Love, Healing, and Intuition with Drew Tacher

Welcome to the Ambiguous Truth. I'm your host, Anthony Mistretto. So today we're gonna be talking with Drew Tatcher. Drew and I met a couple of years ago. We really only crossed paths once when I was in Denver, but we really hit it off. connected on social media and had a few phone calls over the next couple of years. And eventually I made the trip down to Austin to visit him.

Drew has been focusing a lot on some creative efforts, letting his body heal and really just letting things come to him naturally at this point. really excited to dive into the conversation today. Thanks for tuning in. And with that, here's the episode.

Drew, welcome. Thanks, man. Thanks for being here. Thanks. Nice shirt. Yeah. Nice shorts, it, Yeah, this wasn't planned.

Cool. Well, we brought up the matching fits, so I feel like we should talk first about Love People.

Sure. So this is a brand you started a couple years ago, having a little bit of resurgence now. Yeah. Can you kind of walk me through that timeline and kind of what the whole purpose is? So my older brother Jake had this vision for Love People where he first put Love People on just this black shirt and we go out to things like E-Mod. Have you heard of E-Mod before? I don't think so. It's a, they have like a traveling...

Well, they do it all over the country, but they rent out venues at night and it's like a big party, but they play like old pop punk music. So he'd wear it out to those and things like that and get into conversations. And I think he had the period on back then too, which is love people period. Cause it's unconditional love, no sense of butts period. And so I remember, I don't even remember the first time I talked to him about it, but we started talking about it he wanted to bring it to life. And

I've been in fashion before and I modeled and so I helped them bring it to life. I ended up really taking over the whole project. Did it for about a year, three years ago and then was on a silent retreat in February and had it come through that I wanted to start it again and talk to Jake. And Jake was gonna get involved again and his wife has some health issues so he's been really tied up. And my best friend Micah has gotten super involved and has been super helpful. And so...

Now we've got new clothes. It's 100 % cotton. I like the designs a lot more. I like the clothing a lot more. We've got a bunch more kinds now. And the whole goal is just to spread unconditional love. And on the back of this one it says, you are the message. You might have to go down underneath. Skirt? Yeah, there it is. Perfect. So you are the message because the whole idea is you wear the clothing, you get into conversations, you're talking to people. We already have people wearing the clothing going around texting me about stories they have, conversations they're getting into. People are like, I love that shirt.

Yeah, got one. I was walking around Ocean Beach a couple weeks ago and there's a lady selling some merch and jewelry at her booth and she just turned to me and she's like, we need more of that. It's nice to see a reminder. Nice. Hell yeah. Have you had anyone come up to you and say something that was really impactful? Man, mean we had someone last time propose wearing one of our hats, which was cool. was like, dude, that's nuts. Really? It's just a word they're proposing.

That was really cool. Micah had a crazy story. Honestly, like for me, it's been less. It's like the stories I heard from others and I don't remember it all. Micah had a really cool story. When I was in Italy, meeting these people who lived like really close here in Dallas. So I don't remember all the crazy stories because everybody else is and I just repost them and stuff like that. But it's just awesome hearing how everybody just gets called out because everybody sees this and wants to say something about it. Yeah. Yeah. I love that.

So I want to hear a little bit more about kind of what you're doing now in terms of your creative outlets. Cause We were talking yesterday about like, what are you up to? And you said first thing was healing, You got some back things that you're working on. but everything else is just like an outlet. some way of expression. Why do you feel like that's important now?

Dude, I have no fucking idea what I'm doing out here. I don't even know that it is important. It just feels like what I want to do right now.

So love people is definitely an expression. There's a lot of stuff I have to do for it specifically too that is not super expressive. It's a lot of little tiny things that are. The Shopify bullshit. Yeah, can be annoying, email, SEO, blah, blah. But creating the garments themselves and then getting them in people's hands is very fun. I like it a lot. And then I also produce music, which is a lot of fun.

I've always loved music and kind of deeply with it, the vibrations, the emotion that goes into it. I grew up listening to mostly rock and metal. There's a ton of emotion in that music. And even all of the music I listen to now, tons of different genres, it needed to be emotive. It needs to have, it needs to pull stuff out of me. I don't like pop music, it's boring and shitty to me. Because there's no emotion in it, it's all the same shit. So I just don't enjoy it very much.

I've been producing music for a couple of years now and I've got some songs I'd like to do vocals over real soon and then start releasing probably later in the year. And that's been very fun. I get to pour myself, my emotion, whatever's going on with me into it. really creating the art behind it. There's a lot that goes into producing. There's a lot of technicality. have to learn software. So the learning curve, but the learning pieces is actually very fun too because I really enjoy learning new things even if it's hard.

you get to geek out about it, you know? sure. So I've been creating a lot of music and I went to audio engineering school for a year online and learned how to mix and master. And so that's taking a song and mixing it to make it sound good in your ears so like stuff isn't on top of each other. there's space in the music, both high like frequency wise, which is like higher frequency, lower frequencies, and then spatially left, right stereo image and even depth too. So getting things to fit together well and play well nicely.

not sound harsh and whatever you want the song to sound like. So that's been really fun to do with my music too is take the first step of mixing it and I'll master a song and I'll continue to What's the difference between mixing and mastering? So mixing is like putting everything in the right spot. Mastering is basically making it loud and like final touches too but like mastering is like getting it to a loudness level that matches other music in that genre and then usually you're also doing some other stuff that gives it some more height and width and does some other things too. Okay, gotcha.

I want to explore more about like, I feel that art is emotion, right? And so music as a form of art is deeply emotional. And one of the ways that I think our music taste differs is you tend to listen to more lyrical music. I tend to listen to more melodic music and more like the, I don't know, feel like, especially coming from like a band background, listening to a lot more electronic music now.

So I'm curious, like how do you feel you're able to package that emotion into music, especially because you haven't done anything lyrical now, at least none of the stuff you produced has lyrics, correct? Not yet, not that I put out. So how do you package that emotion into a song? Good question.

To me, I'm not even necessarily always trying to, well, yeah, I've had some songs I've started and I want an emotion, but to be honest, when I just hear something, I can hear where the song's supposed to go. I just sit and listen and I can just hear what's supposed to come out. We were watching the Pokemon movie last night. I heard a little tiny sample of something that I wanna kinda recreate and change, and I can already hear the whole song that's coming out. And I can just feel the feel of the song and how the beat's supposed to sound, where it's supposed to go. I can just like...

It just comes to you, you know? So it's not like I'm trying to do a thing. I also don't know music theory that well. I know it okay. I know scales. I can play piano a little bit. I was in band when I was younger and I was a percussionist, but I don't know music theory at times. So I'm just like listening and hearing for it instead of, you know, being like, okay, now I'm going to go up to the seventh.

that's gonna make this happen. I'm just hearing it and playing it and then I get a ride with it on my computer upstairs. So for me, I'm just taking it and hearing it and hearing what I wanna hear. Even like I'll do that sometimes when I'm listening to other songs and I'm hearing it I'm like, oh, he should have done this here and you know, should have blah blah blah. But for me, I'm like, I would have liked to hear this instead. This would have made it more, I don't know, whatever for me. And so, you know, I do that with my own music too. It just comes. think a lot of artists working that way too where it's just.

this is how I want it to sound, I think this would sound the best, so I'm gonna do it this way, and it feels this way. Yeah, and I think there's a lot of, like, whether it's visual or musical artists or anything, there's, like, this gratification that stems from having the concept up here and then finally getting it to a point where you can, like, showcase that for others. Because I really feel like that's kind of the beauty of, like, any sort of artistic creation, is, having something conceptualized and then...

bringing it to life and then other people seeing like, and it's cool because then they get a glimpse into you and how you think and what's happening up in your head and what's the brain and you're doing. So you asked me a question last night about emotion and like what am I, I don't remember when we were at barbecue, I forget exactly. How do you feel your intuition, how do you listen to it, how does it speak to you? Yes. Because you wanted to get more in touch with your intuition. Yes, I want to talk a little bit about like that feeling.

And it's something that I'm really working hard to, it's come up a lot this weekend in Austin, it's just like the importance of feeling, period. And so I'm curious, like, Have

you always been an individual who's been able to feel deeply and move through life in an emotional state, or has that taken practice? It's taken a lot of practice for me. I would say I'm very sensitive.

Not in like a, have to walk on eggshells around me sensitive, but like I just feel everything. I can feel a lot of stuff. And I was, was as a kid too, very sensitive to emotion and energy and how I'm just feeling too. And most of my life, I think like a lot of us, I've just been stuck in my head and spinning in here. Like you were saying like, this is really powerful. I should use this. I'm smarter. Like even than most humans, I should be using this. Which to me is all bullshit because we're really not that fucking smart.

We're like, think we're so goddamn smart from here, we figure this stuff out, and I just don't think we're like that smart to show out. Especially my head gets caught up on shit all the time. I'm like, dude, you're kinda fucking stupid sometimes. For shit. And that's not like degrading or anything, it's like an honesty. That's just not like my superpower, this is just something that helps me process stuff. Most of my life I have not felt super deeply.

When I felt stuff I wanted to fix it or explain it away or do something about it or not feel it fully. It hurts and I want to get in here about it think about it or put it in a corner or whatever like a lot of us do. I'm afraid of what will happen if I feel these things if I listen to my heart, if I listen to my intuition. Or the way I grew up, anything that was like from me or inside me was basically bad.

So I shouldn't be listening to my own intuition. I shouldn't be listening to my gut myself. I should be listening to God and my fucking leaders at my church. So I had to rewire that as well, which I'm kind of still doing, but it's a different journey now. I don't like see it as bad anymore. I'm just sometimes afraid to listen to it. Like, that's scary. Like, can I trust? Yeah. So how I feel now, my intuition is purely feeling like I'm really not doing anything in here.

I will try to get involved and just let it go and it takes stillness and silence and I just sit and feel what is there to be felt and without even trying to name it or have language for it. Like this is what this is. It's from my childhood when I was four and blah blah blah. I'm just feeling and maybe stuff will come up as it starts to move but I'm just like you know say it's a feeling of my solar plexus where I feel a lot of stuff. I will hold stuff if I'm feeling a lot and getting stuck.

Say it's in there, I'm just watching it, feeling it, not letting my head get involved, taking as much time as I need to just be with it. I'm not trying to do anything to it. I'm just watching it and feeling it. Just what's up, here we are. Which is really not all that bad. Sometimes it can feel like a lot, but feeling, just feeling it even if it's an intense emotion is better than getting up in here about it. And then let it move.

like Recently I've had some really intense deep stuff. that I have has been connected to stuff that's happened before. in my life and It was anger or some different things and I had to let it out by screaming my fucking head off or what however it wanted to come out and it like even took a little time took like a number of days and still kind of coming out. So for me listening to my that process is also tied for me to listening to my intuition which is like my gut and my solar plexus my willpower and

sometimes it has a voice and it sounds like a kind of like a higher self version of me. If I get too heady with that voice then I'll start to get confused. So I don't try to necessarily listen or ask for that voice. It'll just come up when it comes because otherwise I'll be like too heady like is this me? What's going on? What the fuck? And then I you know I'll spin a bit. So I'm really trying to just sit with whatever feelings are there. Not need to do anything about them.

Just be with them, be present with them and see how they move and that's been helping a lot. Cause I'm really not trying to, like you were saying last night, I'm really not trying to use this much outside of like some processing and some day to day stuff. I'm really trying to live in my body, in my heart. Living in here sucks. And it's tough because I think you went to a good university and like you're one going, getting into, you know, a good school, you're like,

You have that feeling like, I'm smart. I did it. I made it to a reputable institution. And then at university, you're taught to think and use your brain and stuff. I feel like there's been a shift where I've sort of caught myself over the past couple of years listening to that background and that conditioning and trying to really think and logic through things. But then I catch myself.

when I'm doing that, this feels wrong, right? And I'm trying to make a shift in my life to listen to that heart a bit more. Can you think of any examples where you really trusted that heart and looking back, you're like, wow, I'm so glad that was the choice that I made and I trusted my intuition, trusted my emotion. And can you share a couple of times where that's really stuck out as like, yeah.

I'm proud of myself for doing that.

I mean moving here to Austin, I don't have any like massive examples. I feel like it's a lot of small like that's where it lives in the small little like, you know, I have these like big massive decisions I've had to make. What feels like at least it's just in the small ways of my life and every day in my like relationship with my partner or in decisions I have to make about what I'm going to do that day or for a job or something that's aligned or not. Moving to Austin felt that way though where I got down here and I was going to move back to Denver.

And then I just kind of felt like I'm supposed to be here. just, it's the feeling. It feels good. I don't even really have an explanation for it or like a pros cons list. I'm just like, I think I'm supposed to be here. And I was supposed to move back to Denver with Micah and I called Micah's like, do you want to come down here? Um, it just rips and I think I'm supposed to be here. So, and I love being here so far. It was absolutely a fantastic decision. I can never say right or wrong or what's back. Who knows what other path I have.

or somewhere else, but I've loved this one as well. So for me, it's in a lot of the little small decisions where something comes up and it could be difficult or it could be scary to listen to and then doing it anyways and it's like flexing that muscle of listening to my intuition and being with it and trusting it. that like, I didn't fucking die. Like everything's all right, you know? I love that. I think that's the best answer you could have given because I think you're so right.

I'm definitely someone who, don't write the pro con list, but I think about the pros and cons, right? And that's also what I've been told to do. You know, we've all been taught like, okay, we'll just, you know, get out that piece of paper and write down the pros and the cons and really think through it critically. And I think we also want to have like big signs, like this is what you should do, like go do that. But in reality, it's life is about those little decisions. It's all about like the.

the aggregation of the small things that turn into something bigger. So on that note, on like small things, Micah and I talked a little bit about gratitude. think that's been a big theme in my life. you also do the yummy, food, Yummy, food. What other like sort of small practices

have really kind of shifted your life towards being more intentional and grateful?

So I mean think the first thing I ever did was a gratitude journal and I'd write down like one thing before bed or maybe it was in the morning that I was grateful for and that was helpful-ish. To be honest it was like kind of helpful. Just like saying things I'm grateful for is like never helped me a ton. What I'm doing

now, it's less of a thing I'm trying to do and just the way I'm trying to live is one, slow the fuck down a lot. That's been a practice for me for a year now of really slowing down and keep getting that message. I'm doing it because I've been a guy that's moved really, really fast and rushed through things a lot. And so I am slowing down a lot, which is awesome. And getting to go fast where I like to go fast and where it's helpful, but everywhere else, really slowing down. So that

in itself has been super helpful because I'm noticing things and I'm not just trying to rush through even tasks that I like wouldn't enjoy to get to the next thing. Like I'm cooking slower and I'm just being grateful for the food and it's Living slow is just helping me be in gratitude of just being out here. and instead of like it's a task thing to get to the next thing to do this cool experience that I then get to be grateful for. Just like grateful for being out here because it's not like super easy to be out here all the time as a human.

The other thing is before I go to bed and when I wake up in the morning, I do gratitude and that's been really helpful because I, know, my mind's for some reason been conditioned to think like my life's not that great and I don't really enjoy it. This, lived a lot of years where I fucking hated it and didn't, I felt trapped in this cult I was in until I was 23 and then kind of like in a marriage that was really tough and.

feeling just kind of like trapped or in a cage, like not enjoying life to its full. And so just kind of feeling like most of my life I don't like and trying to work for something better. And so I would wake up a lot of the time too in the morning, we're just like, I'm not even thinking about anything. I'm just waking up and I'm like, fuck. It's not even like a mental thought, it's just a feeling. And so what I've been doing for like, I don't know, four or five months now is

Before I go to bed, thinking of three things I'm grateful for, but feeling them, so taking a minute and just thinking that day what I was grateful for, but really trying to feel whatever it was. and not really put myself in those shoes and just feel it. And then call all my energy back to me and then say some other stuff like I'm loved, I'm fucking yoked, my body feels great, I'm healthy, I've got tons of money.

programming things that I believe in saying them out loud and then waking up and doing the same thing even before I get out of bed. just kind of waking up and not moving and thinking about things I'm grateful for. things that haven't even happened yet. And then while I move my body in the morning, also just thinking of things I'm grateful for, but like trying to feel what it feels like. So not worry about writing it down, it can be the same thing every day. But trying to get in the feeling of gratitude and the actual vibration of it.

And so that's what helps me get in the vibration of it. And when I do those things morning and night and then move slowly, it feels like I'm just staying in it much more. And I'd say my girlfriend, Kaylee, has been really helpful with that because she's one of the people that I know that lives in gratitude more than anyone I've ever met. And just like constant gratitude of everything around her, like the smallest thing could just light her up. And so that's been really helpful too, is getting around people, her being one that's insanely...

in tune with that vibration that are living that way. It's just like a, all right, yeah, cool, nice. And there's a lot of people in Austin that I'm around that are living that way. Yeah, I definitely could pick that up when I first met her. She just has that kind of like happy, appreciative kind of aura. wonderful. All right, let us go back to the cult. Sure. Tell me a little bit about that. You mentioned a couple days ago, and I said, let's put a pin on it.

Now let's unravel that. Totally.

So I have older brother Jake, you he was in it too. Have you ever talked to him much about it at all? I haven't. I think I've only met him maybe like once or twice. I think I was over at my place. So yeah, it's only we have not. So non-denominational Christian church, I was born into it. was in it until I was like 23, 24. My parents joined when they were around college age, got converted. My dad grew up Jewish. My mom grew up kind of Christian.

Okay. But not like hardcore Christian like we would. like the, you know, cults are not just nefarious people trying to get people to kill themselves, right? It's not it at all. Like our, you know, the reason I call it a cult is very controlling. You give your power, you completely are giving your power away. And what was controlling ours was basically fear. The organization did, but everything was run by fear. The guys at the top.

Our ministers and stuff they weren't making a bunch of money most of them weren't making much money at all if they get fired a kid to the curb because we don't like their preaching or whatever it is like they're left on our ass and they could have kids and we wouldn't even have like a severance package for him. So it was like it was cutthroat. This church was started in 1979 I think by a man named Kit McKean who's got a couple cult podcasts on him. Super fiery leader, but fucking crazy. Okay, and he started the church.

He actually got kicked out of the church in 2003 and then started another one. Our church was called the International Church of Christ, ICOC, and he started another one after he got kicked out called the ICC. He even tried to recruit people from ours to his. Really funny stuff. I think he got then kicked from that one too, which is just hilarious to me.

The cult, real culty things about it, we thought we were the only Christians. So our family church is the only Christians. We're the only ones doing it right. We're the only ones interpreting it right, living it correctly from how we get baptized and baptize ourselves and what we think about baptism to everything. We're interpreting it correctly. We'd also pick and choose which scriptures we listened to and didn't, know, from Paul's gospels. Christianity to me is largely a cult anyways, but ours was, it was...

special in a number of ways, which parallels some other religions as well. We have a lot of parallels with Mormonism or even Jehovah's Witnesses. I was talking to a Jehovah's Witness the other day, which is another huge cult in America. We're at church five, six times a week. We're not supposed to have friends outside of our church. We're certainly not supposed to date outside of our church, even other Christians, because other Christians aren't actually Christians. We're the only ones saved.

The church leaders have say over who you date, where you go, where you live, where you go to school, who you're supposed to even hang out with in the church. Basically anything you're supposed to just submit otherwise you're prideful which is one really catch all way to just get people to do whatever you want them to do. We're all deathly afraid to go to hell. We definitely believe in that. Most of us, even just talking to people that have left since then or even talking to people at the time, we're like.

I got baptized and I'm going to heaven but I still feel like I'm a piece of shit and I'm actually going to hell. And I was in that bitch really trying, like I tried hard in there. I was trying to get things to change too because I would read the Bible and be like, hey, we're not really doing this and what about this one over here when I'm reading this stuff. Then I got into apologetics, which is the defense of Christianity. So I'm studying world religions and I'm understanding even that the apologists that are teachers in our church.

very very smart individuals but they are they're blinded by their own faith in ways that they're not even looking at what we're all looking at with a clear lens they're looking at it with a veil and just saying well at some point you have to believe so even when i got deeper into archaeology and the canonization of the bible and just the history of christianity in general i was like what the fuck

And then it just sucked too, because being in a cult sucks. You feel like you're a piece of shit all the time. It's not fun. You don't enjoy it. Church is not fun. Never wanted to date anybody in my church. I never was around women I really wanted to date. There's a bunch of stuff that really just sucked about it. The most culty stuff of it is in all of the nuance that's not like, here's the church and how it was set up and why it's a cult. It's in all the nuance of the stories and all the shit that would happen 24-7.

like around me, with me, with friends, with other people, crazy leaders, lot of crazy, crazy ass ministers and leaders. So that's where a lot of the cultishness is in. in like the nuance and when I get with my family, we're just telling stories about it and we're like, dude, like we're around somebody new and they're like, this shit is crazy. And we're like, this kind of, that was like a normal story. That wasn't even that bad. So there's a lot of that stuff. And then of course, in the last couple of years, a bunch of scandals have come out with coverups of

abuse and molestation, some involving kids, some not, this and that. There was a leader in one of the churches I was interning at who immediately labeled me as a flirt and prideful because I was talking to one of my female friends. mean whatever and anyways, this guy apparently was cheating on his wife for years and then the church found out, and instead of

telling people they just shipped him up to Alaska to go be the minister up there still. He was still a minister after doing that to his family. And this isn't even that bad of stuff. This is kind of like some of the stuff that's on top of mind. So that's the environment I grew up in and it shaped me in a lot of ways because I have amazing parents. I fucking love my parents. My relationship with them is insanely good. My relationship to like God and the church shaped my...

how I relate to my intuition and feelings and stuff that's been stored in me for a long time now. So that's how it shaped me. Are your parents still part of the cult? No, I left and then shortly after my older brother Jake left and then my younger sibling Sammy left. Sammy is gay and Sammy was in a ministry called Strength and Weakness as a Christian, which is strength being strong, being Christian in your weakness, which is being gay.

I remember talking to a classmate about this on a flight, because we're chatting up about everything and I'm telling her about my little brother and how he's gay and he's in this strength and weakness ministry. And she just did not get it, and even when I was explaining it to her, looking back, it's so funny.

But yeah, strength and weakness is that your strength is being strong in Christ through your weakness, which is being gay. That's your weakness. But we understand that you're not choosing to be gay. So you're allowed to be gay, but you can't do any gay shit. So don't actually be gay. The guy who led that ministry was named Guy Hammond, and he was a gay man who was not attracted to women. And he had a wife and had three kids with her and was in a marriage with her.

In that ministry, Sammy's got a bunch of crazy stories about this leader as well. So Sammy was already ready to leave a while before that happened. And then my parents left probably five or six months after, it took them a little bit, but they left pretty quickly because I created this scenario essentially where I was pushing on a bunch of buttons where it was like, hey, I know you guys are saying this stuff is wrong, but it doesn't say it in the Bible.

So I pushed on these buttons in a very specific way in the scenario I created by dating a girl who was living very similarly to how we did and was a Christian but went to another church, not lying about it, not doing anything impure with her, and telling my friends and my dad who was the head elder of the Northwest. And that kind of blew this thing up and created this big issue, and exposed some hypocrisy there. And then it got to my parents, who everyone respects a ton, all throughout anyone that they know because they're amazing, and they eventually left too.

Growing up in a strong religious household, it's easy to find yourself pulling away from religion, but specifically pulling away from God. And I think it's been interesting to say the least, coming to a place like Austin where I've met a lot of people who go to church, but even the ones who wouldn't consider themselves Christian, there's a lot of discussion of God, the source, this higher power. I wanna hear how you would describe your understanding of God today, but also given your background, how has that vision really evolved through the years? Well, I used to think God was God the Father, Christianity God.

And you know, he made me to be a human because he needed something to love and wanted to love us and to receive love from us and so created us and then we're here and like, we got to not fuck up so we don't go to hell. And like, benevolently, he sent Jesus down because he made us a bunch of pieces of shit. So he's got to send Jesus down for us because we suck. So thank God for that. Made us pieces of shit. He's going to send us to hell. Decided not to. That's not even like that's hell's not even like a Jewish thing like

It's like a later Christian thing. The whole thing is backwards. It doesn't make any sense. So that was my relationship with God. God's an eternal, omnipotent being in the sky who created everything. And I'm supposed to have relationship with him, love him for some reason. And he's gonna decide if I go to hell or not. I need to repent and be baptized and believe in Jesus. But then also don't continue fucking up. It was a little confusing to be honest. Especially the way we preached it.

So that was my relationship to God. I'm separate, he's up there. I pray to him, ask him for stuff. And my relationship with God felt shitty because I felt like I was doing everything in my cult and in my church to do it right. And I kept just feeling like I was getting shafted over and over by God. And I'm like, why the fuck do you hate me? I'm doing all this stuff better than all these other people and they're getting rewarded and I'm not.

the fuck is going on. Not even that like I'm better than it's like I'm like sacrificing what I really want to do and be doing and like laying my life down for this thing this cause this church this religion for you felt like and he's just like nah fuck you Drew and so like I still have some of that story to me I've been unearthing it recently of like dude fuck you God like I had a lot of that energy back then that I didn't get to express because it was just in there but I wasn't letting it out you know.

So that's not how I view God now or experience God in life. God, God, God, God, everything. Everything is God. It's all energy. Like I don't even think this is like real. It's like real and it's not. This is like a holographic projection and I'm like getting to feel this. like this stuff's, there's enough, there's as much space between the

atoms in my skin cells as there are between galaxies. Like the stuff is going as big in both directions. It's fucking nuts. Everything is God experiencing itself and expressing itself in a different way. So we're like doing the human thing right now and we're souls and we're split offs and we roll back up into something, some other consciousness at some point, whatever. We're doing the human thing now so we're humans right now. So that's how I experience God now. I am God, but I'm also a part of a bigger ecosystem of God. Like I believe that we're one.

We are, we're the same thing, but we're having this different experience because we're gods and we can kind of do anything. It's crazy. So we get to make these separate experiences coming down into these bodies and express ourselves in infinite different unique ways. So I've completely just, I've dropped what I was born into, the belief I was born into. It's this little box of what life is and what you should be doing. And there's now infinite possibility and infinite paths.

and I'm here now doing this one.

Yeah, I love that. I love that. Thank you for sharing.

You mentioned a little bit about expression. So I want to hear, kind of, I asked Micah the same question. I thought it was a good one, but like, what is your concept of identity? And then how do you feel like you're able to sort of explore and express that? It's funny, we live in this like dualistic world, you know, in being here, like time is fake. hear the people saying all the time. And we also experience time. We're here like our body's age.

we can have this concept of time where we can say, we're gonna start this podcast at 8.30 and we're gonna do it at 9.30. We can use it as well. And with identity, it's like the same thing. Because you asked me who I am and I'm like, dude, I can think about and answer whatever. I'm Drew, I'm 32, I live in Austin. I'm like, okay, I can put it in a little box. I don't really care that much, whatever. We all just are and we all are God and we get to play these little parts.

My name's Drew. My parents gave me that name. I like it. It's cool. I don't really know how else to, I like, I care so little. don't even want to like, when people ask me what I'm doing, how I'm spending my time, I'm like, ah, I don't even know dude. I kind of had an answer. I don't, I'm not that tied to, I'm really just not very tied to identity at all about how I view myself or what other people view me as or say about me.

I don't really spend any time thinking about it. I do like dressing myself up and getting tattoos and you know all that's fun to me. It's like a video game character. But I'm really not I don't feel very tied to it at all. I'm really just focused on trying to experience joy and love out here. It consumes most of my energy. I like that I think I was talking to someone the other day about just kind of like role-playing and like we're

joking how like we literally are just characters like at the end of the day and you can choose to dress yourself up as whatever you want. There's really no rules like maybe there's some guidelines like you know, there are certain tattoos I would never get certain like clothes I wouldn't wear because it just doesn't feel right. But there's really not like any rules. You're kind of free to do whatever straight up.

I'm curious, how do you feel you can sort of balance the, you said you don't put too much stock in thinking about your identity and when people ask you what you're doing, you're like, I don't know. But I also get a sense that you're a very intentional person. You move through life with meaning and intention. So how do you strike that balance of like, I don't know what I'm doing, which seems like there's

not much of an intention, maybe the intention in and of itself is curiosity, but then through life as like a very intentional being. How does that balance work for you? Well, sometimes I know what I want to do. A lot of times I don't. like sitting in the, I don't know, is also like a decision. It's not like a, sometimes you can get like into despair a little bit.

But I've tried to force stuff a lot from other people's ideas of what I should be doing or what could be fun or what other people are doing or what makes other people happy. We all do this and it's never worked out. It always sucks. So sitting in the not knowing is also part of it as well and intentional. So that it creates space for things that want to come in that I want to do. And then once I know something that I want to do or be, then I'll do it. And...

Even if I don't know like a ton of what I want to do, like right now I want to heal my body because I want to play soccer. And I want to slow down and I don't want to force anything. And so sometimes it's a lot of sitting around staring at the trees, going on walks. Not a lot of work like swimming, playing sports, hanging out with friends. Basically just trying to do stuff that sounds fun and live joyously. And when the rest comes, it'll come.

So creating space for it is really important, not filling it up with a bunch of shit just because I feel like I should be doing something. I'm afraid of boredom which I've done plenty in my life. So not knowing is great too. Honestly dude lately I feel like when I'm talking to people I just don't even care to know about what they're doing.

Like then something comes up I'm actually interested in. I'm like, okay, cool. Let's talk about that or just do something. But more than ever lately, I'm like, don't ask me what I'm doing or what I do. I don't know what it is, man. I'm just so sick of chatting with people about what they do and what they do for work and this and that. I feel that. just, I don't even have an answer, bro. You know, people ask me if this pool is my main thing. like, I forget I do this, bro. This is a clothing brand. We started, I don't know. Some of this stuff is so off my radar right now. I'm really spending time just following what brings me joy. Dude, that resonates so strongly with me because I went through like

I feel like I've gone through quite a few career crises in not that many years. And every time someone would ask me like, oh, what do you do for work? like, can we just not? Like, can you ask any other questions? And then when people started asking me what I do, and I knew they were asking about work, I'd be like, oh, I really like snowboarding. I know, but we're not going there. I know what you're asking, but I'm not about to take it that direction. Yeah, exactly, snowboarding's work. It's hard work sometimes. True, yeah. You actually learn it. There you go.

I love that. I mean, there's a like a just appreciate like moving through life and just getting back to like child, childlike play, appreciating just like all the, I don't know. I mean, there's so much like innocence and children and so much joy that they can get from just like one ball. Like you talked about something about being afraid of boredom.

Someone back in Atlanta, whenever she would get bored and express frustration over boredom, especially with her mother, she'd be like, on board. Her mom would be like, good, sit with it. And I think that's in a way, that's kind of a lost art of appreciating by being bored. And really it all comes down to gratitude, right? If you're in a moment where you're not doing anything, be grateful you had that moment. Because there's a lot of worse things you could be doing.

Just like sitting and appreciating. For me, yeah, it's felt like, being bored is not even like a real thing. It's like just a pattern of thinking that I'm supposed to be doing stuff 24/7. Cause when I was really young, I would never think about being bored. I would come up with anything to do. You know what I'm saying? If I wanted to do something like when I would take a crap when I was younger, I'd read the back of stuff. Like I think a bunch of people would do that. I would just read bottles, not be chilling. I'm not thinking like I'm bored.

You know, come up with ways to have fun and play or do whatever and be. but this, mean, our culture is fucking us up in so many ways and the constant simulation of the idea, like that we're supposed to be doing stuff and not be bored. Just that even that idea is definitely a way that's fucked me up. Dude, 100%. I kind of hate the concept of productivity. There is a podcast I love, absolutely love it. But there's one thing that was like that they

They're very savvy business guys and they, it's come up a couple times where they're talking about like, man, there's 10 minutes that was wasted and I could have used it better here. And they're just like, they're always coming up with ways to optimize their productivity and I fucking hate that. So I feel like it's just based on the notion that in order for you to be creating value in this world, well in order for you to be happy in this world, then you must be creating value

in this world. And if you'd be creating value, like you must be doing something that has some sort of like net gain as an outcome and something that's like measurable, you know, like sending emails or, you know, working on, you know, creating the concept for the next show or the next podcast, whatever. And I just, hate the term like productivity is such a sour taste in my mouth because I feel like it just takes away from like the experience. And you mentioned it with like checking off boxes and like

you know, cooking more slowly and like not thinking about I need to do X so then I can get to Y and so then I can get to Z and once I get to Z, then I will be happy. Then I'll, you know, feel like I've reached it. I've, I've definitely had a lot of experience with milestone chasing and just being led down a path of like, if I achieve this, I'll then be happy or feel fulfilled. And then you achieve it and you're like, well, now like I realized like,

Maybe it's not the chase, but like it's in the experience. Have you found yourself ever like milestone chasing? I've never been a big goal setter, milestone guy in general. I've definitely just chased stuff out of fear of something bad happening, like making money. Cause I don't want to be poor. I don't want to be stuck. I want to be free, instead of like, wanting money to do

these awesome things. It's like, don't want to be poor. I don't want to be trapped. So for me, that's been it more than anything. At end of the day, what's my goal?

You know, some people really like working a ton and making a bunch of money and working on business and blah, blah, blah. Some people really enjoy that shit or they enjoy it for a time. Right now I don't. So that's not my goal. My goal is to feel freedom and peace and joy. And so, you know, I would still love a shit ton of money and I don't need it either, you know, to do those things. I don't need much at all. You know?

I think that's a great note to leave on. Dude, Drew, thank you so much. I really appreciate the time. Thanks for coming down to Austin, bro. I really appreciate the hosting. Even aside from the podcast, this has been amazing. Beautiful pool, beautiful place. Beautiful clothes, beautiful people. I've really been just taken aback by all the people that you bring into your life out here. You've created such an amazing little community. There's a lot of good people out here. And it was so cool at the pool party.

If you had to estimate, what percentage of people that were there did you know? Like only half, maybe more than half. Yeah, that's pretty wild. And they were all great. Which speaks very highly of you and Micah and you as an individual. Because if you're bringing those people into your life, it's not by pure luck that 50 % of the people you didn't know happened to be amazing individuals. For sure. It's not luck.

Yeah, I'm very grateful for the people that are here. Yeah, awesome. Thank you. Love