Full transcript: Reconnect
0:26 We’re in a dark age. We’ve lost our compass. We don’t know who we are. We don’t know where we wanna go. Our own lives are an experience of inadequacy and tension. We are a world dying under anaesthesia for lack of authentic connection with the living world out of which we came. What is to be done?
1:11 Three, two, one.
1:31 My name is Brian Rose. And every day I speak with some of the greatest minds on the planet broadcasting messages of inspiration to the world, convincing myself that I’m making a difference. But when I look outside my studio I see a very different picture. I see a world divided, anger, separation.
1:54 Humanitarian crisis growing by the day.
2:15 Insanity. The fires have spanned millions of acres. We are nearing a point of no return. But it’s not just outside, it’s also inside me. Somehow in this age of ultra-connectivity I also feel separated. Something’s missing and I can’t figure out what it is.
2:59 All my life I tried to find happiness by achieving things. I’m not sure why but I always wanted to be the best. I mean, who doesn’t, right? It’s all about performance, success, winning. Along the way I met some interesting people. And a few who wanted to win even more than me.
3:23 I want you to kill, kill, kill, kill. Run towards the gunfire and kill them all.
3:44 They pushed me to go even harder. And this winning became an obsession. I believe that we’re put on this planet to be all we can be. See, I act like it’s the last two minutes of my last fucking Super Bowl every fucking hour of the day.
4:04 I just wanted more and more and more. But you can’t deny it got some major results. This is London Real, I am Brian Rose. And everyone seemed to love it. Yet it also began to take over my life. And sometimes I get the feeling that it’s actually making things worse.
4:26 Who knows what would have happened if I didn’t get that call. Hi Brian, it’s good to see you. This is Dennis McKenna. And a call from him means things are about to get complicated. You see, Dennis is a leading scientist in the study of psychedelics, powerful, mind-altering chemicals. He has a different way of looking at things. And radical ideas about how to change the world. We had some cool conversations back in the day that I had almost forgotten about.
4:46 You can think of psychedelics as a scientific instrument to explore the range of consciousness. Psychedelics are dangerous not because they’re dangerous drugs, it’s because they make you have dangerous ideas. They make you doubt the programme and the agenda of the uber class. This is a war on consciousness. And these plants are our bio weapons, just ours don’t kill people, ours force people to think. Right.
5:33 I’ve been working with this new retreat centre in Costa Rica called Soltara. And going down there next week and I was thinking this is a chance for us to reconnect and for you to re-experience ayahuasca. I know it’s been a while.
5:55 Ayahuasca, a plant medicine that has been used by indigenous people in the Amazon for thousands of years. The brew is a mixture of two plants, one of which contains DMT, known as the spirit molecule, the most powerful mind-altering substance nature has created. It’s been six years since I last drank it and often the effect is to give you an honest assessment of exactly what’s wrong with you, loud and clear.
6:17 These medicines, effectively they’re a reset of our perspective. I think your hard drive is a bit fragged, this will put it back together in a more functional way.
6:37 I mean, look, I’m sure that there’s a lot I could learn from the medicine. Like, I won’t deny that. But this just seems to be too soon, too crazy. I just don’t think I’m ready to just drop everything. This is more important than what you’re doing right now. I can almost guarantee you.
6:59 Dennis is obviously crazy. I can’t leave my business to go to the jungle for a week. Winners don’t take days off. I like success. Doin’ deals and doin’ one after another, after another. I mean, it’s an aphrodisiac. I’m high on life. I don’t need DMT or ayahuasca, fucka, that’s all horse shit! Those are for losers!
7:24 Let’s face it. Psychedelics have always had a bad reputation. Our culture tells us that they are dangerous drugs, that they’ll fry your brain, make you crazy, and even jump out of windows. But all of that is changing. And some people are talking about them differently.
7:47 All ancient civilisations were using means to alter consciousness. And they were central to some of the best and greatest achievements. And that’s why they called ’em teacher plants. And then we have our society that comes along. It’s just this little blip of a hundred years of hi-tech industrialised civilisation. And it suddenly pronounces that this whole human heritage is completely wrong. Maybe we should be considering that the depth of human experience is more than just material things and technology and our egos.
8:31 I do see these medicines as addressing some of the big problems we face as a society. The environmental crisis, which flows from our disconnection from nature, and tribalism, which flows from our disconnection from people unlike ourselves. In both cases I think it’s very ego consciousness in that we’re objectifying the other, which once you objectify it you’re free to exploit it, extract it, do whatever you want. It’s gonna take some consciousness change to get us out of the box we’re in.
8:56 The evidence is there that these compounds used in the right professional way can be very helpful. And so that’s the thing. What to do with this opportunity? How do you do it right?
9:17 I was just wondering. What do you think about psychedelics and what do they do and what don’t they? I have no idea what they do. What we don’t understand about psychedelics is a very thick book. They bend the structure of reality. What they reveal to me is how little we know about everything. That’s a terrifying thing. Something to be investigated further? With great risk. They can help you orient yourself morally. But look the hell out.
10:00 The truth is my work is taking over my life. It’s becoming an addiction, an obsession. If I continue like this something’s going to break, I know it. Going on this trip is my only chance to stop it.
10:26 This movie is unlike anything we’ve ever done. It’s a total lack of control, which obviously makes me nervous. In three days’ time I am travelling to Costa Rica to participate in three ayahuasca ceremonies. And I think I’ve already forgotten how emotional and how emotionally draining this experience is gonna be. You know, the convulsions, the purging, the…
10:57 We literally are gonna see what mother ayahuasca wants to do with me, with the show, with the message out to the world. So this is her chance to broadcast. I’m looking forward to hanging out with Dennis, it’s been a while. And his brother Terence had a major impact on me. And even though he died in 2000 his recorded verse and poetic way of speaking is still extremely relevant today.
11:19 The key is the psychedelic experience. That’s what makes the shaman a shaman, that’s what made the archaic, in fact, archaic. They prepare people for transformation. It gets you used to the idea that the world is not what it appears to be.
12:03 We’re in San Jose, Costa Rica right now. Taken two flights and now we got a 3 1/2 hour drive ahead of us. I got an ayahuasca ceremony tomorrow. I think we’ll get some sleep but it’s been a long ass day.
12:25 There’s a scorpion in the house. There’s fire ants, they’re attacking the scorpion. There’s like moths flying everywhere. We’re definitely in the jungle. So, look, we’re here. We’re gonna get some sleep. And then tomorrow is the big night, the ceremony. But yeah, planes, trains, and automobiles today. My God. What’s that?
13:12 So I was just thinking that in London you’re not surrounded by anything in nature, really. There’s a few parks. So, it’s easy to forget about it. And not think that it really matters as long as your Uber comes on time and your latte is ready and your organic eggs are cooked for you. But out here it’s pretty damn obvious that the plants are in charge. Hi, how are you? I guess we’re in the right spot, right?
14:25 How are you? How are you, sir? How are you? Good, great to see you. Dennis, thanks for having me here. Well, thank you for coming. It’s great to see you here. I kind of never thought we’d be sitting here together. I mean, I’m feeling a bit of trepidation, is probably normal. It’s absolutely normal. If you don’t have butterflies in your stomach you’re not paying attention. Well, I’m payin’ attention. Yeah.
14:46 And so, what is your view on what’s happening inside the psychedelic experience? Well, the first thing to get clear is I’m not here to tell ya what’s gonna happen. I mean, what happens will be what happens between you and the medicine. That’s always the way it is. A good shaman, their job is to set the setting, set the context and step out of the way because the real teaching, the real teacher is the medicine.
15:06 In the current language of neuroscience, what do these things actually do? They disrupt what they call the default mode network. Your ego is shot up and you can open yourself up to all these other things that you never pay attention to. And then you realise, wow, I’m missing a lot, these are very important. In some ways, more important than what your ego and your default mode network forces you to look at all the time. We say that you don’t always get what you want with ayahuasca but you always get what you need.
16:32 You can speak about your intentions here, anything that’s weighing on you, whatever you want Willer to know because of course this informs him of where you’re at in your journey. And then kind of as he comes into the medicine space with you, kinda where he directs his energy, the icaros he chooses and how he infuses his intention into those songs. So wherever you’d like to begin.
17:17 Okay. And thank you for havin’ us. My name’s Brian, I’m from London. And I’m just here to listen tonight. And to get some feedback on if I’m doing the right things with my life, if I’m not. Sometimes I feel anxious and unappreciative of the things I have. So I’m really open to anything that is told to me tonight. Ayahuasca.
18:50 So an important aspect to bring to the ceremony is to just have faith in the plants, in nature, in the earth, that it has this innate knowledge, that it has this innate ability to cure us of our illness. This was the original medicine. That although the plants take longer and sometimes the process is more challenging, more difficult, that it actually cures the root cause. It doesn’t just cover the symptoms.
19:13 In the ceremonies, we like to do three with a day in between each one for integration and discussion. The first one, just the ayahuasca’s within you and it is opening you up. And it’s just you getting friendly with it. We’ll skip a day. Then the second time you take it, that’s when usually you’re at the bottom of the abyss. You get to plunge the depths. Or reach the heights depending on what’s happening. But that’s the primary experience. And the third one, it’s kind of the resolving, the sew ’em up and get ’em out. Puttin’ everybody back together in a whole place and ended up. But that’s just a metaphor, yeah.
19:58 All right Dennis. Okay. Thank you very much. All right, to our next conversation. Which I guess will be on the other side of the chrysanthemum, right? Yes, yes.
24:35 Last night’s ceremony was not what I expected. There was no pain or dark visions. Instead I was shown all the incredible people in my life and how lucky I am. The lesson was simple but important. Something that’s easy to forget. Be grateful. Honour what you have and those around you.
25:20 I feel the medicine inside me, opening me up, unblocking me. Now it was time to share my experiences with the group in our first integration session. Today we just wanted to talk a little bit about some tools that we can use to reflect on our experiences and kind of help us move forward, and start thinking about what things will be like when we go home. Integration means bringing things into the whole person. When you take these lessons in it’s kind of a process to make sure that it comes into yourself. The hero’s journal, it’s designed to take you through a self-reflective process of why you’re here, what’s going on for you. It takes you through preparing for ceremony, reflecting on your ceremonies. And I think I’ve heard some of you already reframing some of the difficult things you’ve gone through in ceremony.
26:24 During the integration session Dennis told me he had seen some disturbing things last night. While my first ceremony was about gratitude Dennis had a rougher time. And was reminded that the world has real problems. I was wondering if you could share with us a bit about the ceremony you had, was kind of one of the darker ones.
26:48 Yes, it wouldn’t be the first time I have dark ceremonies. They do come up from time to time. I probably have an unhealthy obsession with current events and watching the news and getting further anxious and depressed and afraid, you know? So that sort of thing comes back on you in your session, it does on me. And my session, the scenario was a dystopian fantasy. It was like a vision of what is happening in the world about the darkest and most pessimistic way you could look at it. And all of these things, which are basically the diseases of our culture, the diseases of individuals are the diseases of the world. Our culture’s soul is severely wounded.
27:55 We are in a planetary crisis. Biologists used to say evolution is all about competition, survival of the fittest, nature red in tooth and claw. Grab as much as you can, rape the spoil, wreck the environment. It doesn’t work that way. Now they’re beginning to understand it’s much more about collaboration and symbiosis and helping each other. And nature does better when species work together, that’s all. We haven’t learned this yet.
28:35 Where does the plant teacher, ayahuasca, come into play? I do believe in the concept of plant teacher. And these are catalysts. We’re co-evolving. It’s all about symbiosis. The ayahuasca and these other sacred medicines are kind of like ambassadors for the entire community of sentient species. And they’re trying to get a message out to us. And the message is basically, wake up. These crazy monkeys are either gonna save the show or they’re gonna completely kick everything to pieces.
29:20 Dennis is tapping into some type of ancestral wisdom, something with a message. Tonight he wants to go deeper. And he insists I go with him. So we’re going to visit the shaman to prepare a super strength brew. I’m not sure if this is a good idea.
30:06 This right here is a concentrated ayahuasca paste, which was brewed on site in a Shipibo village by our shaman and his family and it’s excellent. Really strong medicine. The journeys are more intense, they go more globally focused rather than personally focused. And for my second ceremony you’re gonna give me some of the global brew. If you like. Okay.
30:28 What does he think is the most important characteristic of a great shaman? All the shamanic traditions in South America around ayahuasca, the shaman needs to spend a significant amount of time dieting. So dieting means getting very minimal, very simple food and spending time in isolation in the jungle consuming one of a whole pharmacopoeia of medicinal plants from the jungle.
33:25 This time I’m hoping we can really get a big perspective and maybe I can learn more about plant intelligence, the environment, us as a species, how we interact on this earth, the future, what things look like when we take different directions. So I really need some bigger answers and bigger questions. I’m in the hands of mother ayahuasca and I got Dennis McKenna on my right hand side, the shaman on my left. So, I’m in good hands. But, I mean, let’s be honest, once I’m in there I’m all alone and I’m gonna have to just be ready for everything it brings, so.
34:50 It all came undone. I got obliterated. Completely dissolved. All of these insects were eating up my dead body, just ripping me apart, sending me back to nature, to this giant living organism connected to all. And it said: This is how powerless you are and how small you are. And this is how big we are and how long term we think. You are just nothing here, remember this. And then I don’t know why, I got shown all this pain in the world. And I was made to feel it. I got sick, I felt nauseous. It was horrible.
36:46 And so at the end it just took me and stripped me the fuck way back down and just said: What the fuck are you Brian? Like, you are just this little kid that never got the love that he wanted. You’re just this little kid that just wanted some love and I just didn’t get it and I was crying. I was visualising this little boy. And this was me when my parents got divorced. And this boy was building up all these walls around him because he had been hurt so much. I’m just feelin’ the pain, feeling this pain all the time. And it’s because I just didn’t get this love as a kid, I just didn’t, for whatever reason.
37:27 And I love my dad and I love my mom and I love my parents. I just, I don’t know, I didn’t feel it. And so this is me compensating. And I’m sure Peña sees this. He’s gonna say: Of course, I told you this. You’re compensating, you’re looking for love, you’re looking for approval. And then just my brain was just, just all this information. And it just started hittin’ me with these big lessons. Make her your queen, make her your queen, because she’s such a big part of my life. And she kept coming up, it kept coming up, kept coming up and it’s like, I know this.
38:12 Gabby as well, so Gabriel, I mean. But like the last couple years she’s become a teenager and I’m just not in touch with her. And it’s just totally my fault, my lack of ownership. Everyone, you know, just everyone, just, you know, just. It’s silly, it’s like, I’m like, give me the information, that’s what I’m here for. It’s like, you always had the information. You just chose not to pay attention to it. Because you’re just being bombarded with all this information, your ego decides what’s in it for me. And then I’m doing the me, me, me stuff.
38:36 And you just don’t realise all these things that are happening around you that in the long term are just taking away everything you think you’re building. I just need to start investing in these people, you know? I mean, London Real is London Real but like enough, enough, you know, enough. Enough, yeah.
39:43 So we had our second ceremony last night. And I had quite an experience, probably the most riveting experience of my whole life. It was pretty strong Dennis. Put that in quotes. Trademark that. But I know what you mean. I’ll be interested to see how you handle this tremendous download about your family and all these insights. But I have a feeling that you will do things because you’re the kind of guy that doesn’t just talk, you do things. When we have a psychedelic experience we feel like children. It’s like seeing the world with new eyes, just open to everything.
40:54 I keep reflecting on last night’s ceremony. I felt connected to everything and everyone, that I was just one part of a much larger organism. This leads to one simple truth, what we do to others we ultimately do to ourselves. Humans cannot be healthy in a world that’s dying.
41:18 The archaic mind understood that nature is conscious. Nature is alive. Nature is an organism full of intent. Our own decision to view the universe as inanimate, as unintelligent, allowed us, permitted us to dissect it, use it, and deny its validity outside of human purpose. Now the consequences of living like that is coming back to haunt us. You know, we have almost destroyed our home.
42:03 We have to recover our respect for nature, our love for nature. And we have to realise that we’re not running things. Plants, the plants are running nature. But if you look at the way that plants optimise their relationships with their environment through very clever strategies, that’s a kind of intelligence. We should be so smart. I mean, look at what we do to our environment, you know? So that’s a kind of intelligence. It’s, they don’t think in the way we do. They don’t have brains. Brains are overrated.
42:46 We must give reverence and credence to nature and nature’s methods because no other methods will allow us to work our way out of the present mess we’re in.
43:08 I took the full dose of the rocket fuel last night figuring I was gonna go spinning off into other dimensions. Didn’t happen. That’s happened. I was mostly pretty calm and centred the whole time. Yeah, it was good. The next one, if a patient’s been operated on, this is like sewing them up and getting them out of the operating room and they’re good to go.
43:29 My third ceremony was just like Dennis described. No lessons or visions, just a deep meditation that recharged me. I needed it. Now it was time to leave. The truth is that I got used to the jungle. It feels good to be amongst plants and friends. But Dennis wanted to show me one last thing, a cloud forest. A perfect example of balance and symbiosis.
44:17 We’re in a race. All the forces of destruction and chaos and dystopian futures and then on the other side of the coin brilliant people coming up with good ideas that would really work and that are working. Who wins? I don’t know, I don’t know. Or the David against the Goliath. It is, it is indeed. But a grassroots movement can go viral. These things can happen. This is what we need to make happen. Yeah. And with technology today messages can go. Internet for that. One voice or a few voices can really have a big effect. You are in a position to propagate this message on a global scale.
45:20 The entire destiny of all life on the planet is tied up in this. We are not acting for ourselves. We happen to be the point species on a transformation that will affect every living organism on this planet at its conclusion. The archaic holds answers but it only holds answers if we are willing to think of the universe as a living intelligent entity with which we are in partnership, not set against. But that in fact we are a part of, and an unfolding reality that is larger than human understanding.
46:31 Imagine, larger than human understanding. This whole thing really changed my life Dennis. So, thank you for gettin’ me down here. And I feel like this is just the beginning. I think it is the beginning. It changed my life too. You’re a great partner to work on this. I mean, you really do have global influence. I think we’re gonna encounter some people that we never thought would be part of us on this journey. Gird your loins, keep your powder dry. Let’s do it.
47:14 Man, I don’t like the real world. I don’t like it at all. I miss the jungle. I miss simple food. I miss goin’ to bed early. Promised myself a lot of big changes. And now I have to deliver. So it’s all laid out clearly. The only thing I have to fight against now is me not executing. London, welcome to the machine.
47:58 I felt it as soon as I set foot on the streets. This was going to be challenging. It’s easy to understand cooperation and symbiosis in nature. But not in this concrete jungle where competition is on every corner, where everything screams of separation. Coming back to my studio felt very strange. Like I had changed but everyone here was still the same.
48:20 Good morning everybody, we’re back. Got a lot of really powerful lessons about my life and about this place. First of all, just the people here are a huge resource. And I wanna make sure I spend a lot of time with each one of you and listen to you for your ideas and make sure that your ideas are a big thing of this part of this going forward. And the last thing is I wanna have more fun around here.
48:41 When your boss comes back from an ayahuasca trip it’s not the kinda thing that you expect to encounter in a work environment. You know, things change quite quickly. I wanna focus on the people here. I wanna listen to my team more. I wanna build this space, something that we’re super proud of. When he got back, I mean, he was very different. He was visibly looser. He was visibly more relaxed. He decided we needed more plants in the office.
49:22 Listen to the plants. And make sure that we don’t destroy them because they’re a huge part of why we’re here. And maybe even more important than us sometimes. And as egoic animals sometimes we think we’re just better than any animal and any plant when in fact they have really some fascinating intelligence and they think longer term than we do. He wore some rather interesting shirts for interviews. I’m actually off for two weeks with the family to the South of France. My mom’s having her 75th birthday and all the kids are gettin’ together. So it should be a lot of fun.
49:44 I get back to London with grand visions of everything I needed to change in my life. And I start sharing that with people. It’s funny, I had an ayahuasca ceremony in Costa Rica. Look, I went down there, I’ve only been back three days, I’m still integrating. I get told that I’m connected to everyone around me. You talked about in the beginning, which is we are all one. And so I took a full dose of the condensed stuff, which was probably a double dose. My second ceremony I saw a lot of powerful imagery and feelings about this idea of dissolving the ego or beyond the ego. I got absolutely dissolved.
50:26 And having these individual conversations saying this is the way it’s gonna be. Every molecule in my body was just pushed back into nature. And it was shown to me that I’m just a small speck of nothingness in a billion years of life. It would kinda fight back and say, no, we are this human race and we are feelings and we must at least try to survive. It’s a little too much for some people to handle, all of that stuff. I went down to Costa Rica and drank some ayahuasca, plant medicine. Oh yeah. Yeah. You wanna come do that with me sometime? No, I would never do that.
51:09 You know, they must look at me like a bit of a madman. And it allowed me to think about all of the possibilities, to open my brain up to all of these ideas and truths about the world. And it’s an amazing space where it does that pharmaceutically, whatever it is. Interesting. I mean, the ayahuasca experience is pretty traumatising. But it must be even more traumatising for the person that hasn’t had the experience.
51:38 I think he experienced everything in the ceremony but it’s so hard to describe a psychedelic trip. It’s impossible. Or I don’t know what is worse when people really try to tell you what they’ve been through. Just taking ayahuasca he just had that different perspective that is not all about him at the end of the day. We’re all one, and it’s like he has to do his duty.
52:21 My trip to Costa Rica changed everything. I knew it was time to go big. I realised London Real would play an important part in transforming human consciousness. So we created a new mission, hired more people and doubled our output. London Real has a new purpose. To create a mass scale transformation of humanity into a fully empowered, conscious and cooperative species.
53:04 Outside the studio things were getting real. I don’t usually get involved in protests. But I had to find out what was going on. There were a lot of people. Most of them were no more than 16 years old. I had never seen anything like it. People got the power! People got the power! And it made me think about my own children. What can I do for their future? Climate justice now! But taking part in this conversation is like jumping into a firestorm. It’s a hoax, it’s a hoax. How dare you. An information war that is separating us from each other even more.
53:45 Global warming is the greatest fraud that’s been perpetrated on mankind this century. In the cosmos of time of the 13.8 billion years that we’ve been on this miserable planet it’s not a fart in the wind. And I’m jealous of the Vice President Gore. I am jealous he came up with a scam before I did. Dan, you got the money. I’ve got children. I’ve got 21, 23 year old children. And what’s their future with you people with money? Nah, you’re full of shit, sit down. I’m gonna answer you. Fuck you Dan! I’m gonna add this. Fuck you. Shut up and sit down.
54:25 This is not about who is right or wrong. This is about the story we tell ourselves as a species. Do we want to dominate nature or cooperate with it?
54:49 Environment is a huge issue right now. No question. Am I worried about it? No, I have a plan and I’m working to the plan. Our plan is along with the natural contours of life. If all of us have the same plan we can turn this around. Are we gonna turn it around? You’re asking for a prediction. I’m telling you I have a plan. Are you committed to the plan? That’s your question. Isn’t it? One thing is certain, this strategy for survival is not working.
55:35 Right now you’re happening here as a part of everything else. What the trees exhale you’re inhaling. What you exhale the trees are inhaling. What you think as myself is just a psychological boundary that you have set up. If you experience everything around you as myself, do you need morality? Did anybody teach you, out of these five fingers, this is a small finger, don’t cut it off? Is this a morality needed like that? Anything that you feel is a part of yourself, with that you don’t need any values, ethics, morals, nothing, because it’s a part of you.
55:56 There’s people talking about this. But there’s equally a certain number of people that just say: No, no, no. Let’s just have the fun now. Now makin’ money is better than the ’80s. And they say my generation ripped the ass out of the world. And I was proud to be one of those that ripped it. Then how can we change that conversation?
56:37 The way to stop is to uplift human consciousness so that people can stop thinking about themselves all the time and learn to serve. Your greatest contribution to humanity is your own self-realisation, your own enlightenment. As you uplift yourself you uplift everyone else around you. And for me to be the better version of myself I need to be concentrated long enough so that I can turn my gaze inward, look at myself and go: Where are my flaws?
56:58 My flaws. Unfortunately the harder I worked on London Real the less time I had to work on myself. So I’ve been thinkin’, I wanna host an event that brings everyone together. I’m talkin’ about London Realers from all around the world. And I also wanna get former guests from all different kinds of points of view. I’m talkin’ about people like Dan Peña and Dandapani, Marisa Peer, Mantak Chia, and I wanna put ’em all in one room. Only London Real can do this. And I wanna go big.
57:40 As the months went by our new mission took over everything. The lessons from the ayahuasca were fading and I was falling back into old patterns. So I decided to ask for help. Hey Sean, thanks for gettin’ on the call with me today, I really appreciate it. I’ve been struggling a bit with this whole process of integration. I’m not manifesting everything that I saw. And I don’t know what to do. Everyone around me thinks I’m a bit crazy.
58:21 Absolutely. And this is a really common experience. At Soltara we recommend that people be really careful about how they choose to share their experiences and who they choose to share them with. One of the maestros once said sometimes he doesn’t even tell his own wife because as far as he’s concerned it’s between him and the medicine. And so it’s that level of sacredness that we really wanna encourage people to bring to the medicine.
58:42 I saw these visions of what I should be and what I was supposed to become. I see that I need to spend more time with my children. And listen to every member on my team and act like some benevolent God. I wrote everything down in the hero’s journal. And then I come back to the real world where I have to live and I can’t implement all that stuff practically. It’s just not practical. And I guess I saw an idealised version of myself that I can’t be right now. And that’s frustrating for me.
59:07 Frustration is an emotion. And oftentimes that’s where things head, is like: How do we address these emotions inside ourself? That’s why there’s kind of know thyself, this internal work becomes such an essential part of that. When we’re just tryin’ to push the change to happen, then that’s when we get the most resistance. But the reality is that great accomplishments require hard work and sacrifice.
59:51 There’s no such thing as work/life balance. There are work/life choices and you make them and they have consequences, period. You’re a cunt Brian, not me. Explain. You’re weak. And you’re showing me I’m weak. And you want these people to like you. You have no idea how limitless it is when you’re not afraid of what other people think or say. And you can be more than you are.
1:00:16 If these little cunts think that you’re somethin’ now, I see you a thousand times more. See, they have low standards, these fuckin’ weenies that watch this fuckin’ thing, I don’t. I know what you can be. They think you’re a big fuckin’ deal, I know you’re not! And down deep inside Brian you know that I’m closer to bein’ right than they are.
1:01:03 There’s always a distance with Brian. He’s always on the go. He’s always on the getting things done. Success is everything and career. He came back with all those different, almost like different belief system. I feel a bit off what things he say. Quite a bit of change. I don’t think he likes to be on his own very much. He doesn’t enjoy holidays. He just needs to do something. He always has to do something. He has just a hard time being with me and the children.
1:01:45 In August I had two weeks off. And I’ll be honest, four days later I left and flew back to London alone because I couldn’t be the holiday dad. He just couldn’t stay with us. So I stay in Bordeaux with the three kids. It was Damon’s birthday, the first birthday, and he missed it. I definitely struggle with this problem and…
1:02:27 What was on your mind when you were in Bordeaux? I don’t know, a restlessness. But I just couldn’t get this uneasy feeling of things I needed to do. But this is a big question for me. And even though I know it’s part of my character, changing it’s another story. Well, this is the challenge. Your core issue has always been a sense of adequacy or inadequacy, or am I enough? That am I enough is a question that comes out of trauma. The work is so seductive precisely because it’s so appreciated by the world. If I think I’m not enough then I want more and more validation from the world that I’m enough. So there’s something addictive about that. I mean, if you could do this, spend double the amount, the world would love you even more. Your kids would miss you and your wife would hate you but the world would think what an even greater guy Brian Rose is.
1:03:29 This is where the hunger comes from. You can never get enough because by doing you’re never satisfied when your hunger is about being. I’m not sure that you wanna stay that way for the rest of your life ’cause you got these two young kids. And what’s the message to them when dad is restless around them? That it’s their fault. Yeah. That somehow they’re not adequate. Which happens to be your particular life story. So I’m persisting this throughout the generations.
1:03:52 So that this is how we pass it on. And when you’re restless and unhappy around your kids they get a message that it’s about them. Because children interpret the world in those narcissistic ways, that whatever happens is because of me. So this is a highly traumatised society. But I’m saying this is the world that we’re living in, so this is the world in which there’s even more need for self-examination, for painful inquiry. So in a sense the worse it gets the more it induces people to ask the right questions.
1:04:35 Here I am trying to heal the world. But instead I’m hurting everyone around me. I keep trying to transform humanity but I can’t even fix myself.
1:05:28 When I’m not in the ceremony I go back to default mode as well. Like, am I a living example of what a human should be? No, by no means, and I hate myself for that. Are we doing everything we should be doing? No. Are we putting out the purest message? No. And that pisses me off, it pisses me off. Am I being the best parent? No.
1:05:53 Look, you’re not going to save the world. The world needs to be saved by every person in this world. That’s why this film cannot finish in a happy ending. It’s like, what are we going to do? Are we going to save seven millions of people? They need to save themselves. Yeah, I know but still. I mean, Jesus fucking Christ. You’d think I could be a better example, you know? It’s very frustrating.
1:06:15 I needed to talk to a friend. Dorian Yates was someone who understood me and the medicine. He was our first guest to talk about how psychedelics helped him transform his life after an injury ended his career as the six-time Mr Olympia, the greatest body in the world. Dorian is on a journey of healing and self-discovery. And always learning and reinventing himself.
1:06:37 Recently read this book called The Secret Life of Trees. And it’s all about the trees and how they communicate through the root system. So if this is attacked by a predator the other ones know and they can make some kind of a defensive system or something like that. So are they trees? Or are they just one thing? Yeah. You know? Like people, we all think we’re separate but we’re all one, kind of one unit at the end of the day.
1:07:23 Dorian just had an ayahuasca ceremony himself. A tough one. It was intense. It was probably the most intense ceremony that I’ve been through. All my physicality was taken away. I couldn’t literally move. Tough guy, you know. Okay, you think you’re a tough guy, a strong guy? Okay, let’s see, smash. Now what are you gonna do? Now who are you?
1:07:44 I think the big message there for me was that it’s okay to be like that sometimes. It’s okay to ask for help ’cause I was not used to doing that. Still that western macho male mentality that you gotta be strong always and don’t be vulnerable and don’t ask for help, and all that was just taken away from me. The root of it is a 13-year-old boy that lost his father. And perhaps all the, the training and the strength and all the physique was some kind of an armour, in a way, to protect that little boy that still exists inside all of us.
1:08:29 See, I felt that I had this great loss, this great trauma and it wasn’t really addressed by other people in my family, by my mother and so on. And maybe there was some blame there for that. But I get it man, I get it. And this wasn’t their fault. They were livin’ their story and their own personal traumas and whatever happened in their life, which affected the way that they behaved and the way they treated me and the way they brought me up and everything. So I got rid of that kinda blame that I might have been attaching to all that before. And it would be nice if I could tell ’em that.
1:09:12 You know, I got shown my own trauma as a seven-year-old and my parents divorcing. And that’s something that I think that has caused me to maybe, like you, become an overachiever, maybe, and prove myself to the world. I think prove to myself maybe that I’m worthy. Maybe it’s control as well. You want everyone to love you. Yeah, even though I tell myself that I don’t need it. Yeah. Maybe you got the same thing, you know? Then it becomes maybe just a self-repeating loop. We all get stuck in a mould. And that’s what can happen with ayahuasca. You get that mould and she fuckin’ smashes it on the floor.
1:09:57 The integration process of trying to now become that vision that I’ve seen of myself is hard. And I think most people don’t understand that, the ayahuasca’s not like, you’re done. Matter of fact it can be even harder when you come back because you see who you could be and then you’re not. And then the rest of the world is happy where you are and you have to kinda push through that.
1:10:19 Sometimes when you go on a spiritual journey, I mean, I said to myself sometimes, I’m like, this is great but wasn’t ignorance bliss, you know? It probably wasn’t, but I mean anyway you can’t go back. For me I’m on a journey. And I’m learning something every time. And I know there’s still more to learn.
1:11:03 For me this thing when I was seven years old keeps comin’ up and I don’t know, I’m thinkin’ maybe I should go talk to my parents about it and just maybe have… You’re lucky they’re still here and that you can do that and I can’t. My father died and my mom died so I can’t even tell ’em about this. But, sure, if your parents are here, man, why waste the opportunity? Go speak to them.
1:11:32 So I emailed my dad and said: Hey pops, would you be up for a short visit from me and maybe even a short interview while I’m there? I need to resolve this. And not just for me but for my family, for London Real, for everything. Like, if I can’t figure out this story I’m telling myself I’m gonna just continue in this loop.
1:11:56 My guest today is Dr Joe Dispenza. You specialise in teaching people to rewire their brains and recondition their bodies to make lasting changes. Dr Joe, welcome back to London Real. Thanks so much Brian, I’m always happy to be with you. I’m goin’ to San Diego. To really sit down with my parents and talk about this traumatic memory I have when I was seven. But I don’t think I’m lookin’ for an answer from them because there isn’t an answer. I think the only answer is my projection of my new me and my new future, right? Exactly. What you may wanna understand is how they felt. That’s more important than anything else. Like, it hurt us to see you hurt.
1:13:05 Hey, keep it movin’, ah, no loitering here, all right. You don’t look like you belong in this neighbourhood. Gimme a hug. All right, good to see you. Once you understand their struggle you’ll understand your struggle. You were a seven-year-old boy that, you thought it had somethin’ to do with you or you thought there was something wrong.
1:13:27 What was I like as a kid? You would kind of bang things on the walls and you wouldn’t just cooperate at all. Do you think I was angry because of the divorce? Possibly. I mean, divorce has always hurt kids. But I really wanted to minimise it.
1:13:48 For me, you know, when I do these plant medicine ceremonies and these ayahuasca ceremonies, like, most times it goes back to that moment when I was seven and you told us about the divorce. And I think for some reason with my personality I was just like, I kind of, I just built these walls all up around me at that time. And I was just like. Mm hm, yeah. So it was like I think I just built these walls up. Then I think I realised I was just trying to keep people out of my life so they wouldn’t hurt me. Yeah, right. So I think that’s what that was… Girlfriends. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Potential girlfriends. Especially, of course. Anybody that could hurt me. Give you a hug right now.
1:14:31 I’m goin’ to see my dad now and my stepmother at the house I grew up in in high school in Del Mar. This is like memory lane comin’ back here, which is crazy. When does the story end? If not now, when?
1:15:25 Understanding him is gonna help you understand you. I remember you comin’ home when I was a kid. And it was just a big deal when you came home. But you were comin’ home at night. That’s what happens when you have a serious career goin’ on and your time is already sold. And that’s the way you were brought up, or your dad was not there. It’s the same thing. It was not like it was, I didn’t feel negligent or derelict.
1:15:46 So when I was seven you ended up moving to a different place. Yes. What do you remember about the divorce? All kinds of things, I, I don’t think about that anymore. Okay. It was all, it’s very complicated. Yeah, extremely, right? It’s very complicated. Nothing like we planned. Right, yeah. It was a lot of hard work, a lot of stress on everybody. Yeah, it was. It was something I always come back to. That time always comes back to me. I’m trying now to not do that anymore and just to like not have that define me and…
1:16:30 That’s 40 years ago. I know. Nobody wants to live with their past forever. Time to shovel it over your shoulder. What replaces any traumatic experience is a new experience. And the memory without the emotional charge is called wisdom.
1:16:51 But it’s also really selfish of me to like blame that on you and dad and the divorce because, I mean, how were you feeling at the time? I mean, what was it like for you? Yeah, well, you can imagine. Yeah, I mean, I crashed and burned. I never, his parents and my parents were both married 50 years plus, that was my reality. So when I did confront your dad, you know, I was a mess. I mean, it was almost surreal. It just like, this can’t be real. And then I got that idea to go to Europe, that I had to run away. It was really good for me, had a lot of time to think. And opened up my world.
1:17:33 You no longer say: I am this way because of that event. You say: Boy, that was one of my greatest teachers. And now you’re no longer looking back to your past, you’re looking forward to your future. That tragedy freed me to live a potential that I would have never been able to do or never allowed myself to do. In reordering my life I had to think about: What do I wanna impart to you? I really wanted you to have exposure outside of just American culture. Probably the reason I’m in London right now. Yeah, I think so.
1:18:17 They brought you into this world, dude. And that’s what you should be thankin’ ’em for. I just wanna say thanks dad for bein’ my dad. Love you very much. We wanted you to do well. What if the worst thing that happened to you becomes the best thing that happened to you?
1:19:08 It’s funny how we get caught up in these stories that disconnect us. We get entangled in these narratives that ultimately don’t serve us, that separate us from everything else. But separation is an illusion. Instead we have a choice, to tell ourselves a new story. Yes, change is usually uncomfortable and oftentimes scary. But isn’t that why we are here? To fail, to learn, and come back stronger, to find a way to heal our wounds. Not just for ourselves but for everyone around us. Because we can change our stories if we truly want to, as individuals and as a species.
1:20:20 There was one last thing I had to do, speak to my mentor about all of my experiences. And try to convince the $50 billion man to look at the world in a different way.
1:20:46 You know, last year in July I went down to Costa Rica for some of my plant medicine ceremonies, ayahuasca. And you were there Dan Peña and I needed to tell you what I saw. And I mean this is serious. First of all, I pretty much just get obliterated as a person. And mother earth or Gaia, whoever it is, pretty much just dissolves me and says: All you humans are just nothing. In the grand scheme of time you are really nothing more than a fart in the wind. And it was a painful thing to hear. It was brutal. And because I couldn’t run away from it, I couldn’t check my Facebook feed. I couldn’t call my mommy, right?
1:21:27 And on the same note I came back with a counter argument and said: Okay, yeah, but right now we’re here and we’re humans. And I started seeing human archetypes that are helping us survive. And I saw you in a big way, just like your head was right there pushing us, pushing us to be the best version of ourself or die. And it was just really powerful for me. So I just wanna, I kinda wanna honour you for everything you do. ‘Cause that’s a big deal. And what you do is a big deal. You’re trying to course correct a human species that’s going the wrong way.
1:22:09 Correct. Correct. That could kill itself. Correct, okay. You already think we’re fucked. Yes. We’re dead, we’re all dead. We’re dead. It may be 200 years, 400 years, 300 years. We’re finished. No matter what. No matter what. But if I, it’s like, I dreamt five or six months ago a QLA mentee, probably a Realer, came up with a cure for everything from cancer to impotence to fuckin’ everything. He gave it away. He fuckin’ gave it away. I dreamt it just as clear as I’m watchin’ you right now.
1:22:31 You menteed someone who saved the world. Yeah. And then love worked. That’s very amazing. Now, that’s heavy. And that is the true act of love. Dan Peña just said on record that maybe love worked in the end. At the end. Dan, why wouldn’t you drink ayahuasca with me? Well, I’m not gonna drink ayahuasca. Imagine if you were in power with that. I mean, could be a force to be reckoned with. I’d probably float. Will you before you die? I’m gonna do heroin before I die. Ah!
1:23:13 We are facing a global challenge. It looks pretty crazy out there, right? Our actions in the next 50 years are going to determine if we survive or not. It starts with you making a choice inside. That’s how we’re gonna get through this. And that’s why I think this isn’t a moment of crisis. I think this is an amazing opportunity, I know because I’m on the front lines. London Real via YouTube and iTunes and all these things has spread these incredible messages. People get it. They wanna hear this. All of you want this information.
1:23:57 The next level of evolution is seven billion humans come together to create a super organism called humanity. And I’m so blessed to have this technology and this connection. We couldn’t have done this 20 years ago. Is this a coincidence that this is here now? I think it’s one of our best opportunities. What would it be like to raise an entire generation of young people based upon what we now know to be true in science, that cooperation is a fundamental rule?
1:24:39 And so I ask you today, I’m asking you right now: Who will you become? How will you contribute? And how will you transform yourself? Every day you make a difference of some sort. And you have a choice as to what kind of difference you’re going to make. What am I afraid of? Ask yourself that. It’s really powerful, that fear. We usually run away from it our whole lives. That’s actually somethin’ that we can learn to go into. Discomfort and fear is an arrow. It’s here. This is where the gold is. X marks the spot.
1:25:25 What am I avoiding because it’s uncomfortable? Almost everything I do these days that makes me happy and gets a result is uncomfortable. What is in us we have no idea until we start tryin’ hard. It’s not always meant to be fun. Question number three that brings it all together is this: What was I put on this planet to do? This is a powerful, powerful question. This is not: What do I want to do? ‘Cause I want you to be all you can be, not some fuckin’ reasonable facsimile!
1:26:08 That if we all can do this we’re gonna contribute to the greatest chapter of humanity that the world has ever seen. This is our time. Heavens are collapsing. This is the time to change. If you want to raise human consciousness there has never been a better time. I think they’ll look back on this time in hundreds of years and say: Wow, they were this close to screwin’ it up but they managed to pull it out.
1:26:30 Wake up you monkeys. You know, the first thing you have to do is wake up. Take some action, transform yourself. I really believe our entire species depends on it. And so on behalf of myself and the entire team at London Real I’ve just got one last thing to say to you all: Let’s fucking do this. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you!
