Episode #189 James McCauley: Grit, Gratitude & the Long Road Back

In this episode of the Modern Warrior Podcast, I sit down with James McAuley—a man whose story is one of grit, growth, and radical personal transformation. From the hard edges of addiction to spiritual awakening and self-discipline, James lays it all bare.

We talk about hitting rock bottom, finding hope in unexpected places, and what it really takes to rebuild your life from the ground up. James is real, raw, and deeply reflective—and this is one of the most powerful redemptive stories you’ll hear. Let’s get into it.


Episode Summary – Key Points 

• James came in with zero filters—and I loved that about him. From the first minute, he was open about the chaos, the addiction and the shame that marked his younger years.
• He spoke about how easy it was to get pulled into that life when there’s no direction, no belief, and no one holding you to a higher standard. By his teens, he was lost—on the streets, in trouble, and spiraling fast.
• What stood out was his humility and hunger for change. He didn’t romanticise his recovery. He was brutally honest about how hard it is to start again when you feel like you’ve already ruined everything.
• He found his way back through structure, faith, and fitness. He talked about how the small daily wins—getting up early, training, journaling—started to rebuild the trust he’d lost with himself.
• James was big on gratitude, and not in a cliché way. He’s genuinely thankful for what most people overlook: peace, presence, clarity, his son, his second chance.
• We explored how men often numb out rather than reach in. James believes the antidote is connection—to yourself, to a purpose, and to something higher than ego.
• His story is a reminder that recovery isn’t just possible—it’s powerful. And that discipline, honesty, and service are the real markers of success—not what’s in your bank account.
• I left this conversation feeling more grounded, more grateful, and more inspired to own every part of my journey—just like James is doing with his.

Creators and Guests

Host

Gavin Meenan

I help men build a stronger mind, a stronger body and a stronger life

What is The Modern Warrior Podcast?

Welcome to the Gavin Meenan Podcast; where I'll share the strategies and principles to help you become a more confident and resilient man in the 21st Century!

[MUSIC PLAYING]

James McCauley.

How's it going?

Very good, my man.

Delighted to have you in

the podcast here finally.

Good to be here.

For any of you who

don't know, myself and James

met a few months ago.

And some of you may have seen me doing

some breathwork on men

during my weekend retreats.

And all this is

happening thanks to James,

because I went to his

course a few months ago.

And he's given me a lot

of skills and strategies

to help me personally

uncover some of my underlying

difficulties, but also

to bring this to the men

and help them process their emotions.

So thank you for that

before I start, James.

That's good.

Look, I still watch your Instagram story.

We were just talking

about this before I started.

I watch your stories

with great satisfaction

when I see some pictures and stuff.

When you've got your hand--

I call it grabbing.

When you've got your hands on a man

and you're helping release anything,

look, we're evolving.

Slowly but surely, I had

two men in the training

there this weekend.

And Keith Dixon, who's a

coach and another guy, Aaron.

And there's 36 people.

There's largely women at these trainings.

It's increasing percentage there.

And it's so satisfying to see

another man willing just to--

and Aaron volunteers,

I'll get on Keith there.

And Keith is, I'll get on Aaron.

I'll get on Keith.

I need a hat or hammering.

And I was thinking, jeez, I

never thought I'd see that.

You told me like 10 years ago, you'd

be coaching men to grab other men

and to release a deep-seated trauma.

People are listening to

us going, what the fuck?

Where are these guys

going with this conversation?

Yeah, yeah.

Grabbing men, going deep, what the fuck?

Yeah, yeah.

But it's-- yeah, again,

it's amazing what I've

witnessed doing this breath work with men

and how they've been able

to release their own process

motions and just

unlocking that and to watch

the incredible fucking

relief that they feel afterwards.

Most of them not even

knowing that they've

been carrying this with

them for so many years

until you go deeper than--

can you give us a bit of an insight

in terms of what happens in that process

on a biological level?

Yeah, I can.

That's what I do, isn't it?

So largely, although there

are many names for the type

of breath work that we use-- we use

transformational breath work or

holotropic or rebirthing--

it's controlled hyperventilation.

Hyperventilation lowers the

level of CO2 in your blood,

changes the level of pH, and along

with all the hormones that

are released because you're

activating the

sympathetic nervous system,

you change the way the

blood flows to your brain.

So it stops flowing

to your frontal cortex.

It's called transient

hypofrontality, a fancy word.

And it goes to your limbic

system, not a fancy word.

That's where your memories and your

emotions are stored.

And so you shut down the monkey mind,

if you want to call it that, and you

activate your feelings.

And essentially, you

connect with your body.

So what happens with a lot of people,

and particularly men, but in our society,

is that we shut down our

connection with our body

and with our

emotions, and we repress them.

And our rational mind is

kind of there, overactive.

Protecting us from that.

Protecting us from knowing that.

And people when they're

doing the breath work,

it's like, I suddenly felt pain here.

It's not that you

suddenly felt the pain there.

That pain was there all along, but you

decided your nervous system

decided it doesn't serve me

to feel that anymore.

And so it's like a bomb of hormones

going off with this activation of the

limbic system, which

leads to some of these

releases and experiences, which

are wide ranging and

different for everybody.

And you could go through

this experience numerous times,

and every single experience would be

completely different,

because you've

deactivated an energy source where

there was pain stored.

Yeah.

I mean, first of all,

you're always a different person.

Every time you go back

in a different context.

But also, what I find happens-- and you

would have seen this

as well in the training session--

let's say you're

carrying around a lot of emotion

on a certain idea or memory

or in a part of your body,

and you release that, and

you cry, and you scream,

and it's gone.

And oftentimes, either

during the journey itself

or the second time someone has a journey,

they'll go back, and

they'll go back to that,

send a base pecking to

cry and roar and scream,

and they'll go back to the same scene,

and they'll see the

same scene, and then laugh.

That's one of the most

beautiful things, actually,

when someone cries, cries,

and then they start laughing,

because what held such

emotional charge for you?

You look at it and go, geez,

why was I so worried about that

thing?

That's just gone.

And so you're releasing

things, and it's always

a different trip every time,

and it's different depending

on the context of what you're feeling,

but releasing those charges

little by little or sometimes

a lot at the same time, it's very

satisfying as a facilitator

to be involved in that.

I mean, I was talking to--

I had this online course.

I was talking to my students yesterday,

and they were talking

about feeling the ego of being

the breath worker,

because you have this like--

Oh, yeah, I'm the breath worker.

Godlike concept.

Yeah, exactly.

And there is an ego element because

there's so much dopamine

being released, but I refrained a little

bit and say that it's

just satisfying to be

involved in something

that you can see the results of that

energetically unfolding

in front of you, and the person comes

back to you and says,

things like, I looked

at myself in the mirror,

and I saw me again.

I guess I get things thinking about it,

because I get that kind of thing a lot.

And facilitators, you'll

have had a conversation

with the guys you're

working with, things like that,

people reaching out and

saying, that was unbelievable.

Thank you very much.

And I don't think it's so much ego.

It's just a sense of

agency going, thank God,

I can actually do something useful,

because it's good to talk, as we know.

And therapy is good in all these things.

But having such a powerful

tool and being involved in it,

it's just really satisfying.

Do you sort of undermine

therapy or talk therapy

when you have this strategy that you feel

is a lot more powerful,

or does therapy you feel

play a part in the grand scheme

of things?

I have quite a few

therapists on my training courses,

on both the online

course and the weekend course.

And I asked them this as well.

And I think it's very

complementary overall,

because you have a

tool to release emotions,

but stuff comes up.

And that stuff can be

processed on a somatic level,

but also needs to be

processed surrebrity, right?

It needs to be talked out, understood.

And so I think

they're very complementary.

I think that you release--

you've talked to someone

who doesn't understand,

doesn't have their emotions so repressed.

You're going, I'm fine.

I'm grand.

Then they release this,

and you can't escape the fact

that, oh, there is stuff there, because I

was crying and roaring

my eyes out, and stuff comes up.

And so it opens up, I think, portals

to make the therapy session more

valuable, more useful,

and more insightful.

That's what I like to think of it.

Now, a lot of the

therapists who take my course

will say, geez, James, none of my clients

want to do therapy anymore.

They just want to do the breath work now.

But I think it's very important to have--

it's not that you're going to be

transformational in breath work

every day of the week, is it?

You come, and let's say,

with your weekend warrior,

you do it in a ritual setting.

It's symbolic.

It's done in a group.

It's an important thing.

And then that releases--

and then there's obviously

a need for an

integration process, for follow-up,

for community, for taking forward steps

towards a better version

of yourself.

And that's when therapy and

all the other modalities step in.

It's just a powerful thing

for opening up and making

the rest more useful, I would say.

Yeah, almost as though talk therapy

can bring you to a certain level where

you then hit a ceiling,

but you know there's something more in

there to be accessed.

And then the breath

work can open that up.

And then as it opens that up, it opens up

something more for you

then to process through therapy or talk.

Exactly.

Because it's also very

confusing, I'd imagine,

for a lot of people who

go through breath work,

and then something opens up

there that they weren't even

aware of.

And as maybe relieving or

as satisfying as it may feel,

especially at the beginning, there's also

a sense of confusion

in terms of, oh, fuck, I

haven't dealt with this properly.

This has been a pain in my life.

And this is deep.

And this is-- exactly.

You open up a portal into

themselves, and they go,

all right, that's massive.

That's a thing I can't ignore anymore.

Like, I will do that.

That's something I need to deal with.

And yeah, it can be bewildering.

And even-- it doesn't necessarily always

need to be a huge transformational breath

recession to do that.

Sometimes just having

somebody sit and bringing awareness

to their breath can open up a bunch of

stuff as they connect.

We call it inter-reception, right?

Just connecting with

your internal bodily signals

can also be an unsettling process,

because you realize, shit,

my breath is up in my chest.

My hands are shaking.

I've got a lot of tightness

around here, here, and here.

And so oftentimes, I

think sometimes even the more

intimate one-on-one, just

basic breath work coaching

can be almost as powerful as

these huge explosive things,

because you're working

with subtleties as well there.

And again, those need to be untangled.

I have this online course.

And we finished eight

weeks with the course.

And obviously, in this

course, the facilitator

is doing a lot of breath work, and they

have a practice line.

But then, feel like,

week seven, yesterday, I

sat down and did a breath work.

I felt a whole bunch of crap inside me

that I did have thought I was over.

And I was like,

there's nothing you can hide.

Yeah, you can't hide from this shit.

You can't hide from it.

And you're unraveling

bits, and your nervous system

is adjusting and

playing catch up with itself.

And so it's an ongoing process.

But you really are

confronting reality in that sense.

You're learning how to first sense

reality, and go, OK,

if you don't know what

your inner world is like,

then what's the point

in picking a direction

and moving towards it?

And so becoming

friends, I used to think--

I used to say this,

master your nervous system.

Now I think of it,

befriend your nervous system.

How does it go on fuck today?

Let's go for a walk there.

We'll do breath work tomorrow.

You know, you're going to

do fucking breath work today.

And so I think, in general--

and you'll have seen this as well--

there's, I think, in this

whole wellness industry as well,

and particularly in male world, there's

a softening in the way

of the language we're

using towards

ourselves, and towards others,

and towards this hyper efficiency.

I'm going to kill it.

I'm going to slay it.

I'm going to master it.

It's like, all right, maybe

just take it for a cup of tea.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Avoiding.

Well, seeking is avoiding.

So often, for men

especially, we're seeking--

seeking the next

challenge, seeking the next job,

seeking the next

paycheck, seeking the next woman,

seeking the next beer,

and avoiding ourselves.

But I feel the breath work

brings all that attention

towards ourselves.

And then you begin to

realize, oh, fuck, OK,

this is why I'm running away from myself.

Because it is an

opportunity, as I see it,

through these weekends.

And as you see it yourself, of course,

when you're going through

that breath work practice,

you are by yourself, with yourself, 100%.

And of course, that's made sound

overwhelming to some people,

or scary for some people.

But of course, you've got someone

there who's guiding you

through this process and looking

after you.

Yeah, I would say you are--

I think of it more like this step.

And this is why the group

breath works are so useful,

is that the facilitator and

the other people in that room

are in a sense, they're

almost donating their energy

and their nervous

systems to your experience.

So you're by yourself

voyaging inside yourself,

but you're propelled by the

power of all the other energies

around you.

And I think--

I often think as a

breath work facilitator,

and as a coach and things, you're

donating your nervous system

to somebody.

You're saying, here, you need to go deep.

I have some spare capacity right now.

And I'll give you some of this.

And that'll be a rocket fuel

to go deeper inside of yourself.

And that's why when you

finish the breath work session,

even as a facilitator, you're like,

they'll be wrecked,

but you'll be wrecked.

Yeah.

Give me that back.

Fucking exhausting.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It is exhausting.

So to sort of part that for

the moment in terms of what's

happening right now and

how all the good work you do

at the moment and the breath work,

how did you find this place?

Or how did this place find you?

How did the breath

work find you and become

a massive part of your life?

I think it's a classic one.

In many senses, it's a classic one.

I had a couple of advantages.

So 15 or 13.

13, you start drinking.

There you go.

13.

So I would say that I

was quite a bookworm,

hit 13, 14, started

drinking, drinking, drinking.

That took over.

You were a bookworm up until 13?

Yeah.

OK.

I was kind of reclusive just

reading a lot, reading a lot,

reading a lot.

Those were me enjoying

the social interactions.

Big into school, or were you--

Not school, per se.

I was usually intellectually driven.

Now when I look back on it, I think

that intellectual curiosity was almost

like an escape for me

to escape maybe some emotional stuff that

I wasn't able to deal

with or wasn't feeling belong, or

connected in some ways.

And I escaped into my

mind and into my imagination.

OK.

I'm not saying it.

Small talk is awful.

Yes.

Indeed.

I hear.

Yeah.

Just in the way most people are escaping

through their screens

today, you're escaping through books.

Yeah.

But there was a curiosity

underlying that as well.

But at the same time, yeah.

Then I found alcohol.

That drove everything until I was 22.

Everyone says I was drinking, but I

flipped off the bridge in N.

Escorti when I was 15, 16 maybe.

First my kidney.

Flipped off the bridge.

I was sitting on a

bridge eating a bag of chips.

Drunk.

Mine drunk on vodka.

And I actually fell off the bridge.

My friends dragged me home.

You fell off a bridge?

What are we talking about?

In N. Escorti bridge.

How do you say it?

In N. Escorti.

The old bridge in N. Escorti.

It's high.

Right.

It's high, but I landed on the bank.

And--

Fuck.

My friends dragged me home.

And I woke up in the morning.

This is one story of

many, but I like this one.

And I come out, and I look around,

and I see that there's literally like--

it was like a murder show or something.

I had-- there was a palm of

blood running up the walls.

I made myself.

And I go, how am I going to

clean that before mom and dad

wake up?

I go to the bathroom.

I'm peeing blood.

And I go, I'm not

getting away with this one.

And I go into my parents.

And they're like, oh, shit.

I think I fell off a

bridge in N. Escorti.

The boys dragged me home

like a kilometer and a half out

to the cloud house.

No one ever told me then to stop

drinking, by the way.

You know what I mean?

And I had multiple-- a factory room

just got a little bit of it.

I jumped out of a moving taxi.

I fell in.

All in your teen years?

All up until about 22.

It was wild.

Was this an addiction to alcohol,

if you look back at it?

Yeah, I would say.

I mean, it's more than just--

it's similar to like--

once you start to cancel out.

But I wanted to do it.

I wanted to drive.

And probably, it was bored out of my mind

of the normal types of

conversation you have.

But yeah, running my family now.

Interesting.

Yeah, yeah.

That was quite similar to my own.

Alcohol journey.

Once I stop, I don't

give a fuck what happens.

I'm just going to drink

until whatever the fuck.

Till 8 AM and you all by yourself

wander around some random city in Asia.

Yeah. Oh, fuck yeah, yeah.

In Asia, yeah.

How did I get to Asia?

[LAUGHTER]

And so then one day, I was 22.

And I was living in Taipei.

My brothers all live

in Taiwan for reasons

that go down this couple of days.

So I moved to Taiwan for

a year, drank like crazy.

I have two older brothers.

And we're all living in

Taiwan, teaching kindergarten.

So we're going to have to run

away off of a mission route.

That's what you did after school?

After school, yeah.

And when I finished, I went off.

Because you had a desire to travel?

Oh, yeah.

Can we all stay again?

Yeah, well, I dropped out

of university when I was 18.

Because I was studying

engineer and I ended up

moving to Boston for somewhere.

I was always traveling.

So doing demolition and stuff.

Loads of stories there of me

vomiting on walls and things.

Lovely.

[LAUGHTER]

Anyway, I was teaching English in--

in a school in Taipei,

which is capital of Taiwan.

And I went out drinking.

I spent the whole day drinking and went

into work the next day

still from the night

before, wearing the same clothes.

Taught six hours of private glasses.

And then the very

last glass, I fell asleep

in front of this tiny little old

Taiwanese lady, you know?

Like just-- and it was a glass office.

So everyone could see that.

I was just falling asleep.

And when I woke up from that,

I went, OK, I think this is--

this is the thing.

And they said, themselves,

I'll take 30 days off drinking.

Just--

30 days.

Just an idea.

And there was a

website called 30sleeps.com.

Thank you very much,

30sleeps, if you're still there.

Because that was--

that was the beginning.

Took that off.

And I said, right.

All I have to do for the

next 30 days is not drink.

And you know the way

you're old when you're drinking.

You're always trying to fix,

I want to-- you want to be--

better friend.

You want to be fitter.

You want to save money.

You want to do all that thing.

But doesn't matter if

fuck, because you're drinking.

So all the shit goes out the window.

And after 30 days, I

realized all the other elements

of my life have just

improved so dramatically.

I said, all right,

I'll do another 30 days.

And I was out of my context as well.

I was out of the Irish

context that says you have to drink.

I'm just some random white guy in Asia.

So I was just reinventing myself.

And so-- and then I went into--

I was going to this gym every day.

And in Taipei, I remember really well.

And one day I was walking

in, I looked into the gym,

and I just saw a classically just

strangely jacked Asian men

and some whiteys around.

I said, you don't want to go in here.

But I know I have to

go to get my dopamine.

And then I heard this like,

man, this floaty soft music.

And I wandered over.

I looked in the mirror.

And sometimes they're not

the greatest motivations.

But I looked in the

mirror, and there was about 25

beautiful Asian women all

stretching around in the room.

And I went, fuck it.

And I just opened the door.

What's going on in here?

And the lady came over.

And she said, this is yoga.

And I was like, can I try?

She said, yeah.

She said, no, we're just

going to do really simple.

Touch your toes.

And so I went to touch my toes.

And I stopped at this kind of angle.

And she went, no, no.

And she came around to my back.

And she put her hands on my back.

And she went, I could

hear a wobble about something

in Chinese.

And I was like, what's

wrong with your back?

And I was like, I've been

playing rugby for years.

I couldn't bet.

And I was probably stressed

out of my mind and all sorts.

Maybe that time you

fucking fell off the bridge.

I get a hold of the back.

It was like that.

And so I spent kind of five months

then in this class, I

got three times a week,

with all these girls.

I was so inflexible that

they would build little castles

and contraptions.

All the blocks there and the

blankets and pulley systems.

So everyone else would be

folded over in a pancake.

And I'd be there like this.

I was not going to dare

and even go, good boy.

And I was like, they're pumped.

And they--

Being mothered.

Being mothered.

But the breathing in that--

she was really big on that.

You're like, slow down your breathing.

Slow down your breathing.

And I kind of thought that

was-- I just looked at it.

Holy fuck.

I feel.

I feel.

I was in my body.

I was stuck at that for years.

The other thing that happened was when

I was in Taiwan that first year, I

had an operation on my vocal cords

because I had a vocal polyp.

You heard those?

No.

Basically, I was singing in a rock band,

teaching kindergarten, smoking

cigarettes, drinking beer,

and I'm a loud fucker anyway.

And so I developed a polyp.

We were singing-- we were

recording an album in Taiwan.

My brother and his band were in the

idiots, it was called.

The Idiots.

The Idiots.

Your band was called The Idiots.

Yeah.

We used to tour--

I was fun.

That was the first of the while.

But we used to tour around

the little shows and stuff.

They were all right.

But I wasn't all right.

Everyone else was decent musicians.

I was writing and singing.

I was good.

And they cut off the vocal polyp when

I was in Taipei at the same time as I was

doing this yoga course.

They cut that off, and then I couldn't

speak for three weeks.

So I had to stop working.

I was working third or four

months into the yoga thing.

So I couldn't talk for three weeks.

And they also gave me breath

rehabilitation classes

for eight weeks because the

Taiwanese medical system is

amazing.

And so they taught me how to breathe

and how to speak and how

to sing using my diaphragm.

And so this with the yoga was like--

All just fun to play.

All just fun, I guess.

After everything being like this forever,

it was like, OK, it's difficult.

Not easy now.

It's not easy going in and

breathing and doing stretching

and being the useless one.

But it's a lot easier

than what I have been doing.

Parking your ego.

And also, again, being

free of all these things.

Because this is 19 years ago.

This has been 18 years ago.

And so there was no

Irishman doing yoga 18 years ago.

No chance in Ireland at doing that.

But there it was, free from

these kind of cultural identities

and these different things.

But I was still struggling because you

rely on your identity.

You rely on how do you get your release?

How do you talk to people?

I didn't know how to do anything.

I didn't know how to

talk to anyone anymore.

Because you didn't have alcohol to--

You didn't have alcohol

in my whole social system.

I've been bent on that forever.

So it was largely just

reclusive going to yoga.

And then one day I was sitting in a cafe

and the guy had a book.

And they said, NLP on it.

And I said, what's that?

I said, it's a way of

reframing your mindset.

And I went, would it work for alcohol?

And he went, yeah, probably.

Let's give it a go.

Went over to his place.

And he did something

called future sourcing.

And future sourcing is where you

visualize two future versions

of yourself.

One version I visualized

of the drinking version.

And one version was made

the non-drinking version.

And you look back over

your life from 60 years.

You look down at your body and you

viscerally feel what it's like to be

drinking James at 65.

No money, shitty relationships, fat.

No realities.

Fat as fuck if you're still alive,

which I doubt I would have.

And my sister always

says, it's mercury life.

And then the second one is

James, non-drinking James,

fit as fuck, sticks with the yoga,

probably had some hard moments as well,

had to go through it,

whatever, looks back.

Maybe he has a family, who knows?

And he said, now take that

information back from you.

That was the end of drinking.

And that shifted everything for me.

Because it gave me a meaning.

It gave me something to move towards.

It gave me a visceral

feeling, a connection with it.

And it reminded me of the

power of the imagination.

So that was kind of--

from then on, I just went

on exploring, exploring,

exploring all that.

NLP, hypnosis, the

physical stuff, all that stuff.

What about the social game?

Social game, to be honest?

Not great.

In the sense of, as a drinker, you

used to have lots of friends

and have a big group of people

around you.

And so it took me a

long time to just accept

that you're always going to have a

smaller group of friends

if you're not using the

substances to get you there.

And so when I say not great, I mean,

it's just there's a part of me that says,

I miss the days when I could

just be in a big group of people

and party in a way.

Just bounce off each other.

But then I have these

weekends of training,

and they're way more

mental than ending the week.

You know what I mean?

So that's shifted for me.

And I think about this a lot.

So you can think about

things like porn and social media

and violent movies or

these different things.

They're kind of like bams that you

put over something that

needs to be addressed.

And you use porn to go, I don't need

a meaningful sexual relationship.

You use social media, I

don't need friendships.

And so you just get enough to keep you--

Text that box.

Kick that box, and you

just keep going like that.

And you think, I'll

just keep going like that.

But you don't keep going like that.

You go like this.

Yeah, dipping.

Dipping.

And so whereas if you

don't put those things on,

there's no plaster, there's

no bandaid, there's no cam,

you can't ignore that that is something

you have to address.

You don't have social

media, and you're sitting alone

in your room.

You're sitting alone in your room,

and you're a lonely person.

And so maybe you wouldn't

go out and deal with that.

And so even on the social level,

I suppose the work that I do

now fulfills such a huge part

of having-- it's meaningful,

it's real, it's raw as fuck.

And I was thinking about

even talking to my online group

there, you know?

I finished the first

online cohort yesterday,

and I started another one today.

I love those calls.

Because people-- I

set the tone very clear.

Hey, guys, I don't want any fucking--

oh, my god, here, that'll--

it's going to be an ego thing.

Let's not share it.

Let's be as honest as

possible and be open about it.

No small talk about it.

No small-- you can have it.

It's hard to make a joke, but like--

And so I have a guy, Fergus,

who's on the online program.

Actually, I was down at Ferry character,

and he came into Ferry character hotel

and then scored a complete--

I mean, it's just not the day before.

And he's like, Jesus, James,

sometimes when I run these--

not me, he said to everybody in the

group, there was 12 of us,

and he said, I can feel my ego.

I feel like it's not.

It's great that people share that,

though, just to admit it,

and go, OK, now, guys--

Own it.

That's a real thing.

That's a real thing we

have to do, but that happens.

And so those are real--

that's real.

I hope that people are going, guys,

I look forward to those calls.

Because they're real calls, and people

who are pushing their

boundaries were like--

they did my first transformational,

but I got scared, or I got nervous,

so I wondered what she was thinking.

They're the things that

I always wanted people

to be talking about when I was a kid.

I was like, what the fuck

are we talking about here?

It's in all sense.

Give me more fucking alcohol.

Give me some more alcohol.

Exactly.

Or give you some more alcohol.

Maybe it'll say something real.

So I can not mess up from

this boring conversation.

Yeah.

And so I think you never know how long

that timeline is going

to be, because I don't--

I have friends.

I have meaningful relationships, but also

because of the lifestyle

I've had.

They're scattered around the world.

I've got one in Austria.

I go on New Zealand.

I've got one over here, one over there.

So it's hard for me

to find that community.

But then when I look around, I look at

the weekends I'm having,

I'm doing a training with that.

That is my community.

And I wasn't big--

community was never a word

I thought I'd be preaching.

I was more the loner in the hills,

but now I see it as like when you find

some meaningful work

and you share it with

people, that's community.

Yeah, it is a big

transition from the kid who

spent a lot of time on

his own reading books,

being this guy in a room full of people.

In Ireland as well, those are the things.

A few people say, one

thing doing this work,

you're often in Spain or you're out in

Beijing or any space.

It's very different to bring it home

and to be there with your kin, as it

were, and sharing it.

And to be real and raw

and honest in this country.

Real and raw and honest, yeah.

Yeah, it's been-- honestly, yeah.

It's been really--

You find it more challenging

in this country, obviously.

I thought I would.

I thought I would.

But you get more pushback.

You get more criticism or

death stares thrown toward you.

Do you know--

This is an interesting one for me.

Because again, you are

very outgoing person.

You do have a high level of energy.

In this sense, so this

is slightly different.

Yeah.

I remember a few years ago, I came home.

And I used to dress like all sorts.

I remember I came home a few years ago

and I was walking down my block.

And I was doing--

I dance when I'm walking sometimes.

I do a whole lot of weird stuff.

But I was dancing.

This is my music.

And I heard teenage voices on a bike.

And the freeze instinct kicked in.

You know, I said, oh, fucking teenagers.

And I went, no.

So those types of things are still there.

And they still flash through me.

Those types of things when

I'm out and about in Ireland.

But I've kind of outgrown

it lately at this point.

It's a massive thing, man.

Because the work they

do is real, you know?

Because there's no--

if I was just some

fella, if I want just some--

my work was just about

making myself look cool and going,

yeah, yeah, yeah.

Then I wouldn't be all right with myself.

Yeah, of course.

But because I'm there in

the trenches, in a sense,

when there's real people going, I'm

going, no, this is real.

This is stuff.

There's definitely stuff here.

No doubt about it.

And the thing I find about

Irish people, a couple of things.

But we're great.

Once the general

consensus shifts that something

needs to shift, then it moves.

You think about abortion or gay marriage

or any of these kind

of things, no, no, no, no, no.

51% of people believe, yeah.

Then they've got a grandeur.

Same with emotional release

or the need to talk therapy.

When I started doing this a couple of

years ago in Ireland,

I thought, geez, they're

not going to go for this.

I was way wrong about that.

They're loving it.

They just need-- they and we.

You need permission.

You need a platform.

You need a structure.

And you say, here,

this is what we're doing.

36 people have trained

this weekend in my mind.

And some people have never touched

another body before,

other than their significant other.

I've had a few people saying that to me.

But you give them two.

Within two hours, you have someone

sitting on someone's

chest banging on their head,

but you're holding them as they cry.

And they're all delighted

that they got the opportunity.

And so I actually think Ireland is still

such a strange place,

because we use stoicism and humor.

Those are our two

weapons, or two defense.

I'll be grand.

Protective mechanisms.

Well, and they're actually still great.

They're great mechanisms.

If you can give

access to some deeper stuff

and some sharing there,

people will go for it,

because they're aware we're not done.

At a certain point, you go,

look, this needs to be done.

You feel the shift

then, so in terms of people

dissolving the shame to

go deeper within the pain?

Yeah, I think so.

And I think I see kind of these acts--

but my similar act, and

probably an act that you've been on

as well, that you have the

sensitivity and the shame,

then you find some sort

of substance or some sort

of addiction that covers that up.

Then you might shift out of that.

In the first place, you

started with your body,

and you start working out, and you

started eating well.

And you say, OK, I'm getting better.

This makes sense.

And you get to a certain point with it.

Then there are two potentials.

One, you just double down on your body,

and you become obsessed with it.

It becomes your identity.

It becomes your identity, and it turns

into a version of the other thing.

Because you received so

much validation and praise

and respect.

And because it got you so

far, and then you keep pushing

and trying to do another

push-up or another pull-up

and trying to get another 1% on.

But the marginal value, and

it's like the additional value

you get after a certain

point from getting fitter

isn't there.

In fact, it turns around

and bites you in the ass

because you become this

obsessive motherfucker

that no one's spent time

with because you're painful.

And I've been that guy

as well, for a while.

And then I think maybe there's a shift,

like an intellectual

shift, where you start exploring

some different things.

And then I think ultimately,

you're led to this, all right.

There's an emotional world in there that

has to be dealt with.

There's a community

element of that as well

that has to be dealt with.

I need that sense of connection,

and I need to understand myself, and I

want to connect with

myself and with other people.

But it's not as easy to go and do that.

It's not like I can look up

a YouTube video and it says,

here's how you deal with your emotions.

You're not going anywhere with that.

That's why this sense of

community is so important.

You feel safe.

And you have to feel safe.

And people have to be present.

And there's a lot of

what I teach in the courses

about how to make people feel safe,

how to show you're present.

And then to kind of push

people or to guide them

into feeling it, I call

it courageous curiosity.

Just be curious and fuck with that.

I have moments here

in Ireland, by the way,

that I can avoid all sorts of shit

when I'm traveling around

and running my workshops.

And then I come back to

Ireland and I go, oh, there it is.

He's over there.

The voice or little fragment

or a memory from me, oh, yeah.

Comes back.

Comes back.

But I think Irish people are great once

they grasp something

that this is important.

And they're great fun,

like great community,

like really just good

people to be around.

We're definitely missing that.

Yeah. Yeah, we've lost it.

But it's there still.

It's in our nature.

You know, I've been

running these weekend trains

and they've been amazing.

And I'm blown away.

And there's no bullshit here.

I'm blown away what

fucking good people they are

and how decent they are and

how open to stuff they are

and how much they're ready for it.

And so it's been, for me, it's just huge.

I think I'm on a motile level.

I was talking about this yesterday.

I was driving back.

I was like, oh my God, I actually have.

I have a community that

is based on the values

that I find important and interesting.

And we have really

meaningful conversations.

There was a girl there on the last call.

We had the call.

I was there visiting

my sister in Kilkenny.

We had the last call

of the online program.

And it was really nice, you know.

And I drove back down from Kilkenny

and one of the girls just

sent me a message saying,

"Hey, you know, after that training,

"I was driving home and I

was full of bliss and love out.

"You know, I was

feeling what a great life.

"And then I saw my

neighbor and I knew his dad

"or his family member

had passed recently,

"you know, like two days ago.

"So I pulled over and I

just gave him a big hug

"and I send him all, I get insurance now,

"I send him all the energy I

collected from the weekend.

"And he said, you know, you must have

come out of the heavens

"to give me the hug

because I can feel all this,

"I can feel such love in

that hug, he said, you know."

I started crying.

Wow.

I'd drink better.

I drive me man's car down from Kilkenny

to go home to me folks, you know.

Start crying and I go like, and you know,

I went, "Brilliant."

Trust the power of it.

Brilliant, I'm

crying, thank fuck for that.

Yeah.

You know, like, because

how often you cry, you know?

Yeah, of course.

Like, something comes like that.

And so look, I could say so many things,

but like Ireland is fucking

great, ready for this shit.

And you know, you don't

find yourself, you know,

take these men away for these weekends.

But I said, "Thank you very much, please,

"I need some of that."

That's an amazing

shift culturally as well,

that that's-

For men especially.

For men, yeah, for men.

How do you compare it then in terms of,

I mean, you do a lot of

traveling around the world,

in terms of where we're at

as a culture, as a society,

as a society that's willing to heal,

that's willing to open up

compared to some of these other

places that you've visited?

Look, I remember when I

first ran my first session,

because I avoided

Ireland with this stuff,

do you know what I mean?

I was like, "Well, I don't

know if I'm gonna do this now."

Because also for me,

it's touching on stuff.

And I ran my first session down in the

Ferry Carrick Hotel.

Hi, Lina, she's amazing.

She runs the center down there.

And I was like, "All right, let's do it."

We sat in a group and we've been kind of

14, 15 people there.

And one of the things you

do, top tip for facilitators,

at the start of a session,

you want to set the tone.

I want to set the tone, A,

that this is a safe place,

and B, I don't want any

bullshit, just give me,

we're all, we all got that shit.

And I know probably,

and you know as well,

because people who come to your trains,

they'll probably tell

you, "Hey, by the way,

this thing has happened for me.

Is it okay if we come to the train?"

And so like, I get the

full download of what,

and everybody's going through shit.

Everybody's got something going on.

And so what you do is you pick one person

who you think looks

like they'd be honest,

and set the tone and

say, "All right guys,

now I'm just going to go around.

And I'm going to ask you, is there

anything in your life

that you'd really like to just let go of?

If you had a magic

wand, what would you change?

Or something you want to

just share with the group?

This is safe.

You don't have to, it

doesn't have to be a monologue,

can just be a couple of sentences,

and we're all here, it's all good."

And there's an art in

picking that person.

And the dark shit gets it,

incest to sue's little

thoughts to whatever.

But when you get the right person,

who's not a complete lula,

you know, who's like

really credible enough.

And they say, "Yeah, I

was molested by my uncle

when I was a kid and

it's always haunted."

That person is here.

The next person who was

probably thinking about saying,

"I get tired on the weekends."

(all laughing) Oh, she goes, "I got crippling anxiety."

(all laughing)

Doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo.

You don't always get it right.

So when you do it, it's like boom, boom,

when everyone's sitting there on,

great, all right.

So now we're all gonna let it go guys,

because we can see there's

some shit in here and ago.

Yeah, and you don't have to let it go,

you've got to be on, but you

know, if you want to, go for it.

Here's an opportunity.

Here's an opportunity.

And that was, at that moment,

when that cracked open and

went boom, boom, boom, boom,

boom, I went, "I got Ireland wrong.

I got it wrong."

So it's ready for that, you know?

And for the trainings, okay, so these

trains are like crazy.

And people come to it and

they're like, "I want this."

So I think we're much more,

or at least there's a

segment of society there.

I'm not saying it's everybody,

it's probably not

representative of everybody,

but there's clearly significant

proportion of people

who are ready for that.

So yeah.

What's your relationship

with alcoholic now then?

Just don't think about it.

Just think, "Fuck, I don't."

It doesn't, it doesn't occur to me.

Do you see it as a problem in society

or do you see it as something

that's feeding a problem in society?

Overall, oh God, it's hard to,

I'd say, yeah, it is a problem.

Just in terms of all the drugs,

it's the one that takes the

toll the most on your body,

for that.

It's probably the one that leads to

lowering of inhibitions,

but doesn't give you any

other benefits or insights really,

you know?

And it starts the same

thing as alcohol means

you can lower your

inhibitions and go, "Oh, I'm wild."

And then you don't feel the need

to express yourself during your week.

Say going to festivals,

people are just going,

"No problem, I love fucking festivals."

But if you do, if your festival week

is the time when you go wild and you

express your true self

and you spend the rest of

the 51 weeks of the year

not doing that because you have this

and you have your one month,

also older boys now,

the boys go once a month,

you know, and they get hammered.

And it's just the toll

it has physically as well.

I don't look at a boy like,

"Look, I've been blessed now in 40

"and I've been drinking

for God knows how long."

And so physically I'm in

great shape just from that alone.

They own all the other stuff.

Whereas you compare

it to anyone else at 40

who hasn't got the alcohol under control.

It's tough.

You can certainly see

the difference there.

You can see it in them.

So yeah, overall, and I love,

of course they still have these

associations of like,

because I was wild and I love that.

No one ever wanted me to stop drinking.

No one ever wanted me

because of a crack crack.

You know, like drinking, you know,

that morning drinking and

day drinking, we call all that.

There was a wildness to it.

But the wildness I'm

getting now out of those weekends

is incomparable to what it would be,

drinking some wines on a Sunday

afternoon, you know?

And I think that's the,

it's a short term trade off.

That, you know, you trade

off the easy highs and the,

Yeah.

But it forces you to

build something meaningful.

I hear, yeah.

What do you think about it?

I believe it's based on the

intention behind the usage.

So, I mean, if you're depressed,

stressed out, pissed off at life,

and you use drinking as

a way to express that,

or project that, or release that,

then, you know, that's an

unhealthy use of the substance.

For others, it could

potentially compliment

the happiness or joy or the peace

that you've already

cultivated in your life.

So it's interesting

because I know people who,

are in both of those avenues.

So there's people

there who use it to release

on process emotions at the weekend.

And all of a sudden

they're picking fights

with random strangers on the street.

And they're ultimately

fighting with their fathers,

not fighting with some stranger,

or they're fighting with themselves

because of something

they've done in the past.

It's an expression of anger,

where it's permissionable to do so.

But then there's others

then who I see are quite,

peaceful and happy and

content in their life,

and use alcohol as a way

to sort of compliment this.

So it's interesting now, in

the grand scheme of things,

I haven't drank in over three years.

I have no interest in

going back to it because to me,

alcohol is an absolute energy drainer.

And I'm very protective over my energy

in terms of how I use

it, how I express it,

in terms of my environment,

and the people I surround myself with,

and staying away from

potential energy vampires,

or not that there's

anything wrong with anyone,

but when, like yourself, when

we do have a higher purpose,

we do have others who are depending on us

to show up for us every single day.

And if I'm showing up

for my lack of energy

because I've had 15 beers the weekend,

then I'm not serving me and

therefore not serving you.

And I'm being a

disservice to the people who are,

depending on me, to help them out.

So it's a squandering of that purpose

that I feel is now an

important part of my life,

or a huge part of my life.

So that's the main reason I cut it out.

Now, of course, there's the

times when you reflect back

and you remember the

good times and the crack

and the parties and, like

yourself, I was the party animal.

I'd be the guy standing

on top of the bar counter

with the top off and

everyone else fucking shouting

and screaming up at me or spinning around

the fucking dance pool or whatever.

But this was also something in me

that I wanted to make others happy.

I wanted other people to feel good.

And my way to help them feel good

was to be this party

animal who was fun, loving,

and yeah, just fucking

great crack to be around.

So I've taken that part and I say, okay,

I can still be this individual

who helps others feel better,

but I'm gonna do this in a healthier way

and a more meaningful

way and a deeper way.

And this is a huge part of

why I do the work I do today.

But it's, of course, it's much more depth

and that is not just a one night thing.

Yeah, I think very interesting

that we have a

similar background with that

because the people pleasing

thing is very interesting.

And so for me, quitting alcohol,

and I remember this

progression very viscerally

because it's something

that you feel distinctly.

So you quit drinking

and someone says to you,

do you want a drink?

And you go, no, I'm

sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry.

I'm so sorry, but if I drink, I'll die.

And you go, come on, have a drink.

No, look, listen, I'll die.

And then after a couple

of months go by and you go,

no, no, you're sorry, don't want a drink.

And you progress over time, you rest.

I'm telling people that I'll die

and they give such a little fuck about it

that they'd actually

happily have me kill myself

for their need to have whatever

confirmation they need.

And that process of

time is so interesting

because no one ever

offers me a drink anymore.

Not because I'm a wanker possibly,

but also just because you carry yourself

which is such security

that they look at you.

But when you show the weakness and the

need to please them,

that's when people push.

Yeah, of course.

And so as you get

more confident over time,

that disappears and you

forget that was everything.

But my lesson was that.

The biggest lesson I learned

and it's still a lesson I work on

is that there's an element of that in me.

I want to please people.

And that boundary setting that comes in,

not pleasing people and

learning to take satisfaction

in setting boundaries and

looking at someone going, no.

Yeah.

You know, and just from a

place of just stability,

not anger, nothing

else, no, sorry, sorry.

Yeah, the people-pleasing

aspect is very interesting

because that's a lack of

acceptance we have for ourselves.

And then we're looking for this

acceptance from others

so we can feel

accepted and loved in here.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, great.

But it's still, I still

believe it's worth flipping that

and realizing there's still that,

you don't want to

call it people-pleasing,

but there's still a level

of satisfaction you gain

from helping others feel better,

but not to compromise your

own values and your own health

in order to do so, true alcohol.

So I see it as I have taken so much value

from my hardships and difficulties

and problems in the past,

that this level of

value is not for me to keep.

You know, it's like me

keeping a million Euro to myself

and never giving any of it to

charity or helping others out.

It's like, I don't want to,

I don't want to fucking do all this.

This is not for me to

keep, I want to give it away.

And then as you give

it away, as you know,

as you give it away, it's

reciprocated back in terms

of the love and the

amazing transformations

that you witnessed through

the great work you're doing.

So, and also being careful that,

that doesn't become another dependency

or doesn't become

another addiction where you're,

again, your whole

identity is tied up in giving,

giving, giving, giving, giving.

And if I can give, give,

give, I will take, take, take.

It's like, no, no, no,

the realization is I have it

and it's my purpose to give it back.

So I don't need anything from you.

I don't need anything from my client.

I don't need anything from anybody else.

I have it.

I don't want to, I

truly want to give you this.

I want you to receive this because I've,

it's been given to me

through my lessons or true God

or whatever you believe in, through God,

and it's mine now to give back to you.

So that's the way I live my life.

And of course there's

challenges, there's pushbacks,

there's temptations to go elsewhere.

There's all of that still comes up.

But when you have this higher purpose

and you're allowing

yourself this higher purpose,

you're less likely to

indulge in these pleasures

because you can understand

that these pleasures actually

take you away from that purpose

and dissolve your

energy and time to continue

on this journey.

So much to say with that.

Yeah, yeah.

I go over two things

that stick in my mind.

One, I'm going to come back

to the higher purpose thing

in a second.

Valuing yourself and

understanding your inherent value

and the experiences and all

the shit that you've been through

and all these things,

how these have accumulated

to make you a unique person in many ways

that is uniquely served and

suited to serving something.

I remember when I was in,

I was in Thailand

during COVID, look at me.

And I was, whatever I was doing,

but I was in, I was in Chiang Mai.

Keep it PG.

Let's keep it PG.

(laughing) You also talked a bit about the LSD.

And this girl came

over from Coppang Island

and she said, "James, I have this LSD

and everybody who takes this LSD

has a very interesting experience."

I was like, "I know LSD,

I know it's no problem."

I said, "I'll go around and take someone

and go around the lake."

I took the LSD and walked around the lake

and I was walking around for ages,

this lake in Chiang Mai

just in the university there.

And I just walked around, walked around

and then somehow I

felt like inside myself.

And this isn't like an ego thing.

This is like, I am a prince in the sense

of all these

experiences and all these things

and energies and things

that I've been through

have created this unique store of value.

And I should treat myself

like a prince, whatever,

and treat others as if I were a prince.

And because I felt for the first time,

and I think I've always

not been able to recognize

your own values, not being worthy.

And I use this prince, you

can take it out of context

every on, but there's just

a way of expressing that.

A man of value.

A man of value, but then in that state,

that's what it came to me.

And do I treat myself like prince?

I do not.

And do I treat other

people as if I were a prince?

I do not.

And I think bringing

people back to that feeling

of their inner value, that's one thing

is to recognize your darkness and to

release those things.

But, and we do, with the timeline therapy

and these different

things, it's literally that.

It's like, you have value

and you are the one of us

to recognize your value,

not the people outside of you.

And that's a big part of the work.

One is ripping down the

walls and then build them back up

and saying, "Hey, there's a

lot of good shit in here."

And you can take that.

And the second thing

you're talking about purpose,

remember in the training we did, the

stills logical levels,

you know, the questions

that you ask your partner

where you go from

environment to behavior,

to skills, to values, and

on top of that is purpose.

What are you here for?

Because once you've

helped somebody understand

what they're here for,

define it, to make that,

I'm here for this, I mean,

that can change over time.

But if you can give

somebody that sense of purpose,

and I think that's a lot

of your work, I'm sure,

is based around that idea, right?

That the other stuff kind of, you know,

I just think this is for

you very clear that, you know,

I have this purpose, I

want to help men, you know,

discover their true selves,

whatever your version of that is.

Then all the other

decisions that you make

are based on whether that's moving

toward your mountain or not.

And then the other things make sense.

If you don't have a mountain,

so why not fucking drink your face off?

What does it matter?

You wake up in the morning,

you're not an else plant anyway.

It's all meaningless crap anyway.

And that is also what shifted for me.

And very, you know, recently,

even in the last couple of

years, like, all right, look,

I actually have value

and I have a mechanism

and a way of giving that value to people.

So then of course I'm not

gonna fucking have 20 points.

Sabotage that. Sabotage that.

No, you will sabotage it in some ways,

because self-sabotage--

We are human beings after all.

We are human beings.

And also in terms of like

the ceilings that you push,

you know, your ceiling is always here.

I mean, you've built a lovely ceiling,

and you go, this is my ceiling.

This is where I go.

That's a form of

self-sabotage in many ways, you know,

because you don't allow

yourself to think bigger,

to think broader, to think

of more impact as you do.

And that's also the Irishman.

You know the story, I love this story,

where I explain Irish people.

Someone says, what are Irish people like?

You know how a great

crack, da, da, da, da.

And I said, I'll tell you a story.

An American looks at a man on a hill

with a beautiful wife

and a beautiful car,

and he says, I wanna be that man.

An Irishman looks at the

same man on the same hill

with a beautiful wife

and a beautiful car,

and he says, I wanna get that man.

And that's changing.

But that explains for me, a lot of our

childhood in school.

Who do you think, Car?

Michael Jackson.

Yeah, I get that.

You know, that stuff is still there,

but that's shifting as well.

And watching men, men

being open and vulnerable

and saying, well done and meaning it.

That we're not on

competition with each other at the bar.

Yeah, having men

supporting men as well, it's crazy.

Cause you remember

all the stuff in school,

I remember, you were up

in school in the North,

cause you know, different accent.

I was telling you, oh yeah.

Oh yeah, different accent,

but still people saying you're faggot.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You think you're great, don't you?

Of course.

We all wear blue jeans and our blue cream

and our blue shirts, whatever, I'm sure.

The blue cream back in your day as well.

Yeah, I work, I work, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Trying to fit in, man.

Trying to fit in.

Yeah, yeah.

Fuck, man, we could go

down a rabbit hole there.

Yeah.

We all, we all just sitting

here looking into the past,

thinking about it, just came up on the,

in the training where the

girl, they were talking about,

there's a thing I say in a lot of trains,

it's like, in order to change a man,

you need to change the

audience he sees himself playing to.

And understanding that

composite of who those people are,

who you live in your life for, you know?

And we're all living it

for our parents to a degree,

by default, our family and our cultures.

And a half, a lot of

us are living it still

for those school kids

who are bullying us,

are bullying everybody,

not holding each other

and check on you as

plastic and a baguette.

You're like, all right,

just where my blue cream?

You know, I remember I was dating a girl,

I was dating a girl

when I was 17, you know?

Maybe 18, I was first of all my friends,

probably to get laid, I'm not sure.

I'm pretty sure I was

either first or second.

And my name's gone out to meet this girl.

The boys would make me feel like I was,

oh, you're going off, going

off to get a ride, are you?

(laughs) And you're like, I'm a loser.

(laughs) You got me.

It's just indicative of that.

Whether you're at home wanking it,

or the tissues, yeah.

Yeah, but you weren't

enjoying whatever you were getting

either, you were a prat as well.

But that's there.

And then so when you're helping,

and I have many stories about that,

when you do this kind

of introspective work

and you realize who your audience is

and how it's your

parents and how it's not,

how it's cool to put

together as you think,

but helping people first recognize

who that audience is,

you're basically playing

to the 13 year old boys

in the playground.

Now--

Still trying to prove something to them.

Prove something to them.

And those people are, those boys are now,

and whatever they are,

whereas who do you want to be playing to?

First of all, you

have to play to yourself

to a certain degree,

or to people who you admire,

or your peer group,

and to create a new

peer group whose opinion

you actually admire too, and hold them.

So I often think of a

friend called Kieran,

and I used to just literally think,

"Oh, what can Kieran do right now?"

(all laughing) One of those guys.

One of those guys, what

would he do right now?

What would he think if

he saw me doing this?

Ah, yeah.

Anyone like that?

Interesting.

But I respect him, you know?

Yeah, yeah.

At least give me a cause, a pause.

And so what your work I feel,

you're doing, you're creating these,

take these men away on this weekend,

and you give them a new standard

to see themselves from.

It's like, "Play the disc out of boys."

Or, you know, they're strong,

and they're moving towards something.

Maybe they're not that strong yet.

Maybe their integrity

isn't quite there yet,

but they're on the path.

So at least you

should be playing to people

who are on a path, and

moving towards something.

Wherever they are on that path,

doesn't matter as long as

they're giving it a go, you know?

And the power of that community too,

is that not everyone

is on the same level.

So you will become inspired by someone

who's maybe a little bit further ahead

than you on your journey,

or perhaps career or

money or family or whatever.

But then you'll also

become an inspiration

for someone else who's a

little bit further behind.

And then you'll also

connect with somebody

who's perhaps on a similar level as you.

So there's like,

there's power in that too.

That because a big

part of those weekends,

as much as for your weekends,

is that there's a lot

of sharing that happens

in terms of their

struggles, their history,

the problems, the

pains they've gone through,

what's presenting in

their life today as an issue.

And someone else is

listening to this going,

oh fuck, like that shit that he's going,

that he went through five years ago,

that's where I'm at today.

And fuck, look at him today.

He's so strong and so

confident and whatever else,

you know, they're making up certain

assumptions or opinions.

And then they start to talk

and then they start

to exchange notes or...

So there's something interesting

that happens at the weekends as well,

where I'm not the only person leading.

There's other leaders as

well that start to show up.

And it was quite

interesting on the last weekend.

He may be listening to

this, but we went to the sea.

One of the first things

we do the weekend is we go,

we jump into the cold water in the sea.

And like, there's six of us

and five of us down the steps,

do, do, do, do, do, into the sea,

jumping, boom, cold, do, do, whatever.

Next thing I look up and one of the guys

just fucking jumps off

the pier into the water.

They did see this, by the way.

And I look up and I go, all right,

this is the kind of

weekend it's gonna be.

We're going all in.

And what was quite interesting was

after he jumped off the pier,

everyone else decided

to jump off the pier.

And I was actually the one at the top

who was hesitant to jump in,

because I got a fear of heights.

(laughs)

And I was the one then who

was being led by the others.

Because I was, just as they

were coming to the weekend

to face their fears or

overcome their challenges,

here I was standing at

the top of this pier,

looking into the water going, oh fuck.

It took me about five

minutes to finally make the jump.

And of course, going

through all my strategies,

a bit of breath work and leaning into it.

And ultimately me saying to myself,

look, if I fucking walk away

from this, if I don't do it,

what sort of example am

I setting for these men?

If I walk away from

something I'm afraid of,

they're not gonna trust me to

take them through their fears

and their difficulties this weekend.

So that no matter what happens,

and it wouldn't matter in a way,

like I'm that kind of guy

who just would not walk away

from something like this.

I've done it many times before.

I said, no matter what

happens, I'm fucking jumping in.

I don't care if it takes

me fucking under 20 minutes

or I'm going in before I leave.

And of course they're all

encouraging me to jump in.

And I finally jumped in.

And great sense of release and

achievement in doing that.

But what I highlighted was there's a guy

that's been working me

for six months or more.

And he was the first guy

that jumped off the pier.

And I said, you know what?

You stepped up as the

fucking leader on that day

when you arrived at the

pier, you jumped into the sea.

If you didn't jump into the sea,

nobody else would have jumped in.

Nobody else would have,

there's another guy as

well who was quite fearful.

Nobody else would have

would have done that.

Nobody else would have embraced it.

Nobody else would have

gone all in the way you did.

So you set a standard for the weekend.

So it's what I mean.

Like, so it gives

other people an opportunity

the weekend to also step up

and realize that there's a

leadership quality within them

or there's gifts or

talents that they have.

As I said before,

they've gone through pain.

They've gathered lessons.

And now they're giving back to others

who are perhaps a

little bit further behind

or you become an inspiration

for somebody else vice versa.

So this is the power of it.

I say it's a great

example of the heights.

And so a couple of things you learned.

One, that you can overcome your fears.

Two, never do the cold water exposure

anywhere with your peers.

One thing they try a

lot with, for example,

the online courses is

an A-week course, right?

And people don't realize how fucking,

especially when like I'm

the breathwork guru, right?

So they always kind of,

what do you think, James?

What do you think?

I was like, okay, I don't

know all the fucking answers.

You're not happy with therapists.

Happy, like you're fucking very

well-developed humans

with a way more experience

in certain areas than me.

And what I think is the most out,

there's a moment on

the week seven, you know?

And it was where I

always opened it up, go on.

So it says, "Guys, what do you think?

What do you think?"

And they just started offering,

like, "Well, Fergus and Paula."

And Paula was like,

"I'm going to have my

first transformation

of breath organization.

I don't know what to do

with, where do I touch him?"

And then Fergus went, "Oh, I look, men,

they store a lot of interview that's

found as well, right?

They store so much in

their chest, you know?

And you should go like that.

And you should put whereabouts."

And he was kind of shown or online,

you know, we go around like that.

And I was like, "Oh."

Because that's very satisfying.

I guess the exact

opposite of what people think,

I think sometimes I want,

or you might want as a facilitator.

You know, like your ego will go so far.

Yeah, of course.

And you go, "Come on guys, come on."

And then at that moment happened,

for me, I was like, "You know what?"

Yeah, yeah.

You co-teach each other,

you share, you do all that.

That's what you want,

like one form of leadership or another,

where like, because

I'm not there any at all,

you know, I know some

techniques and I give a platform,

but now we're all here doing our best.

And so it is really sad.

It's really like those moments, like

that'll stick with me.

Yeah, just the dissolving a

sense of competition again,

and even instilling that sense of

connection all the more.

And also that they had come to,

not even I had brought them,

but they come to that level of confidence

in their breathwork

facilitation to openly,

in front of other,

give some advice in a casual way and say,

"I do this, can I find this works?"

Now, what do you think James?

Like, that's what I think, can you?

Because that's what it is.

I mean, it's confidence.

You want to know the things

and you want to know the science

and know the methods and the

language and all those things,

but it's presence and

confidence in yourself, you know?

That's so much is just presence.

You'll find that yourself,

just like being with someone,

being actually being

there with the breathwork.

The great thing is you

have to be there almost.

It's impossible not to be there

when people are going through that.

You know, like checking your phone,

someone's like, "Mmhmm."

(both laughing) And so, yeah.

Yeah, it's amazing watching that fold.

Yeah.

Was there a moment there in the past

where you had this

realization of the power of the breath

because you talk about the yoga,

you talk about doing

some breathing practices,

and of course the breath

work that you had to practice

whenever you had this surgery.

Was there a moment there and

you thought, "Fuckin' hell."

Like, this is actually,

because you do with us

in terms of the processing

of emotions, like when

this happened for you?

Or was that the breakthrough moment?

Or was there something else

that sort of made you realize

the power of being in your body

instead of being in your head?

For me, it was a series

of collections of moments

that I came more and more into my body.

My biggest moments, rather than,

and breath has always

been like this fast access.

But my kind of, I would say

that kind of a pivotal moment

actually ties in with a lot of things

we're talking about.

So I was in Taiwan, I'm

23, and I've done the yoga,

and I've done all these things.

And I go to the Passion

of Meditation retreat.

Have you ever been to one of those?

10 hours a day meditating for 10 days.

Like strict Buddhist style.

So I go in.

No speaking for 10 days?

No speaking, no looking

at people, no nothing.

You're just literally

meditating for 10 hours a day.

Simple food twice a day.

So I go in.

It's tough, but it's okay.

Third day, I started to

think about this flight

that I had booked.

I had meant to be flying to China.

And I started to think about it.

Couldn't get it out of my mind.

Therefore, okay, you can

go talk to the head monk

two minutes a day and I go,

"Can I go check the internet?"

It was an internet cafe at the time.

He's like, "No."

(both laughing)

Right, day five, day

six, it's torture now.

10 hours a day and I'm

just got this in my mind.

They fucked that flight up.

I need to check the flight.

I need to check the flight.

And he goes to me and

I said, "I gotta go."

And he's like, "Look, I'm pretty sure

your flights are fine.

This is an emotional storm.

This comes from a deep-rooted problem

or issue that you have.

And if you sit with it,

you're gonna learn a lot

about yourself and a lot

about what's really going on."

Day eight and now day nine,

one day before he finishes,

he's like, "Fuck this shit.

I'm going, I'm not

meditating here anyway.

What's the point?

I've been torturing myself for six days."

And I wandered off.

I left and I said,

"All right, guys, tell."

Didn't say it because you

couldn't talk to anyone.

(both laughing)

Just gonna walk out.

Just wave goodbye.

No one looking.

You're not looking at people.

Oh, it's like, I walked out

and checked the internet cafe

and yeah, of course the flights are fine.

And I had to sit with

that then for a long time.

It was like, "What's going on here?"

And this is where

this idea of the audience

that you see yourself playing for,

because what does it

really matter, this flight?

Do you know what it's a flight?

And I realized it

came from this fear I had

that my parents think I'm stupid

and that they were gonna find

out that James had fucked up

again, because I had the

reputation of the message

after seven years of

drinking, who wouldn't?

The first 14 years of

being the kind of like head up

in the clouds, distracted

by books, smart as fuck,

but not exactly pressing people,

impressing people with

my being in the moment.

After that, seven years of drinking

and almost dying multiple times.

So it was all, so I'm sure

this came from before that

as well, but anyways,

geez, I have been pretending

that I don't give a

fuck what anybody thinks.

And I've been pretending to myself,

I'm Mr. Hippy Dippy free from it all,

but here I am when it comes down to it,

when I just sit in my

body for long enough,

the reality of my emotional world

eventually comes home to roost.

Now it comes to roost in different ways

and in different guises.

And this one was just a manifestation

of that deep rooted pain that I have.

That I still, it's not like

heal these things completely.

You know, I noticed,

oh, there it is again.

But that was it.

It was the power of being in your body

and not distracting yourself.

And just being there,

because you can't fucking watch it

and you can't talk to nothing there.

And it just comes right up.

And the only way it'll go out,

that's kind of what the breath work is.

When they did breath work session,

said that years later, I

started doing the breath work

sessions, I was like,

this is like a fast version of that.

That's what that is.

This is like that on speed.

Yes, okay.

And that was when I realized, okay, so,

and I'm not gonna host 10 hour,

it's not for everybody,

but you can give this stuff.

And then I was running those

and I was doing breath work

and I was combining

with NLP and hypnosis.

And then when I was living

in Barcelona, I met this guy,

Mario, Mario, you motherfucker.

Mario, Cosmic Mario used to work as,

there we go, we're

going way over PG right now.

Mario used to work as literally,

he would give cosmic orgasms, right?

He does his whole job.

I think he says he's

fingered 10,000 women, right?

And at a certain point,

he was surfing in Hawaii

and he broke his back

and he was paralyzed.

And then he went

through this whole therapy.

People are still hanging on the finger

and 10,000 women, by the way.

They still, Mario can't--

They're still at that,

on that word, on that sentence.

So, just give a moment to

just let that land and process.

And then you can move on.

What the fuck?

What the fuck did he do?

Cosmic Mario.

Does women now check on Instagram?

Oh, they find him as well.

He's hell of a, he's a phenomenon.

And then he--

This is a form of therapy.

For who? For him? For me?

For who?

Look, this is like, that's his story.

When you go into his

workshop, he tells you that story.

And then he broke his

back, was paralyzed,

and went through a form of therapy

involving like physical manipulation.

And then he learned those

skills and he runs this.

Oh, this is before he

started the fingering?

No, this was after.

The fingering ended

when he broke his back.

He rebuilt himself and found purpose,

but still had all the skills and the

physical touch, right?

And so he learned the massage techniques

that had rebuilt him.

And now he travels the

world, given these workshops,

training people how to release emotions

using physical touch.

Wow.

You should check him out.

It's really insane.

And so Mario, I had

this space in Barcelona,

and we were thinking about

running some workshops together.

And then I went to his train.

He says, "I'm the first person

that ever came to his train for free."

Thanks, Mario.

And then he said to me,

"James, this breath work stuff's mad."

And I said, "NLP, I'm really interested.

Why don't you come with me to India?"

This was last year in January.

We went a year and a half ago.

I was doing breath work.

I had studied massage in Thailand.

I studied a lot of it,

but never reworked the

massage bed into the breath work.

And we started running these

workshops, and it was crazy.

Like you never saw it.

He said, "Man, I've never felt bodies

that are so receptive to touch."

And this is like a master,

as when they're in that

receptive state, you know?

And so we spent two months

running workshops together.

I'm not gonna say he

showed me everything he knows,

but he showed me a lot.

And he learned a lot about holding space

and facilitating and being okay.

And he would tell me,

"Look here, watch this."

And he'd just go there, and you'd see.

He'd hit someone.

He would chase the

snake up the body, you know?

The energy.

They're the things that I showed you,

the working up the body,

but he would be like next level.

He'd be like, "See this girl?"

And he'd go, "Boom."

And he'd hit it here.

And then the energy, she'd go like that.

And it would move up to

here, and then he'd go,

"Oh, she goes boom."

And she'd go like

that, and he'd go, "Bam."

And he'd go, "Pah."

Fuck.

And I was like, "What?

Why, what that?

I won't do that."

"Gosh, you do."

I wanna finger tell this woman.

And so that, those, like, that stuff,

like that was when, that

was when really the Phoenix

breathwork and all the stuff that I do.

Cause all the language stuff I knew.

Cause it's just very important.

Oh, it's huge.

Huge.

And it's amazing.

And that is the collective release

of everyone working together.

We pair each other up, and

you were working a tripty,

and you know, there's the

boundaries that are resolved there.

And you normalize that space.

They say, "Oh, everyone grab each other,

and everyone does it."

I can't, I still can't believe it.

Everyone just, "All

right, now you grab them here."

Remember, I think it was a

train that you were actually,

when the lad said,

"James, I haven't touched

another woman in 25 years."

And there he was at one point.

We had her suspended in

the air the two of us,

shaking her like that.

So, and the touch is huge.

And you can talk things out,

and you can do it all, but like,

that's a big part of humanity.

And I think that's a

big part of being human,

and it's such a necessary part.

And in Ireland, we

really fucked that shit up.

Yeah, for sure.

We fucked that shit up.

But people know it, and

they're willing for it,

and they're thirsty for more contact,

and for more opening, so.

We're unfucking it.

We're unfucking it, yeah.

So I'm optimistic.

Brilliant, man.

James, thank you so much.

Fucking love this conversation.

Love hanging out with you.

So this was a pleasure, as always.

And for anyone who

wants to work with James

or reach out to you,

where's the best place to get yet?

Oh, look, my t-shirt.

Doesn't even have any sleeves on them.

PlayfulGroat.com, or

Instagram James PlayfulGroat.

I'm gonna have to rename it my own name.

PlayfulGroat.

PlayfulGroat, but we have, I have to say,

we got Breathe Ireland, which is,

I don't know if it is or

not, but I just said it.

It's Ireland's biggest

ever immersive headset.

Event happening on Thursday, sold out.

120 people would head to

town screaming their heads off.

And there's training in London.

There's online programs,

all bunch of stuff going on.

But that's a great crack.

Thank you very much.

I love what you're doing.

I really do love what you're doing.

You know what?

I watched the,

and I saw that one about

the jumping off the pier,

you know, and I see a picture of you

with your hand on a man's chest.

And you're fucking brilliant.

So keep going.

Well, thank you,

because I received those lessons

and those skills from you.

So thank you.

That's better, love.

I would definitely

recommend that any of you listening,

go and check out James' Workshop,

even if you never want to use it.

Oh yeah.

Coaching capacity,

you gain so much from it

in your own personal experience.

That's why I find the,

it's just, it's what I now realize

is what therapy should be.

Communal, real, emotional, raw, sharing,

non-hierarchical, just experience

and feeling letting

it go, yeah, for sure.

Let it go, baby.

Let it go.

Nice one, James.

Until next time.

Thank you very much.