The Vow

ESP is a methodology

for optimizing or enhancing human experience and behavior.

Some of the questions that the coaches asked

were just so spot on.

If you could have or be anything,

what would that feel like?

Raniere proposed this map of how everything worked.

It was a unified theory to explain

why people do what they do and how to change that.

This is a code to understand myself.

It was like, holy shit, I can be the ideal version of myself,

to write my own character.

The deeper the commitment,

the better and clearer life becomes.

Hey, can you talk quick?

Bonnie got there first.

If I look at those women, they're all not doing well.

It took me longer.

There's a lot of things I'm starting to see

about the organization.

It's not right.

I feel like my life and body was stolen.

I want to have that life. I want to get it back.

Hmm.

Okay, so I feel wounded right now.

And I've been trying really hard to turn it around and stay positive,

and, you know, trust that,

that good always wins.

That, that light wins over darkness.

But Keith head-fucked us,

the girls that were in that group, specifically, in a way that...

I don't know that everyone got head-fucked like that.

So... So that's the daily struggle.

Huh.

- Well... - But, yeah.

Hmm.

When I first met Keith,

my gut feeling was like...

Ew! You know, something's a bit gross.

He would kiss you on the lips.

That's just kind of what he did.

And everyone else did it, as well.

But at the same time, I had really enjoyed the five-day

and was very moved and he was the creator of that,

and so I need to like, let go of that,

and just see what's right in front of me,

which is a guy who's saying he wants to help me.

If this guy's created all these things that are helping so many people,

like, who cares about the kissing on the lips thing?

Mm-hmm.

Keith said to me, you know, you could be in Simply Human,

the singing group of ESP.

That's when I started spending a lot of time with Allison Mack.

Allison saw Keith as like a guru, a spiritual master,

and she was very committed to the mission.

If we actually understood compassion,

the world would be a much better place.

Like, not even the world. Like .00 percent.

Three percent of the world. If they could just have

this little dose of love,

everything would change.

Everything.

Everything. -

Are you ready for promotions?

Our proctors have met various ethical standards

to qualify to enter into

an independent contractor-ship

on one of our career paths.

You ready? - Yes.

Bonnie Piesse.

Allison Mack.

Our new one-stripe full proctors.

I was amazed by the EM tech.

Ta-da! - Man: Yeah!

Yay! Thank you.

- Ow!

Where you break a Pavlovian link

to help a person overcome a limiting belief.

And I wanted to do that right away.

But then you're told that you need to wait till you're a two-stripe coach

to even start learning the tech.

Then you had to go out and practice.

And so I, I practiced two and a half years.

Like, 1,500 EMs to get to two stripe.

I was told that I could earn money

by the time I got to EM one.

And by the time I got there, they said,

"Oh, no, we've changed the standards."

Now you have to pass, like, we're thinking, EM five.

Financially, I was going deeper into debt.

I was kind of just getting by

going to "Star Wars" conventions,

going and playing shows at colleges.

Thank you so much!

It wasn't working.

And Keith kept saying to us,

"Give it a few months and you guys will be earning great money."

But instead, it felt like once I got to proctor,

suddenly I was more obligated to give for free.

And so you're strung along, practicing, practicing, practicing.

Then Keith invited some of us into development teams.

And that's when the workload started to get heavier and heavier.

A typical day during that time would be

up at five...

shove some breakfast in my body,

run a yoga class, get feedback from Keith,

coach intensives, go and give free EMs.

As a facilitator, you couldn't really get up and even use the bathroom.

I wouldn't have a lunch break.

I would eat on the way in the car.

Meetings, meetings, meetings. I was still trying to uphold

my obligation to being a proctor.

And then drive to Simply Human practice.

And then I'd be on the phone practicing EMs

until two or three.

- Up at five.

So like, we were all running on no sleep.

And even as you're working 23 hours a day,

you're getting feedback of like, "Why aren't you doing more?"

What is comfort? Think about it for a second.

It was about productivity,

but it was about pushing through.

Like, we were taught in everything

that to have character you need to, like,

overcome your body feelings.

And you don't need as much rest as you think and, like, it's...

It shows you how strong you are.

Comfort is like an addiction,

and when you find comfort, you try to be more comfortable,

and just everything comfortable

and we don't push our bodies too much,

and comfortable, comfortable, comfortable, right?

The more we indulge in this addiction,

the more we have to lose.

So it feels like tough love.

It feels like you've got these people who care about you,

who are saying, "You need to do this.

"This is all for your own good.

And for the good of the world."

And you're even thankful. You're like, "Thank you for, for pushing me,

and like, trying to help me get through this."

So welcome to the world of discomfort.

If you are not uncomfortable, you are not working on anything.

Your life should be a life of discomfort if you want to grow.

If you don't want to grow, hey, sent shit away. Your choice.

I found myself, like,

sitting in Clifton Park going, "What are, like...

"How'd I get here?

This is my life now."

And that didn't feel good.

And I was looking around at all these people

that just didn't seem joyful to me.

And I was like, I feel like everyone's being squished.

And I started to see red flags with Allison.

I noticed that she was getting obsessed with her weight.

Like, it started to feel weird.

And I couldn't really put my finger on it.

But it was just like a feeling that I had.

The coaches didn't really deny intuition,

but they led you to believe that your intuition

was just a feeling, just a viscera,

and that you needed to try to fix it.

Like, if you had a normal emotional reaction to something,

they explained that it was just the world controlling you,

and it was something that you needed to overcome and work through.

We want to empower people,

particularly the way our will

interfaces with our body, our neurology, our viscera.

And we have these different techniques that help people,

if you will, drive their vehicle better.

In exo/eso, we were taught that

just like you can stretch your body,

you can also stretch your emotions and unlock feelings

that are holding back your growth.

They give you exercises where you can literally open up the viscera,

and expand it into, like, joy.

Find yourself in a comfortable position.

Maybe lay on the ground, and...

just relax your body.

Now transition to the feeling of suffering.

Think back to the last time you suffered.

Just feel that feeling.

Now intensify it.

Bring it up to the most intense

that you can make the suffering.

To 25, up to 50.

Seventy-five. Push a little harder.

All the way up to 100!

One-hundred percent suffering!

Now switch.

Bring up this opposite emotion.

What is it for you?

What do you call it?

Now start to intensify that even further.

Bring it all the way up to the 100 of it.

One-hundred percent of the opposite emotion.

What is this?

What do you call it? Have you felt it before?

And now you're going to switch back to suffering.

Go ahead. Switch.