All Episodes
March 14, 2024 - Blood Money
01:11:10
A Prolific Hollywood Producer's Path to Enlightenment w/ Tim Duffy (episode 216)
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
Hi guys, before we begin the episode, I want to tell you about an amazing website that could help you get your health back.
I know that sounds like a big statement to make, and I know a lot of you out there have been concerned about your health, especially with this COVID jab, with the toxicity in there, with the shedding of the COVID vaccine.
All of us are concerned.
We're seeing people fall ill, die prematurely, and it's really gotten bad.
There is a website that could Change your life and potentially even save your life.
I'm not going to talk too much about it.
Just please go on there watch the videos sign up to watch the videos and learn how you could get your health Back to the way it was prior to Kovat and even better All right, welcome to the latest episode of blood money
Today I have a very special guest and I can't tell you how excited I am, Mr.
Tim Duffy. How are you doing, sir?
I'm great. Lovely to see you.
Thank you so much for having me on the show.
Thank you for coming on the Blood Money podcast.
So a little bit of background, you know, I was in television and I met Tim while we were both working as executive producers in television.
He was working at the Spike Network.
And the reason why I'm so excited to have Tim on the show is because, you know, we work in this Hollywood system and through that, you know, I think we grew in different forms, different directions.
And I think both of us have a similar mindset as to enlighten ourselves, to find beyond, beyond the superficial material world, what is out there.
And I think we're about to have a very interesting conversation.
So Tim, could you give us a little bit of background on, you know, who you are, what you've been up to for the viewers that don't know you and just kind of get us into the journey.
And I know I'm gonna have a million questions as you go along.
Yeah, of course. Thanks so much, man.
Great to reconnect with you.
I haven't seen your face in a really long time.
Yeah, I mean, we both kind of grew up in the entertainment industry, didn't we?
I came to the entertainment industry in the late 2000s needing a job from Philadelphia.
I was working with kids in special education.
Didn't come from money.
Couldn't figure out how I was going to Overcome this insurmountable mountain of debt that I had from my undergraduate training and was like, screw it, I'm going to move to Los Angeles.
My twin brother Mike was doing stand-up comedy out here and so I came out and What do you do when you move to a mill town, right?
You work at the mill. And when you move to Hollywood, you work in the entertainment industry.
So I got a job with Dick Clark Productions and kind of grew up in the industry just working really, really hard, trying to be the guy that was the hardest worker and was always available and was a problem solver.
And that served me pretty well.
I was able to secure my first network gig at Sony in the early 2000s, and then I was hired to open the West Coast office of Spike TV in 2004 as Senior Vice President of Original Programming.
Around that time, I was seemingly doing really well on the outside.
I had this great job, and I was making great money, and I had some power as a network executive and a buyer, which is when I met you.
But on the inside, I was white-knuckling my way through every day.
I had significant anxiety and depression that I had hidden from the world, and I was really struggling through that.
So I'll kind of stop right there.
There's a lot more to the story, but that is kind of our origin story when we met at Spike TV and you were this badass human being who was like directing music videos and coming into the unscripted industry with these amazing sales tapes that were like cinematic and with these incredible characters.
And I was always just looking forward to receiving fresh concepts from you.
So here we are, 20 years later, dude!
Yeah, yeah, that's crazy. It's so crazy.
So, I mean, take us down that journey.
Everybody thinks they go to Hollywood, right?
Not everybody. I don't want to say everybody.
That's actually incorrect. But a lot of people think they grow up there like, man, I just want to make it in Hollywood.
People that have certain talents like you and I have.
And what I noticed in that, and it's funny because when I first met you, I actually felt instinctually that there was, you were seeking something more, that this was not satisfying.
I didn't know you were dealing with anxiety or depression, but just instinctually.
And there was another gentleman, by the way, that was one of our colleagues who I think moved to Costa Rica, Alex, and he seemed to be on that similar path.
So it was kind of For me, it's easy to recognize people that had similar kind of goals in life, similar goals of enlightenment.
So, you know, tell me a little bit about, you know, you're in Hollywood now.
You know, you've achieved the dream.
I mean, you're a network executive, right, which is really cool.
You're running Spike, you know, one of the people running Spike Networks, buying shows, producing shows, overseeing shows, but inside you feel that something is off.
Tell me a little bit about that and what direction that started to Well, so in essence, I was like banging my head against the same brick wall of don't tell anybody.
Don't acknowledge my own vulnerability.
Tough it out. Be strong.
Be a man. And When I really started to encounter this really intense internal experience of anxiety welling up, and I was like,
you know, all right, I'm gonna smoke some pot, I'm gonna drink, I'm gonna, you know, I'm gonna date, I'm gonna do all these avoidance strategies that are going to help me Not face what it was that I was experiencing.
None of this stuff was actually working.
I had been meditating, actually, lightly meditating without any instruction whatsoever for about 10 years at that point.
And so meditation gave me a little dose, just like having a drink or smoking whatever, gave me a little dose of relief.
But the core underlying kind of sickness was not being dealt with.
So I basically hit rock bottom in the mid-2000s, couldn't quite figure out what to do, and somebody handed me some CDs, basically, of the Dalai Lama, talking about the fact that the core of our own suffering is our sense of Delusion.
That we're separate from the rest of the world.
That we're alone. And that we're grasping for control.
And we're developing out all these techniques to avoid the difficulties of life.
And it's this kind of cycle between grasping and holding on to things that are impermanent.
And avoiding things that we don't like.
And that somewhere in between these two things, the middle way, is a mature adult relationship with, oh wait, I can actually let go, develop out a quality of peacefulness in relation to the 10,000 joys and 10,000 sorrows of what it is to be human.
And instead of react from a place of being triggered and feeling isolated, I can actually respond as a mature adult who is recognizing what's going on in my own internal space, acknowledging it, and then operating in effective ways that allow me to reconnect with other human beings and myself.
So that's the practice that I figured out and developed A deep relationship with when I got a teacher.
And it was called mindfulness. Back then, people weren't really...
What is mindfulness?
People thought it was...
I was the guy from Philly that moved to LA and was like, I can't become like the Richard Gere Buddhist guy.
Yeah. Right?
So I'm like, reject! Reject!
I can't be that guy!
But the kind of wisdom and the ancient truth underlying it that isn't really about religion is really just about the truth of what it's like to be a human being and to be vulnerable in this world.
And when I developed out of practice, That was consistent and daily.
It restructured my approach to how I viewed the world and how I viewed absolutely everything that was unfolding in front of me.
Again, I'm going to pause there for a minute because I don't want to go too far down the line, but the practice was mindfulness that really helped save my life, and it yielded a lot of success to come.
I know when we met, you're VP at Spike, right?
I was a senior vice president of original programming at Spike TV. I was a buyer.
I was overseeing $50 million a year worth of original series as a guy that would take pitch meetings and then work with the pitches to develop them into a place where they were viable for television.
And then we would green light, you know, six, eight or ten episodes at a time.
And then I would oversee the physical production of that as well.
So from there, where do you go from there?
Because now I'm noticing your email address is regarding meditation.
And I mean, are you still working as a producer?
Did you transition out of that?
Is this a full-time thing for you?
Take me through that journey there.
Awesome. Thank you for asking that.
I appreciate that very much.
Yeah, I'm not a producer in entertainment anymore.
How that happened is...
As I started to take on these techniques in my own life, I started to recognize that they were deployable not just for my own emotional states and my own thinking processes, but rather they were also deployable in business.
And in relationships.
So I started teaching other people how to meditate.
In 2010, I launched my first mindfulness group at Viacom, which was the parent company that is now Paramount, that owned Spike TV back then.
And over the years, I taught several hundred people how to meditate as this like voluntary kind of action outside of the businesses that I was running.
I left Spike TV in 2013 and launched two startups.
The first startup was a production company where we were nominated for nine Emmys, won two Emmys, nominated for five James Beard Awards.
We achieved a great deal of success in the entertainment industry as food and travel and comedy producers.
Me and my twin brother, Mike, he was my co-founder.
And then over time, started to see an opportunity in digital media.
So in 2000, we launched a digital startup in the food space called Yum Crunch.
And so pandemic hits.
I'm running these two businesses.
You said 2000, by the way.
Did you mean 2010?
No, in 2010, I launched Yum Crunch.
For my second startup.
So basically, I had, from 2010 until about 2022, I had three major aspects of my life outside of my personal life as a dad and husband.
I had Ugly Brother Studios, which was...
You know, winning Emmys and Up for Emmys and all that stuff, traveling the world, making food content with some of the world's best chefs and some of the world's coolest comedians.
And then I also had this startup called Yum Crunch, which is a digital food brand where you can kind of buy what you see from some of the world's best chefs.
And then I'm doing all this volunteer stuff, helping people.
I'd get calls. Like, I was the guy that folk called in the entertainment industry when shit went bad.
Like, hey, I just got a cancer diagnosis.
And hey, my wife just filed for divorce.
And hey, I have to fire a bunch of people.
I need some help. I'm really stressed out.
I mean, why were they reaching out to you?
Was it just that you're a person that they felt like could help them through those struggles?
Because I was quietly teaching people how to meditate as this side volunteer thing.
And then just by word of mouth, folks would start saying, hey, you got to call Duffy.
Hey, you got to call Duffy.
You got to call Duffy. So it was crazy, man.
It was like, all right, cool.
I'm running these businesses and I'm teaching meditation.
And I'm teaching meditation to folks who are going through the worst shit imaginable, right?
Yeah. You know what I love what you're doing here?
Because I got to tell you, man, there is, you know, from, especially with our audience, I think there's a little bit of like, they think Hollywood is a certain thing.
And what you're doing is you're humanizing a lot of these individuals.
Which is what I try to tell them that, you know, people have all kinds of theories about what's going on in Hollywood.
And I'm sure, and I know that there's some, like, disgusting stuff going on.
But, you know, counter to that, there were so many of us that were just, like, regular, you know, dudes and females that were just there to create, like, shows and produce and live the, you know, best life we can live.
And I love the fact that you're humanizing some of these individuals because so many of them are great people.
We're just trying to get through this insane thing called life, you know?
Yeah, totally. I mean, just...
Look, Hollywood, the meat market, is really a meat market.
It's got a...
The Boulevard of Broken Dreams is really deeply felt, right?
When you come into this industry and you're like, wow, I don't...
There's not, it doesn't feel like you've got legacy value.
You've got to show up and what have you done for me lately?
What have you done for me lately? What have you done for me lately?
I don't think that's that dissimilar from a lot of industry and from capitalism in general, right?
Where there's like this lack of Inherent value, where every being is seen as valuable.
That's certainly not true in entertainment.
Every being is not seen as valuable.
This industry is not centralized enough to want to be able to protect its own And so you definitely have to show up and prove your worth all day long, every day.
And that is an insidious, dark force that really creates a lot of division and collapses people's hearts and makes people feel really...
Really anxious and depressed and lacking value.
So, yeah, man, we're all human beings, right?
We show up, we're born into this meat suit, and this meat suit grows and ages and then dies.
And we struggle against that reality.
And so what mindfulness does is it says, hey, let's acknowledge that reality.
It's hard to be human.
When we're holding on to who we once were, the vibrant athlete.
I played college lacrosse.
I coached college lacrosse.
I'll tell you what, man.
Around 26, 27 years old, when I busted my knee and my body started to fall apart, I was feeling really depressed.
I could not relate to the fact that this whole thing was like breaking down and decaying.
And I think that contributed a lot to my personal anxiety and depression as well.
But when you see that, right, and you see a lot of people in the entertainment industry, it is a young person's industry.
Folks are aging out.
They're feeling as if they're no longer valuable when they hit a certain age because they're not the cool kids anymore or whatever.
That is deeply destructive to real human beings, just like everybody that's listening to us right now are real human beings who want to be loved, who want to be respected, who deserve to be loved and respected inherently as...
As alive, loving human beings, in the entertainment industry, that's like a kick in the gut, right?
I'm not valuable anymore because I'm older.
You just don't see me.
Cut to 2022, whatever.
We're up for four Emmys for a show we had on Netflix.
The world is falling apart.
Pandemic's happening. I'm like...
I'm completely uninterested in the Emmys.
I'm completely uninterested in making more television shows that are really enriching just me.
All I could think about was how can I bring what I've been doing on a voluntary basis out into the world at scale and help as many people in the industry and beyond as I possibly could.
So I talked to my twin brother and I talked to my wife and I decided that I was gonna I quit entertainment and I was going to dedicate myself full time to serving others.
And that's where I am now.
That's what I'm doing these days.
I'm a meditation teacher and a corporate mindfulness coach.
And I hope that I'm adding some value into the world by opening people's hearts and showing them how their minds work.
Wow. I mean, we've had such a similar journey, honestly.
I mean, let me ask you, on a cellular level, like, what did you feel?
Like, you went from, and 2022, I mean, that wasn't, like, that far long ago, right?
So, you make this transition, all this, you know, the Emmys, all that stuff has no value to you.
I mean, how did you change on a cellular level, on a mental level?
Like, how could you, what could you tell?
Tell us that, and I know these things are hard to describe because they are so deeply spiritual, but how could you put it in words in terms of that transformation that you went through?
Beautiful question. Thank you so much for asking that question.
It's really at the core of the great mystery, right?
You're right. We can't put words to it.
I can tell you what my process was.
There was a quality of...
Kind of conflict in my own internal world where as folks were suffering all around me and I was going, ignore, ignore, ignore, ignore.
I got to focus on my businesses and I got to focus on enriching myself and I got to focus on these awards.
My internal world just started to kind of tighten up and go, nope, nope, nope.
There's a contraction happening here.
And quite literally, I felt it as tightening, as contraction in my internal space, in my internal mind.
And I started to recognize this contraction occurring.
And when I simply just recognized it and gave it a name, the phrase was out of alignment.
I wasn't in alignment.
I felt quite literally like I was...
Like I was out of balance, but I felt aligned when I had the opportunity to help someone through difficulties in their lives.
I felt aligned when I was teaching people how to meditate or how to meet their own anxieties and depression from a place of spaciousness and joy and love.
And so really it was like this contrast of like Is the contraction telling me something?
And the answer was absolutely yes.
And as I just opened and opened and opened my heart and opened my mind, the qualities of alignment started to kind of settle in.
And the more I did that, the more I allowed this notion of who I think myself to be.
Who am I? Am I a television producer, an Emmy winner, a director?
I'm this dude who's known for food and comedy and travel and all this stuff.
Or am I more than that?
What is this obstacle that keeps showing up as the contraction?
It's this belief that I'm somehow...
This old version of myself.
And so I started to poke holes in that and I said, where is that?
And you look internally in who you think you are, no matter how much exploration you do, you cannot find this solid sense of who you are.
It's not my body.
My body is aging and growing and in the process in some ways of Of dying.
Of decaying. So it's not my body.
If it's not my body, then what is it?
Is it my thoughts? No. I have 10,000 thoughts a day.
I have 43 emotions on average per day, which is what the average human being goes through.
So it can't be my emotions.
It can't be my thoughts.
Well, what is it that's holding me back?
In the end, what it was was my beliefs.
It was this nebulous abstraction of inhibition that is made of nothing.
There's no substance to it.
Just like a thought, you can't pin it down.
You can't hold on to it.
It just slides right through your grasp.
And so as I really developed a mature adult relationship with this notion of who I think I am is not actually a noun, right?
It's not stopped.
It's not solid. It's a verb.
It's movement.
It's process. It's opening and expanding with the world as opposed to in opposition of the world.
And at that point, really, my whole world started to open up.
And I recognize that I've always been a verb.
I've always been in fucking process.
I've always been in movement.
It's the opposition to movement that was causing me harm.
And in fact, it's the opposition to movement and change, the nature of being alive, that causes all of us harm.
So that was kind of, I guess, That's the best description I can give at this moment for what happened with me.
Wow, wow. Okay, so I got to ask you this.
It took a lot of courage for you to take those steps.
Was there any blowback on it where people were like, wait a minute, you're leaving this very awesome or what they perceive as awesome, successful life in Hollywood.
I mean, you pretty much got all the way to the top.
Getting nominated for awards.
And really, you know, you can't really go higher than that ceiling.
I think there's a lot of people in small towns, like, wishing they could have your life.
But did you feel that there was, you know, people were like, what the hell are you doing, Tim?
Yeah, definitely. You know, it's really destabilizing to recognize that you're not a noun.
That you're not some solid fixed entity.
It's destabilizing to yourself, but ultimately liberating.
And it's destabilizing to those around you that want you to continue being the being that you once were.
It was...
It was really hard to come out as a dude who was going, yeah, that's not fulfilling for me anymore.
I've had the money, I've had the power, I've had the influence, all that stuff, and none of it brought me happiness.
So what is bringing me happiness?
Is connecting with other human beings and helping them open up to the available happiness that is inherently there, that's not about money, that's not about power.
That's really about remembering who we really are, which is Interconnected, vibrant, alive beings who have a limited time on this planet Earth.
And what will we do with that time?
Are we going to shut down and isolate and contract?
Or are we going to expand and open up to our own vulnerability and invite other beings in to see that it is actually the vulnerability that is the grandest display of strength?
That is how we become truly alive in this lifetime.
And you're a guy from Philly.
I mean, I've been to Philly.
There's not a shortage of alpha men in Philly, you know?
And certainly, I mean, from my experiences, this was like 15 years ago.
I was there actually shooting music videos, spent about two weeks in Philly.
You know, was that a challenge to you?
Was that a challenge to, you know, I see a lot of hardened dudes.
That was my experience. And you know what?
Maybe it's because I was shooting like hip hop videos and like there's, you know, there's kind of like a wall there and, you know, people don't want to necessarily get in touch with their emotions.
They don't want to say that they're vulnerable.
You know, vulnerability could get you shots on the streets if you really want to talk about that certain sector of society, right?
Was that hard for you as a guy from Philly to make that transition?
Well, listen, I didn't grow up in the parts of Philadelphia where vulnerability could get you shot on the streets.
You know, I was born of privilege.
I'm a white dude who, born middle class, grew up in the very first suburb outside the city.
I was blessed with a certain set of experiences that were...
That allowed me a leg up on the rest of the folks that didn't have the opportunities that I was born into.
I did, however, grow up in a world where I fought a lot.
I never really started the fights, but I didn't mind fighting.
I kind of enjoyed the athleticism of it, and I had big opinions.
So when somebody punched me in the fucking face, I didn't mind punching back.
And I wanted to end it quickly.
I didn't want to hurt or harm people, but I was also a person that didn't mind getting roughed up in order to get to the other side of resolution.
And I always forgave.
I love the way you said that.
That's awesome. The other side of resolution.
You know, and like, so...
You did grow up where if you showed vulnerability, you better be willing to defend yourself or run away and make yourself safe.
The smartest thing is always to exit and resolve.
The second smartest thing is to hunker down and And stay with the fight.
And I think that kind of experience of, you know, growing up in a world where I did have to kind of fight a lot and I was doing a lot, you know, and I didn't necessarily come from the money that I had.
It contributed to two things.
One, that quality of I'm not safe and this quality of anxiety that I had, uh, uh, And two, wow, that quality of lack of safety, that vulnerability is what I have to crawl through in order to recognize that I was always and already free.
Wow. You know, my own sense of demise, of my own death, of my own defeat, my own sense of disillusion is actually what's calling to me, what's beckoning to me to say, hey, look here.
This is where you can grow.
Look here. Do not contract and isolate and withdraw and divide yourself against the other, but rather open, open, open.
So that is the practice that I practice to this day and that I teach as well.
That's awesome. Do you teach meditation?
I teach meditation and I teach mindfulness.
So you don't necessarily have to be a meditator to practice mindfulness.
Wow, wow. Okay, so I don't want you to necessarily give me any names, but tell me about some of the transformation you've seen in people and what would be very helpful to take us through this journey is, you know, who were they before?
Like, was it like hotshot producer making, you know, $20 million a year driving, you know, Lamborghini and being miserable and having substance abuse?
I mean, give me the details of the transformation, you know, anonymously, obviously, of some of these individuals that you've helped.
Well, so a lot of the folks that I work with are men.
Pretty influential and powerful men.
So we're talking folks that have run entire networks or studios.
And almost invariably what I experience when...
When I'm working with folks that have had the money, had the power, have had the relationships, none of that stuff brings them happiness.
It just doesn't.
And they come to me and they're like, why am I feeling so crappy about myself?
What is this fundamental seeming lack of dissatisfaction?
I want to find happiness.
Why can't I? I've got all this stuff.
Inevitably, what it comes down to is some form of resistance to their own vulnerability.
This quality of what's wrong with me, when we repress it and push it down and ignore it, instead of giving a name to it, oh my gosh, this is self-loathing.
This is fearfulness.
This is anxiety.
This is depression. When we push that down, it actually makes us more and more weak.
When we give a name to it, oh, welcome back, my old friend, anxiety.
Welcome back, my old friend, sadness.
My old friend, fear. That's when a boy becomes a man.
And oftentimes When that transition happens, men cry.
And this is where stuff starts to get really magical.
Because a boy can't become a man unless the boy is actually capable of having a mature adult relationship with his own internal vulnerability.
And that's that repression of emotion.
There's this apparent paradox, right?
What is true power?
True power, as Mary Oliver tells us, is loving the soft animal of your body.
It's accepting your vulnerability.
And accepting your vulnerability and allowing yourself to meet it over and over and over again, it actually starts to dissipate.
And that's where true power starts to emerge.
If I face my own internal shit, no matter how dark and destructive it seems, no matter how threatening it seems, if I can face my own greatest worries and fears and anxieties and depression, And it doesn't kill me.
What does it do? It makes me stronger.
Nothing can defeat me if I can work with everything in my own internal world.
Wow, wow, powerful.
Now, okay, there was...
There's a show that we do called Where Are The Men because we often talk about this crisis in masculinity, right?
The whole male thing seems to be going through definitely some challenges, I would say.
I mean, I was in LA on the streets recently just talking to people about this topic and I was actually very surprised.
You know, people saying that they don't, you know, men saying that it's hard to be a man here in Los Angeles, and there's this constant, you know, pressure.
And, you know, what can you say about that topic?
Because you touched upon this idea of men being vulnerable, finding their vulnerability, and that being a true path, the right path to actually discovering your masculinity.
I mean, tell me a little bit about that topic.
Well, you know, the The qualities of masculinity and the qualities of femininity are not actually divided.
They're non-dual.
They're two sides of the same coin.
And so in my experience and in the teachings that I espouse and bring into the world, born out of Buddhism, born out of mindfulness, It is acknowledging the quality of wisdom and compassion within ourselves, of masculine and feminine within ourselves where true power is born.
We need to transcend this notion of I am being threatened as a man in order to really reconnect with our true power.
The more we talk about, I'm being threatened, the world does not see me, the world is the problem, the more we're placing the blame outside of the space where the blame actually needs to happen.
The blame is never out there.
The blame is always in here.
It's always in here.
And so confidence and power are born as a function of our relationship with our femininity and our masculinity, with our vulnerability and our wisdom, with our compassion and our accountability.
It's not about dominance or mastery of the external world.
It's about It's about opening to the reality that I am responsible for how I relate to the world.
That's where we can regain qualities of agency and shall we say dominance.
But it's not dominance of out there.
It's dominance of in here.
And the dominance, paradoxically, is mostly about letting go.
What could you tell us a little...
I mean, you definitely...
We've talked about the men, and I know a lot of your clients are men, you know, high-powered network executive types and, you know, just powerful individuals in Hollywood.
What could you tell us about, like, the females?
Like, is there, you know, another topic that we talk about?
I'll just throw this at you just, you know, to see how you bounce off of it.
But, like... Indoctrination, right?
In terms of men and women being indoctrinated.
How does that topic, especially on the femininity side, how does that topic relate to some of the things you've learned?
I'm not tracking on the question, so sorry.
What do you mean by indoctrination and feminine apologies?
Well, again, for men, it's like, hey, if you're super successful, you become the network executives, you get a bunch of Emmys, you got your Porsche, Lamborghini, whatever, and material, material, material.
We're taught that this is something that is a route to feeling great about yourself.
How does that, in terms of the femininity side, how does that relate to the femininity side in terms of women and what they're taught is the route to happiness or fulfillment?
Wow, okay. Very deep question.
So that's what we're trying for.
Look, you know, because the awareness itself, right?
So from a mindfulness perspective, you've got the sense of who you think you are and you've got your thoughts and your emotions and you've got your five senses, right?
The reality is that each of us is born into this soft animal of this body that's basically like a cockpit in a plane.
We only have a certain amount of tools available to us to experience the world.
There are six.
There's seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, and feeling, right?
Plus thinking. So there's just six ways of being a human being on this planet.
And these six ways are experienced in the wide open space of awareness itself, which does not have a gender, which does not have an identity.
It's not personal.
When you reflect and you explore your own internal space, you begin to realize that the sense of who I think I am is a construction out of my five senses and my thoughts, which are of course deeply interconnected.
But awareness itself is genderless.
Transcending this relative notion of I am a man is the same thing that we do with regard to I am a woman.
Now this is not to say that there aren't masculine and feminine characteristics that are obviously intertwined within each individual, but these characteristics are not gender-based.
These characteristics are expressions of openness, of wisdom, of contraction, of compassion.
And so When we reflect on who we think ourselves to be, whether we are born a man or born a woman, or we identify as a man or identify as a woman or all the infinite variables in between, this is still an erroneous perspective to take if what we're seeking is true connection and freedom.
We take the backward step into awareness itself and we recognize, I am not That and I am not this.
I am both.
I am all. And therein lies what's really possible.
And this starts to get really freaking heady.
But I think that balance of masculine and feminine is kind of the secret as we evolve as a species towards the next generation or the ensuing generations that are going to recognize the futility of war, the stupidity of feeling like my religion is right and your religion is wrong.
The feeling of there is a masculine way to be in the world that's correct.
Or the feeling of there's a feminine way to be in the world that is correct.
These are all abstractions of mind that are deluded and delusional in the ultimate sense.
Because what they do is they divide the heart.
So they create qualities of separation that make me separate from you.
When in fact, Vem, you and I are the same.
We're born into the meat suit.
We will get sick. We will age.
We will die. Welcome to humanity.
I love you and I welcome you and we are one.
Yeah. It's funny, anybody that says Mitsu really gets it.
You mentioned that term twice.
It's something that I use often, and I always find that people are like, whoa, you know?
It's like they're not able to separate themselves from the physical world.
And just in saying that, I think they realize that that is part of the issue.
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, that's it, right?
We're born into a body that...
Is not ours.
We inherit it for a period of time and then we leave it behind.
And so what are we going to do with this body while we're here present on Earth?
Interconnected, right?
The tree doesn't wake up in the morning and go, I got to protect my tree-ness, right?
The tree doesn't feel separate.
It doesn't identify as separate.
It is interwoven into the forest and with the mushrooms and the decaying leaves of itself and the poop from the birds.
We're not separate from the forest.
We are the forest. We are the tree.
We're the poop from the birds.
We're the humans. That's who we are.
We just need to remember who we really are.
Yeah. You know, as you were talking, there's a movie scene that came to mind, right?
There was a movie called Moscow and the Hudson with Robin Williams.
You remember that? I do remember the name of the movie, but I can't recall the subject matter, yeah.
There was a moment there where he starts talking about his pain, his suffering, and he starts talking about it almost with a passion about how he, it is his pain and suffering, and it's a wonderful thing, and it's a moment he's going through crisis, but he talks about it like in the most positive terms.
It's mine. I love my pain and suffering.
And it didn't, you know, now that I look at that, you know, it seems as though there's a value system difference between somebody that, you know, came from Moscow and from the USSR, came to the United States, defected to the United States because he wanted freedom that he didn't have in the USSR. And through the journeys that he went through, he comes to this moment where, you know, I love my pain, I love my suffering, it is mine.
Yeah. Well, the thing about when we turn inward and we reflect on our own pain, we actually start to see that the line between bliss and pain is Paper thin.
The line between suffering and pure connection, between isolation and inclusion, is view-based.
It's an idea.
It's a mindset. And so that really resonates with me in deep ways, especially having worked with folks who are in the process of dying.
Having worked with folks who are going through significant pain during the treatment of sometimes terminal illnesses, we have the ability to relate to our own suffering, including pain.
Not from a place of contraction and isolation, but rather from a place of openness and curiosity.
And this is where that kind of divine feminine starts to settle in, right?
Where we become receptive And we open, and instead of contracting and holding on, which is really what emboldens pain, that second layer of like, oh my god, it hurts so bad, I can't handle it, I can't handle it, of course that is part of being human.
We take the backward step into awareness and we can start to recognize, oh my gosh, my mind is contracting, and thus my physical body is contracting, and thus this is amplifying the pain and the suffering.
When we open and embrace pain and suffering, And we allow ourselves to truly feel.
That is when it starts to become less about my suffering.
And then it's our suffering.
And then it becomes workable.
And then at some point, for some It can actually start to dissipate to a place where the worst possible pains actually become manageable in the wide open space of love and awareness.
Yeah, yeah. Embracing suffering.
I mean, one of the things I notice is that a lot of people try to escape from that.
Like, where they are trying to distance themselves from suffering.
There's this thing of, like, we've got to be happy all the time.
Everything has to be great all the time, or else it's wrong.
Yeah, I think so.
Being happy all the time is not what we think it is.
When we develop an open-eyed relationship relationship with what happiness actually is, we start to see that it's actually more like spaciousness.
It's more like equanimity.
It's more like the unwavering kind of, you know, openness to just what's natural.
It's not about obtaining and acquiring.
It's about pruning and letting go.
And in that space where we watch the impermanence, which is the nature of all things, we watch the impermanence appear all around us and within us without grasping, without holding on.
The qualities of equanimity and poise start to emerge and then that spaciousness that might be called loving-kindness, happiness itself, it kind of transcends the individual sense of self and just becomes a way of being in the world and with other humans.
So, you know, I gotta ask this.
What do you think is the media's role in kind of misguiding us?
I know that's a controversial question, but what is the media's role in misguiding us as to the true values of oneself?
Great question. Look, that which we consume is that which we become.
So modern neuroscience actually echoes this.
Neurons that fire together wire together.
So the more we consume particular kinds of stories, the more likely we are to become the attitudes of those stories.
And so with mindfulness practice and meditation practice, we can recognize that that which we are consuming could be the reason why we feel so sick.
Why do I feel so divided against the Republicans, the Democrats, the Independents, the religious, the Jews, the Muslims, the Buddhists, all of them?
Why do I feel so divided against them?
Because I'm consuming stories That are wiring my brain in the particular direction of, wow, that's who I now think myself to be.
We take the backward step, we recognize, holy shit, there's nothing actually substantial there.
These are just other human beings out there on earth who are suffering as well.
And my job is to not reject their suffering, but rather to see myself in their suffering.
And to see myself as not separate from them.
And this is the beautiful paradox of, you know, that which we consume, we think that it's making us better, faster, stronger, smarter when we're watching all these different news outlets, and it's going to give us more control over how to meet all of this bullshit.
But the reality is, for most people on a daily basis, Really what we are is we're waking up in the morning.
We're taking a pee.
We're having breakfast.
We're looking our beautiful kids in the eyes.
You know, we're kissing our spouse or partner goodbye.
We're going to work.
You know, we're not actually under threat the way the media would make us think we're under threat.
And yet when we put on the radio or the podcast, no offense, it's a podcast, but when we consume the drama of politics and anti-this or anti-that, we're actually becoming weaker.
We're seeding our quality of strength and agency out into those other people who are really just wanting to To sell advertising and keep us triggered in the mode of I need more information because that's the control I'm going to have.
But I'm safe, actually, most of the time.
I'm not under threat.
I'm okay. My family's mostly okay.
So that's my perspective on media.
I mean, it seems like, you know, there's a constant conflict state that we're put in.
You know, anti-this, pro-this, walls, black and white, all that seems to not be very conducive to being a healthy human being.
Yeah, I mean, it's like eating, you know, super sugary cereal 17 times a day, right?
If you're just going to keep consuming Froot Loops, no offense, Froot Loops, all day long, every day, you're going to get diabetes.
When we consume the sickness of division that comes from our media system, we make ourselves sick.
We rewire our brains in the direction of feeling like this world is threatening us all the time.
And that's why it's so hard to figure, why do I feel?
So many of my clients, when I first start working with clients who are coming to me with peak anxiety or depression, I say, turn off the news.
Drop into maybe one or two hours a week.
Of just getting current events into your system, allowing yourself to understand what's going on, turn off your notifications from the New York Times and Fox News and all that stuff.
And instead of spending that time consuming what the media wants you to consume, which is divisive, Consume nature.
Walk outside. How good does it feel to just simply take a 15-minute walk down your block and smile at other human beings?
Or just to pet your dog and turn off the television and turn off all the...
You know, all the notifications on your phone and just pet your dog.
Feel the soft fur of your dog and its life force as you caress its beautiful little body and you feel connected again.
Let's start consuming that which enriches us and opens us as opposed to that which creates qualities of lack and fear and isolation.
Well, you know, I got to bring this up.
When I was at UCLA, one of my creative writing teachers, I had a minor in creative writing there.
Which put us through this exercise at the beginning of every writing class.
We'd all go in there with writer's block, full of anxiety, you know, high on coffee.
And that's not a really nice place to write from because you don't write very inspiring stuff.
But what she would do is she would have us, you know, she would partner us up with another individual, another writer.
And for like, I think two to five minutes, she would say, you have to stare at that person, literally just stare at that person.
And it's one of the most difficult things To stare at somebody, not break eye contact, because I feel, I mean, this is my opinion, because of the indoctrination, because of the lack of connection with other people.
But once we went through this exercise, all of us, it just seemed like brain cells would be inspired all of a sudden.
I mean, how do you react to that?
It sounds so brilliant.
I mean, I get to love people all day long and guide people through meditation and And help them work with their own stuff.
So much of that is really about releasing the barriers and creating a quality of safety and intimacy.
Again, this is the divine feminine manifesting in the world as a healing agent.
So I love that practice that you're describing.
I think another beautiful practice is mirror work.
What happens when you look at yourself in the mirror in that same way?
When you look yourself in the eyes and you see the soft animal of your body, From a perspective not of judgment and hatred, but rather a perspective of, thank you.
Thank you. I see you.
I see your suffering.
I love you. I love the crags in your eyes.
I love the droopy skin.
I love, as my teacher Jack Kornfield says, the fact that I've got hair growing in places it shouldn't grow, and I'm losing hair in places where I shouldn't lose hair.
Right? That is hilarious, man.
No offense, man. I love my bald head.
I don't know what I do with hair.
Okay, I've got to ask this.
Now, once a transformation happens, these high-powered executives, it would seem as though, and tell me if I'm incorrect here.
That it would be with the current way the media works in terms of what we're talking about, where it's conflict, fear, right?
So I would imagine as a network executive, if I went to Tim Duffy and I had this enlightening experience, all of a sudden I'm in touch with myself.
I'm in touch with my better values.
And then you got to go to the network and, you know, still...
Do this kind of fear-based, conflict-based content.
It would feel as though that becomes very difficult.
Could you tell us a little bit about, without naming names, what happens to that individual once their eyes are more open and now they got to go back into this system that is, again, fear-based, conflict-based?
Well, listen, the key to this entire practice is non-judgmental present-time awareness.
So what happens to an individual when they relate back to their own vulnerability and their own suffering is they establish a baseline of operation from which they are no longer They're no longer reacting to suffering from a place of suffering.
So this wide-open spaciousness that we develop through meditation and mindfulness allows us to meet suffering from the place of, this is workable.
I can actually engage with the world now, not from a place of constriction and isolation, but from a place of connectivity and And creativity, right?
We're not saying to all those folks that are making news out there that they're evil people.
And we're actually not even saying they should stop doing it.
We're saying, as individuals, it is up to us to take personal responsibility for our own lives to recognize that we actually are not victims, that we actually have these qualities of agency within ourselves, And so that we can meet the suffering of the world from a place of stability and kindness and openness and compassion and wisdom.
And then we can make decisions for ourselves.
What do I want to bring into the world?
Right? I'm reminded of the story of...
I don't know how 100% accurate the story is, but I've heard it a couple of times throughout my communities in meditation.
There's this story of a fifth grade teacher...
In New York who had a tradition of asking each year's fifth grade class to write one nice thing about three of their classmates.
So she made sure each child received a small note with three handwritten testimonials of kindness from three of their classmates.
And she never knew the impact of her practice until September of 2001.
So one of the heroes on 9-11 among so many who saved so many lives In the horror of those collapsing buildings and beyond, was a young businessman, a junior exec who had a young wife, and this guy worked in one of the towers, and he apparently helped save countless lives on that day, guiding folks down stairwells to safety.
So unfortunately, he lost his life on that day.
And at his funeral, his wife saw that her husband's fifth grade teacher was in attendance, as were some of his old friends and classmates.
And so she was reminded of the story of how he kept the note that his classmates had written.
Three nice things about him when he was in fifth grade.
He kept that note in his wallet.
Wow. And it brought her so much comfort to know that on the day of his death, he had this beautiful note on his body, in his wallet.
And she knew that it gave him comfort and it gave her comfort as well, just resting there as he saved all those lives.
But the story doesn't end there.
As she's telling this story, one by one, his classmates came forward to reveal that they too had held on to this note.
Wow. Wow.
And these notes, these reminders that they were loved and appreciated, had lived on for, in some cases, 20 or more years.
And so the question then becomes, right, what are we planting?
What seeds are we planting out there in the world?
Where are we coming from?
Are we coming from a place of isolation and hate and division?
Or are we planting seeds of love and openness?
Because those are the seeds that matter in this lifetime.
The seeds of hate and division, those are the seeds that make us feel further and further isolated, that increase our anxiety, increase our depression.
When I watch people change through this practice of opening and mindfulness and meditation, I start to see that they're more capable of writing those beautiful notes, those testimonials into their lives as seeds that they plant with that network executive who passed on their show or that boss that fired them or that person that cut them off in traffic or the person with whom they disagree politically or ideologically.
Can we plant seeds of love, not seeds of hate, when we encounter division and divisiveness?
The answer is emphatically, yes, we can.
Wow, wow. So once these individuals are transformed through these experiences, through these teachings, right?
And I'm specifically talking about network executives, creatives.
Do you see a difference in the work that they're doing, the quality, the pitches that they're doing, the things that they're creating?
Yeah. I do.
Wow. Yeah, I do.
What I see is, look, this is also a function of a changing media landscape, right, that doesn't quite know what it wants itself to be.
How people consume media these days and television and film is radically different than it was 10 years ago.
Yeah. So, The types of stories that folks are telling in the media industry, when we're constricted by holding on to the old ways, that somehow we need to go back to a time when the industry was buying the stuff that made sense and that was so awesome 10 years ago.
When we hold on to that shit, we're actually not being creative.
Yeah. So I would say it's not as much about bringing loving stories into the economy.
I'm not Pollyanna about that.
What I see from folks is more that they're able to adapt to the changing landscape, to the nature of the impermanence of the industry at large, from a place of calm, cool collectedness, which ultimately is a beautiful space from which creativity emerges.
You want to adapt.
Holding on to the past is bullshit.
To adapt and get creative is to give birth to new ideas that are informed by the past but not limited by the past.
That's what this practice can do for folks.
It can really help folks remain flexible and pliable and adaptive in a world that feels as if it's really threatening.
Wow, wow. Interesting.
I got to ask this. This would be my last question and I'm going to give you the mic if you have any closing thoughts, if there's anything we didn't talk about, right?
You know the kind of work I've been doing.
I would say that like based upon the industry that we used to inhabit, I'm a controversial individual.
I say controversial things, right?
We had talked about that on our phone call.
I just wonder like what What made you decide to come on the Blood Money Podcast knowing that I do say things that perhaps some individuals that did inhabit the industry that we're in might look at me in certain ways, you know? I'd like to reflect this question back to you.
Why did you ask me on the show?
Oh, because I think you're an enlightened person.
I think part of what we try to do here is, you know, uncensored, unbiased media.
We don't really subscribe to any political beliefs, even though we've had a lot of political figures on the show.
One of the reasons, or on our shows, one of the reasons we do that is really to even out the voices.
We believe that You know, voices should not be censored.
It should be that everything is uncensored and unbiased.
And so when I see the mainstream media leaving out certain voices, I feel compelled to bring them here.
Even if I don't necessarily agree with everything that they say, I'm a constitutional absolutist in terms of freedom of press, freedom of speech.
I think people out there, individuals, have the capacity to take all the information and make I think censorship is the biggest cancer.
I feel like when you censor, you are saying that the people are too stupid to make their own decisions.
So for me, it's all about bringing everything forward.
And just like I have you on this show, right, left, center, whatever, that doesn't really exist to me.
Those are like human constructs.
Those are in fact political and media constructs of propaganda.
So to me, like, freedom of speech, absolutist.
Freedom of press, absolutist.
And that comes from my core beliefs in, frankly, in the teachings of Christ.
And a lot of what you're saying here, rather than seeing, you see, people see divisions, right?
I see so many similarities between us.
Even though you're talking Buddhism, you know, I'm much more, you know, a follower of Christ, but I see so much similarities there, you know, and I see how religions where, you know, it's like for this like 0.1% difference in the teachings, there's wars, there's conflicts, there's fear, there's anxiety, all which I believe is cancer to the human soul.
So, thank you so much for answering the question.
I know that was a bit of a redirect, but that's why I'm on your show, because we share that, right?
My perspective on my role in this world is to remain undivided in communication with other human beings.
The more I identify as having value for my specific audience or my specific identity group, the more I isolate myself In opposition to other beings.
And my job is to create space within my own heart and represent that undivided heart back out into the world.
And even the worst people on Earth, as defined by other people, are welcome into the space of our hearts.
Whether we like it or not, we're making the choice to say no to people all day long and to reject them.
And so this practice that I'm talking about, it's essential that I say yes to everyone that wants to learn more about this practice so that I can help other beings meet the suffering of the worlds that they inhabit,
those qualities of isolation and division, from a place of compassion and kindness And respect for oneself and respect for the other.
So I appreciate you giving me the opportunity to talk about this stuff.
I know it's not typical of what you might bring into your audience, but I want to say to your audience, I love you all.
And we may not always agree from a relative perspective on politics or social issues.
But that's not really what I'm all about.
I love every human being inherently, and I see the worth in every human being inherently.
And I don't see us as divided, and I don't see us as American, and I don't see us as Christian, and I don't see us as white or male.
I see us as us.
And it's the usness that is the evolution of humanity in the right direction.
In my personal opinion, that's what I... Hope to bring into the world.
And again, I appreciate you giving me the platform to talk about this stuff.
Yeah, it's amazing, man. What you just said, I mean, it's like a lot of what you just said could have come out of the mouth of Christ.
And I think it's recognizing the similarities, the us-ness, that really gets us a lot out of all this conflict, fear, anxiety, you know, taking pills to find happiness.
I mean, it's just wonderful really talking to you, Tim.
I really appreciate this.
Thank you, brother. I really appreciate it as well, man.
It's truly a pleasure.
And I will leave you with one more thing.
It sounds cliche, but Christ was not a Christian.
Christianity is the conceptualization of that which is inconceivable, which is unlimited by the mind.
Christ consciousness is interconnection, is interdependence, is the God within, the God without, and the notion that there is no separation, that we are the expression of the ultimate mystery arising in the present moment in conjunction with all of the other beings We're
good to go.
A lot of the things you hear from the Christian church really have nothing to do with Christ.
That's a crazy thing, you know, and coming to this purest form, there is no division.
I mean, it's like if you actually listen to the words of what, you know, that individual said, what you're saying, I mean, it's 99.9% 100% similar.
I would even go as far as to say it's almost 100% similar.
And I think that's what we need to see that we are one.
It is us. And yeah, this is beautiful, man.
One of my favorite episodes, you know, and I'm glad I love doing more of this.
You know, by the way, you know, people out there, we welcome At the America Happens Network.
You look at some of our episodes and you'll be like, wait a minute, would you ever do an episode like this?
100%, that's what I want to do.
These are breaking walls, breaking boundaries, and really, it's where we need to be on a mental level.
Tim, any other final thoughts?
Just love. Open.
You want to be a real man?
Do so through your vulnerability and your femininity.
So that's really the last thing I want to leave you with.
And, you know, if anybody is looking for some meditation support or mindfulness support, you can find me at Meditating with Duffy on socials.
You can email me, Tim, at timduffymeditation.com.
Uh, if you want guided instruction and personal coaching, um, and again, I appreciate the platform and I just want to spread love, man.
So thank you. Awesome, brother.
Awesome. Thank you so much for coming on to the blood money podcast for the viewers out there.
Make sure you check out America happens.com where we have a lot of our episodes posted and also check out our rumble channel.
I will see y'all on the next episode of blood money.
Export Selection