This is The Adventure (with Brad Wetzler), my weekly dispatch about how we can brave the wilderness of these tough, post-modern, hyper-capitalist times…together. It’s about storytelling, healing, adventure, the human heart, and the pursuit of the sacred and the holy, too.
Who am I? I’m the author of the new memoir, Into the Soul of the World: My Journey to Healing, and a longtime journalist with bylines in the New York Times, Newsweek, Wired, GQ, National Geographic, Travel + Leisure, and Outside where I was a senior editor and a longtime contributing editor. I spent fifteen years working as an adventure writer, journalist, and magazine columnist. After a long period of depression and overmedication with prescription drugs, I launched a round-the-world quest to heal body, mind, and spirit—to recover my very soul. You can read all about this journey in Into the Soul of the World. I live in Austin, Texas, where I edit books, coach aspiring memoirists, and teach yoga and meditation.
What has led to you growing, changing, or transforming?
As a human? Or how about as a writer, businessperson, or other type of creative person?
Do you read self-book books and jot notes that you try to apply to your life? Do you post these notes all over your house and bathroom mirror? Kitchen counter by the stove? On the toilet tank?
Or has transformation come about some other way for you?
I’ve been thinking about this topic as I begin working on my next writing project?
The central theme for my next book is love; thus, I've spent the past months reading book after book on personal growth, focusing on relationships and love. The summer was dedicated to reading Terrence Real, James Hollis, John Welwood, and bell hooks, among others.
This reading was crucial for me to feel prepared to begin writing the book, which will blend journalism and memoir. But alas, I tend to overdo things, go down rabbit holes, lose perspective, and use the need to read more as a brilliant procrastination tool.
Fortunately, I eventually reached a point where I became fed up with all the advice and information. The seeker in me repeatedly realizes that I already possess enough knowledge, perhaps even before embarking on my latest research endeavor.
This time, I've acknowledged something new: the limited nature of advice.
We are inundated with self-help books and guides on optimizing our lives, careers, and relationships. Figures like Adam Grant, Mark Manson, and others offer prescriptions to a hungry public seeking change.
However, for me, trying harder has never resulted in epic change or growth. Instead, the major shift in my life have occurred in spurts in non-linear, logic-defying ways–through a small but meaningful expansions of consciousness. I experience the most profound growth spurts when I do enough book learning to understand the basic landscape of a situation or personal challenge, and then I live into a new mindset. In other words, the reading only takes me so far. I must live the transformation and FEEL the change within. It’s almost mystical.
Indeed, I’ve read that C.G. Jung's believed that nothing healed more profoundly than having a numinous experience.
Jung described the numinous as a personal and subjective encounter with the divine or spiritual aspects of the unconscious mind. These experiences, both uplifting and terrifying, evoke a profound sense of mystery and presence beyond ordinary understanding.
The numinous can take different forms, like religious or mystical moments, connections with nature, or deep interactions with others. Jung believed that acknowledging and integrating these experiences into one's consciousness fosters psychological growth and a deeper self-understanding.
Einstein's famous quote seems relevant, too: "We can't solve the problems with the same level of consciousness that created the problem."
Have you experienced what I'm talking about?
While there may be social science papers on this, I must clarify that I am a memoirist, not a social scientist.
In my experience, forces beyond our understanding significantly affect our healing and growth. Simple acts, such as giving ourselves extra time, an additional hour of sleep, or walking, create space for these expansions. Seeking and being open to wonder and awe allow these mystical experiences to unfold.
Several years ago, while traveling in India, my life changed profoundly. A group of new friends and I hiked to a mountaintop to meet a 100-year-old yogi rumored to live in a cave at the hill's crest. (I've written about this experience before, so bear with me.) Entering the cave and crawling toward him on hands and knees, I bowed at his feet until my forehead touched the sandy ground. As I sat up, I felt his hand strike the crown of my head, and then we made eye contact for several seconds. They were seconds that felt like hours, years, maybe decades, or even eons. I began to cry tears of grief that wouldn't seem to stop. The crying lasted for an hour. Falling asleep that night in disbelief at the circumstances that had brought me to the cave, I woke the following day. While watching birds flying over the valley, I fell into a trance that grew into a far-out numinous experience. The mountains and sky seemed to be knitted together. Everything, including the ground and animals, was vibrating. I couldn't connect intellectually or emotionally with my past, especially the challenging and painful parts of my history. This mystical episode lasted twelve hours, shaking me to my bones, or rather, to the marrow. I saw the other side, and it was real. I understood deeply that we are more than our suffering. It prepared me for my future by providing something psychically real to connect with in times of new challenges and suffering.
I acknowledge that I was blessed with an extraordinary experience, but it's not necessary to have an encounter as vividly expansive and strange as mine. We always experience the mystical; we just aren't tuned in to see them that way. Whether it's the birth of a child, an extraordinary sunset, listening to beautiful, meaningful music, or meditating—being open and asking for these experiences allows us to notice and experience a nonordinary reality that can change our lives, shift our perspective, and promote healing.
Experiencing the numinous achieves this by pushing us beyond our small, ego-defended minds, revealing alternative ways to live and solve the problems in our lives. While only a few individuals or experts promote these ideas today, our ancestors understood and respected them. Shamanic cultures also grasped their significance, and religions attempt to bring the mystical down into our daily lives—an effort to connect with our soul and live from that sacred place. It might not always be successful, but it can help us keep our eyes on the prize: our soul, living from the soul.
If you haven’t bought my memoir, Into the Soul of the World: My Journey to Healing, yet, I hope you will.
Here’s what author Hampton Sides wrote about it:
“Brad Wetzler has led the very definition of an adventurous life, but in Into the Soul of the World, he gives an unflinching account of his interior adventures. Wetzler’s soulful quest, by turns anguished and transcendent, will resonate with readers around the world who struggle to find purpose and a sense of the holy in the ambient jitter of the digital age.”
Are you an aspiring memoirist who has struggled to finish your book? Sign up for my next Write Your Way Home: A Memoir Masterclass, a comprehensive four-week course for beginner and intermediate memoir writers. You’ll walk away with everything—tools, mindset, and confidence—you need to finally write and finish your memoir. Stay tuned for information about the next class installment in the New Year.