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we are back another ex- homeschoolers Club it is your boy Jacob Gooden and uh you know we are in the the best ex-
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homeschooler podcast this side of the internet today my friend Aaron is on with us uh for those of you who are part
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of achieve Aaron McDonald is with us we are going to touch on his homeschool Journey we're going to touch on art
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stuff we're gonna get we're going to see where the conversation goes um it's very
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free flowing but before I bring him in here I have one favorite to ask of you that is this I am launching a newsletter
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okay so if you're interested in getting the newsletter with all the updates of
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this show uh maybe some book recommendations I don't know what it's going to be that's going to be the top
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link Down Below in the show notes uh so go click it give me your email address and I'll I promise I won't be spammy
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okay I'm not trying to sell anything I just you know I'm going to keep you guys
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updated what's going on that kind of a thing and uh yeah so there's that okay
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without further Ado a McDonald how are you my friend hi Jacob I'm doing really
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well how are you I I'm doing really well too I'm excited to be talking to you um
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it's been a long time that we've like seen each since we've seen each other in
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person uh that is um I feel like I ran into you in the streets of Ventura at some point uh yes as an older kid but
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like I really remember mostly from like Junior High and high school and even before that I know I was better friends
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with your brother Joe but uh but we were still friends we were friendly back in the day group Solutions and achievement
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all that stuff so um so yeah thank you for coming on the show I'm so excited to
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hear more about your homeschool experience and journey so with that I'm I'm going to turn it over to you give us
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kind of a little bit of a run through of like how long were you homeschooled uh you know uh I already
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mentioned you have a brother but like give me kind of the background of like home life curriculum you used I don't
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know just give me a little bit of the homes School journey and we'll we'll
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start there so when I was a kid my or like baby up through like kindergarten to the maybe a
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grade or two above that my mom had me in um regular school and so I was I got to do that for a little bit and she got
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a scholarship to UCSB for art uh full ride and so we moved up to Santa Barbara for a little bit when I was four or five
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I think yeah four or five and then she got pregnant with my brother Joseph and she really wasn't feeling the art
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program as she was seeing it and so she they uh my parents decided to move back down to Oxnard and
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Ventura and uh just raise me and my brother so I was I did homeschooling first it
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was konos and then it turned into achieve out of that up until high school and then in high school I did a
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independent study at El caminao okay so I was um I got to go through uh use Ventura college instead well I don't
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know that I've had anybody come on who's talked about El Camino and but so it was
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through Ventura College self-study so did you have classes or was it all work from home yeah we had
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classes um part of the class um they used Ventura College for um like basic math and English and
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uh Spanish and stuff so we got to fill out those credits for high school which also doubled for ventur college which
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was cool and then [Music] um otherwise it was like textbook stuff that would that I'd review with my
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teacher and visit her two or three times a week and that's me kind of jumping
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ahead jumping the gun a little bit of like The Homeschool experience but I just haven't I hadn't really because I
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never did that so I I was homeschooled all the way through but um I know a lot of kids who went to El Camino who were
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still pretty involved in The Homeschool Community especially who had younger siblings who were still being still at
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home um through that but um but talk a little bit about what was your kind of like
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day-to-day homeschool experience like like did you guys obviously you had some kind of curriculum but was your mom very
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like set in like we do allca or we do all of this one particular type of curriculum or was she kind of one of
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those people who like my mom who who mixed it all up and was kind of like okay we do this for Math and we do this
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for science we do that for that and you know that kind of a thing I remember going through basic like
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multiplication tables and stuff and being like real frustrated um I was like oh M this is so
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hard this is so hard she was like do you want me to change it do you want me to change it and I was like yeah yeah like
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I don't know I think I was just responding to her anxiety about making me not making me learn good right and so
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um we changed to this math Pro program called matth you see oh love that yeah and it was kind of this guy like the
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guy's individualistic uh like his individual take on math and all the fun tricks that
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he likes to use and stuff so that was kind of interesting it was creative dude yeah I loved Matthew C for for those non
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homeschoolers who might be listening was essentially like especially the early years there's a lot of block math
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involved in it so oh he had I don't know if you use the blocks at all but he also
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had other stuff too but they they had these like you had like a one block and then you had think of it almost kind
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it's kind of like Legos in a way too it's like you had like a two and then
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like a five and then you had like a 100 and it was like a 10x1 square and anyway
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but he would show you the example using the blocks of like oh here's how you do
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like a multiplication table or here's how you do uh you know whatever so you
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build the whole thing and then you could individually count it essentially uh yeah but yeah he had a bunch of other
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little tricks and stuff too but I still think about that when I do multiplication tables I what I see is
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like seven by seven or seven by what you know whatever the numbers are that's how
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I view it in my head so yeah I like math um just how organized it is yeah and stuff um
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not really sure how useful it is past like algebra it it depends on what you go into right yeah but for people for
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people like you and I who kind of work more of I don't I won't say we work the
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average job but we kind of we don't necessarily need math in our everyday dayto days right yeah but um even like
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when I was working on bass at the uh swimming pools they would hire like the engineers
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would be talking to us when they're taking a swim and they're like yeah you
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know we got this new girl she was like a math major and she's helping us like
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launch the rockets and she and she thinks everything has to be right everything has to be like mathematically
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correct but if it's off course we just divide it by two and then get the average and then shoot it over
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there and so yeah cuz like math is not nature and so um but it does it is a really pretty
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powerful tool so you and I I feel like you and I met through group Solutions and I know that
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was I your brother is a little bit closer than age to I to me so I know him and I had a lot of classes together but
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um were you involved in groups for like the majority of your homes School experience I know you talked about Kos
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that became achieve but for as long as group Solutions existed which I know it existed a little bit past or I don't
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know it could still exist to this day I'm not 100% sure but um but were you was group Solutions uh a good chunk or a
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decent chunk I guess you should I should say of uh of your homeschool experience
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yeah it was I think that um there's some pretty cool classes that went through group Solutions and abut
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there's a lot of good people there yeah any classes that stick out Mr Sanchez's morning talks were
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pretty funny I realized that all of his like Bible lessons were all from Fight Club okay I've never put that together
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yeah he was like he would be teaching about like like giving it up to God and stuff
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okay and he' be and he'd be like the things you own end up owning you and it was just
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like I watched Fight Club and it like like when I was older I watched Fight Club and like all came I was like where
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have I heard all this stuff before and like oh that's hilarious I told it one
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time uh I don't know when I got to do this because I haven't seen them in
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forever but I told Caitlyn Sanchez that I was like I feel like all of your dad's
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opening sermons were all from Fight Club and she's like Ah that's hilarious
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because me and my brother used to watch that movie all the time that's awesome I had never pieced
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that together until you just brought that up and you said that I was like now it makes me want to go watch Fight Club
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because I'm like I'm gonna pick it up I'm gonna I'm gonna think about it I'm G
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be like oh my gosh yeah that's spot on so uh Mr Sanchez if you hear this we see
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you we know what you did yeah they were good they were good sermons they were good they were good
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yeah but yeah the groups I think was it was impactful for my homeschool experience because it was really the
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like the the the social aspect of like homeschooling for me was like group Solutions massive for that right because
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you get you know couple hundred kids together every two weeks and like in kind of a regular school setting with
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classroom and like I don't know I think it was at least for me it was very important because I was like otherwise I
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was just going to be at home uh and so I don't know that was that was that was
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key to the social aspect because one of the biggest you know things that everyone talks about with homeschooling
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it's like oh are you like a weird isolated like have no social skills kind of a person it's like yeah not I don't
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think so it's like what is your guys's experience like oh will they round us up
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like cattle and they put us through these different classrooms and stuff talking about regular school
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yeah what was interesting about being primarily like a Christian centered um group is that I didn't get
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really get to learn about like uh personality types or even like type like of course like gender and sexuality
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stuff that was all kind of like coming out later I think but looking back I was like oh I'm
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like and not even I mean like autism there was definitely like a lot of autism in The Homeschool
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sphere and so I got to learn a little bit about that and um but other stuff like people being gay or like people
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coming from rough backgrounds maybe sort of have like some sort of personality disorder and stuff like I didn't know
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about any of that stuff yeah and um looking back on people now I'm like I'm like oh that's why it was that way
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that's why they're so different and stuff I think it was it it definitely I
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agree with you because homeschooling tends to lend itself right to the families who have kids that maybe need a
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little bit more of a special education whether that's something like dyslexia
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or ADHD or like you said autism Asbergers like there's a 's a variety of different
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things that like kind of lend itself to being like okay maybe we'd pull a kid
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out of Traditional School and put them in a homeschool environment where you know Mom and Dad can work much more
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one-on-one with them um which just pros and cons to that but I think it was interesting because yeah to your point
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as kids then we got to experience growing up with these kids who were kind of they were different right and like
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and we got to learn how to interact with them which was I don't know that many kids who you know
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grew up with a best friend who has autism or Asperger maybe it's a little bit more common now but I don't know at
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that time it felt like we were ahead of the curve so to speak yeah it was more accommodating for
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that in that environment I was going to ask you too with so what what your okay you uh you were obviously hes schooled
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from early grade school up to High School uh to give kind of text for people what what year did you graduate
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high school in 27 2013 2013 okay yeah cool so yeah so we're not that far off because I
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graduated in 2014 so oh yeah so there's really not not as big of a g I think
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when we're you're younger right the age Gap always seems much bigger then as we
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get older now it just like it's smaller and smaller um but um no I asked that to
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put that in a little bit of context because that's one of the questions everybody asks what from who's kind of
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outside of the The Homeschool Group we grew up with where we know all these people but the people outside of it they
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go well when were you guys homeschooled and I'm like well it was like the early
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2000s the 2010s it was kind of the the era so there was a lot of things going on and and like you said religious
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homeschooling was a big part of what we grew up with it was like kind of I don't
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know about you but religion was kind of tied into almost everything we did um yeah curriculum wise studies wise
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extracurriculars that kind of a thing but is that pretty true for you as well oh definitely did you do anything like
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um I know I went to like aanas as a kid uh stuff like that but uh I don't know was like I guess talk
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about that a little bit like what was it in the school workor was it like what how did I guess how did
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religion impact your homeschool experience it was definitely like a Cornerstone of
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the experience uh I took to religion pretty intensely as a um we would go like three times a
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week I think and so and I don't know if it's because I'm sort of somewhat
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gullible but I I just I always put like a real sincere effort into things and stuff for some reason spiritual stuff
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has always been something that I've always like clicked with mhm and um so the the
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church that we were raised in primarily was like more like spiritual gifts focused and like speaking in tongues and
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laying on of hands and stuff so it's like people from like the Jesus movement in
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California yeah and [Music] um but it was really it's really good for my parents because they're pretty
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like they're not super like or they're not super Orthodox or a really uptight
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type Christian people they're more like relaxed and like peaceful yeah it's definitely built into
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their routine and stuff like it definitely influenced me a lot to get up every morning and to spend
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devotional time and then whenever my parents have like a disagreement or they're trying to work something out I
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always see that they're really trying to work it out they're not like pitting
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against each other or something they try to work it out and they become two people and then they they say well what
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does God think about this and so then they they create God is like the third uh the third voice of what their
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highest good would be between the both of them and I think that that's a very uh very wise and very
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effective way of running a marriage oh yeah I always thought that that was um very admirable of
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them yeah I think that's an interesting concept because I think I'm I'm not religious any longer
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or I I'm not Christian any longer let's let's say that I Won't Say I'm not
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religious um I'm more spir I'm more spiritual than then I am religious I
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guess is what I would say now but I think what's interesting about what you said was that yeah when Mom and Dad
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would have a disagreement they would bring in ultimately a third party right God yeah and I think that's interesting
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and that's a I think that's to your point I think that's a good lesson or a good example
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for people to see is like sometimes you need when you have disagreement with people sometimes you need that outside
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perspective right can kind of come in and ask the right questions and be there and help kind of guide through the
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situation uh to get those two people to kind of reconcile and figure out you know the pa the path moving forward so
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yeah because it's and then when you when you bring it to God so to speak it's
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almost like this version of the highest good that two people see steps in like it steps in and it
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like everything becomes like Ground Zero it's not like oh God wants me like defeat you in
00:18:59
this argument or or God want like you know that because their Christian concept of God is love and then love
00:19:08
is um goodness kindness faithfulness Etc um all the like God is all those virtues
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based and so I think that that was a really um good environment to grow up in I agree with you I agree with you I
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think I won't say that my I I won't say that I had the exact same experience of really
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recognizing when my parents had disagreements that they were bringing God into it but I will say I do think
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God was such a big part of growing up that and and to your point it's it God
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is love God is all of these things he's the fruits of the spirit right and um and so yeah having those kind of play
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out inside of how we work things out and how we live life and how we you know that was a
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very big yeah key part I think of of childhood and that was I think where a lot of The
00:20:04
Homeschool Community really connected because I think on the back end we had a lot of maybe disagreements when it came
00:20:10
to like you know there's always disagreements inside of like church and religion of like the different
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denominations and whatever but I think one of the univers same I was like what how many
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different Christian types are they yeah but what was cool was ultimately I think
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what really was the through thread for a lot of us was this idea of like uh of like the Jesus love right and like the
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love and and how we need to represent that to the culture um and what was being taught to us kids was you know to
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love one another and get along with one another and to like it's okay to have
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disagreements but here's how we deal with them and that's where again group
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going back to group Solutions was a great environment to kind of work through a lot of that
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because we it was our social it for me it was a big social element of The Homeschool
00:21:04
experience and I know there was other things there school dances and field trips and all that other stuff too but
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but group Solutions I think was that really for me a very pival social aspect of like just being able to be around
00:21:18
other kids and like kind of have that I don't know play out I guess a little bit
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more seeing girls what yeah we can talk about that no cuz cuz that's that's a whole another
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can of worms of like dating I didn't I mean I didn't date until College yeah I didn't date
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till I was like 20 same I don't know something like something later on well inside The
00:21:46
Homeschool world I don't I feel like there was I don't know may did you feel
00:21:52
this way the I feel like there was this message of like well you guys are all like siblings like you guys all you know
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play together and whatever and like you know they're like your sisters like um
00:22:02
to the opposite sex you know and well and also because we grew up in a religious there's also the
00:22:08
heteronormative aspect of like you know um so not even we can't we that's the
00:22:14
whole another rabbit hole is down into like LGBT and and sexuality and all that stuff but
00:22:21
um but F CL yeah exactly but yeah so dating I don't know about you it was kind of a no no for me
00:22:30
I also just looked at everybody as like these are like my siblings I don't know
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that I would want to date any of them I don't know maybe it was different for
00:22:37
you yeah I was not I wasn't allowed to date or anything and one time uh Carrie
00:22:48
um forgot her last name Carrie had this boat and she wanted me to come on it on like as like an outing Okay and like
00:22:57
with her mom or her dad driving the boat or something and I was like yeah I want to do that I
00:23:04
like I liked her and and um I was like maybe like 13 or 14 or something and then my mom was like
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you're got to be on a boat with a girl no no you can't do that like what
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oh okay whatever and then um and then she and then Carrie asked Emily because I had declined the offer and
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then Emily was just like on this outing solo with Carrie it was like supposed to
00:23:39
just be me and her I think she Emily explained to me later she was like and I had this like really long kind of it was
00:23:46
I don't know if it was kind of awkward kind of boat ride that's just how it was the I I had
00:23:56
John slag boom on and we were talking about dating and liking girls and and yeah and I think it was just I mean
00:24:04
dating in general is like awkward uh you know the first like liking somebody and
00:24:10
having crushes on people and all that kind of stuff is like always super awkward but but then you tack on like
00:24:16
The Homeschool World which also like you said like your mom was very much like you're not going out alone with those
00:24:22
you know with a girl like that's you know what are we talking about there so
00:24:25
there's also all these these guidelines and these rules and these this box that
00:24:29
were put in of like don't do this this is bad and and you know we don't date we
00:24:35
don't kiss before marriage I the list goes on and on and on um I don't know
00:24:40
about you a big book that was thrown at me a lot was like The iiss Dating Goodbye and like um I'm trying to
00:24:47
remember there was another book too but Josh Harris and just kind of this whole concept of like not dating excuse me not
00:24:54
dating but like courtship and this like heavy intention for like marriage and parents being very
00:25:00
involved in dating and like I don't know there was all of that I don't know I
00:25:05
don't know if maybe that was pushed on you nearly as much as it was me but it
00:25:08
felt like it was just there yeah they we had to do this like the Purity ritual thing at church or
00:25:18
like the purity ring like uh I V to remain pure up until marriage wow so did you have a purity
00:25:27
rig yeah I did but I lost it ironically you lost it lost it but it just like I don't know it fell I
00:25:37
remember the last time it fell off in the kitchen and it just like got kicked under the the oven or something so like
00:25:45
I was like that's fine let me ask you this because I didn't have a Pur ring I had I had
00:25:52
buddies who had one was it something that you felt like you wanted to do or that you had to
00:25:59
do oh it was like what I had to do okay and like I think even at the time I was like kissing gross or yeah it's kind of
00:26:12
an early thing I feel like for like I remember going to this ceremony that my friend had for becoming a man
00:26:22
and I think it was like his 13th birthday it was like 12 13 somewhere around that right when you're starting
00:26:27
to get starting to grow hair starting to smell worse you know the the typical man
00:26:32
stuff yeah and his dad did this whole there was a presenting of like a sword and I want to
00:26:40
say there was a purity ring and there was just a lot of conversation around being a man and what it is to be
00:26:46
a man and what it is to be a Godly Man and I'm not saying all of it was wrong
00:26:50
it a little cringey looking back at it I'm like this is a little cringey um yeah you know you're kind of having like
00:26:55
the birds and the bees talk with your dad in front of like like your 10 closest friends
00:27:01
um at your birthday party and and I don't know it was just one of those things where it felt interesting
00:27:11
because my parents never never pushed me to do the purity ring thing they expected I think they
00:27:20
expected me to kind of live by the purity ring esess but they were like you don't have to wear a ring that's like
00:27:27
that's dumb it's just you know it's just like a madeup symbol um type of thing
00:27:33
and but uh but yeah I just remember it kind of being this like pushed Upon Us type of
00:27:40
thing it was it never I don't know it didn't feel as much like a conversation um to be had and a
00:27:47
discussion to be had of like oh do you do you want to do this do you not want to do this and I
00:27:52
think maybe within kind of The Homeschool religious group that we grew up in I think there was maybe a lot of
00:27:57
things that were kind of way of just kind of this like expectation that you do this this is the way you live life
00:28:03
and maybe that's just a church thing in general too but this is the way you live
00:28:06
life and this is how you do it and you know it was less of a conversation at least I feel that way I think that sex
00:28:14
is just such a mysterious and powerful thing and that a lot of people felt a lot of Shame about it and
00:28:24
stuff and I don't know I'm still working through a lot of that stuff [Music]
00:28:37
and um it's like sex is like a bad word as like it's like such a negative
00:28:48
connotation in the environment that we grew up in yes but then how do you like but it's obviously one of the best
00:28:56
things about being a human being to your point I think what was so I've had a lot of conversations with
00:29:07
my parents now around sex and things because they've been really awkward I'm
00:29:13
G to be very honest with people um they've been very awkward but I think in unpacking our past lives our childhood
00:29:25
lives one of the things that I've learned is is that we grew up with this like you said this understanding sex sex
00:29:32
is is like bad but it's also good right and it's like it's good for one instance
00:29:38
right exactly it's like good within this context right but it's not but I don't think the context was
00:29:46
ever really discussed as heavily with kids of like well why is sex inside of marriage a better context than like just
00:29:54
having sex with anybody and everybody right so sex is bad unless it's marriage and some people
00:30:01
would evenue for the purpose of reproducing right so there's kind of this but we don't talk about why it's
00:30:10
bad as much we just we just our parents and our you know leaders and mentors and
00:30:15
stuff tell us oh it's bad it's bad it's bad it's bad and then we get to marriage
00:30:19
and oh now it's all of a sudden it's good and that's where a lot of I think
00:30:24
the sexual frustration comes into play for a lot of people of like also that that impacts the way we think about
00:30:30
sex so as we become adults and some of us get married or or we just have sex for the first time there's like this
00:30:37
weird shame and guilt around it because we're programmed to think that sex equals bad when in reality it doesn't
00:30:44
it's just that's what we've been programmed to think yeah and that's what
00:30:48
I think that that dichotomy with sex being bad also channels a lot of that like like compulsive porn
00:31:02
Indulgence a little bit absolutely um but then it's like I feel like our culture is like six is bad but if you
00:31:15
watch porn just don't tell anyone just keep it on the down lad that's okay just
00:31:19
watching a lot of porn I feel like that's like the undercurrent of like our culture is like just keep it
00:31:25
quiet about that it's like no this is actually like draining the life force out of me and I'm not really
00:31:33
happy anymore and so but then it's so like it's so [ __ ] like hard to get like in a waiting to get in
00:31:47
alignment with like a good partner that you can have sex with because oh my god I've been through
00:31:54
some doozies of Partners like definitely learned a lot about the world with and where people come
00:32:04
from but you can like really [ __ ] yourself up by getting attached to someone that
00:32:10
way and like yeah you like your body starts breaking down and um you're like losing hair and
00:32:18
losing weight and stuff and um but I think there's just a lot of healing that needs to go on
00:32:29
around Sixx absolutely I think I feel as if while we were kids and I'm going to talk about kids
00:32:40
kids like single digit I mean maybe single digits but like definitely those High those those teenage the teenage
00:32:45
years the growing into being being an adult person where the hormones kick in and all that
00:32:53
stuff I I genuinely believe that I think if parents had been a lot less scared to
00:32:58
talk about sex with their kids and talk and they we would all be in a better place right now and I'm not saying that
00:33:07
they necessarily had to maybe have like all of the greatest answers but just like the ability to even talk about it
00:33:14
with parents and people you trust and and that kind of a thing and kind of I think there would be less of a stigma
00:33:25
around it um and it's taken a long time to kind of like seek out I think for me
00:33:33
just kind of seek out like good healthy advice around sex CU like I struggled when I got married like I felt very
00:33:40
guilty having sex I did not like it it did not it felt too bad it it felt great but it was like I felt awful after the
00:33:49
fact I felt just like dirty and oh Wicked right and so it was not oh was a that sucks man right and it's taken a
00:34:01
long time I say it's taken a long time it feels like a long time but it took a
00:34:07
couple years to really kind of like start to heal that internal voice in my head that was telling me this is a this
00:34:13
is a bad thing it was not a bad thing it just was I had been programmed to believe sex equals bad right yeah and so
00:34:21
once I change that mindset to sex equals a good or sex equals I don't know I maybe maybe good is not the right word
00:34:31
but sex equals something right insert something there um it's a process people
00:34:36
we're working on it um but it changed a lot of like it it it changed the way I viewed
00:34:45
it and so it became less of this like taboo thing that I didn't want to talk
00:34:49
about I didn't want to do whatever and thank I'm thankful I've met some
00:34:53
incredible people along the way I uh I was thinking this is a huge tangent we're going on here but I met last
00:35:01
almost a year ago to the date I met like a leading doctor in uh like uh Men's
00:35:07
Health specifically erectile dysfunction now I don't currently have erectile
00:35:12
dysfunction however it was interesting to like sit down and talk with her about sex about penises and about you know all
00:35:19
of the things that go into it because she's like it's all it's primarily a
00:35:23
brain game and she's like a lot of and and she immediately clocked me as like
00:35:28
you grew up in a religious environment and I was like okay and she's like I can
00:35:33
tell because you the way you squirm when I say penis you're like uncomfortable
00:35:38
right I was like oh interesting I just thought that was kind of she's like no
00:35:42
that's not that's not normal that's just you know you grew up in this environment
00:35:47
you've been programmed that like sex and anything to do with sex is just kind of
00:35:51
like we don't talk about that dirty words those are the bad words we don't
00:35:54
use the bad words um and so I don't know refreshing to kind of like have people
00:35:59
like that in your life who kind of they they start to heal you from these things
00:36:04
that we grew up believing right you kind of give you different perspective to think
00:36:08
about yeah and I think that my encounters with sex because I didn't I don't think
00:36:18
I yeah I think the first time I had sex was like I was 20 or something but then and so all those like
00:36:26
you know those squirm like the squirms and the flinches and the kind of like oh this is kind of dirty kind of stuff like
00:36:34
it was kind of like at the surface with these experiences um with these Partners
00:36:44
but these girls would kind of like look at you like you kidding me homeboy like come on
00:36:51
are and like you're right it's almost it was kind of like like a splash of cold
00:36:56
water I was like come on man like this is nature like this is real and so um it's like you kind of like metaphor
00:37:07
are you going to metaphorically just live in your parents' basement about this for the rest of your
00:37:14
life kind of stuff but um I'm really glad that um I'm just really thankful for that
00:37:24
stuff yeah well I guess have you done any like has it just been through kind of like having different partners and
00:37:36
learning and experiencing or have you done any like therapy or like I listen to a [ __ ] ton of podcasts that's why I
00:37:43
have a podcast but like and reading books and like researching stuff where I was just like okay like if I I got to a
00:37:51
point where basically in my brain I just chose to basically be like sex is no longer a bad word in my brain
00:37:58
and now I want to be comfortable researching and learning and I have to seek out information whether that's a
00:38:03
therapist or whatever but like was there was there a moment for you or has it like I said has it just kind of been
00:38:11
like you know had multiple partners now and I just kind of like learning we're
00:38:16
we're older now right yeah we're not high schoolers anymore um you know we've
00:38:21
got a little decade or so under our belts at this point of being adults uh there's not a whole lot
00:38:31
specifically uh with sex um that I have done uh therapeutic work on but there's one instance recently
00:38:44
that I can recall it was the kind of healing my relationship with women in a sense cuz I
00:38:51
found out I found out I mean somewhat obviously that I was still in this like frustrated idealized State about women
00:39:02
cuz like after my first pretty serious relationship ended about two years ago I was still clinging to this like
00:39:13
holy image of like what like what a woman is like they're just like pure beautiful
00:39:21
princesses of just like my mother and stuff so it's kind of I had to work with
00:39:28
myself and talk uh kind of like invoke these different versions of me that we're still Clinging On
00:39:40
to like this idealized version of what a woman is like me I think it's like a like a childhood version of
00:39:52
me still was idealizing women as these sort of uh holy and pure beings that wouldn't just
00:40:02
like want to go out and [ __ ] or or like get drunk or just kind of like sleep around and stuff yeah which is just like
00:40:11
a human thing to do it's like like I've done that and like why wouldn't I think
00:40:17
that another girl wouldn't want to behave just like me because it's because
00:40:20
it's [ __ ] fun and uh in this these sessions that I'd have i' just kind of talk to myself in those
00:40:31
States about women just being people it's like Aon you know it's a they're just a woman okay it's not
00:40:44
like this archetypal pure version that you're still like clinging on to because like there's such a
00:40:52
resistance trying to like figure out why uh things would go down a certain way like after the breakup with my ex and
00:41:03
stuff like just different nasty behaviors coming out and um just in these visual States
00:41:11
talking to myself in this way I saw this like small like a short like six to eighty
00:41:18
old version of myself grow into a teenager and hopefully beyond that it was just a really interesting experience
00:41:25
working with myself that way because um there's definitely parts of me that still carry on these
00:41:34
idealistic ways of how I think the world should work that's so I have so many
00:41:40
questions around what you just said I'm GNA start I'm gonna start here because
00:41:44
but first first of all I want to say this thank you for being vulnerable we're talking on
00:41:53
really I didn't we didn't know where this conversation was going to go uhhuh
00:41:57
and so anyway but so I wanted to say that first I wanted to say thank you for being vulnerable with me
00:42:03
um secondly I don't know if you had this experience at all but like growing up in
00:42:10
church there was very much I talked about this on my Purity culture episode that I did when I talked about there was
00:42:19
a example when my church did these things called Purity conferences and You' go and it was it was the sex talk
00:42:25
for church basically and they would split the guys and the girls into two different groups and in the guys group
00:42:31
we were told that women are like a pie and so it's so we're a pie and then like
00:42:39
an apple pie and then and then the the leader goes the leader takes his finger and he sticks it in the middle of the
00:42:44
pie right and he just kind of like Twirls it around and he goes That's like when you start to like hold hands and
00:42:50
maybe like a little bit of you know kissing you're just being flirty right and like you know you're starting to
00:42:54
like kind of mess up this pie and we're like okay cool and he takes his whole
00:42:59
hand and he like kind of grabs it right and he kind of mushes it up a little bit
00:43:02
more and he's like that's like we're getting into like kissing and heavy
00:43:05
petting and like all you know so we're another step and and eventually it leads
00:43:10
to he like spits in the pie and then like mixes it really in there and he's like that's like you have sex with this
00:43:17
girl like and all along the path as he's doing this to the pie he continually is
00:43:21
asking us do you want to eat this pie right and by the time he spits in it you know you have that one dude in the back
00:43:28
who's like yeah I still want to eat it dude but like everyone else is like got
00:43:33
shades on yeah yeah I'll E Yeah CU he knows he's gonna be the only person to get
00:43:40
that pie because yeah because nobody else wants it and so anyway but I think there was a lot of kind of examples like
00:43:48
that given throughout the years I know bubble gum is another one that a lot of people heard but like to kind of do what
00:43:54
you were talking about it kind of exemplify women has like these like holy perfect things and you don't want to
00:44:02
like you don't want to mess that up right but sex messes that up and so I think that again plays
00:44:10
into when I had sex for the first time I felt really disgusting after yeah because of the fact that I
00:44:16
felt like I had taken this person who was a beautiful apple pie just this is a terrible example this is you know like
00:44:24
this is very much objectifying women and things like that but this is the what T
00:44:27
growing up and so and taking that and making it this disgusting spit in apple pie that nobody ever wants to eat again
00:44:34
and so I felt like I had ruined this person which gives it a lot of shame it ruins that Angelic feeling like you were
00:44:42
talking about of this person is like perfect and holy and and you know those kind of things so yeah it such a
00:44:51
um it's such a trip and it's it's almost like and then after that I felt like kind of this
00:45:00
leveling these two sides coming together I was like it's just a woman a Aaron's a
00:45:06
woman and she's a human just like you yeah and U yeah is it's interesting getting out of that
00:45:22
misogynistic heads space I want to ask you too cuz you you talked about like seeing like you know a six-year-old
00:45:33
version of yourself and then watching it grow up so yeah how do you get into that head space
00:45:42
or where do you like I don't know I I have trouble visualizing things like that I do some
00:45:48
meditation I do things like that but like I've always really struggled with kind of you know that kind of a thing so
00:45:54
I'm just curious how you get that space yeah that's a good question um so
00:46:01
apparently we're always we're always visualizing all the time and so it wasn't it's not exactly a clear
00:46:10
image that I'm seeing it's more like Impressions and stuff in kind of like a
00:46:15
dream state but they was it came from Teal Swan have you heard of te Swan I have
00:46:22
yes yeah she she talks about she does her like she runs through her completion process and so it's really interesting
00:46:31
initially you start and you say it's usually you can see something coming up
00:46:36
CU you're feeling like a lot of resistance and like tightness and like the front of your body probably your
00:46:41
whole body so like something's holding you back it's like no I don't want to go
00:46:45
there you know like when you're like pulling on a dog exactly yeah but you got that
00:46:51
feeling inside you with like what is wrong what is wrong with me right now MH and so
00:46:57
uh the other night I went through this I just got real relaxed you just had to calm yourself down lie down on your
00:47:06
bed and you say like you invoke it in your body you're like I am going to allow the part of
00:47:17
myself that is in most resistance to what is happening to possess my body and then you just let it like on
00:47:27
the count of three I go one two three and I just let it come through and it like this like it'll be like younger
00:47:35
versions of myself it'll be like some twisted up version of myself that kind
00:47:41
of spun out with my imagination so it's like some crazy character but a lot of the times they're
00:47:47
just like younger versions of myself that I have to talk to and I have to start coaching
00:47:53
them um I had a lot of resistance the other night because you know I'm I've been getting
00:47:59
things going for myself I'm selling paintings and stuff I'm teaching classes I was like what is wrong why do
00:48:06
I feel like not doing any of this what do I not want to do and I'm like I'm
00:48:10
going to let the part of myself that is in most resistance to possess my body and so I sat there let it come
00:48:19
through and I had like this dream picture in my head and it was me when I was 19 and I had my glass gles on and I had
00:48:27
a paintbrush and I'm like man this guy looks like he's pretty good at painting
00:48:30
and I had like this ratty shirt on like this ratty long sleeve shirt and I just let I just let it talk
00:48:39
like I just let myself talk through my voice at the moment and he's like I don't want to do this and I don't think
00:48:46
I can do this I'm just uh I'm too scared I feel like I'm going to fail it's so I had to um just talk to
00:48:59
Aaron you know that this works you know that you're good at this and people buy
00:49:04
your paintings and they support you and you know this because people fill up your classes and people are always
00:49:09
liking your stuff you know they give you pats on the back and stuff and so that part of me started calming down
00:49:18
and it was like almost that same thing I kind of saw I had this impression that he had a new understanding and he was
00:49:25
getting older and then like the it felt like something was coming together and then afterwards you're like exhausted a
00:49:32
little because the experience of just fusing the two parts of yourself back together is like a really healing and so
00:49:40
you always need to take time out for healing that's amazing like I like I'm
00:49:47
kind of like stunned and uh speechless that's like beautiful and I I love that
00:49:53
and I you're saying these things and I'm going okay I I need to do this in my own
00:49:58
life cuz I see the Hang-Ups and I I usually I don't acknowledge that tightness and I push through it and I
00:50:06
just you know it's to pull your pull yourself up by your bootstraps and like
00:50:09
muscle through it yeah no that that's a recipe yeah it's a recipe for Burnout
00:50:14
yeah exactly so I'm like I'm I'm hearing what you're saying I'm going okay I when
00:50:18
that happens I need to I need to do that I need to take time and and listen to those to those voices um cuz something
00:50:25
is there something is telling me something so wow um if you've yeah for listeners if
00:50:32
you've take anything away from this podcast I hope it's that because that
00:50:36
was super powerful um so thank you for sharing that that does kind of lead nicely into
00:50:43
I wanted to kind of ask you about what you're doing now you're an artist you're
00:50:46
an art teacher and you know kind of what like I mean you brought up before your mom went
00:50:55
was going to Santa Barbara for for art school so I'm sure she kind of had a hand in kind of molding that like
00:51:03
passion inside of you but also like where where did that come from when did you kind of figure out like I think I
00:51:09
want to be an artist or I'm good at this or like you know when did that start it
00:51:14
was definitely my mom my mom's influence because she started painting after the miscarriage of my
00:51:23
older sister and uh grew up around a lot of um paintings of dead flowers and um they're very beautiful
00:51:36
paintings and so of all the homeschool moms they saw my mom as the artistic one and so they had her teaching different
00:51:46
classes and stuff and so we would run through a lot of exercises that she learned at Oxnard College so that's kind
00:51:53
of really the birthplace of it is is your mom then kind of being like we're going to put an emphasis on this and was
00:52:00
it primarily I know art art is very there's a a lot of people have a lot of different mediums they use do you have a
00:52:07
particular medium that you like focus in on or I don't know I'm not I'm not as my
00:52:15
art is different let me say that my I think everyone is an artist deep down in some capacity but uh some people are
00:52:23
more the traditional artists of of paint and and charcoals and things like that but do you have a particular medium that
00:52:29
you you like oh as long as as long as I get to paint I'm okay with it I can do
00:52:35
acrylic or oil or squh or watercolor but I I mostly prefer oil just yeah it's the best yeah but lately
00:52:44
I've been doing a lot of acrylics because of a just where I live it's not
00:52:49
not as stinky yeah still yeah let's talk about job a little bit because I know
00:52:54
you you work in the art industry so what do what do you do like yeah like um you talk about teaching classes but
00:53:02
um and then and then of course like how can people find your art or commission art that kind of thing as well oh yeah I
00:53:08
work um it's like a community nonprofit okay uh M Museum and then next door they have a
00:53:16
building where they host classes and um do community family events and things so
00:53:23
I I get to teach adult classes and then during the summertime we do kidss summer
00:53:29
summer camps and um but yeah I'm on I'm on Instagram at Aaron MacDonald art and um just a lot of
00:53:41
business going on over there cool I get to I post a lot of stuff that I'm into
00:53:47
and stuff and yeah it's pretty fun yeah I was scrolling on there kind of prepping for this episode and and you
00:53:54
know I your stuff obviously pops up in my timeline quite a bit but uh I was looking through and and I was I was I
00:54:03
was amaz I mean there there's some beautiful pieces in there so yeah I'll
00:54:05
definitely link it down below there was one that stuck out to me re that that you did um and it's like a pixelated
00:54:13
skull um I don't know maybe yeah but I just uh I'm so F the reason I'm
00:54:19
fascinated by that is because I previously worked in um kind of I worked in the web 3 Industry and there's a lot
00:54:27
of people doing digital art but uh but I'm seeing a lot of like digital like or
00:54:34
like analog artists start to do these like pixelated paintings and maybe that's a style that goes back even pre
00:54:40
you know web 3 crypto nfts all those dirty nasty words that nobody likes um but but uh I don't know I I do you have
00:54:50
a particular I guess style that you like to paint in or a particular like thing that you like to paint is it you know
00:54:56
backdrops portraits anything like that oh yeah um primarily reside in Landscapes and
00:55:06
portraiture okay and that's where I um really like but man I've been getting
00:55:14
some of the curriculum from the bow house school which is the design school in Germany that got shut down by the
00:55:24
Nazis and um yeah like they just pull they have like most of their curriculum all pulled
00:55:32
together and you can buy it and stuff and oh my God it's like learning stuff like how to um like
00:55:41
just different exercises that they give about like feeling textures and like collecting textures from everyday
00:55:48
objects and like trees and things yeah and then reproducing that uh by memory like memory work and also like
00:56:00
um writing a word backwards writing a word forwards with your right hand and at the same time writing it backwards
00:56:08
with your left hand okay at the same creating like a mired image yeah yeah yeah like exercises like that it just oh
00:56:17
my God like actually like puts you in the Physical Realm like molding your senses
00:56:26
mhm kind of really interesting stuff because like up until now I was just looking at stuff and drawing
00:56:35
it but there's multiple ways to go about that I recently I was in Boston recently
00:56:41
and I went to the B Boston Art Museum um which was incredible I I'm learning to have a much better
00:56:49
appreciation for art I think as a kid I always was just like okay it's a painting like what's the big deal you
00:56:55
know um and yeah and then more recently I feel like in the last couple years I'm
00:57:00
learning understanding more of the history but then also like you said like their there style that goes into there's
00:57:07
technique there's different mediums you know acrylic versus oil paint it's very
00:57:12
different does different things all those types of things so I'm I'm by no means professional I
00:57:18
think I could have a conversation about it and be a little bit dangerous but not
00:57:22
like no no not to your degree um let's say but but it is interesting to kind of
00:57:28
sit and like look at these things now and kind of try to understand more of like what these are actually
00:57:35
representing uh what the person was actually trying to invoke or then also What feelings it it just invokes in
00:57:41
yourself right um uh because yeah like you said like being able to look at a piece of fruit or nature or something
00:57:50
and draw that or paint that I don't know I don't know um um there's like a famous quote I don't know
00:57:58
it might not be that famous it might be I don't know some hokey uh movie quote
00:58:02
or whatever but it's like art imitates nature or something like that and um I
00:58:08
don't know I'm just I'm learning and I'm learning to appreciate it more and like
00:58:12
really sit in it and and digest it a lot more and I don't know be open to it so
00:58:18
there's so many Avenues and like the further I get into it there's just like expansive stuff is just so
00:58:27
interesting yeah like art imitates nature um obviously we have to make ourselves
00:58:35
houses and then kind of like work around or work with nature so that we can live
00:58:41
a harmonious life with it and um so yeah there is this other method of drawing that I found from this abstract
00:58:55
expressionist and he mapped it out it in German but it was translated and uh most people like
00:59:03
there's a circle within the circle and it's like object or like person I and
00:59:09
then object over here and most of the drawing and painting that we do comes from over the head like Through The Eyes
00:59:19
over the head onto the object right but what he was doing was actually drag dring the spirit of the thing
00:59:28
underground and up through his feet and on through his hands onto the page so it was like he would make these
00:59:37
abstract geometric looking radial forms and things of leaves and plants and uh different stuff in
00:59:47
nature and so I think that that was really interesting yeah that's that's
00:59:52
incredible I like I said I don't know enough about it to like I'm an artist in my own right of
00:59:59
what I could you know I think like I said I think everybody's an artist to some degree but I think you know some
01:00:05
people obviously much more talented than than myself but um that's definitely an
01:00:11
interesting perspective to to look at I had never heard that like you know we look over an object like above the head
01:00:18
yeah CU yeah like it comes through our eyes onto the object and then it right and then we interpret it that way but he
01:00:25
was is just like pulling the thing underground into himself right like who thinks of that
01:00:33
man yeah well what there's the argument to be made too of like what does that
01:00:38
even mean right like yeah you know like how how um because yeah I think I don't
01:00:47
know I think to be a a really a good artist you have to I'm kind of talking out my ass here
01:00:55
to be but I think I think to be a good artist you have to like you you kind of have to
01:01:02
be you have to be in sync with the thing that you are creating um to some degree
01:01:08
right yeah absolutely and and that's why I say everyone as an artist because I
01:01:13
believe I like I believe what I do for work is is a form of art creating podcasts I think is a form of art um and
01:01:23
the most powerful things I've personally made have been the things that I've sat
01:01:27
with and I've come more in sync with and I've been like you look at it from a
01:01:33
different perspective or at least my opinion I look at it from a different perspective than someone else right I
01:01:40
can bang out a bunch of episodes of like the same exact thing it's a formula
01:01:44
right and you just create the same thing over and over um but I think there's
01:01:49
something to be said as an Editor to being like looking at something that somebody else has created and then being
01:01:55
able to take that and twist it and tweak it and make it an even more powerful expression of what that is so um it's
01:02:02
something Ive for on this show is I want to be a better Storyteller and I want to
01:02:05
learn to help tell people's stories better and edit and tweak that and and make it powerful um but yeah so that's
01:02:13
my own that's my own type type of artwork it's not it's not painting but
01:02:17
it's you know it is what it is um yeah clipping clipping cutting yeah trimming
01:02:23
adding music um yeah of the things some people wouldn't consider that art um but
01:02:29
it you know I don't know it's it's my creative expression let's say that yeah
01:02:34
so dude Aon this has been so much fun I appreciate you coming on and and talking
01:02:38
with me and oh yeah we went deep we went to some some Dark Places some happy places we did we traced it back we came
01:02:48
back to artwork I'm going to ask this there if there is there a memory from homeschool experience that stands out as
01:02:57
just kind of like super memorable whether it's like a cringey moment a happy moment it could be a sad moment um
01:03:04
but something that maybe is like unique or just interesting that as you've now
01:03:09
been out in the real world you're like oh you know what I got to do this thing
01:03:12
or I experienced this thing and it was it's just so different than everybody
01:03:16
else's experience of like the other day I was having a conversation with my mother-in-law because it's been the
01:03:21
holidays and uh and I told her like oh I was on a m team she was like you were a
01:03:26
mime and I was like yeah yeah and I was like I've never told you that before
01:03:30
she's like she's like nope never do that um yeah and I've known this woman for
01:03:36
like nine years uh something like that um so these you real quiet about it yeah I guess so I mean it's it's kind of a
01:03:44
cringy thing to bring up but um I don't know is there anything as we've been
01:03:49
reminiscing that stuck out in your brain if you're just like oh yeah that one
01:03:52
thing that we did during home school years oh yeah it was a Marine Science Camp okay did
01:04:01
you ever get to do Marine Science Camp I don't think I did was that the was that
01:04:05
the thing that would happen out at Channel Islands or am I thinking of something else okay yeah yeah it was
01:04:11
that and so um all the kids brought like their dads brought their kids and I was
01:04:16
there kind of solo with all these other boys and um they were off doing something at one
01:04:25
point and I was kind of um trekking it by myself but one day I'd kind of like
01:04:31
stuck around to just make sure I was looked after and so he was um just kind of chilling on the beach kind of away
01:04:39
just like letting me do my own thing uh I ended up somebody gave me some of the squids
01:04:47
that we had dissected earlier in the day like squid parts and things okay and I and we had Feb Little Bull Sharks these
01:04:57
little Sand Sharks earlier but I thought that I would go out and do it by myself and so I walk out there and uh
01:05:09
like almost knee high into the water and I start throwing the the squids out and they start coming like they
01:05:17
start swarming up around me um all these sand sharks and they start like kind of like kick my ankles
01:05:26
and stuff and like slapping me and stuff just like wrestling each other trying to
01:05:30
get these squids and uh that's why I was like you know that like kind of like
01:05:38
animal aggression you're like oh [ __ ] I should probably I should probably step out of
01:05:45
this area it was like having a bunch of little bull like a bunch of little bulldogs like uh like attacking each
01:05:52
other like underneath your feet but um yeah I stepped out of the water after that that was oh my gosh all by myself I
01:06:02
think I was like 12 or 11 wow yeah I I never I never did the Marine camps that sounds I mean that
01:06:12
particular story sounds a little bit scary but yeah but was so cool I love the ocean yeah I mean hey it's it's
01:06:21
almost just as vast as space it seems like sometimes so uh yeah I know it's funny I I keep seeing
01:06:29
posts of like why do all these billionaires want to go to space when they could be exploring the oceans um
01:06:35
because there's so much just Uncharted ocean like it's a good point it's a good
01:06:39
point there's a lot that we don't know that could be down there um so anyway
01:06:45
dude Erin this has been amazing I appreciate you coming on and telling your perspective and I always tell
01:06:51
everybody who comes on the show you're always welcome back um and uh but man
01:06:56
this has been this has been good and I appreciate your vulnerability uh to our audience thank you for listening
01:07:02
hopefully you got something um please I loved the thing that Aaron said about like visualizing and and sitting in the
01:07:09
uncomfortable and like acknowledging it yeah if if you feel that way take that to heart maybe try it for yourself
01:07:16
um who knows you know it could it could work for you we were talking before we got on the air about just different
01:07:21
things that work for us about settling anxieties and all that kind of stuff and so you know not everything works for
01:07:27
everybody but you know I would I would also love to hear what other people do um as well for for settling some of that
01:07:34
um as well so drop it in the I don't know in the comments or you know shoot me an email um yeah you can shoot me an
01:07:40
email shoot me an email exhs [email protected] uh or DM me on Instagram exhs Club um yeah dude this has been
01:07:48
great once again thank you I can't say it enough I appreciate you and uh yeah
01:07:52
to all the listeners we'll be back next week so until then all right peace peace
01:08:00
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