The Art of Deepening Your Relationships with Sylvester McNutt III | Transcript

21.10.12

This transcript is from a live online event, hosted on the hiitide app during Real Love Ready’s Online Learning Summit “Building a Blueprint for Better Relationships”. It was hosted and recorded on Zoom.

Robin Ducharme | And welcome to our second keynote of the summit with Sylvester McNutt, the third we are just so incredibly happy and honored to have you, Sylvester, thank you for being with us tonight.

Sylvester McNutt | Likewise, it's great to be in this space.

Robin Ducharme | Yeah, we've had—we've had the most amazing response! I've just been receiving all this positive feedback and all these words of—like—people are just loving your material and your wisdom and everything you have to share. 

Sylvester it’s, I think you know, it is a journey, this healing journey we're all on together, right? So I'm just really excited to hear what you have to share with us tonight. So, as you join, please join the chat. Tell us where you're from. And if you have questions for Sylvester during the last half of the hour, please ask those through the chat. I will be watching that and asking Sylvester as we do the Q&A. 

I want to start by honoring and thanking the Coast Salish people, the original caretakers of the land that I call home in Victoria BC. I appreciate those of them taking care of the beautiful land and waters that I call home. 

And let me introduce Sylvester McNutt III. Sylvester is an eight-time author whose most notable books “Care Package: A Path to Deep-Healing” and “Free Your Energy” have helped millions of people improve their spiritual selves and lives. He created the “Build your Boundaries” program, where he teaches how to build healthy and effective boundaries. To date, he's recorded over 100 episodes of the “Free Your Energy Podcast”—I'm making my way through them. They're fantastic Sylvester! 

Sylvester is passionate about how we can free our energy. He believes that healing is the key to success. Tonight, he'll be speaking to us on the Art of Deepening Relationships. And Sylvester, we're just so excited to learn from you. So thank you!

Sylvester McNutt |  Thank you, I wish—I wish I had an intro like that every morning, when I woke up, getting out of bed, getting my coffee, I would just dominate the day. So thank you. 

Yeah, I'll take it away. And let's go on a little journey. So when it comes to deepening relationships, a lot of the time we seek the external. We seek an external relationship, the, you know, the relationship with mom and dad, the husband and wife, the boyfriend, girlfriend, you know all the beautiful things that nothing wrong with that. 

But for me, what I found is that the precursor to all other relationships is the relationship that we have with self. So for my component, and for my keynote is so crucial that we start off with talking about self love.

Now, the timing of this summit is excellent, because I just finished writing my book. And I'm actually in the midst of recording the audio book right now to be finished this upcoming weekend. And so the book is called “Loving Yourself Properly”. And when we originally met, we talked about the timing, it’s perfect timing that I finished a book that has taken me two years to write. 

And so I really got to sit with this work and answer the question. What is self love? You know, because we hear so many people say oh, just love yourself. Love yourself, love yourself. And for me, that was always confusing. I always said to myself, what does that mean? Just love yourself? Like what? What does that actually mean? So it's been fun for me for the last two years, to go on this pragmatic journey of asking questions, and diving deep into different experiments, researching, reading different things, interviewing different people, and coming up with what I feel like is a framework for self love. 

And so I want to say that the descension and—essentially there’s two different things emotionally, right—the ascension—is often what feels good. You know, a lick of ice cream, you see a dog, a cat waves at you, someone, someone that you love kisses you on the cheek, gives you a hug. That's the essential. Those are the things that we look for in life. Those are the things we seek. Those are the things we chase. Other things that feel like ascension is someone writes you a love letter, someone buys you some flowers, there is a piece of chocolate, you know, a piece of chocolate if I didn't say that, okay? 

The descension though: grieving, sorrow, anxiety, fear, loss, confusion, right? Those are like the descension emotions, the stagnation, being stuck feeling stale or boring even. 

And so typically, my first invitation to you is to ask you how you felt when you heard me name the emotions. You know, I use the word “energy” a lot. And everything that we say contains energy, everything about how we interpret things. There's an energetic response. So when I say things like puppy dog, baby chocolate, right? You can even see it on my face. There's a smile. It's like, “Oh, that feels like that feels good puppies, chocolate babies. Yeah, I want that.” But then when I say “Grief, sorrow, pain, loneliness”. Oh, that's the descension. 

So just for a second, my very first invitation to you is to tap into this question. How did you feel when you heard those words? Well, our humanness—the way we're designed, we typically want to go towards what feels good. And we typically want to figure out how to avoid what doesn't feel good. And this is how a lot of our strategies are set up, whether it's a survival strategy, a dating strategy, a friendship strategy, we try to avoid what is bad, and we try to go towards what's good. So my question to you is this. Are you a human being? Yes, you are. Okay. So since you are a human being, then how can you effectively choose to avoid half of the experience? Is that an effective choice? 

Right, in psychology, there's this term called “spiritual bypassing”, which is a term I believe it's Dr. John Woodman, you can check, you can Google that real quick and check to make sure I said his name, but I believe it's Dr. Woodman. And basically, spiritual bypassing is (using spiritual terms or psychological terms) to skip a step in a process, or to skip an emotion, or to skip an experience or to skip a feeling.

Well, what happens if you're in Target tonight and you're checking out and someone tries to skip you in line? You're going to be put out, why? Because you waited, you waited in line? Why? Because that's the process. You did the process: you wait in the line until you get to the cashier, and then you check out. 

But then with that same framework, when we come look at our lives, we try to skip steps, right? We try to just get over it. And we often say—

Thank you, Welwood, Dr. John Welwood, thank you.

—And they will often say things like, Oh, just get over it, or just love yourself. And we also, we often use the word “self-love” as a spiritual bypassing technique. And so my invitation to you is to break up with that. And to look at self-love as the holistic view of the human experience.

The holistic. Holistic means whole. So the ascension and the descension. So if we claim that we're going to use self love as one of our vessels, and is one of our tools to love ourselves, that means that we're great. And we want the puppy, and the kid, and the chocolate, and the play, and all this stuff that is the ascension. But it means that we also make space and we create a vessel for the descension, for the sorrow, the pain, the discomfort, the breakup, the 20-year friendship that is now broken up as you guys are adults, the friends that fade away, self-love. 

Step one is to see life holistically, and to make space for the entire entirety of not just the ascension. Okay? 

So let's go to the descension part, let's talk about that, right, the deepening the deepening of relationships. The Alchemists, they use this terminology called the “Nigredo” and “the vessel”, those are the two terms that they use, okay (and you may also see it pronounced as Negredo). And so what that is, is let's just say you're in a place where you're describing your descension and you're like “Oh, man, I'm, I'm stuck, I don't feel good” you fill in the blank—I won't, I won't waste our time using that, you fill in the blank, “I don't feel good, I'm stuck, fill in the blank” you know what comes along with those type of things, right. And so what happens when you go into the deception? Well, when you go into the deception—you need a vessel, right? You need a vessel. Why do you need a vessel? Because you want to cook the material of your life, cook, you know, metabolize, process, all kind of the same thing here. So we want to metabolize the material of our life. 

So if my goal right now is, “Hey, I have this goal of wanting to get a relationship”, right? “I want to be in a relationship, make my marriage better, make whatever it is,” right? Something relationship wise. And then let's just say you have another goal over here. Something career-wise, I'm sure we all have career goals. And then let's just say in the middle, you have some type of fitness goal, you know, maybe more yoga, more walks, right? Typically, people usually have one goal and each one of those pillars, right and that's the relationship with self often work is the relationship with self and community. And then a partnership is often a relationship with self and intimate partnership, all different types of relationships. 

But what happens If we only make space for the ascension in those relationships, well, that is how we avoid deepening. How do we choose to deepen each one of those relationships? We figure out what vessel can make space for each person in the relationships. So if it's a business relationship, right, COVID happens. We have to let go of someone, we bring on somebody new. Right? What is the vessel? Do we have open communication? Right? Do we have leadership that's poor? Do we have unclear communication? You bring it to the relationship with yourself. 

Let's say you have a goal about fitness or eating or sleeping, right, which is your wellness, how you treat yourself is your wellness. Okay, well, what happens if your vessel isn't there, you're not following through with your workouts, you might have the number one problem that I have that I'm working on, is snacking too much snacking too often and having too big of a porch. So how did I fix it? Well, I asked my community for help. When I tried to do it on my own, I couldn't do it. Why? Because I love chocolate too much. And I didn't have the discipline. I didn't have the control. But I knew that over-eating the chocolate wasn't good for me. I didn't like the way I felt. I didn't like feeling addicted to sugar. So what did I have to do? I had to create a safe vessel for myself. And I had to be vulnerable, and had to ask for help from my community, for my partner. And for my two year old kid. He doesn't understand it. But I talked to him about it. Why? Because it makes me feel good. It makes me get it off my chest. And then in my relationship, I actually, literally, took this situation to my partner, and we had an hour long conversation about making sure we can get on the same page, because I wanted to make sure that she was supporting me and that I was supporting her. Right. And so it would be great to just say, “Oh my God, my job is great.” We do, and then we never make a split, we never create the vessel for the Negrido, the Negrido is the suffering is the pain. 

The Negredo is the emotional space. So, instead of having all these emotions just doing this, and we're just jumping, no, we'll grab it and we put it in a vessel, we just put it in a vessel. And then the vessel is the conversation about it. The acknowledgement of it. Right, no spiritual bypassing, we want to totally authentically process our experience. So when the job has a thing called bone, we bring it down. 

Let's create a vessel for this. Let's create a vessel for this conversation. Do that with yourself, oh, let's just create a vessel for this. What do I need? What do you need to support yourself fully, obviously doing something like a keynote like this, doing a summit like this, this is supporting you. Maybe you could find two to three seconds to thank yourself for showing up. This is you supporting yourself, making a safe space to have conversation and your relationship—intimate relationship. That's you creating a vessel for the Negrido for the suffering for whatever needs to be cooked, metabolized, whatever needs to be processed. 

In Latin, there's this phrase, prima materia. Prima materia means prime matter. So when you look at your life. And let's just make this very simple. I'll give you one very simple situation. Let's just say, let's just assume a person's in a relationship and it's turbulent. Okay, so that's the prima materia—prime matter. The prime matter of your life right now is that you are in a turbulent relationship. So what do we want to do with that, but we need to one acknowledge this is how we deepen, we acknowledge. 

If we don't acknowledge then what do we do? We spiritually bypass. So what does that mean? We skip? We skip the line. What happens to people who skipped the line? Right? So we don't do that. We don't skip. We acknowledge. We acknowledge and when we acknowledge what do we use? We use a vessel. What is a vessel if you see every time I say vessel, I'm putting my hands together? Why? Because the vessel has boundaries. The vessel has boundaries, it's not all of this, the vessel is this, right? 

So we need boundaries to access healing, from whatever the premium material is, whatever the prime matter is, whatever our struggle is, whatever our pain point, whatever, whatever that is, we need to we need a vessel. And so often, I'll give you an example of a vessel, a men's group, a women's group, your therapist, your personal trainer, your hairdresser—

Your hairdressers probably don't want me including them, because they're like, “I'm not your vessel. I'm here to do your hair”—

But you know, let's just be honest. For me, I go to my barber and when I'm sitting with them for now We're talking about everything, I'm sure you can say the same thing. 

And so we have a bunch of different people in vessels. But what we also need is boundaries, we have to make sure that we have boundary boundaries, otherwise, we're not respecting the vessel. So when we do engage with the hairdresser, or barber, we can ask, “Hey, do you mind if I ask you about this one thing? Do you have the capacity to have this conversation?” Maybe you're talking to a friend who doesn't have the knowledge or the emotional strength to support me. That doesn't mean they're a bad friend. Maybe you need a therapist instead. 

All right, one of the big—the best vessels—I have right now is that I'm in two men's groups. And we meet once a week. And what we'll do—I'm sharing this with you—because it's literally a life saving tool. One of the things that we'll do is we'll often buy books, and we'll read different programs together, different books, different audio books, different programs. And sometimes we'll just meet, and we'll just catch up, and we'll just talk, you know, what's going on, what's in your life, there's about eight to 10 men in each group. If you do not have a men's group, or a women's group, I strongly recommend it. And let me not just say men and women, there could be another group that could be better for you, you know, it could be mixed. It doesn't necessarily have to be based on gender. It just so happens for me that I'm into men's groups, and we talk about men-related issues. 

So take that in, you know, allow it to fit your, you know, fit your narrative. 

One of the groups that I'm in is a worldly group, you know, there's people from Australia and Canada and America. And then one of the other groups that I'm in is strictly African American men, except for one guy who I just invited this one guy, and he's actually Mexican. And when the African American group started, that was part of the niche focus. It was a “Hey, let's bring some black men together so we can create a space for our emotional wellness.” Now that we've been together for a year, I asked the guys in the group, I said, “Hey, you know, we came together under that premise, but I really think we should expand to just the men that would be compatible with this space. And I think we should get rid of the black male component”. And they were like, “Oh, that's great”. 

So that's another thing that we have to recognize with a deepening of our relationships with our relationship vessels, is that they change and that we have to be okay with them changing. A lot of people suffering in relationships comes from the ability, or the lack of an adaptation to change, we have to be able to change in group dynamics or in one on one dynamics, we have to make sure that our vessels and our boundaries are fluid enough, right to flow with change. 

Alright, and I'm gonna bring it home here. Let me just check my notes real quick. There was one thing I wanted to make sure that I got through. Okay.

When I was younger, let me tell you why I got started with the work that I do. When I was younger. I had the perfect family structure. I was the oldest kid so you're not coming into the world. The world is all about me. It was me, Mom and Dad. And it was perfect. I remember fishing with my father. I remember. What is that knitting, knitting with my mom. I remember playing cards with them. I remember cooking with my mom. 

Oh man, so many beautiful memories. I'm about to get teary eyed here. But I'll do that later on. Just so many, so many beautiful memories, I remember them. You know, my dad tickling my mom. Them flirting, them holding hands just being together, you know, doing the thing where they both grab one of my hands and they like lift me up. I remember that. 

And then, you know, my brother and sister came along, everything changed. Everything changed. It went from love, you know, the healthy relationship, that healthy family system, the healthy family structure, and went from a completely loving environment. And it shifted to—it was an—it became abusive. Both. Both parents became alcoholics. My mother became emotionally unavailable, which is a completely different contrast and how she was before. Right? Then my dad became physically and emotionally abusive, which again, was a complete contrast to how he was before. So when you're a young kid, and you can recognize this, I was a very intuitive kid. I was an honor student. I was very smart in school, school was really easy, and it was also super boring. But it was easy. And I could recognize this change in the family structure, but obviously I was a kid. So I didn't have the language. 

I didn't have understanding. One of my favorite psychotherapists, his name is Francis Weller, he has this program called—the program is called “An Apprenticeship with Sorrow”. And he talks about sorrow. And he talks about grief. And one of the things he says in there is that it's the adults responsibility to help the children metabolize their pain. Children don't have the language to understand their pain. And so, when I was a kid, about 10, 11, 12, 13, I was trying to metabolize the pain of my family structure, my family system. Going from literally the perfect family system and family structure to the worst. And I could not understand it.

So the very first healing mechanism coping mechanism that I turned to was journaling. And so I got a journal. And I fell in love with journaling. I fell in love with it. And it was so funny, I was like an investigative reporter, because I would sit in the living room. And my parents would argue, or I would sit in the kitchen. And I would, literally, I would write down everything or write down facial expressions, I would write down what they were saying, the words they were using, I was watching their tone. I was looking at body language, right. And I didn't know, I didn't know everything. Like the way I do now. I'm not saying I know everything now, but I'm just saying I didn't have the language for it.

And so I'm just writing all this stuff down. And I used to keep it in my bed. My journal just to keep it right about there, in between the mattress and the frame, and what ended up happening for me is, when I got to high school, my counselor, she saved my life. 

She absolutely saved my life. She was like a mother figure. Her name is Barb Smith. I ended up getting a 40 day suspension. My freshman and sophomore year from fighting from cursing at teachers afterward chair one of my classes, punching lockers. Now what is that? Well, that's anger. But what is the anger consequence of the consequences of being—being abused first, but being in a family structure that was unsafe, for me. So my actions and reactions in school were because the landscape of my body, my mind, body, and soul, I was not safe. So when you don't feel safe, that's how you, you—that's how you behave. 

And so, it was the last week of my sophomore year, this kid comes up behind me. And I had on, you know—

Raise your hand if you're old enough to remember using a Walkman. I had on my Walkman. And I had on the earphones and, if you remember those earphones, they always had the little cords. Alright, and I had it, and so I'm just in the lunchroom, introverted, minding my business, sitting by myself, which I didn't mind. I know in the, in the movies, they make it seem like a big, big deal, or like that person's a loser. I didn't care about any of that. I want it to be left alone. Because when I went home, I couldn't be alone. So lunch period, and walking home was like the only alone time I could get so I love sitting by myself. So this kid comes from behind me. 

And he picked the wrong, he honestly picked the wrong kid to mess with. 

He grabs my headphones, pulls him back, and he starts choking me with my headphones. 

Now, if you've ever, you know, it was only like a two second thing because I reacted. I ended up taking this dude, and he was smaller than me too, and I ended up throwing him over the lunch table. And obviously, I fought this kid. 

So this was the very last fight that I was in in high school. I go to my administrator's office, I walk in, she's instantly disappointed. And she's shaking her head and this is me. She goes, “Sylvester, why are you in here?”

She starts crying. This is my administrator and my school. She starts crying. She goes, “I just see so much potential in you. I see so much good in you. And it just disappoints me that you continue to come into my office. You're one of the brightest students in school. You're one of the smartest people I've ever, ever met. But you just disappoint me over and over”. She goes, “What is it, that you need to change this behavior? What is it that you need to be your best self? What is it that you need to step into your power?”

And I'm actually getting goosebumps telling you this story. And when I saw her cry, I said, “That's what I needed. That's it. That's all I needed.”

 She was a little confused. She was like, “No, you know, like, tell me more.” And I go, “I just needed somebody to care. I just needed somebody to show me a little bit of love”. Because when I went home, I never saw tears. I didn't see anybody caring. What she gave me was words of affirmation. I didn't see anybody giving me words of affirmation, I didn't see anybody saying, “Come on”, pushing me, challenging me. 

She said, “You're worth more. You're smarter than this. You're better than this. What do you need?”

And just her creating that vessel by saying, “What do you need” was all I needed to make a change.

So I'm sure you're probably curious what happened with high school. So let me just kind tell you, I had to meet with the superintendent. This was my 42nd day of suspension, and my freshman and sophomore year, and obviously, that's unacceptable. I met with the superintendent, my assistant principal, the principal of the school and my mother. And they just—they pretty much said the same thing, “Sylvester, we cannot keep you in this school. You know, we got to get you out of here. You're bad. You're this and that.” She was fighting for me in the meeting. And they asked me, they said, “Well, what are you going to change? What are you going to do different?” And I said, “You know, my whole life…”and then I kind of gave them the whole life story. Up until that point, as a 15 year old, I gave them a whole life story. 

But at the end of that meeting, I said to them, I said, “I feel like this is the moment in my life where I commit to love. And they kind of looked at me like, “commit to love? What is this? What is this dude talking about this little 15 year old sophomore who they wanted to kick out of school?” I said, “Yeah, like, this is it this is this is, this is the moment where I commit to love. I'm not spending my time doing anything, unless I loved it. So you know what? I'm going out for your football team.” I wasn't in sports. I said, “I'm going out for your football team. I'm going out for your track. I love football. I watch football every Sunday. I love running. So I'm going out for your track. You know what else I'm going to do? I'm going out for your debate team. Because I love debate I love you know, people arguing, seeing how people think and feel I love that. You know what else I'm going to do? I'm going to become an author.” And they go, an author? What are you going to put in and write about?” 

“I’m going to write about love, I'm going to write about relationships, I'm going to write about healing. And I'm going to write about this moment.” And I told them, I said, “One day, I'm going to tell people about this moment, because this is the moment that I decided that for the rest of my life, I'm committed to love. So whatever that means loving myself, whatever that means, loving you, loving thy neighbor, loving a person that I cannot tolerate—that I can't stand, loving my enemy, whatever that means, I have to figure out how to step into love.” 

And so the consequence of that was...well, my junior and senior year, I've never missed a day of school, I had no more fights. My football team won no games, but junior and senior year, I became the star of a team, we won a bunch of games, they created a scholarship for me in the state of Illinois that still exists to this day, called the most improved student. 

And they give that out every year, to a person who basically has a journey mindset where they improve, get into college, steady communications, in college, walk onto the division one football team. By the time I got onto the football team, that's when I recognized, okay, I've had about two or three years, staying committed to love. It was over for me at that point, I knew that I was on the right path. And I knew that I couldn't give up the path of staying committed to love. 

So if you remember anything from this story, if you remember anything, just remember, I was in the Negrido. I was in those dark emotions that we talked about that I talked about the beginning. But there was a vessel for me and that vessel was one person saying, “What do you need?” When she said, “What do you need?” That gave me the permission to actualize what I needed, what I wanted. 

So I'm going to leave you with this. What do you need? Simply that: What do you need?

Q&A

Robin Ducharme | I love that. Thank you for sharing your story. Sylvester. That's super inspiring. So I'm going to go through our questions, because we've got so many excellent questions. 

And Toby is saying “Thank you so much for sharing your story as well”. 

Please, if you've got questions, please put them in the chat. I'll make sure that I ask them. Well, so that's yours. Speaking.

The first question, Sylvester, is “What is the difference between being patient with yourself and recognizing that healing is a journey versus being too easy on yourself and staying stuck in your comfort zones? I want to be kind and gentle with myself. But I worry about letting that turn into stagnation instead of growth. Help!”

Sylvester McNutt | Help! I love the help at the end. Can you repeat the first part of the question one more time?

Robin Ducharme | What is the difference between being patient with yourself, and recognizing that healing is a journey, versus being too easy on yourself and staying stuck in your comfort zone?

Sylvester McNutt | One of the mindsets we have to throw away is all or nothing thinking. There is a lot of gray area in life. There are some things in life where you can and should stay stuck in your comfort zones. I don't really like the word stuck. But let's just say you should sit in your comfort zone. And there are some components in the space of the life of life where you need to be challenged, and pushed, and, and open to change. So I think the very first thing you should do is offer yourself self compassion for where you are—self compassion for where your mind is for your body is for where your life is at this current moment. and through that compassion, if you, if you want to seek change through compassion, that's always the best way. That's always always always the best way. The second part of that question, can you repeat the second part of the question?

Robin Ducharme | I want to be kind and gentle with myself. But I worry about letting that turn into stagnation instead of growth.

Sylvester McNutt | I wonder what it would feel like for you, if you took out everything after, but Robin read it again. But stop before the book.

Robin Ducharme | I want to be kind and gentle with myself.

Sylvester McNutt | That's it. That's it. That is an affirmation right there. So when you wake up tomorrow, look in the mirror and say that I want to be kind and gentle with myself. That's it. We don't need to but I want to be kind and gentle with myself. Great question.

Robin Ducharme | Yeah. It's a great question. And I love your answer. And I also think about this week and you talked about or maybe it's your I've just listened to your podcast, I may be mixing up where we got right up to information. You talk about overthinking, and it's like: we need to stop overthinking and just get to the doing. So sometimes it’s just, maybe our minds are just too real in overthinking things. 

So Lily from California is asking, “You talk a lot about energy. But could you explain or describe a bit about what you mean? How can we picture or understand this energy we're trying to heal or work with?”

Sylvester McNutt | It's very simple. Put your favorite song on right now. And what happens? The music has an energetic vibration that comes into your body. When that song comes on. You laugh, you scream, you cry, you start dancing, you start moving. Now put on a song that reminds you of a bad time. A sad time that reminds you of a person you don't like what happens? You're instantly like oh no, I'm turning that off. Skip. Let's get out of this playlist. Right? 

What happens if you go sit outside, and you just sit there and you let the wind—hopefully it's not cold where you are—but you let the wind just come and you sit there in that moment. You let the wind wrap around you and you appreciate and ground into that moment. What is that you're feeling the energy of the earth, you're feeling the energy of the atmosphere? 

Pull out your journal and write. I love myself, I'm right where I need to be. And then say that out loud. And how do you feel? What emotional state are you creating? right and then try the opposite. Pull out your journal right? I can't stand myself. I don't say that out loud. See how you feel. So everything is energy. 

Our entire world moves on vibration. We're eating. As we metabolize our food, it takes energy, it takes heat to literally heat your body to metabolize your food. So everything is energy. Great question.

Robin Ducharme | Abby from New Jersey is asking, “What can I say to people in my life who are not supportive of my healing?”

Sylvester McNutt | Nothing. Simply put, not supportive. I feel like that's the most important word—word—sentence, excuse me. The two most important words in that sentence are not supportive. Why do you feel a need to negotiate with people who are not supportive? Okay, so maybe their responses. “Well, this person is my mom,” or “this person is my friend” or “this person is my brother, this person is someone close to me.” Okay. So then my question to you is this: Why do you feel the need to gain the approval of people who are not supportive? If you are doing something that is enhancing your vitality, enhancing your survival, enhancing your experience, and there are people who do not support that. My question is, why do we care what they think?

Robin Ducharme | Great question. Kelsey, from Phoenix is asking, “What is one piece of advice that you would give your younger self?”

Sylvester McNutt | This is so hard, right? This is the butterfly effect question. If you go give yourself that, that piece of advice, does it completely alter and change your life probably does. So let me let me shift the question. I have a son, he's about to be two years old. One of the pieces of advice that I'm going to give him, I'll actually tell you a few verses okay to fail. Allow yourself to fail over and over again. It's okay. Second, I will tell him that it's okay to have fun. It's the world that we're in that is all about being serious. It's all about domination. It's all about winning. It's all about, you know, killing it. What can we just have fun with? Is it okay to have fun? Yeah, it's okay to have fun. It's okay to make space for seriousness and fun.

But when I look at him, the young kid version of him now, he just loves having fun. So at what point in life, do we go from the kid? Or having fun with a serious adult who never has fun? And then we wonder why all of our mental health when not all of our mental health, but we wonder why mental health is such a thing. It's because we remove fun from adulthood. So I would, I would, I would say, son, it's okay to be an adult and to have fun. my younger self. my younger self, probably needed to hear I love you. And that's not necessarily advice. So maybe I would just go tell that guy, I love you. Just like I would tell this version of me, I love you. That's a great question. Thank you.

Robin Ducharme | Somebody is asking: “do you think it's possible to heal your energy, while you're still stuck in the situation that wounded you in the first place? for family and financial reasons?”

Sylvester McNutt | I don't know. That's the most genuine answer I could give to a question like that? I don't know. Because when we say that an environment or situation hurt you, or wounded you, right? I don't know the complexity of what that means. And I don't know the depth of that. I imagine—I imagine if the people in the environment or place are attempting to recognize or holding space for the hurting, then yes, I think that healing is possible. 

But if they do not have the capacity, or they're not making the attempt, or there's not a safe vessel for the wounding, then I'm not 100% sure how we would heal in a place that hurt us. And there is no space or effort to heal. So my first answer is, I don't know. But I hope that the context I gave can go a little deeper. I will say this. I remember, you know, I moved from Chicago to Phoenix. And part of the reason that I moved from Chicago to Phoenix is I felt like the only way that I could truly heal myself was to completely leave the entire environment. And that's because I felt like there was people who enabled my mother and father, I felt like there was people who were returned and I to the treatment that my brother and sister and I received. And so I chose not to hold that against them. I chose to forgive them, but also chose to forgive them and to leave the space. 

The reason I chose to find forgiveness and because I didn't want to hold on to the pain. I don't want to hold on to the anger. I did not want to hold on to that. I want to be completely free. And I found that in my life forgiveness. And in that specific situation separation is what helped me. Now I will say this and my relationship, me and my partner. We have our son together. We've been together six years. Yeah, six years. And there have been woundings in our relationship, but also what exists in our relationship where there is woundings and where there's pain, where there's disagreements, even up until yesterday, right? There's also the space—the vessel to sit down and have any conversation, no matter how deep, no matter how dark, no matter how hard, no matter if she causes a pain, or if it was me, we both have consistently chosen to meet each other in the space of healing. 

So if there is an environment, where there's pain, you list it, whatever it is that's in that Negrido. Then my question is this, here's the pain. What's the vessel look like? If that vessel does not have the capacity to acknowledge the wound to work with it? I don't I don't know. You know, then I don't—I don't think we should stay there. Great question. 

Robin Ducharme | I really, that is—that's powerful stuff. Sylvester, what you just said, like you said, the vessel, you know, I hope the vessel allows you to meet in a space of healing. That's beautiful. 

This question is a little bit similar to the last question, but there's a bit more detail. The question is: I'm feeling very stuck in my relationships, my physical space. Thanks, COVID. And in my work, but I don't know where to start because it seems like moving forward is on hold. And those barriers are external money, work obligations. And not internal. How do I let everyone know I want to carve out this new space to move forward without blowing up my life. That seems like the only option. 

Sylvester McNutt | Hey, sometimes you gotta blow it up, you know, I want to, I want to share something really quick from my notes. So Francis Weller, like—I had mentioned him earlier, he talks about primary and secondary satisfactions. And so I'm sourcing this from his work, the apprenticeship with sorrow, which is an audio program he created. And so he says “the primary satisfactions are what shaped us as human beings. They help us survive and help us find out, find our place in the world.” And so those are time spent in nature, sitting around the fire and telling those stories, sharing meals together, sharing dreams with other people, times being held, whether they're being held for sorrow or grief, in times of gratitude. And then what we're left with when you get out of the primary satisfaction is secondary satisfaction, he says, and the secondary satisfactions are our power, rank, status, achievements, wealth, success, and privilege. And so it's funny, if you, if you look at those secondary satisfactions. That's a lot of what our culture is. Power, rank, status, achievements, wealth, success, privilege, followers like engagement, right? And so do me a favor, read the question one more time.

Robin Ducharme | I'm feeling very stuck in my relationships, my physical space. Thanks, COVID. And in my work, when I—

Sylvester McNutt | Right-right there, so when I hear that I'm feeling very stuck, that makes me when I hear the word, when I hear the word stuck. I'm thinking like me in this chair right now stuck. Is that true? Am I stuck? No, I have my emotions that may be happening, but am I stuck? Not really. So my very first invitation to you will be to visit nature, to visit nature, to go on a nature walk, to go on a hike to go to the ocean. Because if you feel stuck in your apartment, on your computer, and your emails and your job and your career, or you feel stuck, because a COVID big, maybe there's restrictions where you are, maybe it doesn't feel normal to you or feel welcoming to you. There's no restrictions on nature. Right? So I want you to visit nature. Why? Because that's one of the prime Mary satisfactions for what we need to survive and thrive. Okay, read the rest of the question.

Robin Ducharme | I don't don't i don't know where to start, because it seems like moving forward is on hold. And those barriers are external and not internal. How do I let everyone know I want to carve out this new space to move forward without blowing up my life.

Sylvester McNutt | Perfect. Okay, so two things. So one, another one of the primary satisfactions is gratitude. So although you feel stuck, which is a beautiful emotion, because it makes you acknowledge what's happening. Where in your life can you find gratitude? Right? Where can you find gratitude? Were you able to work through the entire pandemic, while people lost their jobs? The fact that you're able to attend a summit like this, can you find gratitude there for the privilege that it is to be here to be able to receive the support and community. And I'm sure that there's plenty of other places in your life where you could find gratitude. Our gratitude is one of the most powerful healing emotions that we have. And lastly, when it comes to communicating, sometimes it's hard to communicate what we need to others, but we're not 100% sure what we need. So what I feel like you should do is take a vacation, go to nature, spend two to three days in nature. And the intention of that trip should be to carve out some space to figure out what exactly do I need? And once you know exactly what you need, then it's much easier to ask the other people you can use the language of this is how you can support me. And then you can tell them this is how you can support me. Great question.

Robin, I think I just saw a text—someone texted question. Cool. Maybe grab that one for the person who's present?

Robin Ducharme | I don't know. I'm looking at the chat right now and I don't see a question put in the chat. So I'm reminded, I wanted to remember to ask you for the list of primary satisfactions after we'll share it with our participants.

Sylvester McNutt | Oh, got it. Okay, okay, good, okay.

Robin Ducharme | The next question is: “After I've started my healing journey on my own, how do I apply it to my romantic relationships and finding a partner? I've been dating for what feels like forever, and have it on a journey of self reflection and self healing. But people keep telling me it's too much or too intense. When I try to be open and honest about it, am I doing this honesty thing wrong?”

Sylvester McNutt | That's a great question. Too much too intense. There is no such thing as too much too intense when it comes to dating. Some people have different speeds and capacities for how they engage. Even if you look at the conversation of having sex on the very first date, some people will say no, I would never do something like that. Because that's x, y, z. And some people will say, yeah, I'll do that. There's nothing wrong with that. So when it comes to dating, it's so interesting. We all have different levels of comfort with how we reveal who we are, what we want, what we seek. And yeah, it's possible to give away too much information to give away things too fast. Oftentimes, that's perceived as clinging, right? So if you've gotten my mother to tell me this, when I was a young person, he says, If multiple people say the same thing about you, and those multiple people don't know each other, there has to be some truth to it, right? So you know, again, all or nothing thinking, let's not use all enough and think, but I can agree with my mom on that to a degree like, if multiple people interact with me, multiple people are like, Sylvester, you're kind of a jerk. Well, I might be a jerk, especially if these people don't know each other, never interact with each other. Like, I actually might be a jerk. Now maybe I was just a jerk to them, because of what they did. Or say, maybe I am a jerk, right? So I think that there's just a little bit of self awareness needed there. Just to recognize, hey, am I, they use—they use the phrase “word vomiting”? Am I just vomiting here? Am I just vomiting words? Or am I being more intentional? With what I'm saying? And when I say be intentional, I don't mean overthink, and hold back. I just mean, have a little filter, have a little filter, that's all? Now, you know, we do want to get to a space where we can be completely vulnerable and completely honest. But that does take time. And it's okay to take your time to get there. When you're dating. Great question.

Robin Ducharme | Next question is: “I have a close family member who I feel violated a boundary I was very clear on. This person hurt me deeply, or not respecting what I asked them, and then blames me for somehow hurting them. I know I need to free my energy by forgiving this person. I do not see us being close again, as I've lost so much respect with how I was treated. Any ideas for moving forward with this family member in a healthy way?”

Sylvester McNutt | First, you are not obligated to forgive them. Forgiveness does help with healing. But forgiveness is a choice. And also you can heal and move forward without forgiving, so you're not required to forgive them. You're also not required to bring them back in your life. 

Now, I don't know the depth of the boundary. I don't know the depth of the boundary violation. But I would imagine, I would imagine that the boundary violation severed trust. And when trust is severed, it's very hard and almost impossible in some situations to repair again, unless the vessel meets the wound. And it seems like from the way that the question was worded, it seems like you want to move on and you want to move forward. And you also are allowed to do that you do not have to give a person a second chance. You do not have to. You are not required to if you feel that you want that. 

Right, you can, but you're not required to. Right so I got a question. One time I was doing my Boundaries class, someone asked me: “well, how many times can you allow someone to violate a boundary before you cut them off?” The answer could be 100. The answer could also be once it's up to you to determine what feels most appropriate to you. So if you give, if you offer, or if you offer forgiveness, please make it genuine from your heart, but also recognize you're not required to. 

One more thing that I like to do personally, in relationships, when I end them, if there was a relationship where there's history and there's past and you know their stories, if I feel worth it, I like to personally let the person know why I'm not interacting with them or talking to them anymore. That's just me personally. Because I don't like uh— 

Brené Brown says in her book, “Dare to Leave”, she says “the worst thing you can be in a relationship is unclear.” I love clarity. I love clarity. So hey, if I did something to hurt you, let me know. If you don't want to talk to me anymore, let me know if I'm gonna return that to you. I feel like clarity is one of the most important things in relationships. So consider that. Consider the forgiveness piece, and consider the potential of a closure, conversation.

But also know that you don't really owe this person anything, considering you communicate at your boundaries. And they still chose to violate the boundaries after you clearly communicated them and hurt you deeply. So you don't necessarily owe the person forgiveness, or the closer conversation, you just have those as tools for your healing process if they will help you.

Robin Ducharme | Sylvester, can you give us an example of that conversation you've had with someone where at the end of a relationship, a clarity conversation?

Sylvester McNutt | Yeah. We're going to go into the descent here, we have to go into the Negredo into the blackening into the premium material, the prime matter. 

Most recently, a best friend of mine, we’ve been friends since college, and this person, you know, when people tell stories about endings, they often do it in a way where they make the other person that villain. 

That's how we learn to tell stories here in America, we do, we make ourselves the protagonist, and everybody else is the antagonist, everyone's against us, we make ourselves the hero. And I'm not going to do that, I'm just going to say that we grew apart, and that we just don't see eye to eye on a lot of things. We just don't see eye to eye. Now at one point, this person was my best friend. You fill in the blank, just like I mean, just amazing friendship. And so what I did was, I thanked them. 

Before we got into the depth, I think though, when I got on the call, I said, “You know, I really am very appreciative of you. And I just want to thank you for being my friend for all these years.” And I didn't bring out the samurai sword and just say, we're never talking again, like I didn't do all of that. I just say, I need some space from this relationship. And I explained why, and I also said that with the caveat of: we can continue our friendship, but things would have to change certain conversations. There's certain conversations I'm not willing to enter any more. There's certain environments I'm not willing to enter anymore. And so I named what I needed to feel safe in the conversation. And I just left it to that person, not the conversation, I named what I needed in the conversation to feel safe in the relationship. And then I just left it there. And then that person has reached out. And they have made some changes. And every change that they've made I've made sure to acknowledge, because they didn't have to make any change. So I've made sure to acknowledge it: “Man, you know, good job, I really appreciate that. I'm so thankful for that.” But genuine acknowledgement, not just saying “oh, I appreciate that,” like genuine, genuine. So the relationship ended. And now a new one is being born, but the new one that is being born is taking its time. And it's growing slowly, and I'm perfectly okay with it.

Robin Ducharme | That's beautiful. Thank you for sharing that. Next question is: “Do you have any advice on letting go of mental blocks when it comes to freeing your energy? I try to do exercises like being appreciative of our life, finding joy, but I feel like my baseline is kind of pessimistic. And my reflex is always to find things, find that good things aren't good or could be better.” 

Sylvester McNutt | Well, very intelligent people and very aware people are often pessimistic. I know that because, well when I say that I'm intelligent, but I'm definitely aware. And I noticed that awareness brings pessimism because it makes you notice the problems. Right? It makes you see what's ineffective and makes you see what's going wrong. 

And so, I don't feel like you need to completely get away from that because that could be who you are, right? You could be a problem solver. You could be a thinker, you could be a person who puts puzzles together, you can be a great CEO, a great leader, because you're able to see all how the teams need to work together for success. So I don't look at that as if it's a bad thing. 

But to answer your question, it looks like you need a practise that helps you balance out the emotions that come with being pessimistic. Great. So go to yoga, three times a week, go to yoga, and when you go to yoga, set an intention before each class, and obviously, the intention will change, but setting an intention each class, you know, it could just be “For the next 60 minutes, I will not be pessimistic.” 

So I'm not going to tell you that to completely get rid of that trait, because that trait might be very useful to you in your personal life or professional life, but let's just balance the emotion. So bring yourself to yoga. And when you're in yoga, then you could potentially work on taming it. You don't have to get rid of it. You just want to come into communion with it. So then you could work on taming it through yoga, through breathing—because what yoga does is create a connection with your body that connects mind, body, and spirit. Connect psyche, connect soul that connects your brain and your heart. It's one of the only things that does that. Meditation is another thing that does that. Some say if you ask some people the definition of yoga, some will say that “Yoga is moving meditation, right?” Because what are we doing in yoga? We're trying to connect? Right? So I would say start going to yoga and set an intention: “Hey, I won’t be pessimistic for the next 60 minutes.” And then if you do find yourself being pessimistic while you're in yoga, simply use self compassion. That's okay. It's okay that I was pessimistic. Now, once you use self compassion, now you can ask yourself, “Can I release that?” You can, right? But if you, if you look at them, hey, I'm, sometimes I'm pessimistic. 

If you look at that as a negative thing, or as a defect, what that will turn into is shame. Things that we feel that are defective, about us, about how we think about how we behave, turns into shame. But what's the consequence of shame? It makes you feel small, it makes you retreat. It makes you hot, it makes you feel worthless, it makes you feel unworthy. It makes you feel not important. So what do we need to defeat shame with empathy? So where can you find some empathy? You asked for practice: your yoga practice. Your yoga practice can employ empathy for you. So again, no more all or nothing thinking, we want wholeness. So we want to be the person who, yeah, sometimes you're pessimistic, but also you are filled with joy, and you are grateful. Great question.

Robin Ducharme | Well, the time is already up, Sylvester, it's been an hour and it's gone by so fast. I want to thank you so very much, can you spend maybe a minute or so, um, telling us what you are most passionate about these days, that you're working on? I know, you said you just finished a book. You're not that would be a nice book. Is that right?

Sylvester McNutt | Yeah. So, you know, finishing the ninth book dealt with a lot of what do we call that? What's the term, it's on the tip of my tongue, the term when you don't feel like smart enough to do the smart thing or good enough to do the good thing? imposter syndrome, I dealt with a lot of imposter syndrome. Because what happened is when I put my last book out for your energy, May Fourth 2019, it's been like two years, my author platform has really doubled and I didn't expect that to happen. 

When the pandemic first happened, my books really hit the bestsellers list again, because people were at home. So they're like, “I'm gonna read now.” I didn't expect that to happen. So there's been this newfound success even though one could say I was already successful, but there's been just more eyes on the work that I'm doing. 

And so what happened is, as I moved into this new level of success, I felt a lot of like, “Why me? Like, why am I, why am I here? Why am I writing my book, you know?” Like I felt a lot of imposter syndrome. And I felt like that was a great journey because I felt like it was a part of what I needed to even put in the book, how to love yourself properly. 

You know, because one of the—I remember one of the chapters. I was talking to people about doing affirmations, you know, how we talked earlier, how we're making sure we're using language that affirms who we are, who we want to be, and affirms our body in our, in our minds and our psyche. And I was saying to myself, like wow, if you're the first, affirmations can feel phony. Or if you're angry, an affirmation can feel fake, and I was dealing with that imposter thing. It was like, it was beautiful as a beautiful journey to go on to recognize again, wholeness. Like, is it okay to actually feel like, man? Well, I mean, but then isn't it also okay? To feel? Yeah, me, it was just like, it was just a beautiful journey. And that's what really brought me closer to wholeness, right.

Um, in my life, I will say one of the things I'm really excited about is that I'm a dad. I never ever thought I was going to be a father. I really thought I was just going to be one of those guys who would go through life and never have kids. And I have a kid. 

And again, it's like, there's some days, I'm frustrated, and then there's some days, I'm like, “what is this beautiful baby, let me just give him a kiss and hug him and squeeze him in chase on me.” So I'm excited about the journey of being a parent. 

Lastly, I'll just say, I'm really excited about my yoga practice now, just really excited about it. I like to lift weights and do yoga. And I'm just really excited, because I've got a lot of healing. I've got a lot of clarity and a lot, a lot of purpose. 

And I hope to, when I get my book out, I hope to actually take a teacher training and get certified. I'm not really passionate at this moment about trying to teach yoga, but I am passionate about doing it and I want to really deepen my passion, my practice by getting a teacher certification. So I got some great things going on in my life, and I'm just really excited and grateful to be here.

Robin Ducharme | Well, and I'm speaking on behalf of everybody here tonight, and those that are going to listen to the recording, just want to thank you so much for an amazing week. And for this hour, you've just been so inspiring, and I'll be rewatching. It started taking more, right, because we can, I think just hear it again, it'll just digest as you said that word a few times tonight—metabolize.

Sylvester McNutt | Last thing I want to say is this, it’s: wherever you are in life, that's a great spot. You know, take time before you go back to work, go to emails, take time to find some gratitude for where you are, take time to find some appreciation for where you are, take time to think about all the things that you've overcome. Take time to think about all the successes and all the victories. You know, there's so much power and so much love in the present moment. Part of deepening relationships is to come into the present, and the world we live in. Yes, it's very pragmatic to think about your goals and your future and your business and your degree and all these things, right, and it's also very easy to think about your past, what didn't go right and what all right are very easy to do, right? 

And I'm not telling you that's wrong, but I am asking you and inviting you to just find some grace for yourself and self compassion. That is how we deepen the relationship with self. And as a consequence of that the relationship we have with ourselves is the precursor for all other relationships. If you deepen that relationship with yourself, by using self compassion, and empathy, shame gets out of there, fear gets out there, and those do not come into your relationship with others. And that's where the love is. So thank you so much, Robin, for bringing me on.

Robin Ducharme | Thank you so much. In closing, I always close with a blessing, and so, and it's really all along the lessons we've learned from you all week: 

May we always honor the people in our lives by thanking them for their time, their efforts, their energy, and for showing up in our lives. 

May we dive deep in order to understand ourselves better. 

May we accept that there are aspects of ourselves we love and aspects of ourselves we do not like. 

May we amplify what we love, and work on the parts of ourselves we do not like. 

May we give ourselves grace and love and compassion as we undergo a lifelong process of healing and growth. 

May we practice forgiveness. Forgiveness of self, and forgiveness of others, in order to free our energy. 

And may we be present. May we remember that we are all growing. We're all evolving. And we're in this together.

Sylvester McNutt | I love that. I love that.

Robin Ducharme | Thank you so much, everybody. Thank you, Sylvester. It's been an honor. Good night.

Sylvester McNutt | Thank you. Bye bye.

Transcription by https://otter.ai & edited by Anna Lafreniere