The Great Updraft

One of the core human confusions is that of identity: we believe we are something we are not, we believe we are separate from the world around us, and we believe that we live in the head somewhere. This is a snippet from my Wednesday 20/5 episode, Your Psychology = Your Life (#145), originally published in 2024.All my Psychology episodes: https://player.captivate.fm/collection/9f81342e-0c6f-4b7d-a...

Every action of yours has one or two fundamental needs driving it (or a first cause, as I call it). Discovering them is critical for understanding yourself in every situation. This is a snippet from my Wednesday 13/5 episode, The Key Principles for Psychological Work Part 1 (#144).Next listen: The Key Principles for Psychological Work Part 1 (#144); What is Psychology? (#143)All my episodes on Psy...

The principle of truth is not abstract - it has you be honest about who you are, and that is always visible, right here, right now. This is a snippet from my Wednesday 13/5 episode, The Key Principles for Psychological Work Part 1 (#144)Next listen: The Key Principles for Psychological Work Part 1 (#144) ; What is Psychology? (#143)All my episodes on Psychology: https://player.captivate.fm/collect...

If psychological work is discovering why you are as you are and changing it if need be, being truthful is a central pillar in that process. If you are truthful with yourself, you can discover endlessly many aspects of your character that would otherwise remain buried. This is a snippet from my Wednesday 13/5 episode, The Key Principles of Psychological Work.200-show library by category: https://de...

What are the key principles for doing psychological work? How do we know we are doing this work properly? How do we know we are not deceiving ourselves? In this two-part mini-series we cover the top 4/5 principles for this work. This will underlie any future work we do. Part 2 will be ready in three weeks, once I return from holiday. Next listen: What is Psychology? (released May 6th 2026)All my e...

My claim: all our traits and ways we are have deep, fundamental reasons behind them, and through self-observation and careful self-directed work, we can change those traits if need be. This is a snippet from my Wednesday 6/5 episode, What is Psychology?.[Apologies for the mic noise!]All my Psychology episodes: https://player.captivate.fm/collection/9f81342e-0c6f-4b7d-ab6c-bd333126470e Dive into my...

We are as we are because of a complex mosaic of factors, and the ones we choose to emphasise over the others reveal our own psychology! In this snippet, we look at a[Again, I apologise for the mic tapping!]This is a snippet from my Wednesday 6/5 episode, What Is Psychology? Explore all my Psychology episodes: https://player.captivate.fm/collection/9f81342e-0c6f-4b7d-ab6c-bd333126470e Explore my 20...

My definition of psychology is: the study of why you are as you are. This is a simple but deceptive and very powerful definition, and in this snippet I explain why.[Again, I apologise for the mic tapping.]This is a snippet from my Wednesday 6/5 episode, What Is Psychology? Explore all my Psychology episodes: https://player.captivate.fm/collection/9f81342e-0c6f-4b7d-ab6c-bd333126470e Explore my 200...

What is psychology? Why are there so many views on how human psychology works? What are some key questions in psychological work? This is both a foundational episode for understanding all of the work I do on this podcast, and for our May and June Psychology series, where we look at many critical questions in psychological and self-development work. My definition? Psychology is the study of why you...

Absolute understanding of reality comes not through scientific theory but through direct spiritual awareness. Do not let science replace spiritual awareness. This is a snippet from my Wednesday 29/4 episode, If Science Isn't Ultimate, How Should We Use It? Philosophy category: https://player.captivate.fm/collection/41de4d4f-0232-4c5d-bb84-436add43f6f9 Explore my 200-episode podcast library: https:...

Science often gets reduced down into popular slogans that spread quickly through the culture, e.g. "You're distracted because your brain craves dopamine." What are the problems with such slogans? This is a snippet from my Wednesday 29/4 episode, If Science Isn't Ultimate, How Should We Use It? Episode category: https://player.captivate.fm/collection/41de4d4f-0232-4c5d-bb84-436add43f6f9 Explore my...

Though science is conceptual and therefore fundamentally limited, we can also see it as an approximation of truth that may or may not lead us to the ground-bottom nature of reality. This is a snippet from my Wednesday 29/4 episode, If Science Isn't Ultimate, How Should We Use It? Episode category: https://player.captivate.fm/collection/41de4d4f-0232-4c5d-bb84-436add43f6f9 Explore my 200-episode po...

After mercilessly deconstructing science this month, today we round off this series by looking at how to skillfully and pragmatically incorporate science into our lives without epistemologically drowning in it. Philosophy category: https://player.captivate.fm/collection/41de4d4f-0232-4c5d-bb84-436add43f6f9 Explore my 200-episode podcast library: https://deep-psychology.com/#pod-cats Newsletter &am...

Science doesn't realise that what it's really trying to do is explain and describe our experience, which is primary. Here's what it misses by doing so. This is a snippet from my Wednesday 22/4 episode, What If Experience is Fundamental? Philosophy category: https://player.captivate.fm/collection/41de4d4f-0232-4c5d-bb84-436add43f6f9 Explore my 200-episode podcast library: https://deep-psychology.co...

There is nothing outside your current experience. Sounds obvious, but this is the key to spiritual awakening, and this guided exercise in non-duality will aid your recognition of it. This is a snippet from my Wednesday 29/4 episode, What If Experience is Fundamental? Philosophy category: https://player.captivate.fm/collection/41de4d4f-0232-4c5d-bb84-436add43f6f9 Explore my 200-episode podcast libr...

If we are to understand why experience is fundamental, we ought to know what the word experience means in this context! This is a snippet from my Wednesday 22/4 episode, What If Experience is Fundamental? Philosophy category: https://player.captivate.fm/collection/41de4d4f-0232-4c5d-bb84-436add43f6f9 Explore my 200-episode podcast library: https://deep-psychology.com/#pod-cats Newsletter & boo...

Your life is simply your current experience. That is it. This is the key point science overlooks. This episode explores the primacy of experience and how everything we think we know or understand appears within it, not the other way round. This includes all of science and all knowledge of any kind. We also do a guided exercise to help you deeply grasp what is being said here. Episode category: Exp...

This is a snippet from my Wednesday 15/4 episode, Science is Addicted to Explanations. Philosophy category: https://player.captivate.fm/collection/41de4d4f-0232-4c5d-bb84-436add43f6f9 Explore my 200-episode podcast library: https://deep-psychology.com/#pod-cats Newsletter & books: https://deep-psychology.com/my-links

Science is very hesitant to assign reality to things; it tends to assign reality to parts rather than wholesFor example, science will say a human is really just cells, which are really just atoms, which are mostly nothing! No - the human is the human. It is irreducible. Sure, we can analyse and parse it, but the constituent elements are not the human, by definition.

A model is about a phenomenon. It is not the phenomenon. By definition. Therefore, models do not actually describe phenomena, because fundamentally they cannot be described. This is a snippet from my Wednesday 15/4 episode, Science is Addicted to Explanations. Philosophy category: https://player.captivate.fm/collection/41de4d4f-0232-4c5d-bb84-436add43f6f9 Explore my 200-episode podcast library: ht...

What if models were not the only way to understand reality? What if they created deep blind spots, biases and paradigm lock? We continue our April series on the philosophy of science with a look at how science is built on models and explanations, and the problems this creates. These problems extend through much of science, because it is founded on model making. After this, listen to my episodes fr...

We tend to think that our experience arises inside the brain, but in fact the opposite is true. All we know of our brain is our experience is it, and our brain is entirely contained within our experience. Episode category: https://player.captivate.fm/collection/41de4d4f-0232-4c5d-bb84-436add43f6f9 Explore my 200-episode podcast library: https://deep-psychology.com/#pod-cats Newsletter & books:...

Our thought patterns: “my brain thinks”, “my brain goes round in loops”. These are cliches. Have you ever thought about this? No, your brain does not think. And when you think, you are not experiencing your brain. This is a snippet from my Wednesday 8th April episode, The Limits of Brain Science. Episode category: https://player.captivate.fm/collection/41de4d4f-0232-4c5d-bb84-436add43f6f9 Explore...

Our usual thinking is to pin the cause of the fear on the brain. So we say “we feel fear because x area of the brain activates. If it didn’t activate, we wouldn’t feel fear. It’s because of my brain”How can your brain “cause” fear? How can a squidgy lump of flesh cause fear? This is a snippet from my Wednesday 8th April episode, The Limits of Brain Science. Episode category: https://player.captiva...

This episode examines the relationship between the brain and experience, and challenges the common view that the brain explains our experience. We explore the basic fact that the brain is physical (tissue, chemistry, electrical activity) and experience is subjective (thoughts, emotions, sensations).These are two distinct types of phenomena that reliably correlate but cannot be couched in one anoth...