Nature, Presence, and Finding Courage with Micah Rynders

Welcome to the Ambiguous Truth. I'm your host, Anthony Mistretta. This conversation is with a friend of mine I met a couple of years ago. I was just passing through Denver and had some mutual friends — we crossed paths at, I believe, my going-away party. We didn't really talk a whole lot, but we definitely felt a connection. And so over the next couple of years, I had moved abroad, he had left Denver — we kind of kept a long-distance relationship. And once I got back into the U.S. and decided to pursue this podcast, naturally, I reached out to him and ended up paying him a visit down in Austin, Texas. I felt inclined to interview him and ask him about creativity, identity, and some other concepts you're about to explore. Super excited to introduce you to a friend of mine, someone I think you'll probably see back on the show — Micah Rynders.

Micah. Yes, bro. Welcome.

Thank you.

Would you mind just taking a minute to introduce yourself?

Yeah — what do you want to know?

That's up to you. What do you want me to know?

Dude, I don't know. I'm out here. I'm a question answerer, that's for sure.

Cool. So — all right, what's your full name?

My full name is Micah Rynders.

Cool.

I'm from Michigan — born and raised, Grand Rapids, Michigan. GR.

GR, do people call it that?

Yeah, yeah, we do — I mean, kind of. Yeah, GR is more of a household name for Grand Rapids.

Good place to grow up.

Now I'm out here in Austin, Texas, living life.

Hosting — so thank you very much for hosting me.

Sweet house with a pool.

Yes, that's been awesome.

Yeah, blessing.

Yeah. It's been cool — we met two years ago.

Just shy of two years ago?

Yeah, it was like — yeah, just shy. And it was my going-away party that you happened to be at, and here we are.

Two years later — we had a few phone calls, I think two, when I was in Australia.

Yeah, and that's about it. And then I was like, yo, I need to get out here and visit you.

Yes, bro.

Yeah. So you popped back onto my radar, as I saw on social media — you're shifting, maybe not shift, but your focus onto creative, mostly photography. So you've been really diving into that, as well as Love People — so proudly representing. I want to hear, before the creative stuff — what was Micah like before photography, before Love People? Was there a point in your life where you didn't really have that creative component?

Dude, I've been shooting photos since seventh grade, which was when I first got a camera. So yes, in the sense that I now do it professionally, there definitely was a time pre my professional career. But yeah, I fell in love with it when I first picked up a camera in seventh grade.

Did you know that you wanted to do it professionally at some capacity at that point in time?

No, dude. It was just like a need almost, and a desire, and a really fun way to capture travels. It was a huge motivating factor when I got my first little point-and-shoot digital camera in middle school — you know those?

Yeah.

I was going to Mexico with my family. It was like, I just want to capture these memories, get a camera — that was the extent of the thought. It was very not thought-out, but it just kind of was like, I want this. Got one for my birthday, then took it down there and was just shooting everything, had a blast. And then pretty quickly thereafter, I started playing with it more, just with this camera, and I didn't really know what I was doing — I wasn't thinking, "I'm a photographer," I was just playing around, having a good time. And then at some point I just realized, I'm good at this — just naturally, not doing anything, I'm not editing anything, but I was just like, yeah, I'm taking cool photos, these are sweet. And I'm like 14, you know.

What is it about photography?

Dude — it's, I've just sort of realized what it is. It took me a long time, I didn't have an explanation for a long time, but for me, my experience of earth — my experience of life in general — is very, very visual. So everything is visual first. That's my predominant sense, the way I make sense of the world, and what I enjoy the most, I'd say. And when I'm going around life and I see — I just like, my eyes are a camera, I feel like. I'll go around and see things that are... I call them little pockets of beauty, where something in my field of vision is framed nicely, if you will. And I like the way everything's coming together compositionally — I see that and I'm just like, that right there, that image, I want to share that. I want to share what I'm experiencing with other people. Because to me, an experience like that just hits so hard — it's so deep within me that I'm like, "Yo, are you seeing this?" to my friends. And sometimes they are, sometimes they're not, sometimes I don't have to explain it — but with photo, I can just capture it and show somebody.

Yeah. I feel like that's such a common thread with artists — whether they're visual artists, musicians, photographers — it's like the goal of taking what they have up here in their brain and their mind and translating that into something others can see or hear or experience to some capacity. And that fulfillment you get from achieving that — that's the aha, that's the moment I think artists live for.

Yes, bro. Oh yeah — if I can do that well, to where what I'm seeing is actually translating to what I'm showing, it's unmatched, for sure.

Yeah. You mentioned traveling, and you were a little bit nomadic for a while, right?

I was.

Can you talk to me a little bit about that journey?

Yeah, bro. Yeah — because the first stop I made was when we met.

Really?

Yeah.

Your first stop in your little nomadic journey was Denver? No shit — OK, cool.

Yeah, so I was working a corporate video job in Chicago. I'd been living there for a few years, and I think I was 27 at the time. And I remember having this moment where I realized, "Yo, I'm not invincible, I'm going to die one day." I knew that conceptually, but I didn't feel it until that moment. I think it was at work — I'm shooting videos at Nordstrom, on the floor at a Nordstrom, no windows, it's cold, I'm in a coat because the AC is just blasting, same playlists —

Was this in Chicago? It's probably summer, and they're just —

Yeah, just the typical, you know, Nordstrom, shivery —

Yeah, I can picture it.

And that job was a blessing, but it was definitely just monotony. I just had this moment tied up in that job, and in my lifestyle, how I was living in Chicago, just being like, okay, what am I doing? I'm going to die one day. I want to be able to look back on my life and be stoked and be fulfilled in the sense that I didn't leave any what-ifs on the table, I didn't leave any question marks on the table. I didn't know what to do or what I was doing, I just knew there was something calling to me, like, this isn't it. And the pieces aligned well enough — okay, my roommates were moving on, doing a different thing, my lease was coming to a close. I didn't have anything I wanted to do next, but I had this calling — I was like, I'm gonna sell a bunch of my stuff and put some of my stuff at my parents' house in storage, and just not have a home base for a second and just explore. Do some traveling, just chill, do nothing, I guess. I don't know, there wasn't much of a plan, but I knew what I wanted to not be doing. So starting there — let me put an end to this thing, let me get out of this city. I knew one thing: I really needed to reconnect with nature. I love Chicago, but it was — I couldn't see the stars, man. It was nighttime, there's just people revving their engines all the time, and I can't see the stars, and there's not a ton of trees, and I'm just in the city life doing that, and it was getting to me. So yeah, I began what ended up being like a year-and-a-half sort of nomadic, transient journey — doing some travels and staying back home in Michigan in between. Changed my whole life, bro.

I resonate with all of that — not having any idea what you want to do, but getting to that moment of, what am I doing here? I don't know what I want, but this ain't it.

Yeah.

And it changes your life. I think anytime you can take a step away and just appreciate nature — what were some of your favorite nature highlights of your nomadic journey?

Yeah, that's a great question. So when I was in Michigan, I was in Grand Rapids, and I was living with one of my close friends, and he's got this house in a little quiet neighborhood that's near a creek and just trees everywhere — this lush little pocket kind of just in the middle of normal suburban whatever. And there was every kind of species there, bro — we had deer at that house, fox, skunks, turkeys. And this is like, you're in the city — it's Grand Rapids, it's not a huge city, but you're not in the country either — and something about it, man, there was just all kinds of plants in the place, super natural, very natural yard, all kinds of insects. And I was doing a lot of nothing, so I was spending a lot of time just outside hanging out, surrounded by these animals. And this was shortly after being in a city, being in the — capitalism, only humans, concrete, smoggy-ish air, you know — and it was like being in a kid's book, bro, it was magic. That was definitely a highlight. Just having that be sort of normal allowed me to settle into, like, oh, I really value this — this is something I want to keep with me whenever I decide, okay, here's what I'm going to do next.

And have more of a direction. It reignited your value that's always been there, to be a part of nature — I mean, we are animals, right? So to embrace that and be connected again.

Yeah, dude, I refell in love with being outside and animals and insects — just feeling like a kid in that. It's like connecting with that child inside.

Yes. How do you think you're able to bring that childlike awe and appreciation for the little things in the world into your life now — where, I'm not saying you're not a part of nature, but you're doing more than nothing now, your goals seem to have kind of evolved, and you're not just living sort of a transient, more fluid life. How are you able to still hold on to those lessons and those learnings and those experiences from a time of tremendous freedom and exploration?

Yeah, dude, it's shifted a bit, because I have other things going on, so I just don't have as much time to sit outside. But I still make it a point to go get outside and — bro, the best part about insects specifically is they're everywhere, and I think I attract them too.

Yeah, there's a spider right there that you're playing with.

I had a little jumping spider and let him off on the plant. Yeah. So for me it's pretty effortless — it's just taking a minute to step outside, and instead of stepping outside and just looking around and then going back inside, I'll step outside and I'll just slow down, take a second, and then I'm looking around. And that's when, to me, I start seeing stuff that has magic in it. This morning I go outside just to get a breath of fresh air, get some sun, and do my mobility — and I'm slowing down, I'm out there, and I just stand for a second and I'm looking around. I see a spider web, was hanging from the umbrella under the chair. And I'm connected to it at this point where I like to put myself in the shoes of these beings, because I'm like, this homie just yeeted off the umbrella and flew through the air swinging a web and then landed on the thing and attached it. So I'm thinking about what is going on out there — because it's a bunch of life having an experience, and that's a fact. And I don't find myself above or removed — I'm a different flavor of life, but it's just as alive. So I like to be like, man, thinking about it like it was me. And then I'm in the zone, I'm flowing, and I'm looking around, and I'm realizing our yard is covered with these glistening spider webs. And it's just a joy to know that while I am sleeping and dreaming and waking up and having human challenges facing my day, there's also life going out there doing its thing. These spiders were out at night trying to get their money, like, let's go get food.

Well, we were talking yesterday about how it's common that humans paint our species as the most intelligent, the most capable, when in reality we just don't understand the ways that all the other animals can communicate. You were spitting some fun elephant facts about the way they communicate with their trunks through the earth — that's crazy.

Yeah.

Yeah. So do you — I think there's clearly an appreciation for every form of life, humans and people included. Has that always been there?

Yeah, okay, for sure. Yeah. From the first memories I have, I remember feeling like I'm here to do something positive, change the world for the better. And I think it's always sort of been coming out of me, and I have not always been aware of what it is. But I think it's always been an awe for this place, bro, this planet. I've always had that, and I've often let it out, you know. I just remember feeling that way like forever, this life.

Sounds like there's a lot of things that ring true with you today that you feel have always been a part of who you are. Can you share a little bit about — we talked a little bit yesterday about identity, but I put a cap on it just for today — can you share a little bit about what identity is to you, what that means, and sort of how you've seen that shift, how you've seen it evolve, and how you feel confident in your identity today, and what it took for you to get to that point?

It's funny, because I don't think it's always — for me it's not always been accessible. It's not always been something I can pull up. I remember earlier in my 20s not thinking about it at all, and then I remember mid-20s — 25, 26, 27 — starting to ask those questions and whatnot. And I think asking those questions could have been the catalyst, but just what I've gotten to now, being 29, I'm like, man, it's not something that I have to think about or find out or figure out. It's just, I'm me.

Interesting. So you said it's known, but not — what did you say? You said, I think it's known, but not accessible.

Yeah — it's hard to articulate, but you know, you know it deeply.

Right. OK.

Yeah, we don't have to do anything to find our identity, we just have to be us. Now, there's also a level to which you can get to know yourself better. So, for example, I used to drink a lot of alcohol, and that got in my way for sure, because it's just numbing me — I'm numbing myself and going and doing things I wouldn't do sober, to try to fit in, to try to be cool, try to have fun. The heart is good in it — it's literally like, I want to have a good time with my friends, I want to be a part of the tribe, whatever. But I think about that and I'm like, oh dude, I was disconnected from who I am, because I was using something to basically allow myself to try to feel like I had an identity in something that just wasn't real for me. And, you know, alcohol not even being necessarily to blame, you can do that with a lot of different things. But then, to the insects — this has been hilarious, bro, because I've realized, coming back to connecting with nature and realizing how much I love bugs, I'm like, dude, I always loved bugs. Loved bugs when I was a kid. There just came a point in time where I'm distracted — I'm going to school and I'm thinking about popularity and girls and grades and stuff going on in my family and whatever, and stuff is getting in the way. And I'm taking in information about how I'm supposed to be out here, how to be a human, how to be in society. And for me, that journey was hearing a lot of people say what you should do and what is right and what to do. And bro, a lot of those voices are conflicting, or sending you down a different path. But I listen to all of those — the way I am is, if somebody says something to me, I'm listening, and I will weigh it, and I will oftentimes take it on, for better or worse. That's kind of how I navigate life. So hearing a bunch of voices from society, or family, or religion, or whatever it is, school, I feel like I kind of lost my identity, because I was trying to be X, Y, Z thing. When in reality — I didn't lose my identity, I was just underneath a bunch of stuff I was trying to take on that wasn't quite real. So my journey with identity now is, it's all just courage. It's all just, can I have the courage to let out what is actually real for me — which oftentimes feels kind of embarrassing, because I'm like, I'm the big tall blonde dude wearing a neon hat freaking out about a bug, and a bunch of people are doing a thing or networking, and I'm just like, you know, it's goofy, bro. But I feel so much better, because it's real for me. And so I'm able to just be like, I don't know, if you mess with it, you mess with it, if you don't, whatever, it's fine — but it feels good for me to be able to do that. And through this approach, I've been able to see more and more of, okay, this is real for me — that was something that was somebody else's voice, that's not my identity.

Yes. Get back to what's real for me.

And there is no — I don't think there's a finish line, necessarily, I think it's probably an ongoing journey. Yeah, I've really found a lot of peace in that. It's resolved a lot of issues for me, because I'm no longer pretending to be somebody else, or denying myself of what is alive for me — I'm just being me.

Dude, I love that framing, because I still fall into the trap of, like, I must move across the world to figure out who I am, right? I literally did that. I would never regret that decision — at that time, there's nothing better I could have done. But I love the idea that your identity is already part of you, and so it's not a matter of going out and trying to find it, it's a matter of allowing it to surface. I love that, that's such a beautiful articulation. And that's something I really, really struggled with, and I wish I would have known that a couple years ago — but I'm glad I made the decision that I did, and that I can take that little nugget with me for a while.

Yeah, I think that's wonderful.

Amazing. Yeah, it's relieving.

Yeah, it's relieving, because you're like, there's — you don't have to do anything.

Yeah, and it takes so much pressure off. It's not like you have to go fulfill this set of things, these objectives, in order to figure out who you are. It's like, you are the core. And it almost feels like your identity is something that is deep within you, and in order for you to let it out, it's not a matter of moving, or trying a new activity — it's just slowly letting little pieces of you continue, or start to surface. And as you slowly release those things as they come to the reality of, you know, Micah's life, Anthony's life — those are you reinforcing, or identifying, perhaps for the first time, the components of your identity.

Yeah, I love that. I was talking to my mom about my sort of independent journey in this world, and this solo quest that I've been going on for some time now, to try and figure out who I am, you know, and understand what Anthony is at the core — and she said something that stuck with me, because I remember saying something about, you know, self-discovery, and understanding who I am, and she's like, what does that even mean? Like, I don't even know, you know — it's tough, because I think generations above us haven't given themselves the opportunity to really think about identity, think about who they are at a core. But even though we're thinking about it, it's such a massive concept that it's scary to think about. But I love the frame that you put it in, because I think it really relieves some of that pressure, and it makes it something small and something simple — not something easy, right — because a lot of it is going against the grain, not intentionally against the grain, but just absorbing things from the outside world, recognizing what are the things that resonate with me and what are the things that don't, and then slowly releasing the parts of you into this world that are truly Micah, or truly Anthony.

Yeah, dude, it's just a perspective shift.

Yeah. And it's just a shift from, it's not something that you go out and get — in fact, you can't do that. It's something that is already there. And so it doesn't mean there's no work to be done — you can go out into the world and experience things, but you're not — say you go to Australia and you live there for a year, you're not going — you kind of are, but you're not going there and getting something that you don't have. You're going there and something is being brought out of you that you already have. And so yes, you still — it's a bit of semantics — it's like, yeah, you still needed to go there to get to that. But the perspective shift of, you're not going and getting anything, it's like bringing out of you what's already there. And then keeping that mindset around questioning your own identity, and just who am I and what do I want to do — and just realizing, well, all you have to do is come back inside, turn it back around on yourself, and be like, well, what's alive for me, what excites me, what's here?

I think that whole concept really parallels something that's honestly been a theme of this weekend — around being whole, not being broken, you know, being loved. Like, you are a beautiful creation, whether you believe in a creator or happenstance — doesn't really matter. At the end of the day, it's the recognition that you are a beautiful, loved, whole, complete thing in and of itself, and you don't need anyone else or anything else to bring that out. It's the same concept, just in a different facet of life. That's been an important thing — there's a reason that came up three, four times this weekend, I think.

Yeah, for sure. I went to therapy — I will go to therapy, and continue, but I've taken a little bit of a break and moved to life coaching. The first thing my coach told me on the introductory call was, therapy kind of operates under the assumption that you're broken and need fixing, and life coaching operates on the assumption that you are whole and amazing and complete already — it's just creating the best version of yourself, letting you truly blossom into everything you could be.

Yeah, yeah, totally. I want to transition and talk a little bit about the spiritual world.

Tight. Yeah.

Cool. Yeah, I think you'd get excited. So I want to talk a little bit about your spiritual journey. We talked a little bit last night — it was like midnight, so I was ravenous.

So I think a lot of it was kind of cooking — I was cooking, I was fucking putting it down.

Yeah, that was good — that was so good. I hadn't eaten in like seven hours, so I needed some. But talk to me a little bit about what spirituality is to you. How do you see the spiritual world, in the grand scheme of things? How do you feel like you fit into that world, even if it's not a part of the world that you're — if that makes sense.

So I'll start with how I see this world, and we can go from there. I love the perspective — it's the one I'm fully bought into — that I'm a spiritual being in a physical body. I like dimensions as well, so say there's a separate dimension, a higher dimension or whatever — I don't think our language can quite capture it, because it's above, it's like another dimension. But in another dimension, my soul is hanging out. And that dimension is outside of time, because time only exists here on this plane. And so this spirit is like, okay, I'm gonna go incarnate as Micah Rynders, this human, and do that. And when that happens, you become a lower-dimensional being and experience separation, and forget your nature, and become attached to this stuff. And then you navigate that journey — I'm 29 years into that journey, and it's just as real as there being no spiritual world, because for me right now, I'm in this experience right now, and I'm a spiritual being operating this. So that's sort of the perspective of what is my spiritual essence, I guess — the human spiritual essence, and maybe beyond human as well, to start us off.

Yeah. Have you always felt that way?

Dude, maybe. Bro, I've always had experiences that I felt were, you know, spiritual, I guess, throughout my life, and just kind of didn't know what to do about them, and felt like if I talked about them, people would shame me — so I just kind of kept to myself, and just moved out of my life. But I've always been drawn to the fantasy and the magical, and stories like that — because, yeah, they're cool and exciting, but because I'm like, it feels like truth. It feels like that makes sense to me in a way that feels good. Because I think it's relieving to these feelings I have of, there's something more than — it never really made sense to me for there not to be more to this experience, because for as long as I can remember, I've just wondered — I remember being like four, probably four or five, and being like, what do you mean God just always was? And weighing, like, what is time, and how could God exist before time? Like what is all that — I always just remember having these thoughts, riding around in the car with my family, and they're probably talking about who knows what's for dinner or whatever, and I'm sitting there like, okay, so if the universe — but what's beyond the universe, what's outside of the universe? That's just always been what's going on. So I've definitely always felt interested and tapped into some sort of, there's something else. And I was raised Christian — not necessarily spiritual Christian, I'd say more like dogmatic, and image-based, and judgy Christian. And so there wasn't much cultivation of this or dialogue around it. So it wasn't until I just fucked off my life and went and traveled and did nothing and started reading interesting weird out-there books, that I realized, there's language for what I'm experiencing. And so again, same thing with the identity thing — this just, like, awoken, or put language to the experience I've had. Yeah, I do think I've sort of always had it.

Yeah, you maybe didn't know what that was, and you didn't know how to articulate it, you probably didn't even know what to research or read or look up — but you had that feeling of, there's something else out there. Yeah. So we talked a couple of days ago about your shift away from meat, and you talked a little bit about how there's sort of — I don't know what word you use, maybe energy — of whatever you consume. And you talked about how, thinking about consuming beef where the cows are treated poorly, you are consuming that trauma, in a sense — you verbalized it way nicer than that, but it's basically that. I want to hear a little bit more about that transition, but also — for everyone watching and listening to the show — can you just restate your concept around absorbing that trauma of the animal, and what that looks like?

So, think about this — we care, more and more, about the soil that our fruits and vegetables, our crops, are grown in, right? So why wouldn't we do the same thing with the animals — like, what is going on with their environment, as opposed to just, it's meat, and the meat itself is all that matters. It's like, dude, we're gonna — no way, it's like, what is the energy that they're experiencing that you're then consuming? So if you have a super mistreated animal, and then you consume that food, you're consuming the remnant, the result, of something that's not been having a good time, that's not been vibing high. So you think about a tree bearing fruit — if a tree is bearing rotten fruit, you're not gonna eat the fruit, you want to have fruit that's really ripe and lush and beautiful. And some crops are doing better than others because they're in better soil and they're healthier, whatever. So the same thing with meat — some meat is doing better than others, and I definitely think that will impact us as well. And then furthermore, with meat — I think these animals are having emotional experiences, more so than plants.

Yeah, 100%. 100%.

I even think plants are too, but they're on a different temporal plane, so it just plays out differently. But even with plants, there's so many examples of people who talk to their plants, communicate with their plants, and the plants grow. I don't talk to my plants on a daily basis, but I do try — especially when I'm feeling really good, morning routine, fresh pot of coffee — I'm like, maybe it's time to water. I tend to overwater my plants, so I'm cautious with that. But I'll go to my plants and be like, you look beautiful today, you sprouted, and they love it. And there's studies and evidence to support that having a rapport and treating this — it's a living creature, but it's not, I don't know, like an animal that's giving you any sort of feedback. Perhaps there is feedback there, maybe I'm not attuned to it, maybe some people are more attuned to that feedback. But with animals, yeah, it's a whole step further — they are having an emotional experience, as you said.

And yeah, I've never — honestly, until a couple of days ago, I'd never thought about that. And it's kind of a shame that that's not been something I've really thought of before, because — we mentioned Australia a couple of times, but when I got out there and ate the meat, it tasted so much better, but I feel like it was a better experience because they're not quite at the level we are in the US where there's as much mistreatment of the animals. And you can just tell — when you consume the meat, you can tell this is just overall a better experience for my body, which means it was probably a better experience for that animal, that cow or that pig or whatever it is.

Yeah, bro, I mean, I don't even really know what to make of all of it. I haven't landed somewhere, I feel like I'm gonna stay necessarily, you know, at some point I need to eat food, and at some point —

Quite a few points there, baby, quite a few points. Yeah, I remember seeing a video that was talking about how some scientists electrically analyzed plants, house plants, while their owner left and then went about and did their thing, and then when their owner's coming back, within — kilometers, the plants perked up.

No, sure — yeah, so the owner, caretaker, the person who lives there, is coming home, and the plants perk up when he's two kilometers away — they're tapped into him coming home, or whatever. Maybe it's a timing thing, who knows, whatever it is, that's magic to me.

Yeah, it's so tight — and that to me is like, dude, this homie might be having an emotional experience too.

Yeah, I don't know. So my thought about eating meat and not eating meat, and eating plants — like, you're eating — really, what I land on is, a tree that's making fruit, or a plant that's bearing fruit, is like an offering, almost — it's giving it up. It wants — it's like, here, here's this fresh life stuff, that's what I want to take in, you know. And meat oftentimes is something that was killed, and its life was ended and taken. So then you're taking more than you're receiving, or something.

Yeah. And I also really love the idea of going on a hunt and being a part of the whole thing — like bow-hunting an elk, and then being there and being a part of the energy exchange, and being able to go up to the animal — probably, I don't know if it's dead or what, but being like, thanking it, and having this presence, this energetic exchange, and then working to take this meat and bring it out with me. That to me seems much more sacred, and in a way where the energy I'd be taking would be given to me through this thing. But even that, I'm not a hundred percent sure — that's why I've just, as of right now, laid it on, like, when I feel in me that it's not a time to eat meat, just —

Yeah. And I think it's, you know, when you eat spinach, right — spinach was alive, it grew, and then it was picked, and it died in that process, right. And you're not eating spinach that is living, because it's not absorbing any nutrients, it's not going through photosynthesis, it's not doing any of the things that the plant does when it's a living, existing plant.

Cutting a leaf of spinach, or if we were to chop off a branch of that tree, we don't think about the emotional experience or the pain that tree went through for that.

This might be a little bit of a tricky question, but does it seem hypocritical that if you think a plant can have an emotional experience — maybe it doesn't feel pain, but it has an emotional experience — but you're okay with consuming a plant, how is that allowed? But if a cow has an emotional experience and you consume that cow, that's not okay?

That's a great question, bro. This is — I don't know, I don't know for sure. The best I've felt around that question so far is, aiming to predominantly eat things that are appearing in abundance. Like, I would say a fruit, for example — specifically, this is the best example — is growing off of a plant, and the plant is like, here, eat this, because we're gonna help spread its seeds, right? It's strategizing — I'll make something that's healthy and yummy and has my seeds in it, and then you'll eat it, and you'll poop, and you'll put my seeds into the ground, and then more of me will come up. So the point is, here, it's given. I don't need a ton of vegetables, because I think vegetables are doing it a little differently. But that's my thought — I love eating eggs, because chickens are just doing their thing, and there it is, and it's something that's good for you and has good stuff for you. And milk — I think the same thing, it's something that's naturally occurring, it's just being produced in abundance, it's a process. But yeah, I mean, this is the thing — I'm like, okay, so is eating meat different from eating a salad where you had to harvest the plant? I don't know, I don't know, I've never thought about that until this moment. But it's a good question, bro. I've never thought about that. But I do fully buy into —

I mentioned the Comfort Crisis, and I forget the author's name, but he goes on a hunt in Alaska with a very skilled hunter — I think it's three guys in total, and they're surviving off of Clif Bars in the middle of nowhere, frigid tundra, Alaska, hunting something, I don't remember what it was. And the guide was very adamant that they hunt the biggest — not because of the meat they'll yield, even though the biggest obviously yields the most meat, but because of the circle of life. The biggest animal is the oldest, and it's consuming the most nutrients. It's also, in that one kill, able to provide a tremendous amount of food for the people who hunted it, their families, their friends, their community, and so on. But it also gives space for the younger and smaller animals to now fill that space, fill that void, grow into something bigger, and it creates a healthy life cycle for that species. And so, I think when you think about it, it all really comes down to the appreciation for life, but also the appreciation for death — and not, because we live in a world that I think is so afraid of death, and terrified, like death is seen as evil, as bad, as the end. And it's like, well, it's the end of something, but it's also the beginning of a lot of other things. And I think as soon as you make that shift, and recognize that death is a beginning in and of itself, that's when you can really start to appreciate the value of it. And that's where a gratitude practice comes into play — I really appreciate the saying goodbye to something, because you know that goodbye is a hello to something amazing, whether that's food on your plate, or it's the end of the season and crops aren't going to grow in the winter. I think that's part of it too — knowing that if you don't harvest your crop, it's going to wilt and die at the end of the season anyway, so it might as well be leveraged for some sort of gain your community can get.

Where I've definitely fallen is just being grateful and appreciative for my meals. I love to take a minute before I eat to literally thank God that I made it to another meal, because really, we can get caught up with a lot of stuff in this life — you can have a bunch of cars and whatever, but if you're not making it to your next meal, you're fucked.

100%.

I could feel like I don't have anything figured out and be stressed out in a day, and then sit down and be like, I made it to another meal — I'm literally as blessed as anyone possibly can be. And to me, eating in that vibration is something I know is helpful for me. And then my other approach to this is, I'm just gonna keep talking about it — I'm like, the best I feel like I can do right now is listen to my body, being like, meat feels a little repulsive right now, I don't know why, I don't know what's right and wrong. Maybe there is no right and wrong, I'm not sure. We're also living in a society that's super far downstream in a system that could be improved, I think, but we also have a ton of people here, so how do you feed everybody — there's so much stuff that's way beyond what I can impact right now.

So that's why I'm just gonna listen to my own body, I guess, and not eat it if it doesn't sound good, because that's usually when I feel the worst physically. And then keep talking about it, because I can keep learning and feeling out — even saying the things, professing where I'm at, allows me to sit with it in a way of, how do I feel about that, and feel into it, and then always just gratitude.

Can you walk us through the pre-dinner ritual you have — the blessing that we did the other night?

Yeah, so this is — it's yumming your food. So putting your hands together, rubbing energy together, and I'll just hold this, and what I like to do is take a look at, you know, if I cooked it, I know what's in it, or if I ordered it, take a look at what's in it, and thank the components. So if I'm eating meat, I'm thanking that animal, and thinking about the fact that that animal was living a life — it was living a whole experience. Cows watch the sunset and have best friends, it's been observed and studied. And they're so fucking cute, they're so cute, they're so funny. I've been around cows, and when I'm in Michigan and I'm out by farmland, I'll take a stop and sing to cows, and they'll come over and listen, and I'll hang out, and they'll just look at me, and I'm just looking at them, and that's a real thing. So whatever it is I'm eating, I'm thinking about like, yo, the fact that I have rice is insane — the fact that there's, whatever it is, I'm eating some cheese, I'll just thank the different components for being what they were, call them out, and it allows me to be in such a state of, whoa, like, it's so tight I get to eat this stuff. And then gratitude as well — and I love doing that with other people too, to just bring us together, to be like, man, it is a blessing here that even something as simple as a meal — it's a blessing. And then we're open together, and all together, yum — and do that over your plate. It's yumming your food. You could do whatever — I like praying in front of my meals too, and I'm not a religious person anymore, but whatever it is, it's just a celebration, an acknowledgement, sharing gratitude, and taking a minute to be like, this is the most important thing, this is how we stay alive. We go to the grocery store — the grocery store is insane, we don't hunt anymore, we can just go buy whatever we want from different countries all over the place. We can get wild-caught Alaskan salmon right now and go chef up with a mango and an avocado and some rice and a cucumber, and it's a bunch of stuff that came from a bunch of places, and we can do that right now — that's unbelievable. And if you just mindlessly go make a salmon bowl and move on with your life, it's okay, it's not bad, but I think you're missing out on something that really is magic. And I think part of really appreciating life is savoring those experiences and thinking of food as an experience.

I struggled with competitive eating — do you know what competitive eating is? Joey Chestnut vibes?

What is Joey Chestnut — is that the hot dog guy?

No, no, no — maybe that's a form of competitive eating, but like —

Competitive eating is like, I can't believe I knew that, the Kobayashi guy?

Yeah, of course.

I haven't heard that name in years, I haven't even thought of — I can't believe I just pulled that out.

Yeah, you pulled that out, it's amazing. Joey Chestnut — what a name, what a fucking name.

It's a perfect name.

It is — I mean, if you're born with the name Joey Chestnut and you're not fucking slinging tube steaks, I don't know what you're doing. Got to.

100%. It's like when you build a habit of eating quickly because you've experienced eating in a competitive environment — for me, it was when I was playing hockey growing up, and we would go to a Mexican restaurant, and there'd be one bowl of queso and eight fucking hockey players. We're like, if I don't eat that chip, Mike's eating that chip, if I don't eat that chip, Bob's eating that chip, whatever — and it creates this competitive culture around eating. And I've taken that to this day, even though I know if I don't eat that chip, fucking no one's eating that chip — like, I eat alone a lot. So there's no reason for me to eat and consume so quickly and just gobble it up, but it's been so instilled in my eating experience, my consumption experience, that that's how I continue to eat to this day. And it's not healthy — chewing, mastication, is your first step in digestion, right, so how do you eat faster? Chew less. But the problem is, if you chew less, your stomach has to do more, because the food is in larger chunks. And that's what causes acid reflux, because the acid then tries to break down the food because you're not masticating enough — it's not fine enough for your acid to actually break it down properly. And then that's when you get the buildup and you get heartburn and things of that nature. So also, I drink kombucha because of all that.

Now I like it, I think it's a good thing to have, probiotics or whatever.

Yeah, gut health is important.

It's crazy — gut health, it's literally just, that gut biome is what creates your health in every other capacity. It is boggling.

That's how — which is also just, you know, the importance of this whole conversation around being appreciative, but also consuming stuff that feels right to you and listening to your body. But anyway, my point behind the competitive-eating piece is, I think we all have some sort of food traumas — that's a bit of a strong word for it, but I'll use it anyway — but some traumas with food and other things, to where it really detracts from that experience. I think being appreciative, and recognizing it, savoring every bite, chewing properly, that gives you one, more enjoyment, but two, a hell of a lot healthier body — way better. When I start to eat slower, I start to consume less, and I start to be healthier, and the food goes further — my body's able to digest more of it, extract more of its nutrients. So for every one calorie, I'm getting more out of it, as opposed to it just being waste and literally being shit out. I'll tell you what, though — if you can eat one blueberry and just savor it and feel into what is happening — somebody had to probably plant a bush, or find a bush, certainly it was planted, and then grow it, and then this bush is just like, here's a bunch of little blue orbs, that's magic. And then somebody picks it and puts it somewhere, and then you go pick it up at the grocery store, or maybe you picked it, or whatever. Think about all that stuff, and you slow down and have that one blueberry, and you just taste every part of it, and you're breathing. If you can do that, bro, I feel like that experience translates into just life — and it's not always easy, but if you can tap into that same energy when you're stressed out dealing with something, of just, this thing is a gift, it's a gift to be facing these challenges, it's a gift that there's so much magic around me even though I'm stressed out — like, this is me talking to myself for sure. But that, I think, is so much of the beauty behind doing it with food specifically, because food, you're also just enjoying it.

Yeah. Yeah — maybe that's how I beat my allergies. If I can really shift that narrative from, this fucking walnut's gonna kill me — maybe start with the cashew, that's less harmful.

Yeah, start with something that feels not so super daunting. And also, your allergies aren't like something to beat, they're like — young Anthony that just wants some love.

Hmm. That's how I see it, for sure.

That's how it was for me — it was like, bro, there's a very, very, very scared, crying kid — crying Micah version — who's not getting love, and he's rejecting life, and so of course he's rejecting this food. And then, you know, it's just his journey of buying into this idea that I have something wrong with me, I can't do this, I can't eat those things, I can't do it. And I'm just perpetuating this and believing it and creating this reality for myself. And so then just being like, man, I don't want to feel that way anymore, it's not working, it's just not working the same way. And so — it doesn't mean, okay, it's over, you never feel something — but what, how would it feel for you if you were to eat one cashew and feel scared, and feel like your body was maybe starting to feel uncomfortable, and — like, what symptoms do you have if you have something?

Like hives, throat closes, itchiness, and then, yeah, my skin reacts, my stomach gets uncomfortable, and I puke up whatever food I ate.

Yeah, so we're definitely going very small-scale and slow, and you might feel some of those things. But you're grown now, and you could set this up in a container that's supportive of you, and then doing it in a way where you can feel it. And I think some of that young Anthony might come up and have the opportunity to be like, what's up, bro, I'm here — and give him what he wanted at that time when you were experiencing that stuff and you're shit on.

By a pigeon and fuck these churches — there's a lot of context that we're not providing.

Yeah, we're not sharing a lot of context, we're just getting into it.

Shall I give the quick — do you want to give the quick overview?

I don't even think the details are necessary as much as the idea of allergies being like, man, we're rejecting something, our system's rejecting something. And I'm not an expert, but I like to think about, what was going on? What was going on at the time? Because oftentimes the fears we have are tapped into, are sort of revolving around something that was happening with that thing. So people who are afraid of water — well, did you have an experience where you sucked in water? You can take a look and be like, yeah, totally. And maybe not, maybe it's a little harder to figure out, but you can look at that experience and be like, dude, that sucked, that was —

Yeah — or at least I can, you know, that's what I think about. I think there's a slight detail that matters, because this is getting very tinfoil-hatty. So I have to quickly say — Micah was allergic to a lot of vegetables, was carrots — that was the first experience you had, we'll get the details there — but it was vegetables and fruits pretty much across the board. And you said you basically got to this moment early twenties — was it 18, high school?

When I was over it? I was 26.

Oh, that was that recently?

Yeah.

Okay, only a few years ago.

Yeah, 26. And I was basically fed up and was like, I'm gonna change the narrative on — wasn't carrot the first thing you started with?

No, no — it was a raspberry.

Raspberry.

Yeah, and that had historically given you allergic reactions, and you just started by taking a little bite —

Yeah.

— changing the narrative, really being grateful for it, really savoring it, experiencing mild symptoms, if I remember correctly, but nothing too severe — a little itchiness in your throat, you said?

Yeah, I didn't with those, but I did with some avocado when I was tapping it out.

That's right — avocado and kiwi.

There was still a little bit of something that came up with those.

And over time, continuing that process through basically every food, until a point where you no longer have allergies. Yeah, I think that's important —

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And one more important detail is that I very, very definitively — with an emotion to it — I made the decision, I'm done with this. I'm done with this. And I was able to have the awareness around, oh man, how is this affecting me? I'm eating in fear all the time. Because unless I'm cooking my own things that I have dialed in, I'm eating in fear — because if somebody else is going to chef for me and they don't know what's going on, or they just — they aren't gonna remove all my allergies oftentimes. And so then I'm sitting there waiting to receive this food, being like, is it gonna be messed up, is it gonna be something I'm allergic to — like, look at how my body tenses up, that's how it feels. And I just was like, I'm done, I'm done with it, I don't want to experience that anymore. I want to eat this stuff, I want to partake, I want to be healthy, I want to be free of that. And I really think that decision was emotionally backed, of feeling like, yes, I'm done, it's — I just ended, I'm ending this toxic relationship of constant fear around food, and let's go. And then, you know, it took me a year to play out my approach to it, which was great, I was doing my own pace, but I really think that was a huge part of it — being like, no, I'm done here, I'm done with it.

Yeah. All right, I think the last topic I want to talk to you about — I think we're getting about done with the end of the time — a couple days ago you talked a little bit about when you would release anger as a kid, and what that was met with from a parent. Can you talk about that a little bit, and sort of how your concept of emotional expression has evolved — or not evolved?

It's definitely evolved, it's evolved. Yeah, I used to have a lot of temper tantrums as a kid, I threw a lot of temper tantrums — I actually have no idea if I threw a lot, but the way I remember it, it feels like it was a lot, it feels like it happened a lot. I would get angry at things. Oftentimes, as the youngest of four, my brother's two years older than me, we're always competing and playing and having fun, but then also fighting the most. So there was just a lot of shit I'd get angry about. A big one was stuff I felt was unjust — and being the youngest, I felt like I could get away with a lot of stuff, but I could also be overlooked at times, and so then I'm sitting there feeling like something's unjust, and I'm not being heard, or I don't know how to articulate what I'm feeling, you know — it wasn't always somebody else's fault, off the top of my mind. But all of those things just frustrated me to a point where I'm just like, explosion. My tactic being, well, if I'm not going to get justice, then everyone's gonna burn — the whole, like, I'll just fuck everything up, because then it's fair. Yeah, because if I'm the only one that's feeling like I'm getting shafted, then I'm gonna shaft everybody else too. And the only way I knew how was rage, scream and run around and punch stuff, throw things, whatever. So that was definitely a part of my emotional expression growing up. And I remember definitively, at one point, maybe in high school or college, reflecting and being like, huh, I stopped throwing temper tantrums, and thinking, I did it, I solved it, I solved anger, I don't do that anymore, I don't have this expression. And then in the last six months, I've realized — actually, I suppressed and shoved down anger, and I no longer know how to release it healthily. I don't know how to express my anger — like right now, I'm talking about the present moment. I'm afraid to release my anger because I'm afraid it will get met with the repercussions it was met with when I was throwing tantrums as a kid — which was my parents just doing their best to try to figure it out, you know, like getting put in time-out, or getting my video games taken away, or my toys thrown away, or whatever it is. And I feel like if I let my anger out now, that will happen.

So it's set up the consequence of, if you release anger, you lose a toy.

Yeah. And so to this day, there's a fear, and you don't want to release that anger, because you're going to lose something.

Right, yeah, it's gonna go bad for me.

It's gonna be too much for people, I'll get in trouble, something will be taken, I'll be set back. It's evolved a bit to the more mature thing of — but it's kind of irrational, it just feels like a feeling in me that letting out anger is off-limits, because that's what I basically learned as a way to continue to — myself, basically, while I'm growing up. So it's been fascinating, because I've realized, when my anger — when I am angry about something, if I don't let it out, which I'm used to not doing, it doesn't go away, it just gets stored somewhere, or shelved for later. And then if I do that enough, it'll get to a point where all of a sudden I have so much anger in me that I'm removing myself from society in a way where I'm hibernating in my room, or I'm going and driving — like, rage-driving an hour away and just screaming in my car — and it's just not sustainable, you know, that's not healthy living as a human being, as an adult, it's not responsible — I can't be relied on, ghosting people if I get too angry. So I started having those experiences earlier this year, and being able to start to see, this will fuck with my life if I don't learn how to handle this. And so really, right now, I'm just at the point of being like, okay, I'm aware now that — it's not that I don't know how to, it's more that I'm aware now that I'm uncomfortable releasing my anger, and I have these fears and ideas that it'll go bad. And so this is why — to bring us all the way back to the beginning, identity-wise and whatnot — it's like, my whole thing is, may I just have the courage to do it? Because I'm not gonna figure it out in here, it's just gonna be an experience I have to learn — how to release anger by naming it, hey, I'm angry, I don't know what to do with it here, here's what I'm angry about. That's kind of my approach. But having the courage to be like, I'm angry, and here's why — that's very scary to me, it feels very off-limits, it feels like I shouldn't do that, it would be harmful for me. So yeah, that's where I'm at now, is just try to recognize it and then go forward.

I mean, and that goes with every emotion, right?

Absolutely.

Allowing yourself to really experience it.

Yeah.

Well, Micah, thank you so, so much.

You're welcome, bro. Yeah.

I really appreciate the time.

Oh, it's been my pleasure. Yeah, I mean, I'm not barely having you, I'm using your house.

You're having me — podcast, baby, let's go.

That's true. Cool. Yeah, thanks for letting me be a guest.

It's a pleasure to chat. I'd love to do it again sometime.

I'm sure we will. Yeah. Give me a hug.

Let's go, dude. Love you, man.

Love you. Proud of you for this.

Thank you. It is a blessing, I really appreciate that.

Let's go. All right.