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The podcast explores the shift from the self-improvement paradigm to the self-unfoldment paradigm. The self-improvement paradigm is based on the idea that something is missing and needs to be improved or fixed. It often leaves us feeling deficient, even if we achieve some improvements. The self-unfoldment paradigm, on the other hand, suggests that we are already whole and focuses on deepening our contact with ourselves and the world. It involves exploring our truths, embracing our wholeness, and allowing our innate qualities to unfold naturally. This shift offers a different way of engaging with life and experiencing personal growth.
The podcast discusses the difference between technological attunement and poetic attunement. The technological attunement is prevalent in our culture and views ourselves and others as capacities standing in reserve. It emphasizes efficiency, productivity, and improvement, often leading to a sense of disconnection and self-deficiency. In contrast, the poetic attunement offers a different way of relating to ourselves and the world. It focuses on truth, beauty, and goodness and cultivates a sense of aliveness and depth. By engaging in poetic attunement, we create the conditions for self-unfoldment and discover the inherent wholeness within us.
The podcast explains how self-unfoldment occurs by creating the conditions for spontaneous unfoldment. Instead of striving for self-improvement, it involves reducing inner impediments or restraining forces that hinder natural unfoldment. This is done through deep contact, empathetic understanding, and genuine curiosity towards our inner experiences. By attuning poetically, we discover our fundamental truths, beauty within ourselves and the world, and essential basic goodness. This shift from a self-improvement mindset to self-unfoldment allows for a more fulfilling and authentic way of engaging in personal growth and transformation.
The podcast explores the shift from living in a disenchanted world, defined by technological attunement, to reenchanting our lives through poetic attunement. In the technological attunement, we view the world as a resource to be consumed or manipulated, losing depth and enchantment. On the other hand, the poetic attunement helps us rediscover the beauty, truth, and goodness of the world. By embracing truth, beauty, and goodness for their own sake, we tap into our innate wholeness and experience a reanimation of life. This shift allows us to live a more fulfilling, engaged, and authentic existence.
The podcast episode explores the concept of deep poetic attunement and unfoldment through the use of psychedelics. It suggests that the psychedelic experience can provide a profound sense of meaningfulness and poetic connection, and the challenge lies in integrating and carrying that experience into daily life. The discussion also delves into the importance of nervous system regulation and capacity building in facilitating presence and depth. The Alethea methodology is described as a polyvagally informed practice that helps clients shift from chronic freeze states to socially engaged regulation. The use of experiential mismatches and memory reconciliation is also highlighted as integral to sustained transformation and neuroplasticity.
The second main idea of the podcast emphasizes the shift from improvement agendas to unfolding and being fully human. The conversation speaks to the limitations of improvement paradigms and encourages adopting a present-oriented perspective. It also challenges the view of transformation as an individual process and suggests that the locus of transformation is a complex ecosystem. A vision is shared to reinvent what it means to be human, responding to the current poly crisis by exploring an ontological approach. The Alithia journey is positioned as a pragmatic response, bringing wisdom practices into areas that often lack access to such traditions. The aspiration is to create sustainable, mutually dignifying, and respectful ways of being human.
In this episode, I am speaking with Steve March — who is, although maybe lesser known in the public sphere, what he has created with Aletheia, which we will get into — is, to my mind, a revolutionary innovation in the realm of human development and how we orient to personal growth.
Expect to have your paradigm of personal growth turned upside down as we cover:
⚖️ Self-development vs. Self-unfoldment, which points to why so much of the personal development industry and individual efforts to self-improve are doomed to fail from the outset. And how might we make a New Year resolution as unfolding, with no improvement?
🍃 The Four Depths Model — and how different modalities work differently with different depths. Leveraging emergence by exploring the radical question of 'What if nothing is missing? What if we are whole?'
🧠 The Neuroscience of Enduring Transformation — take-aways from Steve's paper for using micro-practises within a 5-hour window to take advantage of the heightened window of neuroplasticity.
🚶♂️ 4x Actionable Principles — to explore the concept of poetic attunement in your own life — including an invitation to let go of any self-improvement agendas and specific blindspots to pay attention to.
Official Links
🙋♂️ Learn about upcoming Aletheia Offerings: integralunfoldment.com
📝 Steve's recent paper on the neuroscience of enduring transformation (link)
Connect + Follow Jonny:
🐦 Follow on Twitter @jonnym1ller
💌 Subscribe to the Curious Humans Newsletter
🫁 Learn more about Nervous System Mastery
🙋♂️ Join Five to Thrive — a zero-cost educational email series.
Episode Sponsors
🩸 Inside Tracker — One of the things I've changed my mind on in the past year is the value of getting blood panels taken prophylactically (ideally every six months, according to Dr. Peter Attia) rather than waiting until you have a health issue. Inside Tracker recently added hormone testing alongside a bunch of other important biomarkers that aren't included in traditional blood panels (ApoB, for example). Despite generally feeling great, my most recent set of results showed that I have some work to do to reduce levels of inflammation, and I'll be following some of their dietary + supplement recommendations to address this asap. So I highly recommend making this something you make time for at least once or twice yearly. Save 20% here
🥶 The Cold Plunge — I reached out to the founder of the plunge, Ryan after hearing his powerful story on the Danny Miranda podcast. I've shared how getting in icy cold water every day helped me to move through intense grief, and taught me what it meant to surrender. These days I use their plunge every, single, day. It's like a high-stakes meditation—a mirror into my own internal state. The Plunge team have done a phenomenal job architecting what I consider as the world's best cold plunge (it doesn't get grimy like the converted chest freezers that I used to use). For optimal health benefits, I recommend deliberate cold exposure for 11 minutes per week total. Save $150 with the code CURIOUS. Learn more about their revolutionary new Plunge.
🫁 Nervous System Mastery — this is my flagship 5-week boot camp designed to equip you with evidence-backed protocols to cultivate calm and emotional regulation. Our fifth cohort will run in March 2024 ~ and applications are currently open. My sense is that if this conversation resonates with you, then you'd likely be a great fit for our upcoming cohort. This curriculum represents my attempt to distill everything that I've learned in recent years about how to create the conditions for our nervous system's flourishing. It's run in an intensive cohort-based way since this is, in my experience, the most efficient way to embody and practice the protocols. Previous students have shared how partaking not only improved their sleep and quality of relationships but also tapped into deeper states of joy, clarity, and confidence in their lives. We've had over 750 students have completed this training, and many have said that it has been the most impactful thing they've ever done for their personal growth — so if you're intrigued at all, you can find more details and apply to join this year's cohort over at nsmastery.com
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Further Ways to Support the Podcast:
🎙️ I use Riverside to record all of my podcast conversations (it's so much better than zoom for podcasting!)
🎧 I also use Transistor to host this podcast, it's fricking awesome, and I would highly recommend.
😎 RaOptics make the world's best Blue Blockers – I wear these anytime I'm out of the house after dark, and it makes a huge difference!
🤖 I use AI wizardry from Castmagic to help with each episode show-notes + timestamps
📹 Want to create a Hollywood-quality home studio? Get in touch with Kevin Shen here & save $500 with code JONNYSENT500OFF
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Listen to the best highlights from the podcasts you love and dive into the full episode