Stream of Subconsciousness

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit mindstrengthbalance.substack.comI was in the checkout line two days ago behind a truly beautiful young woman. My guess is that she was 23. I wondered why I see so few people like this?...I don’t know how people think. I cannot believe what people say in casual conversation, and have little desire to listen to them... The deeper you go into another person’s mind, the more authentic information you’ll get, but the less understandable it becomes...• Frustration and Self-Confidence• Sexuality, Personality, and Society• Risks and Opportunities• Depth in a Relationship• Intellect, Emotions, and Association• Meaning Making

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit mindstrengthbalance.substack.com“The journey is the reward.” – attributed to Steve Jobs– Going SomeplaceA book called Vagabonding: An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long-Term World Travel, by Rolf Potts, reminded me of both the benefits of traveling and the benefits of seeing in new ways. Seeing in new ways can be understood to mean seeing:* things you weren’t looking for,* things you didn’t expect,* things you weren’t supposed to see,* things you don’t understand, or* seeing without trying to understand at all.Clearly, what you see determines the benefit of travel, and if you don’t see anything new then nothing will change, and what’s the benefit of that? But things are not quite so simple.If you live an anxious life and travel to a place that deprives you of anxiety, then in this place you may see nothing manifestly different, but it will feel different. This is the objective of most vacations: to get away from what people usually see and, as a result, see ourselves differently...– Going to Non-Places– Going Nowhere At All– Ideas that are Never New– New Ideas– Doing the Creative Work

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit mindstrengthbalance.substack.com“True honesty requires courage, character, and integrity. (It is) a very expensive gift; don’t expect it from cheap people.” — Frank Caprio, municipal court judgeI’m starting to think the most important aspect of change is courage. Of my Big Three elements for successful counseling—courage, commitment, and honesty—courage must come first, not necessarily in importance but in time. It’s courage that you need to get started, and when you need to decide but don’t know what to do. It’s courage that you need to make a change when you’re not sure what will result.• Dragons• Soldiers• Responsibility is Not Heroic• Courage Sticks, Cowardice Slips• My Evidence, Your Evidence• Emotional Dysregulation• Is There a Middle Ground?• Paths to Courage

“Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.” — Martin Luther King, Jr.It Starts with the MindI’m writing three related posts: “Learn to Be Smart,” “The Psychology of Culture,” and “A.I. Defeats Consultants.” They all have to do with how we take or lose control.What comes first: controlling or having something to control? Regaining control after you’ve lost it, or losing control when you previously had it? Historically, losing control comes first. As Joni Mitchell sang, “You don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone.” So too, realizing you have something must happen before you can apply it or recover it.We start by reacting, then learn by experience, and finally gain insight. Realizing our potential is like turning swords into plowshares; shifting from being defensive to productive. We should consider our abilities and find ways to apply them. Our basic human ability is being “smart.”We often regret our decisions, feeling like we misjudged the situation or missed an opportunity. “Bringing a knife to a gunfight” may be an unnecessarily aggressive metaphor but I have resolved to be more assertive. The expression refers to situations you’re either underestimating or not taking seriously. Perhaps “showing up drunk for your drivers test” might be a better metaphor for how we approach self-awareness.I’m tired of people who are indifferent to acting intelligently, which I call being stupid, and I’ve become more inclined to point it out. I want to call out bad thinking before it leads to bad conclusions. People normally disguise poor thinking with some plausible rationale, so if you get the whiff of bad thinking, you’re probably seeing through the disguise.I made a pitch to speak with a podcaster interested in ecological conservation. I suggested we talk about why people are not more engaged with the environment. He responded, “My podcast is quite tightly focused on ecology, conservation, and human-wildlife interactions, and I don’t think your angle would be a strong fit for my audience.”I told him he was being small minded and missing the real issue, which is not conservation. The real issue is the failure of people to be aware of their responsibility and to be stewards of the environment. I’m sure he’ll be offended, but offending people has become my litmus test: if I’m not offending anyone, then I’m not trying hard enough.Another example is family partnerships that break up because one person is frustrated, doesn’t know how to change, and doesn’t know how to engage. From my experience as a counselor, the inability to problem solve lies at the root of most relationship struggles. It is more due to a lack of self-awareness and commitment than to the difficulty of the problem. I consider this being intentionally stupid. It’s also been called functional stupidity.“Functional stupidity is the absence of reflection on the purpose or the wider context of a job. You do the job correctly, focusing on the technical details but stop searching for questions about the work. Three aspects characterize functional stupidity:• Lack of reflexivity: You don’t think about your assumptions.• Lack of justification: You don’t ask why you’re doing something.• Lack of substantive reasoning: You don’t consider the consequences or wider meaning of your actions.Wishful thinking, following leaders without scrutiny, unreasoning zeal for fads and fashions, senseless imitation of others and the use of clichés in place of careful analysis are examples of functional stupidity.” — David Wagner (2024), from The Stupidity ParadoxSmartness is Part of One’s PersonalitySmartness is not an aptitude, it’s a choice. Each person certainly has aptitudes, but a lack of aptitude does not excuse a person’s bad decisions. You continue to be responsible for your decisions regardless of your ability. You’re obliged to know what you’re capable of.I used to think that any person could be smart, and that they could develop themselves in any way. I used to think that the ranking of students was exploitative, and anyone could achieve what they set their mind to accomplishing. I felt that you should not tell people what or how to learn and instead you should support each person’s unique abilities on their path of growth. I still believe that to some extent, but I’ve also come to believe that most people, while capable on an everyday level, lack the personal responsibility and priorities to be smart; not just act smart but think smart. Their primary obstacles are a lack of courage, commitment, and honesty. This is not the usual definition of smart, which focuses on what you can do. Instead, it’s a redefinition of “smart” in terms of what a person intends to do. It has more to do with integrity than ability.When I was young I used to listen to myself talk to myself. I felt like my self-talk was being recorded on a slightly delayed tape loop. Now that I know more about self-awareness, hypnosis, and trance states I believe we are hypnotized by our own voice. A hypnotherapist can use their outside voice to put ideas into your head, but our self-talk does the same thing. We believe what we say, and the more we say it, the more we believe it. This is intentional because it strengthens our emotional connection with our intellectual ideas, but it is not intelligent. Our voice echoes in our heads to inculcate us by repetition, similar to writing something on the blackboard one hundred times.Few people take seriously their obligation to be creative problem solvers. They lack the humility to explore their ignorance, and the self-confidence to fail while retaining their sense of purpose. I partly blame poor role models and a poor learning environment. That means indifferent parents, teachers, managers, friends, and politicians. The people from whom you’ll learn the most are those who share your struggles, risks, and rewards. They will gain when you gain, and lose when you fail to understand.Most people could achieve success if they took their responsibility to grow, support, and contribute seriously, but they don’t understand their lack of ability. They don’t see or own the skills they lack, and have become insensitive to problems of their own creation. For more ideas on how to regain intelligence, mostly yours but maybe others, book a free call on my calendar at:Taking Responsibility“Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it.”— Mark TwainHere are three experiences that taught me to take responsibility for my situation. First, I took classical guitar lessons for ten years, from the ages of 10 to 20. What I learned was that I don’t have the interest to devote myself to the level that’s necessary to be a musician, so I stopped. I didn’t stop because I lacked the ability, I stopped because I lacked the drive. I might have the drive to produce some kind of music, but not that kind.The second was high-risk outdoor activities. Mountaineering was a perfect situation for learning: if you didn’t take the situation and your role in it seriously, then someone could easily die. I climbed with quite a few irresponsible people. This taught me that both I had to be responsible and I had to demand responsibility from others. Skill is separate from responsibility; they are separate forces. A person must be clear and responsible in both regards.The third experience is childhood. As a therapist, I experience other people’s childhoods as a showcase of failures. The lesson of childhood is that it is not until you take responsibility for yourself that you start to gain insight into other people’s thoughts and how things get done. Until you can see the importance of understanding things before you act, you cannot see how poorly other people understand and how badly they behave.The lessons I’m referring to are partly emotional and associative, where associative refers to thinking broadly and creatively. There is a skill to this kind of thinking just as much as there’s a skill to thinking intellectually. Thinking of any kind starts with taking the situation seriously, and this applies to both problems and opportunities.People feel they don’t understand poetry, art, music, science, or history because they feel unskilled in these areas. Consequently, they don’t value, explore, or learn from them. These areas are made exclusive because their similarities are overlooked. They are less appreciated, have less effect on culture, and “normal” awareness shrinks to either exclude them, or include them in trivial forms.The Blindness of Being CleverSidney Colman was a Harvard physics professor who was great at explaining things but didn’t like mentoring students. He was likened to a combination of Einstein and Woody Allen because of his depth and wit. He was more conventional than Einstein, less of a comedian than Allen, and better at explaining things than either of them. He was illuminating and funny in his own way.I wasn’t Coleman’s student, though I watched his lectures on videotape. I was able to spend an hour speaking with him before I entered a graduate program. A measure of one’s expertise is their ability to explain things to someone who knows none of the details and, at the time, I knew none of the details.I asked Coleman why he was interested in physics and what I might gain from it. I remember he expressed great remorse regarding having so much expertise in the conventional understanding of so many fields and that he was not more imaginative. He said that if he had applied what he knew to black holes then he would have discovered that they could evaporate. Instead Stephen Hawking first had the idea and Sidney was left to explain it.Sidney needed to do what I often tell my clients to do: be creative without judgment. Find situations where you can think expansively without fear or expectation. I’ll tell my clients who are financial executives to find something at which they can play, to do something in which failure is an option because there is no measure of success. This is what I learned from the classical guitar: there is something deeper than music, performance, or appreciation, and until you find it in any field you have not found the heart of it.One of my most intellectually able mentors was a physics Nobel laureate, but he could not be a friend and had no sense of personal value. Despite his great contributions to the field I think his intelligence was limited.Smartness is an Aspect of VirtueWe’ve been led to believe intelligence and moral values are separate qualities. We’ve been taught that being smart and being good are separate things, the development of each requiring separate efforts. We’ve been falsely taught that virtue is about human goodness when it’s really about insight into the condition of things regardless of their social impact. This is one of the many falsehoods we’ve learned from school which endeavors to separate one’s performance from one’s character.In reality, an insightful mind makes good decisions regardless of the subject. A person who ranks high on technical performance but has little sense of value is a disregulated and manipulated person. Government schooling trains us to accept a perversion of human nature in which people learn to follow the reward system without developing a sense of what’s good.I now believe that you cannot be righteous unless you are also smart, and I believe being smart exists in conjunction with one’s intelligence. In fact, virtue and intelligence must be understood as being connected. This is an intentional connection. You are responsible for making this connection.The serial killer Edward Kemper had an IQ of 145, which is considered highly gifted, but a low degree of virtue by any measure. He was an extreme example of the dysfunction that results from separating intelligence and virtue. My most virtuous friend was an illiterate fisherman, who was content to remain a fisherman. He was so insightful that his community considered him a prophet. My inspiration for seeing intelligence and virtue conjoined has been my two disappointing ex-wives who had a measure of both but could not wed the two together. These people have helped me see my own lack of discernment. I allowed myself to become entangled with these people because I believed their intelligence and their virtue were connected and would evolve together. Fascination and VictimhoodWatch the public’s fascination with themes of instinct, insight, and exploration as these things are contrasted with exploitation, power, and domination. We see these themes in novels, movies, and TV, and in headlines describing corporate, artificial intelligence, and media control. These dramatic exaggerations help us see the differences. In reality, these issues are not black and white. They are not the fault of one actor; everyone is involved at some level or at some point.I have been victimized and victimization offers important benefits. It reveals the full negative experience and shows it outside the context of what you’re responsible for. Without this you cannot see the depth or the origin of these attitudes. Victimization, properly appreciated, provides the deepest experience of the dysfunction in other peoples’ minds. You may have played a role in your becoming a victim, but you rarely did so with clarity or intention. Being a victim can easily be turned into a source of power and should not be considered a personal failure, as difficult as that may be. A victim can learn; a perpetrator does not.The Benefit of the DoubtMy attitude about other people’s irresponsibility results from giving people more respect than they deserved which was, in turn, a result of giving myself less respect than I deserved. This pessimism comes from listening to people and observing their actions.Tolerance works against change. Not only must you reject things that are dysfunctional, you must call attention to them. It’s a question of getting your point across and dispelling false reasons.Skills are unequally distributed, but being able to appreciate things has more to do with intention than aptitude. I may never be very good with music, but I have learned to appreciate it by being involved with and engaged in many aspects of it. You are likely unaware of how your focus, balance, awareness, and attention affects your thinking. These skills are more critical to your success in anything than the thoughts you use to justify your actions.There are things I’m good at, like balance, rhythm, harmony, and visual memory. As I become more aware of these things in everyday life, I see the lack of these things in other people. These are not obvious differences, they emerge through the stories and presentations gifted to me as a therapist-counselor. They emerge like the little squeaks and rumbles that you hear in your car that tell you there exists some sort of tension.I have recently resolved to require that any new clients engage in brain training. I used to encourage brain training by trying to explain it, but few people understood. My tolerance of what people do not understand contributes to their remaining stuck and society being stuck. Brain training is one of those things that can be best understood from experience, not explanation. It’s a critical skill, so I am no longer tolerating people’s ignorance of it or ambivalence to engage in doing it.If we develop our awareness, then we can become more insightful, courageous, committed, and virtuous. The essential question is whether one can figure out how to learn, and enhance these skills with practice. I believe that most of us can learn to become more moral, humane, empathetic, intentional, and responsible. Is this a matter of taking responsibility and recognizing the need to grow, or simply grow up?There is a majority who stop growing once they reach what’s average. They have not learned to be smart and don’t refine their aptitudes. This is a rather narrow bell-shaped curve, meaning that people tend to cluster around the norm, but there is not just one peak. There are some other peaks as well located in the areas of learning, growth, and creativity, but the numbers of people in these areas are a hundred times fewer. We call the group of people who advance themselves creative. We call the much larger group who stagnate normal. You will not learn things you don’t know you can learn. To learn these things you must explore, experience, and develop personal insight. Don’t expect to succeed, rather recognize that success more likely reflects that you have failed to reach new territory. Any success that is not preceded by multiple failures is probably a deception. You need to appreciate the benefits of trying new ideas that fail or go nowhere as greater than the comfortable security of having no new ideas at all. You cannot learn this from schools and teachers.ReferencesWagner, David (2024 Apr 19). “The Stupidity Paradox.” thewagner.net. https://thewagner.net/blog/2024/04/19/the-stupidity-paradox/ This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mindstrengthbalance.substack.com/subscribe

Julian Bermudez sits down with Lincoln Stoller—a quantum physicist, neuropsychologist, hypnotherapist, clinical counselor, psychonaut, mountaineer, author, and educator—to talk about personal growth and spiritual bypassing.Julian Bermudez is a therapist and counselor specializing in the use of psychedelics for healing, transformation, and personal growth. Here psychedelic refers not only to substances, but to the process of awakening—moments when illusions soften, unconscious patterns come into awareness, and real accountability and responsibility become possible. The result is healing. There are many paths to get there.Learn more at https://www.psychedelic-integration.net/ This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mindstrengthbalance.substack.com/subscribe

JD Tremblay is the director of high performance and mental resilience at Hungry Warrior Academy at hungrywarrioracademy.comJD describes himself as:“As an integrated engineer, military veteran, naturopathic practitioner, and ultra-endurance athlete, I’ve tested human limits in some of the toughest environments on the planet, including the EpicDeca, where I became one of only three people ever to complete 10 Ironman-distance triathlons in 10 consecutive days across six Hawaiian Islands.”His Hungry Warrior Academy:“integrates cutting-edge human performance science with faith-centered principles to help Christian men operate at the highest level in every area of life. Whether it’s chronic stress, burnout, declining energy, loss of physical edge, or misalignment between success and purpose, we equip you with the systems to perform, lead, and live with clarity.”with the goals of * Maintaining clarity, discipline, and control.* Operating at your true physical capacity.* Living fully aligned with your spiritual values.JD is, as I am, both a coach and a therapist. We both aim to move people and culture to a more enlightened and effective level. We both have a strong psycho-physical approach, though his approach is more fitness and physical achievement oriented. We both look at the whole person. On the other hand, JD’s program incorporates religion and encourages structure, while I avoid religion and engage chaos. Other than that, we’re on the same path.In this interview I focus on JD’s program and how he assembles spirit, religion, physiology, psychotherapy, and leadership. His program has a predefined structure and demands adherence to his program. At the same time, he customizes his program to the needs and abilities of each client.If you just want to listen to the audio, you can stream or download it here:Learn more on the Hungry Warrior website at: https://hungrywarrioracademy.com/ This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mindstrengthbalance.substack.com/subscribe

Michael has hosted 162 episodes of his Brain Shaman podcast at https://www.brainshaman.com, which he describes as a philosophical and scientific journey towards better brain health. "A podcast that teaches you how to reconnect with your primordial nature, reprogram your brain, regain your freedom, and redirect your life." This sounded much like what I'm doing, so he hosted me for another of his podcast episodes and here I have hosted him on mine. The difference is that the host is supposed to do less talking and the guest more.I asked him about his background (Mormon), his interests (philosophy), and his profession (teaching English in Japan). These seemed disconnected to me, so I worked to pry more out of him.Despite our different backgrounds we have similar interests and aims. It is curious to compare these two pictures of ourselves and to notice how similar they are: same eyes, same organic background and asymmetrical smiles. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mindstrengthbalance.substack.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit mindstrengthbalance.substack.com• Moving ForwardMost of us stop learning when we reach the plateau that our environment requires. Personal needs and social forces are satisfied when we resolve a situation. It’s natural to take a break and relax, but in doing so we risk becoming complacent and compliant. The rewards of satisfaction are limited.It’s not enough to be a learner, you must be a skeptic. You must focus on what might be possible, not what others say is there or can’t be done. Learning to be smart takes a sense of direction and a measure of disbelief...• Flying• People Make Their Environment• Love of Things• Love is Not a Noun• Attachment is a Verb

In this episode, we sit down with Lincoln Stoller — physicist, hypnotherapist, psychedelic explorer, and founder of Mind Strength Balance (https://www.mindstrengthbalance.com)— to discuss the transformative power of psychedelics.Lincoln’s work spans the intersection of neuroscience, altered states of consciousness, and deep personal growth, making this a conversation unlike any other. Topics we cover:* The science and spirituality of psychedelic experiences.* How psychedelics can break old mental patterns and open new pathways to healing.* The difference between recreational use and intentional, therapeutic use.​Whether you’re curious about microdosing, preparing for a journey, or just exploring the edges of the mind, this episode will challenge what you think you know about self-awareness and human potential.on SpotifyOn the Challenge By Challenge website: https://www.changebychallenge.com/podcast This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mindstrengthbalance.substack.com/subscribe

“When you blame others, you give up your power to change.” — Robert AnthonyLacking a Sense of VirtueInsecurity, guilt, and shame are powerful personal and political weapons. Once an opponent is accused of these, they are on the defensive. Once a point of view has been tainted as guilty or shameful, it is difficult to defend.The reason these emotional manipulations are powerful is that emotion always overpowers reason. Emotion so overpowers reason that it’s an emotion connection that gives a person persuasive power, not reason or intellect. The general term for being emotionally overpowered is seduction, a combination of satisfying your emotional wants and neutralizing your reasonable powers.A psychological ploy used in political or personal discourse applies these “tools” to defeat an opponent. This involves accusing another person of insecurity, guilt, and shame which, when done skillfully, undermines their certitude and virtue. For those people who are guided by emotion, which is most of us, appeals to emotion overwhelm reason.This is what Trumpian politics has normalized with negative labeling, such as “sleepy Joe,” “half Whitmer,” “Crooked Hillary,” “Crazy Bernie,” “Marjorie Traitor Green,” and many others. By attaching simple epithets of flaw and failure Trump implants these ideas in the minds of simple listeners.This is not charisma, it is emotional seduction. It leads insecure people back to the emotions of their adolescence to accept simple truths. The Pied Piper is the appropriate fable of manipulation and collective failure. According to this fable, the Piper’s retribution of stealing away the children is the result of the town’s reneging on their agreement to pay him for removing the rats. The children are never recovered.The DevilThe ultimate explanation for failure is that the Devil is responsible. If you cannot convince people that your opponent is stupid, then call them evil. There is the odd use of The Devil as an excuse for yourself. By admitting your failure and renouncing your allegiance you can be absolved. Modern absolution provides a full pardon, and only requires a donation and a pledge of subservience.The Devil provides an ever-ready reason to indict an opponent and exonerate yourself. Having these handy rationales is why people are drawn to judgmental religions in the first place. Sanctifying the virtuous while overriding your opponent’s explanations... This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mindstrengthbalance.substack.com/subscribe

Lincoln Stoller works to coach entrepreneurs to be more effective, and counsel those struggling with life to better navigate issues of anger, shame, and low self-esteem. In fact, he tries to do all of these things with all his clients.With experience in psychotherapy, physics, high-risk sports, and mind-body healing, he provides insights into how these emotions manifest in business and personal life. He emphasizes seeing the role you play in defining your reality, and how changing your understanding can give you new options. By recognize the importance of emotional triggers, managing emotions, connecting with your subconscious mind, and building self-confidence you can develop commitment, improve decision-making, and take on a leadership role for those around you.The full video version of our interview can be streamed at these websites:YouTube:Spotify:Apple: Audible: https://www.audible.co.uk/pd/B0F1N4XHQT?source_code=ASSGB149080119000H&share_location=pdpAmazon: https://music.amazon.co.uk/podcasts/39af5ee4-75f1-4a85-8ce0-60a4a3199985/episodes/94d2653a-ce75-47a4-b7df-03fd25098267/heal-podcast---lily-patrascu-heal-anger-shame-and-low-self-esteem---lincoln-stoller-and-lily-patrascuLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7307508165233807363 This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mindstrengthbalance.substack.com/subscribe

I did a livestream with Terraine Lebeau, a Rasta from Toronto who complements his day job as a bank manager with life coaching and podcasting. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mindstrengthbalance.substack.com/subscribe

In this episode of The Healing Side, Donald Dunn sits down with Lincoln Stoller—physicist turned psychotherapist—whose personal journey bridges science, spirit, and psychology into a unified approach to understanding the mind.Lincoln shares how quantum mechanics, mountaineering, cultural immersion, and therapy converge in his work through the hidden language of dreams, the nature of trauma, and why altered states of awareness reveal truths ordinary thinking cannot reach. We talk about PTSD and anger, symbolism and self-actualization, and why “empty space”—not constant productivity—is where true growth begins.This episode is about overcoming adversity at the inner level. The difference between chosen risk and imposed trauma; why anger works in war but fails in civilian life; and how fear and projection become tools for healing. If you’ve ever wondered how science and spirituality truly meet—or how healing actually begins—this conversation invites you to expand how you understand yourself. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mindstrengthbalance.substack.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit mindstrengthbalance.substack.com“Perspective: use it or lose it.” — Richard BachThe expression “use it or lose it” applies to health and skill, but not to other things to which it could be applied, such as emotion, initiative, motivation, empathy, self-respect, and responsibility, just to name a few. Does it also apply to democracy?• Is Doing the Right Thing a Privilege or a Responsibility?• Intellectual Ability and Exercise• Physical Ability and Exercise• Emotional Ability and Exercise• Can We Lose Our Ability to Symbolize?• Use or Lose Democracy?

Dreaming Yourself Into Being and Dream Fragments are my final volumes in a quadrilogy of books on sleep, awareness, and dreams. The first book is The Path to Sleep, the second is Becoming Lucid. Both deal with sleep, dreams, and altered states, while these books specifically focuses on understanding, participating in, and benefiting from their dreams.* Why We Dream* What Dreams Are* What Dreams Do* How Dreams Work* How Our Minds Work* How to Remember Dreams* Becoming Involved in Your Dreams* Dark Dreams* Building Light into Dreams* Using Daydreams* Starting the Process of TransformationDreaming Yourself Into Being includes 6 hypnosis inductions leading into the fundamental symbols of earth, air, fire, water, wood, and body.Dreams remind you that you’re still exploring the conflicts and opportunities in life. In waking life you’re too busy dealing with situations to go off on tangents, but you can in your dreams, to try on new feelings and attitudes.Dreams are workshops that confront confusion, engage emotions, and build different views of reality. In your dreams you can afford to feel as weak, indulge your fears, and assemble a stronger self. They don’t give you instructions, they unearth your feelings.Mental health is not a rational process but it does involve your rational mind. You must feel before you think, and imagine before you see. Dreams are your most powerful tool for growth and understanding.In this Kickstarter campaign I’m offering the book Dreaming Yourself Into Being, and a shorter book of excerpts, Dream Fragments—both at cost and in various forms: digital, print, and audio. To sponsor the campaign, preorder the book, or register for group or private sessions in dreamwork training, go to:As part of the campaign I’m offering my online course on therapeutic dreamwork. Sign up on the Kickstarter page. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mindstrengthbalance.substack.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit mindstrengthbalance.substack.com“Let us consider that we are all partly insane. It will explain us to each other; it will unriddle many riddles; it will make clear and simple many things...” — Mark Twain.— Divergence is Not DysfunctionalThis post is about social and collective thought. I previously made the point that people are uncomfortable talking about insanity, and this underlies the stigma it carries. There is a trend to whitewash insanity and cast it as divergent thinking, but this is a thin euphemism. Insanity is not divergent, it’s dysfunctional ...— Superior PeoplePrejudice always disguises its reasons. Minorities were cast as inferior, women as unintelligent, and the poor as naturally unable. Whether the object of disdain was a race, religion, gender, or class, there was always someone putting forward a logical reason. A psychologist with a psychological assessment often provided the evidence...— Duality Versus DistinctionThere is a spiritual cred of “nondualists” who endorse the unity of all. Despite what these nonthinkers say, duality is the foundation of reasoned behavior. Whether you act rationally, emotionally, or symbolically you must contrast ideas, feelings, and options...— When Madness Develops...— Reaching the Civic Limit...— You Would Not Be So Foolish...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit mindstrengthbalance.substack.com“I’m a curious person. That, I think, is a quality that’s necessary for education: if you’re not curious then you’re not interested, and if you’re not interested then you’re not going to learn.” — Lynn Hill, extreme athlete and professional rock climberCuriosity or Discomfort?It seems that the more creative I become, the more isolated I become. I don’t …Intellectual or Evasive?Reason employs deductive and inductive logic. These usually lead to what’s true, but they do not guarantee it...Emotions Use Fuzzy LogicInductive reasoning is always fuzzy, as is any reasoning that relies on uncertain truths, vague understanding, and preconceived conclusions...The Conclusion You Must Come ToYour thinking sucks. You must embrace that conclusion if you’re to question the way you think...SymbolsMuch of our world is built on symbols that we accept with little question, except in our dreams...

“Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently.” — Walter IsaacsonAbout ThinkingIf you go to https://www.brainyquote.com/topics/thinking-quotes you’ll find quotes on thinking by famous people. The lack of insight is amazing. Everyone speaks as if thinking was a monolithic act that one either does or does not do. As if all one has to do is snap one’s fingers and thinking starts.Our brains have many areas and functions. Some of these areas must collaborate to function and other are relatively autonomous. For example, our visual cortex handles vision but our central cortex handles the identification of what we see. In rare cases of neural damage it’s possible to recognize what’s in front of you without being able to see it. In contrast, our language areas operate independently so that when they’re damaged you will lose aspects of language.Our left frontal area handles executive function, which means planning, sequencing, and prioritizing. Our right frontal areas handle emotional reactions such as fear and anger. Damage to either of these areas degrades these specific functions. And then there’s an area on the right front side of our brains that handles the emotional content of expression, what’s called prosody. This is the area that enables us to imbue art with emotion so that it is evocative and not just big, bright, and loud.In the statements at the brainyquote.com website, no one seems to recognize these different functions. Everyone refers to thinking as if it was just one thing that everyone either does or does not do. This is obviously ridiculous!Thinking is a mixture of functions. It is the brain’s highest form of organization. We can say that not just for humans but for all species. It’s likely that other species are more “intelligent” with regards to specific functions, but it is humans who have integrated, controlled, and applied thinking in its most comprehensive forms. For example, sharks hunt through their sensing of electric fields, and birds navigate with a magnetic compass built into their brains, but neither of these species think abstractly. And while it’s true that ravens, magpies, and parrots can solve puzzles, these puzzles are child’s play in terms of human intelligence.Halt Your IntellectHumans have also developed particular skills, and particularly our intellect. We might argue that our emotions are not as evolved as it seems we develop strong and enduring bonds with animals. Dogs can be trained to sense our moods even before we demonstrate them with actions. From that, we can conclude that dogs can be more sensitive to our emotions than we are ourselves.Despite the uninspiring range of quotations at brainyquote.com, we can discern the writers distinction between intellect and emotion.“Kindness in words creates confidence. Kindness in thinking creates profoundness. Kindness in giving creates love.” — Lao Tzu“The problem isn’t that Johnny can’t read. The problem isn’t even that Johnny can’t think. The problem is that Johnny doesn’t know what thinking is; he confuses it with feeling.” — Thomas SowellDespite what Thomas Sowell says, emotion is clearly a form of thinking. Would you trust someone who claims you should separate your thoughts from your emotions? Lao Tzu wouldn’t.Between Focus and EngagementWe use the words focus and engagement to describe how we think. Focus means being present, active, and attentive. You have focus when you control your train of thought. This supports exploration and leads to insights and confidence. We focus our intellect and we must focus in order to find solutions.Engagement is a form of interest. This is something emotional, something more than just looking at something. To be engaged is to have a real desire to participate, a sort of emotional attraction to what’s going on. Something must have personal meaning if it is to engage you.When my cat looks at me I don’t think he’s engaged. His thoughts, such as they are, range over food, sleeping, comfort, and relief. The most engagement he shows is in hunting. In terms of companionship, he’s affectionate in a kind of “I own you” sort of way.Human love is an amplified form of affection. I don’t think cats have it, but I know dogs do have it. Monkeys have it, and birds might have it. Lizards don’t have it. Love affects your thinking; you might even say that love can dominate your thinking.There are clearly different kinds of thinking and, while we express various kinds in different circumstances, it’s unclear how much control we have. After all, you cannot just go from love to no love in the way that you can change what you’re thinking about.DysfunctionWhen it comes to intellect and emotion I find people to be dysfunctional. Most people can pass an easy intellectual test whether or not they know many facts. Most people would not pass an emotional test quite so easily, although I’m not sure if there is any agreed definition of what such a test is.I think I know, or I’m starting to know. Intellect is fairly clear as it’s all based on memory and reason. Most people can learn to be intellectual partly because intellect is so widely valued and partly because using one’s intellect is quickly rewarded.Emotion is more difficult to test, and I notice quite a wide range of abilities in my clients and my friends. I know quite a few people whose idea of emotion does not does not go far.I am a psychotherapist so you might think my knowledge of emotion is professionally-based; it’s not, but it has been professionally informed. My understanding of emotion comes from my wide experience in life, across cultures and classes, and what seems to be a good memory for my own feelings.I recall returning from a 6-week expedition to climb Denali, the highest peak in North America. When I climbed out of the bush plane that took us off the mountain, I dropped to my knees on the grass, as it was my first contact with living nature in over 40 days. I was struck both by the strength of my emotion and a feeling that I might not be able to remember how I felt. As I result, I have tried and largely succeeded in remembering my emotions. But what has really blown me away is seeing that other people don’t.Trying to tell someone to remember an emotion they’ve forgotten is like trying to explain to someone a color they cannot see. I have been married twice and there was a third long-term relationship before those. I recall feeling uncertain at the end of the first relationship and resolved to be more clear in the future. Perhaps as a result, I was aware of the disappearance of love in the subsequent two marriages. It didn’t fade away, it suddenly disappeared leaving me awestruck. I have since noticed the inability to manage one’s emotions is widespread.What profoundly affected me was how it seemed impossible to recover love. This is important because most of my psychotherapy clients are suffering from some sort of fracture in their emotional lives. This is not so important with my business coaching clients, but even for them there is an issue of managing alliance and allegiance which has a strong element of affinity, collegiality, and obligation. One can say that business relationships that go bad can be predicted when sharing relationships dissolve.The Missing PieceMuch of therapy and counseling centers on reconnecting thought and emotion. It’s not enough to think rationally, you must also think meaningfully. It’s meaningful progress and engagement that resolves anxiety, depression, fear, and separation. When people are meaningfully aligned, either in themselves or with each other, then they will do everything in their power to further and preserve this alignment.I rely on using intellect and emotion with my clients. I ask them what makes the most sense and what they feel most strongly. This is clarifying, but it’s incomplete. There must also be inspiration, and that’s something that exists outside of ideas and emotions. Change, whether it’s to heal or to evolve, requires creativity.Creativity is an unusual state. It’s both uncommon for any one person to be creative, and it’s uncommon for people to be creative in general. As a result, there is not much intelligent talk about creativity. It’s not taught or celebrated, and among the many quotes you can find on thinking there is little said about being creative.“Sadly, in the highest levels of economic thought in government, questions are not tolerated. It is as if we’re dealing with the binary thinking of a fundamentalist religion.” — Michael BurryIf you don’t ask questions, then you’re accepting what others have thought and done. Questioning and being creative go hand in hand and they are disruptive. They are discouraged when they undermine authority.If you will recall how you were taught to be creative, if you ever were, it was always within the context of what was acceptable. Solutions to math questions were expected to be equations; painting was to be done on the canvas; music was to be audible; and your spoken ideas were to be comprehensible to the audience. The most creative works in each of these fields departed from these expectations.Creativity and DreamsYou are unquestionably your most creative in your dreams. You are so creative, so deviant from expectations, as to be considered psychotic. Because our rational departures are so disturbing, both to us and others if we spoke of them, we learn not to be creative and not to master creativity.Every scene in your dreams is incongruous. You never have a single dream that “makes sense” as we normally understand it. But dreams do make sense in their own way. They make sense as explorations of conflict, uncertainty, and curiosity. They are exactly what you need to do more of if you want to become more creative.In my two new books, Dreaming Yourself Into Being, and Dream Fragments, I talk about this extensively. I make the point that dreams are a third way of thinking, different from reason and emotion. Dreams combine memory, association, and creativity and they are unfettered by reason or comfortable emotions.It’s not that there is a part of our brains that’s in charge of dreaming, rather there are parts of our brains that are turned off when we dream. Our ability to remember and associate are fundamental to all of our thinking processes, but when we’re awake they are conscripted to solve problems and manage situations. But in dreams we expand problems and invert situations; this is the essence of creativity!Dreams think through association, separate from reason and emotion. Thinking by association is a third way of thinking, one that’s fundamental to other forms of thought. It’s becoming especially important in the world today. I believe it’s essential that we learn how to bring dreaming into our daily thought processes because the problems we face will not be solved using our old skills and attitudes.This is the aim of these two books, and I encourage you to support them through the Kickstarter campaign. I’m offering them at cost, which is less than half their retail price before tax and shipping. I’m also offering enrollment in an online dream therapy course that will cover exactly these topics. If you have any interest in changing your mind and in changing the world, I encourage you to sponsor these books.Sponsor the campaign...https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mindstrengthbalance/dreaming-yourself-into-being-a-guide-to-personal-dreamwork This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mindstrengthbalance.substack.com/subscribe

KickstarterCrowdfunding is supposed to be for raising money, but I’m using it to announce my books to a larger audience. The Kickstarter website will promote any campaign that reaches its funding threshold, so I set my reward prices low and my threshold at $50. I’m hoping you’ll sponsor one of the reward tiers so the campaign will quickly exceed its threshold. You can see the campaign at: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mindstrengthbalance/dreaming-yourself-into-being-a-guide-to-personal-dreamworkDreaming Yourself Into BeingI’m offering digital, audio, paper, and hardcover versions of my new book Dreaming Yourself Into Being. The book contains 18 chapter and 248 pages in a 6”x9” format.The book reviews dreams, dreaming, dreamwork, and dream therapy. Its chapters span theory, therapy, engagement, incubation, interpretation, and integration. I’ve included several self-hypnosis sessions that you can read and also listen to online as .mp3 audio files.It’s a do-it-yourself guide that takes quite a different approach from all other books on dreaming. I insist dreams are not just jumbled collections of thoughts, but an effective third way of thinking, one that’s more primitive than either intellect or emotion. At the same time, dream thinking is more fundamental.Dreams are a window onto the process by which we organize our reality. Once you stop trying to interpret your dreams and see them as explorations into thoughts you do not understand—either the scenes or the relationships between them—you’ll appreciate your dreams as not presenting answers, but presenting questions. Their confusing nature comes from their being more raw, open, and honest than you intellectually allow yourself to be.Most people don’t remember their dreams because they find no benefit in it. When you develop a deeper relationship with your dreams you begin to understand their language. It’s a largely visual and emotional language of uncertain associations. Your dreams are asking you to consider a kaleidoscope of situations both in themselves and in relationship to each other. These are not symbols or messages, they are questions, conflicts, and fears. Understanding this enables you to engage in the process and be less of a witness.When you follow your dreams into areas of deeper uncertainty they begin to speak to you. At that point your dreams present you with characters who address you and situations in which you have choices. You gain a natural kind of lucidity, one that’s still in the dream but more self-aware. The continuity of your dreams grow and you remember more dreams.Dream Fragments: Collected Ideas on DreamingAs I finished the Kickstarter campaign page I wondered what I could add to further explain these ideas, so I wrote another book. I collected 18 of my previous posts on dreams, edited them, and added 10% more material explaining the connections between each piece.Although these pieces were written separately over the course of three years, I found they kept focusing on the issue of how we think, and how dreams reflect a different way of thinking. The pieces are poetic, pragmatic, and epistemological. I’m really trying to get you to understand “dream think” and to use it in everyday life.This is another aspect that distinguishes these from other dream books. I emphasize that dreams’ wide-open, uncensored, associative, and seemingly nonsensical parade of images is a passive language. It’s not trying to tell you anything, it’s trying to lead you somewhere, but it doesn’t know where. “Nowhere” is exactly the place where we keep all of our troubled, uncertain, and repressed images. Dreams are taking you to the fertile chaos of your uncertainties and giving you a safe place in which to explore them. You certainly couldn’t do this in your waking life!Big DiscountsThe campaign offers both books in their different formats, a signed hardcover edition, and a great 18”x24” poster of the Helen Stoller collage that appears on the cover of Dream Fragments. I’m offering these at cost because I’m not looking for profit, I’m looking for exposure. If I do make a profit—I’ll profit on the posters—then I’ll use it to market the books through Amazon, Goodreads, and BookBub.I’m also reviving my online course on dreaming, which I gave years ago and then set aside to write these books. Enrolling in the course is one of the reward tiers. Please take a look at the campaign and be a sponsor if you’re at all interested in dreamwork or the psychology of dreams. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mindstrengthbalance.substack.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit mindstrengthbalance.substack.comWe need to expand our notion of thought beyond what we can talk about.• Thinking Generally• General Thinking• Intellect• Emotion• Dreaming• Reconstruction

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit mindstrengthbalance.substack.com“I hope she’ll be a fool—that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.”— Daisy Buchanan, from The Great Gatsby— What, Me Worry?— An Intellectual Metamorphosis— Immature Personality Disorder— You Can Advance Your Stalled Development

"Insane people are always sure that they're just fine. It's only the sane people who are willing to admit they're crazy." — Nora Ephron, writer and filmmakerOnly on the boundary can you see both sides and distinguish one domain from another. On either side, within each area, you are immersed in the mindset of that area and subject to that domain’s notion of common sense. The world will always make some version of sense from within any domain.—You Must Be Comfortable at the Boundary—There is No Sanity in Staying Still—Value Your Flaws—More Evidence That I'm Losing It—You're Not Crazy, You Just Think You Are—Imbalance is Your Counterweight This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mindstrengthbalance.substack.com/subscribe

My previous piece titled The Ignorance of Intelligence puts intelligence in aframework that’s larger than what’s intellectual. This is still too limited. The reason this is important is because the opposite of intelligence is not stupidity, it’s insanity.We don’t recognize this, and because we don’t clearly distinguish what’s intelligent from what’s insane we allow, accept, condone, and encourage behaviors that confuse the two.In politics, Donald Trump is both intelligent and insane, at least he was intelligent once. And because we don’t recognize his insanity we debate the intelligence of what he says and does. This is like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.Trump has gone a step further by surrounding himself with people who, while not insane, are not intelligent. Like many of us, these minions do not or cannot distinguish the intelligence from the insanity of their situation. As a result they potentiate the insanity.In this short, 9-minute video I touch on the subjects of intelligence and insanity. I am bringing it to your attention so that you may think about it further. Once we recognize the insanity around us, we can push back against it. Until then, we mistakenly believe insanity is a matter of debate better left to others.As always, if you’d like to talk about this in relation to your life you can book a video call with me on my calendar at: This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mindstrengthbalance.substack.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit mindstrengthbalance.substack.com“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity.”— attributed to Albert EinsteinWe break down intelligence into intellect and emotion and most discussions stop there, but there must be at least two more aspects to it. Memory is certainly one, not just what but how you remember. Memory is presumed to be impersonal and objective, which it is not. It very much depends on your situation. There is still a large fourth part which I'll call intuition.I'm frustrated with all the natural and accepted ignorance around me. I see it in social behavior and I work to address it in my clients and myself. I'm largely successful so I know we can learn to think better.— Memory— Narrow Focus— What Understanding Is— What Emotion Can Be— What We Accept as Normal— Real Intelligence is Different— What We Need To Do

Psychologist John Gartner (2025, Bjornson 2025) points out that no one is talking about Donald Trump’s insanity. Instead, they’re talking about his ineffectuality. This reflects the primary mode by which we deflect our own thin grasp on sanity: we call sanity the process of being logical. So, rather than recognize insanity, we quibble about justifying insane behavior.Part of the reason the obvious issue of Trump’s insanity is avoided is a fear of retribution mixed with cowardice. Politics is the brokering of incremental advantage played as a cowardly game. Dainty uncalloused politics is vulnerable to despots, as we’ve seen so many times before. It will be a courageous person who takes down Donald Trump, most likely a male with battlefield experience.• What People Are Afraid of• The Building is On Fire• When Delusion Is Standing Beside You• What Is Insanity?• Trump Derangement Syndrome This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mindstrengthbalance.substack.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit mindstrengthbalance.substack.comThe mechanisms of Artificial Intelligence, as they appear today, combine the ability to understand questions and find answers. Some of these answers are factual and others are expressive. But how A.I. is presented to you is mostly a scam. That’s because, as easy as it is to use A.I. tools, it’s easier to exploit people.• Finding Support• Your Money• Your Habits• The Road to Change• Learning Your Tools• The Cost• Your Mental Health

“You can never get enough of what you don’t need to make you happy.” — Eric HofferMy Kickstarter campaign has failed. The campaign ends tomorrow night, the night of November 7th. The campaign will not reach its threshold so the game will not go into production. However, I have offered to make ten games by hand, which I will number and sign. I will still make these games for those who sponsored them.If you’d like to get this version of the game, you still can. It’s available here, at the bottom of this page: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mindstrengthbalance/clients-versus-architects-conquest-or-collaboration/rewards This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mindstrengthbalance.substack.com/subscribe

Physicist-turned-counselor Lincoln Stoller explains how reason, emotion, and neurology combine to reshape behavior and resolve deep patterns.We cover neurofeedback, hypnosis, dream work, and practical tools for repatterning thought and reaction—plus insights from his book Operating Manual for Enlightenment.“I apply a 3-part approach to psychology, partly because it makes sense, and partly because more it too much and less is too little. The three points are your reasons and your perceptions, that’s one. And second is your emotions which we overlook and feel, you know, we’ll be reasonable about things, but we’re not. The emotions are rooted deeply. They’re like dandelions in your lawn; you’re never going to get rid of them all, you’re not going to prevail. And the third thing is neurology, which is your habitual reactivity to things.This third thing is what brain training is about. It’s basically about relaxing your triggers which are not entirely emotional or intellectual, they are built in to your neurology.” — Lincoln StollerList to this episode on:Spotify — Apple Podcasts — Listen Notes This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mindstrengthbalance.substack.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit mindstrengthbalance.substack.com“The non-local nature of quantum mechanics is widely accepted, though physicists still debate its implications for our understanding of reality.” — Google’s A.I. summary"Doing something to one system has no effect, instantaneous or otherwise, upon the other system.” — R. Griffiths, physicistGiven that the subject addressed here shapes the fundamental way we understand the universe you would think physicists would care but, lacking any resolution, they avoid the topic.• Social Attitudes• Kinds of Work• Big Questions• What People Say• The Anticlimactic Solution• 2-Dimensional Things• What About Reality?• Who Gets Credit For This?

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit mindstrengthbalance.substack.com“The penguin sat quietly, keeping Amos’s feet warm.” — Philip Christian Stead, authorHypnosis can raise the temperature of your hands, put you to sleep, and excite your emotions. But it goes beyond that.— Interoception— Self-Hypnosis— Trance Induction— Now Warm Your Feet

Who cares?Shared communityA group activity is an obvious aspect but a poor definition of a Levity and amusementSense of purposeAn Outlet for TensionA Delicate Balance This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mindstrengthbalance.substack.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit mindstrengthbalance.substack.com“Personality tests are about as accurate as your astrology sign or your destined Hogwarts house.” — Greg Murray (2021), psychologist— Evidence of What?Personality profiles are bogus manufactured evidence for two reasons...— About That Tree That Fell in the Forest…Nothing has meaning without someone to appreciate it.— Separating Fact from FictionAn inventory is not a valid measure of existential issues.— LSI GraphsThe validity of these graphs rest on their being sold to you.— Are All Ideas Good Ideas?What’s important is knowing what’s needed and when.— Do Planets Have Personalities?You’re much better off examining your identity in order to become the person you want to be.

On September 19, 2025 I interviewed Sammy Williams, a London-based holistic nutritionist and intuitive eating coach about her experience overcoming a life-long eating disorder using the psychedelic 5-MeO-DMT and therapy. We talk about her background, her experience leading up to using psychedelics for healing, the psychedelic experiences, and the integration afterwards.Through the process of recovery, Sammy trained as a nutritionist and coach. Now she blogs, offers courses, and individual remote counseling for clients worldwide."You can choose to stay in a rut if you’re in one for the rest of your life, or you can make a different choice today and decide to change something. You know, you’ve got nothing to lose…"We all have the power to change our lives. The transformation that you go through when you start a journey like this, you can’t even imagine the things that are going to happen to you…"Sometimes we need some help and support, and sometimes that’s the hardest thing to ask for, but get over yourself and just do it."— Sammy WilliamsLearn more of what she offers at her Natural Nutrition website: https://www.naturalnut.co.uk This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mindstrengthbalance.substack.com/subscribe

“The object of art is not to reproduce reality, but to create a reality of the same intensity.”— Alberto Giacometti, sculptorStorytelling is a GameThere are only small differences between games and works of art. The main difference is the involvement of more than one person. Games involve collaboration while the appreciation of art is solitary.Art is usually created by one artist and experienced in one person’s imagination. Many can be present, but each has their own experience. Most games involve more than one person, though there is a growing inventory of single-person games. Among them, some are artistic, though they’re mainly entertaining. We’re starting to see games that focus on expression and creativity.Games will have a hard time becoming works of art as long as they’re created for a market that’s juvenile and unappreciative. Some art is interactive, whimsical, and entertaining but it hasn’t been gamified. Multi-person games, involving two or more people, have a narrow niche and more difficulty in becoming purely artistic.The defining characteristic of art is its suggestion of something you don’t know what to do with; it generates a paradox. As long as something must be entertaining, it’s difficult to also be paradoxical.Multi-person video games are expensive to create, some cost $100 million dollars, more than the cost of producing a movie. To submerge you in your imagination either requires a big budget or a child’s mind. If games are to become art, then we need an audience that has not yet been created.There is also the issue of pacing. Games have built-in clocks—their alternating turns, the duration of their puzzles, and the pace of their rewards. Novels have pacing too, but it’s more varied. Literary works can add digressions, a game can only digress when the digression brings all players with it. This difficulty in shifting the pacing of a game affects the storytelling.Gamifying DramaThe trend to create serial dramas was credited to Charles Dickens in 1836. The number of serial dramas has now overtaken single-release movies, as you can see in the offerings of streaming media companies like Netflix.These were called soap operas in the 1950s, whose quality and budgets were minimal. Today’s budgets are huge though their quality remains poor. They are pay-for-play entertainment, not works of careful authorship. Serial entertainment has not made a good platform for art.It takes more than just a continuing plot to create a meaningful world. Authors of the serial format rarely create themes that span more than a single story. Each episode of the travel adventures in The Pickwick Papers (Charles Dickens)—called the first serialized novel—the 007 spy series (Ian Fleming), and the detective stories of Sherlock Holmes (Arthur Conan Doyle), all conclude at the end of each installment.“‘Literature’ is not a big enough category for Pickwick. It defined its own, a new one that we have learned to call ‘entertainment.’”— Nicholas Dames (2015)Themes spanning more than a single book are contained in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, Frank Herbert’s Dune, and J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter. Many blur the boundary between having a single plot and being a series of adventures.Screenwriters are creating movie franchises, but this has not generated literature of any quality. A quick look on Netflix shows most of the offerings are serialized. None rate as literature and most are poor movies. Even the most popular, like the Star Trek and Star Wars franchises, are not literature.Neil Gaiman, author of great children’s stories (The Graveyard Book and Coraline) also creates video serials (The Sandman, Good Omens, and Dead Boys Detective Agency). But the video serials lack the quality of his writing due to the format, cost, involvement of many authors, directors, producers, executives, and limitations of Gaiman himself.Most great literature is ahead of its time, while entertainment must be popular in its time. This debases the themes and trivializes the content. Existential questions don’t attract the average viewer who is celebrity-obsessed and poorly read.Dramatizing GamesMovie remakes are a special kind of serial. Theatrical remakes are often better than the originals, while movie remakes are usually worse. Live theatre aims for quality while movies aim for profit. Consider King Kong, Peter Pan, Dracula, A Christmas Carol, and many others.Viewers of remakes expect novelty and familiarity, and this is similar to the expectations of those replaying a game. Game replay rarely delivers the novelty of a movie sequel, but it could aim to.Current games don’t remake themselves with each playing, but this is changing. Most of the board games I’ve designed change on each playing due to rearrangements of the board, resources, rules, objectives, and game play. Traditional board games changed only through the action of the game, but the genre has gone well beyond this.I use asymmetry to take this further, and asymmetry can be built into any level. Clients vs. Architects satirizes the genre of simple attack games like Monsters vs. Aliens and Plants vs. Zombies. It goes to the intellectual high end of architecture where we’ve seen a good deal of monstrous behavior.Monster Architects vs. Client ZombiesArchitecture, the most utilitarian of the arts, is an appropriate landscape for the monstrous profit motive. In Clients vs. Architects each board is different, just like every architectural commission.The game reflects construction in real life that is both a puzzle and a maze. And while great architects create great works, it’s their reputation that’s most enduring. The client may use the building but, to an architect, they’re just one consumer among many. The client’s essential purpose is to further the architect’s reputation.I’ve found it easy to create games that are unique in appearance, form, and function. The game industry, still largely producing consumer toys, has yet to rise to the level of art. Clients vs. Architects attempts to combine all three: entertainment, art, and story. It will not be mass produced; it will only be available as a pre-order through the Kickstarter campaign.The campaign will start October 1, 2025 and run for 3 weeks. We need to pass the funding threshold in that time or nothing will be created. After the campaign ends, and if it has succeeded, new orders will be accepted for about another month.If you’re reading this before October 1, subscribe to the email list for news and updates: https://clientsversusarchitects.eo.page/81csyIf you’re reading this after October 1, pledge on our Kickstarter page:https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mindstrengthbalance/clients-versus-architects-conquest-or-collaborationTo see the large collection of artist games I designed, go to my games page: https://www.mindstrengthbalance.com/alternative-education/games-system/ReferencesDames, Nicholas (June 2015). “Was Dickens a Thief?”. The Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/06/was-dickens-a-thief/392072/ This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mindstrengthbalance.substack.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit mindstrengthbalance.substack.com“Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.” — Thomas Jefferson• Getting a Straight Answer• Seeing the Truth But Not Saying the Truth• Internal Truth Versus External Truth• Seeing Is Not Believing• What Are You Hiding Behind?• Honesty Cannot Be Negotiable• Open Your Dreams

A 60-minute interview recorded on September 18, 2025.Indra Rinzler is a Vedic Astrologer and Spiritual Coach with bases in India and Norther California. I spoke with him on the intersection of spiritual and psychological counseling:* The higher self* Wisdom of the body* Sanity and consciousness* The reality of purpose and value* The search for answers* The four ways to conscious living This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mindstrengthbalance.substack.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit mindstrengthbalance.substack.comInsight always involves the coming together of many things without a loss of complexity. Insight is not simply the ingestion of data, it requires the digestion of it. Insight unfolds slowly because it adds connections between things rather than just increasing their numbers...If this essay seems confusing it’s because it strings a thin web across a broad topic. It could be amplified one hundred fold but would only be twice as memorable. Shorter is better. Remember these steps: for greater continuity in your life, embrace diversity and confusion while cultivating persistence, awareness, skill, and discernment.

“By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.” — ConfuciusWe credit ourselves with our successes. What you're willing to risk may come down to what you lack. If you feel you lack skill, that's what you'll test. If you're uncertain about what you believe, you'll aim for truth. If you feel yourself undeserving, you'll seek virtue. And if you lack beauty in your life, then you might risk your life to find it…Pursuing rewards at great risk is an incomplete formula. Risk tolerant people may use this formula because they feel they are immune from harm. But if you have to take big risks to maintain your state of mind, are you playing a winning or a losing game? Maybe success is something you start with rather than aim for.— Science, Business, and Relationships— Celebrating The Winners— Don't Follow the Leader— Survivorship Bias This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mindstrengthbalance.substack.com/subscribe

Pauline Victoria is a podcaster and life coach. She says of herself: I was born into darkness, not having arms and legs, and that circumstance will never change. What can be altered is how I choose to live—in love, in joy and in possibility. That is where my victory and my message is. What makes me unique is using what little I was given to live significantly in my small victories to make a great difference.Introducing our conversation, Pauline says:In this soul-stretching conversation, Pauline sits down with Lincoln Stoller, therapist, hypnotherapist, and founder of MindStrengthBalance.com, to explore the truth behind sustainable success, mental resilience, and why struggle might be the very thing shaping your fulfillment.Lincoln brings a deep and refreshing perspective on achievement, therapy vs. coaching, why goals alone can leave us feeling empty, and how failure is often the only way we truly build a meaningful life. If you’ve ever reached the top of your game and still felt unsatisfied—or are currently in the messy middle—this episode will remind you what truly matters on the journey.Key Takeaways:• Coaching helps you attain your goals—therapy explores why you have them.• Success without self-awareness leads to emptiness.• Struggle isn’t a sign you’re failing—it’s a sign you’re growing.• Failure clarifies direction. To find the path you must first map the territory.• Material gains are external; satisfaction is internal. Cultivate both.For more information about Pauline Victoria and her programs go to her website at https://onelegupproductions.com/ This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mindstrengthbalance.substack.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit mindstrengthbalance.substack.comYou will stop sabotaging yourself when you stop asking the same questions. This opens a door to a slew of related behaviors, none of which are simple. By considering these related behaviors we can clarify why self-sabotage is both hard to see and hard to stop.•Understanding Is Valuable, Awareness Is Critical•Surrender Leads to Success•Reasons Mean Nothing•Making Corrections•Proving Yourself

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit mindstrengthbalance.substack.comStraight Forward GamesPlaying a fair game is an expression that can refer to living a balanced life. In the context of an actual game, the expression means recognizing the odds and avoiding preferential outcomes...Not So Simple LifeMany of the same expectations and rewards of a fair game apply to life...Where Being Fair StartsI start by asking questions which amount to me moving aside what you’ve arranged at the front of your personality... Fairness is HonestyA fair game, like a fair situation, is one that reveals itself. Presentation, explanation, and understanding are all aspects of honesty...Driving Toward the FutureNow consider how we live our lives. Here there are no traffic rules, turn signals, or speed limits... Balance is Most ImportantFairness is how you play, but balance is what you play for...Back to the GameWhen we live, we pick our games too, our decisions are just more complicated...CounsellorsI recognize what I do as an important, additional element in some people’s lives...

I Don’t Think Much, and Neither Do You: We consistently, pervasively overestimate our powers of conscious thought...Mapping Out the Territory" We need a map of events in the world to tell us how things are related and how we’re going to react to them...The Train Dream: I had the following dream...“But I Don’t Dream”: We spend a third of our lives in dreams...Dream Work: The best way to be present in your night time dreams is to spend time day dreaming...Benefits and Expectations: What we imagine guides our perceptions and sets our expectations...Here is Your Homework: Amplify the meaning of your imagination... is the limit of your tolerance and engagement, and that’s where you want to stop and look around... This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mindstrengthbalance.substack.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit mindstrengthbalance.substack.com“I, not events, have the power to make me happy or unhappy today.”— Groucho Marx• Clarifying A Basic Confusion• Why So Depressed?• There is a Key• Depression as an Aspect of Your Brain• Depression as an Energy• Retraining For Relief

Rachel’s interest focuses on spirit and healing while mine also includes philosophy and science. She introduces our discussion this way:What happens when a physicist turns inward? In this transformative conversation, psychotherapist and consciousness explorer Lincoln Stoller shares his evolution from the rigid world of analytical science into the vast terrain of inner healing, mysticism, and human potential.From summiting literal mountains to diving into the subconscious terrain of dreams, Lincoln invites us to reframe discomfort—not as something to escape, but as a powerful portal to healing. Through stories of cultural immersion, nighttime visions, and grounded practices like walking meditations, he reminds us how presence and curiosity can dissolve our inner limitations.This episode isn’t just about ideas—it’s an invitation to stretch the edges of your consciousness. Whether you're craving deeper meaning, navigating personal transformation, or seeking soulful tools to break free from old patterns, this episode will move you.Let Lincoln’s wisdom awaken your own. Your discomfort might just be the dream whispering your next step. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mindstrengthbalance.substack.com/subscribe

“All of this (current world situation) is very familiar to anybody who's lived in a country that has experienced the takeover by a… we used to call them Big Men in Africa.“There was this post-colonial, post-liberation period when these figures, very Trump-like figures, came in. And it served a purpose, which was to give people a sense of comfort that in this rapidly changing world they (The Big Men) would control it and turn things back to the way they'd always been. So in Zimbabwe, you know, very similar rhetoric, very similar playbook.“It's interesting to be in Africa as all this happens, because there's a there's a little bit of a sense of relief. You know, everybody used to say, ‘Oh, this continent was a basket case. And how does it always elect these terrible people? And why do people not do better in terms of resisting it?’ And people here, now, are sort of saying, ‘You see, it happens.’ And, unfortunately, once it happens, it’s very hard to undo it.”— Jillian ReillyIn this interview Jillian and I introduce ourselves and what we’re working on. Me on issues of facilitating personal change and how people’s thinking is shaped by groups. Jillian on social change and how group thinking is held back or moved forward by the thinking of individuals.The Ten Permissions is scheduled for release in September of 2025 and can be preordered on Amazon.Vain Aid: Jillian Reilly at TEDxCapeTownThe Ten Permissions, with Jillian Reilly (YouTube)https://www.australasianchangedays.com/project/jill-reilly/thetenpermissions (Instagram) This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mindstrengthbalance.substack.com/subscribe

A June 2025 conversation between me and Philipp Kobald, a podcaster with a startlingly similar background to my own: business, spirituality, mountaineering, psychology, and education.We talk about all of these things incidentally, but float above them on a layer of spiritual concern. This is as it should be. All things should have spiritual foundations.https://holisticcircle.org/blogs/news/what-a-mountaineer-turned-therapist-learned-about-healing-while-hanging-on-cliff-s-edgeWhat the video version on YouTube:Philipp was impressed with our conversation and wrote a lengthy summary of it. Here’s what he said, which is posted on his website.A Raw Look at Inner Exploration with Lincoln StollerBy Philipp Kobald in cooperation with AIwww.HolisticCircle.org©2025 HolisticCircleDon’t Try This at Home, Unless You’re Ready to Change Your LifeIf your idea of self-work involves scented candles and journaling prompts, Lincoln Stoller might make you feel like you’ve brought a foam sword to a gladiator match. Here is a man who free-soloed cliffs, consumed ayahuasca in the Americas, studied quantum physics, and now — presumably with both feet firmly back on the ground — helps people explore their inner landscapes as a psychotherapist and brain trainer.And yet, despite his death-defying CV, what Stoller champions is not adrenaline. It’s honesty. Brutal, inconvenient, edge-of-the-precipice honesty. The kind that tells you your brain’s trying to communicate via dreams, and you’re ghosting it.Early in the episode, host Philipp Kobald finds unexpected common ground with Stoller. Both grew up immersed in the raw beauty of high-altitude landscapes, and their mutual love for mountaineering becomes more than a metaphor — it’s a shared language. As Philipp puts it, mountains teach you honesty in a way no therapist ever could. One wrong move, one dishonest thought about your limits, and nature will remind you who’s really in charge. It’s not just a nice bonding moment — it’s a grounding force for everything that follows.This was no spiritual sugar cube of a chat. Hosted with his usual gentle mischief by Kobald, Spiritual Conversation (produced by HolisticCircle) went spelunking into the caverns of mountaineering, neuroscience, psychedelics, and the weird nightly theatre of dreams. Spoiler: you’ll never look at that one recurring dream about losing your teeth the same way again.The Mountaineer Who Fell Into the MindStoller’s journey from cliffs to counseling reads like an indie film that wins awards in Berlin. After scaling literal mountains, he took a nosedive into physics, then fell sideways into shamanism and psychedelics. Somewhere between salvia and neurofeedback therapy, he stumbled upon the realization that the biggest climbs are internal.His spiritual awakening didn’t arrive via incense or a perfectly curated yoga playlist. It came via the moment he realized that free-soloing thousands of feet up a mountain without a rope was not only inadvisable — it was stupid. Or in his words, “If everyone did what I did, half the planet would be gone.”Now, instead of chasing summits, he helps others descend into themselves, one deeply uncomfortable truth at a time. Yes, there are ropes involved. Emotional ones. Tension lines strong enough to support people tumbling through grief, depression, anxiety — or just the existential swamp we call modern life.Dreams Are Not Oracles, They’re AuditsIf you’re still clinging to the notion that dreams are cute little metaphors for your waking life (“I was flying — so I must be seeking freedom!”), Stoller is here to torch your dream dictionary. To him, dreams are not messages. They’re more like audit reports from your subconscious: overwhelming, disjointed, and rarely flattering.Dreams, he explains, are your mind’s attempt to stitch together nonsense into a meaningful pattern. It’s your internal cartographer mapping chaos. And no, that flying dream doesn’t mean you’re destined for greatness — it probably means you’re about to nosedive into your own limitations.Rather than decode dreams like horoscopes, Stoller suggests experiencing them — like stormy weather. Forget searching for meaning in a talking rabbit. Ask instead: where am I holding back? What am I unwilling to see?Healers, Beware the Enlightenment Industrial ComplexStoller doesn’t mince words when it comes to healers and seekers outsourcing their intuition to institutions — especially educational ones. Take his view on bringing “spirituality” into classrooms. It sounds like a lovely idea until you realize, as he says, that schools already do a marvellous job of crushing curiosity without getting their hands on your dreams too.The push to include dreamwork and introspection in schools? He calls it out for what it could become: another bureaucratic attempt to standardize the ineffable. A therapist, he argues, earns your trust through honesty, not a state-approved certificate. Especially when working with children.For healers, it’s a sobering reminder: your gift isn’t data-driven. It’s soul-driven. And it doesn’t need to be approved by a panel of government-funded mindfulness consultants.Brains, Rewired and RebelliousNo, you can’t rewire your personality in 90 days, despite what the neuroscience influencers with unnaturally white teeth might promise. Stoller dismantles that claim with the same steady conviction he used to dismantle crampons after risky climbs.He explains the brain not as a machine to be programmed but as a living ecosystem. Sure, you can improve focus, reduce anxiety, and enhance sensitivity using neurofeedback (which he’s done for a decade). But change isn’t a vending machine. You don’t insert affirmations and expect enlightenment to drop out the bottom.Instead, he urges clients to work with what’s real: their own perception, dreams, and failings. Particularly the failings. Those are gold mines — if you dare to dig.If You Survive, You’re a Better TherapistThe most jaw-dropping moment? Stoller comparing counseling to mountaineering. Yes, therapy, too, can be a high-risk sport. The emotional terrain is jagged. The people you’re trying to help will, eventually, shoot their worst at you. And your job, as a healer, isn’t to flinch.“You want to be hurt,” he says. Not in a martyrdom way, but because if you can’t be moved, you can’t be useful.The goal isn’t detachment. It’s resilience. If you can take emotional bullets, process them, and still help someone climb their own inner cliff, you’re not just a healer — you’re a bloody miracle.A Word to the Would-Be Dream WarriorsStoller’s book on dreaming isn’t some fluffy guide to decoding your inner unicorn. It’s more like a firestarter for your unconscious. He offers a four-part method: incubate the dream, wake with intention, practice lucid dreaming with humility, and use daydreams consciously like emotional reconnaissance.But mostly, he warns: be prepared. Dreams aren’t cute. They’re not safe. They will drag you through hell if that’s what your psyche needs. And if you’re doing it right, you won’t just wake up remembering them — you’ll wake up changed.There’s No Finish Line—Just Deeper HonestyThe conversation ends where all good quests do: not with answers, but with better questions. How do we become honest enough to heal? How do we climb the mountains within without losing our footing — or worse, becoming unbearable?Lincoln Stoller doesn’t offer a branded solution. What he offers is a challenge. To go further. Think deeper. Feel more. And maybe — just maybe — ditch the rope and trust yourself for once.If you’re curious to watch the full descent into mountaintops, dreams, and mental jungles, the Spiritual Conversation with Philipp Kobald and Lincoln Stoller is waiting for you on the @HolisticCircle YouTube channel. Wear a helmet. And maybe bring a notebook.By Philipp Kobald in cooperation with AIwww.HolisticCircle.org@2025 HolisticCircle by Philipp Kobald This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mindstrengthbalance.substack.com/subscribe

“The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education.”— attributed to Albert EinsteinLoveOn the face of it, love is an immature emotion but there are various kinds, so I must be more specific. There are different things to love and ways to love, and some are more enlightened than others. A person can love from different aspects of their being, and each of us expresses these aspects to different degrees.There’s physical love which is generally thought to mean sex but really means having a physical connection. Physical love develops a sense of peace and trust based on being physically present and mutually supporting. If you live with someone and rely on them and they are suddenly removed, there is a fracturing of a physical bond.Intellectual love, which doesn’t sound compelling, is a real thing. It means more than just being agreeable. It can mean supportive, enduring, and reliable. If you’re an intellectual person and you strive to create a world that makes sense, then being in partnership with someone who understands you and supports your understanding creates an important bond. It’s fair to call this love because breaking this bond will cause heartbreak.But it’s emotional love that we think of first because this is the most common, dependent, deceived, attractive, rewarding, and frequently denied form of love. And it is all of these things not because it’s the most difficult, but because it’s generated by one person’s fantasies. And while there is nothing wrong with fantasy, as it’s a necessary part of creative thinking, it serves a temporary function.HateHate is also an immature feeling. By hate I don’t mean simply an adversarial attitude, I mean a mental obsession. A specific, negative projection about a person, place, or thing. And it’s not the negativity that’s immature—there may be good reasons to be negative—it’s hate’s obsessive and unexamined nature that makes it immature.Hate can also be physical, intellectual, or emotional, but these are not simple opposites to love. You may hate being in pain, and that’s a real hate. The simple presence of certain people may cause you anguish. The longer you remain in the presence of these people, even if nothing is said or done, the more anguish you’ll feel. At some point, your hatred will grade into anger.I’m not sure about intellectual hatred but it seems possible, it’s just not something I can easily identify. It would be an overwhelming, intellectual negativity that clouds your thinking. It would not be emotional.My attitude toward people who endorse slavery is something like intellectual hatred. It’s an antipathy that’s cold and calculating but not passionate. Manipulative people who lie to achieve their ends trigger similar feelings. Donald Trump elicits intellectual hatred and this seems to be his intention. But when the feeling becomes passionate, it becomes emotional hatred.Emotional hatred is what we’re familiar with. This is the red hot feeling of being personally, physically threatened. Politicians incite intellectual hatred because it always spills over into emotional hatred, and it’s emotional hatred that turns people into puppets.Whoever controls your emotional hatred controls you, and if no one controls your hatred, then the hatred itself controls you. Your hatred can be directed to motivate you to war, or your hatred can motivate you to violence. It’s interesting that despite being one of our strongest motivators, hatred accomplishes nothing more than creating distance. You’d think there would be easier ways to accomplish this.ProjectionProjection is simply applying an attitude as a way of description. It’s a way to illustrate what you feel, but it’s not a property of the situation. This means that what you project only endures as long as you continue to project it. It is not something you’ve recognized as part of a relationship, it’s how you’ve decided to connect the dots. The dots may be real, but the way you connect them probably is not.We disparage projection as false and pretentious, but we should appreciate its positive role. There is a reason that we project our love and hatred on situations. It begins a process of development. But rather than learning how to use projection as part of a process, we’re taught to consider these projections as accurate.We believe our first impressions or the first impressions offered by authorities. What could be a good starting point, and one that's an essential step in creative thinking, becomes an undeveloped end point. As a result, we learn to be stupid.Why Do We Do This?You have to imagine something before you can build an understanding, and once you have an understanding, you can start to take steps to strengthen it. Just as you trace an image on a blank canvas before you begin painting, so also you project your ideas on a situation before you begin thinking. What you project becomes an opportunity that you can invest in.But an idea is not a realization. An image of a sculpture is far from the finished work. Clearly, you need the image before you begin. Without a basic image you’ll build in the wrong place, or you’ll start by putting a roof on the ground. Projection is necessary, it’s something one should learn to do in childhood through play. It’s something that must be refined.What We MissHaving an idea does not tell you how to put it into practice. Taking prescribed actions doesn’t tell you why you’re doing them. There is a step between conception and conviction that’s missing when we educate people poorly.Telling people what to think without fostering the growth of their bodies, minds, or emotions is a central failing of “modern” culture. By modern, I mean the money economy in which people work only to accumulate security.If you never learn how to take the love you project and create the relationship you imagine, then you end up with hollow, unsustainable relationships. If you never learn how to take the hate you project to fix the bad situations you imagine, then you squander your energies destroying environments that are necessary for long-term survival.Unrefined love is an undiscerning acceptance which fosters all sorts of unhealthy behaviors. Unrefined hatred is an undiscerning rejection which, like a forest fire, burns everything. We find both of these in the natural world, but they are part of larger processes.Nectar and forest fires have their place but they are parts of processes that require discernment and endurance. Membranes and boundaries protect resources. Thorns and toxins keep exploiters away.We must be similarly discerning with our destruction. We must inflate and examine our projections to see our ideas more accurately. Just as a movie projects a 2-dimensional image that we expand to three or more dimensions, we need to learn to do this with our imperfect projections.How to Do BetterThere are many pieces between initial ideas and completed constructions. These are the pieces that connect our imaginations with our practical skills. We send people to school in an attempt to teach this to them. Schooling succeeds to a small degree, but fails to a large degree. We learn how to hold a job, but we don’t learn how to foster love or channel hate. We don’t learn how to learn.“Education is what people do to you. Learning is what you do to yourself.”—Joichi Ito, entrepreneurThe result is what we see in the “modern” world: failed marriages, broken families, global poverty, and endless war. All of these are failures in realizing human ideas. Not “ideals,” as those are the goals; “ideas,” as those are the means.Most people don’t recognize that these laudable processes—relationship, family, community, and culture—begin failing as soon as we move beyond our immature conceptions of them. We project these conceptions on the world and invest our 2-dimensional understanding. No one is teaching us to do better.A successful marriage takes more than two people consenting to an illusion. A successful nation requires more than one person declaring himself dictator. You cannot react to failure by becoming depressed. Failure offers both losses and lessons and must be seen as a new starting point. In each of these cases what’s lacking is skill. How does one get it?It’s hard to develop an aptitude that was supposed to develop when you were young. People who were traumatized or abused as children were denied an important part of their development. Many normal people get angry and reactive when obstructed, rather than becoming curious and resilient.Young people approach problems with body, mind, and emotion at a time when they have support to play, explore, fail, and experiment. Real world problems require a complex combination of skills that cannot be broken down into book-learning form. This applies to academic subjects but applies even more to relationships, families, and cultures. These are full spectrum problems.Once we’re adults, we no longer have that support, and we cannot engage in that kind of learning. As adults, our time is limited and there is little opportunity for full spectrum learning. We’re taught instructions without learning skills. The result is the collapse of relationships, families, nations, and cultures.One solution is clear: discard what you know and start over. This sounds silly, but this is what learning always entails. Forget what you love or hate and relearn these things. To do this you must find the time and resources.This is a prescription for re-schooling, and that makes sense for intellectual learning, but what about physical and emotional learning? The school version of physical education was always a joke, and emotional education never existed. The intellectual part is the least important because it’s the easiest. It’s the other skills we lack.My work as a counselor involves helping people develop emotional skills. I can say at least this much: don’t let your time be taken from you and wasted in emotionally unrewarding ways. Don’t let negative people and attitudes control you. Build on healthy foundations. I will try to be more specific later.Speak to me love, hate, and projections by scheduling a free call:https://www.mindstrengthbalance.com/schedule15 This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mindstrengthbalance.substack.com/subscribe

In this deeply layered conversation, quantum physicist and clinical counselor Dr. Lincoln Stoller. joins me to explore the terrain between science, and spirit. From neural training, and anxiety to the unseen forces that shape identity. Lincoln opens up about parenting, failure, and the work of becoming who you are. It's a raw, unscripted look into the psychology of creativity, and what it takes to truly grow. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mindstrengthbalance.substack.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit mindstrengthbalance.substack.com“Normal is an illusion. What is normal for the spider is chaos for the fly.” — Charles AddamsIntelligence QuotientIQ is a measure of a person’s mental ability to perform functions considered valuable. The metric was created at a time when eugenics was on the rise, and people were being ranked according to their race, age, gender, and cultural background.In the early 20th century psychological semi-sciences were being applied to education and social engineering. The goal was to identify people most likely to outperform in a modern, Western society. IQ is useful in predicting how a person will perform on tests administered in schools.IQ is not so much measured by IQ tests as it is defined by them. These tests do measure something. A person’s IQ is stable over time as long as they don’t try to improve their skills on these tests, but the tests are neither comprehensive nor intrinsic. You can improve your IQ score with training.Those people who do the best on IQ tests are those people who think linearly, which is like the questions on the tests, and who respond receptively to being told they need to answer questions. The questions on IQ tests are narrow-minded and specifically focus on circumscribed, deductive thinking.Creative people perform below what is expected of them because they are inclined to think differently, which means they distort the questions they’re asked. People rarely value another person’s distortion of their questions.

https://youtu.be/1b47iyAJrowith Ivan PalominoTransforming Work Culture | Passionate about Human Development | Tech EntrepreneurJoin two expats, me a New Yorker in Canada and Ivan a Peruvian in Switzerland, as we explore how one authentically changes. You can choose the benefits and the risks but you cannot choose not to change. To not change is to decay.Ivan writes:The world of self-development is a bustling marketplace of ideas, promising everything from financial abundance to inner peace. But how do we, as individuals seeking genuine growth, discern the truly valuable from the merely seductive? This question recently guided my conversation with Lincoln Stoller, a remarkable mind whose journey spans quantum mechanics, anthropology, and psychotherapy. Our discussion, recorded for the Growth Hacking Culture podcast, peeled back the layers of popular self-help narratives, revealing a nuanced perspective that is both deeply personal and rigorously science-informed.The Allure and Ambiguity of Self-DevelopmentIt's no secret that the self-development industry is booming. Companies alone are forecasted to spend over $80 billion by 2032 on this very pursuit. As individuals, we are bombarded with information and voices, all promising keys to a "best life." But as Lincoln aptly put it, the line between helpful advice and "purely b******t" can be thin.My personal interest in this topic stems from grappling with popular self-development teachings that often intertwine concepts like quantum physics and the law of attraction. Are these genuine connections, or just clever marketing? Lincoln, with his doctorate in quantum mechanics, offered a refreshing take: it’s often about metaphor. Imagination, he argues, is crucial for conceiving something before it can be made real. While many scientists object to what they see as the "bastardization of science in the name of spirituality," Lincoln believes they might be missing the power of metaphor. Science, particularly fields like quantum mechanics where even physicists struggle with full comprehension, can provide new frameworks for understanding. The goal isn't necessarily factual accuracy, but rather to disrupt old ideas and open the mind to new possibilities – a process, he noted, akin to certain methods of hypnosis where confusion can lead to a state of receptive trance.The Elusive Red Line: When Metaphor Becomes MisleadingThis brings us to a critical ethical question: where is the "red line"? When does the use of metaphor in self-development cross into misleading advice? I shared my concern about certain gurus who present scientific concepts, like quantum mechanics, not as metaphors for understanding but as justifications for their own lack of understanding, blurring the lines for their audience.Lincoln acknowledged the desire for a clear boundary, but painted a more complex picture. He observed that "most arguments are kind of frivolous and shallow," with few people truly deeply understanding any argument. He cited the fascinating dynamic between figures like J. Krishnamurti and David Bohm, where their intellectual exchanges, though stimulating, were often based on differing conceptual languages. He recalled observing that attendees at Krishnamurti centers often celebrated these figures not for their profound arguments, but simply for their celebrity status, riding on their "coat tails" to validate their own beliefs. This phenomenon, he argued, extends to society at large, where we often seek political opinions from movie stars or athletes, valuing celebrity over genuine expertise.The "law of attraction" served as a prime example of this complex interplay. While Lincoln called it "complete BS" in its supernatural claims, he also conceded that "there are some elements that are true." Focusing on something, he explained, naturally leads to increased awareness, more opportunities, and a deeper understanding. It's not paranormal, but rather "very obvious." He drew a parallel to religion, which, despite its inherent flaws and potential for "false knowledge," can be a powerful tool for fostering agreement and cooperation among people. His provocative question resonated deeply: "What's the alternative? Is everyone going to study everything and become experts? No, people don't care." This led him to a pragmatic conclusion: if you want to be useful, you must speak in ways that resonate with people, using metaphors and analogies they understand, even if the underlying concepts are, in a purely scientific sense, "abstract painting." The better judgment criterion, he suggested, is "what you accomplish or what you're trying to accomplish and not what you're ruining or misusing."The Responsibility to Intervene: Navigating Harmful BeliefsDespite the fluidity of truth in metaphorical contexts, I pressed on, emphasizing that a level of responsibility must exist, especially when beliefs become harmful. If I observe someone engaging in self-destructive behavior due to their beliefs, I feel an obligation to intervene. But where does one draw that line, and do we have the right to interfere with another person's belief system?Lincoln agreed that intervention is warranted when harm is clear. However, the complexities arise in the "gray area" of opinion, where one person's "positive" might be another's "destructive." He drew parallels to the current political landscape, where differing interpretations of reality lead to chaos and shouting, rather than productive discourse. As a therapist, Lincoln finds himself in a unique position to navigate these boundaries. His primary questions for clients are: "Are they injurious to me? Are they injurious to people around them? Are they injurious to themselves?" The answers, he noted, differ in each case. While he is paid to "endure injury" in the form of accusations or challenges from clients, he values the remote nature of his work, which safeguards against misinterpretations of physical interaction. This distance also grants him the freedom to be direct, even to the point of saying, "you're full of s**t," or "that's dangerous." However, he observed that clients who are unwilling to change or accept criticism often "flee." Change, he concluded, is at the heart of the matter, and it's often more effectively achieved by enticement than by direct confrontation. Ultimately, while a "line" exists, its assertion depends heavily on the communication context. In our open-ended conversation, where political or scientific precision wasn't the primary goal, the line was intentionally "vague," allowing for the exploration of disagreements rather than the assertion of rigid viewpoints.The Duty of Exploration: Finding Your Genuine PathMy curiosity then turned to Lincoln's own impressive journey, from "hardcore physics to getting to know the insights of the brains of human being." Is it a universal "duty" for human beings to embrace such openness and exploration? And if so, how can we discern what is genuinely helpful and true in self-development, particularly when we lack comprehensive knowledge to assess every approach?Lincoln acknowledged the difficulty and importance of these questions. The first answer, he suggested, is the hardest to describe: "you have to know what feels right for yourself." This requires a deep commitment to personal values, a "pivot" that guides your choices. It's not a simple duality of agreement or disagreement, but a shared space where concepts can be engaged and enlarged. Confusion, he surprisingly argued, can be a valuable tool, a means to dislodge ingrained mindsets. He highlighted the importance of delving into the "world where things don't make sense," the subconscious realm of dreams, unintentional reactions, memory, and trauma. This "terrain of reason" is where the "foundation" of our being lies, akin to the nutrients beneath a garden's soil. If this foundation is "bad," conflicted, or depressed, then what grows atop it will lack strength and honesty. Working at this deeper, subconscious level, he emphasized, is the most interesting and important area, though also the hardest to access without external support.When pressed for "tricks" to spot genuine self-development, Lincoln offered a counter-intuitive but profound idea: "you have to be ready to fail on any new idea." If you already know exactly what to do with a new concept, it cannot truly be new. Growth requires engaging with the unfamiliar, putting together previously disparate concepts. He championed travel as a powerful tool for enlargement, exposing individuals to new cultures and ideas. However, even reading and socializing can be "stultifying" if confined to the same familiar patterns. The irony, he stated, is that "you know when you don't know." A "fertile area" for growth is often one where you feel a sense of not understanding.Drawing from his own experience in mountain climbing, he explained that learning to discern safe exploration from genuine danger is crucial. He spoke of scaling dangerous cliffs without a rope, a practice that demanded absolute focus and the absence of fear or doubt. While he wasn't traumatized at the time, the memory still brings nightmares decades later, illustrating that the immediate perception of safety doesn't always align with long-term well-being. His advice: "You should be willing to take as much risk as you think is safe and always try to take more." In any technical field, or in life itself, he suggested "biting off more than you can chew," but "not so much that you choke." It's a constant, difficult decision, where "it will always be difficult," but some difficulties are "good" and others "bad." He questioned the relentless pursuit of "greatest competence" in extreme sports, suggesting that it often overshadows genuine learning, becoming a pursuit of ephemeral achievement rather than lasting growth.The Core of Values: An Ongoing JourneyMy most challenging personal struggle, which I shared with Lincoln, lies in identifying my authentic values. In a world saturated with social media and external influences, how do we discern values that truly belong to us, rather than those shaped by societal approval or past experiences?Lincoln confirmed that this is a universal struggle, noting that some questions cannot be answered purely at an intellectual level. Like the question of God's existence, some truths resonate at the level of "faith." He outlined several levels of understanding our values: the intellectual, often proving "hopeless" for these deep questions; the social, where values are shaped by friends and community (he humorously noted his son's "religion" being online video games); and then deeper levels. The "heart" level, where we feel love, concern, or anger, serves as a touchstone for decisions. But the "most interesting" and foundational level for him is the "subconscious," the realm of dreams, unintentional reactions, memory, and trauma.As a counselor, Lincoln works with dreams as a "resource of ambiguity, conflict, chaos, deep feelings, emotional feelings." Being overly rational about dreams, he argued, is unhelpful because they don't conform to reason. This subconscious realm is the "foundation," the "garden" from which our conscious thoughts and actions grow. If this foundation is "bad," lacking honesty or commitment, then everything built upon it will be vulnerable. Working at this deeper level, he emphasized, requires someone who can move beyond pleasantries and social protocols to appreciate personal confusion. He sees the counselor's role as providing a "less biased" voice, a mirror to our inner complexities. He underscored the immense energy and skill required by a good therapist, who might "think five times for each word they speak" to help disentangle a client's "disregulated and conflicted" life. While the financially privileged may have access to more subtle and open-minded help, those in deepest need often lack the resources, creating a profound societal challenge. Ultimately, Lincoln believes that talking, especially when skilled enough to access the subconscious, can be incredibly effective, allowing individuals to glimpse "a deeper reality."Conclusion: Embracing the Messiness of GrowthThis conversation with Lincoln Stoller was a powerful reminder that self-development is rarely a linear, perfectly rational journey. It’s a messy, often uncomfortable, but ultimately deeply rewarding process of exploration. True growth, as he elucidated, involves embracing ambiguity, challenging preconceived notions, and daring to venture into the unknown, even if it means "biting off more than you can chew." It’s about listening not just to external gurus, but to the whispers of our own subconscious, guided by an authentic sense of what feels right, even when the path ahead isn't entirely clear. In a world clamoring for quick fixes, Lincoln's wisdom offers a refreshing and grounded invitation to a more profound and enduring kind of self-discovery. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mindstrengthbalance.substack.com/subscribe