The Great Updraft

If psychological work is discovering why you are as you are and changing it if need be, being truthful is a central pillar in that process.If you are truthful with yourself, you can discover endlessly many aspects of your character that would otherwise remain buried.This is a snippet from my Wednesday 13/5 episode, The Key Principles of Psychological Work.200-show library by category: https://deep-psychology.com/#pod-catsNewsletter & books: https://deep-psychology.com/my-links

What are the key principles for doing psychological work? How do we know we are doing this work properly? How do we know we are not deceiving ourselves?In this two-part mini-series we cover the top 4/5 principles for this work. This will underlie any future work we do.Part 2 will be ready in three weeks, once I return from holiday.Next listen: What is Psychology? (released May 6th 2026)All my episodes on Psychology: https://player.captivate.fm/collection/9f81342e-0c6f-4b7d-ab6c-bd333126470e200-show library by category: https://deep-psychology.com/#pod-catsNewsletter & books: https://deep-psychology.com/my-links

My claim: all our traits and ways we are have deep, fundamental reasons behind them, and through self-observation and careful self-directed work, we can change those traits if need be.This is a snippet from my Wednesday 6/5 episode, What is Psychology?.[Apologies for the mic noise!]All my Psychology episodes: https://player.captivate.fm/collection/9f81342e-0c6f-4b7d-ab6c-bd333126470eDive into my 200-episode podcast library: https://deep-psychology.com/#pod-catsNewsletter & books: https://deep-psychology.com/my-links

We are as we are because of a complex mosaic of factors, and the ones we choose to emphasise over the others reveal our own psychology!In this snippet, we look at a[Again, I apologise for the mic tapping!]This is a snippet from my Wednesday 6/5 episode, What Is Psychology? Explore all my Psychology episodes: https://player.captivate.fm/collection/9f81342e-0c6f-4b7d-ab6c-bd333126470eExplore my 200-episode podcast library: https://deep-psychology.com/#pod-catsNewsletter & books: https://deep-psychology.com/my-links

My definition of psychology is: the study of why you are as you are.This is a simple but deceptive and very powerful definition, and in this snippet I explain why.[Again, I apologise for the mic tapping.]This is a snippet from my Wednesday 6/5 episode, What Is Psychology? Explore all my Psychology episodes: https://player.captivate.fm/collection/9f81342e-0c6f-4b7d-ab6c-bd333126470eExplore my 200-episode podcast library: https://deep-psychology.com/#pod-catsNewsletter & books: https://deep-psychology.com/my-links

What is psychology? Why are there so many views on how human psychology works? What are some key questions in psychological work?This is both a foundational episode for understanding all of the work I do on this podcast, and for our May and June Psychology series, where we look at many critical questions in psychological and self-development work.My definition? Psychology is the study of why you are the way you are.[I apologise for the mic taps. I attempted to edit out as many as possible.]My Psychology category: https://player.captivate.fm/collection/9f81342e-0c6f-4b7d-ab6c-bd333126470eExplore my 200-episode podcast library: https://deep-psychology.com/#pod-catsNewsletter & books: https://deep-psychology.com/my-links

Absolute understanding of reality comes not through scientific theory but through direct spiritual awareness. Do not let science replace spiritual awareness.This is a snippet from my Wednesday 29/4 episode, If Science Isn't Ultimate, How Should We Use It?Philosophy category: https://player.captivate.fm/collection/41de4d4f-0232-4c5d-bb84-436add43f6f9Explore my 200-episode podcast library: https://deep-psychology.com/#pod-catsNewsletter & books: https://deep-psychology.com/my-links

Science often gets reduced down into popular slogans that spread quickly through the culture, e.g. "You're distracted because your brain craves dopamine." What are the problems with such slogans?This is a snippet from my Wednesday 29/4 episode, If Science Isn't Ultimate, How Should We Use It?Episode category: https://player.captivate.fm/collection/41de4d4f-0232-4c5d-bb84-436add43f6f9Explore my 200-episode podcast library: https://deep-psychology.com/#pod-catsNewsletter & books: https://deep-psychology.com/my-links

After mercilessly deconstructing science this month, today we round off this series by looking at how to skillfully and pragmatically incorporate science into our lives without epistemologically drowning in it.Philosophy category: https://player.captivate.fm/collection/41de4d4f-0232-4c5d-bb84-436add43f6f9Explore my 200-episode podcast library: https://deep-psychology.com/#pod-catsNewsletter & books: https://deep-psychology.com/my-links

Science doesn't realise that what it's really trying to do is explain and describe our experience, which is primary. Here's what it misses by doing so.This is a snippet from my Wednesday 22/4 episode, What If Experience is Fundamental?Philosophy category: https://player.captivate.fm/collection/41de4d4f-0232-4c5d-bb84-436add43f6f9Explore my 200-episode podcast library: https://deep-psychology.com/#pod-catsNewsletter & books: https://deep-psychology.com/my-links

There is nothing outside your current experience. Sounds obvious, but this is the key to spiritual awakening, and this guided exercise in non-duality will aid your recognition of it.This is a snippet from my Wednesday 29/4 episode, What If Experience is Fundamental?Philosophy category: https://player.captivate.fm/collection/41de4d4f-0232-4c5d-bb84-436add43f6f9Explore my 200-episode podcast library: https://deep-psychology.com/#pod-catsNewsletter & books: https://deep-psychology.com/my-links

If we are to understand why experience is fundamental, we ought to know what the word experience means in this context!This is a snippet from my Wednesday 22/4 episode, What If Experience is Fundamental?Philosophy category: https://player.captivate.fm/collection/41de4d4f-0232-4c5d-bb84-436add43f6f9Explore my 200-episode podcast library: https://deep-psychology.com/#pod-catsNewsletter & books: https://deep-psychology.com/my-links

Your life is simply your current experience. That is it. This is the key point science overlooks.This episode explores the primacy of experience and how everything we think we know or understand appears within it, not the other way round. This includes all of science and all knowledge of any kind.We also do a guided exercise to help you deeply grasp what is being said here.Episode category: Explore my 200-episode podcast library: https://deep-psychology.com/#pod-catsNewsletter & books: https://deep-psychology.com/my-links

This is a snippet from my Wednesday 15/4 episode, Science is Addicted to Explanations.Philosophy category: https://player.captivate.fm/collection/41de4d4f-0232-4c5d-bb84-436add43f6f9Explore my 200-episode podcast library: https://deep-psychology.com/#pod-catsNewsletter & books: https://deep-psychology.com/my-links

Science is very hesitant to assign reality to things; it tends to assign reality to parts rather than wholesFor example, science will say a human is really just cells, which are really just atoms, which are mostly nothing!No - the human is the human. It is irreducible. Sure, we can analyse and parse it, but the constituent elements are not the human, by definition.

A model is about a phenomenon. It is not the phenomenon. By definition. Therefore, models do not actually describe phenomena, because fundamentally they cannot be described.This is a snippet from my Wednesday 15/4 episode, Science is Addicted to Explanations.Philosophy category: https://player.captivate.fm/collection/41de4d4f-0232-4c5d-bb84-436add43f6f9Explore my 200-episode podcast library: https://deep-psychology.com/#pod-catsNewsletter & books: https://deep-psychology.com/my-links

What if models were not the only way to understand reality? What if they created deep blind spots, biases and paradigm lock?We continue our April series on the philosophy of science with a look at how science is built on models and explanations, and the problems this creates.These problems extend through much of science, because it is founded on model making.After this, listen to my episodes from April 1st and April 8th to hear all my in-depth critiques of science.Philosophy category: https://player.captivate.fm/collection/41de4d4f-0232-4c5d-bb84-436add43f6f9Explore my 200-episode podcast library: https://deep-psychology.com/#pod-catsNewsletter & books: https://deep-psychology.com/my-links

We tend to think that our experience arises inside the brain, but in fact the opposite is true.All we know of our brain is our experience is it, and our brain is entirely contained within our experience.Episode category: https://player.captivate.fm/collection/41de4d4f-0232-4c5d-bb84-436add43f6f9Explore my 200-episode podcast library: https://deep-psychology.com/#pod-catsNewsletter & books: https://deep-psychology.com/my-links

Our thought patterns: “my brain thinks”, “my brain goes round in loops”. These are cliches. Have you ever thought about this?No, your brain does not think. And when you think, you are not experiencing your brain.This is a snippet from my Wednesday 8th April episode, The Limits of Brain Science.Episode category: https://player.captivate.fm/collection/41de4d4f-0232-4c5d-bb84-436add43f6f9Explore my 200-episode podcast library: https://deep-psychology.com/#pod-catsNewsletter & books: https://deep-psychology.com/my-links

Our usual thinking is to pin the cause of the fear on the brain.So we say “we feel fear because x area of the brain activates. If it didn’t activate, we wouldn’t feel fear. It’s because of my brain”How can your brain “cause” fear? How can a squidgy lump of flesh cause fear?This is a snippet from my Wednesday 8th April episode, The Limits of Brain Science.Episode category: https://player.captivate.fm/collection/41de4d4f-0232-4c5d-bb84-436add43f6f9Explore my 200-episode podcast library: https://deep-psychology.com/#pod-catsNewsletter & books: https://deep-psychology.com/my-links

This episode examines the relationship between the brain and experience, and challenges the common view that the brain explains our experience.We explore the basic fact that the brain is physical (tissue, chemistry, electrical activity) and experience is subjective (thoughts, emotions, sensations).These are two distinct types of phenomena that reliably correlate but cannot be couched in one another.My philosophy episodes: https://player.captivate.fm/collection/41de4d4f-0232-4c5d-bb84-436add43f6f9Explore my 200-episode podcast library: https://deep-psychology.com/#pod-catsNewsletter & books: https://deep-psychology.com/my-links

Science does not truly question the idea of self. Even though neuroscience itself would say that the self is simply a result of brain activity and isn’t actually a thing, neuroscientists themselves do not live out this wisdom.Also, science confuses accumulation of knowledge with wisdom.This is a snippet from my Wednesday 1/4 episode, The Hidden Dogma in Scientific Thinking.Episode category: https://player.captivate.fm/collection/41de4d4f-0232-4c5d-bb84-436add43f6f9Explore my 200-episode podcast library: https://deep-psychology.com/#pod-catsNewsletter & books: https://deep-psychology.com/my-links

Science does not pay attention to epistemology and philosophy - it focuses exclusively on calculation and application.It is also highly skeptical, but rarely of itself.This is a snippet from my Wednesday 1/4 episode, The Hidden Dogma in Scientific Thinking.Episode category: https://player.captivate.fm/collection/41de4d4f-0232-4c5d-bb84-436add43f6f9Explore my 200-episode podcast library: https://deep-psychology.com/#pod-catsNewsletter & books: https://deep-psychology.com/my-links

A key and mostly overlooked issue is that science is an echo chamber. Much of science operates through repetition, imitation, and inherited frameworks rather than original insight - and this underlies scientific training too.This is a snippet from my Wednesday 1/4 episode, The Hidden Dogma in Scientific Thinking.Episode category: https://player.captivate.fm/collection/41de4d4f-0232-4c5d-bb84-436add43f6f9Explore my 200-episode podcast library: https://deep-psychology.com/#pod-catsNewsletter & books: https://deep-psychology.com/my-links

Scientific practice contains certain philosophical assumptions. These are treated as facts and then passed on. And they are unexamined. That is, they are dogma. In episode 1 of my April series on the philosophy of science, we uncover these hidden assumptions and help you free your mind from scientism.My philosophy episodes: https://player.captivate.fm/collection/41de4d4f-0232-4c5d-bb84-436add43f6f9Explore my 200-episode podcast library: https://deep-psychology.com/#pod-catsNewsletter & books: https://deep-psychology.com/my-links

To engage in spiritual learning, you must believe you don't know your true nature, and then go out and try to find it. Yet, nobody can truly tell you what it is. It is a discovery you must make.This is a snippet from my Wednesday 25/3 episode, What Spiritual Teaching Can't Do.Related episodes: all March episodes!Newsletter & books: https://deep-psychology.com/my-linksExplore my 200-episode archive by category: https://deep-psychology.com/#pod-cats

Spiritual teaching itself is built on an illusion. Furthermore, there are several hidden reasons why spiritual teachers teach - and they are not all pretty!This is a snippet from my Wednesday 25/3 episode, What Spiritual Teaching Can't Do.Related episodes: all March episodes!Newsletter & books: https://deep-psychology.com/my-linksExplore my 200-episode archive by category: https://deep-psychology.com/#pod-cats

The core flaw in spiritual teaching are the assumptions underlying it. Here is the top hidden assumption.This is a snippet from my Wednesday 25/3 episode, What Spiritual Teaching Can't Do.Related episodes: all March episodesNewsletter & books: https://deep-psychology.com/my-links

There is a fundamental limit to spiritual teaching: it cannot give you recognition of your true nature, and your true nature cannot be conceptualised. This goes to the heart of spirituality.Furthermore, to teach, the teacher must defile their own true nature.Related episodes: all March episodes!Newsletter & books: https://deep-psychology.com/my-links

The true meditative path is one that is grounded right here, right now.To continue on the path is to be fully here in all situations, and to never turn away from This.The extent to which you do that is the extent to which you are truly walking the path home.This episode is a snippet from my Wednesday 18/3 episode, Why Meditators Stall on the Path.My newsletter & books: https://deep-psychology.com/my-links

Meditators often perpetually want to get somewhere else. In fact, this is one of the core markers of the human experience: there is always a subtle turning away from the present.This inevitably comes into meditation itself: meditators are not there to be there, but to be elsewhere.This episode is a snippet from my Wednesday 22/3 episode, Why Meditators Stall on the Path.

I have hundreds of episodes, so I wanted to help you navigate them.Here are the 4 most fundamental episodes:What Is The Meaning of Life? (Ep 180, Feb 2026)Your Psychology=Your Life (Episode 85, Dec 2024)We All Live In Our Own World (Episode 64, July 2024)The Grand, Universal Human Illusion (Ep 83, Nov 2024)Everything else comes from there.My podcast categories: My podcast categories: https://deep-psychology.com/#pod-catsMy newsletter and books: https://deep-psychology.com/my-links

Meditators often have wildly unrealistic expectations regarding what meditation is, what its effects are, and where it eventually leads us. This is especially prevalent among newcomers, who have often been marketed on the idea that a little meditation will immediately render you calm, peaceful and wise.This is a snippet from my Wednesday 18/3 episode, Why Meditators Stall On The Path.Books & fortnightly newsletter: https://deep-psychology.com

From my practice and experience, three simple reasons explain why meditators stall on the path and fail to reach the deep insight taught in various guises by all spiritual traditions.

Nowadays, I tend to use the word recognition to describe awakening: here's why.Books & Newsletter: https://deep-psychology.com

Enlightenment is our default word for spiritual awakening or deep spiritual insight. While it may serve and inspire certain students to engage in spiritual work, I also believe it is problematic and that better options exist.This is a short snippet from my episode on 11th March, Is Enlightenment the Right Word?

Despite problems, the word enlightenment does capture two real aspects of awakening: transformation and insight.This is a short snippet from my episode Is Enlightenment The Right Word? on Wednesday 11/3.

We use the word enlightenment all the time in spirituality.But it might actually be one of the most misleading words in the entire field.It suggests a climactic transformation, a final state, something rare and special.Yet the lived experience of awakening is usually quieter, slower, and far more ordinary.

Perhaps 1% or fewer practitioners reach late-stage meditation, where awakening has permanently altered one’s perception.Late stage says: “There is no centre for awakening to happen to.”This is a snippet from my episode from Wednesday 11/3, The Three Stages of Meditation.

Mid-stage practitioners constitute perhaps 5–10% of meditators. This is the stage where awakening begins to stabilise. A core feature of this stage is that thoughts lose their unquestioned authority. They are still present, but they are no longer automatically taken as reality. Thoughts are seen as appearances rather than truths: as thoughts, nothing more, nothing less.This is a snippet from my episode The Three Stages of Insight Work from the 4th of March.Newsletter, books + coaching: https://deep-psychology.com

At the early stage, meditation is something you do. It is an activity during the day, set apart from life, distinct from the rest. Awakening is imagined as a future event: a breakthrough, a shift, a permanent state waiting at the end of sufficient effort.This is a snippet from my episode on Wednesday 4th March, The Three Stages of Meditation & Spiritual Insight.

We tend to see meditation as a single spiritual practice experienced equally by all. It seems meditators sit, practice their technique, attend retreats and accumulate hours.What’s missing is the developmental dimension of meditation. This practice unfolds in recognisable developmental stages.These are not rigid categories, but shifts in identity, perception and relationship to experience. What changes is not just depth of calm — it is the structure of self.My newsletter for fortnightly updates: http://eepurl.com/iQjAiw

Meaning, meaningnless and ameaningful are three different words. Meaning and meaninglessness imply one another.Questioning the meaning of life is not a symptom of meaninglessness. We are obsessed with meaning, and yet life could be ameaningful.

The question "What Is The Meaning of Life?" is fraught with difficulties and blindspots. It's so tempting to overcomplicate it, to oversimplify it, or to blindly rely on others to tell you the answer.This is an extract from my latest episode "What Is The Meaning Of Life?"

Why are you here? How does personal meaning work? What questions can we ask to get to the core of our personal meaning structure?This is a snippet from my episode "What Is The Meaning Of Life?" from 25th Feb.

What is the meaning of life? When we get down to it, why are we here as individuals? Why does life itself exist? What is all this for?I round off this month's theme of deep questions with the mother of all existential questions.

When we deconstruct paradigms like self and other, it's tempting to dismiss it outright. But self-other consciousness serves a clear function, and without it you would be lost. We want not to lose it, but to see through it.This is a snippet from last Wednesday's episode on Do Other People Exist?

You have not always had a sense of self and other: you had to develop it during childhood. It is not a given, but a construct.This also means you can see beyond it and realise it is not the whole story.This is an extract from my episode on Wednesday 18th, "Do Other People Exist?"

We tend to assume that other people are separate from us and have their own, independent experiences.Except these are highly questionable assumptions that we will begin to see through in this snippet from my last full episode "Do Other People Exist?

We tend to assume other people are separate and independent from us. But what if this was simply a useful assumption or paradigm, not the be all end all?Do other people exist? My conclusion: well... kind of.Resonate with my work? Fortnightly updates & free 20-min coaching taster: https://deep-psychology.com