What Is the 'Ick' and Its Psychological Role

Michael Stroe (@Plus3Happiness) is a phenomenologist and “happiness concierge.” Through a combination of the Buddhist Fetters & somatic practices, he’s allegedly reduced his suffering by ~90%. He claims to consistently live at 9/10 life satisfaction and has skillfully guided others into similar transformations.

Today we demystify his journey and discuss concrete practices for oneshotting procrastination, reducing reactivity and permanently raising the floor of your happiness (seriously).

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Transcript — Michael Stroe

​[00:00:00] Daniel Kazandjian: Michael Stroe, welcome to the Metagame.

Michael Stroe: Well, thank you for having me. How you doing?

Daniel Kazandjian: I’m doing great. I’m really excited for this conversation. You famously, through a combination of Buddhist practices and somatic practices reduced your suffering by around 90%, which

Michael Stroe: Even more these days.

Daniel Kazandjian: And now you’re teaching other people how to do that, which is fantastic. How did you figure that out? Like what, what’s the story there?

Michael Stroe: As many great things happened by mistake, it’s a total mistake. I was on a more or less sabbatical in like 2023 in Barcelona. Uh, not in a great place in life, honestly.

Daniel Kazandjian: Hmm.

Michael Stroe: and towards the end of the trip, someone actually, someone that, someone being Frank Yang, which you might be familiar with,

Daniel Kazandjian: Mm-hmm.

[00:01:00] Michael Stroe: Shared, Kevin Schanilec’s website, which I’ve messaged, and he was very succinct as like, “try Liberation Unleashed” being a Liberation Unleashed being this forum for, for these practices

Daniel Kazandjian: Can you say that again? Liberation

Michael Stroe: unleashed. Yes,

Daniel Kazandjian: Unleashed. Yeah.

Michael Stroe: Yes. And very quickly realize that the way they’re doing it is one practice at a time and it’s months of work. My ADHD Mind, uh, was like, yeah, but what if we do everything all at once? Um, instead of doing one practice at a time, I basically did eight of them daily for a couple of hours.’cause that’s how you do it. Uh, in a bunch of days I had a perceptual shift, which was very interesting, and a bit of a honeymoon for like two days. Uh, that was something that I found funny that um, some people speak of these, uh, awakenings or whatever in terms of like, oh, months of bliss. And I just had two days and on the second day I was in an airport delayed for like five hours, which I was chill about.

[00:02:00] But that wasn’t necessarily like, whoa, I’m so alive. They’re like, yeah, that’s not happening. It was a bit better than usual. That perception shift coincided with a bit of a, what should I put it? Less? Uh, stress, let’s call it initially. ‘cause I didn’t know what was happening. Just less stress, less, uh, overthinking, less, chatter.

And actually one of the, one of the few things that I found really interesting somehow coincided with great sleep. I don’t know how to explain it seconds to sleep.

Daniel Kazandjian: Wow.

Michael Stroe: I found it very interesting because I used to get like one hour, two hours, three hours to get to sleep. And I just have ideas and sit in bed for just 30 seconds. I was out and I’m like, okay, this is an interesting benefit. Not gonna lie. Uh, I don’t even care about all these benefits, I’m sleeping. Like that’s, that’s enough. And from then on I sort of returned to simply the scene, the, the initial website where I was guided, uh, to Liberation Unleashed.

And I’ve done the practices on attachment and version. Okay.

[00:03:00] And I should mention that immediately after stream entry, which would be the first shift that I had where it kind of, you notice that there’s just the body mind, there’s no little guy driving this, uh, body around. Um, you start to be aware of the fact that you kind of don’t like a lot of the things that are happening.

You’re trying to pull out experience to such an extent. And, I had 10, 15 years of anxiety and other things on and off. Um, when I started looking at them, uh, I sort of noticed that I had a sort of a version towards so many things even after the first shift in like two more weeks had another one where, oh, like I, my, my, like that was the point where anxiety got reduced both in size and intensity and that was a big deal, even more of a big deal than the first one. ‘cause the first one is, like I said, it was nice, I was sleeping better, but also realizing how much you hate your experience,

[00:04:00] let’s call it, put it into a certain perspective and realize that from whatever anxiety I used to have or whatever intensity, it went down by like 60, 70%, at least in duration.

Michael Stroe: One of the things I’ve noticed is actually, I used to have anxiety for days and weeks at a time about some stupid thing, or in general, like a generalized anxiety. And I realized that I couldn’t. Get anxiety going for more than 30 minutes. As in, if someone distracted me, I forgot I had anxiety, and I’m like, huh, don’t understand what’s happening.

Why do you mean like, I forgot I had anxiety. What do you mean? Like that makes no sense. And sort of like this continued, uh, after a bunch, uh, more time, a few other shifts, but this one especially, were like, oh, there’s a dare there. Which for me, there were years of trying self-development, failing at meditation, um, or is nothing working actually.

You sort of like, you do all these self-development things.

[00:05:00] You, you’re gonna do your finances and orders, like you’re not happy. You’re gonna get a great job, not happily encouraged to do these things. It’s like, okay, but like what works? Um, and I had a notion that there’s a debt there, but I didn’t have a notion about what’s possible.

It’s sort of like more of a faith, even though I’m not religious, more of a fate that it’s possible. I didn’t

Daniel Kazandjian: Yeah.

Michael Stroe: I feel like maybe some of the people that I was following were somewhat trustworthy in this sense.

Daniel Kazandjian: So, you just, so to recap, you had 10, 15 years of suffering with like, maybe above average levels of anxiety, is that what you’re saying?

Michael Stroe: Yeah.

Daniel Kazandjian: Yeah.

Michael Stroe: Were months at a time where I was to be okay. And the, the moments where I was okay were just the moments where I wasn’t doing anything. As you know, I was mostly taking sabbaticals, which is not necessarily a great thing in the sense of like, if you’re not active in society, you’re feeling great.

It’s like saying, oh, I’m feeling great on vacation, but I hate my job.

Daniel Kazandjian: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So from that, the practices at On Liberation Unleash, the first thing,

[00:06:00] Daniel Kazandjian: the thing that allowed you to sleep fast and stuff was, was that stream entry.

Michael Stroe: Yes. That would be stream entry. Yeah. And

Daniel Kazandjian: So just,

Michael Stroe: Obvious. Yeah.

Daniel Kazandjian: Just to bring people on board with that, what is stream entry?

Michael Stroe: Stream Entry, if I am to take away from the woo stuff, it’s like realizing there’s no self, but the problem with realizing there’s no self, it’s so, uh, abstract, but we, no one, no one know what it means, but it’s provocative.

But if I’m to be a very mundane phenomenologist, it’s just the sense that I’m no longer the little guy in the behind the eyes. I used to call it behind the eyes or behind the, an experience that sort of looks like a watches experience from afar a bit.

Daniel Kazandjian: Mm-hmm.

Michael Stroe: So realizing that, oh, I guess there’s nothing separate from the body, mind world. There’s just the body and mind. And my identity is more so that of a witness, uh, not of the tour, let’s call it. And it’s very simple. Like it’s mundane. One of my, uh, most treasured experiences, right? When someone says, uh.

[00:07:00] Is it almost disappointing that there is not more there? Because that’s what you kind of know. Like, okay, like yeah, they got it. And it’s like, of course, like after enlightenment, it’s just, just ordinary experience. Um, and yeah, basically just the sense of no longer identifying as the doer. It’s

Daniel Kazandjian: Mm-hmm.

Michael Stroe: There’s no one moving the body mind, just the body mind moving itself. Uh, it doesn’t need a do or it’s all conditioning. And so,

Daniel Kazandjian: Yeah.

Michael Stroe: freeing.

Daniel Kazandjian: So, so, uh, we might get into more details on this, but what’s interesting to me is what you said after that was when you realized that you had a lot of aversion to things.

Michael Stroe: Yes.

Daniel Kazandjian: So is it that stream entry kind of brought awareness to the suffering that was already, like, you weren’t feeling your suffering fully, and then something shifted in terms of

Michael Stroe: Yeah. Um, what happens prior to stream entry? You take all these things as identity. This is mine. Then through stream entry,

[00:08:00] You start seeing them as more of an objective, uh, phenomenon or objective processes. Basically what I used to call, uh, um, what I was seeing afterwards as, oh, you know, like some contractions and so on, it used to be like my anxiety, my social, whatever. And it was, it was getting, uh, caught up as identity. And once I was able to see these processes, just those objective processes that I’m able to watch, uh, there is, uh, a subtle detachment. I don’t mean detachment in, uh, sort of like going away, but they’re actually going towards them.

What I’m able to see them for whatever, which is a bunch of thoughts and sensations and that has a very interesting side effect of actually realizing that these are happening, these are conditions and they’ve been happening for so long. And if beforehand they used to be like, oh, uh, it’s me, it’s, I’m, I’m bad like this. I’m bad like that. I’m not good enough for whatever. It’s like, oh, there’s this process. Of these sensations appearing and this story about not being like this or not being like that?

[00:09:00] Daniel Kazandjian: Do you have a personal anecdote about that? really illustrates this point?

Michael Stroe: Uh, yes, actually, I can tell you how, uh, we, the weakening of a version happened.

Daniel Kazandjian: Hmm.

Michael Stroe: Uh, there was this particular day I was in my parents’ house in the countryside and for some reason, some of my friends, not just one, were not answering my messages. And I used to have anxiety about this thing for, uh, both relationships and of both kinds of friends and, and anyway, about people not responding.

And I used to have three friends and it’s like they were not answering my messages and I was kind of going in a loop. What did I do? What did I say? Did I say something? And I was just, I had the moment of watching. I was like, okay, there’s this weird process. There are some sensations that are kind of like, not pleasant, but I’m going through all these thoughts.

And what happens is that I’m making it worse, but what is this? I was like, there are some sensations I had the moment. The sensations are not that bad. And also, I don’t know how I’m making this. Like they’re just here.

[00:10:00] And that was the moment, like, oh yeah. It’s like, why, why am I, what, why am I doing this to myself? And I was moments like, ah, yeah, it’s okay. Oh, it’s like, I best I’m gonna like if, if this is how bad it feels not to, uh, receive, uh, attention or whatever it was at the time. Like, I don’t even remember fully what I was like, it’s not that bad. was like, huh. A bit of like, oh, this is no big deal.

Yeah. I can just go about my day. Like, I thought it was gonna be worse. The anticipation of this being so bad was what I was amplifying but the sensation themselves was like some amount of contraction in the stomach area. Like, uh, one out of 10. Not a big deal.

Daniel Kazandjian: Yeah, so it’s almost that there, the raw sensation itself is relatively benign, but then there’s some sort of mental content, some story at adding to it.

Michael Stroe: Yeah. The mental tension. Like a rat, like basically a rat in a cage.

[00:11:00] Michael Stroe: Um, and going through all these stories, going through all these machinations in order to, and this is very important in order to seemingly try to change the sensation, like what should I say for this person to respond to me?

Michael Stroe: And then it dawned on me that actually I was not trying to have them respond. I didn’t think it was gonna sound bad, but also I didn’t necessarily care about them responding. I actually cared about me not having the sensations. And this is one thing that I usually show to people, which is like, if this sensation would be the same, but you were happy, you wouldn’t care about the sensation.

If you were content with how things are. Whatever happens, happens, you can still be pretty, pretty okay with it. But the problem for me was not the situation, which is like all these people not responding to my messages, like the, the, the anxiety or the amplification was just happening. It’s like, I just don’t like how I feel right now.

I hate this and probably this is the reason why. It’s like, is this the reason why it’s like, not just some conditioning there. But Yeah.

[00:12:00] Daniel Kazandjian: And so what were the practices that allowed you to create a little bit of distance with those sensations and stories?

Michael Stroe: I think at, at, at the time I didn’t necessarily like I had the materials, right, but the materials were something like, oh, notice in this moment that what you’re trying is to look for some other reality than the one you have. Basically that moment I had these people that were not responding to my messages, and the thing that I was was like, oh, I don’t have a reality where they’re responding to my messages.

In current practice, I would frame it like, oh, I didn’t get a response from my friends. It’s like, oh, I’m looking for this reality somehow. It feels differently and things are different. So it’s like, not necessarily that I wanted things to be different, I wanted to feel differently. Oh, I don’t have friends that respond to my message quickly.

So like, sure. I guess.But when, when, when we were seeing that actually the practice was just seeing things and just feeling a bit to it, it’s not a big deal.

[00:13:00] And definitely, my practice was a bit different from the one I, uh, show to people right now. Uh, at the time I was doing more inside Heavy, which would be staying that mental tension and seeing that it’s just a sensation that we can do something about it.Right now. I ask people to do both that, but also like just sitting with a so-called pain and letting it dissipate.

For me it was just sitting in that tension. It’s like, okay, I’m sitting in that tension. So what? And it’s like, okay, it’s not that pleasant, but also. There’s no other reality available.

There’s no other Michael. Sometimes I, I, when I see people being stuck in, it’s like, what is your quantum duplicate that somehow has some other sensation? They’re not. It’s like, okay, so I guess this is what you have right now. Is it that bad? And sometimes I make these weird analogies, which is like, imagine you’ve hit your leg very badly in the furniture.

Would you trade these sensations for those sensations? Like, no, you go. Then sit with these ones. Maybe you appreciate them more,

[00:14:00] Daniel Kazandjian: Hmm. Um, I wanna get back to your story, but one thing I’ll, I’ll, highlight is what your practice wasn’t. It wasn’t trying to understand why you happen to be so sensitive to people texting you and it, and like going into the deeper reasoning for your emotions. It wasn’t that at all. It was focusing on the sensations themselves.

Michael Stroe: Yeah. And what I found is there are cases where the, let’s say the story unbundling, which I would call it, is helpful.For the sake of reducing suffering, there is minimal need for that. You need to see that the story is a story, which is a bunch of thoughts, and the sensations are conditioned, arising and the like.

The impression is that, oh, this anxiety, for example, right now for me, it’s happening because of what’s happening. But the reality, no, it’s happening because all the baggage from the back, all my priors that are being, uh, involved in this particular situations, out of which, let’s call it this gate out, which, the anxiety comes up is through this situation,

[00:15:00] it’s actually the baggage that’s to blame, let’s say for this. One of the things I usually do, um, lately is, uh, to ask people to, okay, has some meaning, whatever story, right? My story, I was like, there’s meaning, and my friends are not pointing my messages. Okay, why is there more meaning to that particular thought compared to my body? 70% water?

It’s like. Uh, somehow one is more meaningful than the other, but they’re both, let’s say language markers.

They’re both tokens and somehow one has more meaning than the other. It’s like, is it the meaning or they’re just both neutral, but the charge is just because of the conditioning and it helps a bit putting on the per circuit. Like you have two stories or you have two sentences. is charged, one is not charged.

It’s like, how exactly is the story charged experience wise? What exactly is the charge? Oh, some sensations. Yes. So it’s not the story. And through just sitting with them, they eventually were like, oh, I guess the story.

[00:16:00] It was the sensations that I was resisting.

Daniel Kazandjian: Yeah. maybe it’d be worth spelling this out a little bit more. It’s like there’s a story

Michael Stroe: Yes.

Daniel Kazandjian: And then there’s a sensory experience in the body, like some, some knot in your gut or something like that, or like a buzzing sensation somewhere. And then those two things are very tightly coupled or correlated. And so the story itself feels charged.

What’s the process of disentangling those two things?

Michael Stroe: Well, the first step is usually to take away from the story as in, oh, this thing happened, this thing happened, this thing happens. It’s like, okay, all those things happen, but what’s happening right now? It’s like me, I’m looking for some other reality in the one available. It’s like, okay, um, I don’t have this reality that I’m looking for where this other thing happened.

So it’s like, okay, in this moment, right now, what you have, uh, this sensory reality and some thoughts, it’s like, okay, that brings you a bit further, into the present, right? So it’s like, okay, you make a sentence,

[00:17:00] and that sentence is almost like a summary of what happened, but in a very factual way.

Right. Like very factual. It’s like they didn’t say this, okay, so I don’t have this experience where I’m looking, I’m looking for them to be different. The next step would be putting the sensations into perspective. And actually that’s a very big one.

of the things that I notice is if I ask someone, which I have a lot of track questions during my inquiries, I, I need to mention that, uh, I usually ask them, it’s like, okay, on a scale of one to 10, how bad are these sensations?

And I’ve gotten some weird responses for some very meaningless situations. Like this email being an eight out of 10, right? Um, it’s like, okay, that like an eight out of 10, an email, like he, that torture, that torture level pain, right? So if you ask people, uh, in, in that way, they’re gonna, um, compare it with the ideal, how they would prefer to feel in this moment.

So it’s like, okay, okay, put it in a bit of a perspective, like compared to some actual pain, which is a breaking leg, I think breaking leg is the one I use most often.

It’s painful enough. And if you try to imagine it’s like.

[00:18:00] That would be a bad one. It’s like compared to breaking a leg, how bad is this pain?

It’s like, okay, it’s one or two. It’s like, oh, now we got some perspective. Now we got a foothold to just sit with the sensations. Right? And, and going through these a few steps, uh, you’ve basically taken away from the story. You’ve reduced it to something, you are looking for some other reality, and then you have the intensity dropping a bit.

Quite a bit actually. And then the last thing is like, okay, I want you to see with the sensation, it’s called being called staying in the gap. And what I mean by staying in the gap, it’s you tone descendants. I didn’t get the response from my friends, right? Some sensations are appearing and being in the gap.

It means seeing with those sensations until the thoughts that are happening, the thoughts that are happening somehow it seems. They can, uh, act upon these sensations somehow seem to be about these sensations. And the more you stay in the gap with a sensation, with thoughts,

[00:19:00] eventually it’s such a, uh, a long time between the sensations appearing and the thoughts that it’s like this couldn’t be connected.

Michael Stroe: It’s there’s no way that these, there’s a way for, for these sensations to be changed by this thought that happened a minute later. Like there’s no way of causality in such a way. So it’s like,

Daniel Kazandjian: Yeah.

Michael Stroe: There’s two channels. You have the channel of the thoughts, you have the channel of sensation, and it might seem initially that they’re glued somehow, but then it becomes, uh, obvious that no, the sensations are conditioned in a certain way.

The thoughts are conditioned a certain way, but there is no, uh, uh, glue in between. There is almost one of the metaphors I use lately actually, the, the channel of sensation is the basketball game the channel of, uh, thoughts or stories is the sports commentary. No amount of sports commentary will change the basketball game.

Whoever is your favorite basketball player, whether it’s LeBron or whatever, it doesn’t even matter. It’s like he’s not gonna suddenly start shooting trees just because the sports come. It’s like, oh, you’re shooting wrong. It’s like, yeah, that’s not gonna happen.

[00:20:00] And it’s a bit of a, of a more immediate, um, metaphor that it’s helped is like, oh, I’m trying to change the game by just commenting on it.

Daniel Kazandjian: Yeah, yeah, I love that image. Um, you used the word, uh, conditioning a few times, so like, because of conditioning, there’s the glue between the sensations and the thoughts and the stories. How, what do you mean by conditioning here? How does that process work?

Michael Stroe: Yeah. By conditioning, I mean all the situations and experiences that have left an imprint on the body mind, they’ve made a, they made a dent, whether it’s in personality, whether it’s even in the body. We have a discussion sometimes about VA computation, like.

The body does keep the score right. and that conditioning is basically everything you would, uh, actually both, uh, uh, positive and negative. You can have positive conditioning, right? Uh, both, uh, pleasant and negative experiences that make a mark in that condition.

[00:21:00] Future experiences based on prior experiences. If you wanna use priors, because we’re more in rational spaces, we can use priors, but I’m mostly speaking about the priors at the level of, uh, memories oftentimes and bodily, uh, contractions.

Michael Stroe: That’s what we use mostly for this.

Daniel Kazandjian: So is that like, let’s say when I’m younger and I have less awareness,

Michael Stroe: Yeah.

Daniel Kazandjian: Something happens to me, you know, maybe I feel a sense of social rejection, um, because I don’t know, the girl I like didn’t text me back or something like that. And then it prompts a really big physiological response that I know.

Michael Stroe: Yes.

Daniel Kazandjian: Correlate with the story of like, girls not texting me back, and then that’s conditioning. That’s like the prior.

Michael Stroe: Yes. That’s basically the pairing of some sensations with some stories.

Daniel Kazandjian: Mm-hmm.

Michael Stroe: Often, whether the stories can be like a visual memory. Like myself in that situation where I used to feel this way, and it’s like, oh, when that happens,

[00:22:00] this is, uh, this is the thing. And, and also like when I have that, those pairings, those pairings actually create a certain amount of one unidimensional response.

When I feel the sensations, I need to double text them or I need to say, I need to say, I need to say something. I need to say something to them. Right. Um, there is a sense where the degree of freedom is being traded for, uh. A sense of apparent control, right. In that case, uh, the one we mentioned for like, uh, not receiving a message.

When I, when this happens, then I do this. But by having, just when a then BI have a degree of conditioning or a degree of conditional, uh, response that actually prevents me from seeing there are maybe 10 other options. And that tends to shrink our personal freedom to such an extent that we often don’t realize that we’re doing it.

[00:23:00] Daniel Kazandjian: Yeah. So let’s come back to your story. You got, you got the stream entry. Then you start to recognize the conditioning and all the ways in which you had aversion to your experience. What happened after that?

Michael Stroe: Um, I found a guide, a lovely lady in Italy that was recommended to me by some other guide in fairs. She had some availability and we started working together and I started working on the big issues. Right now, when I work with people, I think I work a bit differently.

We used to work, we used to work directly with big stuff. One of the big things I had the most directly, which was something like some past relationship thing, and then I started working with a bunch of them. But the reality is, looking back, like I had a certain degree of buy into the process

When I used to guide the same way with folks that weren’t necessarily as bought in or

[00:24:00] believing in the process, I can say I had like 25 to 30 people quit after the first month because, um, instead of having more of an upstream, slowly gliding your way to more wellbeing, it’s more abrupt. It’s like you, you have reactivity that happens in two stages, weakening and breaking.

With two big issues, you’re gonna have the weakening and then the breaking. But if you don’t go with the biggest ones and you just go with. You, you can, you can have more of a smoother path.

Okay, what’s the biggest thing I can think of? Like, oh, there’s this, uh, memory from a relationship. And because I have this memory, I won’t have happy relationships in the future. Right.

And to work with this, and I can definitely tell you that between getting a weakening of reactivity or a version by myself and dropping, it’s been like a month and a half where I cannot necessarily say that was progress.

And I, uh, at the level of pedagogy,

[00:25:00] I found that actually to be a big issue because I was crazy enough to believe because I got the benefits fast, let’s say, and I was on my own. So it’s always easy to believe in the process, but I can definitely understand someone being like, I wanna stop.

So, and then in another month and a half, um, I kept working with bigger and bigger things. Right now, I, sorry, I separate things and things. Keeping you up at night, which is like immediate short term things that are causing suffering at the moment. And then the next one would be, uh, big goals and desires.

The second category. And by starting to work with Maria, I was already working on the big stuff, which is not necessarily ideal if I’m gonna be honest. I don’t have the emotional capacity right now. I feel that I end up in a point where I actually help people build the emotional capacity as we’re dropping a version.

Otherwise it can feel very jarring and that can make people not want to keep the process until finished. Right.

[00:26:00] I’d say like a month and a half, beginning of December, 2023, I started noticing that things were kind of like, uh, water of a duck spec. That’s what I would call it. Things were smoother. That was kind of where I started noticing. I kinda cannot say, and this is so like a bigger discussion, but. I cannot say I have bad days. A version basically is this mental chaining, uh, of some pain that happened and, and keeping it with you during the entirety of your day, even though it was like two minutes or five minutes of unpleasant sensation.

So when that no longer happens, a version by the way, dropping a version is called dropping into non-conceptual. That’s basically when you drop the associated between, uh, stories and sensations. And once that, that was dropped, it’s like, yeah, you can still feel pain, you can still feel unpleasant sensation, but you’re no longer chained as your day goes on into a big feeling that basically colors the entirety of your 24 hours.

[00:27:00] And that was the last, so like the, the last days where I’ve noticed, uh, bad days. So I cannot say that I have had bad days since then. Okay. I had

Daniel Kazandjian: Wow.

Michael Stroe: unpleasant situations for a few hours or whatever, but the amount of pain was actually low and there was no suffering. Even once, like, I had someone, like almost lost a friend a bunch of months ago, and there was crying, there was pain. There was no way of me imagining that there are some other sensations available and I fell through it. I cry. Uh, just what seemed natural there was necessarily suffering or resistance and it’s, it’s also a very point to be, it’s not relatable.

I cannot explain it for it to make sense. If someone doesn’t have it almost seems like I’m trying to sell someone on these. Grant benefit, uh, uh, by now, uh, where it’s like, oh, it’s so amazing. It’s like drugs.

[00:28:00] It’s like, it is amazing, but also it makes no sense how this could, uh, be experienced. Right?

And then when that happened in a few more weeks, I dropped into non duality again. It is a very fast process. I think there is a certain extent to which all these shifts are happening fast when someone really wants it. And I know that the Buddhist say desire is the root of all suffering, but that’s a mistranslation.

Was the root of suffering. And that’s a different, more moment to moment, uh, thing. being open, it’s like, yeah, I really want, this has led to very fast progress. And I think actually, um, suffering wise, actually this one actually made the most, uh, difference just dropping a version. I used to have so much of it.

It’s to color my days to such an extent, days, months, years, whatever you wanna call it, that once it drop, it’s like, okay, yeah, I did not expect this was possible.

[00:29:00] It’s easy to say that it’s not possible or there could not be something like this. Okay. It’s not perfect, but it’s amazing. It’s sort of like, that’s how I would call it. No, it’s amazing. And, and luckily right now, I, I, I feel like I’m not speaking from a standpoint of just me at, with her, there are a bunch of friends, some of them that you already know that have gotten the same experience and they have the same experience or like, no, it’s pretty great.

Michael Stroe: No,

Daniel Kazandjian: Yeah,

Michael Stroe: great. Yeah.

Daniel Kazandjian: I know you, you also tried to make this a little more legible for people by like mapping it on to commonplace positive experiences.

Michael Stroe: Yes.

Daniel Kazandjian: You know, and I know it’s a totally imperfect process or whatever, but it gives people a sense.

Michael Stroe: Yeah.

Daniel Kazandjian: maybe you can tell the listeners that, like how different stages mapped onto like the, these commonplace positive experiences.

Michael Stroe: I was trying to do this with a friend a bunch of times ago because I was thinking,

[00:30:00] what’s the marginal value of the next dollar? But actually it was more so what’s the marginal value of the next million dollars? It’s like, what do you even buy with a bunch of money that gives you happiness? I put my own happiness into, okay, what would I trade this for?

And it’s for, for as much as it’s gonna sound, it’s farfetched, I would say, like, I don’t know, tens of millions to be like, you have no physical worries for the rest of your life. You would still end up in the place where you’re pursuing this.

It’s already that good. Like there’s no convincing. Like I would rather take my pain from years ago just to have it. Yes. So the first, the first steps, treatment three, first one to three. I’ve humorously, uh, called it getting a free sandwich daily. Um, which is okay. It’s nice. Like there are some days when, when a sandwich can, can make you feel a bit better.

Uh, it’s, it’s nice. Um, you got a sandwich, you have a bit of a brighter day, right? There are days where a sandwich does not do anything.

[00:31:00] I’m gonna throw that off, right? Uh, and I’ll be experimenting, weakening. Um, it’s a bit of a, a bit, uh, higher and I would call it almost like having a very relaxing massage daily, right?

And it’s great. Like you go to have a massage, it’s great. You, you are relaxed now, you enjoy your day more. Maybe you are smiling more. It can make most days a bit, uh, sunny, right? also like when, some really bad things are happening and massage probably won’t be enough. And there are certain categories of things where.

A massage won’t do anything like, you know, loss and so on. Um, but the real, the real, uh, thing happens with the dropping of reactivity. And the reason why I call that, um, basically, um, being in a, a, a pretty good vacation all the time is because you no longer want or expect to always feel good.

[00:32:00] But that has the interesting side effect of making most days pretty amazing. Dropping reactivity or no longer, like I know, don’t want to feel good all the time. And because I don’t necessarily want or try to feel good all the time, I’m actually feeling good most of the time.

It was the suffering or other, the resistance to those few moments. We were feeling some pain that was coloring all these other moments negatively, let’s call it.

But when you no longer want that, it does feel pretty, uh, vacay vibes, uh, it’s okay. I’m on vacation most days. I don’t necessarily need to be somewhere, I don’t necessarily need to have a fancy dinner. A lot, a lot of what humans imagine they would feel during a vacation where they’re away from work.

You can have here and now with work, with life, with all these, uh, trappings of daily life, and it’s pretty amazing. And that would be what we spoke so far, which is the trapping already. [00:33:00] And there’s a bit of a, there’s technically two more steps, but I usually, I only, uh, speak about the first, uh, uh, one, uh, in this, in this, uh, next, uh, in next year row, which is like the fourth, uh, range, I would call it, uh, dropping form and formlessness.

And for those that are familiar with Buddhist, uh, terminology, that would be non-duality. And “I-ness”. I-ness probably it’s a bit less, uh, common, but no is very obvious. uh, or getting into no. Minus the stories that, uh, were all one and so on. it’s a, it’s a small, actually a small gain in, in pleasure.

You have more of a sense of connection with everything or everyone. You no longer have the sense of things or people being distant from you. You have the sense that you’re in one world simulation, which is interesting, but I found it compared to not having a version not as consequential.

[00:34:00] I have expected, based on how all the spiritual people are selling nonduality to feel amazing, connected. It’s like you do feel connected or actually it’s more correctly framed, disconnected. Like, I’m not, we are not all one necessarily, which is like, uh, further inside it’s like, okay, we’re all in one.

It’s like we’re close by distance is an illusion. Pretty great. Pretty great, right? But in terms of suffering reduction, I would’ve expected it to be more, but it was like 5%. A cool 5%, right? But not what I expected and this would

Daniel Kazandjian: You’re like, disappointed.

Michael Stroe: I’m gonna be honest a bit, a bit.

Daniel Kazandjian: Yeah.

Michael Stroe: I would’ve expected more people to have sold it to me as this grant thing where everything is amazing. It wasn’t necessarily, and this would correspond with the third six, right?

And I actually feel that third seven is more impactful, which would be “I-am-ness” consciousness and so on. Uh, the reason why this one actually was, um, profound, I would start with the sense of time.

[00:35:00] Sense of time kind of goes away and you realize there were a bunch of sensations and thoughts. When that happens, you have to be a bit more clumsy with your appointments. I’m gonna give people that warning.

That’s gonna happen, but you no longer have the time pressure. I need you to do this, I need to do that. If you heard people speak about timelessness or the experience of timelessness, this is basically what they were speaking of just now. Just now, just now. And it’s pretty amazing. That’s just one aspect.

The second aspect that I’ve seen, um, this actually has to do with, um, almost, um, dropping the notion that somehow things are existing in opposites. Where it’s like, in this case, it’s ugly and beautiful you’re dropping the opposites as real categories when, when the opposites seem to be integrated as neither this nor that, neither ugly nor beautiful.

I found that everything is more beautiful.

[00:36:00] Very few people will be able to relate to this, but there was a joke going around on Twitter a bunch of time ago, which is like, Would you rather get plus three to your own, uh, beauty, or would you give plus three to everyone?

And this is in a way giving plus three to everyone’s beauty. course, beauty being in the eye of the beholder, uh, but everything from a wall to a flower to whatever you want to tends to become way more, uh, beautiful by, um, via negative, which is no longer saying, saying it’s mundane or, uh, boring or whatever you would project upon it.

That cancellation of the extremes makes it way more likely that everything is like, has a certain beauty, has a certain vividness to it, that I. I actually wasn’t told that it’s gonna happen. Uh, but I found it very, very obvious and I’m sometimes, uh, I’m, I’m being caught in, in the metro and

[00:37:00] I’m just looking at people with a certain fascination regardless of how they’re looking or whatever their gender is, because there is a sense of, wow, look at all these ways that the reality is happening.

All these ways that, uh, things have manifested, right.

Daniel Kazandjian: Yeah.

Michael Stroe: And I guess, uh, the last one, which is very interesting and some might relate it, um, is no longer making things out of images. Here’s what I mean. You’re looking around the room or you’re looking around something. You’re noticing, let’s say, uh, a basket.

The mind or the brain is like, oh, that’s a basket. It makes a thing almost like the image that you would see it and gives it a thinness, uh, substantiality. When you just take things as they are, it’s an image or if you want to interact with it you can go touch it and so on. But when you compulsively make it a thing, the mental chatter drops a lot.

[00:38:00] Michael Stroe: I used to have problems where I used to work in advertising, like outdoor advertisements and I was like Coca-Cola, and it’s like, oh, I like, like all these, uh, ads I used to see in the brain were automatically naming them. That goes down because okay, I’m seeing an image, but I don’t necessarily need to make it a substantial thing.

That drops a lot of the mental chat and also like the compulsiveness of interacting with the world. Um, the benefit of this mostly is that life tends to become very movie-like at this point. When you no longer imagine that things have very distinct boundaries and everything becomes more fluid in that sense, you no longer have the image, the, the, the image that somehow you are outside of the world somehow.

You, you, it’s one big singularity, if you wanna call it. Um, that tends to make things very easy to move around. If you ever heard, and this is a bit of a, I’m not sure I would give it a trigger or warning,

[00:39:00] but I would be mindful that sometimes when in Buddhist, a lot of people know this, know that they’re actually very dumb ways of giving insight. For example, if you heard that there is no body, that’s one of the dumbest ways of framing it.

The actual framing would be the body arises together with everything else. And that wouldn’t necessarily give people any type of, uh. Scaries. It’s like, oh, okay. So the body is just part of the Raja. And the sense of the body as a thing, as a monolith was just the brain taking a bunch of this junk, uh, sensation and constructing a mental model of what the body would look like.

With the seven photos, you no longer need to construct a body as a monolith. You just take sensations as different pings. I used to call it the same way that rain drops. That’s how you feel. You no need to hold the frame of there is a body in, in a very, um, uh, experiential way or like one big block of stone.

[00:40:00] Have this, the sensations, the body’s still there, the organ is still there. You no longer hold the concept of it being a monolith and that I’ve actually found very relaxing and super easy to do, uh, hard things, physical hard things, or go without sleep for a long time because the body seems to be way, uh, way easier.

To process. It’s like, oh, there is some unpleasant sensation from tiredness. Okay. Like, it’s not that the whole body is tired, it’s like tiredness, uh, expresses itself as just this one muscle in the back that it’s a

Daniel Kazandjian: Yeah, yeah.

Michael Stroe: You’re no longer like, oh, the body is tired. It’s like, no, it’s just some sensation. It’s not pleasant. That’s it. So it’s easy to bounce back.

Daniel Kazandjian: Um, so this reminds me of a meditation prompt. Uh, it’s like a direct pointing prompt of just experiencing the body. Just see, see if you can experience the body as a cloud of sensations as opposed to. The, the mental map or like, maybe a simple one that, that I noticed was if someone says, pay attention to your hand, the sensations in your hand,

[00:41:00] you might think you’re doing that, but then you’ll notice that often there’s also an image of the hand and like a sense that you’re up here and you’re looking down at your hand and like there’s a bunch of other stuff happening quite habitually that isn’t just the raw sensations of the hand and the raw sensations of the hand are something like, like texture and, and heat and tension and like these more, uh, simple constituent elements.

And then the same applies for pain. Or I’ve noticed when I’ve had issues with chronic pain, if I just do this type of exercise, it just gets deconstructed into a bunch of neutral sensations.

Michael Stroe: Yeah. Direct pointers of this nature are very useful because we tend to interact with the word via abstraction or via fabrication.

[00:42:00] But once you see, like into the, let’s call it, you realize that, oh, it’s actually easier to bear. And as you mentioned, there are a lot of these small pointers that you can give someone that make actually a big dent in your experience, uh, especially are of suffering and pain they finally see experience as is not through the conceptual map.

And one of the, because you mentioned the one with the conceptual map, one of the things I actually ask people during the stream entry conversation is, uh, can they imagine an actual tactile sensation? Like, okay, let me try to imagine my feet standing on the floor. So it’s like, are you really imagining a sensation or are you imagining the mental body map and where it would happen, is like, oh yeah, no, I’m, I’m imagining the mental body map.

There’s no way for me to. Imagine a sensation the same way. It’s like Exactly. So that helps put things into perspective between what’s direct sense experience and what’s abstract experience. And you can use abstraction.

[00:43:00] It’s just though you never confuse abstraction, if you want to call it, the abstraction would be context, right? And enlightenment is just untangling more and more of the context of identity or of concepts into the components of, um, what we would call experience, like context and content. Like that’s, that’s like the more you take, uh, context and make it content, that’s the more enlightened you are, if you want.

Michael Stroe: Call it like that.

Daniel Kazandjian: I wanna see if we can help people on this a little bit. Obviously, you know, reducing your happiness by 90 or reducing your suffering by 90% or

Michael Stroe: Yeah.

Daniel Kazandjian: Nine outta 10 happiness is like a pretty good sell. But one of the things you’ve mentioned, and it’s also implicit in the stories that you shared, is this idea of freedom. How there’s actually just more degrees of freedom around different areas of life.

[00:44:00] And so I wonder if you can speak a little bit more about freedom and then some of the other kind of tangible benefits that you’ve discovered through this journey.

Michael Stroe: Yeah. Um, the biggest degree of freedom, I would say, does come from aversion attachment.

I used to have this notion that I should make this amount of money by this age, and I would say that’s very common for type A. Uh, once I was no longer held by that attachment, I could actually work toward that direction.

Well, in the past I used to be very contracted around not having, that would actually mean and turn, uh, into procrastination. And that’s a very common experience where it’s imagined that procrastination is somehow. An issue of the situation. I don’t have this, I don’t have that, but most often with the people at work, we end up seeing that procrastination is just an emotional issue.

Procrastination being just the resistance to how I’m feeling and most often how I’m feeling is not that bad.

Freedom, it turns out, is a very common conversation for me. It’s like, if meditation takes away my ambition?

[00:45:00] It’s like, wouldn’t that be bad? It’s like, well, let me frame it differently.

Uh, if you were to lose some of these things probably you weren’t interested in, but you’re gonna do way more of the things that you actually want to do. And none of the people that I know have gotten, uh, this far have somehow lost their ambition. They will have families, they’re still doing things, they’re doing more things.

They’re no longer imagining that things should look a certain way and they’re not looking a certain way. Turns out that the freedom of choice increases and. From the standpoint, like prior to stream, I imagine that I’m, I have agency in this, uh, frame of, uh, I sort, I control the body mind and I’m me, the self controlling the body mind.

It’s gonna act on the world. It’s like integrating, seeing just the body mind, working with the world. I now see that there are more choices by degree of not denying that there are actually some limitations. Like, I cannot

[00:46:00] I cannot, uh, suddenly start, uh, in some language. I haven’t spoken before.

And, but by seeing the limitation, you actually gain the freedom by denying the limitations that are inherent to, to experience. I’m actually not seeing freedom because I keep holding on to my ideas of what I should be able to do instead of seeing what I’m able to do. So without shooting the experience, you can see the things that could be happening and it becomes, uh, pretty easy.

Uh, a pretty, pretty obvious experience after you get it, but before it’s sort of like cloudy. in, in terms of freedom, I would say the biggest freedom I found was to, to take on projects or, or, uh, do things that I previously seemed to be unapproachable. Uh, it’s my identity, like, oh, who’s little me?

[00:47:00] Like, uh, imposter syndrome. oh, look at all these people. Um, they’re, they’re from a big, this big, uh, university. How can I work with them? Right? All these notions of, of importance, it’s like, who? Little me.

That’s from a small town in this eastern European country. Uh, so when you drop identity, it’s like, okay, whenever I had that, it’s like, oh. They’re gonna see that I’m an imposter. Can you see how that is just a sensation in this moment right now, that being an imposter is just a sensation that’s all there is to, and some thoughts, but what bothers you is not as much the thought level as much the sensation level. How does feeling an imposter or rather being an imposter, because it seems like I’m being an imposter and it’s very common for prior to experiment to have the experience of I am this, I am that, versus, this sensation appearing there is this pattern occurring.

So when I no longer make this about some me, some, some, uh, constant identity and adjusting as a pattern, I’m able to actually clean it out because I don’t feel every time I’m doing healing that I’m somehow, uh, attacking myself.

[00:48:00] Almost a lot of people try to do healing and it goes nowhere. And this is my opinion around therapy.

The reason why therapy actually doesn’t work is because they have this view of this monolith called self Instead of being a bunch of almost decentralized projects, um, when someone gets stream entry, they finally realize that all those were processes and they weren’t necessarily constant and they weren’t necessarily owned and they weren’t necessarily present.

Oftentimes, like the memories Hmm.

We identify as, or with any memory, if I, I would invite the, the listeners, any memory they have, if they bring it out, I want them to realize that the experience of a memory, it’s a bunch of thoughts and sensations happening now and. I hope they see that this means that the past can only be experienced as a bunch of thoughts and sensations happening now.

They cannot experience the past in any meaningful way other than sensations and thoughts happening now. So when that happens, you no longer get lost that much into the thoughts, uh, of the past or into memories, or

[00:49:00] you keep identifying with this version of you from 10, 15, 20 years ago that is actually not here. So you’re able to be with a, with a, you have the, the freedom to be here now and realize that you have some references to some other so-called past experience. But what you have is just, uh, an, a reference to some memory, some thoughts happening now. that brings you to, like, you need, know, the whole power of now, right?

You, to do something to be in the power of now. And this is the funniest one, which is I ask them to, okay, try to imagine the, the, the past and it’s just a bunch of thoughts and sensations now. And then imagine your favorite meal in a bunch of hours and see that there are a bunch of thoughts and sensations happening now.

And then I asked them, is there some other place other than, than now to be like, do you need to do something to be now? It’s like, no. You just have the impression that somehow you are not now. And that opens up a lot of, uh, opportunities to clean up. I think that’s the most important when I no longer, um, think that somehow I’m the same guy was five years ago in that relationship,

[00:50:00] It brings the possibility of me being like, oh, wait, that relationship, it’s a bunch of thoughts and sensations happening now.

And that’s not something I do. It’s just when, when a thinking of the memory occurs, sensations come up. It’s like, I did not make those sensations. I did not do the sensing somehow, I didn’t do the feeling as much as the feeling happened. And there are a few, uh, pointers for these that make it immediately obvious, but at each level as you go to a pad, you realize almost, uh, in a way actually find that the Buddhist path is very consistent with the Keegan stage.

Instead of like me, uh, having this experience, you make everything an object and you basically make more and more of your identity on an object that you can work with.

Uh, eventually you make all of your identity. Actually, Reen enlightenment would be a bit past even Kegan five because you make everything,

[00:51:00] you make everything an object that can be worked with and you no longer see it as a subjective context.

Michael Stroe: Um, yeah.

Daniel Kazandjian: Let me let, let, no, that was great. I, so we’re talking about freedom and then, um, the, the freedom from. You’re past in a way, and I, I kind of wanna sharpen up this therapy thing ‘cause you said something very provocative, which is the reason why therapy doesn’t work is the way I understood. It’s almost like it’s reifying the self.

Daniel Kazandjian: Right. It’s a discursive practice that’s assuming the self actually exists.

Michael Stroe: Yes, and it’s assuming that identity is an experience instead of like, what’s experienced is just a bunch of thoughts and sensation.

The way I would frame it, it actually, it, it actually applies both to stream entry and work with reactivity. For stream entry is assuming that somehow you, you can have the experience of the memory or your, uh, basically bringing up something from the past and it’s like, oh, that’s still happening, that’s still active, that’s still real.

The memory of being this age and having this experience instead of seeing the experience for what it is,

[00:52:00] it’s like, oh, a bunch of thoughts and sensations happening now, and that’s the first one. They’re making a thing out of something. That’s another experience, and that’s the first aspect of considering identity a constant.

Right? The second aspect of the, the reason why therapy doesn’t work is because action therapy always works after the gap. If I want to, if, if I should, uh, remind people what I mean by the gap. The gap being the space of just sensations. No dots have started to try to change your experience. So let’s say I go to a therapist and I wanna speak about this thing that happened to me in a relationship.

I’m gonna draw on and on and on and on and on about what happened. But I’m already into the experience of trying to justify the sensation or change the sensation. I’m past the gap, and at no point I’m actually feeling my, my feelings. Feeling my feelings does not mean sobbing and going through this, oh, this person did this to me and they, this, this, to me.

It’s like, that’s not what, staying with the sensation, that’s not feeling your emotion, feeling your emotions or feeling your sensation is just the act of sitting with the initial sensation.

[00:53:00] The one with the, the, this issue just started, the ones that you feel without needing to add the layer of, or conceptually the layer of thoughts or the layer of judgment.And because most therapies working in the space of reactive already, they’re past the gap. They’re the inner version already. Hmm.

Most people don’t make meaningful progress. Because they’re actually not feeling their emotions. They are more or less feeling the amplified sensation, but not the, the, the, the crux or the core of the issue.

They’re feeling all the fabrication around the issue.

Daniel Kazandjian: Let’s see if we could apply this to an example. Like let’s say, um. Uh, just totally random example, let’s say I had a very critical father who whenever he was in the room, his presence, um, warranted like a hyper vigilance in me and my siblings because, and, and he’s a bit volatile.

[00:54:00] So we just have to be on edge, you know, whenever he’s around. And then, so something at a young age developed to protect myself from, from that mechanism or from the potential of attack or something like that. And then it’s still latent in the body. And maybe, maybe it’s influencing the way I relate to authorities as an adult.

And I come to therapy, I come to you who you’re like, therapy doesn’t work, but we got this other approach.

Daniel Kazandjian: How would you,

Michael Stroe: therapy for what is, what is me teaching? not trying to take the clients from the therapist. I’m just saying what works and what doesn’t.

Daniel Kazandjian: Yeah. What, what would work to, to deal with a situation like that?

Michael Stroe: First it would be bringing up the memory. And when you bring up the memory, it’s immediately coupled with a bunch of sensations, right? Like, it’s very obvious that like, you might tell there’s something, there might be a lock in, right?

Daniel Kazandjian: Yeah.

Michael Stroe: So where it’s like you have the grand story that they were this, they were there.

It’s like, okay, but like, that’s not happening right now. Me and you, let’s say we’re in the same room. We’re just sitting on a couch, just vibing.

[00:55:00] So it’s like, oh, what happens right now? It’s a bunch of mental phenomena, stories, thoughts, images, and some sensations. It’s like, okay, take away the whole, he was this, he was that.

He was like, what’s happening here at this moment? Oh, a bunch of thoughts. Okay. I want you to notice that. Regardless of what happened in the past, that’s not what is happening right now. You might behave as if it was a real, real thing, but if you foresee that your memory of it, it’s a bunch of thoughts and some not so pleasant contractions in the body happening right now, you first gain a bit of distance from it.

Distance in a good way, not trying to dissociate.

There are some sensations in my body right now. I have a mental image of what that happens. And I would ask, okay, you notice that in this moment you’re thinking of that story and imagine that reality should be a certain way for you right now.

Almost like trying to, um, rewrite the past, which is in a way, making a sentence or what we describe. It’s like, oh, I didn’t have a father that was,

[00:56:00] let’s say, uh, warm and I’m just making it up right now. Right? It’s like when you tone that, is that the thing that you actually wanted back then?

It’s like, yeah, I wanted to, it’s like. what you have right now, even though you didn’t have then, it’s just a bunch of sensation. And I ask them, okay, if you feel those sensations, but like, don’t go into thoughts that are just chatter now. At this moment. You have those crappy sensations, but are they that bad?

That’s why I make the framing around like compared to an actual pain, how bad they are, and I ask them to stay with it. And if they get lasting thoughts, I bring them back. It’s like, no, no, no, no. You’re in this room right now. Your father, whoever it is, it’s not here. You’re safe. You’re with me. Like, or even if they’re in their, in their own room, they’re safe.

What do you have right now? It’s a bunch of sensations. Like, do you need to do something about those sensations? Can you just relax a bit into them? Can you give them 1% at a time to just be there and let them dissolve?

[00:57:00] And over time that decreases, they’re not here, not an experience. Would be the point of imagining, oh, it’s this, this created this problem. This problem is this problem. if you wanna untangle, but at the level of suffering, most often. I’ve seen, uh, I, I’m not gonna give a percentage. Most people end up not having the benefits that I want because they’re going like, oh, he was like this and he used to do this.

And you, it’s like if they, if they lock into the past, they’re already not in the room with you. They’re basically like lost in thoughts that they’re already passed the gap in a space of just fabrication and this, just seeing the difference between what’s here right now and what’s fabrication or construction

Daniel Kazandjian: You know, the concept of memory reconsolidation and like, uh, therapy literature.

Michael Stroe: Yeah.

Daniel Kazandjian: Do you wanna do a quick summary of that?

Michael Stroe: Uh, yes. I’m not super technical and I can, I best tell you my

Daniel Kazandjian: Well, let, let me actually just say how I mean it. ‘cause like, we don’t need to get academic about it. It, but it’s this idea that like, uh,

[00:58:00] There’s all these different therapeutic healing modalities, inner work modalities, and to the extent that any of them are effective, they seem to share one thing in common at, at least this is the thesis, which is they allow you to reconsolidate refactor negative memory memories into positive ones by presenting. or neutral ones by presenting disconfirming evidence. So you’re having, we’re having a conversation in a safe environment about something that happened when it felt unsafe. Maybe we spend time with the sensations instead of the story,

And then the system changes. It’s a prediction because you’re predicting something bad’s gonna happen,but it doesn’t. And then if you just see that very clearly, then your system updates and then you no longer have activation around that.

Michael Stroe: Oh, uh, yeah, definitely. I feel like in a therapeutic sense, they kind of try to change the story as well, if I’m not mistaken.

Daniel Kazandjian: Yeah.

Michael Stroe: like in our approach, it would be mostly just.

[00:59:00] Sitting with the sensation and they become neutral and then the story, it’s like, okay, he did that. It is probably process wise, we would stay a step, uh, closer to experience. We wouldn’t necessarily try to change the story.

Daniel Kazandjian: Yeah.

Michael Stroe: What it’s worth, I want everyone to know that I actually don’t think that enlightenment, Buddhism, or fairs have the answer to all the problems. And I think some, uh, therapeutic modalities should be used, especially after stream entry, but stream entry is super fast.

But I think if you want to change your patterns, you would first do the feeling and then okay, what would ideally do here? Right. Funnily enough, funnily enough, there is a degree to which feeling your sensation about an issue changes behavior immediately. Even though we are not necessarily doing, uh, a change in the story, uh, this oftentimes actually happens with issues around procrastination.

That’s the one I actually have seen the most when you no longer have this, oh, this is gonna suck if I’m gonna have to do this. immediately like, oh, I, I feel okay, I’m just gonna do it.

[01:00:00] Uh, and we, we in this case with, let’s say, let’s be less than pleasant with, uh, a parent that happens, but less to a degree. Whereas I would say that, oh, the people that I’ve worked with necessarily all of a sudden go and all of them repair their relationship. They feel they are if they choose later to work on this and process this and change the relationship. That’s almost, um, a side process that it can

But I wouldn’t say that this one actually solves it like that.

Daniel Kazandjian: Um, I think it’d be nice if we did like a very concise, uh, procrastination protocol, so. Let’s say someone listening to this is like, fuck, there’s that thing I gotta do, and I keep putting it off step by step. How might they deconstruct it using your method?

Michael Stroe: Yeah. So it’ll be like this. Oh, I have this thing. Let’s say I have, I have this project and there is a deadline on Friday, right? Let’s say today is Wednesday. Sorry.

The reality is like all those grand stories, like, oh, if this is, if I’m not gonna do this, my boss, my this might be like, okay, okay.

[01:01:00] Okay. Right now what you have with this situation, you have some sensation, you have some thoughts, and you’re also like some resistance to how the sensations feel. But let’s take a step back and all of the, the stories we can sum it up as, I don’t know if I finished the project by Friday, that’s the, the thing, it can be either, uh, uh, a, a, an uncertainty problem, right?

That I usually frame, I usually frame it on two things. Procrastination, especially either something that you feel like it’s missing or something that you don’t know.

It’s the first one where you feel like something is uncertain, like I don’t know if I have the time to be or if I know if I’ll finish the project by Friday.

Okay. How does that feel in the body? Oh, it’s a sensation in my gut. It’s a four out of 10. It’s like, whoa, we have a big one. Right. And that’s when I asked them, it’s like, okay, but compared to breaking, like how bad is that sensation? It’s like one. Oh, okay. Yeah. So it’s like, oh, it’s a one out of 10 for the fact that I don’t know if I’m gonna finish the project by Friday, or I don’t know if this task will get done.

Okay. Or I, or, or the other framing is I haven’t done X project.

[01:02:00] Maybe the deadline is not there. Especially for personal projects, I work with a bunch of people that are self-employed. It’s like, oh, I haven’t done this project. And there’s no one, there’s no boss to tell them to do this. So in those cases, it would be like, oh, I haven’t done X project.

Okay. How does that feel in the body, that sensation? It’s not that, that it doesn’t even bother you that you have done or haven’t done that situation. What bothers you is this sensation? So give it like 30 seconds. Okay. Oh, I haven’t done this project. Does it feel that bad? Oh no. It’s like, and it’s like so fast, like two minutes.

For most people, if it’s not a big deal, it’s like a two minute thing, like feeling your sensations. Like, okay, are you gonna do the thing? Yeah, I’m gonna do the thing, whatever. That’s it.

Daniel Kazandjian: Step one, you, you, you notice that you’re procrastinating because I think sometimes you don’t even realize that you’re doing it. You’re just like avoiding your life and then you’re like, oh shit, I’m procrastinating. It’s due tomorrow. Okay. You notice it.

[01:03:00] You just sit and feel what’s happening in your body, like what’s the,

Michael Stroe: I would actually, first, the next step would actually be putting things into perspective. It’s you looking for some other reality than the one you have available. And it’s very because sometimes like, oh, but what you’re initially feeling will be the reactivity. So you wanna bring the, the, the, a bit of a detachment.

It’s like, oh, I’m looking for some other reality at this step where I haven’t done this project, or I don’t know if I’ll get this project done right. So I say, okay, how does that feel? But how does that feel actual, at the sensory level? Not at the ideal level. one of 10. Oh, it’s one of those things. Okay. That and that.

Then I’m sitting with the sensation. I’m noticing that it seems like, like oftentimes if it’s, if it’s higher than a 3, 4, 5, it’s like, this feels like it’s a, you can pretty much bet that you’re not sitting with a sensation. You are already comparing to some ideal how you would prefer to feel.

So, the step that’s very important as well is putting you into perspective. How bad is it? Pain? Maybe you pinch yourself a bit like, okay, how is this compared to

[01:04:00] And then you see it’s like, okay, I don’t know if I’ll get this project done. Okay. How does that feel without thoughts, if thoughts are repeating, you’re already passed the gap.

You’re down the sentence, you return the sensation. That’s it. The thoughts are not trying to change the situation. You know, how often I get to, I have the benefit of, uh, seeing people realize that they’re actually not, they’re overthinking is not problem solving. The situation seems like, oh, well I’m trying to do this.

It’s like every situation has the feeling component and the problem solving component. Most often, aversion is actually playing a role. It’s not obvious, and I keep telling, it’s like you try to do this thing, before you go to problem solving, try to do the feeling for five minutes.

And you’re gonna notice that initially the system is not trying to change the situation. It’s trying how, trying to change how it feels.

[01:05:00] It’s a bit of a deal in the sense of like, oh, what do you mean? Like, I’m not trying to problem solve, but I am. It’s like, it’s like, okay, I’m gonna give it half an hour.

You’re gonna go into your problem solving. You haven’t moved to action. You are procrastinating. You were definitely not problem solving. ‘Cause problem solving, it’s like, okay, what’s my next step? So when that happened, it’s like, oh yeah, you’re right. Actually I was not problem solving, I was just trying to stuff down these sensations.

Daniel Kazandjian: Yeah.This is something that comes up in coaching a lot where if someone feels like they only have two options around a decision, they’re like, it’s either this or that. Or if they’re taking a long time to decide something, it’s because they’re decision making process is actually a process of trying to avoid a, feeling masquerading as a decision making process And then if you start with feeling the feeling, then all of a sudden a bunch of degrees of freedom open up.

Michael Stroe: Yeah. It’s funny.

Daniel Kazandjian: Yeah.

Michael Stroe: The post, I think last week, especially like decisions are easy, decision making is hard, but not because of not having facts. You just sort of have the feeling that you want.

[01:06:00] Daniel Kazandjian: Yeah.

Michael Stroe: like very, not necessarily commonly understood. I think we are a bit in a bubble, a bit of a bubble. I know that this is happening. And people imagine that they, uh, will lose their ambition because of meditation or because of these practices, this is the thing that they’re complaining about. It’s like, if I don’t have the aversion as a means to get motivation, why would I do things?

It’s like, why do you eat ‘cause food is good. I don’t know. Like, why would I eat if I had those? Like, ‘cause food is good or because you no longer do the same thing that used to be done, uh, from fear or from the, uh, the concern that some bad thing would happen. can do it from the joy of getting the good thing.

It’s easy, but it seems like, no, I need my, this is my, I’m not, I cannot remember what that means, but it’s also like my, my, it’s my aversion. It’s my, my, uh, almost like my, my pet. It’s like my pet aversion.

[01:07:00] Daniel Kazandjian: Yeah, yeah.

Michael Stroe: Yeah.

Daniel Kazandjian: Um, So we, we’ve been talking for over an hour and I haven’t even asked you, what, what, what are Fetters and then what is the, the Fetters meta. Maybe you can very quickly tell the listeners about that.

Michael Stroe: So the Fetters in the way I’m, I’m framing them. Sure. Historically they had more meaning, but Fetters are basically conceptual lenses. They’re basically abstractions that we, uh, layer on top of sense experience that give us a certain degree of separation from the world in the hope or the imagination, that somehow this will keep pain at bay.

Basically, you can think of it as almost like, uh, wearing a bunch of glasses, not just one pair, more than one pair to which we’re interacting with the world and the glasses are coloring what we are seeing instead of seeing things.

[01:08:00] Uh, at the base sensory level, it’s, it’s almost, uh, if we’re using the Ferris model, there will be like four inside shifts and two more emotional. If you use the four path model, you’ll be wearing it. Four pairs of goggles, one on top of each other just act. And that distorts, um, not reality because I know we just distort our perception, let’s call it.

That distortion gives rise to separation. That distortion gives rise to suffering. That distortion gives rise to hopelessness.They’re just side effects of not seeing things, uh, as accurately as possible. ‘cause I wanna say like, as they are, it’s just we’re not seeing things as close to their bare bone experience as possible.

I want to ask you a few rapid fire questions.

Michael Stroe: Yeah. Please do.

Daniel Kazandjian: Okay. First, uh, what’s the ick?

Michael Stroe: Oh my God, I love that. yeah. So, uh, commonly, commonly held in the zeitgeist of the day,

[01:09:00] that someone, uh, saw. Some small thing at us and that made them lose traction or, and I think that’s it. It’s a bit of an upset if I tell people that, that makes no sense. If you watch some of your friends even and see in what kind of relationships they’ve stayed in they didn’t get the ick, you would think that the ick cannot be something other than a rationalization of a prior decision.

It’s very useful to make sense for some people because they’re so distant from their experience and their feelings and their, uh, their desires that they need to justify through a layer of, uh, story as if you imagine that someone did this and it’s often the, the so-called I is small things, the way they chew, the way they, whatever the way.

All these things that actually are often non-consequential, if there is a big issue. They’re usually like, oh, they, they don’t do this. It’s like,

[01:10:00] that becomes a red flag that’s in common, uh, in common word things. the ache is also like, it’s subtle. It’s like, oh, it’s this thing that just, uh, gets on my, on my nerves.

But the reality is just as justification, the relationship wasn’t necessarily, then they actually, this happens not just in personal relationship, even in friendships and, and work. You sometimes realize that you get a ick for some colleague just because they did something and you justify that you dislike them and want to more or less distance yourself from that relationship.

It almost feels like it’s not unfair, but it almost seems like it’s, it’s too trivial yourself the space, right. That you try to define the justification and in a way, the ick is as close to first four and five. It’s an aversion to your own slight feelings in that relationship.

Daniel Kazandjian: And how does it, how does it map onto Adlerian psychology? Like, the difference between teleology and etiology?

Michael Stroe: Yeah, I always just wanna say that I’m a big hater of Freud and to some extent young. Um, basically it,

[01:11:00] Daniel Kazandjian: Wow. Shots fired.

Michael Stroe: Yeah, no, I’m always open about this, in what most people consider, uh, psychology, like mainstream psychology. There is this idea that somehow, this thing that happened, let’s say in childhood is determining my behavior right now.

Right? If you just do a small imagination exercise, and imagine a father that maybe was a bit of an alcoholic with two kids that are twins, and there are cases when one ends up an alcoholic one, the other one doesn’t, they had the same, almost called starting point, and the outcomes were different.

It kind of breaks the illusion that somehow A leads to B.

A doesn’t lead to B, what happens? And the answer is simple. There’s Bs, which is, there are purposes for whatever reason, the, the, the one that follows in their father’s step. they make the same choices, but there is a choice, even if it’s unconscious or they’re not clear.

Now, they don’t have the awareness and then it’s justified with this thing that happened in the past. There are influences.

[01:12:00] We’re not trying to deny the influence, but the ian psychology goes more in the direction of, we keep making decisions now and now because that’s all we have. And then we justify him with, with things from the past. I’m choosing to be an alcoholic now because of my father, or I’m choosing not to even touch alcohol because my father was an alcoholic.

One is real? Technically neither. There is no, there is no cause Sure there are influences. I’ve had this for years prior to stream entry and I could never wrap my brain around it.

I was trying to explain this one, what would I be if I were a musician and would this pattern still play out? And this was very important for me, especially around the anxiety situation. In this situation, I used to have anxiety. It’s like if I were to hit my head and have amnesia, right, would I still have this path?

And it’s so, like, it seemed very likely that not, so it’s like, oh, I keep making these choices for whatever reason, because they’re serving some purposes.

[01:13:00] So in that sense, there’s always choices and we keep making those choices. We’re making them now, but we’re justifying them with, with things that happen.

Or we can just have a bit of responsibility, have a bit of, um, should I put it, uh, fate that we can deal with relationship even when we make our choices and say that this is the thing that I want, even though I might not understand why I’m making the choice I want it now. And I don’t need to justify it because I feel like it’s a bit, um, it’s, it’s socially acceptable to say this egg thing, but I think it’s a very, um.

Uh, easy way, like an easy, easy way out ticket for people not to take responsibility for doing the rejection. Oh, they did this small thing. It’s like, maybe just own it, but don’t blame it. Like, don’t construct a story. And this is one thing that I, I think I’ve told a few people, and I don’t think I can- I listen to people’s stories lately, especially in personal life.

Like, I listen to them, but I don’t take them seriously. Especially if they’re trying to give me, send me on like,

[01:14:00] I’m glad it’s the story that’s useful for them, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s true. It’s a story. It’s like, sure, you wanna go with that. I’ve been in a breakup a bunch of months ago and

Daniel Kazandjian: Yeah.

Michael Stroe: It was a bit of trying to let me down easily and I’m like, sure, I’m glad you have that story.

\But I’m gonna be honest, I vaguely told her that. Okay, sure. It’s not necessarily, I was believing all that stuff. Like, okay, you wanna make that choice? Okay, make that choice. But it’s not that it’s convincing me that. ‘cause I, it is with this path I can tell, like it becomes easier to be honest with yourself.

Like all, I just want this, okay, want this, it’s okay to want whatever with these grand stories. Like whatever what you want is what you want.

Daniel Kazandjian: Yeah, I don’t think this is the right way to frame the question, but what came to mind is like, is everything a story? You know, there’s a reality. There’s like an emotional reality that might be real,

[01:15:00] but then everything on top of that, it’s like a story that’s designed to support the emotional reality.

Michael Stroe: You can kind of go in a both with a yes and sure you can, uh, go very almost impersonated where you just deconstruct everything. But it also makes it very, uh, uh, unrelatable to most people. There is both the fact that it’s just sensation and there’s some, uh, useful to the story. I’m not saying that I’m not listening or it’s like, okay, I understand why that is, but maybe that story would be changed.

There is almost the sense that you can have different stories and they have degrees of truthfulness to them or the degrees to how they feel accurate about your experience. And it’s not just one story. You can look at a different angle at the story and you can find a different answer. And that’s also like one of the things is that emotions go further on the body, they clean up and most things end up being mostly stories of way of interacting with the world gonna be as much contraction to say like, oh,

[01:16:00] it’s just, you’re gonna need some story to navigate the world. I don’t think the answer is somehow the whole ideal of the Stone Buddha.

Daniel Kazandjian: Right, right. Um, as we come to an end, uh, I’m wondering if there’s a practice that you could potentially guide the listeners through right now, just to give them a taste of some of the stuff you’re talking about.

Michael Stroe: Um, I wanna give a disclaimer, which is very important to realize that. It’s a misunderstanding. The whole, there is no self. Actually, the end inside is, there’s no differentiation between self and other. And we’re not gonna see that there is no self. We just see that there is no doer, as in there are just processes happening to the body mind.

That’s my disclaimer. So whatever intellectually it means that’s not what it means. Uh, and yes, it will be like this. I start people with one of the questions being, okay, if you are the one doing the seeing, instead of seeing just being a process happening or just arising,

[01:17:00] can you keep your eyes open and not see, is that something doable? minus the fact that’s like, oh, well I’m controlling where the attention moves. It’s like, okay, that’s different, I’m actually asking if you’re actually doing the scene. So it’s like, well, I guess not seeing, seeing is just a process happening as someone that’s for some reason blind cannot willfully choose to see.

Right. So it’s like, okay, so it seems I’m not seeing what is happening. Okay, let’s go to hearing. Can you stop hearing my annoying voice right now? Is that something that’s doable? It’s like, okay, I guess not. It’s just happening. Sure. And then the last one is, uh, as you’re sitting on the chair, can you stop feeling the sensation of sitting on the chair?

Sure. You might have become aware of it right now, but can you stop the sensation from happening? No. It’s just happening. So that’s, that’s the taste of seeing that there’s no necessarily a separate experience. There’s just experiencing happening to a body mind. Right.

[01:18:00] And I would go further and, and, um, this is a bit of a preview in the sense of the thinker, right? Which is, uh, very common for type A personalities to identify with, uh, their thoughts, right? So if it feels like you are the thinker doing the thoughts, uh, one of the questions I ask is this, can you stop your thoughts for 30 seconds, 60 seconds? Can you deterministically stop your thoughts? Are you able to do that?

‘Cause again, you are the so-called thinker of thoughts. Can you, for most of the listeners are gonna realize very quickly it’s like, ah, they’re just appearing. It’s like, okay, seems like the stinker is able to do some things, but not as many as we thought. And then we go the other direction, right? Where we ask like, can you predict your next thought if you’re the one doing the thinking

Or they just arise, okay, I cannot predict my thoughts and the reason why, if there are sometimes people that say that. No, I can’t predict my thoughts ‘cause this, and this is like, okay, can you predict that you’re gonna think of a pink elephant? It’s like, oh, well I did not predict this. Like, oh, well, it’s like you’re gonna have to decide either deterministically in the way they’re just happening or deterministically in the way I’m doing that.

[01:19:00] And so, you kind of have to pick a lane. Right? and one of the things that, again, I’m not gonna finish this one because like I mentioned the disclaimers, I don’t want people to have a with, but it’s like, okay, you’ve just had a bunch of inside a scene just happening, hearing, just happening, even smell, taste, sensation, they’re just happening, the processes, even thoughts, like there’s some identification with thoughts, but you’ve gained a bunch of, of space around.

Right? And then the last one would be a bit, um, I’m not sure to what extent some will be listening on, some will be looking at this, uh, video. But I would ask them to just randomly move your head. And if randomly moving their head, are they deciding? Do they know how they send the impulse from the brain down the spine, shoulder elbow.

Or it seems more so like the intending and the body, uh, tends to kind of move on its own. And that’s where a bit of the sense of tension around has reduced, of course.

[01:20:00] It’s very, very fast, uh, to make people get this insight and I had people that drop the sense very quick, like 10, 15 minutes.But I would leave it as that. It’s just the whole inside around streaming is not so much that you, you, there’s no self, it’s actually no, it’s that the sense of the self moves are a more subtle level. There’s a sense of meanness left afterwards. It’s just there is no little guy in the head somehow driving the body miner out.

It’s more like a, it’s not like, imagine with the driver of the caddy, like I used to frame it. It’s more like it’s a self-driving Tesla or because I mean it’s SEF right now. It’s just a way more, of a way more, yeah, more of a way more situation.

Daniel Kazandjian: Yeah.

Michael Stroe: Like, that’s, that’s the whole insight. I know it’s mundane. Like I had this conversation last week with, uh, at dinner. Someone’s like. But this is so one day it’s like, yeah, that’s the point. Like they never said enlightenment is, uh, anything other than just this. It’s just, okay, just this process is happening. You go about your day as well.

[01:21:00] A bit happier, a bit less contracted,a bit, bit more pep in the step. And that’s it. Yeah.

Daniel Kazandjian: Michael, thank you so much for this conversation. Is there anything you wanna leave the listeners with? Any projects you want to name?

Michael Stroe: Uh, sure. Uh, once again, thank you for the invitation. I would say that I’m working on two projects. One is a bit more commercial, which is the whole, uh, nine out 10 happiness or one out of 10, uh, unconditional happiness, which is my thesis that it’s very easy to feel pretty great. Most days, whatever, they imagine that nine of 10 days, they can have it as a baseline.

And I just want to make a note, which is like, I’m not trying to invite them to work with me. I’m just saying it’s possible and explore whoever they want. I’m just making the possibilities known.

This would mean mostly just working with the sense of the self, from big little guy in the head to witness, right. And then working on their attachment and rev version.

[01:22:00] And that makes such a big impact on their wellbeing. And that’s the first one. And that’s more on the commercial side that I’m hopefully gonna be able to make some, uh, contributions to the larger, uh, let’s say consciousness space.

And there is also a project that probably I would invite some of them to reach out to if they’d be interested in participating. It’s a pilot study. It’s gonna be a pilot study with the processes that I’m doing for stream entry and weakening reactivity and breaking a pilot study in measuring the wellbeing changes from these processes. We like, like I said, we have some mutuals that have gotten great benefits, but we don’t necessarily have public data.

And probably in Jan, probably like close to January to March, gonna have a 60 to 75 people, uh, pilot study where we are approaching this, uh, insight in a very scientific way where we’re tracking wellbeing, where we are using as little as possible Buddhist terminology.

[01:23:00] Again, the whole memory consolidation or predictive processing, we can say that predictive processing can take the, the, place of using dependent origination.

It’s a bit more easily digestible for most people and that will hopefully be a successful enough study to warrant some more, uh, research in this space of what’s possible for wellbeing without any type of, uh, helpers. And by helpers, I mean, you know, the usual medicine. Uh, whether the medicine is plant medicine or the usual, uh, farm medicine type.

But yeah, these are the projects I’m working on. Again, I’m, I’m friendly. If someone wants to reach out, happy

Daniel Kazandjian: Very friendly,

Michael Stroe: happy to. Yeah. Very friendly. I’m a hater or afraid I’m not a hater of people in general. Just afraid. That’s my, that’s my only belief.

Daniel Kazandjian: beautiful, and we’ll put those links in the show notes. Michael, thank you so much.

Michael Stroe: Thank you. Thank you so much, Daniel, for the invitation.​

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