Embracing Your Inner Animal | Ep. 27
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[00:00:43] Hello and welcome everyone. I'm your host, Brandon Ward. Another episode of order within episode number 27. Digging in here. It's crazy. My wife.
[00:00:59] Reminded me that last week's episode was episode 26 that's half of a year. I've been doing this now. It's crazy. I love it. The process has been a ton of fun. So I'm excited to continue doing it. Hopefully you're enjoying it and finding value in the content. Today's episode, we're going to be talking about harnessing and embracing your inner animal.
[00:01:23] I think this is a tough one for a lot of us. For a lot of different reasons. And a big piece of that. Is.
[00:01:34] The dual nature of life.
[00:01:38] We are conscious beings. We are aware we can perceive, we have the ability to learn, to grow, to adapt, to modify. And to ask questions about life. To ponder our place in existence. That is what separates us from the majority of the animal Is our ability to reflect. To problem-solve to perceive ourselves and reality and our place in reality.
[00:02:06] That's the spiritual aspect of us, our conscious aspect, the awareness piece to our existence. But we're also animal. We live in these bodies. We inhabit these bodies. And. The embodiment. Of our animal selves. Is simply a reality of the world that we live in. It's the vehicle that we have as conscious beings.
[00:02:34] On earth. So our bodies, our animal nature is something that we can embrace or deny. Or a combination of those things. Most of us. Except some aspects of it and deny other aspects of it.
[00:02:51] Our spiritual ideals.
[00:02:53] Are about living. Our best life. It's the high ideals that we aim towards. Compassion consciousness, responsibility, purpose, integrity. Awareness. It's our desire to leave the world a better place than what it was when we entered
[00:03:19] It's our. Vision for life, our spiritual ideals, our vision for life. And that's how we.
[00:03:30] That's how we define. What really matters to us, the meaning behind all that we do. So our spiritual ideals are going to be the version of what we consider our best life our destiny, if you will, it's our highest possible path
[00:03:48] But.
[00:03:49] Our animal side. I can interfere with that. If we're not careful.
[00:03:58] So understanding our. Animal side, how we engage with those with that aspect of ourself is crucial for us to live a fulfilling and successful life. Embracing it, understanding
[00:04:15] Learning about what it means and what it is. Allows us to maximize our potential. And cultivate power within ourselves. Denial of either one of those aspects of ourselves spiritual or animal creates problems and for different reasons. But in this episode, we're talking about the animal side and how it layers into.
[00:04:40] How we live as humans and embracing that and engaging with it directly. Is very important for us. And how we manage that will dictate.
[00:04:52] The experiences that we have, the outcomes that we create. In many ways. Our animal side is the primal elements, the deeper primal elements of humanity. It's the fierce physical sexual.
[00:05:09] Unconscious ways. There's a lot of power in that. And, you know, we're when we're thinking about our animal nature, we're looking at. Genetic histories, all this. Learning and knowledge that exists within our genes that have been passed on throughout generation, after generation, after generation of humans, that we've acquired knowledge and that we're able to leverage.
[00:05:34] Each generation, each new generation from our experiences of the past.
[00:05:40] But the animal side is very, very.
[00:05:45] Powerful and it's prominent. And these are things that we think about food air. Using the bathroom sex birth.
[00:05:57] Territorial battles. All of these aspects are components to our animal nature.
[00:06:06] And our discomfort or comfort with them. Can hinder or help us depending on where we are. I think a good practice for this is to observe nature. Observe nature. Observe. Where we are.
[00:06:24] Observe how animals behave. In the wild with one another most animals don't attack one another. Without warrant it's often either. It's over territory, protecting their tribe, their family, their group, whatever that Or it's over food.
[00:06:46] But other than that, animals don't really go around ruthlessly murdering one another. They're not. Overly controlling of resources. There's a very egalitarian approach that nature has when it deals with other species. I mean, if you observe. Like one of the great things to do is watching nature, channels and documentaries.
[00:07:10] You can really see. That animal side and how we have to manage these pieces too. The urge to recreate. That's a powerful. Instinctual movement that lives within all
[00:07:24] The urge to protect and to defend our territory. That is a primal, powerful impulse that exists within us and in nature.
[00:07:35] The nurturing and protecting component of our young. Again, that is another aspect of nature that you look and you see everywhere around us. And. For some, this may be. Hard to accept or not what they want to hear, but there's components of monogamy in nature. And there's also components of polygamy or, or polyamory in nature. But there are actually a lot of species animal species that are monogamous that mate for life. So that's another aspect.
[00:08:09] That we can observe. In the wild. But think about this. Look at a gorilla, a Silverback gorilla. They are powerful animals. Very powerful animals.
[00:08:22] They're often docile for the most part, they actually eat. Fruits vegetables and a very small amount of insects they're. They're omnivores. They're not carnivores. Even though they're these insanely strong, powerful animals. That can quickly turn into ruthless powerful beings. When they are threatened when their mates are threatened, when their family is threatened, when their territories are threatened or when their inability to find food is threatened.
[00:08:57] So they may turn into. Fierce. Defenders. If someone is approaching their territory or their family, or trying to hurt them and harm them or prevent them from having the things that So you can see that. The gorilla can be docile, peaceful, intelligent, and quickly transform into massively pounding it's chest, swelling up big and setting firm in its boundaries.
[00:09:26] This is all natural to the animal kingdom. And therefore natural to humanity. So understanding how nature operates and observing nature can allow us to embrace and accept those components of ourselves. We can be aware of how that can influence us. Our awareness allows us to maintain control.
[00:09:51] To these urges and impulses and these instincts, because they're powerful. They've been operating for millions of years. So we have to be aware of the influence that it has in our lives.
[00:10:05] And how we have to navigate those things.
[00:10:08] So observing nature is a great way to go about And really. This is the dance of life. Balancing our spiritual side with our animal side.
[00:10:19] Our animal nature seeks to push our growth upward and onward. So the way we manage and navigate. Our animal nature. Is something that can help us grow or hinder our growth if we're denying our animal aspects and we're not acknowledging their existence, they will rule us. Subconsciously this stuff happens a lot.
[00:10:43] And you see it happening in all of us. This is something that we all have to navigate. But when you. Look at individuals who are deeply repressed. Those movements are still happening, but they're happening under the surface, in the unknown, in that subconscious. And what can happen is there can be an explosion of this expression when we're not careful when we don't properly manage our animal instincts, our animal components, because.
[00:11:12] That repression can be problematic. So by managing our animal nature, by acknowledging our animal nature, it actually pushes us to grow upward in a sense of. It allows us to.
[00:11:24] It allows us to.
[00:11:28] Dance with those impulses, those urges and manage ourselves. So if we're feeling very sexually impulsive, That's a component that we need to be aware of and understanding the impact they can have on us. And if that's the way we're feeling, then perhaps we need to look at our behaviors. We need to look at our habits. Like one prime example would be our porn usage. If we struggle with sexual impulsivity.
[00:11:52] Then we need to look at, are we using porn? Is that influencing the way we're interacting and influencing our animal nature in an unnatural way? That's just an example of that. There's the, so the way we manage and navigate our impulses can help us grow by owning them by becoming our own masters.
[00:12:11] And we do that by honoring them and accepting them and embracing them and hitting them head on. So that animal side can actually propel us forward. But again, awareness is key. And having healthy expression of these instincts is very key, too. It's completely natural to want to express ourselves sexually. It's completely natural to want to express ourselves physically.
[00:12:33] And depending on the makeup of who you are and the. The genetic makeup and hormonal balance of your being. Those aspects will be less or more depending on who you are. So being aware of those pools, those pushes those impulses. And your own cadence is critical. But finding that if you find that you're a high energy person who has a lot of physical energy,
[00:12:58] That you struggle to manage. So maybe you, it creates anxiety in your life. Well, finding physical expressions can be helpful to that. Maybe that's physical fitness, maybe that's lifting weights. Maybe that's running. Maybe that's taking up MMA classes or boxing. Biking, whatever. Finding movement movement is a powerful way to naturally express our instincts. Having a healthy sexual relationship with ourselves and a loving partner can be a great way to express that ancient sexual impulse, those urges that we have.
[00:13:30] Because ultimately.
[00:13:34] That sexual energy is the energy of life. It's the eternal pull to create and expand and build. That's our, our sexual energy pulls us forward into the world. So it's a great thing, but we have to manage it. We have to navigate it.
[00:13:51] So how we navigate that sexual energy, how we cultivate that sexual energy, how we cultivate that animal aspect will be. The way we cultivate power in our lives. So true progress. It's true. Power comes from this process. Comes from embracing our animal side. That those, that ancient energy, that fierce, deep.
[00:14:15] Primal element that exists within all of us that goes back way beyond our lives. And that exists deeply within humanity here. And what we're doing. And how we live. And that's the. As a man. That primal feeling. Cultivate that. Lean into it, express it, find the physical elements too, to build on it.
[00:14:41] And master it use it, leverage it. There are moments when we can use our anger when we can use our fire. It's there are moments when anger and fierceness are appropriate. When we're protecting the ones that we love or cared about or defending the things that we believe in and standing up for. What's right.
[00:14:59] There's power in this process. There's power in this energy. And so by cultivating it by embracing it by leaning into We can develop real power in our lives. And it's a power that we resonate that. Resonates outward into the world that we carry with us wherever we go. It's palpable. It's something that you can experience in yourself and it's something that people will experience around you as you begin to cultivate it.
[00:15:24] But you have to explore it. And.
[00:15:28] It's sometimes helpful to do this in safer environments and controlled environments. Or having a partner where you're with doing things like this, if you're cultivating, like as a man, maybe joining a men's group can help cultivate some of this energy. That's something that I'm exploring doing as well as how do we help cultivate this energy in other men, but.
[00:15:48] It could be the same thing for women. If you want to cultivate this energy, if you're a woman, if you're a female, if you want to cultivate that with other women, you can do that. Or just people that you feel close to. But ultimately this is a process and it's something that we do over time. And we learn to cultivate that energy by engaging with it, by embracing it by accepting what it
[00:16:08] And so. There are. A lot of ways, sports, fitness, sex, food building. Nature, all of these things be getting out and doing physical things. Grounding ourselves in the physical.
[00:16:29] That's why exercise and fitness and sports and sex, and these things can do a great job at grounding us because it brings us back into our bodies. It pulls us back into the moment. So leaning in. To our bodies leaning into the moment, leaning into these very physical acts. I mean, that could be something as simple as assembling something with your hands, cutting firewood, going out and walking through nature and feeling.
[00:16:56] The trees, the leaves, the flowers, all the things around you embracing. The physical world around us, it's leaning into it. The animal world and the physical world are one. And so the more we can connect with that physicality in our own lives, the physical world around us, the more we can help cultivate.
[00:17:15] This relationship in a healthy way.
[00:17:18] The other side, though, the denial of our instincts creates unconscious living. And most of us live this way. Right? We're living very unconsciously regarding a lot of these things, we're denying our animal instincts. We want to ignore them, suppress them, turn away from them. That's dangerous because ultimately that's where the shadow self lives and the shadow self is all the things that we refuse to look at. That's a part of who we are.
[00:17:47] Our animal instincts and nature is a part of that self. And so if we deny that self. We're denying a portion of who we are, therefore creating a shadow self, which is ultimately if, depending on how much we. Support this or deny its existence. It can morph into a whole being of its own. This is where you get things like multiple personality disorders and you have these moments where people black out, they don't remember anything. It's like another personality took over.
[00:18:17] Where they were in that moment. That's dangerous. This is the danger of not embracing. Our instincts. This is the danger of denying our instincts because ultimately the shadow self becomes the one that's driving our lives. Whether we're aware of it or not. And what ends up happening is when we do this for a long time.
[00:18:40] When we repress our instincts over time for decades and decades. There is an explosion of repression from all those years of buildup of having no release or no expression of that energy, it erupts in some form of tragedy or terrible situation. Sometimes we just blow up our entire lives. I could be destroying our family and getting divorced, cheating on our partners.
[00:19:04] Destroying a company that we're working for our career, whatever it may be. But there are a lot of ways that can go about, uh, Chris Watts was an example that I shared. Describing healthy masculinity. He is not example of healthy masculinity, but he's a prime example of what can happen when we don't express our animal nature. When we don't express our impulses, our urges, our truth.
[00:19:26] When we were repress all that is. It culminated in this horrific act of him murdering his entire family because he had this illusion that he could somehow be free from
[00:19:35] By killing them. That's insane. Well, that's what happens. That's what can happen. When we repress this ancient primal energy. We have to embrace it and allow it to be a part of our being. And we do that by stepping into it, acknowledging it and learning from it and learning to be more comfortable in the physical while keeping ourselves conscious and aware in the moment.
[00:20:03] The beautiful thing though, is there's a lot of wisdom in our instincts. I mean, like I was saying earlier, this is millions of years of experience collectively. So we're able to harness this power. That's not even our own, but it's lived within our genes. For centuries. Decades. Eons potentially.
[00:20:22] And that wisdom that those instincts exist for a reason. When you look at nature again, nature is a great way to understand our animal side. Observe the instincts the way. The seasons change the way animals migrate during certain times of the year, the processes that they go through to support their
[00:20:46] How they traveled to certain areas of the globe to nurture their new children or their new generations of animals. They all know this instinctually, it's something that they do without thought. That's the power of the instincts and the animal side of us is there's all this ancient wisdom lives So when we deny that part of ourselves, we're denying that wisdom, those instincts, that intelligence.
[00:21:16] That lives beyond. Our life that lives beyond our experience. So we can leverage those things. The primal drives us for reason, it ensures our survival as a species. So we have to acknowledge its existence and we have to play nice with it. We have to cooperate.
[00:21:37] The more, we align our life with those energies, those movements, the more peace we'll find within ourselves and the more power we have to create the lives that we desire. And we can learn from them. We learn from the wisdom that it has to teach us. We learn from these movements and we do that by engaging with them by accepting them by leaning in them.
[00:22:00] And through all of this, we find the power in our nature. We find the power in our animal side. Because when we combine that animal instincts, that animal nature with our spiritual nature. We become truly unlimited beings. Ready to take on the world. Our power in this world comes from that animal instinct.
[00:22:23] But it's the spiritual side that bridges that gap that allows us to activate that power and leverage it in an intentional way. Not just frivolously, behaving like animals. But taking that animal instinct. And applying it in a very intentional and conscious way. That's the power of conscious creation. That's the co-creative element of nature is that we are taking pieces of nature. We are applying our consciousness to it, and nature is responding to what we're putting out into the world. That's the power that we hold.
[00:22:55] That's the power that our nature, that our impulses that our instincts have for us, if we're willing to lean in. And learn from them.
[00:23:05] So the final bit here is really the ideal state that we're driving towards. Which is the balanced human, the human that knows that he or she is both animal and spirit. That we are both energy and physical that we are both infinite and finite. That we live in the physical and we live in the spiritual.
[00:23:28] So understanding those two worlds, understanding that we at the center of all that is the being who. Who dictates and creates from that We leverage our animal side and our spiritual side to create the life that we desire. And we do that at the center of all that. We are the core of that expression, but when we deny aspects of ourselves, we'll there, whether it's our animal side or our spiritual side, we hinder that power and we weaken our ability to create and live the life that we're in the world to live.
[00:23:59] So embracing that balanced approach.
[00:24:03] Understanding that our ideal expression of humanity embraces all of that. Both our spiritual and our animal side, not one or the other. But we embrace all of it. Because what that does is it integrates our animal side into our spiritual self. That creates this powerful combination of a human.
[00:24:23] That can express the infinite power that we've been given. As created beings. This is the aim we are pushing for.
[00:24:33] And don't forget that the physical world. The flesh is a part of God's creation. We sometimes forget that this world is created, that there is intelligence underlying all of it. And so therefore, if it was created, is it evil? Is it dark? Is it sinful? We can behave in those ways, but just the mere existence does not mean that life is.
[00:24:57] Corrupt. And negative simply because it's physical.
[00:25:02] We have to understand that this is God's creation too. So by denying our animal aspects, by denying our instincts were in fact denying. Creation. We're denying our creator. In a way. So understanding that there is power that comes from embracing the physical life, accepting our physical world is God's creation and realizing how beautiful that is.
[00:25:28] The world is this incredible creation here for us to learn and live and experience what an incredible gift that is.
[00:25:37] This also opens it up for us to live deeply, live deep, embrace all of it, take it all in. Live with great zest and zeal. Enjoy all that this world has The foods, the smells, the tastes, the sights, the experiences. That's an incredible thing. Living deep. Is what it's about embracing life. Head-on.
[00:26:04] Experiencing all that life has to offer. And going headfirst into this experience of existence. Living deep is a beautiful and powerful place to be.
[00:26:16] But the key is to never forget that thread never severe those threads to the spiritual cause that's where we lose ourselves. When we can, when we get consumed by the physical world, by the animal world, which happens to a lot of us as well, we completely deny our spiritual self. We get lost in the physical world.
[00:26:34] That's always been the great fear. That's always been the challenge with humanity. That's the idea of Adam and Eve. Not that they took from the tree of life and that they became sinful But that they accepted their awareness of themselves. And that they are living in the world. As animals and spiritual beings. And it's important to not forget that spiritual side to not completely get lost into the animal self.
[00:27:01] And forget the spiritual self. It is both of those combined. That creates the complete being. So if we're consumed by our spiritual self and denying the animal, we're not going to be our best self. And if we're denying our spiritual self and consumed by our animal self, we're not going to be our best self either.
[00:27:20] And a lot of pain and destruction can come from that side. So it's balancing these two forces and embracing all that is so that we can become that complete human To live deep in the balance of both spiritual and physical worlds.
[00:27:36] So staying connected to our spiritual selves. Through our creator. Through prayer through intention through meditation. Can keep us grounded and humble to ensure that we do not lose ourselves in this world. Getting lost in all the pleasure in all the consumption.
[00:27:52] That tie to eternity is crucial to stay grounded and open and conscious.
[00:27:58] So that's all I got for today's episode. I hope you're enjoying it. I hope you've enjoyed the show. I hope you enjoy the content. I'm making a ton of progress on my WordPress site, which I'm very excited about. I'm really looking forward to having a tangible living blog that I can share. On the internet.
[00:28:18] I'm taking all the threads that I've done on Twitter and I will be expanding them. So there'll be more depth in all the content that I've created there. So there'll be a reason for you to check it out beyond just these podcasts and my Twitter account right now. So I hope you enjoy that. I certainly appreciate your support and your continued listening.
[00:28:38] So with that being said, y'all. Until next time