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Transcript

Stefan (intro): Welcome to Seekers and Finders, the podcast where we explore the infinite pathways to truth, creativity, and connection.

In our last episode with Jason Soll, we had hoped to do a demonstration of his guided session and give our audience a sample of what to expect. We lost track of time and never got to it — and one of our viewers rightly called that out. Not wanting to disappoint, we set up this follow-up. The session itself lasted about half an hour and has been edited down to a four-minute montage for this episode.

You'll see Gary and me on screen during the session, with Jason's guidance woven throughout. If you'd like to participate in a free Guided Shifting session yourself, the link to the online sample is in the notes below the video.

Note: Please do not attempt Guided Shifting while driving or operating heavy equipment.

Part One: Setting Up the Demo

Jason: A couple of things as background for viewers before we begin. Gary — are you going to experience this too, or observe?

Gary: I'm here to play whatever role you want. I'm ready to rock.

Jason: I was thinking it would be really cool for both of you to experience this, and then we can compare notes coming out the other side. What's going to happen is that instead of me doing a live custom guidance, I want you both to experience exactly what people on the website experience — 100% representative of the actual thing.

In post-production, you'll edit together a highlight montage so viewers can get a taste of the key elements. That said, I don't want people haphazardly trying to follow along with the montage. Similar to psychedelics, set and setting are really important here. If you want the full experience, go to the website — you'll get the session plus supportive resources that explain what's normal, what to expect coming out, and if for some reason you don't like the way you feel afterward, there are resources to help you undo the shift. It's rare, but it happens that people realize they prefer life the other way — and people should be able to choose.

Now, for the session itself — you don't need to be in any special position. No lotus pose required. Get comfortable. A pillow, a blanket, feet up if you want. If you need to adjust during the session, that's fine too. Give me a thumbs up when you're both set.

Before you start the video, let's do a quick warm-up. This is almost embarrassingly simple, but occasionally people get tripped up on one step in the session, so let's walk through it now.

[Warm-up exercise]

Sitting comfortably as you are, take a moment to rest your attention on the visual field — just noticing colors or shapes. Then let your eyes fall closed. Notice the visual field is still fully here, just different. Now move your attention to sound — this experience of silence, or a ringing in the ears, or the sound of my voice. Now rest your attention on the sensations of the body — noticing how the body feels, what it's like to be supported in your chair. And you're welcome to open your eyes.

Congratulations — you both now have advanced degrees in the movement of attention. It's the easiest thing. There's one part of the process where I'll ask you to move your attention downward, and some people get tripped up by what that means. So let's try it: place a hand on top of your head, close your eyes, and let your attention rest on the experience at the top of your head — maybe a little pressure, or heat. Now move your attention downwards to your sit-bones — the experience of your weight on the seat. And open your eyes. That's it. Whenever I ask you to feel into something below or beneath, that's exactly what you just did.

Any questions? Super advanced stuff, I know. You practically have to be a pro meditator.

[Laughter]

One final instruction: all you really need to do is follow the guidance. Now, I know from personal experience — when I've listened to guided meditations in the past, I usually pay attention for the first few minutes and then go rogue. I'll decide I know better than the teacher and start doing my own thing — focusing on the breath, doing a body scan, or just using the guidance as background music to chill out to without really listening.

Don't do that. The instructions are very specific and they're guiding you through a particular sequence of steps. If you drift and miss something, just wait — I repeat the instructions. But follow along. That's it.

Jason's note to viewers (pre-montage):

Hey, it's Jason. Gary and Stefan are about to experience the middle 40 minutes of the free Guided Shifting sample session from the website — which is actually half of a typical full session. I've condensed those 40 minutes into a four-minute montage so you can get a taste of the actual instructions and techniques involved. For your safety, I don't recommend trying to follow along with the montage itself. If you want the full experience, go to the website — you'll get the session plus all the supportive resources that are important to have alongside it.

After the montage, I check in with Stefan and Gary, and you'll see a wonderful range of responses — what it can be like coming out of a Guided Shifting session. Then the episode closes with a conversation Gary and I have two days later, where we explore what changed — or didn't — and what Gary observed in the ripple effects. Enjoy.

Session Montage — Sample Excerpts from the Guidance:

...With every breath, allow your system to start to relax more and more into this moment. Simply observe the relaxing qualities that are showing up now in your awareness.

Maybe these relaxing qualities are showing up as a felt sense of stillness or peace. Or maybe it's more like openness or emptiness or spaciousness. Or maybe they're showing up as a felt sense of fullness, or heaviness, or groundedness. Or maybe it's something else entirely.

And maybe these relaxing qualities are showing up on the fringes of your awareness, way in the background. Or somewhere within the body, or throughout the whole body, or maybe even outside the body.

Wherever and however these relaxing qualities are naturally showing up for you — just allow yourself to gently rest your attention on them.

And as you continue to breathe, allow yourself to start to lower down through the experience of these relaxing qualities. Letting each breath take you deeper and lower downwards — all without any effort on your part, and no rush. You're just experiencing that gentle lowering, as it starts to naturally unfold.

And as you continue to breathe and lower downwards, allow yourself to notice whether there are any new qualities starting to show up beneath the current experience. Maybe a felt sense of openness or emptiness. Or stillness or peace. Or perhaps heaviness, groundedness, rootedness, fullness — or something else that shows up unexpectedly.

Whatever is showing up beneath the current experience — just allow yourself to observe those new qualities without judgment or analysis. Just seeing what's there beneath.

And as you continue to breathe and lower downwards, allow these new qualities to start to gradually take up more and more of your awareness. With every breath, settling more and more into the experience of these new qualities.

Whenever you're ready, you're welcome to start to open your eyes...

Part Two: Coming Out of the Session

Jason: Stefan, whenever you come off mute, that'll be my signal to move forward. Just continue to relax into whatever qualities are present now. Over the next few minutes I'm going to ask you both some questions, and I'd like you to answer 100% honestly. Sometimes an answer will just come. Sometimes there'll be silence. Sometimes the answer will arrive easily, sometimes with a little resistance. There's no right or wrong way. We're just exploring what's here right now.

So Stefan — what's this like? What are you noticing?

Stefan: Well... it's actually everything I feel when I go into a deep meditation. I really reached a peak about halfway through. To be honest, I didn't want you to talk anymore — your voice was interrupting the deep place I was in. Every time you stopped speaking I just kept going further out, and every time you started again it brought me back. I'm still very, very high right now. But this is also what I typically experience when I sit and meditate every day, so I'm not sure how to differentiate it from what I usually experience. I may not have been the most revealing test subject.

Jason: We'll explore it more through the questions. There may be surprises. And Gary — what's this like for you?

Gary: All the qualities and experiences from the journey down are still fully present right now. I went through several stages during it and I can access all of them — they're all simultaneously available.

Jason: Stefan — what's mental activity like right now?

Stefan: There is none. I'm just in a buzz. There's no visual acuity happening. I'm looking at the screen and I'm kind of... I'd like to stay here for the rest of the afternoon. Can you just talk to Gary?

Jason: As you look at the screen right now, does it feel like there's a "you" behind your eyes looking at it — or something else?

Stefan: (shaking head) Everything is just open. It's all... okay, I'll try to explain. It's like I can feel my molecular system, my atoms, my energetic body — all dispersed into the environment. There's nothing cohesive about my physical form at the moment. The only thing holding me to the earth is somewhere around my solar plexus. My hands, my head, my feet — they're all kind of immersed in whatever this is. I guess you did a good job.

Jason: Let's try a little experiment. Eyes closed for both of you. Gary — how's the body showing up now with the eyes closed?

Gary: The body is showing up as just a repository of total relaxation and peace.

Jason: Does it feel like a body?

Gary: No... no, it doesn't feel like a body. It feels like just... consciousness. There's just consciousness. No body — although I could construct one if I needed to. But without that necessity, there's just peace and relaxation and an expanse. An expanse of consciousness.

Jason: Stefan — how about you?

Stefan: I really don't want to leave this space to describe it. There's nothing to describe here.

Jason: Words do fail here. Let's try one more experiment. With eyes still closed, I want each of you — and feel free to decline internally if it doesn't feel right — to bring to mind a person or a memory that's usually moderately triggering. Not super intense, just reliably a little activating. And just notice what happens in your system as you do that. See if it's easy or hard to conjure the usual reaction.

Gary — whenever you have data.

Gary: Oh, I got data immediately. It's completely easy to bring to mind someone who's moderately triggering — that came right to the front without any effort. And it's completely easy to see the reaction too. Everything is accessible right now. Nothing requires searching. The triggering person, the reaction — all of it is just here, easy.

Jason: Stefan — did you opt out, or did something come up?

Stefan: I didn't opt out. My experience was that I had no desire to go there. For one second I felt — there's no need to bring in anything that makes me reactive. I'm in a space that's just beyond that. When I even tried, it just dissipated. It's just... not there.

Jason: Does this space feel robust and solid, or a little wobbly or delicate?

Stefan: (laughing) My entire body is buzzing. Every question you ask is bringing me down a little. Can you please just stay in this buzz state and talk to Gary?

Jason: Got it. Gary, you can open your eyes whenever. Stefan, stay with eyes closed if the buzz is nice. Gary — as you're answering, does it feel like there's a "you" in there preloading the answers before they're spoken, or are they just flowing?

Gary: Everything is spontaneous. There's no preloading. No agenda. No friction. Just energy flowing.

Jason: Last thing. Take a moment to look down at your hands and arms. Just look at your body right now. Stefan — what's this like?

Stefan: (laughing) It's ludicrous. I'm a puppet. I'm just a puppet — and I'm not pulling the strings.

Jason: Okay — do you want to explore a few more questions, or would you rather just be in it for a bit?

Gary: More questions — as long as I can stay in this state.

Stefan: I'm starting to come down a little. (pausing) I want to say something. I've talked about this on past podcasts — whatever happened to me a couple years ago, I seem to be in this state most of the time. I carry a kind of baseline head-buzz pretty regularly. Which is maybe why I said earlier that I wasn't sure I was the best subject for this demo. But Gary had a beautiful experience — a real journey.

Gary: I did. It was quite remarkable. I had no preconceptions going in, just a little bit of feedback from a few people in the Perfectly Okay community who had tried it. But I didn't want to build any expectations, and I didn't. And yet — I would call what happened quite remarkable.

Jason: Stefan, I think a lot of people hearing your words right now and seeing how you are would call what happened to you remarkable too — even if it feels familiar. Sometimes accessible remarkable is still pretty darn remarkable.

[The conversation turns briefly to what brought this follow-up session about — a single comment from a viewer who noticed the demo never happened in the first episode, which prompted Jason and the hosts to set this up.]

Jason: What I connect to in this is the very human experience of putting something out into the world and being sensitive to how it's received. It was quite vulnerable for me to put Guided Shifting out as widely as I have — especially the fear that some people won't get much from it, or won't love it. There's a real heartbreak in that. And at the same time it raises this broader question: as people who are putting things out there for lots of people to see, how do we want to hold feedback? When do we take it to heart? When do we note it and move on? I don't have answers — it's something I continue to dance with.

Stefan: I feel you completely. As soon as someone says something negative, whether you think you're above ego or not, it has an effect. That's just being human. You sit with it, you give it some honest introspection. Maybe there's something to adjust. But ultimately, this is our podcast. I'm not going to reconstruct myself to satisfy the whims of one person or another. I'm not for everyone. None of us are.

Gary: What I want to say — and now that I'm a little more back to normal — is that wherever I expected to go or not go, that was an incredible experience. If for no other reason than I got to really soar in meditation for that stretch of time. It was worth every second.

Jason: You made my day. And I had this realization about a week ago: the thing that's made me skilled at seeing how products and offerings can be better — constantly noticing the gap between where something is and where it could be — probably came from turning that same lens on myself from a young age. Seeing all the ways I could be better, and never quite being able to fully relax and be okay with myself as I was. It's like my early wounding yielded this attribute that now gets deployed outward, toward things like Guided Shifting, instead of inward against my own sense of safety. So yes — this is constantly in development. The community gets regular emails from me with new experiments and results. As proud as I am of where it is today, the current version is going to pale in comparison to where it's heading.

Stefan: That explains a lot, actually. The best counselors often come from where their clients are. And now that you've laid out your own history, there's clearly good reason to keep unfolding it — because you understand it from the inside.

Gary: I want to give some feedback. Number one — I had a very profound experience. Number two — while I know you're continuing to develop and refine the process, I felt that what we went through was complete. The reflection questions at the end were definitely a key part of the whole thing. The package as it stands is very impressive. If it gets better — wow. But I have to say I was genuinely surprised going in, because I'm like you — I go rogue. I can't stand guided stuff. In my mind I always think I know better than whoever's guiding. But this time, your voice was good, the approach didn't offend me, and I found myself actually going with it. And I had quite a profound journey. You're on to something really great here.

Jason: Thank you. Where does someone go after a first session?

Gary: Great question.

Jason: Right now the core offering on the website takes you through the full awakening progression. I've mapped it into six phases. In phase one — what Jeffrey Martin calls locations 1 through 4 — what typically comes online is the ability to feel into a sense of peace no matter what. An unconditional access to that felt sense of peace. Even if it's subtle, even if it's just a background buzz like Stefan describes — you can pause and reconnect with it any time. That's the characteristic of phase one.

In phase two, some visual augmentation starts to appear — for me it was mainly colors becoming more vivid. Some people experience less sense of depth, more of an intimacy with objects in the visual field. Phases three through six round out the rest of the progression, and then it all comes together in a way where all the qualities feel simultaneously present all the time — which is one of the hallmarks of what Gary was beginning to describe.

You can do one session a day, take breaks between them, go at whatever pace feels right. Some people feel high for several hours or even into the next day and need time before the next session. Others are ready to go again quickly. Trust your own instincts. The full progression — just the awakening foundation — is about 15 sessions.

Then, at any point once you've done at least one or two guided shifting sessions, your body feels safe enough to do some very deep healing work. That's what the Sound Bubbling sessions are for. After a guided shifting session you might feel buzzy and expansive, and then as you move back into your day — into conversation with a partner, back to work — agitation or old thoughts can start creeping back in. That's usually emotional resistance, trauma, or deeply held defense patterns reasserting themselves. Sound Bubbling sessions are designed to facilitate the direct healing of those patterns.

Those sessions are not calm and zen. They are wild — primal. In the last 24 hours alone I got two separate notes from users comparing their Sound Bubbling experiences to being on psychedelics. One person described it as "DMT-level releases without the DMT." Total permission for the body to fully express and release trauma, and to actually heal it — to finally meet those old wounds with love and care in the way it wasn't possible when those patterns were first laid down.

So: Guided Shifting sessions build the foundation, Sound Bubbling goes deep on the healing side. You can sprinkle both throughout the journey as feels right.

There's also a third category I'm developing — Growth Sessions — which are more action-oriented. Designed to help people get clear on the specific steps in their lives that are going to be most beneficial to take or to stop. You can be blissed out and deeply healed, but if you're resisting the call of intuition to act, you might be creating more suffering around you. Action is beautiful. And that's where my coaching background really comes in — helping people get clear on what matters and then actually do it. The work is easier once you've done the internal work, but you still have to do it. The universe isn't going to clean it all up for you.

Gary: I think we've done the job we set out to do. And to the viewer who originally pushed back and said, "Hey, where's the demo?" — this is dedicated to you.

Jason: It absolutely is. And what you both experienced is available for free on the website right now. Check it out if you're curious. If it's not for you, you'll know pretty quickly. Thanks so much for being willing to try this out — especially on camera.

Part Three: Two Days Later — Gary and Jason's Follow-Up

[Jason and Gary reconnect on Sunday, two days after the session.]

Jason: So Gary — two days out. Would love to hear overall how you've been and what you've observed.

Gary: As I said at the time, it was quite a profound experience — especially going in with zero expectations. I was genuinely just along for the ride since Stefan was the main subject, so there was no pressure on me and no story built up around it. And that was probably good because I had nothing to project onto it.

Given that — and given that I, like you, go rogue when it comes to guided stuff; I always think I know better than whoever's instructing — I was genuinely surprised. Another guided meditation, I thought. Deep breath, sit up straight. Been there. So there I was, very much like: okay, let's see what happens. Nothing much going on at first. Deeply relaxing though. Good voice. I'm relaxed, this isn't bad.

Then around the 20-minute mark — I remember you saying something like "go deeper, go down" — I had a sudden sense of dropping. And I landed in what I later labeled a zone. The first zone was what I could only describe as bliss. Pure bliss. Existence-consciousness-bliss. The Vedantic sat-chit-ananda. The bliss aspect of that triad. And I thought, okay, now this is pretty cool.

Then, dropping further — I don't know whether it was your guidance or just the momentum of the process — I went into another zone that I later described as openness-emptiness. Pure, pure openness. Pure emptiness. No content to the bliss. Just the vast openness itself. And I thought: this is what they mean by the great expanse. That phrase from Tibetan Buddhism — the great expanse of consciousness. That thought arose in me. I understood it from the inside for the first time.

Then, dropping further still — I got into what I later labeled indestructibility. Like the vajra. Nothing can scratch this, nothing can chip it, nothing can dent or affect it in any way. Absolute indestructibility. And the thought was something like: yeah, this is who I actually am. Rock on.

And then a further deepening into what I can only call nothingness. No qualities. Not open, not blissful, not indestructible. Nothing. Zip. Nada. Just... nothing. And that's where I was when the process ended and you said to open your eyes.

So: relaxation, then bliss, then openness-emptiness, then indestructibility, then nothingness. And then we came back.

Jason: And then the day after?

Gary: Saturday I'm out shopping — buying glasses, getting groceries — and the thing that struck me was that all four zones were still accessible. Not like I needed to go sit and meditate to reach them. I'm just driving the car and I realize: holy cow, the whole package is right here, right now. I could do bliss-shopping, emptiness-shopping, indestructible-shopping — just available, in my face, without effort.

Then Sunday — which was the day I emailed you — I woke up and the immediate accessibility had shifted. The zones weren't staring me in the face anymore. But here's the thing: they're still there. They're back at rest, but in potential. I feel completely confident that with some intentional focus, I could drop back into them. It's more like there's a drone in the background — it's there, it's accessible, it just isn't announcing itself the way it was on Saturday.

Jason: (laughing) All of this from basically 30 to 40 minutes.

Gary: Listen, I need you to understand my context here. I am a jaded old seeker. I've been down the road a thousand times. Nothing impresses me easily. I once spent $2,500 on 40 sessions — once a week, an hour and a half each — of a particular thing I'd heard was life-changing. Forty sessions. I came out with nothing. Zero. No conscious shift of any kind. And I told the people who recommended it: I'm sorry, I can't make stuff up. There was nothing there for me.

Now we flip to your thing: 40 minutes, no expectations, total skepticism — and I'm sitting here saying holy hell, where did that come from? It wasn't me talking myself into it. It was crystal clear. Completely unexpected.

Jason: That's exactly what I'm most interested in — not peak experiences that require you to do a daily practice to maintain. What I care about is what happens the day after, when you're grocery shopping and without any effort you have access to these other ways of being. That's the shift I'm trying to create. And yes — it's completely normal that by Sunday the zones had receded a bit. What will happen over the full progression is that those zones become simultaneously and consistently accessible all the time. They become ordinary. My life feels very ordinary even though I have ready access to things that sound like peak mystical experiences when I try to describe them.

The nothingness, for example — the complete absence of even the need to know what is experiencing — it sounds extraordinary. But it's actually kind of simple. A simple nothingness. An empty spaciousness. Words really fail here, but it's just... ordinary.

Gary: You know, I went through the same pattern as a seeker — reading about Ramana Maharshi, Ramakrishna, all these accounts of exalted states and thinking: I want to get there. Ordinary world, ordinary life — this isn't it. I need those high bliss states and peak experiences and whatever. And then over time, along the path, all of those things — the bliss, the emptiness, the indestructibility, the nothingness — they just become ordinary. Because they're part of what is. And if everything is miraculous, then nothing is more miraculous than anything else. The bird landing on the tree is ordinary. The bliss state is ordinary. It's just what is.

Jason: And here's the funny thing I'll share: when I was going through Dr. Jeffrey Martin's 45 Days to Awakening course — doing the hour-and-a-half meditations every day — I'd read all about these awakening experiences and I desperately wanted one. And whenever I would actually start to feel something happening, my mind would immediately bounce out of the meditation and start fantasizing about telling people that I had awakened. Over and over. Then when I actually had my first shift with Rostislav a year ago, it was so simple, so ordinary, that the desire to tell anyone about it simply wasn't there. What's there to say?

Gary: I went through that same thing. The typical seeker process — "I can't wait to tell my buddies, put it on my LinkedIn, go one up on everyone." And then the time comes and you think... what would I even say? It's just ordinary. Unless you're talking about something very specific — like we're doing right now — there's not much to say about it.

Jason: These conversations are really the only times in my life I talk about this. As much as I put into the Guided Shifting project, I don't really talk about the lived experience with most people. I don't even quite know how to. But at the very least I can let people know: hey, this is now an option. It can help you live more resiliently and feel more consistent access to this state of peace — and it doesn't take decades of seeking anymore. It might just take a sample session like the one you tried.

Gary: And that's exactly why you should talk about it. You have something of real value to offer — in lieu of meditating for 30 years, spending thousands of dollars on course after course, going on 30-day silent retreats looking for something. Maybe just do a session and see. It's not going to work for everybody — nothing works for everybody. But by putting yourself out there and being willing to try things that resonate, you might just pop the cork. And my hope, as you said, is that in the coming years there's Guided Shifting and then a dozen other options just as good — more choices, more paths, more people finding what works for them.

Jason: That's exactly the hope. Anything else to feel complete?

Gary: Feels complete. And listen — I wasn't even going to do this. I was going to be the guy riding shotgun. But I'm really glad I dove in. You never know what's going to happen. Things pop open. Opportunities show up. You just have to be willing to dive in without getting too mental about it.

Jason: And you can go rogue other times.

Gary: Oh, I'll go rogue plenty. But this time I didn't — and I'm glad. Your voice was good. The approach was clean. I could relax into it. You're on to something genuinely great here. And if I can be of any help in getting it out there, I'm in.

To try the free Guided Shifting sample session for yourself, visit guidedshifting.com.