that no one's told me about. My
Speaker A
parents don't know this. I know my parents don't know this. I don't, almost no one I know probably knows this. I'm sure there are people who do, but it was something illuminated like I can almost say the book illuminated itself to me,
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but it wasn't the book and it wasn't the words. It was like something inside me knew what that was very obviously.
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And there was a part of me that knew this is where I'm going. This is what I've always been interested in doing. To frame it in a context of Buddhism or into Eastern thought. I had heard about enlightenment before. I had read about
Speaker A
it. I knew like the Four Noble Truths. I, I learned some basic stuff about Buddhism. But in that, in those learnings, I never had this feeling. I thought it was like a still an academic thing or maybe sure if you meditate for
Speaker A
50 lifetimes, maybe you'll reach Nirvana, whatever. But it was all very conceptual. When this started happening, this feeling, this internal prompt, um, and resonance with what I was reading in the book, which again wasn't about the book.
Speaker A
It was about the people who were telling the story. Um, there was this connection I made. I was like, "Oh, this is actually what they're talking about." I'd heard of enlightenment. I'd heard of these possibilities, but I thought they were
Speaker A
about someone else or they were about something spiritual, whatever that means. But this was personal. It was so intimate that I, I thought, "Oh my gosh, it's overlooked because it's talking about my own personal suffering.
Speaker A
I never knew that was something I could address." In fact, until the moment I sensed I could address it this way, I didn't realize how serious it was, like how pervasive and deep it was. I knew it was there, but it wasn't until the moment I
Speaker A
sensed that something could actually be done about it, that I realized like, "Oh, this is rough. Like this is, this is, this, this heaviness I've been carrying has been far more than I had realized and it's not part of what it means to be
Speaker A
me. I really thought it was. Um, so yeah, reading that book kind of started to illuminate that, started to open something, and I figured it out. I figured out what they were saying. I figured out w
Speaker A
Zen master, the Roshi was saying to the person in the interview room in the doan room, how he was pointing to them, how they were responding to it. I got it. I was like, "Oh, I know this. I know
Speaker A
this." And it felt beyond his lifetime somehow. I don't know. It felt more obvious than anything I had ever learned. Maybe more instinctually obvious. [snorts] Maybe it was the first time I ever really knew what instinct was. I'm not sure. But um but yeah, I
Speaker A
started to orient that way. I started to sort of practice the way they were talking about. Um which is a very intuitive thing. It's not a practice I can teach you like how to mantra meditate or how to do breath meditation.
Speaker A
It's not like that. I was very intuitive. Um, but it was something. It was something very real. So, I kind of decided like if this kills me, so be it.
Speaker A
But I'm going to this is where I'm going because what was behind me was nothing but misery. Um, or mostly. So, I had this very profound sense that this is exactly where I'm going. This is exactly what I want. I didn't know it existed
Speaker A
until two days ago or whenever I read that. Maybe I sensed it, but I never really had the true taste of it. And so I knew I was going to do it. I knew I was going to let go into that however I
Speaker A
had to. So there was a significant amount of conviction behind this. But the conviction was also kind of um interwoven with the the possibility itself that was starting to move within me. So uh that's that's how it kind of
Speaker A
started and it didn't take long. I mean it was couple days, a couple weeks, I don't remember. This was 27 years ago.
Speaker A
Um but what is never gone never not remembered is the shift itself. Um by doing this by working through this process that I kind of summated from the book felt into intuited there was a shift in how I experience myself or
Speaker A
consciousness or identity however you want to say it. And it I want to say what it wasn't at first. It it wasn't like here's how I think about myself now and on the other side I think about myself differently.
Speaker A
That's not what it was at all. It was on this side I think about myself in this way and this way and this way and I think I know all these things about myself and these things I don't know
Speaker A
about myself but I generally know who I am, what my timeline is, what my history is, what my name is, what my gender is, what my desires and aversions are. I knew something about all that. On the other side of that though, [snorts] it
Speaker A
was like realizing none of that was me at all. But the sense of me or being, let's say, replaced all of it. It was so clear and intimate that all of that just faded into the background. It was almost like
Speaker A
I didn't have thoughts for a while because they were meaningless. And this, whether it has meaning or not, doesn't actually matter. It's so alive and so clear and so open and so free and so um boundless that nothing can solate,
Speaker A
nothing can stain it. It was obvious and it still is. So that was the shift, the first shift. It kept going, but that was the first shift. And again, it it was a fundamental change in who I took myself
Speaker A
to be or what I took myself to be. And it changed everything. changed my the way I perceive life, the way I perceive myself, the way I perceive anything, the way I feel in connection to others, my openness, um how I experience emotion,
Speaker A
like everything changed at a fundamental level. So that's what I call awakening. In Zen, I would be called Kencho. It's just their word for awakening. Um, and it I didn't talk about it really to anyone for about 15 years because um, it
Speaker A
was such a fundamental change. I I kind of didn't know how to talk about it and also didn't feel like I needed to. There wasn't I didn't need validation for it, that's for sure, from anyone. Buddha, they they say like when you have this
Speaker A
shift, Buddha himself could appear and say that's not the real thing and you'd laugh because it's that obvious. It's so much more real than to be real before.
Speaker A
So there was no need for any kind of validation or teaching or anything. Um and yet my experience was pervasively different than it ever had been. And I was pretty certain that most people's experience was different as well. Still
Speaker A
in that world of thought and so forth. But I didn't know I can't know that. Um over time I did meet other people who had gone through these types of shifts.
Speaker A
Uh but it was years and years later because I ended up actually not long after awakening this awakening I talk I talk about um going into medical training and then raising kids and like all this personal life stuff that just
Speaker A
took all my time and energy. I didn't even think to talk about it. Um we didn't have social media really back then or we didn't and internet was new, right? So it wasn't a thing to just get on and start talking to everyone in the
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world about your experience. Like I it just never crossed my mind. Um, if it did, it would be something like this is such a profound process and I have so much respect for it, but I can also see
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how easily it can confuse people talking about it that I would never let myself talk about it. Kind of that like it just I had so much respect for it in a way or really more like awe for it that it it
Speaker A
just wasn't me that did it. It was beyond me. Whatever it was was way bigger than than the the storyline of Angelo. So, I think I just wouldn't have thought to talk about it. And then, um, 10 years ago, give or take, it started
Speaker A
coming up in very casual conversations, strangely. And it wasn't like I said, "Oh, hey, I had this awakening. You want to hear about it?" Not like that at all.
Speaker A
I would be having very natural, normal conversations with people sometimes about religion or God or something would come up, but I don't even know what it was. But something I was saying to them had an effect and they told me that. I
Speaker A
had friends or people were close to me who started actually going through the shift themselves or preliminary aspects of it.
Speaker A
And I couldn't ignore it. It was obvious. But I also still didn't make any conclusions like, "Oh, I'm a teacher." Like, "Oh, I got to go talk about this." Didn't happen. It was more of people saying like, "Hey, you should
Speaker A
write that down." And, you know, I ended up with a group of people I would send emails to talking about my experience, not as an awakening, but right now. And the email list grew a little bit. There were 20ome people. posted a few things
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on Facebook. Um, and at some point I had I had written quite a bit and it just dawned on me that a book was coming into formation. So, I just wrote a book and I got interviewed on a podcast that was
Speaker A
pretty popular and that blew the book up a little bit. Not not huge. It's not Echartole, but it it blew up a bit and then I started a YouTube channel to promote it or to market it because I
Speaker A
it's self-published. Um, and then the YouTube channel kind of caught on a lot actually. So, that's how the awakening stuff started. I could talk more deeply about the insight itself or the shifts that followed or what it's like working
Speaker A
with other people waking up. Um I mean I could do any what however you want me to talk about it or if you just have any questions about what I just said. I um yeah I have like this burning I have
Speaker A
this desire to go to something you mentioned that I I think really um it's it's so important and I think really easy to miss. It's like the lynch pin of your story really is when you get this collection of awakening stories
Speaker A
that are actually very lived in and intimate with people's actual lives. And then it it like the like hearing your story, it's like the crack that opens up is like, oh, when we're talking about suffering, we're not talking about like
Speaker A
this thing called suffering out there. It's like, oh, I suffer. It's that stuff. It's the one that's so intimate in me. Um, it's something that like even as I say that I get like kind of a flush in the back of my head like that feels
Speaker A
so important that there's this there is this intimacy with your actual life that until you connect this wisdom with your actual moment to moment the actual stuff it it can't happen. It's just playing with action figures or something. It's like not
Speaker A
Yeah, I totally agree with what you're saying. Totally agree. Um, I will say that let me let me define a little bit or like flesh out what I mean by suffering. But first, I want to say I've come to
Speaker A
realize through the work I'm doing with other people, seeing many people waking up, going through these shifts, and knowing many people who who haven't and don't, and that's fine. But I've the thing I'm going to talk about suffering
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I have noticed everybody has it I think that hasn't had any shifts yet. Um however some people are much more sensitive to it. And that might sound like a good thing but it's not it it well it is a good thing for waking up
Speaker A
but it doesn't feel good. It's it's just this anx that is so pervasive. It's just like something is just off you know. Um and I think a lot of people learn to shut it down. Like if you say that to
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your parents when you're a little kid probably going to scare them you know. They don't know. they they'll send you to a psychologist or try drugs on like all these things and and I've had many people tell me this like they had
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experiences like this even as a child or and their parents brought them to a neurologist and a psychologist and got really scared and they learned not to talk about it right so um I do think that this type of suffering that I'm
Speaker A
going to define everyone has a version of it and it's because of the mechanism of how we perceive oursel through thought but some people are much more sensitive Meaning there are going to be people who listen to this podcast who they're going
Speaker A
to start feeling something move just hearing it. I know because I've done enough podcasts to know that some people are going to kind of get like, "Oh yeah, I sense it." Other people may just it may just kind of go over their head at
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first. But if if you kind of look long enough, if you feel in long enough, if you get vulnerable enough, if you do enough inner work, you're going to start to find it like, "Oh yeah, there is this
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kind of pervasive self-doubt that I'm always trying to fix about myself." Like there is a sense I'm always trying to fix myself. Why? Why am I doing that?
Speaker A
Why do the thoughts say things that that kind of undermine my sense of okayness and why do I believe them? Like if you look around a lot of times you can kind of find that. But this the word
Speaker A
suffering maybe is a little unfortunate because we think of like um being in a you know war torn situation and and seeing people around you die and all that or or having a physical illness is very painful and challenging to deal
Speaker A
with. We think I think a lot of times our mind goes to that. This isn't actually what I'm talking about. The suffering I'm talking about is a kind of something being off, something just not being quite right about the way you're
Speaker A
perceiving yourself or reality. Um, it for me it kind of played out like I could make things happen in in my life that people had told me were supposed to make me happy and I could tell that's what they were trying to do. Like
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pursuing all these things, right? Pursuing money, pursuing status, pursuing even connection, pursuing relationship. like I did those things and yet it was not working.
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Clearly not working. So um it's that unsatisfactoriness. The the Buddhist term is dooka. It translates to unsatisfactoriness.
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Um so that's the kind of thing I'm talking about. And the funny thing about this I can tell you is I have met people I can think of a friend of mine who's a physician very successful business person. Um and he's open to what I talk
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about. He's interested in kind of awakening and non-duality and so forth. And he invited me to give a speech or a talk a talk a workshop at one of his retreats. And he he didn't tell me this till two years later, but he said, 'When
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you started talking about the fact that everybody suffers. He said, "I thought to myself, oh, I don't I he's wrong about me. Like, I trust I trust this guy. He sounds like he knows what he's talking about, but I definitely don't
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suffer. You know, I have a great wife. I have businesses. I'm successful. I'm healthy." And then he said about six months later, he was driving and all of a sudden it hit him like, "Oh my god, I do suffer a lot. I'm suffering and I'
Speaker A
and I'm somehow avoiding the fact that I'm suffering not noticing it. How am I not noticing it? Right? There's this like level of anxiety that I've gotten so identified with. I didn't know it doesn't have to be here. And and then he
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said, yeah, after that he felt it was pretty heavy for a while and then he kind of got used to like, okay, now I know what you mean by it. But I was sort of divi compartmentalizing my own
Speaker A
experience through thought. Right? That's a perfect example. And this is a sharp dude, right? sharp guy who cares, works hard, you know, has a family, he's a good family member and all that. Good good father, good provider, but he
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didn't know that about himself until it just the seed got planted somehow by me flapping my lips and and he suddenly was like, "Whoa, oh my god, you're right." So, I've I've heard that story a few times before. Um, but a lot of people
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that find me online, if they're into non-duality, awakening, and those kinds of things, um, they're usually on track with what I'm saying, they get it. like yeah that's that's what put brings me here that's why I come right um so
Speaker A
that's what I mean by suffering and I think your your description intuitively as you were speaking is is accurate and we can we can find relative happiness through relationship of course through connection through intentional um internal investigation and looking at
Speaker A
our our blind spots and trying to be a better person in many ways like all of that stuff is great in the relative world but for some people there's this just this gnawing sense that that's just not everything though. There's something
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really missing actually and that's what I might call the absolute side of things. And to realize the absolute and then live in the relative then the whole real journey starts of putting it together. How do those how do those
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coales and come together in a lived experience of being truly awake um uh without suffering and navigating the relative world with all its challenges.
Speaker A
So that's what it that's what it's about. Yeah. I have this sense of uh especially when you said the retroactive sort of experience of the relief and being and that being sort of the veil that was lifted that was like
Speaker A
oh the the um lack of suffering is what is is the experience. It's like the awareness of what isn't or something. um what isn't present anymore isn't like uh the pervasive suffering that you're describing.
Speaker A
And that has me um that almost kind of has me thinking about circling in a way because this training that we do at least in in you know in our practice uh with transformational connection surrendered leadership and circling um
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there's this this constant return or like this yeah the meditative return to um a state to to you know the the meta level of like what is what is here right now and then how does that shift as we
Speaker A
add things or remove things in our relational field or in the immediate environment um and how there's I mean I could almost argue that there's like a way that circling could train that kind of perception of suffering you know the
Speaker A
the variations of suffering being present or not or yeah has me thinking that that idea like like no yeah um becoming aware of suffering at the moment of its relief. I mean like yeah um there's something about that that
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feels so um core to how um yeah to to how like I experienced I I don't know if I would call it awakening but like the things circling kind of freed me from was like this process of euphoria chasing through alcohol in
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particular but also plenty of other things um that it was like it was like I I I had all of these like temporary reliefs of suffering but it never clicked that like [ __ ] I'm in pain all
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the time but it it was like when s like when really present moment awareness and connection in that when that relieved my suffering I could feel it then and there it was almost like I had now that I'm
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reflecting on it I almost had like pride in the way Uh when the when drugs and alcohol relieved my suffering, it was like I had some kind of pride in like I just like it. I just like this stuff
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and it's fine and shut up. Like it's my life, my body, whatever. [ __ ] it.
Speaker A
Yeah. Um I I don't know where that takes us, but I just like Yeah. That pride really.
Speaker A
Yeah. That's the kind of example of how we can compartmentalize our experience and be like, "No, I just like to drink. that's what I like to do. You know, it's maybe not the healthiest thing, but I'm going to do it. Or we can
Speaker A
justify addictions and and various habits and so forth, but they're really just a a second level or second order reinforcement of the the um I don't know, illusion or delusion or actually front that we put on. Sometimes it's just like I'm good. I'm okay.
Speaker A
Everything's fine. Because before this awakening, I might have said that if you said, "How are you doing?" I'd be like, "I'm good. I'm fine." Yeah. I call it the fine castle.
Speaker A
Yeah. my fine ca I'm fine. I'm in my fine castle. Yeah. And it's it's really sad because it's just it's it just covers it just hides your own suffering from your own self. Like you're whatever it is. Even
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if we don't call it suffering, it just hides stuff from yourself that it's like, man, if you would feel that, address it, investigate into what's actually going on inside you, you know, deal with the trauma that you were given
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in this world, whatever it is, you you might feel a heck of a lot better. But um so yeah, that's that's kind of how I got into the whole awakening world. Um and then I would say over the
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last five years since the book came out, I've worked with many many many people waking up going through awakening. But I never personally differentiated the shifts in identity and the insight, which is kind of what I've been emphasizing in how I've been talking. I
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didn't differentiate that from the emotional work that comes with it because a lot of emotional work comes with it. It's like when you suddenly don't have ego boundaries to to hide things from yourself, it comes up big time. Like a lot of shadow material
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comes up after awakening. Not right after. Right after you have this like beautiful honeymoon period usually where you feel enlightened, but you're not yet. Um so, oh man, then oh man, what a trick.
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You almost feel like worse. You kind of do for a while. You you always know the insight is there, but it's just like consciousness is this wild and wonderful thing that we carry, right? that we have that we have access to where it can be
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totally uh seamless, boundless, centerless, wide open, infinite. And it's a very enjoyable experience. And it can also close down into this like sense of very narrow-mindedness, narrow focus, seeking, aversion, desire, like that's just so uncomfortable. And yet we just
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keep tells, "Yeah, but I'm going to get the next thing. I'm going to get the next thing that's going to finally do it." You know, the last thousand didn't, but the next one will. the next person, the next sexual experience, the next
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hit, the next validation, the next moment of connection, whatever we're looking for that this can be exceedingly uncomfortable, right? So, consciousness is very flexible in this way. I mean, that's one of the things you start to come online with with waking up, but um
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I got a little sidetracked. So, I started talking to a lot of people about this and then I really learned more and more about the mechanism of it. The insight is just clear. There's nothing to learn about it. It's just here. It's
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always here. But the mechanism of how different people shift, how they wake up, how they do shadow work, how they do emotion work. I've learned a ton about that just through endless interactions with people. Um, and one thing I've one
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thing I did notice is that there's not good resources out there. There's not great resources out there for people who have a lot of shadow work, trauma, emotional repression, and are sometimes spiritual bypassing it. you know, trying to
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remember yourself back into that feeling of awakening euphoria and ignoring the fact that all these very difficult emotions are coming through and you don't know what to do about them. So that's pervasive in spiritual communities, even traditional communities, maybe more so in
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traditional communities, traditional Buddhism or Zugchen, they don't address this stuff. They don't address the emotional part of things. They don't address the shadow material. They don't address relationality really either.
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Aside from saying a song is one of the three treasures, having a group of like-minded meditators or whatever.
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That's about as far as they they talk about it, right? So, if you go to your teacher with, you know, some trauma that's coming up and you can't you can't escape from it, they're not really going to know what to do for the most part.
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Some will, some will, but the vast majority won't. And the traditions and the processes that the traditions bring forward to help with insight, shifting, identity, all that stuff, they don't talk about emotion work. I don't talk about shadow work. So then I don't know
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four years ago or something I saw this documentary to work and I was like okay these these guys are doing something almost no one's doing or they they know something almost no one knows. I mean so uh I just was very moved by it as you
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all said you you've watched it. Um and then I went out and met met them met the executive producer met some of the facilitators and a lot of what they do I was already doing like I like I said 27
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years of after having the shift like I integrated a I did a ton of work myself, but some of it was slow and kind of like walking through the dark. Like I didn't I didn't have relational work to to do.
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I didn't have I didn't use a therapist or anything like that. But I mean, maybe some of that would have helped accelerate the process. But um but I learned it well. I I have a feel like I have a thorough understanding of how
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humans suffer and how they, you know, repress emotions and how to access emotions and how to move through these spaces. But meeting these guys and the way they've developed this process um really really taught me a lot that I
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didn't know before um and really showed me how to how to work a container or how to actually work a group process that can get to the deepest stuff in people surprisingly quickly. So that's that's the inside circle um insidecircle.org or
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the the documentary sculp work. uh and they don't necessarily call it circling per se, but some people just use that term because it's somewhat known term in relational communities or um and so forth, but it's reasonably different than the kind of circling I've seen. Um
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and I can give you some I thought of actually maybe the best way to explain is just giving you some contrast. This won't be in contrast to what you do because I don't know what you do, but just in contrast to some of the
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authentic relating communities and the way they've the way they circle that I've seen, including online circling.
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Um, and the contrast may help define what the this process is. I I often call it deep shadow process because it seems to get to the deepest stuff pretty efficiently.
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That's just for the listener. Um, before we dive into that, could you describe a little bit like in the work the documentary that you shared with us which was we yeah we were crying, we were we laughed, we cried, we hurled as
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they say in uh Wayne's world. It was a quite a moving experience. Um, yeah. Could you describe just a little bit of like like what that that is? It's a very special program and it looks like real masters who have like
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totally Yeah. experimented with that and it's this unique legacy of a Wii space practice.
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So, it it feels so exciting to talk about on the container. Yeah. It's a it's it's the the documentary itself is surprisingly un um it's not well distributed actually. I mean, it's it's a rare person that I bump into that that has
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watched it unless they've heard me talk about it. Um, and that's not because of the value of it. It's extremely valuable and the actually the editing is incredible. The the the filming of it is incredible. Uh, and the subject matter is incredible.
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It's just that it didn't get wide distribution for various reasons. But so what it is is New Folsam Prison in the 1990s um was from what I understand the most violent prison in the United States.
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They had many riots, a lot of killings, a lot of suicide, like you know, brutal, brutal. The there was a a gentleman who was a inmate himself. He went to the chaplain and he said, "We got to do
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something about this. Like, these guys are killing each other and they're killing themselves. What can we do?
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Start a group. Like, let's find a facilitator. Let's figure something out." Right? I I think this was right around mid 90s. Um, and he went out and he found this guy named James McCclary.
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Uh, James is a friend of mine now. He's the executive producer of the documentary. But James is a he's an elder. He is in his 70s now and he still works endlessly. He'll go anywhere anyone calls him to to do work and
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circle and so forth and, you know, do do these processes. But he had already developed some um very um functional and transformative and powerful processes himself. And he's worked with all kinds of groups of people. He's worked with people in
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leadership. He's worked with mothers who have had children murdered. He's worked with criminals. He's worked with um people on the inside and outside. Just everything like he's done a lot of work.
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Oh, he had done a lot of work in the Mankind Project. You probably have heard of that as well. Men's men's work. Yeah.
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So he had done a lot with that as well. So he was the one they brought in to try to say, "Okay, what can we do here?" And from all accounts and the people I've talked to about this, when they started
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this program, no one would go. Like the the inmates didn't want to go because they were scared. They were scared that oh, if I go into this hug a thug thing and everyone hears about it, like that could be dangerous, right? So So they
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did something ingenious and it actually worked really well. They went and got the gang leaders and got them in there together. So these gang leaders of the of the Bloods, the Senos, the white supremacists like Aryan Nation, they got
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them all in. Not all, I don't know, but they got enough and they got them to start going through the process. Then because, you know, other people knew that these gang leaders were were doing the process, they weren't so scared to
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come themselves. So then it was by invite only. they saw something in an inmate or prisoner that said this person looks like they're actually willing to do some work and get, you know, get to the core of what got him in prison in
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the first place. So they, you know, over time they built this this process out.
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Um, and they, I'm sure they further developed it from what James brought in in the first place, but he was the he was the the original model of how to do this, right? Um, and the documentary was filmed in, I think, 2008. So this was um
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13 some years after they they started the process and by then a handful of the gang leaders themselves had become facilitators. They were so clear and so good at it. Um and so you see that in the movie although the movie doesn't say
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this is the you know gang leader for the area nation and this they just have their names but I know them now. I know who they were and who they are now and so forth. So these were like truly
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hardened criminals. Like these were some of the most traumatized people in the world who also became violent criminals.
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Uh and the process worked for them. So the documentary is fascinating. What they do is they take some men from the outside, not in prison, not inmates, and not necessarily in any kind of legal trouble either, just this guys who are
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struggling, and they they would bring them in. I'm not sure if they still do this right now. like co kind of got in the way of this but they would bring these guys in and run them through the
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program over a weekend with the inmates who had already gone through it themselves as the facilitators essentially in the documentary it's not clear but there's a mixture there are there are guys who are not inmates and have don't have a criminal history that
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are facilitating and there are also inmates who are facilitating and you see how well they work together actually you can tell how they've worked together a long time and you can also see that they have a way of accessing people's stuff
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very quickly uh you can see people just suddenly having these very intense emotional shifts or intense stuff comes up through them like so quickly around these guys and I can verify having done this kind of circling or this kind of
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process with them and without them that it's exactly like that we can talk about the container and so forth but the way we build it actually really starts bringing stuff out of people pretty quickly if you do it with if I do this
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with 10 people to 15 people they're going to be a couple at the beginning that you can before you start you see them in the chair shifting. You see them like there's something coming up. You can it's like it's palpable in the room,
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you know. So, this is a very powerful process. Uh but what it really does is it gets to the core traumas. It gets to the deepest stuff. Um and yeah, so they developed it. They developed it in this prison and then,
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you know, these guys go through it from the outside and that's the documentary. Um but even the documentary only really shows a fraction of what they can do. I mean, we do all kinds of different things in these groups. Um, and and the
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underlying message that I received uh in in this training is something that I already knew and I already experientially worked with or when I'm working with somebody, this is how I do it. But I think it can be summarized
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pretty well by a guy who's in that documentary named Rick Meisner. He's uh he's the biker looking guy, got a blue bandana. That's Rick. He's a friend of mine now. He's out and he's a facilitator and he's one of the most
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incredible facilitators I've ever met in my entire life. But he'll say at the beginning of a circling event with people or one of these days we do, he'll he'll sit back in his chair and he'll say something like, you know, I don't know how any of
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this works. I just know I will go any [ __ ] way you need to go. I'll go to the highest highs and I'll go down into hell with you. I will go wherever the [ __ ] you need to go. And he will. And I
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will too. And and that's how this works. So that's the gist of what this is about. Um, any questions about that so far?
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Well, I'm I'm just um I think the thing that stands out to me is that um with the practice of circling that we are familiar with there. It's a much more kind of um organic like these things will arise and
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you can see when they do and like oh we could we could go into that and we could follow it all the way down. Um but it's a a group process of like is that what we're going to chase or is the we are
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the we you know are we going to you know go in this other direction and the and there is like a strong emphasis on um not fixing or changing or healing. Um that's kind of one of our main
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agreements in the space. Um, so there's something really like uh well, it's it's like the thing that I always want to double click on, but we have agreements that keep us from doing it, which is like, oh, I can see I can
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see that that person is like, you know, ready to go all the way down, but but we're, you know, there's this kind of like what is what is going to be revealed in this organic process? Um, and letting it letting things be what
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they're going to be. Um, so that's just yeah, that that was what came up for me is the kind of the differences and and like what would it be like to do that practice where you're actually like so that that what you said is exactly
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one of the contrasts I wanted to make. So I'll just make a few contrast to and I'm just again this is just what I've seen when I've seen authentic relating type of circling and some of it probably does overlap with what you all do but I
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don't know so I can't speak to it. I also want to say for anyone listening, none of this is judgment or better or worse or anything. It's just significant contrast. So between this deep process that I'm talking about and what I've
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seen as authentic relating circling events and so forth, probably the number one thing is the the stuff I've seen that that's more like in authentic relating communities, there's a actually a strong emphasis on egalitarianism. Like there there there
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really isn't a leader. like you might have somebody who's timing and somebody who's whatever, but generally speaking, it's kind of frowned upon to have somebody step forward as a leader or a facilitator. This process is that's not it. This this is all about mentorship.
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It's all about a right of passage actually. Um it's about a hero's journey and the elders or the facilitators are if if they weren't there, this wouldn't even be the same thing. And it's critical that they're there and it's
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critical that they are early experienced and they know how to do it. That's very very important. Or else this could get ugly real quick because you're you're getting into people's psyche. You're going into their developmental trauma.
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You're going into their sexual trauma. You're you're going down deep and anything can come up and anything does come up. [snorts] So that's one contrast is there's a strong facilitator oriented um aspect to this. I will make a caveat to that and that is with that
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said, I'm not leading anybody. I'm I'm holding their hand and going wherever they need to go, but I'm not afraid to go there with them. And I will encourage them if if they get a little sidetracked or if
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they hit a fear barrier or they or they they're a little confused or lost because you you do kind of get into these spaces that are confusing, you know, because you're you're suddenly three years old, you're suddenly feeling
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trauma you haven't felt in years and and so the mind gets a little disoriented, but we we just kind of help them take the next step, not by telling them where to go, but by giving them options like
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reatuning people to their natural um autonomy. And it can be very simple questions. is do you want to sit up or do you want to stand up? Sit down. Do you want to lay down? What do you want
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to happen here? What do you need to happen here? Check in with your body.
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So, so I may give prompts to kind of help the person go where they need to go, but I don't lead them. So, so there is a strong leadership component and it's critical in this. At the same time,
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I'm not leading anybody anywhere. I'm really there to truly facilitate to just facilitate. And that requires a lot of experience to know those boundaries, too. um because I could just be too hands off and someone just gets a little
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dissociated or a little starts feeling some trauma, don't know where to go and nothing happens. When we do this, something happens. We we get we get to completion and we get to something that actually gets processed. So that's one
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big contrast I'll make. Um and it's probably the biggest one. Um the second thing I want to say, and these are all interrelated. Second thing I want to say is there is a there is an intention and it's clear. When I've been
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in some circling spaces, one thing that I found challenging was I'm not really sure what that person wants to do, that person wants to do. That person I'm not sure what people are here for. Some people want to feel connection for sure.
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Some people want to get attention. Some people want to kind of be a leader without being a leader. Like there's all these motivations that I feel in the circle. I'm not really sure what's going on sometimes. And that's okay too. that
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it's it has a bit of an experimental sense or vibe to it or whatever. In this space, it's very obvious what we're doing. And we make sure that as we do a kind of initiation process at the beginning, as everybody comes into the
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circle, we make sure that they're not only in clear that we're we're what we're doing, but that they're willing to do what they need to do to do it, and we just ask them. Um, so there there are
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some agreements that we use and so forth. Uh but we don't require anyone to do anything specific, but we do check in to make sure that they're actually here for a reason. They're here to do something for themselves. And that's the
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third thing. The third thing is I in authentic relating communities, T-roup circling, it tends to be much more focused on the relationality of it. It's something about relationality that that we're here for. In this case, that's not primary. The the the group, the circle
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is critical. The circle is critical. And they do interact with these movements like you saw in the movie.
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You'll see some collective stuff going on, but it is guided by the leader and um or well, it's coordinated by the the leader or the facilitator, but it's really guided by the person going through it. So, again, we may have
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someone in in a trauma space that's processing very intense stuff. And I might ask them, do you need support or do you need autonomy? And and depending on the type the way they were traumatized, one of those answers is
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right and one's wrong. They may need everyone to hold them. They literally may need hands on their body to just feel not dissociated or to to feel like, okay, I'm in a safe space with other humans. Or maybe their autonomy has been
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co-opted by by their trauma in some way, and they need to actually feel like, oh, no, I can actually feel this guilt or this fear um or grief. I can feel this without support. I actually don't need support. I I oh, I I can actually embody
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this. I have the capacity. So, again, I can't tell what that person needs, but I know they know. And so I'll ask them.
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Um, so it it ends up being about each individual's process. That's that's kind of what I'm getting at with this comparison is each individual is there to do their own process. For sure. The facilitators are there to like help them
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and facilitate it and and help mold and change the container as needed to get to allow them to go where they need to go.
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But we kind of do it in turns, right? And we don't let just random people jump in and go, "Oh, I know. Can I say something?" Like we don't do that. We really let that person do what they need
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to do primarily go where they need to go, feel what they need to feel, see what they need to see. The facilitators, one or two or sometimes three, we'll we'll support what's going on with them.
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Um, but we really let them go where they need to go and I'll go with them. I'll be crying with them. I'll be feeling their rage. Like I'll go where they need to go. And um, and they know it. They tr
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there. So there's a deep trust from between the person and the facilitator. And I would not put myself in that position unless I knew I could handle it. And so I I trust myself and then they trust me and it works. Um but the
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circle group the group dynamic does matter and it is is very powerful to share these traumatic experiences with people who you you don't know but you trust because you see them doing the same thing. So there is something very
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powerful about the collective but it's not primarily a relational. The point isn't relational. The point is for one person to go down and do what they need to do. And you don't have to figure it out even. It just starts coming up. It's
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pretty wild. It's it's a very it becomes very sematic, becomes very instinctual, sematic, energetic. Um, if you remember in the documentary, the work, there was a part where the guy Brian was going through a very intense like rage thing
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and there's a huge group around him. And I don't if you remember Bud, one of the facilitators, he said, "We're just letting go of energy. That's all we're doing here." And that's true. It is true. It it becomes energetic at some
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point. Um, so yeah. I just I want to I want to say just as I'm listening to this like you know we um we facilitate in a surrendered leadership format and um kind of an altered Americanized surrendered leadership format and we um you know my
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experience is that uh I have for for years it's like this place I keep going back to and keep getting more and more but there's There's always been a desire in me to have uh a container type that is that's kind
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of the um hard stuff. It's like there are processes of deep like shamanic transformation that happen in surrendered leadership formats, but it's like if that's the the like cosmic weather for the day, then that will blow through at some point. And um you know
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and there is a discipline in me around like releasing from like the circle needs to to accomplish some high like that. But I like I have so longed for something that uses a lot of the alchemical strengths of a group of people in
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connection like the relational field forming one in a container. So you're like not losing any of the energy and you're being really present with each other and then like oh and we're here to do the do the thing do the
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transformational process and like um yeah just so it just says I'm I'm hearing you talk I'm I'm it's like I'm hearing uh a desire I have like kind of um yeah there's like long desires in me being like nourished just by hearing
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this and And so then I'm kind of wondering like if you could say more about how you build that container.
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Inquiring minds want to know how to do that. Yeah. that. And then if you could also just maybe along with that speak to the at least from your experience the um like what are the the truly lasting because I you know we talked about on
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our pre-all about like what are the things that are going to actually cause real transformation that lasts right and I think um that there you know I think what I'm so the the and then thinking about these really intense deep
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um experiences that happening that happen in the inside circle and that hap you know that we saw in the documentary for example or those those like really deep you know um releases uh I think what the question I'm trying
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to get at is does that release actually release like now you now that now you are free of that um it's like you you came come into the circle and you had like your trauma or the you know the
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things that you identified as your trauma and now the release has occurred and th those those are actually that is actually gone now or at least you know so that it's now workable or maybe like yeah more uh
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something you could hold in a more meta perspective or less mind identified perspective. So yeah, so both like how do you build these containers, but then also what are the from at least from what you've seen the the lasting effects
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of Yeah, I'll answer the second question first. Um I'm if if nothing else, I'm a pragmatist. I care about what works.
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I don't care how fancy it is. I don't care how traditional it is. I don't care how non-traditional it is. I don't care.
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I I if it works and it helps people stop suffering, it helps people get under the trauma they've been carrying and and just just repressing it and trying their best to do something about it, but it's just not working or it's just an
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incredibly slow melt. Like if you I can find something that's going to help with that, that's what I care about. And this is it. So, um I can tell you I've had many people give me a message something
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like this a week to two, three weeks after they do this process. And I mean this might be one day. They may it may have been a one-hour process for that person individually. And some form of I didn't know I could feel this good. Like
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I really didn't know I could feel this relaxed in life. I I didn't I didn't know that was there. I've done 20 years of therapy and I didn't I still didn't realize I hadn't touched that fully. U I've heard this so many times. I I don't
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have anything against therapy. I don't have anything against trauma therapists. Like it's critical. It's needed. There's a lot of neurosis out there. But I've brought therapists and psychiatrists through this circle and they want to learn. They're like, "I want to learn
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how to do this because I've never seen anything like this." Um, I've brought spaceers for psychedelics and shamans and stuff through this same thing. We find we find stuff in almost anybody unless you're like really done. And you
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actually can be done. You can be essentially done with trauma. Um, it may not happen in one full thought. [laughter] Yeah, you can.
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It may not happen in one setting. But I have seen it in one set. I have seen it in one day, one process. Um, but yeah, if you have loads of trauma over years and it's never really been
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addressed, you're not it's not going to happen in one c one event, but you will notice something. You will definitely notice something that's permanently changed in you and you may need to come back and do more. But, uh, it's profound
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and obvious. You can physically see it in people. I've had people who come to these groups who have no experience with it and they'll make comments about one or two other people in the group at the end of the day. They're like, "You
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literally look different. You've something physically changed about you. Something energetically changed about you." I mean, they look to me, too.
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Like, their face looks different. The face changes. It's crazy, right? And so, those are more subjective things, but um I'm sorry, those are more objective things.
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Subjectively what people say is this works for them and it's worked for when nothing else worked including awakening including you know years and years of silent meditation retreats and even being monastics monastic life people who I know have been monastics for 20 years
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have done this process with me and have had change that they'd never had before.
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So it works. Um that also relates to question number one and and it's kind of like why does it work and how do we assure that it works? Well like I said because we have this intention to go
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where you need to go to feel what you need to feel um we structure it as such we we um structure the process and the container we also structure the communication with the facilitators throughout and we make sure you're connecting the dots by the
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end. So James McCclary I I would say he this guy has fused so many things together. Like he he's a psychologist.
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He has a side. He has a degree in psych clinical psychology but he also went and did worked with an indigenous tribe in Africa for 10 years to go through their rights of passage. Did something similar with a tribe in South America including
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the all those things North America as well. So three different indigenous cultures and he also just synthesizes everything he can together. He's really kind of a genius. He's one of those genius guys but he's also down and dirty. goes directly to it. He knows how
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to get to whatever's in there with anybody and he's a giant heart. He just he's the sweetest guy you've ever met.
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So with all those things together, like you can imagine the amount of transformation that happens around him.
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But I will say he generally models this process after the hero's journey. And so there are motifs in the hero's journey that that are seen literally when the container is being built and as we move through it. And I point them out as I'm
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doing it. I actually say this is the descent. This is the ordeal. So the first is the call. The call is when you hear about it. You, you know, you watch the documentary. That's the call. Like when you know what you just saw and
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you're like, "Okay, I felt something there." That's the call. You answer the call when you sign up, you show up, you go. And I usually point that out to people once they've kind of arrived.
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Then we actually do an initiation process. And I won't go into all the details of it because I don't want to cheat anybody out of it if they've never done it. It's kind of nice to go through it when you don't know what's going to
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happen. And we don't always do it the same. But we do some sort of initiation process that is actually physical like it's a trust thing. You feel the this the container and your body's moving through the space in a certain way that
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you start to actually physically feel the transformation starting. That's the that's part of the descent, right? The rest of the descent is we do some agreements. Confidentiality being like probably number one and so forth. So we we do agreements with the whole group.
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It's not rules. We don't want to have penalties. We just say here's our agreements. If you follow these agreements, can you can you agree? and people put their hand up and again physical it's a physical buy in to the
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process. Um and agreements just are basically saying you're telling everyone else in the circle here you're going to follow this agreement and if you don't and you you're out of integrity you have to figure out how to get back in
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integrity not us. We're not going to penalize but that's that's how it goes. And I find no one does. Everybody does fine. They stay within the agreements.
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Um, James has said to me before that one of the keys to bringing people into a circle is you you want basically a combination of three emotional tones as they're coming in. Number one is is um sobriety. Not not literal sobriety, but
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the sobriety of the gravity of what you're doing. Like I'm here for a reason. I'm not just here as an experiment. I'm not just here to watch and see what happens. Like I need I'm I'm here to do work because I know I
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need to address something. That that's soy. And you can feel it in the way we set up the container, the the initiation process. Number two is fear, right? We don't want people to be terrified. But fear is the gateway emotion to the
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magician archetype. And the magician archetype is the archetype of transformation. If you're not feeling a little fear, you know, you're probably you're going to be I mean, everybody is.
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I feel fear when I start these because I don't know what the [ __ ] going to happen, but I know I have to do it and I know I have to go there and I know I'm going to be totally vulnerable and I
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know I'm going to give everything. So there sometimes there's a little fear when I start too. Um I feel like just that I want to put a pin in the the line that fear is a and like an initiation into the magician
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archetype which is the yeah the doorway to transformation. That alone is like that one sentence is [laughter] I feel I mean yeah print that in gold man that Yeah. So yeah, it's sobbriety, fear, and then and then uh wonder, awe,
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possibility, you know, and that's the other side of that's the other side of the magician is like, I don't know what we're going into, but I'm I'm I'm on board. I'm on this journey. I want to go on this
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journey. That's Luke Skywalker walking into the cave, you know, and Yoda saying, and he's like, I'm not scared.
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And Yoda's like, oh, you will be, but go on into that cave. You know, that's that combination. You He's serious. He's going in there for a reason. And he's also scared even though he doesn't quite know it yet. And he's also, you can see
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in his eyes, there's wonder, there's mystery, right? So, those are really are kind of the three emotions that we sort of instill in people as we're putting him through this initiation process. And then we do a check-in, a simple
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check-in, but we have a format we suggest people can do whatever they want, but we just ask people to check in with all parts of themselves. PIS is is the the format. It's like physical, how you feeling physically, uh,
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intellectually emotionally spiritually, and we go around the circle and we let everybody check in. And we have everybody check in. And that's really just taking our armor off. We're taking our armor off. That's the descent. That's your That's your the
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call, the descent, and the ordeal. The ordeal is when you face whatever it is you came to face. Most people don't know what it is. Sometimes they think they know what it is coming in. They're like, "I'm sure it's going to be that
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childhood trauma moment." And something totally different comes up. It happens all the time, but you'll know it when you feel it. It's like as you start walking into that cave, you start to see the shape of the dragon or the whatever
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it is you need to face. You know, maybe you need to make friends with it. Maybe you need to slay it. I don't know. what you do. That's the ordeal. And the ordeal is kind of like the meat of the
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whole process when each individual goes through their their process. And we don't call on people and go, "You're next. You're next. You're next." We'll do something like light a candle. And whoever touches that candle, like your process begins, and you usually it's
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automatic. They get up, they touch the candle, and you see you see it coming like they start emoting or something starts happening or they start moving a certain way and then the facilitators totally intuitively we just kind of
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support it and then we go where we need to go. So that's the ordeal. And then critically with this hero's journey process is the ascent. You really don't just come here to have intense emotional experiences. You know, you come here to
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learn something. Take something back. Like and what I like to say is you're taking something back that's going to enrich your life, your loved ones lives, and everyone you come into contact with.
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It it will. And so in so sometimes in very subtle ways and sometimes in literal ways as somebody's kind of coming out of that ordeal phase we just ask them to connect the dots like what is what is this going to look like for
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you tomorrow next week next month how are you going to carry this into your life and often they they know right away they know what change they can feel it you know or it could be a commitment thing like can you make a commitment to
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saying what you need to say to that person that you know you need whatever it is I'm just making things up but so we try to connect the dots so that the ascent is clear that they can take
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something out of this. Sometimes it's also just mapping mapping something in their body. What does it feel like to feel joy? You haven't felt joy in 20 years and all of a sudden you felt joy after intense anger here. What does it
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feel like to feel joy? Feel it in your body. Right? Track that. Notice you can feel it, you know, now here and check in with yourself once a day. Just check in with those spaces in your body and see if if
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it's not already there. So something like that, we may help them sort of just sematically map what happened. But the ascent is critical, right? Because what this is all about is when you come back home. You you start at home, you end at
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home, but you're not the same person. And you bring something back, right? Of course, that's the whole point. You do it enough times and now you're an elder.
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That's how it works, right? Like that's that's the hero's journey. So this whole thing is kind of modeled after the hero's journey. It has a lot of archetypal motifs that we use. Um but there's really no specific structure
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once we're in the ordeal part. We just we just go where people need to go. And some different things come into play.
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Sometimes it's primal screaming. Sometimes it's um IFS type stuff could come in. Not not so much, but it can on occasion. Um I've had so many things happen. It's just it's wild. But whatever needs to happen will happen.
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And we we get people to go where they need to go. And we let them decide when they're done, too. We'll I'll ask people like, "Do you feel like something was completed here?" And sometimes it's so obvious. Often it's so obvious. Everyone
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in the group feels it. see what just happened and you know before asking the question but do you feel like your process is complete for the moment and they know they'll say yes or no and we'll go until they're until until they
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do feel like something has has actually processed or completed and I think it's happened 95% of the time I've done this it's very clear that other 5% it's maybe a little muddy sometimes for some people but something definitely happened um that's
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the first time uh and so It just works. We don't get it. I One thing I've noticed, I was talking about someone talking to someone else about this the other day that I circle with a lot. And one thing I never
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see is like ego battles. Like we don't get into ego battles. Like people aren't, you know, competing for attention. It's like it's so incredibly supportive because when you see somebody go through what they're going through, like you can't have you can have nothing
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but support and respect and admiration and and and you can only respond with your own vulnerability. like even if you don't get in the center and do some work yourself, like you feel it. You feel that absolute openness and vulnerability
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and it's, you know, it's just um it's just awe inspiring. It also, for me at least, it has a feel of something ancient like it almost feels like we've always known how to do this. We kind of forgot maybe something about the hero's
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journey and the the archetype of the elder and all like it it it just resonates somehow. I don't know. Um, but again, it's really about that individual just going going in and getting what they needed to get. That that's what it
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comes down to. Something you're saying about like it's um it feels very ancient and almost like inborn, like we know how to do this. It reminds me when you were talking about your awakening process where it wasn't um formalized. That was a very intuitive
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like oh I guess I'm doing you know what I'm imagining is something like what happens for us where it's like oh now I'm doing this shadow work on this thing and then that gives me a view and it's
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like oh I'm going to unlock this gift now and and now I'm like doing something that seems unrelated but it's all this intuitive path. Um, and to me when I think about that of like uh when it's intuitive but it always
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works and and it feels it has it feel more real and more unfolding the way that like a fern grows in the shape of a fern. It doesn't have to look at a blueprint of like now how do I
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do this again be a fern shape? Uh, and yeah, there's a way that like this is actually the shape humans like are are built to take in time. But yeah, um, and we're like rediscovering now those a lot of that tech.
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Totally. I want to I want to ask them the million-dollar question. The billion dollar question. as a facilitator of this form of this style um of this practice.
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What what are some ways that you help participants to become not mind identified versus like so that they're not just sitting there going well and when I was eight then my you know my dad hit me and it was like really and you
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know like getting into story or narrative or um like what are the ways that you bring them into their body because I imagine it's so sematic at least from you know the way I'm imagining it is like very but that isn't
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necessarily an intuitive you know people don't just come in knowing how to do sematic process so yeah I just feel curious about how you do that that's a great question so primarily it's intuitive um there are times when
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I've let someone just tell the whole story and just kind of not interrupt in any way at all and and not a lot it happens on occasion though and it's usually when the story is just so poignant it's usually traumatic it's
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just so poignant and I can feel at least I think this is my perception. I feel that that person's actually processing just by telling the story in a group.
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They need to have that they need to have someone bear witness to this [ __ ] horrible thing that happened to them. Um a few of them are sticking out in my mind and I I feel some transformative aspect to just just
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that. Usually even then though usually at the end I'll kind of say you know do you want to go down into the emotion of this more? Is there any part of this you want to process or feel or I'll make
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suggestions? Uh, and I just leave it up to them. Sometimes they will and sometimes they won't. Um, and if they feel complete, I'm fine with that, you know. Um, but what you're asking is an important question and I this happens in
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the awakening spectrum of things. It also happens in the circling and there's a lot of crossover. Um, so it's sometimes it's as simple as just going, can you tell me where you feel this in your body right now? Yeah. Do you do you
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want to check that out? Um uh sometimes it's like what emotion are you feeling right now? If it's not can if they can't go directly sematic, can you label an emotion? What's going on there? Um sometimes we do something
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bioenergetic. I may have somebody like for instance, this is a good one. If somebody's feeling a lot of anger, but they're repressing it and they're not fully clear that they're repressing it.
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Or maybe they are, but they're just like, I just don't know how to express anger, but I I know there's something in there, whatever. I might just have them stand up and push on my hands. Like sometimes bioenergetic stuff like just
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getting the body moving. That's what needs to happen. So sometimes it's movement based, sometimes it's role playing. We can actually set up role playing with people.
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Um and just repetition. Also, you can check into what if they don't feel safe in some way. Is there something some reason you don't feel safe? Um does it not feel safe to express anger? And why not? Like
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what did you learn about that or something? So I'm just throwing things out, but I do everything intuitively in these circles. Uh I find that most of the time people will go sematic. It will become a sematic process at some level.
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Um I do find people who have had awakening shifts and stuff. They they tend to be a little better at going sematic quickly. Especially if I'm doing this I I'll actually do this at meditation retreats on occasion like
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silent meditation. So people have been meditating for three or four days. They go sematic very easily because their mind is just quiet. There's not much to think about. So it's it's a lot easier then. But yeah, sometimes it's a little
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tricky, right? somebody's very in their head and you know but that that itself is a trauma response and just trying to help them see that see that oh wow I see I see how that that clever mind of yours
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has saved you over and over in this lifetime you know let's let's feel that let's feel that together like what a what a warrior energy that has in your mind you know can you feel it and and just try to
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find that rapport and then be like can you find warrior energy in your body how would your body move like a warrior right now if it could you know whatever I just kind of intuitively do things but again I'm not really trying to lead
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people But as a facilitator, you're going to see times where it's like everyone in the room feels the repressed anger, but that person's not fully aware of it. So yeah, we try a little clever things to see if they can get a little deeper into
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it and so forth. So yeah, man, I want to do this. I want you guys. I'm hearing you.
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Yeah. I'm just like, "Okay, where do we sign up that I'm like, I'm gonna be one one of the ones that already got all their trauma figured out." [laughter] Oh, yeah.
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My my um little me, my little arrogant me is like, I'm pretty sure I've gotten pretty deep into I'm done. Yeah, [laughter] I'm half joking, but I'm actually kind of serious.
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You know, one one thing I will say about this that that goes along those lines a little bit to people who are you watch the documentary like, "Oh, that's way too intense. I don't want to I don't want to go in there and talk about my
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childhood trauma when I was 5 years old or whatever. And what what I usually tell people along those lines is or or whether you're like I've done a lot of I've done years of therapy. I've done work myself. I feel pretty good, you
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know. Um that's fine. I don't have a problem with that. And maybe you have done it all. Maybe you've really addressed what needs to be addressed. Um but what what I what I will say is when you're in the circle itself um and you
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may not be doing shadow work, you may do light work. Yeah, maybe you have worked through your trauma um and and so forth, but there's just something you're just not seeing that's a new dimension of your life that could open up and and
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it's just a little bit gray still for some reason and boom, you're like, "Oh [ __ ] that's where I want to go. That's where I need to go." Who knows, right?
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Um but some people could watch this documentary and see like that rage coming through or those really intense emotional experiences and that itself is daunting.
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But what I will tell you is when people are actually doing it, they'll report that it feels good. the report like I want to feel this. I want to feel this [ __ ] anger. Like I I need to feel
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this. Like they feel very very in alignment. It's not like you negotiate with it. Oh, do I want to do this or should I feel this or should I think about this trauma? It's not really like that. It's it just starts coming and it
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feels right. It feels in alignment. Yeah. I I think I I I've had something like this a few times in our processes. Um and yeah, the experience of this of it's like being un it's like coming through. It's not Yeah.
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And then it's like you're kind of riding it. It's like and it's just coming out and it feels like Yeah. like so. Um, weirdly like the way I was going to say like vomiting feels good in a weird way.
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I don't know. Something um maybe that's not quite the right comparison, but yeah. Something leaves, right? Something almost leaves your body. Some energetic shift that needed to happen happens.
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Yeah. Yeah. Oh, I will also say too is doing this as a facilitator, you don't feel in any position of authority or elevated above anyone at all. In fact, like I said, I have to go where they go, wide open,
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totally vulnerable. I will feel all their pain with them and I will. And that I mean, I feel that like at the end of the day, I'm just like, h, you know, I'm glad I did it and I love that I did
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do it with people, but it's it's it's not a it's not it's like the big contrast to therapy for instance. In a therapy, it's clear who's the healthy one and who's the person that needs help and that kind of comes out in the
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therapeutic dynamic and all that. This isn't like that. I mean, we were on the floor crying together. If we need to, we'll do what we need to do and I'll go where you need to go and I won't hold
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back and I won't be the facilitator. I'll be you with you and whatever, wherever you need to go, I'm there, you know? So, yeah, everyone in the group will feel it. And I learn every single time I do it. I really do. Like, I don't
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think I have any big trauma process anymore, but I feel things all the time and I learn things all the time. I learn things about myself and I learn things about others. Like, I'm wide open.
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Totally. I was going to say so isn't that feeling that you're experiencing like that's actually for you too like and and the people the participants it's for them too. It's not just like there's the person who's having their turn. Um
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but the that co- uh the the empathy I guess you could say um the empathetic process is for it's actually clearing things in you as well. I mean, because we are that we're kind of the same. We're the same one
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body anyway. Yeah. Yeah. It's quite a thing. So, I I hope I hope you both get experienced in it.
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It's very cool. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that has me wonder. Yeah. People who are listening to this uh love Wespace practices and are I think that uh many of them are going to be excited to enter into this kind of container.
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But how would they actually do that? Where do they go to get this to get this experience?
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This this has been the challenge with this. It's the challenge is like I've met many so I have a pretty big community and when I brought the inside circle crew to one of my my retreats is what happened. I brought in my retreat
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and they started putting people groups of 20 people a day through this process while they're doing retreat with me where I'm talking with guided meditations and Q&As's and dharma talks and silent meditation. But the fusion worked great. The challenge since then
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has been though I I know a lot of awake people and I know some of the most amazing people in the world and healers and so forth and a lot of people want to learn to facilitate this which is great
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but it's it's a process like you I mean you really I would never want to turn someone loose as a facilitator in a circle like this unless I'm I was sure they were thoroughly ready to do it. I
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mean it's it's a lot a lot can happen and again you're down in people's trauma so you got to know what you're doing um and and know what not to do. So that's the challenge is like how do we, you
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know, um, train people to do this that are going to want to do it and so forth.
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But the the real answer is just you got to do it yourself. You got to get in there. You got to get into those circles. Whether your role as a facilitator, your role is as a member of the circle, doesn't actually matter that
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much. You just need the experience and so forth. So, but for people who just want to get into one of these circles or get into this type of process, um, the the the most direct way is through insidecircle.org. And that's that's not
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me. Mine is simply always awake. Butorg, they do these out um these intensives and these facilitators again have been doing this for 25 years and so forth and they're incredibly good. Um and they do at least a few times a year. A lot of
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times it's in the Bay Area. Um I invite them to one of my retreats every year.
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It's full this year, but um I try to get get them there. So you can do it at one of my retreats in the spring. I'm trying to offer more of it, but it every time I put it out there on my channel, it's
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gone like right away. Like, so this there's a ratio that we have to maintain. Like I'll put 10 people in a group with two facilitators and we go all day long. So, you know, there there's that ratio that makes it I can't
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do it with 100 people. Like it's it requires the personal one-on-one with facilitators and stuff. So, it's a little tight that way. Um, you can watch people can watch my channel and I occasionally throw them out there, but
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it's it's going to be hit or miss. So, insidecircle.org is going to be the best and those are the the original guys who developed this and you're in good hands with them for sure. Uh, so that's probably the the number one primary way
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to just get in there and know what it feels like to go through this. Yeah.
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And you guys should interview James McCclary for sure. J Yeah, we're we would be happy to that documentary, the work they were doing.
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It's just Yeah, it's so ah it it felt so um yeah like drinking water after going through a desert watching kind of the way that they were holding space and and being with these Yeah. these um Yeah. And it's there's something about
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it too just like especially being in with such highly traumatized people and seeing the the sweetness that comes up when we acknowledge trauma like the thing that opens up of like oh wow we can be totally here together like like yeah there's
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something I mean I mean it's um there's some door. Trauma is such a doorway to some magical transformative stuff. It's it's like very um difficult medicine, but it it is like the trauma response is for you. It's like it is uh
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angelic in some way. And maybe the event isn't very angelic that creates the trauma response, but the trauma is this magic that when we open it up together, it's like, wow. The tenderness and the um the field that is created. It's just
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magnificent. Yeah. Yeah. I agree. All right. So, um yeah, I'm that feels really ripe and full. Um Yeah.
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Yeah. And so, so could before we go, could we um could you tell the people how to like buy this wonderful book and how to like get more of of Angelo's work and teachings?
Speaker A
Sure. Yeah. I mean, the simplest thing if you're interested in the awakening side of things is the book is Awake, It's Your Turn. You can find it on Amazon.
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It's uh two versions, written and um Kindle. [snorts] Uh if you want to watch my videos, uh you can just check out simply always awake on YouTube and there's a bunch of other resources and stuff, but I make videos well I release
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one every day. So I have a lot on [music] there and it's it's all in playlist if people are really interested in this topic. I have a lot of playlists like basics of awakening introductory series for just if you just have
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questions about it. Um, and then if you if you're really like, okay, I feel like I'm shifting, like somebody wants to wake up or I'm interested in the [music] the actual awakening process, I have a playlist called um awakening approaches.
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So, I did put it all in playlist for people and I always emphasize that because I have like literally thousands of videos. So, um, that's it.
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Awesome. Ah, thank you so [music] much for coming on Angelo. Yeah. Yeah. With that, the container is now closed.
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You want to take us out? Keep it [music] namaste.
Topics:Angelo DiLulloawakeningtransformation processThe ContainermeditationZenkenshoWe Spaceemotional transformationspiritual journey
