Today on Supernormalized I had the honor to talk with Steve Levine: A Passionate Explorer of Pranayama, NLP, and Conscious Transformation!
Steve Levine is a dedicated practitioner who has immersed himself in the world of Pranayama and modern practices for energy, calm, inducing zen states, and even creating psychedelic experiences without the use of drugs. With a deep devotion to these transformative techniques, Steve’s journey has become his favorite pursuit, one that he wishes he had an extra life to fully explore.
Not only is Steve an enthusiast of Pranayama, but he has also delved into the fascinating realm of Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP). As an accomplished NLP Master practitioner, he possesses a unique set of skills that allow him to tap into the power of the breath to create generative change in his nervous system. Similarly, Steve utilizes NLP techniques to achieve transformation on a subconscious level, recognizing the interconnectedness between the two.
Driven by his own profound experiences, Steve is passionate about guiding others on their transformative journeys. Through his service, he assists individuals in discovering the same empowering and life-changing experiences that he has encountered. With his expertise in Pranayama and NLP, Steve Levine is a beacon of inspiration and a guide towards unlocking the full potential of mind and body.
You can find Steve at the link below…
Transcript
[00:00:00] Steve Levine (Guest): Yeah, becoming free, that’s it! That’s always the direction, I would say.
[00:00:53] CeeJay Barnaby (Host): Welcome to Supernormalized, the podcast, where we challenge the conventional break boundaries and normalize the seemingly supernatural. Join me, CJ, as we explore less uncharted realms of existence and unravel the mysteries of life. Experience. My treasured listeners, if you have a life story or healing modality or unique knowledge that you’d love to share, reach out to me at supernormalized. That’s supernormalized with a Z at Proton me. Let’s together embrace acceptance of the supernatural and unusual as what it really is. Completely normal. Today on supernormalise, we have Steve Levine. Steve is an explorer of altered states, and in that, I should say that he uses pranayama and modern practices to help work with energy, calming the body and the mind. And that includes xenostates and transcending human form. And that sometimes leads to internal sort of psychedelic trips without drugs, which is quite amazing. It enhances cardiovascular fitness. And he does this work with himself and with other people to help them on their life path. So enjoy the show.
Welcome to Supernormalized Steve Levine. Steve, from where do you hail?
[00:02:08] Steve Levine (Guest): Oh, hi, CJ. I’m actually from Montreal and Quebec. Oh, Canada, yeah.
[00:02:14] CeeJay Barnaby (Host): Cool.
[00:02:15] Steve Levine (Guest): Where we’re blessed with four Seasons and a pretty nice atmosphere.
[00:02:21] CeeJay Barnaby (Host): Yeah.
[00:02:22] Steve Levine (Guest): And I’ve spent my whole life here, except for a few years in York City.
[00:02:26] CeeJay Barnaby (Host): Yeah. Right, right. Okay, so you’re in Montreal now, and this is where you run your practice?
[00:02:32] Steve Levine (Guest): That’s correct, yes.
[00:02:34] CeeJay Barnaby (Host): Yeah. How would you describe your practice and the work that you do? In a nutshell, how would you describe that? Nice and simply.
[00:02:43] Steve Levine (Guest): So, my practice I’ve always referred to as lucid daydreaming, and it’s the process of superimposing your will, your imagination, on top of, let’s say, external reality, creating a kind of indistinguishable concept of the two.
And the work that I’m doing is transformational coaching, where by connecting with somebody, I can bring them through these practices and give them the same kind of power for that moment.
[00:03:23] CeeJay Barnaby (Host): Brilliant. Brilliant. Okay, so this has to have an origin story. I read that on your Twitter bio there, that you actually escaped depression by actually developing these techniques for yourself. So do you mind describing your origin story with that and how that all happened and how that all rolled out? What drew you into depression and then how did you get yourself out?
[00:03:46] Steve Levine (Guest): Well, yeah, it’s an interesting time that you asked me because I’ve only recently truly understood what happened from listening to somebody talking about Jung.
And so I can say pretty shortly here, pretty directly, that what happened is I made a life decision based on external pressures. And what I thought made sense, what I thought would be right when inside I was burning with the right choice, the only way to move forward, the only way to live life. But I just need to put that off for these five years, get a degree.
And you can’t do that.
You can’t do that. So once your conscious mind and your subconscious are essentially at war, you can keep your subconscious out of your decision making process with your conscious mind, but it’s going to get you back.
It’s going to find its way of surfacing. And for me, that was about five or six years of depression, of just being horribly depressed before I was able to see that this thought that just made me feel terrible didn’t make any sense.
So that was a weird moment where I kind of woke up.
And one of the reasons I say lucid daydreaming is that concept of waking up and realizing you’re in a dream, but the ability to do that in this, I could wake up right now, and I would just have to accept that all of this was a dream.
[00:05:37] CeeJay Barnaby (Host): Yes.
[00:05:37] Steve Levine (Guest): So you don’t really ever know which side of it you’re on. And this was an awakening for me into essentially realizing that I wasn’t a dream, that I wasn’t perceiving reality.
And I could see that my mind was essentially like a slippery silver bowl.
And if thoughts weren’t high enough in vibration, let’s say, they would hit the side and then slide down into, like, the liquid at the bottom, that sludgy depression liquid. And from there, I became able to audit my thoughts more and more.
And those depressing thoughts, they kind of become irrelevant when you’re aware of them. They slip away from there. You realize that you can also implant positive thoughts.
And that’s the Depression story in a nutshell. It took about four years to be fully free from those psychological mechanisms.
And then there was the long, slow climb of rebuilding a life.
And then I’m chilling.
[00:06:58] CeeJay Barnaby (Host): Yeah, I can understand that. It sounds like that what was happening for you was that you were actually living a life which was incongruent with your actual personal truth, and that caused so much inconsistency in your soul’s desire that it was sad. And I can understand that that happens to all of us in different ways. And it’s good to recognize it when it’s happening. And sometimes we may be living a dream out of obligation or a sense of obligation. But then what about the obligation to your soul’s path? And maybe the travel brochure you picked up before you actually came here in the first place. You’re like, well, this is not the party that I wanted to come to.
So it sounds like that was happening for you and you found your way out. So how did you actually find your way out with the tools that you discovered for yourself?
[00:07:59] Steve Levine (Guest): To be honest, it was really difficult.
Right. And it was a struggle that I wouldn’t wish on anybody.
But having found my way out, I would say that potentially I’m, I’m somewhat qualified to be a guide in some senses. So essentially at first you see this, you realize there’s a problem, but the problem is your mind.
So it can be very intense to be at war with your own mind, right?
[00:08:47] CeeJay Barnaby (Host): Definitely.
[00:08:48] Steve Levine (Guest): And there was a lot of that until I really gained the ability to step away, to step away from the mind anytime it was guiding me in a direction I didn’t want to go in.
[00:09:03] CeeJay Barnaby (Host): Right.
How did you step away?
[00:09:10] Steve Levine (Guest): Well, you hear meditators talking about the observer and I suppose I stumbled onto that accIdentally.
But I do find when coaching that I can give people the instruction and explain it to them.
But by feeling it myself and doing it myself as I give the instruction, it can get to them beyond the words.
[00:09:46] CeeJay Barnaby (Host): So it’s like a pattern interrupt you would describe.
[00:09:55] Steve Levine (Guest): Yes. I would also say it’s another form of awakening to realize that you are dreaming.
[00:10:03] CeeJay Barnaby (Host): Yeah.
Now you’ve mentioned in your bio that I read that you’re using 3000 year old breathing techniques. What are those techniques that you have learned and can you give us a bit of a run through about where you found those and maybe how you practice those?
[00:10:27] Steve Levine (Guest): Sure. Yeah. So I always, always was drawn to breath work without knowing why.
And one of my earliest memories of realizing something was interesting, there was I was just sitting there, not hanging out with friends. I was like in my late teens, I think just trying to fill my lungs with as much air as possible and trying to feel everything release.
Right. What else can release?
Suddenly I crossed this threshold. So I had some mirrors set up so that I could make sure that I was sitting right. I don’t know, I was just interested in what feedback I would get from the mirrors. And suddenly I became a weird psychedelic cartoon in the mirror and actually started falling off the chair.
Caught myself, everything came back to normal and I just went, whoa, there’s something cool. And then eventually, of course, I discovered the great Wim Hof.
In my opinion, kind of living superhero there to be emulated.
And that was amazing until CovId actually took my breath away. So CovID gave me long haul breathing problems where my lungs couldn’t absorb oxygen very well.
And it actually started being really painful to do intense breath work.
[00:12:06] CeeJay Barnaby (Host): Right.
[00:12:06] Steve Levine (Guest): So I started looking into a pranayama to just do the gentle breath work, to kind of keep my lungs in shape and feel when things came back online.
And when they did, I went all the way with that and ended up getting certified as a pranayama breath work instructor.
[00:12:29] CeeJay Barnaby (Host): Brilliant.
[00:12:30] Steve Levine (Guest): And I mean, to me, this is the nuclear codes. Right, to all the autonomic systems.
[00:12:38] CeeJay Barnaby (Host): Yeah.
[00:12:39] Steve Levine (Guest): You can kind of just. Kind of just do things as long as you don’t overthink it. You can calm your vagus nerve, you can give yourself energy, you can calm yourself down.
You can change your mind. You could change your mood.
It’s very interesting, but as long as you don’t overthink it.
[00:13:00] CeeJay Barnaby (Host): Yeah, I think the overthinking thing gets in the way of a lot of things. So it’s interesting that you mentioned there that it sort of calms the mind down. So you’d say it’s also excellent for anxiety as well.
[00:13:15] Steve Levine (Guest): True.
[00:13:16] CeeJay Barnaby (Host): Yeah.
[00:13:16] Steve Levine (Guest): I mean, that’s one of the first things I show most of my clients.
[00:13:20] CeeJay Barnaby (Host): Yes.
[00:13:21] Steve Levine (Guest): How to use the breath to calm the nervous system and in a way, to kind of shortcut your way into meditation.
Despite how anti meditation culture that sounds, just doing a nice whisper with the breath slows it down, massages the vagus nerve, and it’s something to listen to, to feel. It’s a lot of information about the breath suddenly, and it’s easy to get lost in. And then before you know it, you were meditating and free.
Yes, definitely.
[00:14:13] CeeJay Barnaby (Host): Wow. Okay. So that’s how you escaped that path as well and how you help people with it. But you did mention that as a part of that, you have some sort of psychedelic sort of experiences because of this, because basically, you open yourself up and your mind up to more of reality. So can you describe what’s happening there? And do you have any understanding or ideas about what you might be seeing when that happens?
[00:14:42] Steve Levine (Guest): You’re referring to the breath.
[00:14:44] CeeJay Barnaby (Host): Yeah.
When you start to get the phenomenon and the expansion and seeing more of the world.
[00:14:55] Steve Levine (Guest): Well, I would say that we get two to 4 million bits of information per second, and we generalize, we distort, we delete to bring the amount of information down to something that we can handle, essentially.
And I think that when you do these things, especially if you coerce your brain into releasing VMT.
I think that you see all of it at once. And in a way, it’s kind of an electron cloud of probability.
Like what would be swirling around an atom. So I think in those moments, the cat is both dead and alive.
[00:15:49] CeeJay Barnaby (Host): So you’re in a state of superposition. And all probability is in your hands. So at that point, in that moment, like you mentioned previously. That you are able to form your own dreaming of your own reality.
[00:16:08] Steve Levine (Guest): Absolutely.
Yeah. I think truth is consensus.
And essentially what that means is that when you’re alone, anything that you could truly believe is absolutely real. And any experience that you can give yourself is absolutely real.
So I feel like that is the greatest kind of power that we have.
Is to open up our mind in that way and then choose something different. Choose to collapse probability into something different.
[00:16:53] CeeJay Barnaby (Host): Is there any limit to what you can actually choose to do with that sort of energy once you hit that superposition state. And the suggestions or the intuitions that come. I mean, do you actually get information from that state when you’re in it. Or is it a pure Zen zero state?
[00:17:12] Steve Levine (Guest): It’s a good question.
I feel like I’ve always been kind of getting information.
Like, my mind’s always been very creative, very epiphanic.
[00:17:30] CeeJay Barnaby (Host): Yeah.
[00:17:30] Steve Levine (Guest): And when I say creative, I don’t necessarily. I’m not bragging. Right.
If your mind is very creative, it’ll turn on you. If you don’t create. If you don’t make art or produce. Basically, yes.
But I think that in those. Those moments are so present that I can’t even answer that question with certainty. I don’t know what’s.
My recollection of those moments has no mental contents, though that doesn’t mean that there were none.
[00:18:08] CeeJay Barnaby (Host): Right. So when you’re in that state, it’s like you’re in a different frequency. And if you’re recording there, that stays there. So the only way to get that back is get back in.
I understand. Yeah.
So you’re working with these states and these methods. And you also started working with NLP as well. So obviously that helps with the work that you do. So when you’re doing all this with yourself and with others.
Do you have a whole set of techniques that you work with. Or do you work on an individual sort of basis when you’re talking with people?
[00:18:51] Steve Levine (Guest): I would say a little from column A and a lot from Column B.
Definitely.
There are certain things that are really good as foundations.
I mentioned using that whispering sound with the breath it’s called Ujjayi victorious breath.
It’s very powerful and it gives you a lot more information, both auditory and kinesthetic, to tune the breath with.
So just from that, just from spending time with that, you could do a lot. So that will be something at the beginning of a package of sessions.
But generally people are going to come to the session with some sort of energetic overflow.
[00:19:44] CeeJay Barnaby (Host): Right.
[00:19:44] Steve Levine (Guest): It could be the second 3rd session, and at that point I have no choice because I cannot close down my empathy.
[00:20:00] CeeJay Barnaby (Host): Yes.
[00:20:01] Steve Levine (Guest): So I’m going to take in that energy no matter what. So then it becomes the game, although it’s a very serious game, very high stakes game of alchemizing that or reparenting that or guiding that out of the maze, whatever it is. And those are kind of the times that I cherish the most, because in those moments I discover who I am and what I’m capable of.
[00:20:38] CeeJay Barnaby (Host): Right. So you see those challenges and come up against them and work with them and help people at the same time.
[00:20:45] Steve Levine (Guest): Yeah. And usually these challenges are surprises.
[00:20:48] CeeJay Barnaby (Host): Right.
Do you find the universe is coming to you with better challenges and more challenges, or is it becoming easier and easier over time because there’s less challenges?
[00:21:07] Steve Levine (Guest): I would say more challenges, but I would say that it’s interesting what you said at first, the idea that I’m a very chill, grounded person in the way I live.
The truth is I do really, really well with chaos.
So I’m a chaos surfer.
[00:21:33] CeeJay Barnaby (Host): Right.
[00:21:34] Steve Levine (Guest): And I need some order, of course.
But if there’s too much order inside of my head, stops being interesting, I lose my magic.
So the challenges are important, I would.
[00:21:51] CeeJay Barnaby (Host): Say they make you stretch and grow.
[00:21:55] Steve Levine (Guest): They make you stretch and grow. And I think that probably because of that, I seek them out. So there always seems to be a new influx.
[00:22:04] CeeJay Barnaby (Host): ExcelLent, excellent.
Okay, so as a part of your work, you’re helping people also with kind of cardiovascular fitness, and that’s the side effect of all of the breath work that you do. But do you actually recommend other meditation techniques once people get to a certain level or what happens there?
[00:22:27] Steve Levine (Guest): Well, so with cardiovascular fitness, another early thing, if the person can take it, is cold training.
[00:22:34] CeeJay Barnaby (Host): Yeah.
[00:22:35] Steve Levine (Guest): Super high bang for Buck.
[00:22:37] CeeJay Barnaby (Host): Right.
[00:22:37] Steve Levine (Guest): Time wise. Right. Two, three minutes, you could change your neurochemistry state of your nervous system as far as other kinds of meditations, because of course, you could use the cold to meditate. It’ll just happen really fast.
Sometimes if I can’t make a decision, I’ll jump into cold shower and I’m not allowed to leave until I’ve made a decision. And it feels right.
[00:23:05] CeeJay Barnaby (Host): Okay.
[00:23:06] Steve Levine (Guest): It feels like it takes forever, but it’s a couple of minutes.
As far as meditations, I kind of stick to proprietary stuff, and I sort of figured out my own way of doing transcendental meditation.
[00:23:25] CeeJay Barnaby (Host): Okay.
[00:23:26] Steve Levine (Guest): Which is extreme. Surprisingly accessible, considering the price tag, the paywall.
Surprisingly accessible. So it really depends on the state of somebody’s mind and system.
So, I mean, one of my favorite ways to meditate is you spend, like, 20 minutes or so making eye contact with yourself in the mirror.
And it’s almost strange how not strange it is.
And it’s somehow there’s nothing in your mind, but it’s like the least boring, the least boring thing. It’s very enigmatic. And I find that afterwards.
[00:24:28] CeeJay Barnaby (Host): I feel.
[00:24:29] Steve Levine (Guest): So calm in the rest of the time, I have no explanation. It comes from pure curiosity. But I always try to extend that to people who aren’t having too much chaos going on in their mind.
[00:24:46] CeeJay Barnaby (Host): Right.
What sort of experiences do people report back from that meditation that they’ve had?
[00:24:56] Steve Levine (Guest): Well, it’s a hard one to put into words. So, so far, all positive, but nothing too specific. Kind of reporting back the same thing. Like, it seems really strange that it’s so not strange.
It almost feels more normal than normal.
Okay, so generally positive, but nothing too specific.
[00:25:24] CeeJay Barnaby (Host): Yeah. A lot of these things are actually hard to put words around because they are so far outside of time. So I understand that.
[00:25:33] Steve Levine (Guest): True. And standing meditation is another great one.
[00:25:37] CeeJay Barnaby (Host): Okay.
[00:25:38] Steve Levine (Guest): I love standing meditation as a body meditation because within a few minutes, unless you’re a dancer or a yoga instructor or someone with a perfectly set body, within a few minutes, you go, wait, why am I standing like this? This doesn’t make any sense.
Okay. Yeah, drop the shoulder back. Come on. And then your breath starts coming in, telling you how to stand, kind of setting you up. And very quickly, your posture fixes itself, your breath fixes itself, and you also get kind of a damage control report of, oh, my lower abs. There’s a bit of tightness there.
[00:26:29] CeeJay Barnaby (Host): Interesting, right?
[00:26:31] Steve Levine (Guest): Like, oh, this part of my back still feels tight when I’m standing. Well, when I’m standing straight.
[00:26:40] CeeJay Barnaby (Host): So the body naturally turns into a feedback mechanism and tells you what it needs and starts putting that into play.
[00:26:49] Steve Levine (Guest): Yeah. Because ain’t nothing going on.
Right. It’s easy to maintain this structure of intersupported tension when you’re doing stuff, when there’s other stuff going on, but when you deprive it of that distraction, it’s just incredibly clear what’s going on in the body.
[00:27:18] CeeJay Barnaby (Host): Yeah. Right. So maybe when you’re standing up, all of the feedback mechanisms start coming into play and stopping the mind from escaping and being distracted. And yeah, you get the exception report of what’s happening. That’s interesting, right? Yeah.
[00:27:39] Steve Levine (Guest): And initially this started because long before I knew anything about meditation, I like to just lie down for an hour, 2 hours, just to see what happened in my mind. And at some point I learned that, oh, for meditation you have to sit in this lotus position.
[00:27:57] CeeJay Barnaby (Host): Right.
[00:27:58] Steve Levine (Guest): And sitting in meditation has this balancing issue, this body issue, that, in my opinion was really important to meditation, because when you lie down, it’s kind of like there’s nothing going.
And so the way I synthesized that without becoming flexible enough to do the lotus position was with the standing.
[00:28:25] CeeJay Barnaby (Host): Right.
I did something similar myself way back when I was discovering meditation in a way that worked for me. I would get a chair that had a really high back on it, and I would put it up against a wall and tilt it so it would lean against the wall. And then as soon as I went to sleep in any way or.
[00:28:49] Steve Levine (Guest): Got.
[00:28:49] CeeJay Barnaby (Host): Distracted in any way, it would actually tilt forward and just sit upright again. So it caused me to actually never go into a sleep state. So then meditation was forced. But I think your way makes more sense because the standing way, I think, will work a lot better than that. But that worked for me. But interesting. But it’s sort of similar but different.
[00:29:11] Steve Levine (Guest): Similar but different.
I am immediately attracted to the just woke up aspect of your method.
[00:29:19] CeeJay Barnaby (Host): Yeah, well, it forces you.
Forces probably the wrong way, but it’s more wrong way of describing it. It’s more like you’re in a position of balance, and being that position of balance keeps the mind from getting caught up in its own loops. It’s like I’m sort of focused but defocused, and then you sort of find that after a while, of course, the conscious mind is so caught up, then you slip deep, deeper, and I found that worked really well for me.
[00:29:53] Steve Levine (Guest): Yeah, that’s super interesting. I mean, also just balance in and of itself.
[00:29:58] CeeJay Barnaby (Host): Yeah, that’s the key is the balance.
[00:30:00] Steve Levine (Guest): It’s always such a helpful thing to be contemplating.
[00:30:09] CeeJay Barnaby (Host): Yeah.
As part of your growth and change, you discovered Wim Hof, you mentioned before. So that was back in 2016. What happened for you at that stage and how did that play out?
[00:30:25] Steve Levine (Guest): What happened for me at that stage was that somebody told me about this guy and I called BS on them.
Right.
[00:30:36] CeeJay Barnaby (Host): Did it sound too.
[00:30:38] Steve Levine (Guest): Yeah, yeah. It’s clearly not credible sources giving this insane information. Why would a man even do these things?
[00:30:46] CeeJay Barnaby (Host): Yeah, sounds.
[00:30:48] Steve Levine (Guest): Yeah. And that was just about the time that he was on Joe Rogan’s podcast for the first time.
[00:30:55] CeeJay Barnaby (Host): Yeah.
[00:30:57] Steve Levine (Guest): And I watched that and it just blew my mind instantly. This became an idol of mine.
So I went and I got involved in his course.
The first one, the no frills one, the low budget one that I think, personally, I think is better.
[00:31:16] CeeJay Barnaby (Host): Cool.
[00:31:18] Steve Levine (Guest): Who needs frills?
[00:31:19] CeeJay Barnaby (Host): Yeah. So what happened when you did that course? I mean, you must have learned more about breathing again in a different way.
[00:31:27] Steve Levine (Guest): Yeah, when I did that course, when I did that course, I learned about really having what seemed to me like superpowers.
Suddenly I’m controlling my heartbeat.
Suddenly I’m disappearing from time, from time and space, and coming back, and I haven’t breathed for three and a half minutes.
I started going running with almost no clothes on, just my toe shoes and sweatpants in the winter at minus six Celsius.
And I had never done long distance running before, but using these superpowers spurned in by the cold and this breath technique, I was able to do long distance running in the cold with no clothes on. And that’s a whole bunch of stories.
[00:32:31] CeeJay Barnaby (Host): What did you find?
[00:32:32] Steve Levine (Guest): Essentially, that’s what happened.
[00:32:34] CeeJay Barnaby (Host): What did you find in your running? Did you find another place of peace as well?
[00:32:40] Steve Levine (Guest): Perhaps, but that was more a place of power.
[00:32:44] CeeJay Barnaby (Host): Okay.
[00:32:46] Steve Levine (Guest): Yeah, it was more power and strength against this cold.
[00:32:58] CeeJay Barnaby (Host): Did you find that hard to start up, or did you just start doing it and embraced it and dove right in and ran?
[00:33:07] Steve Levine (Guest): Well, I was doing the showers with the course.
[00:33:09] CeeJay Barnaby (Host): Right.
[00:33:10] Steve Levine (Guest): And once you get to the ten minute showers in Montreal in the winter, the water is freezing after a cold shower, you’re dark red everywhere. Okay. And one day I just decided, I’m going to do it, and I got excited enough to do it, and I put on some music. I think at the time, it was the rap group run the Jewels, which is very hype, big energy music, and just went for it.
[00:33:47] CeeJay Barnaby (Host): And that first run just opened you up to running like this.
[00:33:52] Steve Levine (Guest): Yeah, because it makes no sense.
It literally makes no sense that you lived your whole life dressing against the cold, being too cold to stay outside because you’ve been there for, like, ten minutes.
And it turns out, right, that the whole thing was A dream and you just didn’t realize it.
[00:34:15] CeeJay Barnaby (Host): Yes. It’s one of the myths we all are programmed into. Maybe so people that make clothes can sell them.
[00:34:21] Steve Levine (Guest): Maybe, yeah.
A big industry that’s for sure.
[00:34:26] CeeJay Barnaby (Host): Oh, massive. Massive, yeah.
Very interesting. So that path that you’re on then, actually led you to starting to coach people. How long have you been doing that for now?
[00:34:39] Steve Levine (Guest): Coaching people in this capacity I’ve been doing for about six months.
In the past, I’ve very often been some sort of teacher or coach. I was a vocal coach 20 years ago.
I just actually quit my job teaching English that I’ve been doing for five or six years.
So it’s always kind of been in my aura. My father was actually a biology professor in his.
[00:35:17] CeeJay Barnaby (Host): Right, right.
So English. Teaching English is a second language. Okay. So you have other languages that you have behind you as well?
[00:35:28] Steve Levine (Guest): Well, I speak French because I live in Quebec.
[00:35:32] CeeJay Barnaby (Host): Yeah.
[00:35:32] Steve Levine (Guest): Okay, so this is Francis.
[00:35:35] CeeJay Barnaby (Host): Yeah.
Okay.
Did you find that your multilingual understanding helped you in any way with your path as well?
[00:35:51] Steve Levine (Guest): In the sense that it is a way of expressing oneself?
So a long time ago, I used to rap, and from listening to really great rappers, I realized that everything is a metaphor for everything, and they’re just using this infinite Rolodex, where when they use a specific word, they have to pull out all the pages that can’t really work with this word, but it’s this infinite Rolodex of everything being a metaphor for everything.
And I feel like speaking more than one language really helps with that.
[00:36:33] CeeJay Barnaby (Host): Okay, cool.
[00:36:34] Steve Levine (Guest): Did you speak any more languages?
[00:36:37] CeeJay Barnaby (Host): No, just universal light language, which comes to me when I’m in all the States. Otherwise.
[00:36:42] Steve Levine (Guest): Nice.
[00:36:42] CeeJay Barnaby (Host): I’m stuck in the English.
[00:36:45] Steve Levine (Guest): Sure. It’s not a bad place to be stuck. I like English.
[00:36:48] CeeJay Barnaby (Host): Yeah, it’s all right. I mean, I speak a tiny amount of Spanish as well.
[00:36:54] Steve Levine (Guest): Oh, nice.
[00:36:55] CeeJay Barnaby (Host): Yeah. But that was just from traveling and going down to Central America for a short.
Yeah. My other language is really just the connection of the universe, and that’s beyond words, too, so it’s hard to express.
[00:37:14] Steve Levine (Guest): RIght, but I know what you mean, yeah.
[00:37:19] CeeJay Barnaby (Host): Okay, so when people are working with you, how long do they usually spend with you before they start getting the results that they’re expecting?
Is there an average for that? Or have you noticed so far, a.
[00:37:39] Steve Levine (Guest): Lot of people will start by buying a package of four, and then we’ll continue?
So I would say the difference between what I’m doing as a transformational coach and a business coach is a business coach will look at what you’re doing, say, here’s what you need to change. Here’s what you need to do. I’m going to check in with you, and then we’re going to see how that goes and we’re going to move on to the next step.
Whereas what I’m doing as a transformational coach is more, you’re going to come in and you’re going to come out different. You’re going to come in one way and out the revolving door, kind of feeling like a different person already.
Now, as time goes on, the techniques can become deeper, more complex once the client has acquired more knowledge of the basic concepts.
And of course, the longer lasting the change will end up being.
[00:38:52] CeeJay Barnaby (Host): Do you find people come to you for business coaching and then cross over in the transformational coaching, or do you include both together?
[00:39:02] Steve Levine (Guest): No. Excuse me. I was just making a distinction there.
[00:39:06] CeeJay Barnaby (Host): Yeah.
[00:39:06] Steve Levine (Guest): So I am not a business coach.
[00:39:08] CeeJay Barnaby (Host): Oh, okay. Right.
Okay. So you’re helping people transform into better versions of themselves and to dream their own realities.
[00:39:19] Steve Levine (Guest): Well put. Yeah.
I don’t really mention the lucid daydreaming early on, to be honest.
[00:39:26] CeeJay Barnaby (Host): Right.
[00:39:28] Steve Levine (Guest): Because it’s such a profound, all encompassing and wild concept.
[00:39:38] CeeJay Barnaby (Host): Yeah.
[00:39:40] Steve Levine (Guest): So what happens if you take responsibility for actively imagining what you’re seeing and hearing and experiencing right now?
For me, it kind of gives a weird feeling.
Right. It kind of makes me smile.
[00:40:04] CeeJay Barnaby (Host): Yeah.
[00:40:05] Steve Levine (Guest): I feel like those kinds of concepts could be too much for someone who’s.
[00:40:12] CeeJay Barnaby (Host): Just being initiated, but they are interesting concepts that could be good as a point of genesis for change.
[00:40:21] Steve Levine (Guest): 100%, yes.
[00:40:25] CeeJay Barnaby (Host): Do you find people go through different phenomenon as they grow through themselves, through your work?
[00:40:32] Steve Levine (Guest): Absolutely.
Discoveries like the fact that you have a lot of say in choosing how you feel.
[00:40:45] CeeJay Barnaby (Host): Yes.
[00:40:47] Steve Levine (Guest): That is mind blowing. If it’s new, if it’s new to somebody that instantly changes somebody’s life. Or the fact that through journaling, if you can connect with it in a certain way, you can change your internal world.
[00:41:06] CeeJay Barnaby (Host): Yes.
[00:41:06] Steve Levine (Guest): You could change your beliefs.
These are superpowers that will change you through the process of knowing them.
[00:41:21] CeeJay Barnaby (Host): And experiencing them. So I was thinking just then, before that, when I experienced depression myself as teen, you feel like when you’re in it because of all the mind loops that are chattering away, that you don’t see a way out. And it seems like there is no way out. And I know for myself that journaling did help. It actually was one of the things that I did. And also I did read a book about positive thinking at that time, and it was an escape point. And like you mentioned just then, it’s like you don’t realize you can change your mind until you know that you can change your mind.
[00:42:03] Steve Levine (Guest): Right.
There’s a lot of things causing us problems at various times that are a metaphor for this.
For the squeezing fist.
[00:42:17] CeeJay Barnaby (Host): Yes.
[00:42:17] Steve Levine (Guest): And if you can get your mind into the physical tension or the mental anguish or whatever it is, and you can feel how it’s you squeezing a fist, how it’s a metaphor for that, you can let it go.
[00:42:35] CeeJay Barnaby (Host): And in the letting go, then more of life will flow with you.
[00:42:40] Steve Levine (Guest): Yes.
[00:42:43] CeeJay Barnaby (Host): Okay, so it’s an opening up. It’s a change.
That’s excellent.
So people, when they actually discover that first little step, what happens after that for them that you have commonly seen.
[00:43:01] Steve Levine (Guest): Traumatic memories become less traumatic, chronic discomfort in life becomes, if not utterly forgettable, a completely different situation, much less of a problem.
People are excited.
People who haven’t been excited about life are excited again. People say they found the version of themselves from the time when they loved themselves and that they didn’t know that person was still there and was still them.
But they realize now they’ve been hiding it, they’ve been keeping it down.
So these are some of the things that I’ve heard that are just so compelling and so wonderful. Really.
[00:44:05] CeeJay Barnaby (Host): It sounds like, from your description there, that of the suppression of the pure, natural self. It’s like we get distracted somehow, and in being distracted by the world or obligations to the world, then we get caught in those loops that cause the incongruence that causes the upsetness that causes all of the drama.
[00:44:31] Steve Levine (Guest): Absolutely.
And there’s a really strange thing that happens where the dopamine system gets tied up in self destruction.
To me, that’s the strangest of the modern diseases.
[00:44:53] CeeJay Barnaby (Host): Can you go into that more?
[00:44:56] Steve Levine (Guest): Well, sure. So you may have felt the same thing when you were depressed. But when I was depressed, I was making things worse constantly. I was finding ways of making myself feel worse, making my situation worse.
And it wasn’t by design, there was no strategy to it.
I was driven.
And when I look back, obviously there was no joy, but there was accomplishment.
And now, having come out the other side of that, you may have the same experience.
I see people doing exactly the same thing, and there’s no reason to do it unless it’s that neurochemical reward.
It’s this drive. It’s the same drive that would make ancient people go out to get food, to hunt or gather.
And now that we don’t need that. Sorry, go on.
[00:45:57] CeeJay Barnaby (Host): I was going to say. So the universe is basically rewarding people with what they want because they think that’s what they want.
[00:46:04] Steve Levine (Guest): True. Yeah. Well put. Well put. I think it’s like what we talked about earlier, where when your conscious mind is kind of conquering and overcoming and suppressing your subconscious, your subconscious is trying to destroy that version of you.
There’s kind of a war going on inside. And this is Jung’s neurotic.
This is Jung’s neuroses, and that’s how a neurotic is born.
Is those two factions warring against each other in conflict.
[00:46:44] CeeJay Barnaby (Host): Yeah.
So the key is to discover the point of balance again by Basically short circuiting that system, which isn’t working properly.
[00:46:54] Steve Levine (Guest): Absolutely, yes. And I think that’s always been my mO, since I was very young, probably way before the Depression even hit, is believe that this isn’t necessarily real.
[00:47:17] CeeJay Barnaby (Host): Right.
[00:47:19] Steve Levine (Guest): Whatever the situation is, believe that this is not.
Why isn’t this a dream? So I’m actually not a great sleeper, and I’ve only had a few lucid dreams, and in one of them, I realized that I was dreaming, and my father was there. And I went to him and I said, hey, dad, is this a dream, or am I embarrassing myself right now? And he went, you’re embarrassing yourself. Get to school. So I went. I ate breakfast, got ready, took the bus, went to school, and then woke up in my bed in time to have breakfast, take the bus, go to school.
So essentially, I’m leveraging the opposite here in waking life.
[00:48:13] CeeJay Barnaby (Host): Yeah.
[00:48:14] Steve Levine (Guest): Here I’m realizing that it’s a dream and trying to share that with as many people as I can.
[00:48:22] CeeJay Barnaby (Host): Well, it’s definitely a noble cause to be pursued, it’s for sure. I mean, the mention that you said there before about the addiction to the dopamine sort of circuits and how they do dominate and control our lives is prevalent pretty much everywhere. In all of the tools that people use nowadays, though, the phones pinging all the time and all the attention. Oh, my God, the attention culture that comes from that.
I know. I’ve been stuck in it myself, caught on social media apps, and you pick them up just to look at a notification. Next minute, there’s an hour going, like, what the hell happened there? But you don’t realize them because they are so addictive. They’re built that way. They’re like a skinner box. They actually keep you entertained and entranced, and really all you’re doing is just picking up somebody else’s dream and running with it.
[00:49:16] Steve Levine (Guest): I’ve seen a video of a chimpanzee using Instagram on a tablet and scrolling and choosing specific pictures to double tap for the heart.
That’s how deep they’re getting us and I feel the same way about this as I used to feel about sugary food and Cigarettes, which I used to be addicted to, of course, when I was depressed, because what a great pairing, cookies and milk, depression and cigarettes.
This is something that I actually don’t share that often because it’s not positive and it’s something a lot of people would rather not adopt because it makes life less comfortable.
But these things are violences.
These things are brutal violences, just harming us intentionally.
And for me, keeping that in mind allows me to keep all these things very much under control, because every time I go to answer somebody on Facebook and then scroll for 20 minutes, I just got beat up. Right. I just got mugged.
And it’s truly violent, in my opinion.
[00:50:50] CeeJay Barnaby (Host): Yeah, well, they steal your time. I mean, if it’s true that people have a life review at the end, you want to spend most of that looking at a screen that you looked at. It’s like, what?
[00:51:01] Steve Levine (Guest): Right. And that’s exactly what you’ll say.
[00:51:03] CeeJay Barnaby (Host): Yeah.
[00:51:04] Steve Levine (Guest): To go. Wait, what happened?
[00:51:09] CeeJay Barnaby (Host): Definitely mugged of time. Mugged of experience. You could be outside walking around and enjoying this heaven that we create.
[00:51:18] Steve Levine (Guest): Yeah. You could be standing still with your eyes closed and earplugs in or staring in the mirror for 20 minutes. That’s right.
[00:51:26] CeeJay Barnaby (Host): Releasing yourself from all the stress of the body and the mind and becoming.
[00:51:33] Steve Levine (Guest): Yeah, yeah. Becoming free. That’s always the direction I would.
[00:51:41] CeeJay Barnaby (Host): Yeah. Yeah.
So, Steve, how do people find you and avail themselves of your services?
[00:51:50] Steve Levine (Guest): Well, for now, I’m very active on X, formerly Twitter, and my handle is at Lucid Daydreamer.
And that is with only 1D between Lucid and Daydreamer.
[00:52:13] CeeJay Barnaby (Host): So.
[00:52:13] Steve Levine (Guest): L-U-C-I-D-A-Y-D-R-E-A-M-E-R.
[00:52:19] CeeJay Barnaby (Host): Okay, I’ll include that in the notes for the show as well.
[00:52:24] Steve Levine (Guest): Excellent.
[00:52:25] CeeJay Barnaby (Host): Is there anything you’d like to share with the audience that we haven’t covered today that you think we should have covered?
[00:52:33] Steve Levine (Guest): Sure. Yeah. I’m actually about to ignite my other socials.
Right. YouTube, LinkedIn, Facebook, in a project called Building a Human Being.
And essentially, I’ve been having the internal seesaw of, should I quit my job to focus on this passionate, driven, life affirming career?
That doesn’t offer any real certainty.
Right. Or should I hold on to the job? Kind of split my time, half. Half my attention, my energy.
And it’s a very difficult question until I realized why, which is that it’s not the question, because the answer to should I quit my job when I have nothing else certain lined up is always no.
But the question is, what kind of person am I?
Am I the kind of person who’s going to be happy to have the security?
Or am I the type of person who’s going to win without it? Who’s going to surf the chaos and rise to the top?
And at that point, it was just clear what to do. So I’ve quit the job and I’m going to deprogram my body and mind from all the years of employeeship and being adopted by the system, by that infrastructure, the mainstream infrastructure and everything.
And after that, I’m going to build the best human being I can out of myself.
And I’m going to be putting it all in different aspects in the newsletter, in YouTube videos, and definitely posting everything on X. So that is the best way to be in touch and I think it’s going to be really interesting.
[00:54:41] CeeJay Barnaby (Host): Sounds like a big life story arc that you’ve actually just started on now, which is huge. Good on you all power to you.
[00:54:49] Steve Levine (Guest): Thank you. Yeah, it’s probably the biggest moment in my life right now.
[00:54:53] CeeJay Barnaby (Host): Brilliant. Well, I’m glad that you came on the show. This is really cool. And you did mention this is your first podcast, so thank you for saying yes. That was really cool.
[00:55:01] Steve Levine (Guest): Well, thank you so much for inviting me. I’m absolutely honored.
I think that you do a great job at what you you.
[00:55:10] CeeJay Barnaby (Host): Thank you. I appreciate.
[00:55:10] Steve Levine (Guest): Very insightful, too.
[00:55:12] CeeJay Barnaby (Host): Well, time does that for you, I think.
[00:55:15] Steve Levine (Guest): Sure.
[00:55:16] CeeJay Barnaby (Host): And experience. So thank you so much, Steve, for coming on the show. I’ll include all of the details for your links in the show notes as well for everyone. And I’ll say bye for now. Thank you again.
[00:55:29] Steve Levine (Guest): Bye for now.
[00:55:33] CeeJay Barnaby (Host): So that was quite an excellent story of Steve’s life and his understanding of his work. I’ve really appreciated how he expresses himself so carefully and consciously and could relate very wholly with his understanding of meditation and breath work. And it’s a big story arc and life arc that he is on right now and all power to him. I know he’s going to go really well. This guy really does have that understanding of the world. And if you really enjoyed today’s show, I would recommend that you please get in contact with Steve and just say thanks for coming on the show because it was such a great show. I’ve really enjoyed it and I’m sure all of my listeners have, too. So if you have something you’d like to share on the show, please get in contact with me at Supernormalized at Proton me. And please share the show to your friends and family. I’d really appreciate it if you share it to just two people. That actually expands our listener base and helps people to find ways to actually make their lives even more amazing. So thank you so much for your time. And until next week. Bye for now.
[00:56:48] Steve Levine (Guest): You, our.
