#130 Spiritual Shadows: Scott Kiloby & Toshi Matsunaga
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Michael Reiley: Today on the show, we welcome Scott Kiloby and Toshi Matsunaga, authors of "Awake But Sick", exploring the hidden emotional pain that can persist even after profound spiritual awakening. Their work challenges common myths of non-duality and mindfulness, offering a deeper path through emotional repression, physical illness, and the illusions of immediate freedom.
In this conversation, we explore the gap between awakening and true healing. The dangers of spiritual bypassing and how to reconnect the body's wisdom to finding lasting peace. When we start today's episode, we'll be discussing Scott's groundbreaking method called [00:01:00] KI or Kiloby Inquiries, which are a personal practice for addressing the hidden emotional patterns that cause us to struggle all today on the Sounds of Sand Podcast presented by science and non-duality.
I'm here with Scott Kiloby and Toshi Matsunaga for the Sounds of SAND Podcast. Thanks for being here today.
Scott Kiloby: For having us.
Toshi Matsunaga: Thank you. Good to be here. Thanks.
Michael Reiley: Yeah. So I've really enjoyed your book, "Awake but Sick" And we will dive into some of the concepts and the practices that you put forth in this very important book. But I'm just curious for some backstory. So how did you guys meet and end up collaborating together?
Toshi Matsunaga: Yeah. I guess I could ask I. Start practicing KI back in maybe five, six years ago. That's how I met. KI mean, I can, I won't go in too much details, but obviously I found my majority, I found the nature of [00:02:00] everything, but I kept suffering and I just couldn't really listen to any non teachers, to be honest.
And I could really listen to people who were talking about the body or the inclusion of the body and stuff like that. And as we do, as, as life presented us, I came across his YouTube clips and stuff like that, and he was just coming out his, of his stuff. And then, yeah, just amazing.
I just got kinda, yeah, I just start learning AI and I just fell in love with it. And then here I am, I'm just kinda training people and speaking about it, and then even reading a book with Scott. Yeah that's how we met really. So yeah, through suffering,
Scott Kiloby: yeah on my end. It was Dan and I had started to develop KI back in 2016 or 17, but it was a sematic based form of inquiry, and we were trying to get to the root of things, but we hadn't gotten to emotional repression. And by the time, it, at some way along the development of ki we learned how to access emotional depression.
And then I remember Toshi came. So he must have been, he must have been drawn to that message. And then once Toshi [00:03:00] came. Toshi became a co-developer. He's been involved in a lot of the different things that we've developed since then, since the real development of the repression inquiry, which just is again, a, like a branch of the most important branch, but a later branch of ki
Michael Reiley: Nice. And so for listeners, could you describe a bit what is KI.
Scott Kiloby: Yeah it's an awareness based somatic inquiry process. And the, we have, we, we actually recognize three dimensions of spiritual practice in our modality. So the first dimension is where you just rest and let things be meditation, mindfulness, where you don't prompt anything up from the unconscious that would not otherwise come up from just sitting here and being here.
So a lot of teachings are first dimension. That's included, but not the totality of what we do. And then second dimension is where there are somatic processes and things come up because of these [00:04:00] questions or inquiries, but they don't reach emotional repression. So we found a bypass. So second dimension inquiry and first dimension practice are out there in the world.
We recognize those things as outside of ki and we use that map of first and second dimension. And we did through the years to develop third dimension because many somatic based therapies and practices don't get to repressed emotions. Or if they don't get to them consistently. And since repression consistently creates a lot of suffering we needed to create a different dimension of practice.
And so the third dimension is really the crux of ki it's the secret sauce of ki. But to get there, we had to go, so many do, so many traditions or teachings we had to develop into this, or at least we started where they are. I should say it that way. We started where they were and we found the bypass.
In our minds, we found the bypass and what was out there in first and second dimension, and we developed third Dimension as a way to get to repression.
Michael Reiley: Nice. Thank you. And we'll talk, [00:05:00] I'm sure a lot about spiritual bypassing. 'cause one of the things I loved about your book is often you hear people talk about spiritual bypassing, but there's not really clear instructions about what to do with it. How to actually work with it. It's just don't do it.
And, but
Scott Kiloby: yeah,
Yeah. To, you wanna go ahead first? I think we both have something to say about that. You mean what?
Toshi Matsunaga: Yeah,
Scott Kiloby: the next, yeah. I.
Toshi Matsunaga: It's more about possible for me and for many of my my mentees to clients, it's about acknowledging that you're bypassing fast. 'cause if you'd have told me 10 years ago to your bypass, it's no, I'm not identify with anything, especially if I'm not your background.
It's so easy to dissociate and I get away from what's really happening here. You feel like you're being with everything, but you just categorize or you're just making into something when we're making nothing into something, if that makes sense. I could speak like this where it's very subtle the way we avoid things and it's so easy.
Even the suffering comes up in the form of pain or depression or addiction, whatever it is that, what we call suffering. It's so easy for us to say, there's not, no one's [00:06:00] suffering here. It's just suffering that's happening and all those things. There's so many thoughts that we can actually believe or attach or grab without even noticing.
'cause this. This unconscious programs that's running, which is a repression to get our knees met. And we don't even know that's happening basically. That's so subtle. Un until un unless or until you start really listening to the body and how your body's always reacting to things because it's so easy to have a, for me anyway, when I had my awakening experiences, stuff like that, it's so easy to go to that vast, huge emptiness of everything and it, it is amazing there and it's all, but it felt amazing 'cause it's amazing.
But it felt amazing also because I managed to disassociate from my body, from my suffering, from my knees, from my childhood knees, that I couldn't get it from my parents or whatever it was, and all of that. And from my emotions. 'cause I was not allowed to be angry and I told myself to never be angry 'cause I'll never get love and safety.
I didn't know this at the time, as I do the work, just it's so first away it's really about acknowledging that we [00:07:00] actually bypassing. And it's not, we make it sound like it's a bad thing on an enemy or anything, but it's what we need to acknowledge first to be able to just see how con unconscious we are, yeah, I just say about that really.
Scott Kiloby: Yeah, that was good. I could add something on that. That was really good because we do have to acknowledge it. But then in terms of what it is, I think for me it was just to piggyback. What Toshi said, when the repression is there, the unconscious is driving things. So I would pick up a meditation or appointing or an inquiry practice.
I didn't understand that the fear of anger was very much involved in the picking of the practice and the doing of the practice. But then because I was achieving the result that the unconscious wanted, which was temporary safety, I couldn't see the force from the trees. And by continuing seeing, just not focusing on repression, the repression kept grabbing not only onto the methods and the pointers, but also to the states because I had hung out as he did in the kind of initial non-dual realization and [00:08:00] didn't understand, I was bypassing 'cause I didn't understand the survival mechanism.
With regard to buried emotions, it's always choosing safety and so it, it has just kept choosing safety. I. Because I didn't get to the mechanism that was choosing, that was in the buried emotions. And so the bypass is inherent in just being on a path I've learned unless you process at the unconscious level, because those knees that Toshi are talking about are driving us.
We find those when we get to the repression, and we don't usually find those on a path unless we get to the repression because those needs are, they weren't met. And the emotion that was most scary for us is the one that we had to store. That's the scariest one or greatest resistance. So we can't feel those emotions, therefore we can't get to the knees on a spiritual path because those needs and those repressed emotions just feel like a sensation, just like a tight stomach is all when you're in awareness.
Michael Reiley: I'm curious too, because both of you talk about your awakening stories in the book and how they were [00:09:00] followed by deep suffering. What is the connection there, do you think, between awakening and becoming aware of deep suffering or even deep suffering causing, causing awakening?
People talk about the dark night of the soul.
Scott Kiloby: All right. I think we all have a different perspective from me and Toshi D, but for me, how I've been saying it is. These emotions that are really scary, they're never expressed. They, if they can't be expressed in relationship or in a spiritual practice or realization, they get expressed as like chronic pain or disease and something that doesn't look like that.
And so for me, post awakening had to include the diseases and the chronic pain and stuff, and the things that you wouldn't necessarily include because they all have a similar route. According to the science. There's a repression behind certain diseases in chronic pain and addiction, and then mental health issues, but then also the stories and the beliefs.
And the identities. So if we deal with the stories, beliefs and identities, and we have a sense of the non-dual, but we haven't gotten to the root of all that, that I think it, it's [00:10:00] very easy that for many people probably are experiencing What I experienced is that those emotions get expressed still, but as something else.
Toshi Matsunaga: Yeah. For me yeah, I had my experiences and I did have my honeymoon period for six months or something where I just, there was no me at all. I was just observing everything. I was just moving as everything as, everything. I just, like everything happening, finishing, happening, finish like everything, the fountain and, there's no difference between me and everything, how vastness I am, how in all of that.
But then after that. Just that, that conditioning carried on that I, I couldn't say anything else. The conditioning, which is re which is the emotional repression carried on. So my chronic pango was my depression go was, and all of these things just carried on. But just coming back to what I was saying before I could have died.
I could have lived all my life just denying that too, to say I'm not suffering. There's nobody suffering. 'cause it was a bigger landing as, as big a land in my awakening experiences and all [00:11:00] the things I experienced, yes, that was true, but something had to grab that and use it for rainy day. It's a concept, I made it into a state.
I made it into a concept after a while. 'cause the conditioning carries on. And what the conditioning, what emotional repression does is to constantly try and get our needs met because we just don't feel safe. And it can't help but to, and I didn't know I was even grabbing those things and making awareness into a stay or location and yeah.
So I had to use all of that. I could have just. Carried on denying everything about myself, almost to a point, which I didn't see to just keep suffering, but not acknowledging I'm suffering. It also, I think, in, in my experience, it also, the suffering was because I think I put all, everything in the ba, that basket, because I had, before spiritual work, I had lots of different compulsions, any other coping mechanism to keep my anger down, let's say.
But because of my non understanding, I put everything in the basket. So every time I rest as awareness or [00:12:00] truly fell into whatever it is, I got, my knees messed. I felt better. I got a pressure of every time, which I didn't know at the time. So that just kept going. But something had to, all the emotions I had to feel, had to go somewhere in the body.
It's not gonna move through as everything's flowing unless you identify with it or keeping it there unconsciously. It was just kept in the body somewhere and that's why I was feeling, that's why I was avoiding, as the body keeps the score, as people say, so yeah. I.
Scott Kiloby: Yeah. Michael, can I add something on that I would want people to hear about this is that I was in peace, post awakening. I, my suffering was again like, and I don't think people always recognize that it might have the same root unless you read the science, but it's like having really big realization and a lot of byproducts at first for a few years and then just a lot of peace.
But then the diagnoses would come and relatively in my relationships, there wasn't a lot of, conflict because I was an angry repressor. There wasn't a lot of [00:13:00] issues. They were like, there was a lot of avoidance. But I couldn't see it. And so I think that the peace is something that people who with anger, repression, who don't, can't feel the anger, first of all.
'cause anger is repressed, and then that conditioning, the fear of anger connects to peace. So it's not just a peaceful state. There can be the piece of realization. Now people say, I'd love to have that problem, but would you? Because if the piece of realization is keeping the anger buried and like me, it then expresses itself as a disease or a chronic pain.
It's almost like it hides it from you. It's very hard to find because there's a piece at the surface, but you haven't contacted the buried anger yet. So you don't see the root and therefore the diagnosis comes, or the pain, as Toshi was saying, you can't put two and two together and that adds to the dark night of the soul.
To me it's like you can't see it all as one yet that many of these diseases are the same route. [00:14:00] Non-duality is bigger than we thought in a way. It's if it's really embodied, then many of these diseases, as the science is saying, are coming from the same route, but they're not always treated that way.
And as long as we're at peace, we have a vested interest in not examining these things. Because if we look at disease, we might find the buried anger, which we bypass, or the chronic pain, and our system wants that to stay safe. To not find that,
Michael Reiley: Yeah, e even as you're speaking, I'm, I am noticing emotions in my body, whether it's, maybe fear or nervousness. Are these questions good enough? Are they liking what I'm doing? And then I wanna retreat to awareness and say no. But it's just happening in a field of awareness.
So it's like that somatic move of not being with the fear and the emotion is so ingrained when you do, any kind of meditation or spiritual practice,
Scott Kiloby: nice. Thank you for sharing that. Appreciate that. Yeah, it's good stuff. It can stir stuff up. Sometimes when we're talking about repression, the repression activates, but you can't feel the repressed emotions, so it's like a great [00:15:00] opportunity. Even when I'm on podcasts, people will say, wow, you really, in a, sometimes a really good way gets stirred up and they feel open, but sometimes it's not.
It's like it activates that thing that's buried even to talk about it.
Michael Reiley: This may be a bigger question than the scope of your book, but do you think that there's, an incompatibility, , with non-dual Advaita Vendanta or, Zen or whatever, whatever tradition you're practicing of this. Unity, consciousness, worldview, that's just not compatible with the sort of psychosis that we have in modern society.
I.
Scott Kiloby: If it could be integrated, I wanna hear what Toshi has to say 'cause I'm a big fan of [00:16:00] the Nondual traditions. I think that's why Toshi and I wrote this book is on one hand to say, can we please not let these teachings and traditions become irrelevant because they're not paying attention to science and some trauma like you guys do There.
Science to non-duality that a lot of them don't, and that they may become irrelevant to the extent that because of our different issues that are not being resolved, at a certain point people have to go beyond those teachings if they're not, if their suffering keeps going. So it just becomes irrelevant.
And so we wanna keep the conversation going. We think it's true that there could be the non-dual embodied, but then there are these parts of ourselves that we're really running from. And often the spiritual path and teachings are driven in fact, by these parts. The fear of these parts, and that's not being talked about, that I think can become dangerous and can make the teachings become irrelevant in some way, or just they're gonna lose favor because of that.
I think.
Toshi Matsunaga: Yeah. And [00:17:00] we also are saying this, is this in the book as well? Yeah we both love majority and non majority still is my truth. If someone ask me What is your truth? It's majority, but can we hear that? If you're repressed, that's all we are talking about. I could not hear it if. Mean, if I had my experiences, I still used it for something.
'cause the conditioning and the trauma reaction carries on no matter whatever experience you have. It's just another thoughts that to the condition, it's another thought that I could use to keep my anger down. Whether it's huge shift or not, or whatever it is, it might, it could be something else, making money, business or anything like that.
But the reason why we say danger in spirituality, because spirituality, especially nonja, can take off this box of it can cover so much in one goal to say things like, there's nobody here. There's nobody here to suffer. There's only awareness. Then wow, then I don't have to feel any of this.
Don of the suffering I went through is not me. Yes. I'm not denying that's the truth or not, but we cannot hear that because the conditioning is hearing that. So the [00:18:00] conditioning will grab that and it will start to use that. Every time I felt uncomfortable, I'll go to that fault. Every time I felt like I have to be angry, but I couldn't.
The fear is there. So it's just that's what it is. And I feel I, I felt that fear all my life. I could say Toshi is that movement, so it's, that's why it's so difficult to even notice it, the guy, so the separate safe we talk about in, we see it as a conditioning. That's what we built to, so that we don't have to feel something that we don't want to.
And everything is running on that. So to me it's with a non J and this, and what we do is compatible it. You can't separate the two. Also, two within myself, it's a continuation of deepening and involvement of our work. Yes. We've seen what the truth is, but then the condition carries on and are you suffering?
It's the only question we are asking. And if you are, there's something you can do about it. And there's no freedom in just understanding in our minds or having experience of non, can you speak from [00:19:00] that? Can you turn up to life? Can you turn up your relationship? In life, in every relationship to your money, to your families, all of that.
So that's why we are so it's like a progression. Don't stop at this. Understanding. There's a whole lot thing that's happening that we don't know about within our body, which is very unconscious. And that's why we really wanna speak about this. And we are really, we really passionate about it.
And I had to really inquire into why, I still wanna share this too, but because in, for love of the truth, to be honest, because what I'm experiencing now is beyond much, much deeper, maybe not as crazy and attractive is, but for me to fully turn up in my relationship with my family, to my loved ones fully, with all of my emotion, there's nothing deeper than that.
So you can fully be here right now. I don't have to. I have this unconsciously choice that I have to always choose this and not this. And that's no freedom because the regressions choosing what I had to always be nice at all costs. I had to [00:20:00] always be peaceful. I had to always be nice. And that's how I got my love all my life.
Not just my non Nigeria, not my pleasure of stuff, all the way through my young ages. I had to always be nice. That's how I learned to keep my anger down, to get love from other people and just the not your understanding is just the extension of that. But it's easy to buy bus using that 'cause it's the truth too.
It's connected to that. It almost has a license to, to kind awareness just can be here and you can just keep going there. But anyway. Yeah.
Scott Kiloby: Can I add one thing to that, Michael? 'cause I definitely agree with all that. It's been my experience. But the other thing is, when I listen to that, 'cause for years, I wouldn't come back to the thought of being no self. And I don't that, people certainly do use the concepts like that, but it's even more subtle than that because I, what my practice was to come back and just be, and to allow, fully whatever is here.
But that too, and Toshi talks about it in terms of location and I don't talk about it that way, but it's [00:21:00] good to talk about it that way too. I, for me it was like, it's hard to express, but when arresting, the assumption is that whatever I need to see will arise. And the problem with that is the buried emotions don't arise.
The conditioning of it, so the very resting was avoidant simply because the emotions were already buried. That's information that you don't get when you first sit down. If you got that information, it would be different. You could have a choice or you could, choose. Do I want to keep avoiding the buried emotions or do I, but we often don't get a choice because teachers aren't clear about that line.
Even, where the repression is and where it isn't, and so then everybody kinda gets herded into a bypass because you're just resting with, there's the conditioning right there,
Toshi Matsunaga: and there is a myth that when you fully allow things and sit here in meditation to just allow things, that everything is coming up. What we are finding, or what I'm finding is more than, I don't know. More, [00:22:00] lot more. 89% percent of things that's happening unconsciously is not coming up awareness, or it just, we only want to, we only want to see things the way we want to, including thoughts and sensations too.
That's how bad it is. That's how survival it is for us to be able to cope. It's a coping mechanism we have to build and that conditioning still carries on, within this awareness. Yeah.
Scott Kiloby: We think it's easily correctable to answer your question will it become my words, Michael? Were irrelevant. I don't think so. I think it's a rich conversation that's even more relevant, but it's, there has to be some upgrades or some important tweaks to it. We think. I.
Toshi Matsunaga: Yeah, because when we start to have this conversation, our willingness to be able to check and to see what's going on unconsciously, I. What are we saying or why are we feeling this? You were saying about, am I asking the right questions and stuff like that. And that's already good, but how do we go from there? Is what we are offering too. Why [00:23:00] do we have to believe in those thoughts? Am I saying the right thing or am I being right? Because we have these deficiency stories like, I had I'm unlovable, I'm not good enough. I'm a failure. Yes, they are unconscious, but they are the selfish level.
And what we are finding is we have to believe those thoughts. 'cause that's safer than to believe. So that's safer than to feeling, expressing emotions. So then when you really start to see like that, it's, there's no one to blame or there's, it's just a coping mechanism and even the self is suffering or the fact that I'm unlovable and I believe that, and I feel so true, connected to my trauma, all of that.
But we have a choice now. You don't have to stay a victim. Yeah, it's,
Scott Kiloby: Yeah. You probably had another question there, but I had something to add to him later. I'll add it in. 'cause these are stuff that we find and we wrote in the book, but, and we're going quickly because we have an hour, but we could just slow any of these things down for people and talk about them and explain it even more.
Michael Reiley: That's great. Yeah, I was actually gonna ask that because what you [00:24:00] were just saying, Toshi, I think is a really important point that. So if you could expand on that idea that the uncomfortable unsafe feels. I'm sorry. 'cause I I don't think I'll say what you said as eloquently.
Toshi Matsunaga: Yeah. I could speak like this. So it Scott was talking about the third three dimensions. This the first dimension, which is you don't prompt anything. It's just what you're aware of when you just sit on the map. But if you're suffering, your chronic pains or your addiction, you're aware of those things that happens.
And then there's like a second dimension where we believe in the stories and identity of ourselves, right? So I'm unlovable, I'm not good enough. All those things. And third dimension is emotions. So what I was just saying was the fact that we have to believe in stories and identity because it's a belief, it's a thought, but we make it true.
So I'm unlovable is a fault. No. Or I'm not good enough because of our traumas. We have to make that real. So you can't see us fault anymore. I feel unlovable in my body if you haven't done this work anyway, I was like this and the feeling of unlovable. I, but [00:25:00] it's true. I can't, it's not just the fault and sensations.
I believe it because of the traumas all the things happen and all this unconscious stuff that I don't know about. But as we start to do the work, there has to be a reason. This is because it's also connected. It can't just happen our vacuum. There, there has to be something, this agenda for me to, or benefit or utility or needs is what we say.
There's a utility for us to believe that I'm unlovable, I'm not good enough because we still scared and this is, this doesn't, might not make sense to the mind is sad, but when you really start to check the body and how the energy move and what you are continuously telling yourself unconsciously, you really get to see how that's how we avoid to feel and express emotions to keep.
Believing and you know it, it's just another way of coping basically. So yeah, maybe Scott can add more to that, but
Scott Kiloby: Yeah. I'll just give a different scenario. If you can envision an iceberg. And everything at the tip of the [00:26:00] iceberg. That's what you're aware of, but you're never aware of what's below the waterline, which are the completely repressed and uncons or unprocessed emotions, which just feel like your hardened body.
So in your direct experience under the water feels like separation. Follow me there on that. Okay. So at the tip just represents, like he's saying, like identity comes up and we focus a lot in non-duality on identity. Who am I? But what he's saying is we have to believe that as long as we have repressed emotions, because it keeps us safe from those repressed emotions under the water.
So when we see identities come to the surface and when we say things like that's just coming and going to no one, we're hiding the mechanism that produces it. So it's a compulsion to believe that we have to believe that it gets us love and safety. But that's not a concept, those, that's a mechanism.
Buried in the body. The need for love and safety is a discoverable mind body connection. [00:27:00] And so when you find that, you find, oh, I believe this I suffer everything at the tip, but for the purposes of identity, I believe I'm unworthy or whatever, because it serves me. There's the survival. So it's my pleasure see, to believe that I'm not good enough because that keeps me safe from my, the pain that I'm avoiding, the buried stuff that I can't feel.
So if I just process the stuff at the tip, I program myself to think that there's nothing under the water. And because when I process stuff at the tip, I feel safer. That further strengthens the repression and hides it from me. And that's how bypass continues to go on, for years. Does that make sense? If I slow it down that way?
Michael Reiley: Definitely. Yeah. Yeah. And thank you for bringing the duality iceberg in. I love that part of the book.
Toshi Matsunaga: Yeah. And. We are getting something out of it every time. It feels like a suffering to believe I'm a failure. But every time I believe [00:28:00] that there's a body reaction there's a ness or something. If you really tune into your body, yes, I'm a failure itself. Might be a nice feeling, but to believe that, yeah, wow, I'm a failure.
And then the rest of the story goes on. But then pain has to follow, which is the pain and bridge cycle we talk about in the book. But it's, yeah, it's that's how we, that's how it's so difficult to spot because we getting something else of every time and that's so quick and so happens.
It's not just thoughts, it's situation. It is the way you move in the world, as every time I used to push my anger down, 'cause the fear is there all the time, to keep my anger down. So when that feel easy, it's ah, okay. And then that could be a understanding, that could be having a glass of wine, that could be a meditation thing.
It could be, all these things so it's it's a coping mechanism that is really difficult to see. Yeah.
Scott Kiloby: Here's the thing I wanna add before you ask another question, Michael, because the insidious thing, Phil, I'm trying to add to the conversation and Toshi is too, [00:29:00] is that with anger or hurt, repression, we still need safety. So if the core identities come up in a trigger, if we process the identity, it's a, it can be a very false sense of realization or embodied realization because it has roots in the body that don't arise.
So we can actually, again, program ourselves through a lot of the different spiritual practices to hide the repression simply because the practice brings safety. It's not a bad thing, it just has to bring more than just safety for realization.
Toshi Matsunaga: Yeah, an example that even when I first came to Kay, we used to just work on stories and identities a lot. And when you're doing the work still I'm conscious. It's wow, amazing. When I first came here, it's oh wow, I'm, I'm love and all these memories that I've forgotten about bullying and all that stuff that I've buried, stories and identity just comes out.
If you it is quite magical. It's like really juicy and then lots of days and all sorts of stuff comes up. But that in itself is another huge [00:30:00] identification to avoid not going there. So just what Scott says. So every time we don't go deeper than that, it's the same thing. It just another compulsion to keep working on identities and just reinforces the victimhood.
The wow did this to me. That's not, it's not, but then when you really start to see how the victimhood, even to believe I'm a victim is avoiding your emotions. I, as long as I'm a victim, I don't have to feel something much, much deeper, which is not a story, which is not an identity, which is an emotion, which is really scary to the conditioning.
Remember, because awareness, we really are, everything's allowed. But to the conditioning is almost impossible. And it doesn't know anything else. It just knows how to keep safe looking for safety at all costs. And it will grab anything. It will fight for it, it will defend what is most believing.
We could go to war with this, to fight this, that's how scared we are. But it's also how subtle it is. The big, the bigger, the fear, the subtle, the, how you say subtle [00:31:00] the what out in the world or what you feel sort of
Michael Reiley: like the more subtle the obfuscation, if the bigger the fear, is that what you mean?
Toshi Matsunaga: Yeah, it's hard at the spot because that's how good you are making it. It's a program that, yeah it's how good we are. It's just we are so creative
Scott Kiloby: Oh, can I add an example to, that was my own realization because my fear of anger was so hidden in that's why I keep saying it was peaceful a lot of times except for the diseases. So it's that's a good example, I think is that's a deep fear. And then it was hidden in plain view because, peace was so easy.
Without ever accessing the deep bang.
Michael Reiley: Nice. And you, you two are already starting to point at some examples, but I wonder if we could navigate into some more practical, let's say, advice or anecdotes and what are some signs that people could look for that there in a pattern of avoidance or even spiritual bypassing?
Scott Kiloby: We could probably make a list. I'll start it [00:32:00] here. Okay. To me, number one is they're still suffering. That's fine, of course, because people suffer. But are you connecting your spiritual practice to suffering? Not to try to get rid of it, but to get to the root of it and make that conscious is what we would say, because the ongoing suffering tells us that your needs are still buried with your repressed assumptions and that you're getting.
Your needs met through suffering. So it's a direct indicator that you're not getting to the request emotions and needs. Also just like certain practices are per se suspect in the sense we wanna say to you or anyone, like if you're sitting there every day just being, coming back to Kama Biden's or a certain quality of attention, mindful just to say, Hey, the buried emotions don't arise.
Then we would show you of course. But people can't see that in their regular practice. So if you're sitting there in meditation and how would you know if you're bypassing? That's very difficult. It's [00:33:00] the missing experience. See, it's the missing emotions. So if they don't arise, it's looking for a negative.
The thing is that's why you have to see that what in meditation and awareness is more like identity. There's a lot of identity landing. Look for that. Like still believing I'm not good enough and I'm like the persistence of those things. Even after years of practice. I know teachers can have that persist because if they haven't gotten to repression, but it can get quieter after years of meditation, those core identities.
But they're really indicators still of a bypass late in the path. Early bypasses are just practices. Look, if we're only processing triggers, that's an indicator because triggers are there to protect us. We have false identity there. We have buried emotions. If we use spiritual practice just to feel better temporarily and don't apply it otherwise, that's probably an indicator that [00:34:00] the repression is driving it.
Those are a few. I don't know if Toshi has.
Toshi Matsunaga: Yeah, you pretty much said it. So that can look like, so every time you get a thought, oh, I'm gonna meditate now, or I'm gonna watch a teacher speaking on YouTube with MP. Yes. There's nothing wrong with that. And we're not saying anything's right, but there might, that might be a compulsion that you don't even know about it because it's because it feels so close to truth or whatever.
You can just check that to see, I don't need to just listen to this. So I don't need to just, just see if your body reacts or if anything, is it because some uncomfortable feeling came up or you thought about your mom? Or is it you have to see I'm, there might, you have a subtle thing that's happening unconsciously, that body is reacting.
You, you can really tune into it that way. It's best thing is to just to come to us so we can actually tell you the, to teach you the tools to actually find this out straight away. 'cause you don't have to believe us, basically. We can show it to you. It's the case. It's like science, when you to find out what you believe in unconsciously it's gonna speak back.
Your ego is gonna always speak back to say, I don't need to look at this. I say, yes I [00:35:00] do. 'cause no I don't. Yes I do because I don't feel good. Or you know it, it might not be that easy, but you. You see what I mean? It's, if you believe in something, you can always poke it and challenge it and it will speak back.
Your ego will always speak back to say, this is the case, or this is not the case. So you see, so you can really start to see. If there's a tendency to do something, especially the ones that feels most true to you, and they might be triggering for you, but just be curious. I'm not, I don't wanna dis anybody's truth or what their practices are, but just be curious to see, am I actually, wow.
Am I actually even this, am I using it to avoid emotions? That's why I want people to be just be curious to say, I don't need to just go and meditate right now. I don't need to speak about this. I guess there's a slight difference between seeking and finding seekers and finders too. So if you're still seeking yeah, I don't need to go and practice right now.
Or if you're find out, I don't need to talk about this right now. I don't need to teach this or something, that kind of thing. And see, you can just really start to become a little bit more conscious of what's happening. And [00:36:00] bypass is not a bad thing. It's your way in, in our world, in k, what we do, we need to be soon to be aware of that.
We in a much better place, we are more conscious. We using something to, so that we don't have to feel something, then we can actually do something for your software. That's what we are talking about. And it's yeah, I'm bypass. It's not, we make it sound like enemy. I said this before, but it's your way in.
It's your invitation. Your suffering is your invitation into yourself, more of yourself, so you can move as more of yourself, not this tiny little way osh, who's suffering or who doesn't even know who's suffering. I was like that. Yeah.
Scott Kiloby: Michael another way to approach it is hard. It's so hard. You asked a good question and I love Tohis answer. I'm just trying to think of what else we could say. And where I want to go is if the listeners will write down repression test.com. It's free. It's just a somatic test. And so what it does it so informs you because when I walked in the door of the first sat song or bought my first book, nobody sat down and said, Hey, [00:37:00] there could be emotions that you're bearing.
They're never going to arise to awareness 'cause they're buried. But you should know what they are. And if then, if you know what they are. Then you have a sense of what bypassing is because they're not going to arise. So if suffering continues, you can start to deduce it could be because of these things that are not arising.
And then if you go to the science, you read a chat, GPT, and you say, is my ongoing anxiety related to buried emotions? You start to see, because you've taken the test, you know what your buried emotions are. Even if you don't do our work, the test is out there to help people spot it more and more.
So then how would you spot it after you took the test? If you came here, we'd be working on it with you, so it would be okay. But if you found it and you had another path, I would say pay attention to how that doesn't arise. Ongoing suffering, but really pay attention to how that doesn't [00:38:00] arise. Because a lot of people in spirituality, when I say, Hey, you could repress anger, they'll say, yeah, but I don't really feel anger.
I'm like, exactly, that's the repression of anger, but so unless you do a test, the mind takes over. It manages safety. So it comes up and says, no, that's not me, and then therefore, we're safe in that moment. You see how we can get really tricky if you don't take a test and actually discover what it is.
Toshi Matsunaga: And that the reason why we say test, because we can't really have a conversation in our minds. We just go round and run. We only hear what we want to hear. That's why we have to keep inquiring into our bodies, how the energy and body reacts with the thoughts that's attached to it. And that's how we get into the unconscious, basically.
'cause the mind is the repression. We almost say, and they just can't help it. And yes, it might give you something, but it's the whole reason why that's running that software is running is to keep us safe from feeling the emotions that we decided not to feel, yeah.
Michael Reiley: [00:39:00] , it would seem too that the whole idea of the missing emotions or the, even the part of the iceberg that's below us, it's like we, we're really good at spotting patterns and emotions in other people, but often in ourselves it's, we have this blind spot. And maybe also the analogy of the shadow is appropriate there because it's like we're shining this light of awareness out, and the light of awareness is in itself creating a shadow that's by its very nature, unable to be touched by the light of awareness.
Scott Kiloby: Yeah, that's a very good way to say it. For people to hear that. Yeah, that's exactly how it is. And then all we do is drill down on the specifics because it's [00:40:00] so hidden. There's specific conditioning there. Yep.
Toshi Matsunaga: Yeah, shadow is a great way to get into unconscious. 'Cause you're just, because we are just projecting out. What we want to see or what we don't want to see. So it's, yeah. And if I'm seeing people being angry or speaking up too loudly, if I get triggered, you can say, can I actually do that?
It's no way. I never wanna be like that. And you can just all that, shadow work or whatever stuff out, they can really use it. But don't stop there. 'cause then it becomes the same thing. It's another way of avoiding and you get your needs met there and you feel safe and you get your soothing done if you're not connecting to the emotion.
Yeah.
Scott Kiloby: We should break that down though, because shadow work, I totally understand what so Tohis saying, but can I say something about shadow work, Michael? Because I think your audience is sophisticated. I feel that they would be aware of shadow work and probably some of the concepts that we're talking about, but whereas other communities wouldn't, but shadow work, as Ken Wilber says, [00:41:00] shadows come from the buried emotions.
You just have to understand our need for safety and how it attaches to any spiritual practice. So if I go into a cognitive based shadow work where I say, okay, so he's a butthole, I'm really a butthole and I own it, but I might not have gotten to the anger that was repressed, that made me produce the shadow.
And because resolving the shadow at the cognitive level brings peace, a k, a safety that can reinforce. So all we're telling people is, all this stuff is good. Identity shadow, but get to the root. Otherwise, the root remains.
Toshi Matsunaga: Yeah, don't stop there, because that's just becomes the same, pointing everything, all this deep, traditional. Know teachings, if you stop or, because we don't even know we stopping there, because we so unconscious in some ways because we getting an so it feels really good expansive and all those stuff.
But you can check by how much in your everyday life [00:42:00] is there. Can what is going on in your everyday life because that's where it really shows up. That's where the suffering will show up. But if you keep in going to the spiritualness of it, that's what I did just keep going up to the mountain, know I, but the work, they say that you have to come down to the marketplace to live again.
But there's so many of us come down to the market, but our head and the body is still in the mountain. So we not fully participating. And that's real suffering because we can't we can't turn up. We, the fear is always there. And I thought I knew what anger was, because I replaced anger.
I was very sensitive for people who was angry and all of that. But no, all I knew was the fear of the anger. So I only know anger to be something explosive, something dangerous, something uncontrollable, something ugly that you're not gonna get your love. People are gonna hate you. But when you really start to feel clean on God, as we say, it's just boundary setting thing.
Just to be able to say, no, I don't like you. Or, [00:43:00] yes, I want this. I couldn't even do that 'cause I had to constantly people please to get people's love. And there's a different degrees of that. So for us, especially younger ERs, we think we know our anger is 'cause we get triggered by people who's speaking up or who's big or who's unspiritual, all of that.
We don't really know what anger feels like because we've replaced it all our life. We only know it. We might feed it in ourself, but it's heavily mixed with the fear. So it will feel explosive because it's been pushed down like a pressure cooker. It's been replaced all our lives. Yes. The power of the work.
So the power of the I work is to, yes, we find that anger and then express that and acknowledge that to, to, to stuff. But we can't stop there. And I know there's many modalities that get in touch with your anger or sadness that you repress and express that, but that don't stop that. It's the same thing.
You have to work on the fear of the anger, otherwise the repression will carry on. So you have to keep expressing this in this safe way or something and the suffering will continue 'cause it's going somewhere and it's contracting in your body. It just gets more contracting. It will become physical like it did to Scott.
I [00:44:00] guess. So yeah, just wanted to say that. Really. Yeah.
Scott Kiloby: Oh, one more thing, Michael, is that not everybody is a, primarily an anger repressor. It's just very common in the spiritual community. But there are definitely people who don't repress anger who are on a spiritual path, and people have to find their own, we're just, you're just talking to anger.
Repressors former here. That's why we keep saying it.
Michael Reiley: Yeah, I've never identify as an anger repressor, but hearing you two speak, I think I need to check that out more. 'cause people always say, Hey, you never seem to get bothered by anything. You never get angered by anything. And I take that as a compliment.
Scott Kiloby: totally. We should talk about, I don't know where you're going, but that's part of it, is like we get our needs met by not being angry and then in the spiritual community there are social rewards in that.
Toshi Matsunaga: Me too. I just thought, I'm not an angry person. I don't know. 'cause I really, I was genuinely questioned like why I'm not angry. I just can't get angry or I was genuinely asking my question to myself. 'cause even when I was growing up, I get cold names and stuff and I should be angry, but I would just start crying and I didn't know [00:45:00] why that was happening.
I should be angry now. I just couldn't do it. But that's how repressed it was. I just couldn't get in touch that rage 'cause it was that scary. So I'd just rather be sad or just be small or just people please that comes in so quickly. The conditioning and that's how we stay, survive. And we forgot then that's we decided to do that.
And that becomes touch's personality in some ways. And then spirituality just validates everything that I want it to be validated, and you get like what Scott said, you get rewarded or you get. It just, it's just bunch of nice people and then there's nothing wrong with that, if anything.
So I just wanna make it clear that when you start to come out angry, repression, you're not gonna stop being angry because when I talked about Korean anger, you're not gonna be this angry person. Maybe when it comes, yes, you might, but it can actually be really nice when you need to be nice or when you need to be kind, because you're not doing it out of fear.
You're not trying to get your love from or your safety from other people. You don't have to always watch their reactions and all of that, what people is gonna [00:46:00] say. Think when I say this and all of that, I can just really turn up and if I wanna be nice or kind, if that movement comes, that can fully partake.
The compassion is the case already. If I have to be compassionate, which I have to do from repression, then that's something else that's fear. You could say, so that my smile, my kindness was false, it was fear. But now I can actually turn up and. Just allow this thing called to, to flow and just move thing, rather than this separate conditioning, yeah, I just wanted to make that clear, but yeah.
Michael Reiley: Nice. Thank you. Thank you for that. Yeah. We, maybe we'll have a whole separate episode just about anger, repression and spiritual that. Spiritual circles and I. I, something we talk about from time to time on this show is that, Western spiritual paths are often individualized. You find your own, maybe you take from different traditions and you practice on your own.
You watch videos on your own, you read books on your own. But how [00:47:00] important is community and being in a community to this work?
Scott Kiloby: The way I think that I would answer that is it depends on our attachment style. Because when what we found, I mean I was, I had an avoidant attachment style, and what happens for us sometimes is we do our path that way. And so just like our relationships. A lot of people who haven't avoided attachment style, they look like people who are just on their own doing skillful practice or solitary skillful practice, even, or just a good meditation practice and maybe even finding lots of benefit from that.
But they're not aware that with the buried anger or hurt is the conditioning of the avoidant attachment getaway. If you gave it words. So they're being driven by that. Now, what's the consequence? There's actually a really big consequence because when we're on our own, our [00:48:00] default conditioning is taking over, especially if we don't have any context around how the attachment styles and the repression drive suffering or any trauma context.
So then we're, without any context, with regard to the unconscious, and now we're on our own with a spiritual practice that doesn't get to the buried emotions. So it's almost right for a bypass to continue. But the thing about bypassing is you can have, you will have benefits. Along the way, that's what keeps you in it.
And of course one of the biggest benefits is the safety from the buried emotions. But that's an unknown benefit that just keeps going on. So I would say for those people, connection is where your probably your realization is going. Mine has gone to connection, which is more like relationship and community, but still practice on my own is fundamental for everybody.
Here, you have to do your own practice, but for the avoidance, you have to be careful. 'cause we become what I call like the cult of one. It's either you drive, a bunch of people get together and [00:49:00] have issues, or have a cult, or you can do it on your own. By being the, you're the panel, you're the decider that everything else isn't gonna work and you've got it.
And it operates similarly. So if we can process the trauma, then I think groups and spiritual practice alone can be healthy. But without it, if we miss the attachment styles, I think that's a big part of it. I've seen it.
Toshi Matsunaga: That's when it can fall into a group. I don't know. Because regression likes to validate itself. It can start to validate within the community to create this, a mass trauma bond. It can become, a community can be if it's, if you really haven't worked on your regression. And yeah, and I had kind both actually had, I had a wooden part, which she said, I can do this work myself.
I'm gonna do it my way and I'm gonna do it my own time and I can do it. I feel like I've always done that. But that was so that I don't have to face anything. 'cause I might have to feel angry or feel that, and I really got to see that doing care. But this is still needy part of me, which is I'm just [00:50:00] attachment that says no.
I need, I want you to love me. I want you to see me. Scott, teach me. You know that it's so easy to give your power away. It's like mom and dad stuff, just. Carries, comes on top of all of that. And you could say, this is mostly mom and dad stuff, that's when we really first start to, feel and experience emotions in this lifetime, and that really does play out in our relationships, and then you start developing your attachment styles that way. There's, but there's so much to unpack there, to get to your core suffering, it's very juicy there, because when you can really start to notice how you are turning up to communities or to your loved ones or your workplace, you can really see how repressions working to keep you safe, and that's all it's doing, yeah.
Scott Kiloby: Michael, I want to tell the other part of that real quick is the anxious attachment or some combination As a teacher, people came to me through the years and so many teachers, and if that topic isn't brought up, and sometimes that's a sensitive topic because if somebody's on a, some even a devotional path and you bring this up, [00:51:00] but.
The body is usually one or the other, or both. For everybody. If you had unconscious parents, so when you're around a teacher, if you're not aware of this, then that actual relationship can keep you from embodying. That depends on what the practice is there, because the practice needs to get to the thing that makes you anxiously attached to the teacher and shows it to you.
But again, that's connected to the buried emotions. So when these things are, there's nothing wrong with community. It can be beautiful, obviously it's okay. A teacher and student relationship could be I have them, but if they don't include these things, we're always getting something out of it.
We're always getting our needs met, even if we're not aware of it. Even teachers I question a teacher who has bonds with students but doesn't get to the root of this because we get something out of it and it registers as a really, at a really unconscious level, the chemical hits that we get from having bonds with people.
It's a two-way street and I [00:52:00] do think that teachers, when they wake up to embody it, they'll see it. That even a devotional path, you have to be careful. Anything you have to be careful with, 'cause it's not even, it's not even doing it on your own or with a group or with a teacher. It has to do with, I think, the unconsciousness that isn't being addressed.
Michael Reiley: Nice. Thank you. Yeah, there's so much nuance and depth to all of these things. We're definitely at the tip of the iceberg. But I want to thank you guys for taking the time out first to write this book and share this wisdom with the world and to unpack it a bit in this conversation.
And we'll have links to your websites and the repression test, which I'm probably gonna take right after we end this call. But what are some other ways people can connect? Do you have any other kind of upcoming workshops or ongoing series that people can connect with you? Two?
Scott Kiloby: I, first of all, I wanna say thanks to Maurizio and I think that they're still running it, and I appreciate their contributions Yeah. To everything, because they're like a. A definite partner with us. [00:53:00] They're busy doing what they're doing, you guys are doing. But I feel very good about you guys in the world and I appreciate this interview when not a lot of people want to hear this brick pulled up, but you guys do and we appreciate that. But in order to reach us, yeah, just go to killby.com or the best place to go is to the repression test link. And then you can just stop there and take the test and just learn and go do your path somewhere else. But we also have some other things after the test, it'll tell you exactly where to go if you're interested in, and you'll see Toshi and me, we've got a workshop there.
If you go further with us, where we go into great detail about this in five different segments in a lecture series. Yeah.
Toshi Matsunaga: Yeah. Yeah. And I also hold a, not next month, but I also hold a, like a monthly and k workshop or meeting like a 90 minutes meeting for the public to, to just come and listen to me talk about questionnaire. 'cause I really wanna yeah, tune into all of this for people to be able to kinda access this work more openly.
So yeah, I'm doing that. [00:54:00] And yeah. And obviously doing mentorship and yeah, all of that. And I just wanna talk about what just quickly about mentorship a little bit, because we come from a session based modality where we, you might, your session with us and we take you deep into it and then unpack some stuff.
But we really, seeing that does not get a real result. And you cannot really come out with impression by doing that because there's a codependency towards us and you give your power to us. So what mentorship. Doing. What we are doing concentrating now is to teach you the tools so you can do it yourself, so that you don't have to keep coming back to us.
And it's really about that relationship. And then we use that mentorship relationship to poke into things that you're unconscious about. So it's more about like giving the power back to you. So that's what we really doing now, to be honest, yes, we have sessions, but we really, yeah, maybe you can say a bit more about
Scott Kiloby: No, that's good. Yeah. 'cause we thank you for mentioning that. Just so anybody, everybody knows, we do work with people one-on-one. It's a mentorship and there's a lot of reasons for [00:55:00] that. That could be its own podcast because I used to sit with people in sessions and I found a lot of the avoidant attachment style can clean to that.
There's, I'm not making any judgements. I'm telling you what's true for me. That meeting with people in sessions, I couldn't connect with people enough, which is exactly what my repression wanted to stay safe. But as I embodied, I saw the real relationship with boundaries is really the best way to help people because it's all relationship.
So we're able to do that here. Mentor people.
Toshi Matsunaga: Yeah,
Scott Kiloby: Thanks for having us, Michael.
Michael Reiley: Yeah. Thank you both.
Toshi Matsunaga: yeah, it's. So it's really about one-on-one if you, so if any of you are really serious about the work or just curious, book a free clarity call with us. Yeah. killer.com or non-Jew dot com. You can find me there non on relationship non-Jew dot com for me. And then yeah, can find my information about meetings and clarity code because it is about one on work.
We really have to, 'cause we have to work with you to see what your [00:56:00] Uncondition programs looks like and then how to kinda bypass that so you can actually get into to the real root of the suffering. Yeah. But yeah, thank you for having us Michael. Think, time just got so quick. Yeah,
Michael Reiley: Nice. Thanks guys.
Scott Kiloby: thank you.
Toshi Matsunaga: thank you. [00:57:00]
