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Opening the heart and surrendering to life are key components of personal growth and spiritual development. It involves letting go of anger, judgment, and attachment to outcomes, and embracing a state of openness, joy, and acceptance. This shift in perspective allows for a deeper connection with oneself and the world around us. It requires a willingness to challenge ingrained patterns and beliefs, and choose happiness and love in every moment. Opening the heart can be challenging and uncomfortable, but it is a transformative process that leads to a more expansive and fulfilling life.
External factors can play a significant role in supporting inner growth and the ability to keep an open heart. Factors such as proper nutrition, exposure to natural light, grounding in nature, and co-regulating with the environment can create conditions that make it easier to rise above reactivity and maintain a state of openness. Taking care of the physical body and creating a supportive environment can enhance the ability to experience inner peace, joy, and connection.
The blend of vitalistic and mechanistic perspectives is valuable in personal development. The vitalistic perspective recognizes the importance of energy, electromagnetism, and the interconnectedness of mind, body, and spirit. The mechanistic perspective emphasizes the role of tangible interventions and practices that support overall well-being. Combining these perspectives can lead to a holistic approach to personal growth, where both inner and outer factors are considered essential for cultivating a fulfilling and joyful life.
Our experiences of the external world are shaped by our internal perceptions and beliefs. By changing our perception and assigning new meaning to our experiences, we can shift our reality and the way we interact with the world. It is not the circumstances themselves that determine our happiness or suffering, but rather our own reactions and interpretations. Approaching challenges as opportunities for growth, embracing the present moment, and cultivating a mindset of openness can lead to a more positive and expansive experience of life.
The speaker reflects on a personal experience during a walking meditation on the beach where he felt a deep sense of peace and joy, tapping into the spiritual states of bliss and ecstasy. He realized that his chronic gut issues may have stemmed from living in chronic stress and survival mode due to various factors like his parents' divorce and financial worries. The speaker highlights the connection between stress and inhibited digestion, emphasizing the importance of relaxation to activate the parasympathetic nervous system for optimal digestion. He explores the idea that we can control our thoughts and move away from being victims to our emotions, while traditional psychological approaches may fall short. The speaker suggests that through surrender, opening up, and letting go of chronic stress, one can access their unlimited inner potential.
The conversation delves into the impact of chronic emotional stress on individuals, discussing how it can lead to a permanent stress state in the body, causing people to react unnecessarily and become less effective problem solvers. The speaker emphasizes that choosing fear can create the experience of the worst-case scenario in the present moment. They draw parallels to Star Wars, where Anakin Skywalker's fear-driven actions ultimately lead to his worst nightmare coming true. The conversation emphasizes the importance of embracing triggers and exploring them curiously, with the invitation to integrate suppressed parts of ourselves, ultimately aiming to become more whole. The speaker aspires for their work to raise awareness of the inner light within individuals and shift the focus from external products to cultivating this inner light for personal evolution and positive global impact.
Show Notes
Matt Maruca is the founder of RaOptics, who make, I think it's fair to say objectively, the world's best blue-blocking glasses — but more importantly, he is in my view a radical citizen scientist, self-experimenter, and articulate communicator — and what's more he's only 24 years old. Which, given his depth of knowledge and wisdom, is somewhat mind-blowing for someone of his age.
This conversation didn't go the way that I had expected. I'd been reading journal papers and studies on photobiology, mitochondrial health, and how to optimize our light environment... but fairly quickly it became clear that this wasn't the direction that the conversation wanted to go. I think a former version of me would have wanted to stick to the script — but instead we veered off into a fascinating tangent into Matt's explorations into spirituality and what he describes as surrendering to life.
In this conversation, you can expect to learn:
👹 The effects of repressing anger on depression and health
🔆 The benefits of light therapy and being in tune with your circadian rhythm
⚡ Why Matt believes that humans are beings of energy and electromagnetism
🌱 The important distinction between vitalistic and mechanistic perspectives for personal growth
🙇♂️ The power of surrendering to life or how he stopped acting like he was a victim to life.
Timestamps
[00:01:36] Matt's curiosity about health and wellness led them to explore various aspects of their own well-being, including diet, nutrition, supplementation, and eventually light therapy. He discovered that cellular dysfunction, particularly in mitochondria, plays a significant role in disease and that environmental factors and lifestyle choices can impact health.
[00:09:04] Challenges led to self-reflection and a shift in mindset. Learning from Dr. Joe Dispenza's teachings, joy is found by opening oneself and surrendering limited beliefs and emotions. Change starts from within.
[00:20:28] Matt discusses their background in studying light and electromagnetic energy in relation to health. They criticize the mechanistic approach of Western medicine and promote the idea of tapping into the body's natural healing power. They express skepticism towards the carnivore diet's claims of healing and share personal experiences.
[00:43:54] Matt discusses their journey towards understanding health, wellness, and spirituality, emphasizing the importance of changing one's perception to create a better external experience.
[01:05:32] The idea of being greater than we think and considering limitless possibilities.
[01:13:12] The writer's goal is twofold: personal growth and creating an ethical company. They want to awaken people to the importance of inner light and bridge the gap between their products and spirituality. They believe that cultivating inner light is crucial for human evolution.
[01:18:33] Jesus is seen as a profound and humorous figure in personal spiritual development.
Official Links
😎 Ra Optics (affiliate link) — http://www.raoptics.com/nsmastery
👋 Follow Matt on Instagram + Youtube — @TheLightDiet
💡 Buy Warm Edison Bulbs on Amazon — https://a.co/d/aAV3tqb
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.
🫁 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 April 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 ...
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Listen to the best highlights from the podcasts you love and dive into the full episode