Tami Simon: You’re listening to Insights at the Edge. Today, my guest is JP Sears. JP is an emotional healing coach, international teacher, world traveler, and curious student of life. He presents classes, workshops, online seminars, and leads retreats on inner healing and growth to empower people to live more meaningful lives through his entertainingly informative and inspiring work. JP also runs a popular YouTube channel, “Awaken with JP.”
With Sounds True, JP Sears will be publishing a new book entitled How to Be Ultra Spiritual: 13 Steps to Spiritual Superiority. Now, here’s a very special edition of Insights at the Edge with J.P Sears:
Today’s a very special day at Sounds True—right here in the studio, I am with JP Sears—His Enlightenedness—in honor of the first week in April—actually, the very first day in April, to be precise. You’re here. You’re joining us. I want to talk to you about “ultra spirituality.”
So, to begin with, JP Sears—His Enlightenedness—what makes ultra spirituality different than regular spirituality? What makes it ultra?
JP Sears: Well, I’ll tell you. There’s only one thing worse than not being spiritual, and it’s only being spiritual. So, being ultra spiritual—it’s the way of the Newer New Age. What makes ultra spiritual so spiritual [is] it’s expressing your spirituality as a bit of a status symbol—not to prove that you’re better than other people, but to prove that you’re more enlightened than other people.
TS: Yes.
JPS: That’s more at the heart and soul of ultra spirituality.
TS: Yes. Now, you mentioned the “Newer Age” as distinct from the “New Age.” So, what do you mean by that?
JPS: It’s like when you go to the store and you buy food. It’s got a shelf life. It’s going to expire eventually.
So, what the New Age generation has never asked themselves is, “When is the New Age not new anymore? When does it become the Old Age?” Part of my mission bringing ultra spirituality into the world is to help people realize, “Hey, the New Age isn’t new anymore. It’s old.” So, what’s newer than the New Age is the Newer Age.
TS: Yes. Now, is there something we might call “Newest?”
JPS: I can’t say for sure. I can’t tell you for sure, Tami. But, I will say there is something coming after the New Age—the Newer Age, yet to be discovered what we call it.
TS: Yes. Now, I notice something very special happened when you touched me. I felt some sparks of light fly, and stuff like that. Is that because of your ultra spirituality?
JPS: It is. If you were more spiritual than you are now—no offense—
TS: I’m not offended.
JPS: —you would realize I’m also touching your astral field right now as well.
TS: Good point. Good point.
So, help me understand—I realize I have so much growing and learning to do from someone like yourself. So, I humbly ask: what does it take to be ultra spiritual? Can you give me the pith instructions, if you will?
JPS: One, I heard you say you’ll humbly ask. I don’t like to brag, Tami, but I think I’m more humble than you.
TS: Yes, yes. Good point. Good point.
JPS: Speaking of what it takes to be ultra spiritual, a superior brand of humbleness is part of it—an ability to out-meditate your competition, if you will. In fact, before we sat down to have this very informative conversation—informative for you—I did a three-hour meditation.
TS: Wow.
JPS: It only took me five minutes because I’m pretty good. Yes.
TS: Wow, yes.
JPS: What else it takes me to be ultra spiritual—you need to be more vegan than other vegans. You need to be more competitive at yoga than the yogis.
You have to have a ravenous appetite for plant medicines. I mean, I’m really into preventative medicine. So, in the ultra spiritual age, if you can cure your conditions that you’ve yet to be diagnosed with with preventative plant medicine, that too is something that helps your ultra spiritual expansion.
TS: Yes. Now, you mentioned being more vegan than other vegans. I noticed I didn’t quite understand that. What do you mean by that?
JPS: Well, I’ll tell you a story. As a child, I grew up vegan. One of the worst experiences of my life was when I was a baby and my mother tried to breastfeed me. I mean, being force-fed this carnivorous diet of human breast milk? If that’s not the most anti-vegan diet, I don’t know what would be.
So, from a very early age, I boycotted even breast milk. I said, “I’m going to go Gandhi on this one. I’m not going to eat anything to prove my point.”
TS: Very unusual for a child!
JPS: What a lot of spiritualists who are vegans—which, by the way, you’re not a spiritualist if you’re not vegan, as we all know. What they don’t realize is that to be a true vegan, it’s not about loving animals. It’s more about asserting your dominance over the plant kingdom. You may not know this, but humans are superior to plants—and spiritual humans are superior to humans, who are superior to plants.
So, what being a true vegan has a lot to do with is asserting dominance over the plant kingdom and hating animals. We’ve got to assert our dominance over the animal kingdom. Because I’m a vegan doesn’t mean I don’t hunt. I still love hunting—just the pure thrill of killing animals that I don’t eat because that’s wrong.
TS: Yes, yes.
JPS: Are you following this, Tami? You might want to take some notes here.
TS: No, I think that’s a good point because there’s obviously a lot of nuance in what you’re describing. I think I got a little entranced when you were talking about the Gandhi move related to the breast of the mother. I think that right at that point, I saw you as a little infant sitting in full lotus in a protest. I was just so impressed about your early spiritual signs—the signs of what was to come.
JPS: My mother tried to assassinate my spirit by feeding me an anti-vegan diet. I wasn’t going to let it happen because there’s quite a purpose to my life, Tami. It’s bringing ultra spirituality to the lowly spiritualists.
TS: And of course, I want to help, JP As you know, Sounds True—if there was a broadcast outlet that had every right to claim being ultra spiritual, I think it’s Sounds True. I mean, we’ve been doing this for three-plus decades. We’re not some new player on the scene. We’ve been really committed to this.
Speaking of which—
JPS: That sounds true, by the way.
TS: Don’t you think?
JPS: Yes.
TS: Yes, me too. I think so too.
JPS: Did you notice what I did with that? Play on words?
TS: I saw that. I saw that. Yes.
JPS: Good.
TS: So, speaking of which: I did a series here at Sounds True called Waking Up: What Does It Really Mean? I spoke to 33 different people who have had tremendous, huge openings. I wanted to talk to them [about], “What is spiritual awakening, really?” So, now I want to include you, JP —His Enlightenedness—in this series and ask you some of these same questions.
What does spiritual awakening mean to you?
JPS: What it means to me is having a great story about how you’ve been awakened. You know: sitting at home one day and my crown chakra splits open. Like, “Ehhh. Boring.”
I say, “Give me the story.” People don’t want actual events from your life. They want to know about a good story about your awakening.
TS: Yes. So, I’d like to know from you—of course—what’s your story? How did JP—His Enlightenedness—awaken?
JPS: I was born awakened. In a sense, I still haven’t been born because I’m resting in the unborn. So, not many people can relate to that.
So, Tami, am I saying, “Follow my path?” No—because not many people can follow my path. But, how can other people who can’t follow my path become awakened? That’s the question at hand that you didn’t ask.
TS: Yes. But, since you’ve framed it for us, what can other people take away from your awakening story that will be helpful for them?
JPS: They need to find an unprovable spiritual ability to harness that they also need acquire the need to tell other people about. [It] can’t be experienced by other people. It can only be redundantly told to other people.
So, for example, I do astral travelling. That’s quite an ability. But, my ability to tell other people that I astral travel—that is a monumental part of my awakening story that other people can create their version of.
TS: Yes. So, I’m curious to know more about the astral travel experiences. I mean, where have you traveled to?
JPS: All over the place. When I go visit the other dimensions, if you will—planes of consciousness, as I like to call them—one of the biggest concerns that I’ve come away with through all my astral travels is not global warming, but global warming on the astral plane. Who’s talking about that? It’s a problem. It’s happening. What are we going to do about that?
TS: I’m so glad you’re bringing this up for people.
JPS: You’re welcome.
TS: Do you feel this is part of the consciousness of ultra spirituality—this kind of knowledge of not just the environmental challenges we face here on the Earth plane, but on other planes?
JPS: Yes. It’s the type of knowledge that you can’t put a price on. It’s worthless—or priceless—knowledge, as some people would say.
TS: Now, this idea of spiritual awakening—I’m curious how you feel different, if you will—enlightened perception. In your experience, what’s that like for you? Help us get on the inside.
JPS: Yes. Being fully awake—it’s like feeling complete bliss about a hundred percent of the time. Do you have time for human emotions? No. Human emotions have nothing to do with spirituality. They only have to do with humanity.
So, once you cleanse yourself of all the mundane human emotions, you just feel bliss all the time. You feel euphoric. You walk with a very practical sense of theoretical knowledge that says, “All is one.” So, if I don’t feel blissful all the time, it just means I’m disconnected from oneness.
So, you walk with this knowledge. The fact that you feel euphoric all the time really gives you an acute sense of bliss.
TS: I’m curious: do you ever experience challenges, like in intimate relationships? That kind of thing? Do you ever feel challenged?
JPS: I do, to be honest with you. Part of me is still human. That’s the part of me that I like the least, actually. So, I’ve got my relationship challenges. My biggest challenge in relationships is finding a woman who can vibrate at my level.
I mean, I’ve been with many women—many women—and their problem is they just can’t vibrate at my frequency. It’s a curse of my blessing, really.
TS: Yes, yes. Now, we’re talking a lot about spiritual awakening. I’m curious how that translates into your sleeping life. Are you awake when you’re asleep?
JPS: I don’t sleep. I do an eight-hour Child’s Pose every night, and eight hours Shavasana. “Savasana” as some people would say. Yes, I do do that. Do I sleep? No.
TS: Yes. And how would you describe your daily spiritual routine, if you will—your approach to practice?
JPS: I find it important to meditate 24 hours a day. Right now, I’m doing a dynamic meditation. As I like to call it, it’s a podcast meditation.
So, I find it incredibly important to be meditative all the time. Sometimes I do meditative meditations. Sometimes I do meditative watch-TV-for-six-hours-at-a-time sessions.
These are the things I like to teach people: bring your meditation into all the other areas of your life so that you’re never not meditating—which means you’re just being more spiritual if you’re never not meditating.
TS: I don’t want to put you on the spot in an uncomfortable way, but does that mean you’re meditating right now as we’re having this conversation?
JPS: It does.
TS: Wow.
JPS: It is a wow. “Wow” is “Mom” spelled upside-down, and you can’t spell “Mom” without “Om.”
TS: Hmm.
I tried to introduce a new consonant there. The “H”—hmm.
JPS: Yes, I’m a little offended by it. It’s not a very cosmic sound.
You’re doing well. Keep trying.
TS: Thank you. Thank you.
JPS: You’re welcome.
TS: So, now you’re working on a new book, How to Be Ultra Spiritual: 13 Steps to Spiritual Superiority. I wanted to ask you first about these 13 steps. Are you outdoing the 12 Steps by having 13 steps? Was that your intention?
JPS: Is 13 better than 12? Yes, because it’s more. But, it’s not just about outdoing the 12 Steps, you know. It does outdo the 12 Steps, and there is very holy numerology here.
If I could take that back, “holy” is a bit of a religious word. There’s a sacred numerology to it. That’s different.
So, with this sacred numerology, when you have 13 and you subtract the 1, what are you left with?
TS: Is this a trick question?
JPS: Is that a trick question?
TS: OK. Twelve.
JPS: Three. And three makes a trinity, which is a Holy Trinity—except it’s a sacred trinity because it’s not a religious trinity. It’s a spiritual trinity. It’s not really a spiritual trinity, because it’s an ultra spiritual trinity. Yes.
TS: So, tell me more about spiritual superiority. Of course, I’m interested in this. I think of Sounds True as a superior spiritual publisher for all kinds of reasons, which is why I think you chose us to publish your book. But, quite honestly, I haven’t been able to articulate it exactly—why I think we’re superior as a spiritual publisher.
So, tell me more. What are the secrets to spiritual superiority?
JPS: The true heart of spirituality—if you go into the ancient traditions—you get to a crazy cat like Jesus. Jesus ran around and he was a big fan of getting people to worship him. Why? Because he knew about spiritual superiority—becoming superior to who you once were and, better yet, becoming superior to who you are.
That’s the heart and soul of spirituality. So, in a sense, ultra spirituality is a new expression of the ancient that’s been forgotten through the dark ages of spirituality.
Who would you rather be? Would you rather be yourself or would you rather be spiritual? You’d rather be spiritual!
TS: Ultra spiritual, really . . .
JPS: Absolutely.
TS: . . . after meeting you.
JPS: Good answer. I didn’t even think of that.
TS: You’re so humble, JP It’s one of the things that you are.
JPS: I’m incredibly humble.
One time—you didn’t ask; I’m going to tell you—I was in Central Park, New York. There’s hot dog vendors all around, which [is] bad karma. They’re serving meat. Most of their hot dogs [are] meat based.
Up comes the Dalai Lama skateboarding, right to the hot dog vendor. What the heck is going on here? Why is the Dalai Lama in New York? I don’t know.
Anyway, so I watch the Dalai Lama hold this penetrating eye contact with the hot dog vendor. It’s like five minutes. Finally, the Dalai Lama breaks the eye contact, looks down at the contents that are available there in the murderous cabin of the hot dog vendor’s stuff, and the Dalai Lama says, “Make me one with everything.”
And the hot dog vendor made him one with everything, and said, “That’ll be three-fifty.” The Dalai Lama hands him a 20. Hot dog vendor gives him nothing. After a while, the Dalai Lama says, “I gave you a 20. Where’s my change?” And the hot dog vendor says, “All change is found within.”
Then the Dalai Lama came off. Came off? That doesn’t make sense. He came over and we had a Humble Contest. Guess who won? Guess who out-humbled the Dalai Lama?
TS: I’m guessing it was our very own JP.
JPS: Good guess. That would be true.
TS: I think a lot of people are suspicious about spiritual teachers in general. They’ve heard so many different kinds of scandals—power, sex, money scandals of all kinds—and here they are [and] you’re offering this newer-than-the-New-Age teaching on ultra spirituality. I’m sure some people are suspicious about you. They’re suspicious about you.
JPS: Sure.
TS: “Really? Should I trust this guy? Really? Should I entrust my spiritual journey and listen to him?” So, I’m curious how you would address that person and their suspicion about you as a spiritual teacher.
JPS: People not only have a right to be skeptical, people should be skeptical. I mean, if you’ve worked with a guru who doesn’t require you to have sex with them, you should be skeptical of that guru. If you’ve interacted with a guru who doesn’t require you to give them 50 percent of your income, you’ve got to be skeptical. I mean, that’s not a real guru.
So, I invite skepticism—which, by the way, the skeptics are just projecting themselves. Just their own insecurities.
TS: Yes. Again, good point. Good point.
Now, you talked about the Newer Age that we’re in now. A lot of people talk about how there could be this mass spiritual awakening across the whole planet—that more and more people are experiencing awakening to our interdependence more than in any other time in history. It’s like a wildfire.
People even use this word “ascension”—that there’s something happening where the Earth itself is going through an evolutionary process of spiritual ascension. How do you view all of this?
JPS: Well, I think it is happening and it just ups the competition. Have you ever competed in the Olympics?
TS: No.
JPS: OK. Well, if you ever do compete in the Olympics, you’ll have gotten there through a very regimented diet of steroid intake. So, once you make the Olympics—because you’re all jacked up on steroids—you realize the steroid strength that you have [is] just the new norm. So, you have to find a way to become superior to even that if you want to win at the Olympics.
So, if you want to win at spirituality, you’ve got to stay a step ahead of the competition. And who’s your competition? Everyone who isn’t you.
So, the good news about a spiritual awakening that envelops the whole planet is the whole planet becomes more awake. The bad news is your competition just got better, which means you either got to up your game or you lose at spirituality. It’s not how you play the game—it’s whether you lose.
I mean, I think this is Gandhi’s whole message really, when you boil it down.
TS: Can you explain that to me? I wasn’t—
JPS: I decline. I appreciate the invitation.
TS: OK.
JPS: I get a little emotional. I’m not sure if you heard, but Gandhi passed away, and I’m not over it.
TS: I feel moved by your sensitivity, actually.
JPS: And my blue eyes are very charming.
TS: Yes, yes. Yes. I feel like I’m receiving—as we look into each other’s eyes—some kind of transmission actually, JP.
JPS: Speaking of transmission, Tami—is that still your name?
TS: That is, yes.
JPS: It’s not a very spiritual name. We’ll work on it.
But, Tami, I feel your higher self talking to me. Can I give you a message?
TS: Please.
JPS: Tell me if this sounds true to you: Your higher self wants you to know you’ll encounter some challenges. You’ll also encounter some good days. Does that feel true?
TS: So far, it feels right on the money. Yes. Just right—like you’re reading my heart.
JPS: Yes. Well, higher self. The heart’s a little less conscious, but yes.
TS: Yes, yes. Anything more?
JPS: Let me check. She says, “Turn off the stove and make sure you remember you go to the bathroom before bed.”
TS: Oh my.
JPS: Yes.
TS: Thank you, thank you.
JPS: My donation jar is just behind this table, so you’re welcome to fill it up.
TS: I just have one last question for you—for now; of course I want to—
JPS: When is it not now?
TS: Yes. I want to have many conversations with you, but this is the first of many—I hope. But, to conclude today, our program is called Insights at the Edge. So, I’m always curious to know when I talk to a spiritual teacher what their edge is. What I mean by that is: what’s sort of the growing edge of their life and their work.
JPS: You know, my edge is I’m taking my yoga practice to the next level. I find so much gratification, progression, and I think even artistic creativity when I can stretch my body further into a range of orthopedic irresponsibility than anyone else. I’m cutting new territory there.
The other edge I enjoy about my yoga practice—it’s for you, Tami. It’s a message from your higher self. Just look into it—that flower.
TS: Thank you. Thank you.
JPS: The other edge about my yoga practice is I’m wearing tighter pants than ever before while doing yoga. When I do a Downward Dog, the Lycra-encased genital silhouette that I broadcast to the people behind me—it’s next level.
TS: I’ve been speaking with JP Sears, His Enligthenedness. He’s working on a new book to be published with Sounds True in 2017. It’s called How to Be Ultra Spiritual: Thirteen Steps to Spiritual Superiority.
Thank you so much. Thank you so much for the blessed flower that you gave me and for your ultra spiritual presence.
JPS: You’re welcome, Tami. I can only imagine this has been a real pleasure for you.
TS: Yes, thank you.
Now, I’m wondering, JP—to continue with our conversation—if you’d be willing to take off—now, I know it’s a big deal—your sacred headband and if we can go “behind the curtain” so to speak—since this is Insights at the Edge—and give us the chance to “meet” the creator of the character. It’s amazing how much you’ve been able to accomplish with a headband.
JPS: It’s [laughs]—it is. By the way, Tami, God bless you for dealing with ultra spiritual JP with the grace that you did. I don’t know how you do it.
TS: I’ve talked to so many people who bring forward some of the same [laughs] perspectives, but in a slightly different way. I’ve been well trained by my interviewing of spiritual teachers over the past many years. A lot of experience with it.
JPS: Yes, well, I’m glad your preparations conditioned you well.
TS: Yes. It is pretty amazing that you put on a headband—such an inexpensive [prop]. You can find one anywhere practically. Just rip a piece of cloth, put a headband on, and you become a different character. How did the character of His Enlightenedness—Mr. Ultra Spiritual—how did that come into being?
JPS: I think there’s probably multiple dimensions to the answer—which, by the way, that sounded ultra spiritual. “Multiple dimensions to the answer.”
I think, in truth, the character is a part of me. When I am the character, it’s just a magnification and amplification of a part of me who, one, is very goofy and, two, mixed together with my experience of doing a hell of a lot of spiritual bypassing—my experience of using spiritual practices with a very hidden egoic agenda that I cover up with convenient, spiritualized vocabulary in order to justify it and stay in denial that, “Hey, these spiritual practices [and] beliefs are actually used to gratify my ego.” So, I think the character was born in part out of me losing myself when I was walking down a path of trying to find myself.
The other part of the birth of the character was, once upon a time in the October of 2014, I decided to shoot a satirical video that ended up being called “How to Be Ultra Spiritual.” It was going to be a one-time video. I think the world decided something different, and I guess I was just fortunate enough to listen to the feedback from the audience and realize this character’s life needs to continue—not just be a lifespan of one video and then put him in the grave.
TS: Yes. That’s interesting. Here you make this one video and it gets a phenomenal response on YouTube. Did that surprise you?
JPS: Yes, it did surprise me. In fact—at the time, my YouTube stuff was small. I enjoyed the hell out of it, but it was small. I actually thought the ultra spiritual video wouldn’t do as well as my other videos I had done. I couldn’t have been more wrong.
TS: Your other videos were you, JP, as an emotional healing coach and—yes.
JPS: Yes. It is a normal human being with a little bit of quirkiness. That’s my natural way of being—talking about healing subjects, stepping into your personal power, that kind of lovely stuff.
TS: So, what’s the nerve that you think “How to Be Ultra Spiritual” has hit in the public?
JPS: My opinion would be it’s shown people something that they are—that they didn’t know was there. But, it’s kind of interesting. In my opinion, when people discover something [new] about themselves, they’re either very intrigued by it or very offended by it. It’s like they look in the mirror—some dogs, for instance (flattering analogy, likening people with dogs), when they find a mirror, they’re just intrigued. Other dogs get scared of what they see in the mirror.
[This is] similar to how an infant discovers their foot for the first time. They want to put it in their mouth. They want to hold it. They just want to look at it.
So, I think there was something in the zeitgeist or the collective consciousness of the New Age world that was very much there and very much not talked about, not looked at. I think the community, if you will, was very ripe to have sort of the shadow side of spirituality exposed. People wanted permission to talk about, “Hey, how can my spiritual beliefs and spiritual practices actually interfere with my spiritual life?” and, “How does aiming to be spiritual run the risk of me trying to be something other than myself?”
TS: Now, you mentioned this phrase, “spiritual bypassing,” and discovering in your own life that that was operating in you—that you were using spirituality to avoid certain emotional territories or areas of growth. So, tell me first of all how that started dawning on you. What did you start seeing? “Oh, this is what bypassing is. This is how I’m doing it.”
JPS: One, I lived in Southern California for ten years, so it was like I was very indoctrinated into the spiritual world [and] New Age community and very blind to it. But, once I moved out of California to the East Coast of the US, I became a little bit more of the observer of myself. I think part of what I needed to look at was [that] the repetitive patterns of dysfunction that just kept occurring in my life were telling me, “JP, your poop stinks too. You think everything about you smells like roses because you’ve got the vocabulary down, you’ve got the spiritual practices down, you associate with the right spiritual people, your bookshelf is how it should look.”
But, I think there were a lot of messengers in my life showing up through my repetitive patterns of dysfunction. I also highly value working with a coach or a therapist—someone who is out to push me out of my comfort zone. Spiritual bypassing was incredibly comfortable, incredibly convenient, and very inflating to my ego. And yes, there’s some genuine good happening along the way too.
Yet, my work with one of my mentors [and] coaches—a lovely guy named John McMullin of Journeys of Wisdom—he just calls me on my crap. I forget when it was, but a couple years ago something clicked. He said, “JP, you use the façade of being balanced.” I’m like, “What do you mean ‘the façade of being balanced?’”
So, what I started to discover about myself is appearing balanced is how my imbalances manifest. Being balanced versus the façade of being balanced is different, and learning that they’re different things helped me become a little more self-aware—to recognize the difference between—OK—what’s authentic about me versus the façade of me trying to become who I think I’m supposed to be and what I think is most acceptable in the world of spirituality.
TS: It’s interesting that you referred to your emotional life—this façade of being balanced—because it seems to me that a lot of what keeps people in some type of spiritual bypassing is some ignoring of their emotional life. Here, you function as an emotional healing coach.
So, I’m curious to know at this point how you view emotions. How do you understand emotions?
JPS: Yes. One, I love the insight that’s already embedded in your question. I agree from my perspective—not just on my life, but also my observation of the world around me. I do believe that a disconnection from emotion is a principle posture of spiritual bypassing.
I personally believe that our emotions are a sacred gift. I think Carl Jung said it best with his notion that our feelings are the language of our soul. However, when we look at our feelings through just our human eyes or logical brain, we say, “You know, our emotions—our feelings—are messy.” They’re just messy and they can be very unpleasant. They can make us feel out of control.
So, we can start to judge our emotions and create a context that says that our emotions are really, really mundanely human—that’s what they are—and our spirituality [is] love, light, bliss, euphoria, grace, omnipresence—two very different worlds. Yet, I think Carl Jung’s wisdom is something we all need to tattoo onto our forearms and read every day.
What if it is true that our feelings are the language of our soul, and what happens when we start to look at our emotions and feelings like they’re just that human waste that comes out of our backside to be flushed down the toilet? I think we actually do ourselves a disservice of disconnecting from the most authentic, available connection to our spirit selves that’s there—which is our human feelings. I think that if that’s true, it makes a paradox that perhaps what makes us the most human would be our emotions, which paradoxically means what makes us the most human gives us the most potential to be connected to our higher self—our spirit self.
So, I highly value emotions. When my emotions run wild, I don’t like them. I’m grateful that I feel them, yet when I’m in the trenches—yes—I wiggle. I try and disconnect, oftentimes, [from] my emotions.
TS: Yes. Sometimes, I feel for Sounds True listeners and spiritual explorers of all kinds who have gotten so many mixed messages about how to relate to their emotions. Do you know what I mean? From “all anger is destructive” to “rise above your emotions.” Now you’re saying that actually it’s the very language of our soul.
So, in your own exploration—and now your work with people, because I know you do a lot of one-on-one work and trainings with groups helping people in this process of emotional healing—how would you create, if you will, a kind of map of the territory that could help people appreciate these different perspectives on emotions?
JPS: Great question. I think a significant part of the map—there needs to be a dominant theme of permission to feel our feelings. I mean, many of us grew up in our childhoods—we all had different childhoods and I think we all had some commonalities no matter how different our childhoods look on the surface. Childhoods—is that the plural of childhood, Tami?
TS: I think you’re right with it.
JPS: Cool. “Childhoodi” would maybe make me sound more intellectual.
But, one of the common themes about childhood is we typically don’t get validated for feeling our emotions. I mean—yes, when we’re happy and being cute and joyful, yes we get the pat on the head. “Good boy. Good girl.” We see Mom and Dad glow, and I think more significantly we feel them glow at some level.
And a lot of our emotions—especially what we call “negative emotions”—and the fact that we so unconsciously call our uncomfortable emotions “negative” emotions tells us a lot about how we relate to them. So, when we’re children, [when] we get angry, our parents typically get angry at us for being angry. So, in other words, we’re met with disapproval. I’m angry, I get disapproval, that feels awful, therefore my anger makes me feel awful because I get Mom and Dad’s disapproval. Therefore, anger is not my friend because it’s not validated—there’s not space for it here in the family.
So, I believe we grow up and we learn to relate to our own uncomfortable emotions largely based on how we experienced our caregivers to relate to our uncomfortable emotions. When we’re afraid as children, oftentimes Mom and Dad’s modus operandi is to say that there’s nothing to be afraid of. So, our fear is invalidated.
And I get it. For a parent to sit there and be present with a child—for the parent to be helpless while the child just feels their feelings—to let their child just be sad, to let their child just be angry—it’s a tall order for a parent. There’s no perfect parent. Yet, many of us just didn’t get enough of that.
So, we grow up with this inherent lack of permission to feel our feelings. So, I think we get incredibly constipated emotionally speaking. We stagnate our emotions on the inside. We don’t feel them. I think when we begin to feel them, that’s the evidence that we’re healing some of the backlog of our emotions.
So, in just another nuance of this permission to feel our emotions map, [in my opinion] we need to realize that no one—other than perhaps ourself—will give us permission to feel our feelings. No one will come along and say, “Tami, you have the right to feel your feelings.” No one—
TS: Well, you might say that to me.
JPS: Well, I would agree.
TS: But you’re making a different point.
JPS: It is a different point. Even if I tell you, “Tami, you have permission to feel your feelings,” you’ve got to do something with that.
TS: I then have to internalize that and give myself permission.
JPS: Absolutely.
So, I personally believe we’re all blessed with something in our lives today that we didn’t have as an innocent child: we have our adult consciousness. I think that adult consciousness going deep inside to meet our child consciousness that’s still there—our inner child, if you will—[with] that adult consciousness is the greatest gift to give our inner child that doesn’t have permission to feel our feelings. [It] actually feels like I’m defective, wrong, and flawed if I feel things that would have made Mom and Dad uncomfortable, or made them upset, or made them just dissociate so they didn’t have to feel helpless around me when I was crying.
I love to look at nature. So, if you cut a tree down—which, by the way everybody, I’m not advocating [you] go cut down trees; it’s just an analogy. But, you know how if you cut a tree down, you can count the rings of the tree. So, if there’s 30 rings in the tree, you know the tree’s 30 years old.
The wisdom of this piece of nature tells us every ring of the tree’s childhood is still there inside. You just don’t see it from the outside. You see the tree’s bark. The bark is its thirtieth layer if it’s got 30 layers. It’s its adult self. But inside, the tree carries every ounce of its childhood with it.
I do believe people are the same, in my experience. I think nature is all around us to symbolically show us what we don’t know how to find within ourselves because we’re used to looking at ourselves literally. So, I think nature is a wonderful, symbolic reminder here to help us learn to see what we don’t know how to see.
TS: I want to circle back around, JP, to your comedic creation of His Enlightenedness—Mr. Ultra Spiritual—and I want to first dig into this idea of Thirteen Steps to Spiritual Superiority, because what I notice is that to actually give up the need to be superior in any way to anyone else is actually a really, really, really big deal. I think it’s very, very, very huge.
So, in poking fun at people’s spiritual superiority, you’re actually unmasking a very big deal. So, I wonder if you could comment on that some.
JPS: Yes. I think it is very uncomfortable when we’re essentially called out on the very subtle—very persistent and powerful, but very covert—ways that we employ in our lives to create a sense of significance on the outside. So, our spiritual practice—when we take a picture of ourselves meditating and post it on Instagram—not that there’s anything wrong with it or right with it; it’s just a picture. But, what I care about is: why are we doing that?
What’s my internal motivation? Am I looking for validation through how many Likes come in? Am I looking to a certain sense of, “I meditate, you sons of bitches. You better realize. And if you don’t meditate as much as me, well we’ll just let the unspoken message be implied there?” I’m kind of dramatizing here a little bit.
I think when we get called out on the methods of covert supremacy, we’re left in a risky situation because we’ve just had our selves disarmed. The risky situation is we perhaps—best-case scenario—got to dive deeper inward for our sense of significance rather than using our external sources of validation through spiritual supremacy as our methods of it.
I think Ram Dass said it best: “You can’t get out of jail you don’t know you’re in.” I think a lot of us have constructed a jail through our competitive spirituality that nobody talks about. Yet, I think a lot of us own a piece of that pie. I’m not here to accuse anybody of it, but I’m here to do my little act and invite people to look in the mirror and say, “Do you see anything about yourself in this?”
And if you do, first off, it’s OK. It’s make you a human being. My hand’s raised—both hands are raised. I do this stuff too. It’s OK that we do these sorts of things. Let’s just notice we’re doing that so we don’t lose ourselves as much as we do while living the illusion that we’re finding ourselves.
TS: Yes. What I notice when I give up any superiority of any kind is an incredible groundlessness that can be very, very uncomfortable. I don’t have anything to stand on now that puts me above or anywhere different, really. We’re all in this sort of equal soup in a way.
So, I’m wondering if you can address that—that feeling of lack of terra firma, if you will, if you really question your ways of finding superiority.
JPS: Yes, I think it’s unnerving as hell, to be honest with you. I think our authentic self is found outside of our comfort zone.
So, we all know the proverbial midlife crises. So, someone retires or they’re fired from their corporate job after 30 years. Now, they have this “come to Jesus” moment of, “What the heck is my purpose here? I’ve lost my ground—how I’ve built a sense of significance. I’ve been cursed with the blessing of having that rug yanked out from under me. It’s a curse because it’s scary as hell.”
Who am I when I don’t have the relativity of that career or the relative ground of my spiritual superiority? Who am I? I think that’s part of the curse. It’s very uncomfortable. I think the blessing of it is that we can’t find ourselves to a deeper degree until we detach a bit from the ground that stand on [and] that we build our sense of self from.
In that sense itself, superiority—which, by the way, I think our sense of self makes us feel superior. It makes us feel grounded. I think our sense of self has very little to do with our Self. I think it’s just that—a sense of Self.
So, the price we pay for being willing to find ourself is we have to lose who we’re not. In my opinion, [that] means we oftentimes have to go into the uncomfortable territory of going beyond who we once were and who we thought we were—and most frighteningly, who we felt we were. So, it’s scary in my opinion—and it’s a very worthwhile dark wood to journey through.
I forgot the question. I don’t even know if that halfway answers it.
TS: I thought you did a very beautiful job of talking about leaping, if you will, into that sense of open space that comes when we give up our need to be better than other people in this way or that way, et cetera.
JPS: Thanks for that validation, Tami.
TS: You’re welcome.
JPS: And I will say—I’ll just call myself out on this. So, when we lose that ground—the ground of, “I want my spirituality to be superior here,” I find my position a little bit interesting. [It’s] where I’m the one calling myself out on that and inviting people to call themselves out on that.
So, now I have to be careful because I would guess there’s a part of my ego building a new ground of superiority of like, “I’m the one who’s superior that I point out how people get a sense of superiority through the spiritual practice.” So, I think we’ve always got to be careful to not get stuck at the new ground. I think when we go beyond an old sense of self, it’s human nature—we got to build a new sense of self—[while] realizing that while that might be a more authentically true sense of self, we can always go deeper.
I think who we are is pretty damned infinite, and I think infinity is always bigger than we think it is. So, I think we have to be careful not to mindlessly believe, “Wow! I just latched onto my deepest, purest, absolute sense of self because I just went beyond an old sense of self.” I think we have to realize, “What I just landed on—it’s great. It’s another step in my journey. It’s not the endpoint, though.”
TS: JP, I want to talk to you about the art of being funny—being a funny person. What do you think it is? Do you think there is some secret sauce, if you will? Can you employ it? Can you do more of it to become funnier with time? Does it work that way?
JPS: I like to visit my dentist and get unwanted root canals so I can get laughing gas. It’s just a hilarious experience.
Outside of laughing gas, for me—when you get towards the core of funny—when we laugh, it’s an emotional expression. It’s an expression where, when we’re laughing, I believe it’s us feeling out of control.
So, when we go see this stand-up comic or watch some of my videos—shameless self-promotion right there—as the joke or the routine [is] in the set-up phase, it gets our minds expecting one thing. But, when (call it) the punchline is the delivered, the punchline is something at the other polarity. So, the space in between is laughter.
When the audience’s mind goes from what they expected to what was just delivered, that’s a sense of being out of control—which creates an emotional release called laughter. So, in other words, it kind of tickles us with fear. Granted, it’s not terrifying. You’re [not] like, “Oh, someone’s chasing me with an axe.”
So, I think it’s a dimension of sort of the craft of humor. It’s essentially getting people to go into that emotional space between what they expected to what you, the comedian or the joke-teller, delivers.
I also believe that so much humor comes from pain. It really does. When I look at my childhood, yes, I had pain in my childhood—and I didn’t really know that when I was a child because I covered it up. I used humor to cover up my pain.
I think it’s like, to me, the Joker in the Batman movies—it’s a beautiful archetype; especially the more recent Batman movie with the Joker played by Heath Ledger. His smile was literally made out of scars. I think so much humor out there comes from our scars—how we use humor to cover up pain.
Am I laughing because I’m really hurting deep inside? That’s what was happening to me in my earlier years. I think I reached a shifting point a couple years ago where instead of using humor to lose myself, deflect from myself, escape myself—as well as get other people’s approval to build a sense of strength to compensate for how weak and insignificant I felt inside.
Now, I think the humor is being used in a much more conscious way to not lose myself and not to help other people lose themselves, but to orient us inward. My humor now helps myself. The intention is for it to help other people find themselves.
Take that with a grain of salt. Sometimes, yes, my humor [is] just looking to deflect and zone out for myself.
When we get to the healing properties of humor, I think humor is an alchemist. It creates space for an emotional reaction to happen. We can take something that’s very painful about ourselves and, in an appropriate time when we can learn to laugh about it, I think the humor is an alchemist transforming that hurt into something [with] less gravity [and] with more levity. [It] helps us, I think, move beyond perhaps the heaviness and the stickiness that once was.
I think another part of “the healing arts of humor” is—my experience is people’s defenses tend to go down when I’m interacting with them in more of a comedic, satirical front. So, if I’m telling you a joke, there’s nothing really to defend about. But, if I’m telling you, “Tami, here’s what’s true for you and you better believe it,” if you’re a human being, you’re going to have some defenses. Nobody wants to be pushed. Nobody wants to be told what’s true for them. We all have our own free will, and thank God we do. I wouldn’t wish anybody be a doormat [and] just accept what someone tells you to be true.
Yet, when we can package a message with humor—not just have something funny, but my intention is to—most of the time—have a deeper-seated message embedded in it—it helps deliver a message into an undefended state of mind so it can penetrate and a person can consider, “OK, what I’m seeing in this video—is that true for me?” The initial defenses weren’t up because it’s packaged in humor.
It’s different, but I like the analogy: when I need to give my dog a pill for whatever reason—endorsing overmedicating our pets here, people—oftentimes I’ll wrap his pill in cheese or something because that helps the pill penetrate. Otherwise, the pill—my dog’s defenses—he just spits it out. Smart little guy.
TS: Bring on the cheese!
JPS: [Laughs.] Bring on the cheese.
So, not with the intention of brainwashing people, but with the intention of inviting people to consider a message that they otherwise might not consider if their normal human defenses were up. I think the art of humor is very therapeutic in this way.
TS: Now, I have a pet theory I want to try on you about funny people. Let’s see if you think I’m onto something—or not. [This] is that one requirement of being really funny is that you have to have a lot of space in your being. What I mean by that is you just have to have a lot of room for something to fly in from left field or off-field, if you will—and that there are some people who have a lot of space in them—I don’t know how else to say it—but they’re not too sewn up, too discursive all the time, too formed in their sense of who they are. Some people like that aren’t funny. But, my hypothesis is that the people who are funny—that is a necessary prerequisite. Do you think that’s true?
JPS: Well, I like that. I think that’s pretty darned insightful. Here’s what comes up for me about that: One, I think that’s true for me. That space you talked about—for me, what comes to my mind about that is playfulness. Being a playful state of mind for me creates that space.
When we’re in a playful state of mind, that’s when I believe we’re open. We can function—get a little ultra spiritual here—our Third Eye can be opened. Our self-realization centers can be activated when life is playful. We’ve got this space for the arts to come in, the amusement to come in.
Yet, when we’re in a fearful place—whether it’s because scary stuff is happening in our life or we just perceive scary stuff as happening in our life—we’re dominated by our self-preservation centers, not our self-realization centers. So, when we’re scared to whatever degree, it’s not safe to be playful. At least, I think the wisdom of the body registers it’s not safe to be playful when I’m scared.
A little bit of a dramatic example is: let’s say there is a child at a playground, and Mom and Dad go out of sight. As soon as that child sees, “OK, where’s Mom and Dad?” that child is now—there’s no space. The child is in a hypervigilant, fear-based state—very appropriate, by the way. But, once they see, “Oh, there’s Mom. She just went behind a tree for something.” Maybe she’s making a drug deal. Who knows?
OK. So, there’s Mom. Now, there’s this space to play. I can go back to being on the slide and making sand castles. So, I think that childlike sense of playfulness is what we need to activate in order to have this space for humor to come in.
So anyway, that’s what come up for me. I’m just piggybacking on the wisdom of your question.
TS: Yes, good. OK, JP. I’m going to ask you—the creator of the character—the same final question that I asked His Enlightenedness. Which is: our program’s called Insights at the Edge. I am always curious to know—for whatever reason; it’s endlessly interesting for me—to know what people are working on as their edge in their life—the growth edge, if you will.
JPS: Going beyond being a people-pleaser is my biggest challenge and most rewarding challenge right now. My biggest personality dysfunction is I’m a people-pleaser. It’s incredibly codependent. There’s a part of me absolutely terrified that people won’t approve of me or accept me if I’m not pleasing them by being what I think they want me to be, doing what I think they want me to do, saying yes when they just ask a question.
I’ve done that enough that I’ve realized it costs me big time to be a people-pleaser. I lose myself. I think losing myself is a pretty emotionally violent act of self-betrayal. I deserve better than that.
So, I’m learning how to honor thyself—which I think actually is also a more powerful way to honor other people. By honoring myself and not aiming to please people, but to be authentic with them.
So, if someone has a request of me that I can do, great. I’ll say yes if it feels right. Even if it’s a great request but it doesn’t feel right to me—or I don’t have the time, space, or willingness—I get to say no. It’s a new dimension of honoring myself. It’s pretty scary. I still have a lot of work to do on it. Yet, it’s pretty edgy for me.
TS: Let me just ask you one question about that: Here you have put all these videos up on YouTube that some people find pleasing, but some people don’t. Some people don’t like them. They feel like you don’t get it—your gluten-free video. “I have Celiac disease! This is serious! What are you talking about?” Or your ayahuasca video—people are offended by that. “It’s a true, sacred path and you’re making fun of it in this way and that!”
So, obviously you don’t seem that concerned about being a people-pleaser when it comes to putting pretty provocative work out into the world.
JPS: There’s a reason why I can put that work out into the world now and it didn’t come earlier. I think the surest path to being a failure is to try to please everybody. I think the surest path to being true to your art—if you will—is not worrying about pleasing other people, but more pleasing the creative spirit that wants to live through me. I think we all have our own version of that.
Also, I’ve done some purposeful work with the videos around this people-pleasing part. So, for instance, when “How to Become Gluten Intolerant” video came out—which was about a year ago at this point—people either loved it or they hated it. They were offended. “JP, how dare you? Do you know what it’s like to live your life and not being able to eat gluten?”
And I let all that just play as it lied. I purposefully didn’t come out and publicize—and put right in the comments section—“Hey, I’ve been gluten-intolerant for 13 years. I’ve been gluten-free for 13 years. While I’m not a Celiac, this is a part of my life.” I didn’t say that because—one—I didn’t want that to just come from the fear-based people-pleaser inside of me that tries to control how people experience me.
The other thing is I didn’t want to rob people of their emotional charge. If they need to get offended about a video, I do not want to rob them from their emotional experience. Whatever emotional residues are laying around inside that get ignited through a video, that to me is important. Robbing someone of the connection with their own emotion is not something I want to do.
Having said that, there’s also a balance. With my work, my purest intention is for my work to help, not harm. So, I realize what I just said can be taken out of context or I could get just too literal with that—and too dogmatic with that—and come out with a lot of just insulting, hurtful material. Some comedians make a good living off of just slicing into people not for therapeutic reasons, but kind of striking the nerves through just hurting people.
So, I need to be mindful that that’s not what I’m doing because that’s not true to the creative spirit of my work. So anyway, I just thought I’d throw that in there.
TS: In terms of a note to end on, I’d love for you to address this question in just as succinct a way as possible: Here you’ve worked with hundreds and hundreds of people as an emotional healing coach. I’m wondering—as you mentioned honoring the charge in people’s emotional life—if you could say that there is a core teaching, if you will, that you could offer people about how to work with their charged emotions—whatever that might be?
JPS: Here’s the core teaching that comes to my mind right now: There is no replacement for feeling our feelings. So, I would just invite people to consider [giving] yourself permission to feel your feelings, period. I don’t think anybody’s ever been hurt by their emotions. I think the harm comes through the escape mechanisms to try and outrun our emotions.
So, feel our feelings. The footnote on that is the reminder, “This too shall pass.” I think that’s very important. When we’re going through—sometimes it’s a living heaven—sometimes it’s a living hell of our feelings, I think we need the North Star in the sky as a reference point to remind us that this too shall pass. It’s not forever.
TS: I’ve been speaking with JP Sears—JP Sears himself and JP Sears His Enlightenedness. He’s working on a new book with Sounds True called How to Be Ultra Spiritual: Thirteen Steps to Spiritual Superiority. Check out his YouTube channel and also his website on his emotional healing work.
JP Sears, thank you for being with us for this special, first-week-of-April edition of Insights at the Edge.
JPS: You’re welcome, Tami. Thank you for having me.
TS: SoundsTrue.com. Many voices, one journey. Thanks for listening.
