Secret Portals to Your Next Self

In stories, the narrator tells you which ordinary things are portals to magic and adventure. In real life, you have to find them yourself.This episode reveals 5 secret portals to the next version of yourself: seemingly ordinary choices, traits, and habits that are thresholds to the future version of you who lives with more courage, clarity, and freedom. It’s for you if an old version of you has died but the new one hasn’t been born yet. You might have recently experienced a big life change: a move, or a relationship ending, or a career change. Or maybe you know one is coming. It’s for you if you have an unshakeable feeling that there is a more alive version of you out there, if only you could figure out how to get to them. We’ll examine the work of philosophy’s greatest minds, like Nietzsche, Kant, Kafka, and the Ancient Greeks, to uncover the hidden thresholds between who you are and who you're becoming, and point out clues for how to spot them when they appear in your own life.EPISODE OUTLINE 00:00 Intro04:54 I missed you06:05 Help me keep Soul Gum ad-free07:35 Talk to me!!! 08:18 1. Intuition is a portal08:49 Nietzsche’s beef with Socrates10:44 The neuroscience of intuition (Gary Klein)  12:31 I exist because of a woman’s intuition13:03 The tension between ambition & intuition14:13 Mary Oliver on reacquianting with your intuition15:05 Small ways to reconnect with your intuition15:42 2. Solitude is a portal (Pascal)16:39 The fear of being alone with your thoughts17:33 2014 study on the discomfort of being un-stimulated18:05 Solitude as a tool in my creative process18:58 Brain drain study: it is that d**n phone19:30 Going phone n*k*d20:12 3. Aligned friendship is a portal21:36 Nietzsche: Friends should be your “best enemies”23:06 Friendship as a mirror 23:40 The research of social contagion 24:18 Look for friends that show you what’s possible 24:52 4. Nature is a portal25:40 Our increasingly sanitized relationship with nature26:15 Kant, the sublime, and the gorpcore of it all28:41 The ego-interrupting power of awe29:45 5. Action is a portal (Kafka’s Before the Law)31:29 Mary Oliver on the most regretful people 32:00 You deserve to know what’s on the other side of fear32:33 Leap by Joy Sullivan33:34 For the Ones Who Left by Me (Victoria Hutchins)34:29 Lightning round recap35:40 Subscribe, rate, share, talk to me!!! LINKSMy debut poetry collection MAKE BELIEVE is out everywhere nowSubscribe to Soul Gum’s new instagram :-) Follow me on Instagram and TikTok