How to let the 3 primal archetypes empower you (transcript)

Please note: We are a small team and not able to check through the transcript our software provides. So you may find some words are out of place and a few sentences don’t make complete sense. If you do see something utterly ridiculous we’d love you to let us know so we can correct it. Please email any howlers with the time stamp to team@bemythical.com.

Full show notes here.

Episode Transcript:

Lian (00:00)

Hello, my beautiful mythical old souls and a huge warm welcome back. How might three ancient roles still be alive within us and guiding us even though we might think we've outgrown them? Well, in this week's conversation, Michael Perez and I dive into that very question.

Michael is a hypnotist, neuro linguist, change worker and trainer who's endlessly fascinated by people and how we do the things we do. Michael and I explore the enduring presence of three primal archetypes, the leader, the hunter gatherer, and the shaman, and how these ancient roles continue to shape our lives in ways that are often hidden, but deeply felt. We reflect on instinct as a form of intelligence, one that lives in older parts of the mind and in the body, and remembers what these more newer, more parts of the brain often forgets.

The leader carries the vision across time, the hunter-gatherer sinks into rhythm and flow, and the shaman enters altered states and returns with truth carried in symbol and story. Rooted in humour, myth and embodied wisdom, this conversation is a remembering, a call to reawaken what's already within us.

These roles may well be ancient, but they are still alive waiting for us to recognise them and live from their power.

And before we jump into all of that good stuff, if you're struggling to walk your soul path in this crazy modern world and would benefit from guidance, support and kinship, come join our Academy of Soul Unio. You can find out more and join us by hopping on over to be mythical.com slash Unio. or click the link in the description.

And now let's get back to this week's episode. Let's dive in.

Lian (01:59)

Hello Michael, welcome back.

Michael Perez (02:02)

It's great to be here.

Lian (02:04)

Wonderful to have you back and on another fascinating topic, one that as I think I probably shared, one very dear to my own heart in a number of different ways and I am really excited to get into this with you.

Michael Perez (02:20)

Well, I'm excited to be anywhere to get with anything with anyone. Because after a certain age, you're just glad to be up in the morning. But I'm especially happy to be here with you, as always. And ⁓ it's great to see the folks out there again. I just hallucinate that I can see them, because ⁓ I'm mildly schizophrenic. But that's another conversation. Not really. But go on.

Lian (02:25)

Hahaha!

You

So let's begin with a little bit of the origin story around this particular aspect of your work. did you recognise that these roles that some might see as, well, this is kind of back in our past, it has no relevance in this modern world. When did you start to realise like, no, actually,

Michael Perez (03:05)

Yes.

Lian (03:08)

these roles are still present within us, still have meaning and there is benefit in understanding that. How did that come about for you?

Michael Perez (03:18)

You know, it started as most things do with a lasagna.

True story, started with the lasagna. Because here's the interesting thing. Now I had been bedridden for about three years, and then I had to use hypnosis and a lot of other stuff to bring the pain under control and learn how to walk again and all that happy nonsense. So now I'm up and about. And the one problem that I had is that my partner at the time, who was very lovely, had No idea how to cook. I was I'm the cook of the house. You know, I have my Italian Sicilian grandmother taught me how to cook. So I'm very good at it. And she she's not she was not so good at it. And when I became bedridden and she was now responsible for meals and having she once burned or set fire to nachos.

Lian (04:20)

Who would have known it's even possible to do?

Michael Perez (04:23)

She put them in the oven to try to warm them up and the oil caught fire because the oven was too hot and I had to go and put out the fire. So I said, sweetheart, let me cook and you do you. ⁓ But suddenly I couldn't cook. So what did she do? Well, at this point I was living in Belgium and she knew that like any ⁓ person of Italian, Heritage, I found ⁓ the ⁓ Italian goods there to be subpar. They were still edible. And so what you would do is you would buy me a one kilo tray of lasagna that they had at the local store. And I have to tell you, especially at that time, there's no such thing as low fat, reduced calorie, anything in Belgium. It's always full fat, extra calories for your dining and dancing pleasure.

Lian (05:16)

You

Michael Perez (05:19)

So there I am, and basically what she would do is every day she would buy a one kilo tray of lasagna, and she would bring it to me, and she'd warm it up without setting it on fire in the microwave, and then she'd set it in front of me, and I would eat from it throughout the day. That was my meal. So I had a tray of lasagna every day, and I wasn't walking around or moving because I was bedridden. I became enormous.as you would imagine. So, you know, I spent a lot of time becoming less and less enormous over the course of many years after that. the thing was, is that immediately when I regained my ability to walk, I was also having to now port around quite a few extra kilos or stones or pounds or whatever you want to say in your part of the world. So

Lian (05:51)

Mmm.

Michael Perez (06:20)

Said well right. I'm just not gonna I'm certainly not gonna eat those that lasagna anymore And I just you know decided to eat a lot of healthy things. I promise this is relevant. I'm getting there so anyway, so I bring Hey So so I go to the store every day, and there's the lasagna calling me going Michael Remember the times we had together. I was there for you, and no one else was and I was just

Lian (06:30)

It's quite an interesting story anyway, I love a story so don't worry.

Michael Perez (06:51)

And it wasn't even like great lasagna, but it was like, it was still really good. So there I am. Now I, being a psychological guy and being a guy, you know, trained in these things and being a guy who helps other people to make great decisions in their lives and uses hypnosis and all this other stuff to help them to do those things. I said to myself, self says I, we're not going to eat lasagna. We're gonna eat something healthy and then we're gonna drop all this extra weight because it's gonna make it easier and easier on me to And over the course of time, it did not work. Because I would stop eating lasagna for three or four days, and then finally I would buckle. Now the one idea that I often have is that basically if you try to fight instinct and emotion, it's a sucker's game.

Lian (07:53)

Mmm.

Michael Perez (07:55)

Because the only way to live like that is to be a drill sergeant or a zen monk, which are essentially two sides of the same coin. You know, your zen master hitting you on the head with a bamboo stick. Concentrate. know, as opposed to your drill sergeant, you know, slapping you with his little, you know, walking stick and then concentrate. So...

Lian (08:02)

Mm-hmm.Mmm.

Michael Perez (08:19)

I'm like, you know, I don't want to spend the rest of my life trying to ride hurt on myself. And quite frankly, I don't have the endurance for it. I don't want to live a life of self control. I've got to find a way to do this easily and naturally. And so started to look into something that had always fascinated me, which was the idea of evolutionary psychology. Now, evolutionary psychology,

basically just kind of looks at primitive humans and says, what are we programmed to do instinctively?

Lian (08:58)

Hmm.

Michael Perez (09:01)

And one of the things that we are programmed to do instinctively, because when we were ⁓ Paleolithic peoples on the plains of the Serengeti or wherever else we might have been hunting and gathering, we didn't know how long it would be before we got the next big game kill or we found the next treasure trove of roots and tubers. And so what we are designed to do is when we have food, we eat it all.

Lian (09:35)

Hmm

Michael Perez (09:36)

Because the other thing we didn't have was refrigerators or canning. We didn't even have salt preservation at the earliest stages, right? So we can make jerky, sweet potato jerky or whatever. And so therefore, we had no means of preservation. We ate as much as we could. We filled our bellies. We turned it into fat. And then we took that fat and we made a life out of it.

Lian (09:40)

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Hehehehe

Michael Perez (10:01)

And we used it as fuel to get to the next place where hopefully we could find more game and more roots and tubers and more freshwater. Now, what's really interesting is that once that happened, then basically we developed a program of doing that. And that meant that we ate as much as we could whenever we could, because it would also mean that we would have to contrast that with days of essentially famine. We might have access to water, you know, that we put in our gourds or our skins, but you know, we're walking from one hunting ground to the next one, it might be two, three days of that food. And then you get there and it might be two or three days before you catch something. So we're kind of designed to go a week at a time without eating, not drink, we have to drink, but we can go that long without eating. And

Lian (10:34)

Mmm.

Michael Perez (11:00)

That's our natural programming. Now, the one thing that they did not have on the plains of the Serengeti were Tesco's or Walmart or Carrefour or wherever you are in the world, whatever your great supermarket is, that did not exist. Because our programming that works perfectly fine on the plains of the Serengeti goes haywire when we have constant access to high quality, high calorie food.

Lian (11:34)

Or even less high, less quality. Buy calorie food.

Michael Perez (11:36)

Now we've got issues. Yes. Well, well, I mean, high quality in terms of it's not a spoiled hyena that was killed three days ago and now has maggots on it. At comparatively, exactly. So, you know, compared to a rotten hyena, it's good eaten compared to anything else. Well, that's another conversation. So the thing that I realised was is that I have two desires.

Lian (11:45)

Yes, comparatively. Compared to a rotten hyena. 

Hehehehehe

Michael Perez (12:06)

One desire from, as we were talking about last time, this is where you do your human thinking, your prefrontal cortex, your neocortex. Up here, I'm like, you know what, I'm planning, I am now enormously overweight and it's making my life kind of terrible. So… Need to take that off so that I can have a happy life going forward because I can see six months a year two years into the future And how much better it will be if I lose this weight? But here in my animal touchy feely brain I'm just sitting there going food. Yay, and and I'm pouncing on

Lian (12:48)

Hmm. ⁓

Michael Perez (12:50)

And so I realised that basically my civilized, you know, technical brain understands past, present and future, understands story, understands change of events, cause and effect. Whereas my animal brain just reacts to whatever's going on in the moment. My animal brain is a freaking, you know, Buddhist Zen monk while my prefrontal cortex is, you know, worry, worry, worry, but it's also planning.

Lian (13:19)

Mmm.

Michael Perez (13:20)

So it can be problematic and it can be very useful. So therefore, I realise that my programming is saying, eat the lasagna. My instincts are saying, eat the lasagna, and eventually I will override this with this, because this comes first in determining behaviour way before this becomes an issue.

Lian (13:39)

Mmm.

Hmm,

which is also I think it's

Michael Perez (13:46)

this place catch up. This is where you realise you're already eating and you go, my God, what did I do? You ever had that happen? Or some maybe not eating, but with something else.

Lian (13:54)

It and I find it fascinating that that sounds like a problem but it's also how we got this far isn't it it's like the instincts are primed perfectly to help us survive

Michael Perez (14:04)

It is. Yes. And you see, and that's where I started to think about the idea that these basic instincts, and again, an instinct is like an inbuilt skill. So for example, a bird has an instinct that allows it to fly. Nobody has to give the bird flying lessons.

Lian (14:23)

Hmm. It's a good way of saying it.

Mm-hmm.

Mmm.

Michael Perez (14:32)

But the bird has to be deeply unconscious because they don't have this bit upfront as much as we do. And therefore they have access to unconscious resources, including inbuilt genetic skills that let them survive. so the thing is, that, so, you know, the one thing that immediately occurred to me is that this part of the brain has the ability to do something very interesting. And that is that it can

Lian (14:44)

Mm-hmm.

Michael Perez (15:01)

create imaginary scenarios that we can see, we can imagine that we see, we can imagine that we hear, we can imagine that we feel. Some people tell me, Michael I can't see imagery, I can't see imaginary ideas, if you tell me to see a ball in front of me I can't see it. And I'd say look nobody can see it, we're pretending. So you just pretend you can see it. Even if you can't see it, see it, you're just pretending you can see it.

Lian (15:12)

Mm-hmm.

Hmm.

Michael Perez (15:31)

Anyway, so the thing is, but we can create because this part of our brain responds to stimuli, or responds to what's out in the world. And then we can use this part of our brain to tell ourselves a story that creates imagery, that creates sounds, that creates feelings, and then our brain responds to that. So I realised that what I can do is that I can use this part of my brain to show movies. simulations to this part of my brain and make it feel different. And so therefore I started to realise that rather than trying to fight my evolutionary programming, if I understand what my evolutionary programming is, I can turn it around into what it needs to be. So, you know, so like the other side of feasting is famine. And you actually have programming in your brain that if you don't eat for a little while, it'll turn off your hunger because you you need to hunt. And if you're hungry and weak, you can't go hunt. A lot of hunger and lot of weaknesses and illusion, it's a signal to tell you to eat so you don't forget and die. But you also have machinery up here that says, no, no, no, we're not eating right now because there's no kudu,

Lian (16:50)

Mm.

Michael Perez (16:59)

but what is it that tells the brain, hey, turn off, turn off the hunger, turn off of this, turn off of that. And so that's when I started exploring it. And in the course of that exploration, you know, prompted by lasagna as many of life's great discoveries are, I finally got to the point where I realised, like for example, here's an interesting thing. I was going to say it's a funny thing, but it's more funny, strange, and funny ha ha, Children in Bedouin camps in the desert, you know, in migratory Bedouin camps in the desert have these interesting dreams. And this is like five, three to five year old children. They recount dreams where they're in a very large tent with a very droopy ceiling and lots of poles holding it up. And they're running through these poles in this droopy tent, you know, this droopy tent. And something is chasing them. They know that there's a pack of something chasing them and they don't know what it is, but they're running and running and running.

The supposition is that this is wolves. They're running from wolves. They are acting out, running from wolves in a forest. Now they've never seen a forest, so they make a tent poles and a droopy ceiling. They've never seen wolves, so they don't look back because they don't know what those things are. They've never, you know, most of the things they have no context for, but we have run from pack animals enough in our lives as humans to

Lian (18:26)

Mmm.

Michael Perez (18:36)

have an instinct about how to react to that situation.

Lian (18:39)

Hmm.

Michael Perez (18:42)

And that's kind of what this, you these instincts are. They are the same thing that allows a bird to fly. They're the same things that allow, ⁓ you know, a beaver to build dams. He didn't go to dam construction school. He does not have a degree in aquatic architecture. You know, none of these things are true. All these animals have deep skills. If you've ever watched a bird catch fish, by swooping down and grabbing them just, you know, when they're at the surface. That's an incredible skill of marksmanship and flight and all this other kind of stuff, all combined together and nobody ever taught.

Lian (19:24)

Mm.

Michael Perez (19:26)

So therefore this all the stuff is inbuilt and that made me think, well wait a minute, says I, how come I don't have this really powerful inbuilt set of skills like all the other animals do?

And then that's when the answer came to me, because again, I'm a hypnotist. And I realised that when you're in a state of awake, alert, you know, living, you can be in a state that is time out of mind. You can be in a state where you're not aware of certain things going on consciously, even if you are fully taking care of them unconsciously.

Lian (20:11)

Mm.

Michael Perez (20:12)

Again, get involved in any complex skill and it's easy to drift off while your body is working perfectly and beautifully. And that's it. This part of your brain needs to kind of get out of the way to give you access to stuff that you know here.

Lian (20:30)

Hmm

Michael Perez (20:32)

rather than here. Here is where you know about things. This is where you know things.

Lian (20:37)

Yes. Okay. Don't keep me waiting anymore. I'm now dying to know how does all of this translate into those primal roles.

Michael Perez (20:39)

So.

Yes.

Okay, so let's talk about an indigenous tribe of hunter-gatherers real quick, because we've seen a few of them in different settings. mean, like for example, people in Polynesia are going to be different than people in the plains of the Serengeti, who are going to be different still than people in the mountains, right? Different terrains adapt differently, but it's always the same set of skills. You have in any tribe, and again, as we talked about last time, the tribe is the essential unit for human beings. are social animals and we have to cooperate and communicate even before we have speech in order to be functional and survivable as animals. On our own, we die on the plains of the Serengeti or anyplace else. We have to have five, six, ten of us to do something to actually accomplish things that stay alive. within that group, it can't everyone doing exactly the same thing. There has to be specialities. And those specialities, sometimes you might have to wear multiple hats even, you know, and and be able to switch specialities. But let's talk about the basic specialities and let's talk about the fact that they're not only relevant to the 21st century, they're not archaic, but they are essential. And in fact, the thing that has been screwing us up.

Lian (22:13)

Mmm.

Michael Perez (22:17)

I'm not going to use four-letter words here, but the things that's been screwing us up is that we have learned how to do these things from books instead of using our primal inbuilt instincts by going into a slightly altered state of consciousness and getting access to them. And it actually reduces our potential in performance because we have much more powerful instincts

Lian (22:37)

Mmm.

Michael Perez (22:46)

But first we have to kind of almost unlearn the artificial ways to do the things that we can do naturally much more powerfully. Let's talk about what those roles are. Every tribe has a chieftain or, you know, somebody, you know, the king, the queen, whatever you want to call them. The person who sits up front. Now, ⁓ of course, there can be abuse, but in a well-functioning tribe.

Lian (22:54)

Mmm.

Michael Perez (23:15)

There's somebody who's thinking about, you know, in Buddhism and some of the other things that I like, we're always talking about being the now, being the present. Well, the chieftain has to be in the past and in the future. He has to use the past, he or she needs to use the past to understand the present, to predict the future, and to suggest what will work and what will not work. So therefore, it's about an awareness of what has happened. where we are now and what that means about what we might do next.

Lian (23:50)

Hmm.

Michael Perez (23:51)

But that role also includes the ability to do two other things that is vitally essential for human groups. The first is to inspire. As an old Bible verse goes, without a vision, my people perish. We need to have an inspirational vision, something that says, hey, there's the promised land, there's this thing, we're heading for the happy hunting ground, whatever it might be, right?

Lian (24:12)

Hmm.

Michael Perez (24:25)

And then the other thing that they need is they need authority. They need the ability to penalize and to punish bad behaviour and to ideally create a path towards reconciliation and repression, as the French would say. Almost every tribe has a forgiveness ceremony of some kind. And the chieftain is the one who's responsible to say, hey,

Lian (24:44)

you

Mmm.

Michael Perez (24:54)

You're not doing your part and that's going to get us killed. I'm not being mean to you because I'm being mean to you or because I don't like what you're doing. What you're doing is detracting from us. It's hurting us. Let's come back together, forgive you and move on. And of course, in the case of somebody who refuses to ever really take advantage of forgiveness for reform,

Lian (25:09)

Mmm.

Michael Perez (25:22)

then eventually they're asked to leave and being asked to leave a tribe in a hunter gatherer society in the Paleolithic era is essentially a death sentence. So, you know, maybe you can find another tribe, hope so, but when you get there, you better be different because they're going to throw you out too. So that's all and we have a ⁓ built-in set of genetic skills that support being a leader, being the chieftain.

Lian (25:29)

Mmm.

Mm-hmm.

Michael Perez (25:50)

The second role may be the most important role. yeah, yeah, absolutely you can.

Lian (25:52)

Can I just ask you a question about the leader?

I think there's lots of examples where there is someone who has that role. However, I've certainly heard, I've had lots of people who have worked with or studied indigenous people who have said that it's more egalitarian, less hierarchical, doesn't have this kind of sort of top-down approach. And of course these things can be more subtle than like just having one person. It could be, as you're saying, kind of a role that multiple people can kind of step into. But I would love to know your sense of that.

Michael Perez (26:36)

That's correct.

Well, the thing is that it's important to understand, I'm drastically simplifying for the sake of the conversation. What very often happens is there are several leaders. That's why, know, there are also things called tribal councils, but there are several leaders and they trade off positions because somebody essentially

Lian (26:43)

Mm-hmm.

Mm.

Hmm.

Michael Perez (27:03)

If every, because human survival is based on cooperation. If they don't know what to cooperate around, or if everybody gets to determine what role they're going to take without any coordination. Because one way of thinking about it is that it is a more of a coordinator role. Using this kind of this idea of the past and the present and the future. It's a coordination role so that we know who's going to be the runner.

Lian (27:25)

Hmm.

Michael Perez (27:33)

Who does that part of the endurance hunt? Who's going to be a chaser? Who's going to follow up with the gourds and carry skins? All of these roles need to be set up. And if everybody's, well, I'm just going to do what I want to do. And then you have 15 people being the runner. Nobody's chasing and, ⁓ we didn't actually bring the water gourds. Sorry, Good luck getting back without dying of dehydration.

Lian (27:57)

Hmm.

Michael Perez (28:04)

There is, but the other thing is, is that there is unanimous consent. See, that's why you have to have an inspirational leader, because they have to be willing to essentially say, you don't have to follow.

Lian (28:13)

Mmm.

Michael Perez (28:20)

But here's why this is a good idea. So that everyone can agree to say, yes, yeah, you're right. Let's go with your plan. And that's why, again, that role can shift. Now, many times it winds up becoming, ⁓ know, ⁓ certain guy, know, certain few people are really good at this. So we're going to count on them as our leadership council. Or it might be.

Lian (28:23)

Hmm. ⁓

Michael Perez (28:48)

that somebody bullies their way into it, but then that starts to create dysfunction. you know, I mean, but yeah, there is a sense of egalitarianism, but there has to be some kind of somebody has to decide who does what and come up with a good plan and then convince other people that that plan is good. Because otherwise you wind up being the leader of no one. You know, fine, I'm the leader of my tribe. My tribe consists of me because I'm the only person who's willing to listen to me.

Lian (28:53)

Hmm.

Hmm, yes, that makes sense.

Yes.

Michael Perez (29:20)

And that's another way of essentially condemning yourself to death because now you're on your own congratulations So you so yes, you're exactly right is it's it's more complex. I'm just kind of again I'm leaving giving us the 10,000 Yeah, 10,000 foot view

Lian (29:23)

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, no, I thought you were. And to an extent, I was sort of playing devil's advocate, kind of asking questions that know listeners might want to, might want me to ask that you. So I'm happy to move on to the next role.

Michael Perez (29:39)

Sure, sure. Feel free to advocate for his internal, for his infernal majesty as you wish. I'm happy to answer those questions. So moving on from the leadership role, which again, everyone needs a little bit sometimes. ⁓ Then we have ⁓ perhaps the most important role and the one that is the easiest to overlook, and that's the role of the hunter or the gatherer.

Lian (30:00)

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Michael Perez (30:12)

Now this is a role that is very much anchored to the eternal now because these people are constantly scanning the environment looking for signs of roots, tubers, and berries or game. Now what's interesting is almost every culture has an altered state. that goes along with that search. Where they go into certain kind trance, a certain kind of rhythm, a certain kind of altered state that, know, not with peyote or, you know, or any other chemical aids, but just by going, getting into the rhythm of the hunt or the search. And what happens is, is that they go into a state that a… psychologist by the name of McKinley, chick sent me highly, ⁓ wrote a book about called Flow. And in this flow state, people often describe being separated from themselves. It's almost like they're observing their performance. This also does a second thing by being detached from yourself. It also lessens things like pain and fatigue, which is essential if you are

Lian (31:34)

Mm-hmm.

Hmm.

Michael Perez (31:38)

on a hunt in the Serengeti and you know you're under the hot African sun and there are thorns and brambles and all kinds of other stuff and plus you're doing an endurance hunt which might mean that you chase after a kudu for eight hours. So they and they are constantly scanning the environment and they also have a means by which they learn almost like a are you familiar with the idea of a dowsing rod? Okay.

Lian (32:02)

Mmm, yes.

Michael Perez (32:05)

Well, for our audience, it's a stick, like a Y-shaped stick, and then it kind of goes up and down depending on whether or not there's water there, you know, is what it's supposed to be. But what we actually know now is that it's not really about, you know, the stick being attracted to water. It's about the person having an unconscious understanding of the kind of terrain that is likely to have water underneath it. And then their unconscious mind, which has much

Lian (32:30)

Mmm. ⁓

Michael Perez (32:34)

better understanding of their terrain, their environment, and systemic thinking, when they get near something that looks like a place where there would be water, they give a signal to their hands, it's running outside of consciousness, almost like a Ouija board or something like that, if you've ever played around with those things, and you suddenly feel like, my hand is moving without my conscious awareness. So these people often have signals and symbols that

Lian (32:50)

Mmm.

Michael Perez (33:03)

Like for example, the Polynesian ⁓ navigators will sit and look at the stars and they will feel a tug on their belly and then they'll move their hand in the direction of the tug which tells the rowers how to correct the course.

Lian (33:23)

Hmm.

Michael Perez (33:25)

So, you know, so they access deep unconscious wisdom, they access instinctive skill, and they access information that they don't have consciously by literally putting it into their body somewhere and then using their body to communicate between the conscious understanding of reality and their unconscious processing. So it's like a conscious unconscious ⁓ conduit. It's self communication.

Lian (33:45)

Hmm.

Mmm.

Michael Perez (33:53)

And by doing this, are able to have preternatural, incredibly crazy insights into where the kudu went or which way is water. Or, you know, I think we're going to find edible roots if we dig there. That would seem to make no sense to anybody. When I was a kid. yeah, yeah, yeah, go on.

Lian (34:10)

Mmm.

ask a question here. It might be, and again, appreciate there is an art sometimes in sort of simplifying and grouping. And as you say, you know, just for the purposes of conversation, requires that. But from what I have understood, whether we are hunting or gathering, although there's commonalities in what's required of someone to be able to do that in the way that you're talking about, they're also

Michael Perez (34:27)

Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Right? Yeah.

Lian (34:44)

clearly differences. mean, one, you know, animals move, berries generally don't. And also, there's clearly nuance around this. But I think what I've understood for a large extent, often it's the men that hunt and the women who gather. And the, the, you say, instinctive skills that are

Michael Perez (34:46)

Sure, there are. Sometimes, yeah. Mostly.

Lian (35:10)

allow us to be good at one or the other are somewhat different. I read a study, I think someone actually said it on the podcast a little while ago, how women tend to be better at seeing a range of colors, which it was suggested that it's because of being able to recognise, you know, a number of different edible versus poisonous, berries, plants, whatever. And so it might be that for the purposes of what you're saying,

Michael Perez (35:13)

Mm-hmm. Yeah, sure. Sure sure.

Lian (35:40)

what you're talking about is ultimately the case whether you're hunting or gathering. But did want to ask that question.

Michael Perez (35:45)

Yes.

Well, think about it this way. If I go into this altered state of consciousness that gives me better access to my unconscious understanding of things and my unconscious skills. If I'm a better gatherer than I am a hunter It's gonna kick in my it's gonna kick me into my gathering instincts if I'm a better hunter than I am a gatherer It's gonna kick me into hunting instincts now I Would suggest Because we have a few examples of this in you know in human history in more matriarchal societies women became hunters in fact there

Lian (36:04)

Mm-hmm.

Michael Perez (36:28)

probably better with a bow and arrow than most men are. They can't draw as hard, you know, a string as most men because they're not conditioned for it necessarily, but they're more accurate and they're more life and they're faster. But on the other hand, men can draw harder usually and you know, and that's right. So the thing is, I think that

Lian (36:41)

Hmm.

Michael Perez (36:55)

Adaptation has tended towards men doing certain things and women's doing certain things, but I believe we both have both instincts. just think that we're, some of us are naturally better at one than the other. And I think that there are some women who are more into the masculine side. And I think there are some men who are more into the feminine side. And it's not anything other than the fact that again, you know, the human race is mostly in the middle and then we have outliers and that that's always, but that's also part of the. design. yeah, I mean, again, look at Greek mythology. The female hunter shows up a lot, right? So, you know, it's an ancient archetype as well, especially once you've developed tools that are force multipliers. But even in the earliest endurance hunt, ⁓ we didn't use weapons, we used exhaustion to kill an animal.

Lian (37:32)

Hmm.

Mm.

Michael Perez (37:54)

And it didn't matter how good you were with anything because by the time you used your stone knife to skin the animal, it's already lying on the ground almost dead. So you're just finishing it off. you know, there's certainly nuance. And again, you know, we teach literally weeks worth of material on this. But the state that allows you to access any of these working skills

Lian (38:05)

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Michael Perez (38:21)

is the same. And that same state applies to working in an office, completing a project, doing the work that you do. Flow states, time out of mind, skill challenges. And also, again, what happens is when we pick up a new skill, like driving a car is the thing we talked about in our previous episode. That's a complex skill.

Lian (38:33)

Mm-hmm.

Michael Perez (38:48)

that we have to learn at the level of muscle memory, but then going into state allows us to execute it beautifully. Does that make some sense? So, yeah.

Lian (38:54)

Hmm. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Again, it's not that I'm wanting to create kind of, you know, yeah. And I think it's, less about, you know, whether it's men or whether it's women or whether it's this role or where we get fixed is more is, mean, ultimately we're talking about, you know, this happening within the mind, within instincts. And really it's like, is that different whether we are

Michael Perez (39:01)

Now you're introducing nuance, I think.

Sure. Sure.

Lian (39:23)

hunt, you know, in a hunting or gathering role, and it sounds, you know, to a large extent, what you're saying is no, in the terms of what those instincts are, and how they allow us to be good at one or the other. That's where the kind of nuance comes in. But fundamentally, they're coming from the same state of mind.

Michael Perez (39:39)

Exactly the states the same the skills are different what you're sorting for is different You know and look I gotta say You know I've never seen a berry bush move, but I don't know that it doesn't because you know I don't look at them 24-7. Maybe we need to put wake webcams on these guys But but the but again you know the idea is is that state is universal access to these skills is all inbuilt and all of those states and those skills

Lian (39:44)

Mmm.

Mm-hmm.

Michael Perez (40:08)

Transfer into the modern environment and into modern work because the other thing that also happens is as chicks at me highly ⁓ Was quite clear about is that when you work? In a state like that in that altered state of consciousness called flow You have better life satisfaction Work seems less stressful arduous and and it's a more pleasant experience people have

Lian (40:10)

Mm-hmm.

Michael Perez (40:37)

a better life, living that way. that's really something

Lian (40:40)

Mmm.

Michael Perez (40:43)

that's important.

Lian (40:44)

Hmm, which makes sense when you consider, I'm guessing, if we, if we study people who are living still in those kinds of ways, a good chunk of their day will be spent in those states. So we've been with we've evolved to be in those states, probably way longer than we currently are in this modern world.

Michael Perez (40:49)

Mm-hmm.

Yes.

That's correct. Well, and then yeah, I mean for three and a half million years we evolved to be that way and then for the last 6,000 years we haven't been that way so Three and a half million versus six thousand which one is gonna is your genetic? I mean we don't our genetics don't have in evolve that fast maybe in a hundred thousand years We're gonna be different. But right now we are primarily hunter-gatherers We might be something else later, but not now and that's why we have to play to our strengths

Lian (41:15)

Hmm.

Yeah.

m-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Michael Perez (41:37)

And this leads us to the final role, or at least, know, the final one that's like the big archetypical role. And again, it's, you know, it's different when channeled through male or female energy, and not just like by boys or girls, but we all have male, we all have female energy to some extent or another. And that is the role of the shaman, the wise person, you know, the medicine person.

Lian (41:43)

Mm-hmm.

Michael Perez (42:08)

And the role of the shaman and some of you might be thinking, you know, okay, dude, I can understand where we need leadership. I can understand where we need to get stuff accomplished. Do I need to go into a hot tent and smoke peyote? Is that part of what my life needs to be? And the shaman energy is interesting in that. the original, you know, because of course, again, we go back far enough, shamans didn't have the funny plant ⁓ that, you know, didn't always have access to the funny plant that made you see visions. And therefore they had to be the inducer of visions themselves.

Lian (42:51)

Hmm.

And funny enough, I think it was only this because of my own practice and work. I'm in a lot of shamanic communities, including ones with indigenous shamans. And it was only

Michael Perez (42:59)

Yes.

Is it?

Yes.

Lian (43:06)

this week, there was a study I ⁓ read that in short was saying, it's actually a quite a small minority of shamanic cultures that do use forms of teacher plant psychedelics is actually the minority, even though they get the focus and kind of almost become synonymous with shamanism that it has to involve some kind of state altering substance when actually it's the minority. The my current shamanic teacher is indigenous Mongolian.

Michael Perez (43:24)

Yeah, yes.

Yes, you're exactly right.

Yes, that's right.

Lian (43:42)

and actually has a kind of, almost it's like a taboo to use mind-altering substances. It's not at all considered the way to do these things.

Michael Perez (43:42)

Mm-hmm.

Yes. Yes.

Yeah. Well, you know, the thing is, that again, think, but think about Mongolians, they're planes riders. If there happens to be one patch of funny mushrooms, they're not going to be near that patch of funny mushrooms very long. And it's even if they find it. It's like, well, I mean, but we can't carry the funny mushrooms with us everywhere. We're not, you know, we're not in the Neolithic. We can't cultivate them. So therefore,

Lian (43:57)

Mmm.

Mm-hmm.

Michael Perez (44:19)

If you happen to be in a place where this kind of ⁓ plant or herb is common and it's all over the place, then yeah, sure. Maybe that's the way your shamanic culture is going to go. The rest of the time, it's dancing, it's chanting, it's rituals, it's hot tents, it's fireside story-stelling. It's all of these things. And of course, the shaman mostly

Lian (44:40)

Mm-hmm.

Michael Perez (44:48)

most shamans become masters at the art of state induction because they help people to transition into because again the shaman is time out of mind it's what the aboriginal australians refer to as the dream time you know the space between spaces the time between times and you go off into the metaphorical the symbolic

Lian (44:55)

Mm-hmm.

Hmm.

Michael Perez (45:18)

the deep truths that are beyond reality. one of my favorite authors, in fact, but a few people have said different variations on this is that fiction is not factual, but sometimes it is truer than reality.

Lian (45:39)

⁓ Who said that? Who was it that said that? I don't think you said.

Michael Perez (45:42)

because it illustrates a truth. so by I don't want to say who it was because this is someone who's done some things that I'm not fond of, unfortunately, but I will say that several people have said something like it. I just can't remember an attribution that isn't to a person who recently did something that I think is kind of terrible. So...

Lian (46:01)

Okay.

Okay, okay. mean, it somewhat reminds me of, and this again has been said a number of different ways, but myths never actually happened and yet are always happening. It feels kind of akin to that understanding.

Michael Perez (46:21)

Yes.

Well, sometimes, you know, one of my ⁓ little hobbies is ⁓ old comic books. And I'm very ⁓ adamant about the idea that ⁓ superhero comics, especially as they were in the 1930s and 40s, are American mythology ⁓ because they all are about, know, Batman is ⁓ the need ⁓ to seek revenge.

Lian (46:30)

Mm-hmm.

Mmm.

Michael Perez (46:50)

But use justice in in meeting it out Superman is the fact that when you have power you must use it on behalf of others and you must be kind but anyway, but Great responsibility, you know Stanley knew what he was talking about. So, you know, so so that is That is that that is the thing is that you know, we and again these things resonate Because they we find a place for them that in our heart that goes. Yes, that is correct

Lian (46:54)

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Spider-Mans with great power comes great responsibility.

Yeah

Michael Perez (47:21)

The real interesting thing about the shaman is that the shaman understands that our lives need delineation. We have childhood, we have adulthood, we have weddings, have funerals, we have all of these ceremonies. Bat mitzvahs and bar mitzvahs, today you are a man my son, that kind of thing.

We need these markers, we need these rituals to let us know we are no longer the person we were. Now we are becoming a different person and now we are becoming yet another person. And then throughout the stages of our lives, we have all of these things. There's the retirement from worldly concerns and then, you know, going off into philosophy or going off into just, you know, being the wise person of the tribe who managed to live for all these years. So. The shaman takes care of those things. The shaman also is the font of creativity because the practices of the shaman are organised around what modern neurology is telling us is our most creative space. It's where we've been taking in lots of data from the world, but in such a way and so much so far outside of consciousness that we have no conscious

Lian (48:36)

Mmm.

Michael Perez (48:48)

ability to figure it out. And the only way to figure that out is by going into deeply altered, deeply relaxed states. that allow us to get access to the systemic thinking and then new ways of doing things, new ways of being, new heuristics, new practices, new scope, new visions for the the chieftain emerge from the space. That's why in many tribes the leaders ⁓ will listen to preferentially to the shaman.

Lian (49:12)

Mmm.

Mm-hmm.

Michael Perez (49:27)

Because the shaman helps them to create the inspirational vision. And then the tribe is given and then the leader does the practical thinking, right? know, leaders do the practical thinking. How do I implement this? The shaman just says, hey, man, the promised land is over there. I don't know how you get there. You figure it out. I mean, all I know is, know, great, great sky god told me that. you know.

Lian (49:38)

Mm-hmm.

Mm.

Michael Perez (49:58)

And it's even interesting that a lot of shamans are people who have had things like epilepsy and similar things because they understand altered states of consciousness because of neurological issues. But that also gave them the clue that, hey, there's this way of being which is different than this. And yeah, there's a problematic variation on it, which I don't much like.

Lian (50:16)

Mm.

Michael Perez (50:23)

But I can do something similar that's not problematic that gives me access to great wisdom.

Lian (50:28)

Yes, yeah, it's, it's kind of so known in cultures that of that kind that there will be forms of shamanic sickness, which often are neurological. It just seems like it comes with the territory to such extent, it's like, it's almost possibly an exception when it doesn't come in that way. ⁓

Michael Perez (50:41)

Yes. Yes.

Yeah, you know, and again, it's interesting because it's almost like it opens the doorway of possibility. Just because the way it's happening is not great, that doesn't mean that there isn't a good form of this and therefore it causes that person to say, I wonder what the good form of this might be. Not everyone does that, but a few will do that. And they're the ones who become the wise person in their community.

Lian (51:00)

Mm-hmm.

Mmm, yeah.

Hmm. ⁓ So we are up on time. Can you wrap all this up into a lovely bow, with a lovely bow as to how we might use this in our modern world?

Michael Perez (51:21)

So those are the three roles.

Yeah, absolutely. So leadership, think that's clear. you have to run a team, if you have to step up and or even just in your community, in your family, sometimes someone has to present a way forward, plan it properly, and then create a compelling story, a compelling vision that goes with

the way out of this situation, create enough consensus. See, that's one thing. If you look at our current political system, it's not about consensus at all. It's about we have to beat them so that we can get our way. Well, a great leader creates consensus. He comes along and says, you know what, you agree with this, you agree with that. Here's where we can meet in the middle. And here's the great thing we can do if we decide to meet in the middle.

Lian (52:11)

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Mmm.

Michael Perez (52:26)

Then of course the worker is the person who has to do the thing and very often it's the same leader who now has to put on his hunter cap and his gatherer cap and go out and do the thing and go into flow so that they can do it at a high level of expertise, at a high level of skill and have good work-life balance and feel rewarded and fulfilled by doing it so that it becomes a positive experience. It becomes what psychologists call adaptive stress instead of maladaptive stress because we always say, stress is bad. No, no, no, only maladaptive stress is bad. If you do stress, you do work and it pays off and you're great and something is accomplished and it creates contribution, then everybody's healthier psychologically and physiologically by doing that. And then finally the shaman comes along when A.

Lian (52:56)

Mmm.

Hmm.

Michael Perez (53:18)

transitioning from one stage of life to another and you need a ritual for that. Or B, when you've reached the end of your logical limits, you don't know what else to do and the shaman takes you into the dream time. Maybe the shaman comes up with an idea from there, maybe the shaman takes you there. And then all that systemic wisdom that you've got, all that systemic learning you've been doing that you don't have conscious access to,

Lian (53:41)

Mmm.

Michael Perez (53:48)

Suddenly in this weird state of consciousness, you do have access to it and it starts to come in and now the leader can create the vision from the shaman helping them to go into the dream time and advising them. And then the worker creates the thing. It's all a lovely cycle. And again, there's the male and the female energy that gets distributed throughout all three of these archetypes to create subsets of them.

Lian (54:06)

Mmm.

Michael Perez (54:16)

And they're slightly different. And again, there's lots of rooms for nuance. But essentially, these are three broad, general categories that have different sorts of states. Because again, the hunter is in the eternal now. The shaman is time out of mind. He's not in the now. He's not in the past. He's not in the future. He's off with the fairies. And then finally, you have the...

Lian (54:24)

Mmm.

Mm-hmm.

Michael Perez (54:44)

you know, the, the, the leader who is in the past, in the present, in the future. And, and he's all, you know, prefrontal cortex and, and, and understanding cause and effect, understanding time and relationships, understanding human relationships. So all of it comes together to create skills that we need now more than ever in the 21st century. But

Lian (54:49)

Mmm. ⁓

Hmm

Hmm, certainly do.

Michael Perez (55:11)

We are being taught how to do them artificially, which is less efficient than learning how to go into state, having them rise up as instincts, and then using our learning to direct them the same way that I use my learning to direct me towards something other than lasagna. Now, what I directed myself towards is another story, but we don't have time for that today.

Lian (55:29)

Mm-hmm.

If I can ask one final question before we end. So my sense in what you're saying is most of us will have access to all three of those archetypes. However, there's probably going to be a kind of natural inclination for some people to say, for example, mean, the shamans probably and the leader actually are probably ones that people have a sort of strong

Michael Perez (55:37)

Sure.

Yes.

Lian (56:03)

our resonance with and that's kind of more likely to form our role in our community, even though we will have access to the others. Would you agree with that? Love, lovely word.

Michael Perez (56:08)

Yes. Yes.

Yeah, I like to call it an affinity. And you know, like for example, in most, in many primitive tribes, ⁓ there's a role that we sometimes, I sometimes refer to it as the uncle. And so like, for example, when a young man is being initiated, I mean, there may be an initiation ceremony by the shaman, but the uncle will take them out to do a ceremony with them. And

Lian (56:26)

Mm-hmm.

Mmm.

Michael Perez (56:39)

it's because it's a ceremony they did with their uncle and they did with their uncle and they did with their uncle. And this kind of thing is a hunter or a gatherer stepping into a shamanic type of role just for a moment to help one of their younger relatives into it through a transition. So we all have this flexibility.

Lian (57:02)

Hmm. Yes. I love that example.

Yes.

Michael Perez (57:06)

But yeah, but most of us are gonna find the thing is just like, yeah, I'm mostly this, but I also do this and that.

Lian (57:13)

Yeah, wonderful. Oh, this has been so fascinating and makes so much sense. A bit like earlier you were saying, you know, we feel that resonance with something in our heart. This aligns with so much of our own work that we've done over the years, which like you, is what based in this understanding of us as primal.ultimately primal creatures. And yeah, I love the way you've sort of like taken this and really built out kind of whole worlds based on it. So really, really appreciate you and the work you're doing and where listeners find out more about that.

Michael Perez (57:48)

Well, you can visit ⁓ Neuron Code Tribal Training, all one word, neuroncodetribaltraining.com. And ⁓ I'm also going to give your listeners a little bit of an offer. When you hear this, you can email me at michaelatneuroncodetribaltraining.com and We have a NeuroEncode tribal training coaching package where we teach people how to do all these States and how to teach others to do these States. And what I will do is it's, normally about, about $3,000. I'll give you, or 3000 euros. I'm sorry. We're in Euro land. So, yeah, I'll give you a thousand euros off if you mentioned that you heard about this on this podcast and that's weeks worth of training and. an invitation to a three day intensive live training to get all the stuff down because it's all about the state inductions, doing it for yourself, becoming the hunter, becoming the shaman, becoming the leader, and then teaching others to do it as well. So, happy to do that.

Lian (59:02)

wonderful, very generous, thank you. Well, thank you so much, Michael. This truly has been a pleasure to journey through each of these archetypes with you. Thank you.

Michael Perez (59:16)

Well, it's my pleasure as well. ⁓ you know, and it's always joy to be on your show and to talk with you.

Lian (59:23)

Well, and this was before we started recording, but Michael at the beginning described me as a lovely cup of tea. And it's one of my favourite compliments. So thank you for that too. Thank you so much, Michael.

Michael Perez (59:30)

Yes. Earl Grey hot I believe I suggested but You know, you're very very welcome and thank to thank everyone out there for listening appreciate you

Lian (59:49)

I very much hope you enjoyed watching that and if you did and you're not already subscribed then do hit that bell thingy and subscribe to automatically get each fresh new episode as it's released each week. If you'd like to find out more about the work we do at Be Mythical to guide and support old souls in this new world to live their own unique myth…

Do hop along to bemythical.com and you'll find out all the ways you can join us and go deeper with us on your own mythical journey.

Lots of love for now.

See you again next week.

 THE BE MYTHICAL PODCAST

With hundreds of episodes to choose from, illuminating your path with myth, magic, archetypes, and practical ways to thrive in this crazy modern world. Subscribe to our free weekly podcast ranked in the 1.5% most popular shows in the world!