Shows
Standing NowhereMeditation Doesn't Make It Go Away | Financial Stress + Negative Self-TalkDo you ever wake up feeling good, then suddenly remember all your financial stress and it drags you down? That's where I'm at.In this episode, I'm trying something new: the "open threads" recording method. No outline, no script—just hitting record and following where my mind goes when I'm stressed about money, work, and negative self-talk.I've been meditating daily for 3+ years, and here's the truth: meditation helps, but it doesn't make the financial anxiety go away. It's still there, like a gray filter over life. My mind keeps telling me things won't get be...
2026-02-0441 minStanding Nowhere30 Episodes in 7 Months: What I've Learned (+ Afterparty with My Dad)30 episodes in 7 months. I can't believe I pulled it off.In this episode, I reflect on what surprised me, what I've learned, and why I'm stepping back from weekly Thursday releases (for now). I also share a Zen story about a samurai and a monk—"the gates of heaven and hell"—that's been sticking with me, especially after recording Episode 30 with my dad.Afterparty bonus starts at 12:43: me and my dad about two hours into recording Episode 30… completely off the rails. Fake tire commercials, bad impressions, childhood sledding injuries—and a few unexpectedly real moments in betwe...
2026-01-2426 min
Standing NowhereMy Dad, Grant Buehler: The Anger I InheritedMy dad, Grant Buehler, joins me for his first podcast appearance to talk honestly about the anger he inherited, the moments it nearly destroyed him, and what finally began to change.We talk about growing up with a father shaped by World War II trauma, the patterns that get passed down in families, and a deathbed reconciliation that shifted everything. Grant also shares his own battles with rage—from a near-fatal car accident in college, to a road rage incident on the way to church, to the fight that landed him in jail and became a turning po...
2026-01-151h 23Standing NowhereHas Meditation Actually Fixed Anything? | 3 Years of Practice, Still Broke (An Honest Answer)I've been meditating daily for 3 years. I'm still broke, still grinding 60+ hours a week doing deliveries, still struggling financially. So... does meditation actually work?In this episode, I answer questions I've never seen before about spiritual materialism, whether meditation "fixes" your external life, how to reconcile spiritual surrender with survival responsibilities, and why I'm really doing this podcast.Topics include:- Why "raising your vibration" is spiritual materialism- Has 3 years of meditation changed my external life?- How to practice when you're grinding to survive- The gap between spiritual...
2026-01-0834 minStanding NowhereNew Year's Resolutions Reimagined: What 'Resolution' Really MeansWhat does "resolution" actually mean at its root? Not forcing—loosening. In the final episode of 2025, I reflect on a year of struggle, growth, and showing up anyway. Honest thoughts on time constraints, mental health, sobriety, and trusting when you can't see the path forward. With wisdom from Lao Tzu, Meister Eckhart, Thich Nhat Hanh, and Rilke.Want to share a thought?Support the show---🔗 All links: https://linktr.ee/standingnowhere⭐ Leave a review: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/standing-nowhere/id1822619607?action=write-review📷 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/standing.n...
2026-01-0134 min
Standing NowhereTwo True Stories of Christmas Compassion [Holiday Special]What does compassion look like in action?In this Christmas Day special, I share two powerful true stories that changed how I think about seeing people differently.The first is "A Soft Answer" by Terry Dobson—an American aikido student in 1960s Japan who learns what his martial art really means when an elderly man transforms a violent encounter on a Tokyo train with nothing but kind words and curiosity.The second is a story from 1952 about a father who can't drive past a family standing in the rain on Christmas mo...
2025-12-2522 minStanding NowhereKeep On Keeping On: Broken Feet, Failed Discipline, and Trying AgainAt 19, I climbed Reaper Mountain in Marine Corps boot camp with hairline fractures in both feet. At 42, I'm trying to get back in shape after three years of failure. This episode is about what it means to keep showing up when you know you might fail.I tell three stories about broken feet:Story 1: The Crucible, 2003. Sleep-deprived, starving, both metatarsal bones fractured. Looking up at an impossibly steep mountain. A drill instructor offering me an out: "Get in the truck." My choice, and what happened next.Story 2: Three years ago, I felt invincible...
2025-12-1848 minStanding NowhereBeing Present Through Loss and Loneliness: What I'd Tell My Younger SelfWhat does it actually look like to stay present when you're driving 10–12 hours a day, feeling lonely in your car, grieving lost friends, and still trying to create?For this milestone episode, I tried something different—I asked Claude to generate 6 spontaneous topics about my life that I'd never seen before, then hit record and responded from the heart with zero preparation.What emerged was a raw conversation about staying mindful through exhausting work, creative expression as survival, what loss teaches us about impermanence, the difference between loneliness and aloneness, gaming as a spir...
2025-12-1144 minStanding NowhereThe Ornament I Forgot: On Gratitude, Regret, and Waking Up to What MattersThis week, I couldn't lock in a guest—and honestly, I've been struggling to lock in much of anything lately. Backsliding on habits, drowning in self-blame, stuck in the gap between where I am and where I want to be.Then, while decorating the Christmas tree, I realized I'd completely forgotten one of my son's ornaments. The one he made at five years old. The one with his tiny handprint pressed into paint. He's 19 now. He's moved out. That time is gone.In this solo episode, I explore:The cruel irony of finally waking up...
2025-12-0431 min
Standing NowhereDying to Yourself: A Late-Night Conversation on Trauma, Fear, and Letting GoThis one is more raw, intense, and emotionally unfiltered than usual — because real healing rarely looks clean. A late-night conversation between two brothers doing their best to stay present in the middle of real life.It wasn’t planned. It started as a late-night hangout with my younger brother Jeremy and turned into one of the most honest conversations we’ve ever recorded.Jeremy has lived through more than most people twice his age—eight car accidents, addiction, financial collapse, and the kind of fear that gets into your bones and never see...
2025-11-2753 min
Standing NowhereLosing a Brother, Finding Purpose: A 30-Year Friendship with Artist Raphael RozenbergWhat do we do with grief, synchronicity, and the strange ways love keeps showing up?In this episode, I sit down with one of my oldest and closest friends, Raphael “Rafi” Rozenberg. We met in 1997 and have lived through almost everything together—high-school chaos, fatherhood, marriages, losses, and all the weird twists of life in between.Rafi opens up about growing up in an Orthodox Jewish home, the accident that changed his father forever, the years of miscarriages he and his wife endured, and what it was like to lose both his fa...
2025-11-201h 21Standing NowhereUnderstanding Ego: The Illusion of the Separate SelfYou've been defending this "you" your whole life—getting offended when criticized, proud when praised, anxious about what others think. But what if the self you're protecting doesn't actually exist?This episode explores ego and the illusion of the separate self. Not as abstract philosophy, but as something you can observe right now. Watch your thoughts arise. Did you decide to think that? Or did the thought just appear? If you didn't choose it, who's the "you" that claims ownership of it?The paradox: you have to become somebody before you can become nobody. Spiritual de...
2025-11-1332 minStanding NowhereWhy Rest Isn't Optional: Finding Peace When You Can't Afford to Stop WorkingI can't afford to take time off. But I also can't afford not to take time off. That's the bind I've been in—and maybe you're there too.This week, I hit rock bottom. Burnt out, behind on bills, working 50-60 hours a week and still sinking. My body finally said: Stop. Now. So I took an unscheduled week of rest, even though I couldn't afford it. And that forced pause revealed something I'd been missing: rest isn't the pit stop before getting back to work—it's the finish line.Drawing from the Hebr...
2025-11-0630 minStanding NowhereFrom Loneliness to Solitude: Finding Yourself When All Your Friends Are GoneIn your twenties, it’s easy to feel like you’ll always belong somewhere — a friend group, a workplace, a Saturday night ritual that feels like home. But what happens when those circles fade, and you suddenly find yourself everywhere in the city… yet belonging nowhere?In this deeply personal episode, Jacob shares the story of poker nights and found-family friendships, the sudden loss of someone who helped anchor his world, and the quiet isolation of gig work that left him feeling like a ghost — unseen in restaurants full of laughter and connection.And yet… that ghostly...
2025-10-3047 minStanding NowhereHow Laughing at Scorpions and Mosquitoes Saved My Spiritual LifeThree years ago I was broke, sharing an apartment with scorpions, and couldn't see a way forward. Then I discovered that laughter—the real, spontaneous kind—can be a powerful spiritual practice.In this episode we explore why ego and humor can't coexist, and how laughing at yourself transforms everything from meditation to life's hardest moments.What we cover:The scorpion story and the spiritual breakthrough that followedWhy heaviness is "spiritual death" and lightness is lifeHow to spot the cosmic joke in your own strugglesAncient wisdom on softness vs. rigidity in spiritual prac...
2025-10-2336 minStanding NowhereWhat to Do When Fear Is Paralyzing You (A Practical Guide from Rock Bottom)Working 63-hour weeks with no AC in my car, behind on bills, applying for IT jobs I'm not sure I'm qualified for, and terrified every podcast episode isn't good enough. That's where I've been the last two weeks—and that's what this episode is really about.This isn't a theoretical discussion about fear. It's me working through financial anxiety, self-doubt, and the paralysis that comes when you're drowning but still have to show up every day. I share the spiritual practices that actually help me face my demons instead of running from them: gratitude in impossible circumstances, gr...
2025-10-1627 minStanding NowhereWhy You Can't Stop Wanting Things (And How to Finally Be Free)I've quit alcohol and cannabis. Kicked my energy drink habit that was costing me $150-200 a month. But I still can't stop buying ice cream at the end of brutal work days. And I'm obsessed with making this podcast perfect, going back to edit old episodes when I should just let them be.This episode is about attachment, desire, and why we can't stop wanting things even when we know they're not making us happy. It's not about becoming a monk or renouncing everything—it's about nothing owning you. We explore the difference between healthy desires (like wa...
2025-10-0936 min