 Matt Santoro, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. We met at Kindred Conference last year. Yes. And we, yeah, we only got to speak for like a few minutes and it was the last day regrettably. So thanks a lot for coming on. I really want to just, just jump right into it. I've been a fan for a while, watching your videos on YouTube. And then like I was doing my own little thing on YouTube too. And then a few years ago, you uploaded this video that caught a lot of people's eyes and attention and empathy. And you helped a lot of people around the globe. And it was this video about how you struggled with depression. Yeah. What, what, what kind of brave soul? What kind of person uploads that kind of video to YouTube? Why do you think you did something like that and and got it out in public? Um, I would say somebody that's that was in a lot of pain and that decided to use that pain in his art. And that's what it was. I was struggling so badly for about three years. And it wasn't until I'd say the second year in that I decided to give it a name, which was depression. And I refused to do that for so long. So I just thought, ah, you know, I'm having one bad day a week and one bad day turned into two and then three and then four. And then I was having six out of seven bad days and then every day was bad. And I thought, oh, OK, I'm just in a slump. But that slump went from a week to two weeks. And, you know, and and I refused to give it that name because I felt like it was defeating. But what I realized was by giving it that name and saying, this is a problem that I have and I'm going to defeat it. That was actually the opposite of weakness. It was strength and sometimes, you know, people need to realize that by admitting their weaknesses, they're actually gaining strength. And that's what I decided to do is make the short film, because I knew it would help help people. And what was the result of releasing that? And how did it make you feel, too, by putting that in the public? Was there was their anxiety around that? Was there uncertainty? No. No, I I felt like I first off, I knew that I couldn't be the only one dealing with any sort of mental health issues. It's pretty clear in our society that it is a, you know, it's a bigger issue than even the coronavirus that's happening right now. This is a it's a widespread issue that, you know, unlike the coronavirus, which can go away if you just stay in your home and it'll go away in a few weeks or even three months, depression and mental health issues are not like that. And they're not they're not some physical disease. They're something that you have to work through in your mind, either through a combination of medication, meditation, therapy, you know, everybody's different. And so when I released that video, I to me, it was it was me taking my power back and it was me creating something that I would was hoping through my pain would help people. And it was like the beginning, me beginning anew when I released that it was me saying, OK, I've given a name to this. Now let's tackle this issue and through sorry. I don't probably heard that through meditation, medication and mindfulness and therapy. I largely beat depression. And, you know, a friend of mine always says, Matt, you know, you should announce that you beat depression and this and that. And I don't think there's anything wrong with that. You know, depression may or may not ever fully go away. I don't know. I'm not a doctor. All that I can say is for me, it works best when I say I've tackled the issue and any time that, you know, I feel really down or I feel myself kind of going back to those old ways of self isolating things like that. I don't look at it as, oh, my God, depression is back. I look at it as this is old programming coming back up in my mind. I can recognize it now. And therefore, I know that whatever this bad day is, or even if it's multiple bad days, that's all that it is. It's just bad days. And it may be that old depression, that old programming that's in my mind, but it's not a permanent thing. And there's a way out. Like I said, through for me now, it's purely meditation. I need to go back to therapy. I stopped doing it for a while because things were going so well. But to me, I feel like therapy is it's like doing maintenance for your car. You know, your car may be running fine, but it's it's a good idea to get the oil changed and get things checked out because you never know. And it's the same thing with therapy. It's just it's weekly, hopefully weekly. I would go every Friday or every Wednesday weekly maintenance for your brain because your brain is a body part just like anything else. And that's really one important thing that I want people watching or listening to this broadcast to walk away with is if you were to break your arm, you'd put a cast on it, correct? So why is your brain any different? Why do we think, oh, I have a mental illness of some sort. I have depression, this and that. It's shameful or I'm embarrassed. Why? Why do we put that stigma on it? Just look at it as, hey, my arms hurt. I got to do something about it. My brain's hurt. I got to do something about it. It's a body part. It's not this mysterious thing. It's something that you have to deal with. It may not be as simple as putting a cast on it right away, but there are solutions. Right. That's amazing. And the solutions, they're daunting because there's a lot out there. The problem's so complex. The science is so complex. The brain is still such a mystery. How did you know, like, and this is where people struggle. It's like, OK, let's say the stigma doesn't mean a damn thing to me. Let's go. And then people are like, well, where the heck do I start? Like, I feel like crap. I want to get help, but there is meditation. There's mindfulness. There's exercise. There's this supplement. There's medication. There's this therapist. There's a psychiatrist, a psychologist, my GP. Oh, my goodness. What do I do? So so what was your first step in in seeking help and starting this journey? One step at a time and, you know, in the same way that you wouldn't heal your arm immediately, it may take six months to heal your arm, and it may take different medications. To deal with some sort of physiological illness that you have. It's the same thing with your brain. What I did was I started with therapy. That was not enough. I finally conceded into trying medication. And I say conceded because I think a lot of it, a lot of the resistance has to do with the fact that I'm Canadian. The the the culture in Canada is very different than the United States. In the United States, if you have something wrong with you, you know, in your mind, the first thing the doctor will do is just say, well, take this pill. There is a huge, huge push to just pop a pill in the United States. And so because of that, I was so resistant to it. But after a while, I thought, you know what? I just I I got to my wits end. I spent, I think it was my 30 second birthday alone in my bed in Los Angeles in my penthouse, crying. And I say penthouse because I I want people to understand that when you have money and nice things, it doesn't mean you're happy. And so I no longer live in a penthouse. But, you know, that was the last straw for me. And I said, I'd take it and I blogged the experience. I didn't post it, but I blogged it. And I said, OK, I'm about to take this. It was it was called lmictal. It was a mood stabilizer. OK. It wasn't an antidepressant. Not that that matters, but that's I wanted to start with lmictal because I was still very trepidatious. So I said to my my therapist what would cause the least amount of what's the word I'm looking for? Like not I can't think of the word right now. I haven't had my my coffee. My coffee side effects, right, right. OK. I asked my therapist what would cause the least amount of side effects. And he said, well, lmictal will, whereas, you know, some antidepressants have, you know, side effects with your sexual health and in maybe weight gain and things like that. He said none of that will happen. So I said, OK, let's try that. And what it did for me is it managed some of my manic symptoms. I was never diagnosed with manic depression or mania or anything like that. For those that don't know, mania is when you're like like like a crazy yo-yo like you're really, really, really up and it causes you to do really, you know, crazy things that will that are that are risky. And I'm going to get a tattoo and I'm going to jump out of a plane. I'm going to do this and I'm going to maybe try drugs. And then it's and then you go really, really low into a depression where you could be suicidal. I was never that, but I was never even keel. I was always a little bit of this. So I would say that I had a little bit of mania, maybe. But but mixed with depression, who knows, right? Like you said, the mind is a is an interesting thing that you never really know, right? And really doctors can only kind of guess. And so I took this stuff and over time, I started to notice I was kind of evening out and but I always knew I didn't want to stay on medication. That was just my personal journey. There's nothing wrong with being on medication at all. That stigma needs to go away. Right. But for me and my personal journey, I knew that I didn't want to stay on medication. And if I needed to, I would concede to that because there's no shame in that. Some people are lacking things in their brain. And sometimes I still wonder if I could benefit from like an antidepressant or like a small dose or something like that. Yeah. But I tried that and that with the therapy and meditation. Those three pillars got me to where I'm at now. So I that's incredible that you took that step to try medication because that's a lot of time that is the reluctant step because there's definitely stigma involved. There's the side effects that you can read about. Something that really freaked me out before I took medication was I was dumb and went on forums online. And I'm like, who else is taking this stuff? What else do they have to say? Hmm, not a good idea. Everyone's very different with the response to this stuff, right? Yeah. And I don't want to interrupt you. May I say one thing? Yeah, of course. When it comes to antidepressants, and again, I've never taken them, but every antidepressant is different for each person. So don't think just because you take, say, a Prozac, that that's it. That's the only option. No, there are many options. And I think they call them SSRIs, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors. Yeah, you got it. So just because you try medication and it doesn't work, okay, try another one. Don't be afraid to experiment. And what I always tell people is without your mental health you don't have anything, you know? And I don't want to go off track of what you were talking about. But for me, I had so much money during that time, like so much money. I was making, at one point I was making six figures a month. Like it was stupid off of YouTube. And I'm not ashamed to say that because I was completely miserable, completely miserable. Like I wish I could tell you that I was living the life, but I wasn't. I was alone in this big penthouse. I was paying 10 grand a month in rent. It was ridiculous. And I was filling my life with material possessions. I was filling my life with stupid things that I didn't need. At one point, just because I, you know, I would get a little high every time I purchased something. So at one point I actually decided that I didn't want all of my electronics to be black anymore. I wanted them to be white and silver. So I went out and I spent like $12,000 on all new Apple products. New MacBook, top of the line, new HomePod, new everything, just because I wanted silver. Now looking, yeah, exactly. So looking back, you know, looking back, we can see that that is really, it's a neurotic tendency. It's something, you know, but I don't blame myself for that. I understand that the reason that I bought 20 different iPhone cases of different colors and textures was because I needed any kind of a distraction to distract myself from the pain that I was experiencing. And so I'm not embarrassed to say those things because that was part of my journey. And I want people to understand that you may do things during this time in your life, if you're depressed, that may embarrass you. You may be taking drugs. You may be addicted to sex. There's countless things that human beings can do to escape their reality. But I promise you, when you get out of where you're at, and you will get out of it eventually, you'll look back and you won't be ashamed of those things, hopefully, because you'll understand that it was part of the journey. It was part of getting out of where you were at and you had to do what you had to do to survive. Right. And I think you hit the nail in the head there as far as distraction. Because we're all living lives of distraction and partial attention. Like we're on the toilet and we're on our phone, right? We're on the subway and we're on our phone. We're not mindfully eating. We're not really paying attention. Right, you got the Netflix on while you're eating, right? Yeah, the common people out there eat a meal and they're questioning why they're still kind of hungry afterwards. Like the food didn't freaking resonate. It didn't, because you, you know, and I'm sorry to interrupt you, but I, you know, it's nice talking to someone else sort of in the mindfulness community. It's your, it's your, it's your episode. Also, I'm isolated right now. It's your episode. Come on. Also, I'm isolated right now and it's nice to be able to talk to a human being. I know, I know, I know. Yeah, in case this episode ages, this is during the time of the coronavirus. Thank you. Yeah, yeah. So just for some context. That's such a tough thing when guests come on. I'm like, let's maybe mention it, but I don't want to date it too much. Yeah, yeah. That's a great sprinkling. Yeah, it's important. Sprinkling. And so, yeah, anyway, we can continue. But yeah, mind, mindfully eating, like really sitting there and really tasting the food. First off, food tastes way better than you're used to when you actually sit there and focus only on the food. Don't talk to anybody. Don't watch Netflix. Just eat the food. First off, it's going to be so much more satisfying, so much more filling, and you're going to get fuller faster. And through that, you're going to start to realize that you don't need as much food as you think you do. That's very interesting. And, okay, so I want to touch on that too, but it seems to me, and maybe people listening, that there was an old mat and now there's a new mat, okay? And what was the wall? What was the moment of awakening? Was there something there? Was there an ayahuasca experience going on here? Because you went from, it seems like distraction and very involved in YouTube, which you still are, and making great, helpful content. And now you're successfully dealing with and defeated depression and living a very mindful life. And I see, for those watching on YouTube, or sorry, for those listening, behind mat is a clock. And I thought it was like a barometer or something like that. It's a clock, and every hour says now, which is so cool. Isn't that great? Yeah, so where did mindfulness come from? Where did this awakening come from? Can we call it that? Do you label it that? Absolutely, I call it an awakening. I wanna be clear, I'm not a guru and I'm not somebody that claims to have it all figured out because as many sages and mystics have said through the years, if you claim to have figured out life, you don't know life. If you claim to have figured out God, you don't know God. And so, or Brahmin, as the Hindus would say. Are you familiar with any of these terms? I'm just curious. Yeah, but I'm doing my readings now, yeah. So, I got to a point where I was so miserable. Sorry, I have to have the volume on so that I can hear you. So, hold on, let me, you know, people listening, everyone's checking their phone for this. Yeah, hopefully. You know what's funny, just a little side note. Nobody really hits me up too often, normally. Like during this lockdown with the COVID-19, I'm getting a lot more messages and people kind of like, hey, what's going on? Are you going as crazy as I am? Yeah, yeah. But normally, I don't get that many people hitting me up on a regular basis, but I find that when I'm doing an interview or I'm doing something important, they all flood in. It's almost like, yeah, I don't know why that is. Matt, you have no idea, literally half the time when I'm doing a podcast here, I have a guest over, they do fire alarm testing in my condo. It's one of those things that don't understand the universe, it's weird. But sorry, you were saying about this awakening process. So, you know, a lot of people, so for those listening out there, people are always dealing with something called an ego, and not everyone may be familiar with that term. So what your ego is, it was essentially a survival mechanism that we developed as human beings that was part of our awareness. So the same thing that says, hey, I am sentient, I am aware that I am conscious, I am aware that I am Matthew Santoro, that is the thing that sets us apart from the animals. Because a dog doesn't know it's a dog. A bird doesn't know it's a bird. That's our greatest gift, but it's also our greatest curse because that in turn developed the ego, which was the thinking mind. Now, that is what, that's the history of it, that's what allowed us to survive as a species for hundreds of thousands, millions of years. But that ego, which is the thing that says, hey, there's danger outside the cave, let's think of all the scenarios in order that could happen, that could hurt you in order to stay safe. That same thing has followed us into the age where we're in now where the vast majority of people, hopefully most of us, are not in mortal parallel all the time. So that ego now needs to look for problems because that's what it's there for. It was developed to look for issues and problems in danger to keep you safe. And so that's the thing in your, that is your mind. That is the thing where you can't let go of that person that cut you off in traffic and you're constantly ruminating about it. It's that thing that says, oh, I got in an argument with my girlfriend and damn it, two hours later, this is what I should have said or oh my God, that person hurt me 30 years ago and I swear to God, I'm still one day I'm gonna get revenge. That's what it is, it's the thing that hurts you. And there's a book called Ego is the Enemy by Ryan Holiday, I don't know if you ever heard of it, but it talks all about this. It's one of many books that I've read on the topic of the ego. And by the way, when I say the word ego, we often use that in society as a word that means pompousness, self-importance, arrogance, things of that nature. That's not what I mean by this definition. The ego is what I just said before that, which is it's your survival mechanism in the, I had the perfect definition, I haven't looked it up in a little while, but it is the conscious, you know what? Can I look it up? Of course, of course. I keep a lot of notes on mindfulness and things of that nature and just the perfect definition, go ahead. No, I think that's, it's something I've spoken a lot about too, as far as I toot my own heart. I did a TEDx talk a while back and it was about this idea of why you should question the world and question, you know, your own life. And I brought up the famous philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau who coined this term perfectability. And you're talking about animals, well like an animal is instinctual and you could call it perfect as it is because there's no growth. The animal's the animal, it's driven by instinct. The cool thing about humans, and I think what you've really, really discovered through this depression, that's what I discovered, is that people are rarely perfect, but it's this quest for perfectability where you can keep getting better and better and learn more and learn more. And you're like on this amazing journey through like, I'm stunned by your knowledge right now of the ego and of mindfulness and discovering therapy and medication and you're opening up this whole new world to yourself. And the cool thing is that you're, in my opinion, is that you're not learning and just keeping it all to yourself. You're actually sharing everything that you're doing with the world through your Instagram, through YouTube, through coming on podcasts like this one and many others. The awesome thing I saw, and we will go back to the ego, it may have a lot to do with the ego too, is I saw on your story and I was like, who is this Mac guy? Because you gave this example of what you do when you get a hate tweet. And you get hate on social media like many YouTubers and influencers do, but you had this totally different approach on how to deal with it, which we can touch on later and give a little tidbit for the listeners, but it was incredible. So what was the definition of the ego you had here? Well, we can definitely talk about that, I'd love to. The ego, and by the way, before I continue, I read voraciously, I read 53 books last year, most of them spiritual in nature. And I got meditating Jesus up there. And beside him I have meditating Buddha as well. And through all of that knowledge that I, or wisdom I should say, that I gained throughout 2019, I kept notes. And one of them was for moments just like this when I could explain to people what the ego is, which is the unobserved mind or the phantom self that runs your life when you're not present as the observing consciousness. Wow. Isn't that the perfect definition? That's it. Let me say that again. So the traditional definition of the ego is an unhealthy belief in our own importance, arrogance, and self-centered ambition. Okay, that's the traditional version. Like that person has a big ego. You hear people say that, although they are related. But the definition in a psychological sort of aspect or spiritual aspect I should say is the ego is the unobserved mind or the phantom self that runs your life when you are not fully present as the observing consciousness. So what does that mean? What that means is that quite simply you are not your thoughts. You're not your anxiety. You're not your depression. You're not the constant mill of, tens of millions of thoughts that run through your head every day. You are the observing consciousness behind it. So what that implies is that there is an in-between because you can actually, through meditation, which is the act of observing your thoughts. It's not the act of turning off your thoughts. That's an important distinction to make. It's the act of sitting there quietly and just watching what thoughts pop up and then either gently saying no thank you, not right now or if they continue to pop up, diving deeper into them in thinking about, okay, why do I keep thinking about that person that hurt me and we need to dive into that a little more? You are the consciousness that's observing those thoughts. The problem is that people become ego identified. And so they lose who they are, which is that infinite consciousness behind the ego. And so they become identified with an identity. I am a Christian. I am the black sheep of the family. I am a criminal. I am obese. There are millions and millions of possible things that we can identify as. Even something as simple as I am Matthew Santoro. That's a concept too. And so all of these things have stories behind them. And we think we need them because it's a survival technique. It's a survival thing. If you didn't know who you were, you would, in your core, you would be afraid that you would cease to exist. If you weren't Scott, and I don't mean you specifically because I feel like maybe you've transcended this, but if Sally Sue or John Smith wasn't Sally Sue and John Smith, then who would they be? That's a scary thought. You have an entire life of memories and ideas about who you are and things you've done that makes you who you are. You can't just give all that up, but I'm here to tell you that you absolutely can. That takes a lot of time. What takes less time, although depending on how old you are, you may have say 30 years of built up ideas about being ego-identified like I was before I started meditating. When you start meditating, you start to observe the thoughts and through that, you separate yourself from the thoughts. And that little piece in between is what peace is. It's the breath that you can have without having to worry about things, without the anxiety, without the depression. And by meditating, hopefully that little space will start to grow and grow and grow. And when you have a moment where you become really pissed off and something happens, you no longer immediately act and do something that you're going to regret. You say, okay, I know what this is. I'm super, super angry right now, but I'm not going to send that email. I'm not gonna call that person. I'm not gonna punch this person in front of me. I'm going to think about this for a second and I'm going to sit in this anger. And by sitting in it, you start to observe the feeling and you simply, that's it. You simply observe it and you don't act upon it and then it dissipates. And so instead of that anger resonating and resonating, resonating for a week, and we all know we're all capable of this. We've all held a grudge for a week, a month, a year. I held grudges for years. I remember the day that I let go of all the grudges against all these people that I perceived hurt me. You can just let go of it. You have the power to let go of these things. The difficult part, and I know you're saying like, it's not as easy as just sitting on a cushion and boom, I'm creating that space right away with one meditative session. What's difficult and scary for me when I meditate at times is you might open a can of worms. You don't know what you're gonna find if you go deeper and that's when the distraction comes in where people would rather look for other things rather than sit with themselves. And it can be very daunting. And sometimes, which I find with mental health advocacy, which is what I'm in here with YouTube and everything, is people actually find comfort in identifying with a mental illness. And that can be troubling. It's like, I have depression. I am depression. I am depressed. I'm Scott, the guy who has depression. That's me. Because without that, who would you be? And especially if that's your identity online. Yes. And like for example, this can be incredibly, incredibly damaging and it locks you into that identity so that you can never change. I know somebody that I follow online who is a big proponent of the body positivity movement. I absolutely believe in that movement. I think that we should all love each other, love ourselves despite our size or anything of that nature. However, that's one thing. But this individual is a proponent for obesity. A proponent. We all know it is scientifically proven that obesity is not good for you. And this is just one example. There are many others that I could give. But this person is a proponent for that and they mix it into the body positivity movement which are related, but they're not the same thing. And so to me, truly loving yourself is taking care of yourself and your body. I'm not talking about having, say a little bit extra chub on you. I'm talking about somebody that's truly morbidly obese that they will die, they'll get diabetes. They're going to not live a good quality of life. If they're healthy, that's one thing. But if they know they don't feel well, they'll never be able to change it because their identity online is the fat girl. And so through that, they're never going to be able to change and it's incredibly damaging because that's the identity that they've come up with themselves because if they ever did lose weight, who would they be? They would lose their entire following. They're like, wait a minute, I thought you were this person, you know? And it's the same thing with another person I know that is a hardcore Christian. They believe that the Bible is the literal word of God, that it was written by God's hand, which those of us that are a little more enlightened understand that it is not, they're parables. People spoke in those days through stories. That's how knowledge was passed down. It was very rarely that things were written down. And so they needed those stories. That's why Jesus spoke in parables because that's how things were communicated at the time. And she believes that heaven is a literal place. Hell is a literal place. And that if you don't love Jesus and only Jesus, that you cannot go to heaven because Jesus said, I believe that he said something along the lines of, I am the only way to heaven. I am the way in the light. The way in the light and only through me can you reach the Father, something of that nature. But what people don't understand is that, and this can go in so many directions, I'm trying to keep it like, but what people don't understand is, of course Jesus would have said that. As far as he knows, he's the only enlightened being that exists and never has existed. He wouldn't know about Lao Tzu. He wouldn't know about the Buddha that existed 500 years before he did. Or sorry, was it 2,500 years? No, 500 years, right. 500 years before he did. Like he wouldn't know about any of that. He probably wouldn't even know about any other religions, especially ones in the East and things of that nature. So of course he's going to say, I am the way the light to God and I'm the only way to the Father. Of course he would say that. But this person that I know, it's actually my friend's mom. She's a wonderful person, but she's so ego identified with being the Christian. She is the Christian. There is God's stuff, Jesus' stuff all over her house. Her license plate is God's girl. Like she is so, she's so identified. And it's like, you know, don't get me wrong, that's probably better than being identified as somebody that wants to hurt the world. But being super, super ego identified with something can be just as destructive as somebody that wants to hurt the world because your mind is so closed that you start discounting anyone of another religion. Discounting anyone that might want to date your daughter that doesn't know anything or believe in Jesus. That person could be a great person, but immediately they're going to hell and screw that person. That is just as destructive as somebody that doesn't believe in God and doesn't believe in morality and things of that nature, in my opinion. And so it's important. And by the way, I have dealt with this myself. Like when I went through this, cause you know, I'm talking about other people, let me talk about myself and my issues that I've had with this. I used to be super ego identified with, I'm Matthew Santoro, I'm the YouTuber, I'm the famous guy, this is who I am now. And when my fame, if you want to call it that, I don't care for that word, but let's just say my fame or how people knew me. When my viewership started going down, then I perceived when my viewership was going down is my self worth and my value was going down. And that's the danger of being ego identified with anything because you are putting your value as a human being or as the infinite consciousness behind your thoughts and what you are. You are linking it directly to money or fame or being the good Christian or being this or being the good office employee or whatever it is, whatever it is, being, you know, I'm the cancer patient. That's me, that's what people know me as. If you beat cancer, who are you? You are not the cancer patient, you are a healthy person battling cancer. You are not the, that's a big distinction that people can make. And my mom was, you know, call her the enlightened one too. My mom never liked people calling her because she beat breast cancer, but it was the survivor mentality. She's like, I don't want to be labeled with the cancer anymore as a survivor. It's done, that part's done. And let's move on to the next. Because people want sympathy. And people, when you're different and you come up with, no matter what the ego, people are so thirsty to be ego identified, to be noticed, to be different, that they will subconsciously welcome negative things into their life, whether it's being super, super overweight or, you know, being, you know, the guy with cancer, for example, right? These are extreme scenarios, but we'll just use them. When that happens, people get sympathy and they get hooked on that sympathy. Oh, poor John, man, he's got cancer. I know, what's he gonna do? Well, let's bring him food and stuff like that and you get hooked on that. So a lot of times somebody, my friend, my friend told me this and I don't know if this is true or not, but I need to look this up. When somebody's battling a very serious disease and they end up beating the disease, many of those people end up committing suicide because they've become so ego identified with beating X disease that when it's over, they no longer get the special treatment. They no longer get the sympathy and they no longer get the attention and they don't know who they are and they can't deal with it. I don't know if that's factual. A friend of mine who knows a lot about psychology told me that, but I can't claim that to be fact. I'm just stating that. I need to look into that more, but it makes sense if you think about it. It makes perfect sense. Well, we could just have a similar example of people that identify themselves with their work and they're at a job for 35 years, 40 years and then retire and people that retire cold turkey like that are like the depression rates when people retire and the highest suicide rates are actually Caucasian males over the age of 75 which is very interesting because one may lose a spouse and you identify with the marriage and relationship or when you retire, you identified yourself with your work or when your kids move out of the house, you identified yourself as the father figure. It revolves a lot around identity and to go back to mindfulness was and meditation was that we talked about opening a can of worms. What did you discover during that meditation? Like, did you get uncomfortable with the ego? Did you finally say and think about, oh my gosh, I've been identifying myself as the YouTuber, I'm materialistic. What came out of meditation for you? And how long did it take? Definitely, I mean so many things, definitely an awakening. And before I answer that fully, I wanna go back and let people know that your pain is there for a reason. It's there for transformation. The way that most people reach an enlightened stage or transformation is through pain. That is the most common way. So many people that you know, that you see that are starting to talk online like myself and just famous authors and things of that nature. What they'll all say is I went through incredible depression and my life was in shambles and basically what it does is it burns your ego up. Your ego becomes literally burned away because it's working overtime to give you all of this pain. And I feel like a part of that happened with me and it wasn't until I discovered that I had an ego and what the ego even was that I started to be able to observe it and observe the thoughts. Like I said, I remember there were some days where before I knew about the ego, I would say to my therapist, like I would have these days where my brain literally felt on fire. There were so many negative thoughts going through my mind and so much pain that my brain literally felt like it was on fire. And now I know what that was. It was my, your ego's like a machine and it was my ego was working overtime, overtime, overtime. And so when I started to be able to manage it a little bit better, I started to realize things like I'm not just a YouTuber. That's not who I am. That's what I do, but that's not who I am. And most recently I had another bout with this. When I thought that I beat it, beat the ego, the ego has a really vicious way of coming back. And it all happened actually, it's related to those two statues up there. The praying, the meditating Jesus and meditating Buddha. I used to have those at my old place on a coffee table and my friend, different friend, who was a devout Christian, Jesus is the only way, et cetera, et cetera, came over, saw the Buddha and the Jesus statue beside each other and was so offended and said, first of all, Jesus didn't meditate, he prayed. And yeah, exactly. That was my reaction, which he did both and they're kind of the same thing. But I know that was my reaction. That hurt, man, that hurt. I imagine trying, imagine hearing that and being like, look at my veins, look at my veins just fall and I get sweaty. But she told me like point blank, Jesus did not meditate, he prayed. That is, what did she say? Blasphemous, she said that that statue's blasphemous. And then she said he shouldn't be that close to the Buddha. I don't want him that close to the Buddha. And I was like, are you aware of the fact that if Buddha and Jesus lived at the same time, they would be best friends? Are you aware, do you understand that they became equally enlightened and that they would probably have meditation sessions and like just spread infinitely more love across the world? Like, could you imagine a world where they both existed? It would be amazing, but not in her perspective. But here's the thing, your reaction was my reaction. And I actually got angry because I thought, first of all, this girl was like 22 years old and she was very young. She didn't understand, she doesn't have the life experience yet. I'm almost 35, so a bit of a difference there. She doesn't have the wisdom. And she only ever learned what the church taught her, right? So she only has one perspective, so I don't blame her. But it bothered me because I was like, I was so ready to be like, you're so wrong and here's why. But I didn't respond. And I thought about it, I meditated on it. And a week later it came to me. I got angry because I am ego identified just as much as she was. I'm ego identified as the spiritual guy who knows better. And that was my ego identity. Now, do I feel that I know better? Yes, I feel like I can say without a doubt that Jesus absolutely meditated as well as prayed. But I shouldn't make that my identity as the guy that knows that. And so I think it was like a year later, I was sitting with that person that I was telling you that was so Christian ego identified that she's got God's girl and all this and that. I was sitting with her and she was telling me about somebody that her daughter was dating and how he doesn't believe in Jesus and she doesn't want him in the family. And he better learn to love Jesus with all his heart or he's never marrying my daughter and all this stuff. And she was just rattling on and on. And I didn't say a word. And she kept saying things like, and hell is a real place and heaven's a real place. And heaven is not here on earth as it is. Heaven is not here on earth. It's not right now. It's up there. No, it's not. It's here right now. It's the present moment. We'll get into that. And Jesus spoke about that as well. Yes, he did. The kingdom of heaven is inside you. That's what he was talking about. The present moment. He's a brilliant guy. But yeah, I'm a Jesus fan. 100%. Yeah, I'm a Lao Tzu fan, Jesus fan, Buddha fan. I don't know much about Muhammad, but I know that he was an enlightened being, Krishna. What was that? Mao Tzu? Lao Tzu. Lao Tzu? You probably pronounce it Lao Tzu. No? He wrote the doubting. I'm pleading ignorance, man. What? Oh, bro, we're gonna talk after this. Oh, man, yeah. I need some book records. So he was a enlightened Chinese being that lived around the time of the Buddha. And what's about 2,500 years ago. And he wrote the Tao Dijing. Oh, the, oh my God, the Ying in the Yang? Is that his? Yeah, yeah, like Taoism, the Tao Dijing. Yeah, so the Tao Dijing is a short book, but it's one of the most prolific books ever written. Go on Amazon. I'll show you the version that you can get. But go on Amazon real quick. Yeah. And this is one of my favorite books of all time. Oh, you were hiding your bookshelf with most of your body there. That's a lot of books. Yeah, I have a, the top two are yet to be read. Those, there's 113 books there. I've read all those and all those. Over what, over two years? Then you said 2019 was 53 books. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Last year at 53 books, mostly spiritual. This year, I'm on. And now you're on Harry Potter. I just, excuse me, good lord. I just finished Harry Potter, that was amazing. Are you sad that you're done Harry Potter though? Cause those were amazing. I got the Marauders map up there. I have all my, dude, I have all the Horcruxes coming. Like I drank the Kool-Aid. Oh, good for you. Like literally, like here comes the new ego Harry Potter fan. No kidding, right? No, I'll tell you real quick. First off, if anyone wants a good read, read this. It's phenomenal. It's, I recommend this in specifically, cause it was translated from Chinese. Stephen Mitchell's version is the version I recommend. It's a short book. It's 100 pages, but there is so much in there. Like, let me just read you a random page. I would love that. You know a book's good when you can flip to any page. Yeah, okay. Yeah, here we go. So, the master gives himself up to whatever the moment brings. He knows that he's going to die and he has nothing left to hold on to. No illusions in his mind, no resistances in his body. He doesn't think about his actions. They flow from the core of his being. He holds nothing back from life. Therefore, he's ready for death as a man is ready for sleep after a good day's work. And yeah, and like a lot of these are so deep. Like the gentlest thing in the world overcomes the hardest thing in the world. That which has no substance enters where there is no space. This shows the value of non-action. Teaching without words, performing without actions, that is the master's way. Like, and this was in 2,500 years ago, this is BC, yeah, BC, yeah, exactly. But this is, you know, you could sit there and ponder one of these pages all day. Like it's, they're so, everything is so deep. I love that. Yeah, there's just, there's so many. Well, the first experience I had was reading the, obviously, a cartoli that was like everyone's kind of first. Yeah, and I was like, what? And it was first year university. And everyone was doing first year university stuff. And I'm reading this guy and I was dealing with depression at the time and that helped me so much. Absolutely. And I'm like, just the world totally flipped at that moment, that's for sure. I wanna end off with something I wrote down when you're speaking. Because this is something I'm always curious about. And it's hard when you're doing self-development and reading all these things, at least in my opinion, I have to keep this in mind. What's the end game here? Do you know what I mean? You've defeated depression and you're still reading. What's the overall benefit to all this? Are you just looking to get to the next step of enlightenment? Are you looking to see the world in different ways? Are you looking to help other people? Because just to bring up that, how you deal with hate comments, I think that's a beautiful example of how far this can go. And reading more and becoming more involved in this spirituality. I'm not sure what you wanna label it as, but what's the end game? Does that question kinda make sense? Yeah. So there's two parts to your question. One is how do I deal with hate comments? We didn't... Yeah, yeah. I'd love to hear about that one. Oh, yeah. That's great. The way that I deal with hate comments is, I've gotten to a point where I can see past the actual words and I question what's going on in that person's life to make them leave that comment. Because nobody that's in a good state with happiness in their heart can ever leave a hateful tweet or hateful comment on YouTube or Facebook or anything like that. It can't, you can't. When you're in a happy state, you wanna spread happiness. When you're in a sad state, an angry state, you wanna spread that too. So just yesterday, I gave an opinion on Twitter, big mistake. I know better than that. But... What was it? Do you wanna share or no? Yeah, I didn't think it was controversial. I responded to someone and they said something like, I can't believe people still drink milk. And I said, I know, I can't believe people still drink that poison. For those that don't know, dairy is incredibly bad for you. There's been study after study for the gut in the mind, man. Oh, it's so bad. It's so like, I can't even, I can't even get into how bad cow's milk is for you. But Google it. I highly recommend the alternatives. And then all these people came, they saw the tweet, I guess, and they said, even Peter responded to me, which was really bizarre. They don't even follow me. They're like, yeah, preach, drink oat milk. And I was like, okay, I don't know where that, worry how you saw that, but... But yeah, all these people were like, oh, well, almond milk is like 1% almonds and it's all chemicals and blah, blah, blah, blah. And it got on, like someone took a screenshot of it and put it on Reddit. And I got all this hatred. And I'm like, guys, this is science. Why am I, like, and so it bothered me a lot. And so what I did was I reached out to the particularly heinous tweets that I got, not all of them, but a select five or six. And I DM them and I said, hey, essentially, and I do this every single time I get hit, which is rare, but I said, hey, I saw your hate tweet. I just want to let you know, whatever you're going through at the moment, it will pass. And I know it's tempting to spill your poison onto other people when times are tough, but I promise that's not the answer. And I'm here to talk if you need someone to talk to. And nine times out of 10, the response is twofold. They'll say, oh my God, I didn't think you'd see that. And two, thank you so much. Actually, my parents are going through a divorce or a family member died or I lost my job or any number of things. And that's the thing. If you approach these things with compassion, you need to understand people, someone that does something like that is hurting. They're hurting. So reach out and give them some love. That's why love conquers all. Compassion is the answer to everything. It really is. Now, there is the one out of 10 people, unlike the other nine that are just mean dicks. And that's what the block button's for. And that's what I always tell people. It's like, that's what the block button's for. It's not for someone that has a dissenting opinion to you. It's nothing like that. It's for somebody that is just has hatred in their heart and it's like a permanent hatred. That's what that's for. You don't need that in your life. Now, as far as the second part of your question, which was, what's the ultimate? Yeah, yeah. Are you looking for something? Is this a quest for some ultimate enlightenment? When do you know when to stop? Do you know what I mean? How do you know if you've reached the end, reached the final book? Know enough. Yeah, I always want to continue growing as a human. I always want to continue to go down the path of spirituality and continue to learn and use the knowledge that I've gained for wisdom. But I'm not attached to an outcome. Many people have an attachment to I want to be enlightened. You can be awakened, but wanting to be, you can even be enlightened, but wanting to be enlightened, wanting to be attached or to be awakened, that's attachment. And the Buddha taught that all suffering comes from attachment and selfish desire. And so that's actually the second of the Four Noble Truths, which are, that's the tattoos I have on my arm, actually. So, yeah, so I got. Is that fresh? It's pretty fresh. It was like two weeks ago. Oh, awesome. But what the Four Noble Truths are is that suffering exists in Sanskrit dukkha. There's a cause of suffering called trishna in Sanskrit, namely attachment and selfish desire. The third is that there's an end to suffering known as nirvana. We've all heard that word in Sanskrit. And the fourth is that there is a way to prevent future suffering known as the eight fold path. And the Buddha talks about eight things like right meditation, right job, right speech, right thought, there are things of that nature. And so specifically attachment and desire is important to understand that one because that's the cause of suffering. And if people would just understand, if you would just become unattached to things, then you would eliminate a lot of your suffering. And by the way, it's foolish if you think about it to be attached to anything because we live in an impermanent world. Everything dies away. You can make a million dollars, but you can't bring it with you. You will lose that. You can love someone in your life deeply, your kids, your wife, your family, but you shouldn't be attached to them to the idea that they're gonna live forever because they're not. Either you'll pass or they'll pass or anything could happen. You shouldn't be attached to your wealth because you could lose it. A lot of people did this week with the stock market crash because of COVID-19. And so like for example, and I'll just be completely transparent about this. In the last week, I lost half, half, 50% of everything I ever made in the last 10 years as a YouTuber. I have made some good money. It was a lot of money, okay? Initially, and by the way, most of that happened in one day. Do you remember, remember the month? It was the Monday. It was like a month, last Monday. Just the world exploded. We saw the worst financial day since 1987 or since the housing crisis. And I lost most of it in that single day and I was pretty distraught about it. And then I realized why, I said, okay, Matt, why are you distraught? Because I lost my money. So you're attached to it. Okay, so whether that money goes now or it goes later is really irrelevant and immaterial. Is it okay to feel sort of down that it's gone? Absolutely, that's a human thing. Of course I can be pissed about that. But I believe in my heart that it will bounce back. I haven't sold anything. I still have my Bitcoin. I still have my stocks. It'll bounce back. It could take two years, but it'll bounce back. But even if it doesn't, even if it doesn't, I'm gonna be okay. We're all going to be okay. For those of you that lost your job because everyone has to stay home and you have to be quarantined by law, whatever, or maybe you have a sickness or whatever it is, you're always going to be okay. And that's a thought that I wanna leave you guys with is that you really have to believe it that no matter what happens, God, or if that's too much of a heavy weighted term for you, the universe, or you can substitute love, or you can substitute good vibes, or you can substitute the universe, or you can substitute source energy, these are all the same things. Whatever term works best for you, let's use the universe. The universe will always provide for you. You'll always be all right. Things will always be there to take care of you. And it starts with gratitude and it starts with just believing it. And in terms of me and my outcomes, going back to your question, I don't have any. I'm not attached to wanting to be enlightened. I'm not attached to any of these things. Do I have desires? Do I want to be successful? Absolutely. These things are not incompatible. You can still be a human being and have desires and have drive and want to make that money and want to be successful. That's an innate part of being a human being. Not wanting those things or trying to suppress them is trying to suppress your humanity. You can have those things. It's just a matter of not being attached to the outcome. It's a matter of saying, hey, I want to make a million dollars and then when I do, and if I do, it's not going to change who I am. That's just a goal of mine. So that's what it means by attachment and selfish desire. It's perfectly fine to have desires, to want to partner with someone that loves you, to have beautiful kitties. I've got some beautiful kittens that are sleeping right now. Those things are perfectly fine, but desire and selfish desire are completely separate things. If there was one final message you'd like to give to the viewers and listeners, this can be absolutely anything. The floor is yours, the mic is. Drink more kombucha, it's so good. I'm hooked on it, it's such an elegant thing. I freaking love kombucha. Have you tried making your own? No, I'm too scared. I feel like the fermenting thing, I want it done right. I drink kitties, but there's lots of different amazing brands out there. Right. Yeah, one final message. Yeah, one final message is read more. That's what I would say to people. Read and meditate and really nourish your brain. Your brain, like we talked about earlier, is a body part like any other. In the same way that you'd go to the gym and work out your muscles, you gotta work out your brain. People completely neglect their brain. Feed it food, this is kale for your brain. This is good, this is not a burger, okay? This is kale for your brain, this is good for it. It's super food. Read some books on spirituality. And if that's not your jam, read something healthy for your brain. Don't read books about Trump and whatever the new, don't watch the news about whatever the latest gossip or drama is. That's putting junk food into your body, into your brain. And what you put into your brain manifests through your body and through your health. Watch the news in small bits to understand what's going on in the world. Turn on CNN, COVID, still a thing, no cure found, cool. Here's what to do, cool, off, that's it. Don't sit there for hours ruminating about is the world ending, no. Take in what you need to take in and then start watching spirituality videos on YouTube. There are tons of amazing, amazing lectures by my favorite person, Alan Watts, on YouTube. Awesome, yep, yep. I recently went to his foundation's website. You might not be aware of this, I'm telling all my friends about this, you're gonna love this. His entire audio library of every single lecture he's ever given is available. It's expensive, it's $400. Okay. But it's 148 hours of Alan Watts. Oh, damn! Yeah, and for those of you that are like, who the hell is Alan Watts? Alan Watts. The most calming voice too, by the way, regardless of the content. Alan Watts is a very special person in the mindfulness community. He's past, rest in peace. He died in like the 80s or something. But he is credited with popularizing Eastern philosophy in the West. So all the stuff that we're used to now, yoga, Hinduism concepts, Taoism, Buddhism, all of these things, probably even kombucha. It all was sparked in large part by Alan Watts who has a masters of like theism or spirituality or something. So this guy, he knows everything. And he brought it all over and he did so many lectures and many of them were recorded. And you can listen to them for free on YouTube. One of my favorite ones to get you guys started is called Jesus and His Religion. Look it up on YouTube. That is single-handedly one of my favorite, favorite all-time lectures. It's called Jesus and His Religion. And essentially what he says is the good news that Christ brought us was not that he was the son of God, but that he was a powerful son of God and that you are too. And that's what the good news is, is that that's what Christ consciousness is. That's what people, if you ever hear the term Christ consciousness, that's what it is, is understanding your true nature, your true self, the infinite consciousness behind the ego. That's what Christ consciousness is. That's what Buddha mind is. It's all the same thing. That's what flowing with the Tao is. It's all the same thing in Taoism. So look that up. I think you guys will get a lot out of it. If you are a staunch, closed-minded hardcore Christian, do not watch it because you're not gonna like what it says. But I believe it to be the truth that I personally believe, and now I'm going off on a tangent, I personally believe that Jesus was not the literal son of a deity. I don't believe that God impregnated a woman in that, et cetera. This is just my belief. I don't wanna offend anyone. This is just what I believe. I believe that he was a man who had a tremendously powerful cosmic experience very young in his life and cultivated that throughout his life. And through that, gained Christ consciousness, which is the mind of God. And through that, became one with God, became one with the universe and came out to tell people that in the only language he knew how, which was to say, I am the son of God. But in certain translations of the Bible, the word the is italicized. And people started to take that as an emphasis. I am the son of God. But what that actually meant was when things would be italicized, they were, it was an interpretation of the word. It didn't mean emphasis. It means we interpreted this word. The actually meant a. I am a son of God. And the good news of Christ is that you are too. You just don't know it. You are also of Christ consciousness. You are Christ. And by the way, Christ was not his name that was a title inferred upon him. His last name was not Christ. He was not Jesus Christ like Sally Smith or Matthew Santoro. He was just Jesus of Nazareth. Back then they only had one name, but he was Christ, which meant anointed one because he became God. He was so enlightened that he calibrated at, have you ever read the book Power versus Force? No. Okay. I highly recommend that. I'm sorry. I know we got to end, but I just want to end with this. In life, there are different energy levels and the Richard, sorry, one second. Richard. Dawkins. Hawkins. No, David Hawkins. David Hawkins. Okay. David Hawkins. He's a doctor and he calibrated energy in the human body. And I'm not going to go into it. He spends the first half of the book explaining it. It's a little dry, but the rest of it is really good. And there are different energy levels. I won't go through all of them, but like energy level 20 is the lowest that you can calibrate. Technically zero is, but that's your debt. Shame is 20. Energy level 30 is guilt. Energy level 50 is apathy. Energy level 75 is grief. 100 is fear. 125 is desire. 150 is anger. 175 is pride. And 200 is courage. Once you reach 200, that is the transformative energy state. Anything below that is destructive. 200 and above is constructive. The human collective consciousness, just for the first time in the last couple of decades, reached a collective consciousness above 200 for the first time in history. Very exciting. Above that, and by the way, the scale goes to 1,000. There's courage, 200. Neutrality, 250. Willingness, 310. Acceptance, 350. Reason, 400. Now, love is at 500. To give you some context, Nikola Tesla, Einstein, some of the greatest minds we've ever seen in life, all resonated at 499. One point below love. Because to be at love means that you are in a consistent mind space of you see everything as love. You see everyone as you. You are no different than anyone else. And you live in a constant state of love. They didn't quite reach that, but they were so smart with reason, which is in the 400s, that they reached 499 just below it. Then there's 540, which is joy. 600, which is peace. And from 700 to 1,000 is enlightenment. Christ, Buddha, Lao Tzu, they all calibrated at 1,000. That's the mind of God. And so I highly recommend you guys look up this book. It's called Power Versus Force. The idea, you know what? Just read it. I won't go into it any more than that, but... No, Matt, we'll go through it on a part two. Yeah. There's gotta be a part two. Thank you. By the way, thank you, Scott, for giving me the opportunity to do this. I would love for you to maybe give me a clip of this so that I can put on socials and stuff. Oh my gosh, that'd be amazing, Matt. For those of you, all of Matt's links are in the description below, both on iTunes, Spotify, and obviously in the YouTube description and the pinned comment that you see, all of his links, Instagram, please check out his YouTube, please check out his website. All of the links are below too for the books that we talked about, as well as the Alan Watts YouTube clip as well. Matt, thank you so much, man. I really appreciate the time. This made me... The best podcasts are ones that people leave with things to think about and more of a curious mind than ever, right? So I'm leaving here with excitement to learn more. So thank you so much for that. You're gonna love it, man. Look up all those things. I will, I will. It's a little bit more of a library. Every morning, I have my morning coffee and I listen to it, it's great. That's, well, there's no better time than to pick up a book right now. I'm in a 400 square foot condo with my partner, Lauren. We got stuff to do. That's gonna be the first. That's gonna be the first. I got totally doubtaging. All right, let's end it. Awesome. Everyone, thank you so much. Stay strong, keep being you. Don't forget to express yourself. Take care.