Finding sacred relationships in a world that breaks your heart with Adam Guzman Poole
We live in the most prosperous and technologically advanced society in human history, yet for so many people happiness feels as elusive as a daytime star. The many comforts and conveniences we take for granted in the West often come at a hidden cost to our connection to the human family and the greater web of life. From the loneliness epidemic to the opioid crisis to endless foreign wars, many of the urgent issues of the day flow from a fundamental breakdown of once sacred relationships.
In this conversation I speak with Adam Guzman-Poole, a relationship coach, logotherapist, and author of Lessons in Love, about the stark contrast between Occidental ways of knowing and being in relationship and the heart-based worldview of Indigenous and Eastern spiritual traditions. As a resident of Bali, Adam also shares his experience of the Balinese secret to a love filled life, known as Tri Hita Karana, or the three causes of happiness.
Illustration by WILLIAN REIS on Unsplash
Show Notes
- To learn more about Adam Guzman – Poole and get a copy of his book Lessons on Love go to lessonsonlove.org
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Episode Transcripts
Silas Rose: 00:00 Hello friends, my name is Silas Rose, and this is Awake in Relationship. We live in the most prosperous and advanced society in human history. Yet, for so many of us, the secret to happiness is as elusive as a daytime star. Many of the comforts and conveniences we take for granted here in the West come at a cost to our connection — to the human family, and the greater web of life. From the loneliness epidemic to the opioid crisis, to endless foreign wars — many of the urgent issues that we are witnessing today flow from a breakdown of a relationship with the sacred. In this episode, I speak with Adam Guzman-Poole, a relationship coach, logotherapist, and author of Lessons on Love: Sacred Stories on Relationships, Balance, and Becoming Your Authentic Self. Adam spent close to two decades studying with indigenous elders in North and South America and Asia, learning about the view and practice of sacred relationships. In this conversation, we talk about the contrast between the occidental and traditional ways of knowing, and how the way we see the world shapes our relationships. We also discuss logotherapy and Viktor Frankl’s work on transforming trauma and the power of choice. As a current resident of Bali, Adam shares his experience of the Balinese secret to a love-filled life called Tri Hita Karana, otherwise known as the Three Causes of Happiness. Stay tuned.
Adam Guzman-Poole: 02:50 Thank you so much. Such an honor to be here. Thanks for having me, Silas.
Silas Rose: 02:55 So for my audience, I wonder if you can introduce yourself and talk a little bit about what you do, and the book you just came out with.
Adam Guzman-Poole: 03:05 Yeah, so — I am a spiritual therapist and a relationship counselor and coach. And, yeah, I help people find more love, joy, and peace in their relationships, whether that be with themselves, with their partner, or with their connection to something sacred — the divine, whatever you want to call that energy that we are all part of.
Silas Rose: 03:33 So you wrote this book, Lessons on Love, and you share quite intimately some personal stories to illustrate different lessons. I wonder if there’s one story in particular that speaks to the beginning of your journey to understand the nature of love.
Adam Guzman-Poole: 03:55 Well, I think like many great things, it came from pain. I’m really getting the image of alchemy — turning lead into gold. In my upbringing, I actually dealt with a lot of lack of love, right? I had a lot of self-animosity, a lot of overly critical tendencies, some perfectionist tendencies, and that led me down some not-so-supportive paths. When I was younger, I was a bit of a troublesome kid, and I was looking for love through substances — I was looking for connection there. And when I dropped that, I went to a bit more of what’s approved of as love in our society, which was looking for it through achievements. You know — what did I do? How much money did I make? How did I look? I was looking, but at the end of the day, I was looking for love outside of myself rather than within myself. And we all know that doesn’t lead anywhere good, right? It leads to emptiness, because we want to be full. So for me, it was through that pain that I was brought within. And I met many beautiful spiritual teachers along the way that guided me back to that truth within myself. We have lots to talk about there, and I can share more soon, but that’s sort of the beginning.
Silas Rose: 05:45 So in that dark night, was there a particular person or relationship that pulled you out by grace?
Adam Guzman-Poole: 05:54 I encountered an indigenous medicine woman in the Algonquin territory, over in Ottawa, and she really took me in. She saw me — she saw past what others may have judged me as, and it was through that seeing, right? Truly seeing someone is an act of love — to see past the conditions, past whatever they’re doing, to the core of who they truly are. And when she was able to see me, I was able to see myself as well. She was able to guide me and connect me to that source, and that led me down a twenty-year apprenticeship studying with different indigenous teachers, both in North and South America, as well as different Buddhist and yogic teachers. Yeah — for the past twenty years. But it was that one person, that one moment and act of love, that changed the trajectory of my life.
Silas Rose: 07:02 I know within indigenous cultures there’s this core teaching around right relationship — being in right relationship.
Adam Guzman-Poole: 07:14 Yeah — I’m forever blessed to all the elders and all the sacrifices they made to uphold and keep those teachings, particularly in places like Canada, where colonialism tried to suffocate them. So I give my utmost gratitude, particularly to one of my teachers, Leonard Dayrider [name as transcribed — please verify spelling], a Blackfoot elder from the Alberta territory, who also studied a lot with the Lakota. The Lakota have this phrase, Mitakuye Oyasin [transcribed inconsistently in original as “Mitakuyasan” and “Mitaguiasan” — please verify], which means “we are all related.” You and I are all part of the same stuff. There’s something really powerful in that phrase. It’s actually the epigraph to my book — Mitakuye Oyasin, for all my relations. We’re doing this for all our relationships.
If you imagine going into a traditional healing lodge — a sweat lodge in the north, and they also have one in South America, the temazcal, which is a little different — before you go into the lodge, it’s very common to put your head on the ground in humility and say Mitakuye Oyasin. This idea that I’m going in for healing — yes, personal healing, but also familial healing, community healing. I’m also going in for healing my ancestors, and the ancestors to come. So it’s this idea that we are all related, and we’re also related to the earth, to the stars, to the creatures — we are all part of the same stuff.
This is an indigenous teaching, and it’s also a universal one. Ubuntu speaks about this in Southern Africa — it means “I thrive because you thrive.” We are part of the community; it doesn’t start with the individual, it starts with the community — with the whole, realizing that we are interconnected.
I found this in the teachings of the north, but I also experienced it when I was living in the Amazon jungle for three years, doing an apprenticeship with the traditional Shipibo people there. I was with a healer, and he was telling me about the root cause of sickness — how they heal every type of sickness there is, not just physical. When people came with cancer, they’d heal them. Depression, they’d heal them. Marital problems, they’d heal them. It’s a very long apprenticeship to become that kind of healer. And he said the cause of all illness came from not being in right relationship. When you think about that, it’s more than just a relationship with one other person — it’s how you relate with everything. If you’re not relating well with yourself, you’re more likely to put a lot of stress on your body, and that stress manifests into toxic chemicals, which can create cancerous cells — and the cycle goes on. So when we’re in right relationship, we begin to heal those things. Healing comes back to relationships, because how you relate to one thing is how you relate to everything — the old Buddhist saying: how you do one thing is how you do everything. So how are we relating to ourselves? To the earth? To our community, our loved ones? And how does it all impact one another?
Silas Rose: 11:34 I really want to explore the contrast between East and West, because you live in Bali right now and you’re very much a global citizen — you’ve lived in a lot of places. But Bali has a bit of a reputation as being a place of love. Elizabeth Gilbert, who wrote Eat Pray Love, was focusing on Bali when she wrote about love. What have you discovered in that culture that seems to be kind of absent here in the West?
Adam Guzman-Poole: 12:21 Western thought and philosophy kind of root from Descartes’ thinking — “I think, therefore I am.” He’s looking at himself as an isolated individual in this energy of thought — it doesn’t really matter what’s outside. But a lot of cultures around the world bring in the community — this aspect that we are all together.
In Bali — I told you this story when we first met, and I’ll tell it for our listeners because it’s a perfect example of what Balinese culture is like in contrast to Western culture. I volunteer in a permaculture garden, and I was there with an Australian volunteer. We were building a living fence — if you’re not familiar with permaculture, that’s basically a fence made out of plants and trees; it builds and grows, and you kind of guide the plants to go their own way.
So the Australian volunteer and I were plowing away, building the fence, and we were just about done — like twenty minutes and we’d have finished. And then out of nowhere we hear Kadek [name spelled inconsistently in original as “Kadek,” “Cadek,” and “Goodek” — please verify], the owner of the permaculture garden, a Balinese guy, call out, “Kopi” — coffee, in Bahasa Indonesia. The Australian woman and I look at each other, then look toward his voice, and we just keep going — very Western, “let’s just keep going.” We hear it again: “Kopi.” We shout back, “We’re almost done!” and keep plowing away. About a minute or two later he says, “Come now,” and we’re like, okay, okay — we let it go, and we go have coffee with him.
There are these beautiful little sweets wrapped in rice paper, delicious, and we’re just sitting, enjoying, connecting — talking about the land, about Balinese culture, about a YouTube channel — everything and nothing at the same time — just relating. About twenty minutes later, the Australian woman says, “Okay, I’ve got to go, I have to take my son to the library today,” and she leaves. About a minute after that, Kadek gets a call on his phone — “Oh, that’s my son, I’m going to go be with him right now” — and he leaves too.
So there I was, and as I started to walk away from the permaculture garden, I looked at the fence — twenty minutes of work left undone — and I thought: huh. Well, that’s not done, but something so much more was received. I think that’s the value of relationships. In the West, we’re too focused on our to-dos. And when we’re too focused on our to-dos — you’re practicing mindfulness, you’re practicing Buddhism, and you know that life happens in the present moment, not when we’re running toward the future. That’s something I’ve noticed a lot in Bali and in a lot of Eastern cultures I’ve visited.
Silas Rose: 16:47 When we first connected, you talked about a particular formula for happiness found there.
Adam Guzman-Poole: 16:56 Yes — this is a beautiful Balinese concept: Tri Hita Karana, the three pathways to happiness, or the three pathways to abundance and well-being.
The first pathway is our relationship to the divine, the sacred, something bigger than ourselves. That relationship brings us peace. The second pathway is our relationship to others — to human beings. Relationships are actually one of our greatest sources of joy with other individuals, but they’re also the greatest cause of stress and emotional distress in our entire lives — bigger than financial stress, bigger than physical distress. When we’re not in harmony with those around us, we’re not happy. That’s one of the pathways to well-being.
The third pathway, which lines up with a lot of indigenous philosophies as well, is our relationship to nature, the natural world — because they don’t see it as separate. We’re part of this earth, and the earth gives to us. If we’re not in harmony with nature, well, we see what happens — we look at the world right now, not in harmony with nature, and we’re starting to see these freak floods, these freak ice storms, the climate changing quite dramatically. That comes from not being in right relationship.
And I want to jump back to that relationship with the divine, because I think there’s something missing in the West there too. We live in such a material world where we’re always holding on to something. But when we forget that we’re part of something greater than ourselves — where do we belong? It’s just me against the world. But when you can lean into “wow, I’m actually part of something sacred” — there’s something you can lean on. I believe it was Tara Brach, the amazing Buddhist teacher and psychologist, who also spoke about this belonging to something bigger than ourselves — that we can soften, that we can heal.
Silas Rose: 19:26 So you touched on the fact that we’re living in a challenging time, especially with a lot of broken relationships. You’ve studied the work of Viktor Frankl and logotherapy in your practice. I’m wondering how his ideas have influenced how you work with people and help them reconnect with a sense of sacredness in the world.
Adam Guzman-Poole: 19:56 For those who don’t know, logotherapy means “healing through meaning.” How do you heal through meaning? Viktor Frankl was an exceptional individual who found meaning in a place where people would think there’s no meaning — a concentration camp. When he was a young practicing doctor, he was sent to the concentration camp, and he started using this practice. He said, “Okay, how can I use this as an opportunity for my growth?” And it was in that space that he found meaning in the most detrimental place.
It’s a beautiful philosophy — actually a paradigm shift — that I like to offer a lot of the people I work with. Think about what a paradigm is: how are you looking at the world? When you shift your paradigm, your whole world shifts. What I like to offer is Frankl’s paradigm shift: that life is essentially meaningful. When we believe that, the way we respond to life changes completely, because life isn’t against us — life is for us. So if there’s a challenge, that challenge is actually inviting us to grow.
You talked about the brokenness, the broken relationships. I’ll give you an example — a client of mine was working through a broken relationship with their daughter. That relationship caused a lot of stress, a lot of overwhelm — like we talked about, relationships can cause a lot of distress, especially with someone you love, someone you care about, and you’re seeing that distress right now. When we look at it just as a challenge, it can feel overwhelming — “oh no, what do I do?” But when we step into it as an invitation to grow — this is life, this is the divine, you could even say, inviting me to step into my best self.
Frankl, in logotherapy, identified three ways to find meaning in life — three universal pathways, three values we can draw on to find meaning in any situation.
The first is creative — more purposeful, more about acting on the world. This client got serious and asked, “What can I do to bring peace? What can I do to bring harmony, love, into this relationship?” They took responsibility rather than letting it overwhelm them. They took responsibility — “How do I have agency?” And the minute we take agency, we find our power — there’s this sense of, “Ah, okay, I can do this.” That’s the creative pathway.
The second is experiential — more about receiving love from life. If you think of the creative as an exhale, like giving, the experiential is like embracing — receiving from life. We can find meaning by appreciating nature, receiving its gifts, spending time with somebody and truly being with them, receiving their presence — putting away the devices we keep in our pockets so we can really receive someone. Just being present with someone is one way we find love. Because the truth is, love is right here. Everywhere you look, life is giving to you. The sun is shining on you. If it’s raining, hey, you’re getting rain — and you get flowers from the rain. Either way, you’re receiving something.
And that leads to the third: the attitudinal — probably the most profound, and the hardest to do. The attitudinal is about finding meaning in the face of unavoidable suffering. Life is filled with challenges — there will be rain, there will be many days life wants to rain on your parade. But we have agency to decide how we respond to those challenges, even when we can’t change them. There will be moments when you do your best to support a relationship, do your best to bring something into harmony, and you may not get anything back. That’s going to hurt. Can you still find resilience within yourself? Can you still find patience, love, understanding for that person, and use the opportunity to grow? When we believe life is essentially meaningful — when we have that paradigm shift — it’s a lot easier to find that, because you’re using the challenge to bring out the best in you, the best in our human potential. Because at our core, we are love.
Silas Rose: 26:18 For the listener who might be feeling the heartbreak of the world right now, is there a simple practice you can leave us with for remembering love, or bringing love into daily life?
Adam Guzman-Poole: 26:30 Viktor Frankl, who we just spoke about, said: “Between the stimulus and the response, there is a space, and in that space is our freedom.” So between the challenges that come our way, we have agency to choose how we’re going to respond. It really is a choice — that’s our power. We have the responsibility, and the ability, to respond to life’s moments.
Now, in order to respond wisely and well in the moment, I cannot say enough about the power of meditation. Neuroscience shows that meditation can actually grow that space between stimulus and response. We can have a challenging situation happen to us, and it gives us spaciousness around that situation instead of going on automatic. We can actually decide and choose how to respond in those moments. So the first thing I’d say is: meditate. I cannot say enough about it — it will change your life, make you happier, healthier, and wiser.
I want to offer a specific meditation that’s really useful, from the Buddhist tradition. Before I share it, let me tell a short story to highlight it. Some of the Buddha’s senior monks were asked to go into the forest for a deep retreat — many months, to go really deep. So they went into the forest and started meditating. Now, there were a lot of forest spirits in there who didn’t like that they were there — they started spooking and scaring the monks away, becoming almost demonic. The monks were so afraid they ran right back to the Buddha, tails between their legs. And the Buddha said, “Okay, go back — but take this.” And he gave them the practice of metta — loving-kindness.
The monks went back to their spots in the woods, and as the forest spirits started to come toward them, they began practicing metta. It goes like this: you start with yourself — “May I be filled with loving-kindness. May I be held in loving-kindness. May I be happy.” You continue on like that, and then you extend it outward — “May the forest beings be filled with loving-kindness. May they be held in loving-kindness. May they be happy.” Again and again, until the monks were radiating so much peace and love that the spirits came to them and started offering gifts, because the monks were making the place so beautiful.
Now, if we’re feeling the weight of this world, we can be those bright, loving beings that actually help transform it. [Original transcript ends this line with “…transform the world of Ryaness” — likely a mis-transcription; please verify against the audio.]
Silas Rose: 30:15 Well, it’s a great place to land. Thank you so much, Adam, for this conversation. If people want to get your book or learn more about you and your work, where can they go?
Adam Guzman-Poole: 30:26 I think the best way to find me is Lessons on Love — lessonsonlove.org/gift. That’s lessonsonlove.org/gift. That gives you five transformational stories from my book that will really bring more love into your life. So find me there — I’d love to connect.
Silas Rose: 30:54 If you want to connect more with Adam’s work, head over to lessonsonlove.org. I’ll be sure to put some links in the show notes at [awakeinrelationship.com — please verify domain, original transcript says “awakenrelationship.com”]. If you’ve been enjoying the content here at Awake in Relationship, I’d really appreciate a quick review on Apple or Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts. I can sometimes be found on Instagram, LinkedIn, or Substack — send me a message and let me know what you think of the show. If you’ve made it this far, dear listener, thank you so much for lending me your ears. Till next time, stay connected.
