The Mark Groves Podcast

In this episode, I sit down with my favorite human optimization master, Drew Canole, to talk about something that is getting a lot of attention right now: is optimizing your life actually stealing your joy, or is it the path to more of it? We dig into why your vices are not just bad habits but doorways to the parts of yourself you have been avoiding, how your purpose is actually the reverse of your deepest shame, and why when you are truly connected to your soul's mission there is no room left for the things that dim your light. We also get into the biochemistry of alcohol, how to use your morning to tap into the divine, and why coincidences are not accidents but clues pointing you toward the life you are meant to live.

0:00 - Introduction: Is Optimization Stealing Your Joy?

2:37 - Why Your Purpose Is the Reverse of Your Deepest Shame

6:15 - How Vices Disconnect You From God and Your Mission

9:06 - The Fifth Dimension and How to Change Your Reality

15:00 - The Biochemistry of Alcohol and Why It Destroys Your System

22:00 - Turning Your Mess Into Your Mission

30:00 - Coincidences Are Clues: Tapping Into the Divine Timeline

36:00 - How to Use Your Morning Routine to Access the Soul

42:00 - The Power of Staring at a Blank Wall at 3:34 AM

44:00 - Organic Blaze Products and the Parasite Cleanse Challenge

Links:

Get 25% off all Organifi: www.organifi.com/createthelove 

Drew Canoli https://www.instagram.com/drewcanole/ 

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnk3JQzK3UTyk3deZ49FAdg 

Organifi Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/organifi/ 

Resources:

Need a digital detox? We've put together a free, science-backed protocol with everything you need to reclaim your focus, sleep, and attention — download it here. 

Get My Book! Liberated Love - Release Codependent Patterns and Create the Love You Desire: https://markgroves.com/book

Explore My Courses: https://markgroves.com/courses

Follow me and my work here:

—Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/markgrovestv 

—Subscribe to my Substack: https://markgroves.substack.com

—Instagram - @createthelove: https://www.instagram.com/createthelove

—Facebook - @createthelove: https://www.facebook.com/createthelove

Have A Question?—Have a Question For Mark That You’d Like To Hear Answered on the Podcast? Leave us a Voice Note Here: https://www.speakpipe.com/TheMarkGrovesPodcast 

Drop us a note at podcast@markgroves.com for sponsor product support, questions, comments, guest suggestions, or just to say hello!

This episode is sponsored by:

Organifi - High Quality Superfood Supplements To Keep Working Toward Your Goals - Use code CREATETHELOVE for 25% off  www.organifi.com/createthelove

In this episode, I talk about something that most of us will never admit out loud: that we can become addicted to our own suffering. That the wound we carry, as painful as it is, can become the most familiar thing about us, slowing life down to a pace we can control and keeping us locked in the same relational cycles wondering why nothing ever changes. We talk about why forgiveness is not about the person who hurt you but about refusing to let the wound keep damaging you, why real healing ultimately requires community and not just solo work, and how to shift from seeing yourself as the problem to seeing your life as the curriculum that is shaping you into who you are meant to become.

00:00 Addicted to Our Suffering

00:30 Why We Build Support Groups Around Our Wounds

01:15 Finding Wisdom in the Belly of the Wound

01:56 Transforming Your Life Curriculum Into Gold

02:54 Healing Cannot Happen in Isolation

04:05 Transcending Pain into Strategic Wisdom

05:45 How Our Wounds Slow Down the Pace of Life

10:19 Moving from a Lens of Deficit to One of Possibility

Resources:

Need a digital detox? We've put together a free, science-backed protocol with everything you need to reclaim your focus, sleep, and attention — download it here. 

Get My Book! Liberated Love - Release Codependent Patterns and Create the Love You Desire: https://markgroves.com/book

—Explore My Courses: https://markgroves.com/courses

Follow me and my work here:

—Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/markgrovestv 

—Subscribe to my Substack: https://markgroves.substack.com

—Instagram - @createthelove: https://www.instagram.com/createthelove

—Facebook - @createthelove: https://www.facebook.com/createthelove

Have A Question?—Have a Question For Mark That You’d Like To Hear Answered on the Podcast? Leave us a Voice Note Here: https://www.speakpipe.com/TheMarkGrovesPodcast 

Drop us a note at podcast@markgroves.com for sponsor product support, questions, comments, guest suggestions, or just to say hello!

This episode is sponsored by:

Organifi - High Quality Superfood Supplements To Keep Working Toward Your Goals - Use code CREATETHELOVE for 20% off  www.organifi.com/createthelove

In this episode, I want to talk about emotional fluency and why I believe it is the most important skill you can develop in a world that is becoming more digital and more disconnected by the day. Because here is the truth: AI can mirror your emotions but it cannot regulate your nervous system, and that is something only another human being can do. We talk about why your feelings are not problems to be solved but information to be listened to, the difference between primary emotions like grief and anger and the secondary ones like anxiety and shame that show up when we are too afraid to feel the real thing, and why your rock bottom might actually be the most important initiation of your life.

00:00 - Emotional Fluency as the Currency of the Future

00:41 - Why Your Feelings Are Information

01:51 - How Childhood Lessons Block Emotional Maturity

02:40 - Navigating Grief and the Power of Core Emotions

04:11 - The Connection Between Grief and Anger

04:53 - Using Clean Anger to Protect Your Boundaries

06:22 - Primary vs. Inhibitory Emotions: Moving Beyond Anxiety

08:31 - Learning to Descend into Yourself

09:43 - Transforming Pain into Purpose and Passion

Resources:

Need a digital detox? We've put together a free, science-backed protocol with everything you need to reclaim your focus, sleep, and attention — download it here. 

Get My Book! Liberated Love - Release Codependent Patterns and Create the Love You Desire: https://markgroves.com/book

—Explore My Courses: https://markgroves.com/courses

Follow me and my work here:

—Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/markgrovestv 

—Subscribe to my Substack: https://markgroves.substack.com

—Instagram - @createthelove: https://www.instagram.com/createthelove

—Facebook - @createthelove: https://www.facebook.com/createthelove

Have A Question?—Have a Question For Mark That You’d Like To Hear Answered on the Podcast? Leave us a Voice Note Here: https://www.speakpipe.com/TheMarkGrovesPodcast 

Drop us a note at podcast@markgroves.com for sponsor product support, questions, comments, guest suggestions, or just to say hello!

This episode is sponsored by:

Cozy Earth: Use code CHANGE for 20% off sitewide at http://www.cozyearth.com

Are you wondering if you should stay or go? Because here is the thing, it is never really just about the relationship. It is about you, your patterns, your upper limits, and the stories you have been telling yourself about what love is supposed to look like. We talk about why staying for the kids might not be the noble choice you think it is, why both people have to be all in or the healing is just pretend, and the questions that will cut straight to the truth of what you actually want.

00:00 The Big Question: Should You Stay or Go?

00:50 Context: Navigating Healthy Adults' Dysfunctions

02:05 Identifying Relational "Upper Limits" and Patterns

02:56 Why Both Partners Must Be "All In" to Heal

04:17 The Nuance of Staying for the Kids

06:58 Why Relational Education is a Vital Life Skill

09:25 Essential Questions from "Too Good to Stay, Too Bad to Leave

10:29 3 Perspective-Shifting Questions for Clarity

Resources:

Need a digital detox? We've put together a free, science-backed protocol with everything you need to reclaim your focus, sleep, and attention — download it here. 

Get My Book! Liberated Love - Release Codependent Patterns and Create the Love You Desire: https://markgroves.com/book

—Explore My Courses: https://markgroves.com/courses

Follow me and my work here:

—Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/markgrovestv 

—Subscribe to my Substack: https://markgroves.substack.com

—Instagram - @createthelove: https://www.instagram.com/createthelove

—Facebook - @createthelove: https://www.facebook.com/createthelove

Have A Question?—Have a Question For Mark That You’d Like To Hear Answered on the Podcast? Leave us a Voice Note Here: https://www.speakpipe.com/TheMarkGrovesPodcast 

Drop us a note at podcast@markgroves.com for sponsor product support, questions, comments, guest suggestions, or just to say hello!

This episode is sponsored by:

Organifi - High Quality Superfood Supplements To Keep Working Toward Your Goals - Use code CREATETHELOVE for 20% off  www.organifi.com/createthelove

In this episode, I share the story of quitting Instagram and what that period of separation taught me about endings, growth, and what it actually means to return to something. What started as a personal reckoning became a much bigger conversation about what these platforms are actually doing to us - how they're designed to hijack your nervous system through shock, rage, and dopamine hits, and why the anxiety so many of us feel might just be a normal response to a very abnormal relationship with technology. And at the root of all of it is one simple question: if you can't put your phone down, is your yes actually a choice?

00:00 - The Power of Choosing to End Something

01:10 - Learning from Mistakes and Moving Forward

02:50 - The Toxic Psychology of Social Media Platforms

04:11 - How Algorithms Exploit Human Attention

08:02 - Your Phone's Impact on the Nervous System

09:44 - Anxiety as a Response to Extractive Technology

Resources:

Need a digital detox? We've put together a free, science-backed protocol with everything you need to reclaim your focus, sleep, and attention — download it here. 

Get My Book! Liberated Love - Release Codependent Patterns and Create the Love You Desire: https://markgroves.com/book

—Explore My Courses: https://markgroves.com/courses

Follow me and my work here:

—Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/markgrovestv 

—Subscribe to my Substack: https://markgroves.substack.com

—Instagram - @createthelove: https://www.instagram.com/createthelove

—Facebook - @createthelove: https://www.facebook.com/createthelove

Have A Question?—Have a Question For Mark That You’d Like To Hear Answered on the Podcast? Leave us a Voice Note Here: https://www.speakpipe.com/TheMarkGrovesPodcast 

Drop us a note at podcast@markgroves.com for sponsor product support, questions, comments, guest suggestions, or just to say hello!

This episode is sponsored by:

Cozy Earth: Use code CHANGE for 20% off sitewide at http://www.cozyearth.com

Organifi - High Quality Superfood Supplements To Keep Working Toward Your Goals - Use code CREATETHELOVE for 20% off  www.organifi.com/createthelove 

Instagram, Endings, Breakups, Boundaries, Anxiety, Dopamine, Algorithm, Healing, Growth, Mindfulness, Depression, Detox, Relationships, Consciousness, Nervous system, Discernment, Technology