How can we find the sacred, the spiritual, the connection in our creative pursuits? That's what we're gonna explore today with Glen Phillips from Toad, the Wet Sprocket on the Wise Effort Show. Welcome back. I'm Dr. Diana Hill, clinical psychologist, and this is The Wise Effort Show. It's all about your genius energy, how you are using it, misusing it, and how to redirect it with wisdom so that your creative force, your life force, can be shared with the world. And there's something that I've been noticing in myself recently and my clients and my friends, it's not exactly new, but it's this pull that I feel a pull back to community, a pull back to creativity, a pull back to making things just to make them. And it might be a response to the way that so much of our creativity is being swept into content creation. We're doing substack and newsletters and social media posts, and when everything becomes a performance or a product, you can start to feel your energy fraying. It's that photo that you took at a family gathering, but you're not just taking it for the photo's sake, you're taking it to share with somebody so it changes the way that you view the scene, right? Or the song, or the poem, or the journal article or the recipe that you were just playing with. But then when it starts to feel like content, your energy shifts, your joy can get hijacked. You start to feel a constriction, a tightening. And in neuroscience, there's a word for this, it's self-referential processing. The more that we monitor and evaluate ourselves, especially when we have this imagined scrutiny, the more we get into a state of rumination, ego construction, and this can lead to or contribute to low mood. Low mood can also trigger it, right? So when we're in a low mood, it leads to more of this self-referential processing In classic depression research, they talk about this internal locus of control where you believe that it's all up to you to succeed. And external locus control where you believe that no matter what you do, things won't change. The self-referential processing, the common denominator of locus of control is you. That's why when you stop thinking about yourself making the thing, and you simply are with it, your energy returns. You lose yourself in a good way. There's actually no locus of control when you're in that space. The locus of control is all. So this is what Glen Phillips and I talk about on the podcast today. You probably know Glen from Toad the Wet Sprocket, but what you'll hear in this conversation is a musician who's reclaimed music, not as a commodity, but as a real spiritual practice. We talk about creativity, ambivalence, community singing. We talk about this sweet. Shava in a practice that he offers us on Tuesday nights here in Santa Barbara at my favorite yoga studio, Yoga Soup. Big shout out to them. I don't wanna tell you about it because it's so jam packed that it's hard to get in already, but it is like my favorite thing ever. And we talk about how to make things for no other reason than to offer beauty, to connect, to feel alive. And as Glen says, humans have sung at births, at deaths, at rituals that rites a passage for thousands of years. Singing together is not just about a performance, it's about our connection as humans, and it's a creative act. So the, so this whole month on the podcast, we are exploring creativity and wise effort in our creativity from different angles. In my book Wise Effort, I have a whole chapter on wise effort and creativity and applying the Wise Effort method to our creativity. Each of these months that we're going through are following the later chapters of my book, the first part of the Wise Effort book, I walk you through the wise effort method of getting curious, opening up, and focusing your energy. And the later chapters, I apply 'em to these domains like wise effort and relationships wise, effort and creativity wise, effort in community. So this month we're focusing on wise effort in community. And last week I recorded a live session with a blocked writer who realized her creative freeze had everything to do with her shifting identity as a mother of a growing son, something I can totally relate to. And next week, I'm so excited to share with you that I'm gonna be talking with Poet Rosemerry Trommer. I have been so into her book. Reading it before bed, reading it first thing in the morning. Actually, two of her books that I just reached out to her and asked her if she'd come on, and she said, yes, this is so exciting for me. Her most recent book of poetry was written in the wake of her son's death by suicide. Her poems are such a beautiful example of the creative practice, transforming our experience and using creative practice as almost like a grief alchemy. So today we're talking to Glen Phillips, who's become a friend of mine. He's a phenomenal musician. He is in my memory bank of the 1990s and early two thousands of college. And we're gonna talk about the trap of measuring your worth by your metrics, what it means to become the song instead of trying to own it. And wherever you are in your own creative life, whether it's blocked or blooming, you're hiding or you're just beginning, I really hope these episodes help you feel a little less alone. Maybe nudge you back into the making. The making for the sake of making. Okay. Enjoy this conversation with Glen Phillips and enjoy the songs that he recorded live for us. When I was interviewing him in his studio. All right, Glen Phillips. Thank you.

Yeah, glad to be here.

I was preparing to talk to you the way that I would prepare to come to one of your shows, which is you bulk listen to all the music. Do you do this before you go

put on a playlist and drive around?

You like, listen to them for a few days to get to yourself going so you can sing along at the show. And of course I was listening to Walk On The Ocean. Which is how I came to you probably in college listening to that song, driving out to UCSB and, brings back a lot of good memories. And, I put all sorts of interpretation into it. And then I looked it up to what is this song? what does this song mean? And it sounds like it doesn't really have a,

No, it was pretty random actually. I had been with my first wife, we'd just gone up to the, San Juan Islands and we were at, Dobe, at Orca on Orcas Island. And it'd been like sitting in the springs with a bunch of hippies and so that probably influenced it a little bit, but it was a five, literally a five minute lyric. And the chorus, I have no idea what it means at all. but we just threw it down and I tried to rewrite it and it felt right as it was, so we just left it.

It's like a R shark. Like you can put your own interpretation onto it. I had always interpreted for myself walking the ocean as a, like a love song, to the ocean and the ocean within me. I'm just like ocean obsessed, right? And, I think it was, Rick Rubin, do you, have you ever, have you read his book on creativity? I have not. It super. Yeah. it's, you just, it's an open pa. You just open to whatever page. But he has a little thing in there where he talks about the ocean and he says the ocean is like a better reflection than a mirror. Of ourselves. So I, I love that song. It's a good,

I like that song too. But it's, always, it's an odd one. 'cause there wasn't much intent in it. And there it is.

Yeah. So you started at 15, you were in this band at San Marco High School, which is our local high school here in Santa Barbara. My husband taught at San Marcus. A lot of friends come outta San Marcus. Tell us a little bit about just the launching of Toad, The Wet Sprocket, and then I wanna get to now what's happening for you now in the creative process?

Yeah. the band, It just happened organically. We were all in theater and choir together. I was a freshman, they were seniors, and Todd had like a. A woody station wagon and I found out, lived two blocks away from me and I was lazy and didn't wanna bike home. So I kept asking him if I could throw my bike in the back and come home. And he had a cool record collection and turned me on to a ton of music, turned me onto huskerdoo and the Replacements and U2 and Elvis Costello and and We started writing songs together and then put the band together and, and the one place we could play near us was this place called Pats Crash Shaq. And he was really cheap so he wouldn't pay ASCAP and BMI. So when, if you have a club, what's that? Was BMI? So those are performance rights associations. And so if you're a club that has. Music as part of your offering. You're a public place and the music, it's like paying for the paintings on your walls. You can't just turn on the radio. If you turn on the radio, you also have to actually pay the songwriters because you're playing music in a venue. So we had to write original songs, right outta the gate, which most bands don't have to do. And I just kept moving forward and

But you're like little boys. you're like 15 years old, 16 years old while you're

doing Yeah, I was 15, 16.

I have a 15-year-old. I can't imagine him being that organized to get

it wasn't that organized. we were just playing gigs, but it was fun to write songs. And then we, Brad Nack the local artist in here in Santa Barbara, wanted a backup band on two songs. And, he said if, we recorded two songs for him, we could record two songs of our own. And we just went in and played 'em live and we're like, wow, that was easy. We should do eight more and have an album. And so we spent $600 and recorded eight more songs and we had a 10 song record. And that ended up like just getting handed around. We never even sent out a demo. I was planning on going to San Francisco. I was inspired by high school teachers, so I thought I'd do that and instead, dead week that year when I was 18, we ended up flying to New York and signing with Columbia Records and went on tour. Most people who end up in my position have sacrificed everything to be there. And I really fell into it. And I think one of my, struggles in the years since has been like expecting the hand of God to come down and just make this crazy miracle happen again. and repeatedly realizing that life doesn't normally work that way,

or maybe you're getting other kinds of miracles.

I'm getting other kinds of miracles, but it, but that kind of, sudden life shift. I think we, because of how it happened, we might've taken it a little for granted. It was definitely a surprise. It was not the life or the career I thought I'd have, and part of wanting to be a teacher was my, David Holmes, who was my theater teacher, it was his first year and he had said, he became a teacher because he loved the theater more than anything else. And all his friends were going off to New York or Chicago. And he realized like he, he didn't think his heart could handle auditioning constantly and the constant rejection and constant judgment. And I was like, that's me.

Yeah.

I'll be a teacher.

but there's something about those early years in terms of the energetic flow of. Your creativity, the band's creativity, the, constraints. nope, sorry. You can't copy anyone. You gotta do original stuff to get on the stage. Yeah. And and this is the benefit of being a teenager. You have less of that frontal lobe holding you back. You're just go for it. Yeah. That then had this organic build, and this is what we were talking about with the yoga class because the way that I, I started with Walk On The Ocean as a college student, but now the way that I encounter you. Is in this magical space on Tuesday nights. That I get to cry every single Tuesday when you play where, your wife leads this amazing yoga class and then you close us out with Glen Phillips and Shavasana and it's

it's

it's phenomenal. It's phenomenal. It feels like at the same kind of energetic flow without the constraints of auditioning or. it has to be a certain way

or success or any of the externals. it was easy to write and be creative as a kid. 'cause I don't know. I didn't question it. And I've always found, the resistance. I somehow. cleared and lubricated that path where I feel, for the most part, like I have a right to write songs, and it's amazing how resistance comes up if it comes to prose or an essay or any, anything else. All of a sudden I'm like, I'm not summon rushdi. Like, why should I bother putting pen to paper? I can't do this. And, in music I mostly don't get that. Bob Dylan did it better. Like,

you don't, huh?

Most days I come up with other reasons not to write if I'm being, if I'm procrastinating, if I'm being avoidant. But, I found after the band, and after my divorce, I'd been bitter about music for a while because I had, it was tied with these metrics of external success. and something I couldn't return to, right? That thing of being on a major label, having hits as a kid. And, when you know, when you're working in the business, like those are the metrics that count. Like how many people bought a ticket? How much have you sold? How are you big enough? You gotta get bigger. there's always. There's not a sense of enoughness ever on the business side of the creative world. And I'm really happy. I have a personal manager now who's the first person who ever said to me like, you don't need to get anywhere. You're, you have a great career.

You're there.

I was like, really? I'd worked with other people before and they were always, you're such a good songwriter, you should be huge. We gotta get you back on the radio. And I would fail at that and I would feel terrible about myself and. Just that difference and, Toad's management is like that too. They're like, you're a legacy band. You got a great career. Our job now is finding people who, if you mention us, they go, oh, I love that band. Do they still play? They

happened to be, I was interviewing this guy, this Columbia psychiatrist at Columbia University, and I was like, Glen Phillips, he talks about creativity this way and he's oh, I love that band.

Yeah. It's

and then you're instantly there like. Remembering. Listening to your music. But you're also instantly there now. you have the, legacy of your band, but you have the beauty of what you're creating now. So there's also something really special about what you create here

Oh yeah.

Oh yeah. That it's different than the big label. It's like sacred spiritual spaces where you're doing songs with people.

I'd had that mindset. Yeah. And, I've always struggled with depression. I, and so I was in this state of just depression, feeling like I was a failure feeling. And, after my divorce, I, I guess I described it to you as the psychedelic rum Springer. Mm-hmm. but that. Brought music to me in a new way. And, I found in these kind of ceremonial circles, that I could pray without being religious. I could pray and I'd my entire life, I had something spiritual coming out of me, but I didn't have a practice or a belonging in a community or a place where it felt. Like I fit there. And there was something about the openness of that community where these songs all of a sudden took on new meaning. And through that, I discovered a community singing where it's people in a circle together singing uplifting spiritual songs. Not a trained choir, not a performance choir. What I love about that music is that there's no performing. You sing to each other with each other for each other. And, and I started leading these song circles at a friend's house, and it was just so beautiful to get, to make music and have it be completely outside the legacy of the band. this idea of, once again, these commercial metrics of success and just leave people feeling good and, and it really changed how I saw music, changed how I eventually saw the band in my own career and changed how I wanted to write music because it started feeling like, like a spiritual practice and also a spiritual offering. And I wanted to write songs that would, give people a little more ground under their feet when they needed it. And, I'd always, written sad songs, and I still write a lot of more melancholy material. But, there is something about, being able to write from that place of vulnerability and that. I know that other people are going through the same struggles I'm going through. So if I'm writing honestly about my struggle, it's gonna translate to somebody else. And dealing more with, I think, emotional specifics. and even within that emotional ambiguity, and 'cause. Or can I say, is it ambiguity I'm looking forward to, or there's that much better word, ambivalence. But like the actual meaning of ambivalence. Ambi. Valent, right? It's dual valence. Dual track, right? And we think of being ambivalent as meaning that we don't feel strongly about something or we don't really care about it. And ambivalent just means one part of you. It can mean one part of you is the saying, go, please do that. it would be so wonderful. Take that chance. And the other part is going, you will fail. Please protect yourself. Don't just stop, be afraid. And, it's those ambivalent feelings that I think are I. So much truer than some primary color, attitude towards emotion. Like a pure happy song. Like a happy song is really better if it has some sadness

in it.

And, it's the little balls in, Inside Out, They need, more colors. Yeah.

there's your, in your, 2022 album, the one that. I think it's your most recent full album. Yeah. as I was binge listening this morning on my run, there was one with a lot of that ambivalence to it. It's about love, the song and the ambivalence of the. The liking or the wanting and the needing that happens in love. Which is the one? Meet you in the middle between the wanting and the need. Oh. Stone Throat. Stone Throat. Okay. Stone Throat. And you talk about meeting. meeting someone in the middle between the wanting and the need. So you could think about this in the ambivalence, in the love space, ooh, I, that sort of craving type of love. And then the more deep connected love. But then you could also think about that in terms of what you're talking about with the wanting craving that happens with the material success. and then the actual need that's being met for you in these song circles, like it's meeting a need, but maybe you're not rolling in the money from the song circle, but it's a deeper, need, a deeper connection that you're getting and that you're offering to that. We are all part of that circle.

Yeah. it feels good to, I'm at this point, very grateful for the band, and I also understand that the band serves, I. There's something about a song that you heard in your twenties that like will take you, it's like this time travel and you get to go back and even if it's the worst breakup you ever had, it's like you go, ah, that was a hard time. but in a loving way. you get to view yourself with this objectivity and compassion and music really takes you there.

Yeah.

and that, that's a beautiful thing that Toad offers. And we also offer, we have our new songs and, but for kind of my sensibility and my heart, I like a little more intimacy. And just getting to sing Shavasana at Elyse's classes is wonderful. I love doing that. I love the song circles. I love. the ceremonial work I've done and stuff that's, just completely away from any kind of ambition. It's about being in a moment and being present and serving and, even just offering praise, like to no one, to nothing to, to life for bothering to be, and. Music has only recently been commodified, right? it's every human society sings, sings when they work, sings when they give birth, sings when they die. it's at the core of our experience and so many sacred things, I feel like we've taken it and commodified it. We made it, literally they call it product, right? Your, album is product. But the heart of it isn't a capitalist venture. And so for me, having that balance, being able to pay the rent with Toad, be really happy about that, and then be able to put the rest of my attentions on things that kind of fill my spirit and, the balance of the two and not the Toad doesn't, but it does it in a different way.

I wanna talk about Shavasana Tuesday night, so Elyse is another version of that, like not like of not creating things for commodity she teaches from the heart. She brings poetry to her teaching. She creates community that everyone wants to be in on. We're mat to mat in this yoga class on a Tuesday night at five 30. People get there. They just are chatty. She has to quiet us down. She's moving people.

all her English teacher skills to, she's really good at just, she puts her hands up to her ears and looks around the

Yeah. And so we're all squeezed in. And then she works us. she does a hard, beautiful, powerful class and and then slows us down. And then we all lie down and you sing to us. But what happened this last Tuesday? It happens, it's happened a few times, but it happened more this last Tuesday, was that we started singing. Did you hear us?

Oh, yeah.

And I could hear, another yoga teacher behind me because the yoga teachers go to Elyse's class. Let's just say this, like the yoga teachers from the studio go to her class. That's how good a class it is could hear this other yoga teacher. And when she, I wanted to sing and when she started to sing, it gave me permission to sing and, and then other people permission to sing. And then we all wanted to stay and we would like for you to have a whole concert after yoga class. But what is happening there energetically, like in terms of that community sing and the, what's it like for you?

it's lovely. It's, I need a wider repertoire for the Shavasana I'm running outta songs, but, once again, it's a vulnerable moment, right? You've just been, you have the poetry she brings in. You're broken open by, finding your edge with your body, and I think getting to take in something that's happening in the room, it's, music does that anyway. my. I haven't found a better metaphor for it, but I feel like recorded music is great, but it's a little like masturbation. Whereas live music is like making love, right? Yes. It's, there's something

yes,

in the fragility of a moment and in mistakes and in just aliveness and the way air moves in a room that really takes you somewhere different. And, and even especially, un amplified music. it's part of why I love the song circle so much and, playing music in yurts is because it's in the moment, there's no, nobody's paying to be there. or sometimes people are paying to be there, but it's not about a ticket sale, it's not about numbers. It's about,

or impressing. Yeah.

Yeah. It's about being fully present in a moment and there's a communality to it, and especially when everybody's singing together in a room. I just think we, I evolved to want and expect that and we're hungry for it. 'cause our culture really doesn't offer much. we get to sing Sweet Caroline and, at a game and there's karaoke night, but even that's about the individual getting up and singing a lot of the time. it's about the spotlight on one person. It, there really is something about being together, being vulnerable, whether we're singing together or whether you're, I. Really listening to listen, especially to a song you may not know, and you're fully present. Everything matters in that time. and, yeah, it's, I don't know, it's a beautiful thing to be able to do and I'm glad I found places where I get to, 'cause no Elyse, no savasana. maybe I would've found it somewhere else, but,

yeah, I wanna talk a little bit about. Love and Elyse and album, I'm like, I was just hearing her in it. but before we do that, would you play, will you play us winches in a song? Maybe you can't play us, Part of Something Beautiful because that's not licensed, but there's other ones that are yours.

Yeah. I can't promise you the moon and stars, but on a clear night, we can go out in the yard to lay upon the grass beneath the sky, count the shooting stars and satellite. I can't promise you won't need to cry. But I'll help you wipe tears from your eyes. If there's one thing that you need to know is true, you must remember you here. In short years through and warm tears, you were meant to be here. You meant to be here. You. I can't promise you'll always see how beautiful you are, how wild and free for all the many changes you'll go through. Please don't forget that you were meant to be here through long days, short years, through warm tears you are meant to be. You meant to be here. You meant to swim through. Meant to be here through long days and short years. Warm tears you were meant to be. You were meant to be here. You were meant to be here through hard days and sweet years through sad, happy tears you were meant to be. You were meant to be here. You were meant to be. You were meant to be here. You were meant to be. You are meant to be here.

You've married someone fairly private, so we won't go too much detail into her, but I would like to talk about, this sort of evolution of you because you, you talked about you as a teenager and this big wave that just came to you, and here you are, like signing a deal with a major record label and you, were on that for a while, and then you talked about depression, divorce. Walk us through into finding love again and how music played a role in that process?

Yeah. it's funny, I meant, so she taught at a, junior high that does these, long bike trips. They'll bike from Sedona to Grand Canyon, the eighth and ninth grade, and then alternate years. They go, I believe it's Bend to Ashland. Yeah, my daughters, I have, three grown daughters. they're all in their twenties. and the oldest is just about to get married, which is amazing. and they, my oldest was out as part of the staff as alumni, and so I did a little road trip up to Oregon to meet them. and Elyse was there, cutting. Cutting lettuce at the mess tent. And so I went over and helped make salad and we talked for, an hour. And, yeah, somewhere in the middle of the conversation I just kept thinking, All the good ones are taken, all the good ones are taken. and then she mentioned that she'd been, separated for a year, like an hour into the conversation and was like, oh. Maybe not. and so we just kept talking and I remember the first, we met in Santa Barbara again when we got back home and we went for this walk on the beach. And it was, I, in that talk, told her everything that could possibly be a red flag about me, right from the get go, which is not. The overshare is traditionally like, not the great first move, but there was something about her, which just, it was either gonna be 100% or not at all. And I'd been having my like, typical post-divorce, hold on. I don't know. I'm just like playing the field, like had relationships, got out and even at that time I was like, my plan was to leave town. As soon as my youngest daughter. I had I think a year and a half until she was 18 and moving out of town. And I was like, I'm gonna get the hell outta Santa Barbara, I'm gonna start new somewhere else. and I didn't want to have a relationship for a year. I was like, I'm, I need to learn how to love myself. I collapsed on myself and then I put it all on a partner and I don't want to do that anymore. I don't wanna make someone else responsible for my happiness. And, and so I had some real plans and Elyse did not fit any of them. and at the same time it was just clear really quickly, damn it, this is gonna, this, this'll take 20, 20, at least 20 years,

to make this happen. Or what?

Yeah, being with her was not gonna be quicker,

Oh, yeah.

if, and it wasn't something I couldn't just date around with her, like it was clear. So that very first conversation, I laid everything on the table that if she found out later, she might go, huh. But it still honestly took me about two years to un unpack like that might. How badly I wanted to escape, and I'd been in also in a really difficult relationship previously and was, I didn't trust her like kindness. Sometimes I'd been hurt and I was waiting for something to go wrong and, she wasn't entirely patient with me, but she was surprising. She believed in me and did us enough. She just knew and she held it out for both of us. and it took longer than I would've liked to, for me to just be both feet in. But, I'm really grateful for it. 'cause, there's a, there's something about. Really being in relationship where choice feels like it has a lot less to do with it now. And there, there's something about declaring yourself to someone and being like, you're the one, you're my ride or die. So if I am. Getting depressed, freaking out, thinking about other places I could be, how another life would be better, that I should leave everything behind. 'cause when I get depressed, it's just universal. Everything is wrong. I need to escape. And to be anchored in, to know, what's that book? The Wisdom of No Escape, right? It's no, this is actually my life. This is where I'm supposed to be. And it's really helped me train my mind away from the other, the idea that something elsewhere is better.

right

and I'm also lucky that what's right here is actually really good. So sometimes something else is better. but you can just jump from one set of problems to another set of problems, to another set of problems indefinitely. And there's something about, Devotion to a person that is so freeing, and just understanding that we're on this journey together. And, it doesn't have to be epic or in any way. It's just like showing up in the morning and doing our best for each other and some days not doing all that great and other days. Killing it and then doing the next day. And

she also, Elyse is a middle school teacher, so she has capacity for those big lows and I could see her. Not like you putting all your red flags on the first, the first day that like probably didn't knock her over. Like I could see her having some capacity Yeah. For that, or even interest and openness to it. she reads poetry in every class. She, brings her own vulnerability to the spaces that she's in, in a really beautiful way, in a very, understated. Gentle, but very strong.

Yeah.

She's got this interesting, dialectic to her, but I could see, that working. Like you didn't knock her off

No. She's, hard to shake. Yeah. And I think my kind of wild airiness and flights of fancy and stuff are, useful to her to, A bit of extra wildness is good for her and I, need some grounding and we compliment each other really well. and there's just, I don't know, there's just something there that was there from the, very start that scared me to death. 'cause it felt like the real thing.

That's how you know you're on the right track. Yeah. If you're like, this is a,

terrified.

of something really big here and my heart can barely hold it. Yeah. That's good stuff. Yeah. and

And and she holds me accountable, which, I need,

So something that, really impressed me was coming to your, performance that you did. It was a group of a number of, local performers that paired up with the Santa Barbara Symphony. And it was this beautiful collaboration. You were one part of many in this collaboration that you came on at the end, and the song that you sang, it was, I felt a little bit on the edge, knocked me off my feet a little bit. When you had this symphony behind you and you were singing and pairing up with the strings is

called Leaving Old Town Uhhuh, from this album, Swallowed By The New, which was my post-divorce record Uhhuh.

Uhhuh.

and yeah, I happened to have a string arrangement already existing. Paul Bryan wrote it. and yeah, it was. It was a fun part of the night. 'cause the whole night had been like, eight piece band or whatever. So it was rock band plus symphony, right? My friend

Very traditional way you would think of doing it, but you did something different.

and there's something about turning off the band, taking the horns away and just having strings and guitar and vocal. That's all of a sudden, it's not the wall of sound. You can hear everything. And so that was, it was a striking moment, in the,

I guess my association to it. Some, it came to me when you were talking about Elyse. 'cause it, it feels a little bit like that of, the intimacy that you had with those strings on the stage. and the intimacy you're talking about in relationship, there's a. There's a kind of intimacy that music can get us into, our, literally our heartstrings. They talk about pulling on your heartstrings, that metaphor, right? Yeah. Yeah. And, then the other piece about it was your willingness and the confidence that you have on a stage to, you really commanded the stage and that. That night there we could see all the different artists. So there were some artists that came in and I could feel their nervousness. This is whoa, this is a bigger stage that I'm used to. Or the, I have this huge, yeah. symphony behind me that's gonna launch me into something really scary. And then there was other artists that were just owning it, I've got this, some singers there in particular, you could probably say their names that were just like, whoa, you are a force. And then you came in. Your energy on that stage wasn't timid or force. It was, clear. It, you had just a, an ease, a clarity and ease and a collaboration like that. You're, you were really collaborating with the strings.

Yeah. At it's best I performing on a stage, I'm not gonna be, a huge showman. Yeah. Part of it's finding your lane. I think there are people who have that larger than life, and what I've found is that if I can just access a lot of presence, as myself and not having to, and I can. I don't know, forget I'm there and disappear. If that makes sense. Not in a disassociative way, but, if you're practiced enough and if you've sung enough, at its best, you become the song and you're not really playing the game of being you anymore. Yeah. Which doesn't happen every night. I like, to get to a level of competence and it doesn't happen. Every song where, you wanna sing in time, you wanna sing in tune, you wanna not forget the lyrics or the chords. You wanna be synced up with everybody else. You want to be affable and open and present. But the magical moments, the transcendent moments are the moments where you just. Are the song and the song comes through you and you are practiced enough and fluent enough. And I think people find this, it's the same, Elyse talks about it in, in yoga of just, dropping in. Is the moment where there's a sequence and there's just enough repetition in it than rather than thinking. you're gonna be going for Warrior Back and then it's into triangle and you've done this before and you stop thinking and then you're just a vessel for Vaness, right? And, you're getting, once again, not to disassociate, but just to be something a little larger and different and let something move through you and let something move you.

And, in those classes as well as in that night when we, when I had that transcendent experience with you in the strings, you were the song, but then you were also part of all of us. So in the yoga class. I am the movement, but I'm also part of the whole flow of the class. You feel the whole class flowing around you. It's 360. Yeah.

Right. the boundaries dissolve. When people talk about psychedelics or mushroom, like it's part of that apparently psilocybin takes, some of the centers that deal with self definition and deny them a little extra blood flow as they're giving more serotonin to other parts. But that there's, we are always having to, essentially run a neurological simulation of the physical input to our bodies. And, there's this little delay. You get touched on your arm and your nerves send it up and then your body goes, oh, and my arm's about here in space, you have prop perception. Where your body is, what you're doing. We're always simulating ourselves

Mm-hmm.

and, we have enough ego to get us to do things like mate, and find food and hopefully also have fun. But it's so delicious, in meditation, right? It's like trying to, hoping well, you get what you get, but getting beyond thinking, getting beyond just right all the doing and just being able to be without having to be anyone or anything. And, I think when you see someone on stage who's just clearly forgetting that there's a whole bunch of people looking at them, but feeling that there's a whole lot of people being with them

Yeah.

like

there's an effortlessness

there's an effortlessness that can happen that can be really transcended and that translates really beautifully. Those moments. Those moments are absolutely wonderful.

I love that you're making the connection between psychedelics, music, meditation, that these are all yoga people are maybe experience the surfing these ways in which they're, the separateness dissolves in year one with the whole. The whole of it, the beauty of it, the love, sex, another place where this happens and we put up the things that block us. there's the cognitive control that blocks us. The self-doubt, the having to figure it out, the trying to make money, the getting them to like us, all the things that are the blocks to that effortlessness that's so beautiful and so transcendent and that we, I think we crave that. Just to be ourselves and be in love.

Yeah.

In whatever domain we're in. Yeah.

it's such simple stuff. I don't know why I even just remembered, like I, I was dance shamed as a kid and every once in a while I find myself being able to dance again. And, but thinking of having kids and dancing in the kitchen with little kids, which like, no one cares if you look good doing it. You can be an utter fool. You can find it there. Yeah. Where it's just I just spent an hour dancing like a moron with kids, like completely forgot about time or anything. Anything else, like any time, it can happen in so many small ways as well. And yeah, I love that accessibility, but music feels like a cheat code. A lot of the time and that it's even available. It's one of the things back to the community singing. I feel like those circle songs are this cheat code where non-musicians, can experience this thing where they don't have to have a great voice.

And

a part of this larger sound. And the larger sound is beautiful. And once again, your boundaries dissolve a little. You, especially with the Circle songs, they tend to be really repetitive. They're, and you get in a trance. You just do this thing over and get to sit in this beauty that you're co-creating.

Right. Um,

and you don't even have to do, the years of study and work, and

this is why Ton was always. So try, when I was in my twenties and I did a lot, I just would do a lot of ton at the ashram and it was even better 'cause it wasn't even in, in English that I understood the words to. So I could just get there quick and, I feel song shamed in my own voice. Like I, I don't think I actually can carry a tune. I actually don't think I can carry a tune. I wasn't exposed to a lot of music as a kid, as opposed to my kids that are like so musically dialed just because they've been in it for so long. But the being part of the collective sound, there's even just it's not even my voice, it's, our voice that is all these vibrations coming together. And then the physical vibration of music and what we know now about sound, getting into the cells of our body and getting into our, nervous system in a certain way. The pacing, the breath, the slowing down of the breath with the music. it's just activating so many different parts of us. it's very healing. How do you. How do you practice? You talked a little bit about, psychedelics, but then off the air you

said mostly I don't do that's occasional,

no. I say off the air you said what you've learned is you need to, practice, you need, a meditation practice or a spiritual practice. That's not just like a escape practice

I think psychedelic, like bringing them up because there's so much in the public right now. Yeah. And treated as a miracle cure. Sure. And in my experience, I've looked for the answers there. I've never found the answers there. What I found is that I can get a mental reset that if I then integrate that into daily practices, that can lead to change. And you can do it without the psychedelics, but and I always come back, it's the same things. It's like yoga, exercise, being outdoors, seeing friends, journaling. I started doing, like gratitude lists in the morning, five internal things, five external things because gratitude can be really hard for me to hold on to. And I always poo-pooed the gratitude list as like a, it's woo, whatever,

Mm-hmm.

but. As Tara Brach would say, the mind is negatively inclined. Yes. and my mind is often negatively inclined. And so

I love your mind. I relate to that mind.

Yeah. But it's, it's

wake up with

it's good, but it's the waking up with it and the depressed mind, that's the stuff that's always at the front. Yeah. And, and so to yeah to maintain. And the other item was rest, It's, yeah, I'm, I've been, I, had a long, one of those malaises that's it wasn't like I couldn't get out of bed and do things. It wasn't like I couldn't be a decent partner, but I didn't have a lot of vitality and I've been really, making slow achievable changes. Part of it's that, and trying to remind myself, I don't have to be perfect to be lovable, and it started with things like, my phone charger is now in my music room in right

over there.

instead of next to the bed.

So

the phone is not the last thing I see at night, and it's not the first thing I see in the morning. it's tiny things. Got rid of all my social media. Got rid of Reddit, got, it's like it's this. Paying attention to the inputs. Paying attention to the output, and trying to just, and the, I, can get trapped in a feeling like I have to change everything about myself. There's something fundamentally wrong. And the thing that actually seems to stick with me is it's just like small nudges and the little tiny nudges really add up till you're heading in a different direction. And, as my therapist always says, practice makes practice

Yeah.

And, it's with anything too. It's I think there's this American idea of arrival that like, if you get enough, you'll be safe and then you stop working and you can golf all day. Or

do

recreate and or achieving enlightenment and then you're there. And it's, one of El Elyse's favorite quotes is, how you live your day is how you live your life, right? It's like the practices just build up, and they can lead to mastery. Mastery, is I don't know what the, number on the gauge is where you've reached mastery in something. But the thing about that is that's not an arrival point. The people I know who are the greatest musicians or players or whatever else they do, I think of a guy like Chris Thile in Nickel Creek

Oh, I love Nickel Creek.

he practices at least four hours a day. Every day. Yeah. Like it's not like he got there and he stopped. And the other thing about him

the Dalai Lama, is six hours of meditation a day. Yeah.

And he's voracious. Yeah. In terms of his musical curiosity. And if you show him something that's new or interesting, and I like, there is this element that it's not like you're aiming towards this goal and you're achieving it. Maybe you're like, I wanna be able to play that piece. I want to practice fast enough, that I can, do that thing. But there's, if, you're really motivated by curiosity and wonder, like there's no stopping point, and your various interests also will start to grow and merge with each other and you'll discover something new in between that. And it's just a good way to live as a practice. and I know when I'm depressed, I stop being curious. I stop being interested, I stop practicing. these are, and I, go into rumination and it's still something I have not been a good enough practitioner to, keep far from myself. It's just interesting to, to note for myself, like when I am depressed. And when that part takes over that it's I notice I don't practice. And there are things that are most delightful to me about being me or being curious or learning or reading or playing the guitar, writing songs. I love the process and, it's amazing how long I can deny myself those things. Yeah. It's fascinating. Yeah. The trance,

yeah.

And then how quick it comes back,

quick it comes back, and that it's not. A self-improvement project to get yourself to be not depressed, but more to remember who you are and see, you had a song clear Seeing. Clear eye. Clear eyed. Clear eyed. And in that song you'd said something about I, as a kid, I was always clear eyed. And as you're talking right now, I'm like, there's a lot of glen clear-eyed in this conversation where you're just super clear like the. The wisdom is super clear. And then when you're depressed it's like that, like I can imagine we could be talking to a very different

Yeah. And I'm,

see this.

much more practiced at the other one. Yeah. back to practice. Like you get good at what you do,

And

I've gotten good at reinforcing the negative. but I find that what delights me, even if it's difficult, songwriting isn't easy. There's lots to get through and figure out. A friend of mine said a long time ago, there's a problem to solve when you're writing. I had a friend who said, you gotta look. you look at problems like barriers. You gotta look at a problem like a mathematician or a rock climber,

Yeah.

For them a problem is a good day at work For them a problem is an exciting thing and a song is that same thing, but the, it's, it can be amazing to see wow, these are all the things that really delight me and for some reason I haven't, I've been making every excuse possible not to touch them. and, It feels really good to get a reset every once in a while and come outta the cave and then try to see if it can stick a little longer this time, but at the same time, hold that there's nothing that needs to be fixed, right? You come outta the cave as long as you can and you're not getting graded. You're not getting judged.

And you might go back in again. That's the pattern I go back in,

But the good thing is the habits. When you return to them, when you start practicing again, like the guitar, never, like maybe your fingers hurt a little more, but the guitar doesn't start moping saying like, how could you leave me? Why'd you do this? It's just there. They're all there and they're all happy to be reengaged with, So

Yeah, it's beautiful. I feel that way about working in my garden. like you can see the state of my mental health by the state of my vegetable beds. I know, garden's sad

our garden's sad.

But just how

in the garden

Spending there versus how much time am I spending on all the other things when this is actually the thing that brings me so much joy and is. The antidepressant and the connected to something bigger and the in the flow, and there's no product that is a commodity And I think most people maybe have that, or maybe they don't even know that they have it already. They haven't given it value, they haven't valued it, especially if it's not something that society puts a value on. music, maybe we're, okay a little bit, but some other things, that we don't, especially in the US, put value on.

Some, it's crazy. Being married to a teacher, right? It's like people will go, oh, teachers, you're the best. You give it all. But society does not value them at all.

No. I'm married to one too. I know. Yeah. It's it's wild. It's wild. And yet they are raising our children. Yeah. yeah. Shout out to our teachers, but yeah. Okay,

Thank you. That was, that, was that wandered?

I love a good wander. This, that, that means we got somewhere in our wandering, you're gonna close us out with a song,

This is the, this is on my new album. which one is it? it's called The Sound of Drinking, but the, oh, the title of the album There Is So Much Here. It comes from the song. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, got it. Yeah. Sorry, I'm not as well versed as I should be. Quite all right. The studies You did well. Okay. But I do know the sound of drinking. Okay. Yeah. So this is what's like now on without the constant leaving to sit and sense the season. The sound of drinking water, turning of the leaves. The movement of them, the spaces in between the long, the slow days there is That I had never seen head upon my shoulder slipping into. To my thoughts, listen to you breathe. Coffee in the bedroom, the swing of the pie. The freedom from the way and the measuring of time, the long the. Is so much that I never seen the long. Is so much I never seen. There is so much I never seen. Go team. What is it about being two feet from you singing that is so fucking amazing.

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Wise Effort podcast. Wise effort is about you taking your energy and putting it in the places that matter most to you. And when you do so you'll get to savor the good of your life along the way. If you would like to become a member of the Wise Effort podcast, go to wise effort.com. And if you liked this episode and it would be helpful to somebody, please leave a review over at Podchaser. I would like to thank my team, my partner, in all things, including the producer of this podcast, Craig. Ashley Hiatt, the podcast manager. And thank you to Ben Gould at Bell and Branch for our music. This podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. And it's not meant to be a substitute for mental health treatments.