Welcome to episode 734 with my guest, my friend John Luke.

If you're new, welcome.

This is a place for honesty about all the battles in our heads from medically diagnosed

conditions, past traumas, and sexual dysfunction to everyday compulsive negative thinking.

And this show's not meant to be a substitute for professional mental counseling.

I'm not a therapist and it's not a doctor's office.

More like a waiting room.

It doesn't suck.

The website for this show is metalpod.com.

And metalpod also the social media handle that you can follow us at.

Been an interesting week in terms of demons. Those either regular listeners

know that I've been struggling with compulsively playing my video game civilization.

And one of the things, I was meditating one day, and one of the things when I'm engaging in

compulsive behavior, especially like video games, it's so hard to sit still when I'm not playing

it because it's just, it's such a dopamine bath when I'm playing it.

And so I was meditating. And the way I feel about meditating is a barometer of where I'm at in terms of emotional health. And I know that when I just feel like I'm crawling out of my skin,

when I'm sitting down and meditate, it's usually a sign that I really need to be meditating.

And so one of the things that popped into my head was you need to wind down to get a grip

on where you're at. And meditation is the very thing that

works for winding down. And so I forced myself to meditate for a full 20 minutes yesterday.

And I felt different after I finished it. And I was really good about bringing my mind

back to my mantra because a lot of times when I'm just really not focused on meditating,

...