Nick Jankel
Spiritual Atheist – A Quest To Unite Science And Wisdom Into A Radical New Life Philosophy to Thrive In The Digital Age
by Nina from MindGourmet
Preventative wisdom – proactively un-integrating our lives
We have a choice whether we pro-actively un-integrate our lives—work with our habits, thoughts, and feelings and then put them back together again—as an expression of preventative wisdom, or allow the universe to do that for us with a breakdown or crisis.
Nick says a dissolution or meltdown process is absolutely natural and the way transformation occurs. He compares it to a Lego construction you’ve built. If you want to create something new you need to deconstruct the old first.
Spiritual Atheist – a philosophical memoir
Nick’s sees his personal journey as an analogy for the way the world is developing. He had built a life that was at the pinnacle of liberal, progressive, entrepreneurial, rational life, which is very much like where, as he describes it, we are in society.
He had wealth and status and discovered that these are not enough for a full life. It was a meltdown, a rude awakening for him. He had everything the material world had to offer but realized that he was still miserable, his relationships weren’t working, and he didn’t like himself very much.
Nick had to choose between continuing on his path until the next breakdown happened, or take steps towards a better future. At this bifurcation point, he chose to take a different route.
You have to let go of what’s kind of working
“One of the big lessons of my life is: You have to let go of what’s kind of working in order to have something that really, really works, and that’s extraordinarily painful to us human beings. (…) Uncertainty hurts in the same part of the brain as physical pain,” shares Nick.
We would rather experience predictable pain than risk not knowing if the path we decide to embark on will bring us suffering. That’s why it is essential to train our inner resources to not shrink back into our known circumstances and especially into the expectations of the people who matter most in our lives when we take steps to pursue a new direction.
Nick and I talked about so much more!
Enjoy our interview!
This is what you’ll learn from our conversation
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- Nick shares about his burn-out and breakdown when he was around thirty years old, what led to that moment, and how he transformed himself and his life since then. (03:20)
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- Letting go, non-conforming to the expectations of others, and the pain of uncertainty (11:20)
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- The concept of Spiritual Atheism (14:50)
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- Control and Protect Mode & Create and Connect Mode (21:20)
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- What the concept of consciousness means to Nick (28:55)
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- The Symbolism of the Mobius Strip that Nick chose as symbol for the book cover (37:40)
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- Purpose is love in action (43:15)
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- Refining our capacity to discern love-fueled intuition from fear-driven instinct (49:40)
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- Dialoging rather than discussing (57:35)
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- How you can find out more about Nick, his work and how you can connect with him (59:55)
