Home  >  Podcast  >  Episodes

Podcast episode 125:
Embracing Vulnerability: A Journey of Self-Discovery

In this engaging conversation, Jay and his guest, Dave, explore themes of vulnerability, self-discovery, and the transformative power of coaching. They discuss the importance of holding space for others, the healing qualities of nature through forest therapy, and the challenges of parenting during adolescence. The dialogue emphasizes the significance of emotional connections and the journey of personal growth, highlighting how shared experiences can foster deeper understanding and connection. Additionally, they discuss their approach to coaching, emphasizing the importance of nature walks, self-discovery, and personal responsibility. There's an exploration of the challenges of pricing coaching services, the significance of curiosity in personal growth, and the need for accountability in overcoming suffering. The dialogue also touches on the balance between desires and acceptance, ultimately leading to a deeper understanding of contentment and gratitude in life.

Keywords
coaching, vulnerability, self-discovery, holding space, forest therapy, emotional connection, parenting, personal growth, nature, mindfulness, coaching, nature walks, self-discovery, personal growth, mindfulness, pricing, curiosity, accountability, acceptance, contentment

Takeaways
It's okay to feel nervous; embrace it. Vulnerability fosters deeper connections with others. Many people are still figuring out their paths in life. Holding space allows others to express their emotions without judgment. Nature has healing qualities that can aid personal growth. Self-discovery is a continuous journey, regardless of age. Emotional connections with family can be challenging during adolescence. Practicing mindfulness can help in understanding one's emotions. Coaching can provide a framework for personal transformation. Sharing experiences can lead to profound insights and connections. Nature walks can be transformative experiences. Coaching should be accessible and open to all. Pricing for coaching is a complex issue. Self-discovery is a journey of faith and exploration. Suffering often stems from our own perceptions. Curiosity is essential for personal growth. Accountability is key in the coaching process. Desires can lead to suffering if not managed. Acceptance of the present moment fosters peace. Contentment is a practice that can be cultivated.

Generated Transcript
Jay Deppen (00:00.088)

go by Dave, right? I do go by Dave, unless you're, unless you're mad at me, then you can call me David. David. Gotcha. All right. Well, hopefully that, that doesn't happen. I'll be, I want to say I'll be disappointed in myself if I get mad, but, I try not to go, go that direction. I hear you. we met on Reddit, just, just chatting. We, started, messaging each other. Dave's a coach and, yeah, we kind of had a little bit of a connection. So we want to jump on here, just kind of talk a little bit about.

what Dave is doing, what Dave has learned about, and some of the new stuff that he's getting involved with. Thank you for having me. I should say that this is my first podcast ever. So let's just get that out of the way there, right? Because I think, Jay, you and I have been talking that what I believe to be important is to do the work. And doing the work is just really looking inside ourselves and seeing what comes up in response to everyday life.

And so when Jay sent me this invite for the podcast, I'm sitting there like five minutes beforehand. I'm like, I feel kind of nervous. Like why, why am I nervous? I do presentations all day long. Like, I was, I just sat here and I was like, I actually kind of enjoyed the experience of being nervous, right? Rather than, rather than push it away, rather than freaking out. just got, I kind of sat with it. So if you're seeing any of that in this podcast and just know we're just going to rock it and we're going to go with it. Yeah.

Yeah, that's important. And I think what I'm discovering myself is, you know, I can be nervous, I can have social anxiety, and, you know, my wife will be like, yeah, I couldn't tell that at all. you know, so we're in these situations, we're imagining like, my God, everybody knows I'm so awkward right now. And it's like, they're just thinking about what they're doing. And, you know, a lot of times, so sometimes I wonder how much, you know, that even bleeds through to begin with.

You know, the funny thing I learned about that is like, I don't know if you've ever experienced this, Jay, but it's like these things that we experience to me feel so very isolating that like, oh man, I'm feeling nervous and it must just be me. Jay's done this a million times and you know, he's there, calm and cool as a cucumber. But like what I found almost as a general rule is that like everybody gets nervous, everybody gets angry. And we tell ourselves these stories that it's just me.

Jay Deppen (02:24.622)

and I'm failing because of it. And generally when you open up about it, you find that everybody's experiencing the same thing and then you get some really deep connections. What I found is important with my team is like, if I'm stressed or if I'm frustrated, I try to give language to it and like I might have a daily huddle. was like, you know, guys, if I sound frustrated today, it's because of this thing that I'm dealing with over there.

Because what I found is if I don't do it, then they'll pick up on it. They'll think that I'm frustrated at them, which is not the case, right? So it's just like, there's times when we can hold it real deep inside and no one will know. But then there's times when it just starts to like leak out and then the people on the other side are like, geez, did I do something wrong? So I do think that vulnerability is so important.

Yeah, yeah. And it's, I find it's important to, kind of be on the same page with other people as far as like how the mind works, you know, so, um, you know, we're just kind of a lot of economic, uh, and uncertainty in the U S right now it seems. So I was like, yeah, let me go to Costco and stock up and get some canned stuff. So I bought a bunch of stuff. My wife's at work and she's getting ready to go to bed and I was like, Hey, you want to go check out the stuff I got? And, uh, she was like, um, is it okay if we do that tomorrow?

And, you know, for me, being able to say to her, just so you know, my mind is really having a problem with this because I went ahead and did all this. I'm excited to show you and it seems like you don't really care about that, right? So it's more of just like an exploration about like, here's what my perspective is doing. Here's what my mind is doing. It's not really this is what. I don't just don't take ownership of it, right? I don't know if you've had conversations like that with people, but to be on the same page,

with people as far as how the mind works and our perspectives and stuff. It's just so less threatening to say, here's what my mind's doing. What do you think about this? What are your thoughts? What's your perspective? It's funny that you would mention that, because I had that same exact experience with COVID. And I wasn't one of those who went to Costco and bought out all the toilet paper. But I bought a 50 pound bag of rice. And I bought a few things that canned beans, just because like, my god, COVID.

Jay Deppen (04:47.918)

what's going to happen to our supply chain. And every single time I go into my garage now, I see like that bag of rice that's sitting there as a reminder that like, oh, I was freaking out and maybe it was justified at the time, but you know, like now that we're kind of getting into this new era of uncertainty, I see those same patterns of behavior occurring again. Like, like you said, like wanting to go to Costco and stock up because you want basic safety and security, right?

And I think that there's a level of responsibility in there, right? You want to make sure that your family is safe. But if you're anything like me, you might've gone too far to one extreme. And then, and then you go back to your wife and you're like, look at everything I did. And she's like, yeah, I don't care. Look at my records that I just bought the other day. Right? Like it's important to you, but not important to them. That's important that. Yeah. That is a super critical to realize is like.

just because this is my perspective, she's not seeing it the same way as me. to expect that she should is only my, that's gonna make, that's really gonna mess me up. That's really my issue to begin with. Yeah, you really gotta own it. Yeah. So you did a coaching program or you're in the middle of a coaching program. Is this your first one? And I know you're kinda doing a new thing with what? Forestry?

Force therapy, Force therapy, okay, yeah. Yeah, so the first coaching program that I had was for the Center of Transformational Coaching, and it was called Holding Space. And I was like, was really trying to like, for perspective, I'm 48 years old, and I'm still trying to figure out what I wanna do when I grow up. And funny, like almost every single person that I talk to, no matter what their age has said to me, I'm still trying to figure out what I wanna do when I grow up.

So if anybody is listening to this and you're asking yourself those very same questions, you're not alone. So I was like, well, I wanted to do something bigger than what I was currently doing for a job. I'm a director of IT by day. And I stumbled upon this coaching class called holding space. And like that phrase had been going through my mind even before I'd ever found this class. And when I stumbled upon it, I was like, this is perfect. This is a sign from the universe. And so I, you know, I enrolled in it.

Jay Deppen (07:03.95)

It was a fairly cheap class. was $600. mean, maybe not everybody would call $600 cheap, I suppose, but in the grand scheme of coaching, it's fairly cheap, right? And it was eight classes and there was people from Hong Kong and Japan and France and the U S all in it. And we met every Tuesday in the morning and it was the most mind blowing best thing I'd ever done. And like I go into the first class, right?

And it's me, one other man, and the rest were women. So already we're getting into a territory where it probably seems like it was more common for women to explore than to men. I was kind of the minority, I guess. But that didn't really matter too much. But in the first class, everybody in the class is throwing up hearts, and they're saying words like namaste. And I'm like,

What did I just get myself into because this is not me, right? And I I kid you not by like by the eighth class with full sincerity. I use the word namaste, right? so to go from class on day one to thinking like What kind of mumbo jumbo new age bullcrap is this to? this man eight weeks later using the word namaste Like who are you and what have you done with Dave?

And like the best thing about the holding space is just like you create this, well, I don't want to keep reusing the phrase, but you create this space where you hold from the heart and it's a safe, trusted place. And I remember on the seventh class that I ended up, I just broke down in tears on Zoom and I had absolutely no shame about it.

And then our last class, we were all kind of feeling this sense of grief because we had just built all these great connections and now it was gone, it was done. And so again, know, here, so paint this picture on your mind, Jay, right? It's 10 a.m. and I'm at work, like I'm in the offices at work and I have to go find a private office space. And so I go into the space and we have these like this, we all say goodbye. And again, here I am on Zoom with just tears coming out of my eyes, just like.

Jay Deppen (09:26.75)

so grateful for the experience. I'm what the hell? know, I'm at work and I complete this class and then I go back. Like it was just the most mind blowing thing I've ever done. And I take that and I still try to practice it to this day. I do it at home. I do it at work. And to be able to offer that to somebody, like somebody who's sitting across from you who's suffering, I mean, they could be angry, they could be sad, they could be anything.

And just holding holding space for them. Yes, so you're just allowing them to to just be and express whatever they they're expressing out, you know, so so I guess it's a place. What is that a place of like? No judgment, is it just a just a witnessing? It's it's not completely a passive experience, right? And so kind of there's four, I guess.

pieces of the framework of holding space. I mean, if anybody ever wanted to look to know more, I think we could probably might be able to make my website available to them. basically it starts with slowing it all down, right? I don't know about you, Jay, but like my mind goes a million miles per hour. I tell myself all these stories, right? And you just start by slowing it all down.

And the next one is spiritual activation. And spiritual activation might mean something different to everybody. There's no religious kind of prescriptive to it. It's just whatever you believe. So then it is sitting in silence, which is probably the hardest part. And if you've ever practiced meditation, it's probably similar to that. And where I think it really gets interesting is the fourth component is

And hopefully I don't get them mixed up because if anybody's listening from that class and they might take away my certificate, right? But it is holding from the heart. And that's where I think you start to create that trusted safe space. Right. And so one of the ways that they teach us to do this is you close your eyes and as you breathe in, you imagine as though it is your heart that is the one that is breathing.

Jay Deppen (11:47.128)

So you breathe in with your heart.

and you breathe out with your arms.

And the fourth, the fifth one is embracing pain. And that is so hard, but that is key to work key to the work. Right? So if you're, if you know, if your wife is sitting across from you, your partner is sitting across from you, your coworker is, and they're in tears or they're suffering. What's the first thing that many of us go to do? We go, we go to like, we want to fix it. Holding space.

isn't allowing. So I just had this, I had this experience with my coworker who was like so frustrated. I was like, okay, I'm just, didn't tell her what I was doing. I said, I'm just going to practice holding space. And she went through this, like this whole transition where she came in and she was really frustrated and uptight and just like, just like this, right. And at one point she broke into tears and I didn't say anything. just, I just sat there.

trying to allow myself to feel whatever it is that she felt.

Jay Deppen (12:58.706)

And along the way, as you, as you practice holding space, sometimes you'll find that like these little fragments come to you and it's a skill, I think that you have to practice to know, like, are these fragments things of the ego? Right? Things that like, I think that Jay needs to hear, or sometimes there's, there's an intuition that comes from down deep. it's like, it's things that I don't know where they come from.

but I'll offer them up and if they resonate with you, then you can take it. And if not, you can leave it. You have an example of what that might be. Yeah. So one of the women in my holding space class, we had developed a friendship and we had met a couple of times afterwards. And she was sharing with me how she was struggling a little bit with the thought that she was losing her son.

And you could imagine like, so I have my own kids. My son is 14 years old. And so what I have to deal with is one is my attachment to who he used to be. Right. Like, know, my son who was playful and innocent is now growing up and wants very little to do with his dad. Right. So like I am losing my son. That's one way to look at it. And so as I'm, as I'm holding space with her, she's sharing with me how.

She gets this image of a dark woods and in the middle of the woods is this like, is this fireplace and it represented like this primal place for her. Right. And so a couple of weeks later, I was holding space for her. And the thought that came to my mind was, cause she shared that she was kind of in a dark night of her soul, which is like just this, this intense place of suffering and despair.

feeling lost, not knowing where to go. And she wasn't with me at the time, but I was kind of practicing holding space for her, I could sense that she was suffering. And what I shared with her, because these words came to my mind, is I said something like, in the dark night of your soul, find the fire in the middle of your woods. There is a thing that is asking to be loved.

Jay Deppen (15:26.267)

and

I was like, I don't think that that's meant for me. So I took a chance and I just emailed it to her. was like, I think that these words are meant for you, not for me.

And I think that's a big part of it is like knowing when to trust that like that was a big gamble, right? Like, you you could, you could say like that on one hand, you could say that that's kind of like crazy and esoteric. Like why, why am I getting these, these flashes of intuition? And on the other hand, you can believe that there's something bigger than yourself.

So I don't know if that answered your question. Yeah, I mean, I don't know if it did either, but I do know that my daughter's 16 and a half. And so I'm dealing with dealing with I'm experiencing the same type of thing, right? It's like, man, when she was younger, we used to play and wrestle and I watch shows together. And it was just like, it was probably a love that I never experienced. And so to have that

kind of go away and you know logically I know that she's a teen you know teens are typically more self-oriented and she's building her own life and I know that I don't want to take my desires or even my my hurt my pain and even I don't even want to share that with her because I don't want to guilt her you know I want her to deliver life and do her thing but that has been that has been very hard for me I believe so

Jay Deppen (17:02.388)

Yeah, I appreciate going through that that exercise and really knowing that that you've kind of gone through a lot of that It sounds like she's doing the same is that does she was she dealing with a different experience or a same thing as what you talked about with your son Well her her son was a little bit older He was he was grown up and moved out of the house. So kind of probably similar basis of feelings, but a different scenario

Okay, but it's funny. It's funny you would mention that about your daughter, right? Because my daughter is 12 years old now 12 years old going on 18 and Like I swear to you it was six months ago that I would get the biggest hug from her that I was the light of her life Right that like, you know, I had daddy's girl we could do everything together And now when she comes home from school she goes straight up to her room and I might see her five minutes in the day, right and That is part of like that is the hardest thing

thing that we have to deal with is reconciling how things used to be and how things are now. And, you I heard you say that like, you don't want to share your pain with her. And I've been really conflicted about that with my own daughter, because like, on one hand, I wanted to allow her a lot of freedom, right? Like if she wants to spend time in her room, then I want to be able to support that.

But there is a narrative in my head that says, well, maybe she feels as though I'm pushing her away. I know you don't know, You absolutely don't know. And so it's like, you have to figure out, like, guess, you know, sometimes it might be worthwhile to say something. Yeah. And sometimes it might just be better to keep it to yourself. And I have, I've kind of expressed her a little bit, like, I'm just hanging out and I know you have your own stuff going on and...

I just, you cause she'll talk with her mom about stuff that's bothering her. She doesn't really talk to me about it. Maybe she doesn't want coaching, but that's probably what it is. They're both females, you know, and my wife is more, God, I'm not going to even be able to say this where people can understand, but like she's more in the real world, so to speak, right? She's in emotions and she's in, you know, she just can is,

Jay Deppen (19:18.83)

probably more relatable with my daughter, whereas I'm kind of more like, you know, I can look at my own situation with my daughter and see that it's my own expectation that it should be different. That's, that's upsetting me, you know, and as a teen going through stuff with your friends, maybe you don't always want to hear that. You know, she's even said that to me, dad, I just want you to, you know, tell me what I want to hear. I can't do that. Yeah. So, so anyway, yeah, I do feel like I want her to know that.

If there's anything that I'm doing, any behavior patterns that I have that prevent you from coming to talk to me, I want you to share that with me. And, our relationships improved in the sense that I think she feels completely accepted by me because I just want to learn her perspective. I want to understand how do you see the world? And then from there, I can ask you questions about that just to make sure like, does this make sense for you? And I might think this is about a plan.

But if she thinks it's a bad plan, I mean, if she thinks it's a good plan, then she's gonna have to do that because that's her perspective. I think we have a rock solid foundation. It's just like the, you know, the playful, the let's watch a movie together. All that stuff is not there now. But I do see for myself that I wanna make sure that I keep trying, right? Hey, let's go to Cheesecake Factory and get these avocado egg rolls that I've been telling you.

No, I don't have time today. Okay, cool. You know, and just kind of keep not give up, right? So I don't experience anything like that with your kids as far as like, why do I even try? Yeah, I mean, I suppose we try because we love right? Like, we because we because we care if we didn't try anymore that would just say we didn't care. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's a hard balance because you know, it's almost like

In a sense, you could say it's like learned helplessness, right? It's like, well, every time I invite her, you know, she's busy. So what's the point? So yeah, it's a, it's, it's a challenge for sure. Yeah. So the, the other, the other coaching class that I'm enrolled in right now is called forced therapy guide, which, so in full disclosure, I'm only two classes in, but it's a six month class. Right. And so like,

Jay Deppen (21:40.866)

Part of my story is that about seven years ago, I don't know you want to call it a breakdown, but let's just call it a breakdown, right? So seven years ago, I had this breakdown and I've been trying to figure out, I would say I've been trying to figure out my way back, but there is no going back, right? So maybe we'll just say I've been trying to figure out my way through. And a large part of that story over the last seven years was just spending a lot of time in nature, right? Just by myself, going up the mountain, going into the woods.

And I didn't know it at the time, but there was so much healing quality in spending time in nature. And as I wrapped up this coaching class, you can imagine that I wanted more, right? I just wanted more connection, more meaning, more, more, more. And this one fell in my lap. And I was like, this could not be any more perfect because I, they had an orientation call and in the orientation call, they must've used the phrase holding space like five or six times, right?

And I'm like, okay, universe, I get it. I get the hint and I'm going to sign up. And so in this forest therapy class, my role in it is the guide, right? And the guide merely opens the door, right? So you make an invitation, you get a group of people together. So the basic framework is you all show up to a trail and you just do it. You do a brief pleasures of presence, right? And a pleasures of presence is essentially

Think of it like a sensory meditation. So you close your eyes and you just breathe and you witness the sensation of breathing. Then you might invite them to listen. You might invite them to smell, to hear, to touch, right? And really what you're trying to do is connect them with their senses, right? Really get them into their body. And from there, a fourth therapy walk is slow.

slower than you probably would be comfortable with. And the entire point of slowing down is so that you can witness more along the way. And a couple of points during a forced therapy walk, you'll stop and there'll be invitations. So one of the invitations might be something like kneel down to the ground and scoop up some dirt, right? Like what do you notice about the dirt? Are there pine needles in it? What does it smell like?

Jay Deppen (23:58.894)

They ask you to taste it. I don't know if I've been that brave yet. Right. Really? Taste it. Wow. Yeah. It tastes the dirt, I guess. Right. Or they might say, you know what, like go and find a tree that calls you and put your hand against it and talk to the tree. Right. So, so these are things that like, if you've never experienced these sorts of things, like go talk to a tree, what are you, what are you talking about? Right. Right. But it's really like, they're merely suggestions and it's designed to help you connect.

to your own experience. And so if you're not really feeling the whole, I'm gonna go talk to a tree, but you wanna go sit off in a corner and go stare at a bush for a while, that's perfectly okay, that's your experience. And in the end, what you do is you have a sharing circle and a tea ceremony. So you brew up some tea and you all kind of share what you noticed about the experience.

And in your tea ceremony, you pour a little cup of tea for each one of them, and then you pour a cup of tea out for the forest, and then you go along your way. But the reason that I'm so interested in forest therapy is because that's how I kind of found my path to healing. And if I could put some language around it and I could be a part of someone else's healing journey, like to me,

To me, that would give my life a sense of meaning and fulfillment and connection unlike any others. So there is a big aspect of this, a selfish aspect of it, right? There's a selfish aspect of holding space. There's a selfish aspect of forced therapy because there's something in it for me. Yeah. Right. I get that connection. I get to feel like I'm a part of something bigger.

But there's also a selfless part of it. Right, the selfless part is getting to witness someone else coming into their own truth, whatever that truth might be. Man, that sounds like good stuff. You know, I don't know, it's probably a different, totally different experience, but you know, is that something you could do with people over like a video call? Like, let's say you, let's say I wanted to do it and I'm like, man, I don't know what I'm doing. I'm out here, I'm just staring at a tree.

Jay Deppen (26:21.526)

I need Dave to help me through this. Is that something that you've considered doing? Yeah. So it's funny you should mention that because as part of this curriculum, you attend a remote guided walk. So our instructors, so they have six remote guided walks and you have to attend at least three of them. And so it's set your expectations. It's about a two to three hour event and

You've got your headphones in and you've got your phone in your pocket and they just lead you through the entire thing. Now in full disclosure, I haven't been to an in-person one, but I'm guessing that an in-person one has a little bit more substance to it than a remotely guided one, but you can absolutely do remote guided ones. Yeah. You know, I'm in upstate New York, so it's winter right now. man, in the summer I was really getting out a lot.

So yeah, I might need to actually just kind of suit up, get the snow pants on and just kind of get out there and take a walk. I feel like I could use one. Yeah, I was out there because I was trying to practice my own force therapy just to get a little bit more comfortable with it. And I was out there the other week. It was like three inches of fresh powder on the ground, probably 20 degrees.

And I must have like five layers of thermal underwear and a jacket and a hat and gloves. And I made it through the two hours, but I wouldn't have been, I wouldn't want to be out much longer than that. Oh, wow. Two hours. Okay. Yeah. All right. Well, I might need to do that then. I might need to go, go take a walk a little bit later today. Well, you know, I'm going to be looking for, for volunteers, know, Jay, cause I have, I have to facilitate.

for my own walk. So those might be in-person walks, they might be remote guided walks. So I'm gonna put out a call for volunteers here in a couple of who are willing to learn alongside me. Okay, so what would that be like? mean, how many, what's the duration? I know you said two hours, would these practice sessions be two hours or? Probably give or take. I think I'd have to iron out the timing a little bit, but you know,

Jay Deppen (28:37.718)

I would plan on about two to three hours. Two to three hours. Wow. Okay. Yeah. Nice. Okay. Yeah. It's like, it's, it's, it's sound. It sounds like on one hand, a long time commitment, right? Three hours in the forest. What am I, what am I going to be doing for three hours in the forest? But it's funny because my experience has been like once I get in and then with the time I leave, I look at my watch and I'm like, Holy crap, I just spent three hours in the forest. Where did the time go?

Yeah, I could see that. I could see both sides of it because from this position now it does seem like three hours big time commitment. Like if I go out for 30 minutes, you know, that seems like a good time. But I guess, you know, you don't know until you've gone through the experience. So. Well, maybe we can experiment with bite sized. Right. That's what I feel like would be. I mean, for me, in my mind, that seems like a good way to get people kind of warmed up to it is like

We're just gonna start with like a breakout session of 30 minutes just to kind of get you acclimated and then and then increase from there kind of like meditation or various other things Yeah, because I think if you were to ask somebody who's never meditated before To sit for three hours and meditate and you know what? I've not meditated for three hours. I don't I can't imagine what that would be like I know that there's people who are but you know, I do hear you right there's like

this barrier, I guess, is like, three hours is a lot of time to be spending out of my day. Yeah, for sure. So are you doing coaching then? Are you open to people contacting you to do this holding space? Yeah. So how can people get a hold of you for that? how can people get a hold of you? One, with your website, your email, any contact information you want to give, but also

Pricing, how you're doing with that right now, anything you want to give us. Yeah, it's funny, as I was talking to my wife about it, she's like, what do you expect to make a lot of money off of it? I was like, I'm not going into this to make a lot of money. Right? I mean, I suppose if I could break even and pay for some web hosting fees, that might be my goal. But my goal is not to become rich off of it, although I wouldn't argue if that were the case.

Jay Deppen (31:02.958)

So I'm kind of still just trying to figure out what the pricing might look like. But I think like you, Jay, like I've been active on Reddit and I've reached out to people and I said, hey, if you ever want me to hold space for you, if you just want to talk, as far as I'm concerned, right now there's no charge associated with that. Like I'm just doing it because one, I need the practice. Two, because I want to be able to do something to give back. There's been so many people have been a part of my life.

In September, I launched my website, lightandlove.com, which tries to take the whole ethos of my healing journey and put it out there. think the better question is how do you even get discovered? Because there's so much noise out there, and how do people even know if you're the right person to work for? So to answer your question, if you were to go to lightandlove.com, and I'm working on rebranding it, because right now,

what you'd be looking at is the best that I can do, but I'm not a web designer. So I have a project that someone is redesigning it for me. But anyway, there's on the coaching page, there's a 30 minute free discovery session, and then there's a 60 minute session. But if anybody wanted to contact me separately on admin at light and love.com, I'm happy to work with whoever. Okay. Yeah, that's beautiful. Yeah, it's kind of my philosophy too at this point in

I don't know where it's going to go. I'm hesitant to say like, I don't charge for coaching just because, you know, two years from now, maybe I do charge for coaching and somebody's, you know, I thought you didn't charge like, yeah, things change. But I do see like, you know, if you started helping a lot of people at a certain point, you know, you're, can only fit so many people into your schedule. So you have to create, you know, I mean, it makes sense to charge, you know, all right, well I'll charge 25 bucks an hour and then certain number of people are going to fall off.

The other thing is, you know, putting on group events or online meetings or something like that where you can host more people. But yeah, I just feel like there's a lot of pain, a lot of suffering in the world. you know, I don't know, just this, it's not like I'm closed off to capitalism, but it just seems like everything is focused around money. And, you know, if we can set that aside for a moment and take a look from just

Jay Deppen (33:30.638)

place of love a place of caring about other people like the money stuff for me just kind of gets in the way so Yeah, but who knows where where it's gonna go. What's gonna happen with it is just like my buddy and I he's a he's another coach and We say we're just following the breadcrumbs, right? We're just doing whatever makes sense to do next and so hmm We don't know what the future is gonna be like we could try to predict it But then you know, there's our expectations and our disappointment if it doesn't go the way that we think it should

You know, it's just about for me seeing how it does turn out rather than how I think it's going to or should turn out. Yeah. I guess what I hear in that is like, you know, you're kind of letting go of attachment to the outcome, right? Like it's the ultimate expression of faith that at least in my case, like I just feel called to do this sort of thing. And I don't know where it's going to go. I don't know if it's going to amount to anything. That's almost irrelevant just because like,

It's something that I feel called to do. I would do it for free, not take the pricing out of it. But I launched my website for free. I post blog articles just because I love to do it. I think on the subject of pricing, it is a touchy subject, I think like you, capitalism might have outlived its original purposes, I suppose. If you think about, well, why does a coach charge money? Why does anybody charge money?

Like, why do I pay money to go coaching? So I see a coach and I pay her 150 bucks per hour to go talk to her for about an hour. And it's really just, in a way, like I guess an exchange of energy. you know, I go through my day-to-day job and I get paid. So I put all my energy into my work and I get paid as a result of it. And she's doing the same thing, right? She's putting in work, she's putting in time, and I'm compensating her for her energy. But it's also like,

Because I pay for coaching, I'm almost that much more invested in it. Right. Like I'm not going to go pay $150 for an hour of coaching and not do anything with it. Right. Like, like I want someone else's perspective. I want to come out of it changed. And every single time I've seen a coach and I've been, I've seen a lot of coaches. I've seen a lot of, I've seen therapists and every single time.

Jay Deppen (35:57.014)

I would always leave with a new way of looking at the world that I hadn't before. So like, when I think about like, why do I pay for coaching? It's because I'm investing in it and I'm investing in myself. Yeah. Yeah. I'm actually working with somebody and we've been, we've been chatting, geez, maybe since 2019, 2020, something like that. I don't charge her anything. You know, she's got some financial issues and stuff like that. And I just enjoy.

you know, helping her out. But, you know, she's like, I want to start paying. And I was like, are you sure? Because, you know, I don't charge. And she's like, well, I feel like I'll be more invested. So I think what you're saying is, is right. You know, people feel like they have more skin in the game. So yeah, I guess, I guess it kind of just got to see where where it takes us and see how it goes. But so, so well, so how about you, right? So like,

I know you said you're kind of like, you're operating on faith and you asked me about my website and how people contact me, but like, what is your, and I'm going to ask you to get attached to the outcome for a minute, right? Like what is Jay's vision of success? Like, well, like if you could wave a magic wand and you could, your coaching business or whatever it is, like what does great look like to you? Yeah, that's interesting.

I would say success in general for me is just being at peace, you know, in my life. Success in coaching would be just helping as many people as I can. But yeah, you know, I did want to make a distinction on there on the attachment to the outcome. It's like, you know, I can see like a vision for the future, which is, which is, of course, different than attachment to the outcome, right? It's like,

I can think, this is going to be great. You know, I'm going to help a lot of people, but they might not work out at all. So yeah, I don't know. I don't know what's, I don't know where it's headed. I see the process of kind of like tightening up my understanding, polishing my understanding as I hit snags in my life. I kind of go through and rework my system. Like, okay, why am I upset here? How does my system, where's my system failing me?

Jay Deppen (38:19.714)

from that. somebody if I were coaching somebody who is having this issue, what would I say to them? You know, because I wanted to make sure it covers everything. So, yeah, and then doing chats like this, this looks like the most obvious next step for me doing chats with other coaches or even people that I'm coaching and, you know, pulling out the nuggets, throwing those on social media, just kind of starting to build a following of people who are interested in what I have to say. So.

Yeah, it's kind of a weird spot because I don't have any specifics. I don't have any specific direction. I'm almost moving in a general direction. Does that answer your question or is it just muddy? Yeah, yeah. No, I think that's fair. Yeah. Yeah, so if people come to you for coaching, what is your, could you give us kind of a...

And I'm putting you on the spot, obviously. Basically, give us your philosophy. What is people's problems? Why do people struggle? Just give us your thoughts on where people are, where they start tripping up, and what they need to start seeing for themselves in order to move in a different direction. So I have this theory.

The only experience that I have to base this theory off of is my own experience, my own internal experience and what I've observed of others, right? So I have this theory that we all experience suffering, right? I mean, I think we can all agree that we all suffer at some point in our lives, right? But like what I've noticed about myself and kind of in general about other people is that when we suffer, we tend to do a couple of things. One is we're either gonna like,

bury it down deep and we're going to numb it. Right? Like, you know, whether it's alcohol or drugs or TV, we're going to do whatever it is in our power so that we don't feel that suffering. Or we're going to project it onto someone else and make ourselves out to be the victim. Right? But what I found in my life is that anytime suffering or painful emotions arise, they're there to teach me a lesson.

Jay Deppen (40:39.168)

And if I don't learn from them, if I push it aside, if I project it out, it will keep coming back and coming back until I learn from it. And it often increased in intensity until I couldn't ignore it anymore. like, think that like, one, it's like mirrors, right? So like if I get triggered at something that happens at work, or my wife just frustrates me for some reason, or my daughter gets on my nerves,

They're just mirroring my internal state that I've been unwilling to admit. So I'll give you a real good example, Jay. Lately, work has been really frustrating. And I would come home night after night complaining to my wife about how it was so disorganized and chaotic at work. And you can imagine that each night I would come home and I'd get worn out. It's it's so, so disorganized. I can't take it anymore.

And the other day I decided, well, I'm just going to take my own medicine. I'm getting triggered by work. I better look inside myself. And so the work that I do, there's some very uncomfortable questions. So the uncomfortable question that I had to ask myself was, how am I disorganized?

And holy crap, like no sooner did I ask that question than I could look around me and I could see all my notes that are over here, my sticky notes that are up here and my half finished work over here. And I'm like, oh God. Work is disorganized, yes, but I'm disorganized too. I would get triggered about my wife. I'd be like, oh God, my wife is so dirty.

Well, how am I dirty? crap. Right? Like all of a sudden, like I was like, I would judge and I would judge and I would judge. But then as soon as I turned the lens on myself, I could see that all of these things that I was judging other people for were really inside of me.

Jay Deppen (42:55.736)

So things like you didn't like about yourself. yeah. Yeah. And like, so so part of the work, I believe, is about uncovering those pieces of ourselves that have never known love, right? Those pieces of ourselves that we're ashamed of, that we push down deep, that we don't even want to acknowledge and be able to bring them to the light. Right. The things

Like the disorganized pieces of ourselves, the dirty pieces of ourselves, the late pieces. Like those are all things that are asking to be loved and eventually, hopefully let go. So it's really like my coaching philosophy or even my philosophy in life is I guess I could use one word to describe it and that will be curiosity. Yeah. Right. Like, like that question, how am I disorganized?

invites curiosity. And it's all in how it's all in how you ask it to like, you know, because if I say I'm not disorganized, then that just shuts me down.

But as soon as I allow it and I say, how am I disorganized?

then I can start to heal from it. You know, are you familiar with Byron Katie? Of course. Yeah. Okay. Good. So she has the turnaround and it's that exact question. You know, you turn it around on yourself and you ask yourself like, where am I this? and yeah, that's, that's a beautiful, I don't ask myself that enough. I feel like, I could ask myself that a lot more and that would, would be beneficial. But what you said about curiosity is, is a place where I've been

Jay Deppen (44:37.76)

spending a lot more time, right? Because the way I describe it is there are things I'm disliking. I'm disliking my wife is dirty. I'm disliking how it's disorganized that work. So rather than, so that dislike is the trigger. That's the alert, the alarm. And that throws us into curiosity, right? So it's like, not only why am I having a problem with this, but like you said, which is super powerful, it's like, where am I this that I don't like about the world? And because if I see that as,

a vice or a negative, yes, that's in my power to clean that up about myself. If I see this as something that's harmful, then yeah, it makes sense to eliminate it in myself. So yeah, I can see the power in that for sure. So I'm curious, Jake, is like, are the things that I've noticed? And you know, don't know about this. I don't know about you, but I'm guessing that this is a true statement. like, I'm willing to do that hard.

I'm willing to turn the mirror on myself. I'm willing to challenge my own assumptions and to grow as a result of it. And I kind of get the sense that you're kind of like cut of that same cloth, right? That you're, you're willing to do that hard work. But what I've observed is like, and you can tell me if you've had a different experience, people like us almost seem like we're the exception, not the norm. So like, like when I, when I think about like, and,

Hopefully my wife never sees this podcast, but I don't think there's anything that she would, she would disagree with here. Right. But like, you know, we all get triggered by things. Right. And what I often see is people who get triggered by things, but don't take any accountability for it. And they just put it all on someone else. Right. It is someone else's problem that I'm suffering. So if someone was going to come work with me as a coach.

then they would need to be willing to do the work.

Jay Deppen (46:36.93)

Right? Like I will help people who are willing to help themselves. But I can't force it, right? Like I don't even know if I can lead a horse to water. Right. Right? Like if you come find me and you're suffering and you're willing to do the work.

then I can be part of that journey. But if you're close to it, there's nothing I can do. I literally couldn't agree more. And I've spoken almost all those same exact words. It's like, if somebody is dedicated and they want to be free of this, I'm in it with them. Like I'm going nowhere. I will help you from start to finish. But like you said, you know, it's like, I don't know if I can lead the horse to water. It's like, they don't think they need water. You know, they think, they think the world needs to be different.

They think that's the problem that the world is the way that the world is. And I think that's, so I don't think it's any fault of their own. It's just ignorance. Just like when we didn't know, right? I didn't know. I didn't know any better. Right. So until you kind of like realize how the mind works and that, you know, it's my own mind that's causing this difficult for me difficulty, then, you know, I can't really get in there and start fixing it. I don't need to go around and make the world.

right in all these different ways in order for me to be okay. So it's that, for me it's that initial part of taking somebody from zero and showing them, you're in the matrix here. Look at what's happening. Look at what your mind is doing to you. And if they can see that, I don't know. Like you said, know, a lot of people are, are they willing to put in the work? I mean, it's probably the same for you. I just talked with another guy the other day and he's like,

it becomes kind of an obsession because you start seeing, I want to see everywhere where I have a problem with it so that I can free myself from that problem. Well, it's funny, you you use the word the matrix and it's like, you sometimes I see how in popular media, like there's actually, it seems to be like a kernel of truth hidden in popular media, right? That, but like there, there is in my belief, a figurative matrix, right? And the figurative matrix is just the story.

Jay Deppen (48:49.218)

that we tell about our lives. And what was it, what was it Morpheus who said, I'll show you just how far down the rabbit hole goes, right? When you're getting into this work, you would be surprised just how far down the rabbit hole goes, right? Just like all the things that you've been led to believe about yourself, which parts of those are true and which parts of those aren't. So that's the exciting piece of it is like, you know, so

I told you that like I was, I was suffering because of the disorganization of work and I turned the mirror on myself as a result of doing this work. I'm not going to lie to you, Jay, and tell you that now I'm like this organized man, right? That like, there's still a level of disorganization to my life, but somehow I'm more okay with it. That like, I can see it.

And I know that I'll clean it up when I'm done tonight, but at this point in time, my desk is disorganized. But I'm okay with that now. Like I can accept it and I can move on or I can change it. And that's what I think this work does brings us to is like, I'm not promising that somebody would come to me and is suffering with disorganization. And then all of a sudden they're going to become this, this organized magnificent specimen of a person, right? It's

you really come to understand, what is my truth? Am I okay with this or do I want to change? That's it. That's the question. That's it's like, you know, some people say, well, I like being angry because it helps me get stuff done. It's like, if you like it, then go ahead and do it. Like if you're okay with it, then there's no problem. And I think that is what you're saying is true is like it's finding peace with the way that things are while using logic to

see what makes sense to do next. It's like, okay, well, here's the situation. I am this messy. Well, why do I have a problem with it? Why does it look like a problem that my stuff's unorganized on my desk right here? Does that need to be something that I get concerned about? Because what I'm noticing too, yes, our desires, our cravings, our expectations for the future cause us a ton of suffering. But all of our wants, and I'm very fuzzy on this, as I'm still kind of kicking it around, but...

Jay Deppen (51:10.144)

All of our wants are a disturbance of peace. If I'm sitting there just comfortably relaxing and the thought of a drink of water comes in my mind, right? That's a certain disturbance of peace that I have to now go do that to get the water. So the same way with your desk is like, because this is a preference for you, you have to, in a sense, do the work in order to abide by that.

preference. Have you explored that area? Yeah, you know, it's funny, this might be a case where it's easier to explore someone else than myself. But like, my wife is suffering now because she believes that her life is incomplete. And it will only be made complete if she gets to travel and see the world. And so in her mind, she has this seed of suffering and discontent planted, basically one that says I'm not happy with my life now.

and happiness on my life is contingent upon something that will happen in the future. And, you know, maybe I'm a little bit too logical on this one, Jay, but I'm like, okay, so your life will be complete when you travel. And then when you come back home, you're still going to be the same person that you were before you traveled, right? That like, I don't know if travel is the answer, or maybe it is, but you know, I hear you that like, when we have this kind of this dissonance between what is

right in front of us now versus how we expect it to be different, that's when we really suffer. Yeah. The whole, the whole preference side of it as well, because for your wife, it's like, okay, cool. You want to travel like that's interesting to you. That's, you want to see how others live and you want to, you know, it's, it's helpful, I think, to dig down and see what is it about it? That's so appealing to me. But if it's something that she wants,

and it makes sense to work for it and it makes sense to plan for it and it makes sense to opportunity costs, then hey, go for it. I do feel like, and this isn't something I really even talk with people about, I'm just exploring it on my level, is just seeing these little wants that I have, you know, they're motivators, right? They motivate us, they cause us, actually the word emotion is basically like the Latin.

Jay Deppen (53:33.704)

know, root of it or whatever is, is motion, right? These feelings drive us to move. So that's just a whole nother interesting aspect that I'm kind of kicking around right now, just to kind of see with myself, it's like, man, the more of those that I can get rid of, the more okay I can be with just the way that the world is. Yeah. I mean, like why, you know, first, I guess the first question is, can you walk what's right in front of you?

Because if you can watch right what's right in front of you is really just the ultimate expression of gratitude Right that like if I can say to myself There is no place I'd rather be there's nothing else that needs to be done then be here with Jay That is the ultimate expression of acceptance and gratitude Yeah, if I if I start thinking about oh crap when I'm done with Jay, I gotta go to this meeting. I gotta go to this meeting

Now I'm no longer here with you, right? Like I'm in the future. Like, no, I just, you know what your phrase is coming to my mind right now is come home. Right? Home is just where I'm at right now, letting go of anything in the past, letting go of anything in the future and just like being fully present and accepting of where I'm at in this moment.

And then I think like, if you can be okay with that, I don't think I'm saying, and I don't think you're saying that wants and desires are maybe necessarily a bad thing, right? Like having a vision for a future is not necessarily a bad thing. But if you probably really need to start from a place of self-acceptance, right? You're going to start from where you're at. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. It's just pure contentment.

You know, being okay, like I think about that pops into my mind occasionally. It's like, could I be in this position for the rest of my life and be okay? The answer a lot of times is no, moving toward that, you know, is I can see how that would be. I want to be at peace, be content with where I'm at now and then do what makes sense to do next. So yeah, Dave, man, great conversation.

Jay Deppen (55:56.236)

I'm really so glad and grateful that you brought up the turnaround. need to reflect on that a little bit over the next few days and just practice that a little bit more. Cause I think that's one of the big pieces that I really haven't been giving so much attention to. So man, I'm really grateful. Thanks so much. And I've really enjoyed our chat today. Yeah. You know, hopefully, hopefully we did okay. And this is just me now thinking about the future, right? Like, I, man, I hope that podcast was okay. But you know what? I'm just going to let it go.

and see where we go from there. exactly. This is where we're at. This is the manifestation, so to speak, of our perspectives. So that's beautiful. Thank you for having me, André. I appreciate it.