Axé All Day

S1E15: Filmmaker Asher Vast on Navigating Human Connection

• Andrew Carroll • Season 1 • Episode 15

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Are you yearning for deeper self-love and stronger personal growth? This episode is set to deliver an engaging exploration into the human connection, where we unravel the complexities of navigating relationships, the power of emotional and spiritual nourishment, and the positive effects these have on personal development.

The journey begins with the pain of letting go of unfulfilling friendships and the healing power of being present with our own discomfort. We delve into the importance of honoring our experiences and seizing the opportunity to learn from them to garner a higher level of self-love and individual growth. As we journey further, we discuss the significant role of personal growth in our relationships. We highlight the importance of staying true to ourselves, taking ownership of our actions, and how these contribute to our growth even when it comes at a cost.

We also shed light on the potential hazards of unchecked social media use, exploring the evolution of our need for validation and how it can be fulfilled offline. Dive into our stimulating dialogue as we guide you through these vital elements of human connection and personal evolution, promising enlightenment and empowerment. Join us on this rewarding journey towards healthier relationships, self-love, and personal growth.

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Andrew Carroll:

Talking about having to let friends go and really change relationship dynamics that aren't serving you is a huge part of the work and, in my experience, the ability to be present with that pain and choosing to really love yourself and that other person that you may be in unhealthy relationship with and letting them go is a huge step in the healing process overall. The dynamics of human connection are hugely complex. Every situation is different. There's so many layers to all of it and if you're really truly listening, people will tell you exactly what is going on for them. If you're investigating romantic connection and someone tells you that I don't deserve you, that's not romantic. It's not. That's coming from somewhere. There's truth in that and it needs to be looked at. Anytime I've been in a relationship where I've said something like that to somebody, or someone has said something like that to me, or if a person is telling you nobody will ever love you like I do, these aren't sweet things to say. They're coming from a place of scarcity within that person or within yourself, and they're coming from a place of insecurity. It needs to be heard and accepted for what it is and along this path you'll begin to have a voice and your voice will set you free, and sometimes it hurts, you know, sometimes that hurts a lot. I've been the friend that people needed to cut out of their lives. I've had to cut people out of my life, but every one of those evolutions has been the best thing that could have happened to me and it is truly, truly, truly my hope that me not being in someone else's life was the best thing that happened to them. I wish the best for every single person that I've explored with, that I've been in a relationship with, that I am no longer in a relationship with, with deep gratitude for what I was provided the opportunity to learn, and that took a long time, and being present with that pain is necessary. You must honor every feeling that comes up and every experience that comes up throughout that process. There's this misconception that, well, it just, it hurts less and less or you're not, you don't have to experience that much pain or these kinds of thoughts. But that's actually quite the opposite. What I have found living with my heart open and inviting people in and being able to love someone immediately because I love myself is that I get hurt, but I'm open to that. What I have been able to do is to grow as a container, which means that I'm able to emotionally experience a broader range of sensations, and what used to break my heart when I was 20, 25, 30 years old doesn't have the ability to crush me like it used to. The pain is still intense and it is to be experienced, but I am able to, as the container, hold that more effectively, examine it more closely, honor what I'm being taught in that process, get curious about what I need to be doing in my life as I move forward. That's really, really one of the biggest lessons that I've learned.

Andrew Carroll:

Like last night, a great example right, I was at karaoke last night and my ex and I listened to Weezer a lot. I love Weezer, they're a fun time. They're a fun time. So I was looking through the karaoke stuff and I was like man, I want to sing some Weezer. So I pulled up Weezer and I was looking through their list of songs and I just felt my heart just wrenched and I was like, oh, so I closed my phone and as I was sitting with that pain, I was like you know what?

Andrew Carroll:

No, that's beautiful. I had such awesome times with this person. In those moments I'm going to just I'm going to take that. I can still look at the whole thing. As for what it was, it was not healthy for either one of us, but that was something that we shared and in those little slices it was, it was fun, right, yeah? And so I went back, picked a song, belted my heart out, loved every second of it. And now, you know, I faced that became a bigger container and now Weezer can be a part of my playlist again, and I'm not afraid of what is the experience going to be when I go into that and I think that's a big testament of like the fact that you've probably done a lot of work to get there like that.

Asher Vast:

You've worked for that and that's not something that a lot of people would have been able to do. You know, sing a karaoke of a song that they were, you know, loved to sing with their partner. That in my earlier years that would have been impossible for me to do. And into this day. It's still a challenge to do and I don't do karaoke.

Asher Vast:

But I get where you're coming from in that, like sharing that you know that experience again and participating in that being a part of that memory, and that it is more than just what you shared with that person. You know it's something that was an important part of your life and it doesn't necessarily always have to come back to them. You know you were both there, you both had a lot of joy and that's something that can be honored without having to tie in with. You know the trauma of them not being in your life anymore.

Andrew Carroll:

Absolutely, or even the trauma of them being in my life, right yeah.

Asher Vast:

Right yeah.

Andrew Carroll:

It's full size of the coin and I can only be 100% responsible for how Andrew shows up. Right, I can't be held responsible for how somebody else shows up in relationship. But again, like I don't hold any ill will towards anyone anymore Let me dial that back. There's probably some areas that I could do some deeper dives and pick up some things. Like we were talking about religion just a minute ago when we were on a break and there's still some stuff that is challenging around that for me, because that was a root program that ran in my life as a kid. That takes deep work to dig through that stuff. So I can't say that I don't have any ill will towards certain things or this or that anymore.

Andrew Carroll:

But there are many relationships that used to really crush me, even going back and looking at them that now I'm just like I chose that. I chose to allow someone to manipulate me. I chose to allow someone to be unfaithful and continue to be in relationship with me. I chose all of that. I needed to choose it so that I could evolve and feel that pain. I reap what I sow. I had cheated on so many people and then when it finally happened to me, I was like holy fuck, this is what I've been doing to people. I needed that. I'm grateful for it, right?

Asher Vast:

Sometimes we don't know how we hurt other people until we're hurt ourselves.

Andrew Carroll:

Yeah, and that's exactly what it was. Man and this person was put in my life to reflect back to me exactly what I had been doing to other people I knew. When it happened, I felt an energetic dagger go through my heart in the middle of the night. It woke me up, dude. I tried to have some conversations with it, with this partner, and just got lied to and belittled until I was insecure and paranoid and all these things right. Then, finally, they admitted it six months later. It was exactly what I needed. It was just enough. I hope that she's able to be on a super healing journey, just like I am right now, like I want the world for her, for her happiness and her health and well-being, you know, and maybe that's what she needed in her journey was to a new start.

Andrew Carroll:

I hope so, you know, because it was very clear that the work could not be done with me in the picture.

Asher Vast:

Yeah, you know that's a hard realization, oh bro.

Andrew Carroll:

I love this exploration with people. Even right now, I'm feeling it again, and it's beautiful and it also sucks, right? I want to be clear for everybody too, like it can be beautiful and it can suck at the same time. It's not all like we're over here like it's so good. It's so good. Listen, guys, it's gonna suck sometimes, but you've got to be grateful for that too. So I just We've all had an end. To remember that like years back.

Asher Vast:

You're gonna look on this and you're going to either, you know, remember what great opportunity that was, or you're going to, you know, fight the change and fight the progress and try to like victim blame. You know, oh she, you know, was this or wasn't that?

Asher Vast:

and she did this and but really I mean, you know you're each your own, like you're saying, you're each your own container. So, like you, you have options and you have responsibilities. To be true to yourself. To be true to yourself first, and then that way you're able to be, you know, true to others as well.

Andrew Carroll:

Yeah, absolutely. How have you experienced that sort of expansion of your personal container, asher? What does that look like for you? Do you see anything specific that shows up in, maybe, the relationship that you're currently in with a friend or in business, or with your partner that really highlights your improved ability to show up?

Asher Vast:

powerfully? That's a great question.

Asher Vast:

You know, that's something that I feel like I've been discovering, like a lot in, you know, the last you know five or 10 years, with my relationships with my friends and my family, I feel like my, my group of friends has gotten smaller, even though the people that I've met and know has grown bigger. Yeah, so, like, I know a lot of people and I have a lot of friends like, who are your acquaintances? Like hundreds of people who you know, know me by name and know who I am and what I do, and you know we're friends, but like they're not. You know they're not my tribe. You know, like even, and they're great, like these are great people I'm talking about.

Asher Vast:

Most of them are individuals who are doing great things in their own right, you know, but you know we're not. They're not in my inner circle, yeah, and that's okay. You know that's okay. Not everybody's going to be your best friend. You know, like, not everybody's going to be in your tribe and that's, that's all right, because I feel like that circle should be reserved for people who are on the same path as you, or at least on the same frequency, in that you know you have similar objectives and you're able to, you know, work together and support each other in your own trials and tribulations in life and come out better at the end.

Andrew Carroll:

I love what you just said about not everyone's going to be your best friend. That's so deeply important to me. I grew up in a place where I didn't fit in and I didn't have options A town of 300 people.

Asher Vast:

That's really small.

Andrew Carroll:

Yeah, so small, right, and so trying to build relationships with people who didn't want to be in relationship with me. Just recently I read this little blurb that somebody said people aren't needy. Imagine you're walking through the desert and you didn't have any water, you didn't have any food, and then you show up at someone's doorstep and there they see you and you're dehydrated and you're sick and you've sun exposure, all these things, and they finally give you some food and some water and you're just ravenously eating it. Well, walking this world alone in a sense, or in unhealthy relationship or any of those kinds of things, is the same emotional equivalent to the singular human body experience of being lost and alone in the desert.

Andrew Carroll:

I haven't had emotional water, I hadn't had emotional food, I hadn't had spiritual connection, and so when someone would finally offer it to me, I was dehydrated and I was starving and I needed some love, right, and I would invite other people to get really curious about how that's showing up in their lives, because we find ourselves not only, like we've talked about, repeating patterns, but accepting relationship from others. That is less than we should. That is unhealthy, because we have been without that connection and what you're pointing out, if I'm lost in the desert and I don't have any water, the kind of water I'm going to be willing to drink is significantly different than the kind of water I'm willing to drink when I'm hydrated.

Andrew Carroll:

Yeah is the same with friends and even family and romantic partners. So the way you highlight that is beautifully said it's just like the work and the consistency and the investigation that truly brings it all together.

Asher Vast:

Yeah, it's really a wonderful thing to ponder when you can take a high-level view and kind of look down on where you came from and where you are. I know that that's not, that's super subjective for a lot of people, but if you've been through trauma, if you've been through really bad situations where you felt like there was just nothing left to live for anymore, and then you get over that and you're able to look back and realize that that distress and that feeling of hopelessness you had was transitory. It was a part of the, you know, the whole experience of transcending into a better version of yourself, because you made it through and you survived and if you did the work, you're gonna thrive.

Andrew Carroll:

If you did the work, you're gonna thrive. That's it, man. That's everything. Perfect point to bring up spiritual bypassing. It's been it's been coming up for me in and out as we've been weaving this conversation together and examining some things, and I want to touch on it again. There's an episode on the podcast already about spiritual bypassing. If you haven't listened to that yet, really invite you to do so. It's a deeper dive than what we'll do here. When you were speaking of meditation. You're talking about, you know, clearing the space, creating the space for you to sit with yourself, to be present with what comes up, to honor those things. When you're just getting into meditation or spirituality, mindfulness practices and those kinds of things, there can be this common misconception that I guess has kind of been labeled as toxic positivity. Are you familiar with that? Have you heard of that? Have you heard that?

Asher Vast:

I have heard that it's um, and I guess I don't quite understand the basis there.

Andrew Carroll:

In our conversations. I think I can't speak for you, but I get the feeling that you also view kind of the spectrum of potential experiences right. I do try to approach things in a non-dualistic view. It's not good or bad, it just is. And so the idea of toxic positivity, my understanding of it and in my experience is that let's just for example you, let's say you get hit by a car that sucks, and if you're just sitting there trying to spin, that is that like, oh, this is me getting smashed by this car. It's such a huge blessing there might be some good that comes out of that, but you're dishonoring the experience and the sensation and the feeling that it sucks to get hit by a car.

Andrew Carroll:

I'm inviting everyone to really consider that if you are ignoring and not honoring the wide, vibrant rainbow of sensations that are available to us in every situation, you're planting seeds for what could be called the negative outcomes. And I know I'm now I'm labeling something as negative after I just said being non-dualistic in your approach to things. But it's an opportunity for shadow to act out. And when shadow is acting out and in control, like you mentioned, when is the time for me to take the wheel? When is the time for me to surrender If you're not Honoring your shadow just as much as you're honoring your light? You're creating space for there to be significant issues, right? Significant issues, right.

Asher Vast:

It's not always all good, exactly when we refer to things as good or bad, or pleasant or unpleasant. That's a very circumstantial type of event that you know is going to be very Subjective to the person who's viewing it in the environment that they're in and the people around them. So I think I've witnessed some of what you're referring to with talks of positivity, especially in in in the community, where people who are more Focused on growth you, I think I've seen it where it's just like, oh, it's all good.

Asher Vast:

You know, everything's just, it's all positive, everything's you know vibrant in the world, it's just such a great place and everything's you know so Amazing. And that's true in a sense. You know that, like that, everything is wonderful if you, you know, look at the right angle and you know if you're viewing it through the right lens. But you know there's a lot of like awful, horrible shit in life too that like we are better off without. You know, and some of that is Toxic people, you know, and some of it is, you know, unhealthy relationships with technology and Social media and those types of things.

Asher Vast:

And we can I think we can all do better to like find a place to, to you know, exist even in in the moments of meditation or otherwise, without those those elements in our life. And this comes from, comes from somebody who uses social media all the time for for business and staying in touch with my friends. But also I acknowledge that it's become an unhealthy, an unhealthy element if I don't keep it in check, you know, like if I don't Be aware of the fact that I'm doom scrolling, you know, and that I'm so glad that somebody put a name on that. Yeah, because it makes it more evident and more easy to realize, when you're doing it, that you're basically doing the same thing that boomers did back in the day, when they flip on the TV and they're, like you know, flipping, looking for something to watch, and Do you just identified the original doom scrolling.

Andrew Carroll:

I had never thought about that. That's how I look about.

Asher Vast:

That's so accurate though, but the process of checking out in your environment and checking out in your life, to be an observer and be entertained. And now there's another level to it and it's the engagement level, where it's not just that people want to be entertained but they also want to be validated. And so people I feel, like some people who used to watch a lot of TV and it used to be couch potatoes, whatever, they would have their thing where they get off of work and they go home and and watch TV that that they found some Validation from the shows that they watched or the different personalities that they would follow, and it's an evolution of that nowadays, in my opinion, on social media. But there's the additional element of the interaction from when you post something and somebody else gives you validation, that is fulfilling a need in people's lives that I feel like could be filled somewhere else and should be filled somewhere else. So it's like we all, like you know, when we share something with the world and we think it's awesome and then it gets a lot of likes, you know we all you can't not like that.

Asher Vast:

There's literally nobody posting who looks back on their posts and sees the Interactions and doesn't get a dopamine boost from that, you know. So we all get that. I think it's important to understand that there's a line between what is healthy for you to receive that, that validation and how much of that validation is healthy versus how much of it you could be getting somewhere else. So if you're getting that validation online from those interactions and you're getting a lot of it you need to Be aware of the fact that that some of that needs to come offline. So that needs to come from physical, like interactions with people, conversations that you have, like the ones that we're having right now, and that's imperative for Becoming a you know, a well-rounded human. Yeah,

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