Episode 33: Relationality & the Deeper Dynamics of Life
In the final episode of their "Problem with Problems" series, Marti Spiegelman and Todd Hoskins explore the deeper dynamics that lie beneath our habitual problem-solving orientation. They introduce the Andean principle of "sourcing from who you're becoming, not from who you have been" and examine how this shift in awareness transforms leadership, relationships, and our capacity to respond to life's challenges.
Marti and Todd discuss how moving beyond the fixed, self-referential lens of problem-solving opens us to participate in the living dynamics that shape reality. Through practical examples—from mentoring relationships to networking events—they illustrate how presence and connection reveal opportunities invisible to our reactive, categorizing minds.
Marti shares insights from indigenous wisdom traditions about humanity's role as conduits for universal consciousness, while Todd explores how true mentoring helps people unfold into their authentic being rather than simply achieving goals. Together, they invite listeners to discover what becomes possible when we stop trying to control outcomes and instead learn to move with the creative forces of life itself.
Series: The Problem with Problems
We live in a world dominated by problem-solving. From personal development to global policy, we're trained to identify issues, analyze them, and implement solutions. But what if this very mindset—our problem-solution paradigm—is itself limiting our capacity to navigate the complexity of our time?
In "The Problem with Problems," Marti and Todd explore how our fixation on problems shapes our reality, influences our sense of belonging, and may blind us to the deeper patterns at play. This three-part series invites listeners to question a fundamental assumption of modern life: that progress comes primarily through fixing what's broken.
What might we discover if, instead of asking "how do we solve this problem?" we asked "how do we participate more wisely in this living system?" Join us as we venture beyond the problem-solution mindset into more expansive ways of seeing, being, and creating.
Photo by Cup of Couple
Timeline
00:51 Hosts introduce themselves and the episode topic
01:17 Todd recaps the "Problem with Problems" series
02:54 How our worldview determines what we see as problems
03:47 The suffering created by self-referential thinking
04:40 Understanding deeper dynamics vs. isolated problems
06:19 Shifting from control to participation in living systems
07:38 Marti introduces "sourcing from who you're becoming"
08:32 The fountain metaphor: universe moving through us
10:50 Being present vs. being fixed in past patterns
12:18 Todd questions how to avoid self-referential thinking
13:35 Marti on the principles and technologies of consciousness
16:45 The principle of munay
18:38 Practical example: marketing challenges as dynamic opportunities
21:01 Todd on resisting the urge to categorize what's emerging
23:19 Todd transitions to leadership and mentoring contexts
24:56 Mentoring vs. managing: seeing who people truly are
26:35 Marti distinguishes coaching from mentoring
31:23 The role of munay in mentoring relationships
32:22 Todd's networking event scenario
34:42 Marti on sensing energy and information from our environment
38:35 Moving beyond emotional reactivity to clear awareness
41:21 The importance of unfolding consciousness through time in Nature
43:20 Todd on munay and the trap of effortful non-interference
45:45 Why consciousness can't be explained, only experienced
48:05 Potentialities (Marti): Humanity's agreement with universal consciousness
01:02:54 Takeaways
Quotes
“Our problem-solution worldview limits what we can see and how we can respond. Like wearing blinders in a forest, when we approach any situation looking for problems to solve, we miss the vibrant web of life—the way healthy systems support struggling ones, how death and decay nourish new growth, how disturbance can ultimately strengthen the whole.”— Todd Hoskins
“This fixing mindset—while useful for changing a tire—becomes insufficient when applied to the complex, living systems we're actually part of.” — Todd Hoskins
“True belonging isn't about fitting into categories, but about discovering our essential membership in the conscious universe itself.: — Todd Hoskins
“How we see the world determines how we create meaning, which determines whether we think something is a problem to begin with. This isn't just philosophy—it has profound practical implications for how we lead, how we create, how we participate in life itself.” — Todd Hoskins
“Consider what happens when we put ourselves at the center of everything. From this position, we believe we're able to control and dictate outcomes. We become the focal point around which all events must be evaluated. Did this support my goals? Does this threaten my position? How does this reflect on me? This self-referential lens transforms the world into a collection of problems and solutions, with us as either the problem-solver or the problem itself.
This worldview creates so much suffering. We find ourselves constantly striving, efforting, measuring ourselves against standards that are fundamentally inhuman—machine-like in their demand for predictable outcomes and linear progress. We become trapped in self-criticism, always falling short of some imagined ideal of efficiency or achievement.” — Todd Hoskins
“When we see problems everywhere, we're looking at symptoms while missing the deeper dynamics at play. A problem, by definition, is something we isolate—something discrete that can be extracted from its context and fixed. But the forces that actually shape our reality cannot be isolated because they are deeply interconnected, woven into the very fabric of how life organizes itself.” — Todd Hoskins
“Dynamics are what we might call invisible choreographies—patterns of relationship and influence that move through everything. They're as real as gravity, though we can't touch them directly. They shape how teams develop their particular culture, how communities respond to change, how forests regenerate after fire. They're present in the way birds move together across the sky, in how your presence changes the energy of a room, in the subtle electromagnetic fields your heart generates that interact with others around you.” — Todd Hoskins
“What we're pointing toward is a fundamental shift from seeing ourselves as separate agents operating on a world of objects, to recognizing ourselves as participants in these living dynamics. This isn't just about improving our relationships with other humans—though that certainly happens. This is about living in and responding to the connectedness that is always present, always influencing, always creating the conditions within which everything else emerges.
When we step into this awareness, something remarkable occurs. Instead of constantly positioning ourselves as either the solution or the problem, we begin to explore and steward the workings of systems. We start to move with dynamics rather than trying to control them. We discover what it means to participate rather than manipulate.
This is relationality—not as a concept or strategy, but as a lived experience of belonging to the web of interactions that comprises reality itself. From this place, our actions arise not from the burden of having to fix everything, but from the joy of contributing to something larger than ourselves.” — Todd Hoskins
“Source from who we are becoming, not from who we have been.” — Marti Spiegelman referencing an Andean teaching
“Can you imagine the universe moving through you?” — Marti Spiegelman
“Are you living your life to blossom the seed that is you?” — Marti Spiegelman
“The principle munay is the capacity in full presence to be aware of everything as it is and let it be what it is. It's the capacity simply to know and let it be. And when you do take an action, you're taking an action to germinate the seed that you are, you're taking an action in service to your collective. You don't fix stuff. Things that are dying, you let them die because that's a cycle of life. You look for life-positive things and you move into action or you can further blossom.
This power of munay—the power of that kind of awareness and acceptance—is what collective love feels like. That's what unconditional love feels like. And if we are aware in that way, we are sourcing in the moment from who we're becoming, not from who we have been.” — Marti Spiegelman
“Ceasing to look at the world as though it's just a big pile of problems involves our moment-to-moment participation in life, our moment-to-moment exercise of munay, our moment-to-moment remembering and exercising of our capacity to blossom. And not just to blossom, but to make more seeds, to put more coordinates of potentiality out there while we're giving our gift into the world.
To keep ourselves full of bioenergetic force so we're alive and healthy. To to tend to our our attitude toward life. Are we available to life? Yeah. Do we appreciate our own special spirit and know that we belong, that we're supposed to be here? These are the deeper dynamics that keep us at source.” — Marti Spiegelman
“What's on the move here? The noticing, the tracking, the awareness of what's on the move may not have a verbal answer.” — Todd Hoskins
“If we live engaged in the present, life changes radically. We begin to be creators. We don't worry about problem solving.” — Marti Spiegelman
“Many leaders rely on their position for authority or their knowledge for credibility. Mentoring is something else that's more about creative partnership. As a mentor, whether it's formal or informal, I'm not here to tell you what to do. I'm here to help you see the world in a different way, and in doing so, see yourself differently.
Great mentors aren't just drawing on their personal experience. They're connected to core principles. They understand that there are no easy answers to anything complex. So rather than solution-seeking or obstacle-overcoming, they're in relationship with you to invite you into being more powerful and more effective.” — Todd Hoskins
“Human consciousness innately is designed for us to be connected, to be present, to evolve together in the moment.” — Marti Spiegelman
“To move out of a world that's full of problems and isolation you have to find some way to unfurl your own consciousness. That means living life from experience via your connections into the world. And that takes some training.” — Marti Spiegelman
“There's a moment that I would invite everybody to just go discover . . . Something in Nature that pulls your awareness off of your ego completely and you are in awe for a moment. If you can catch that moment, you are here, you ‘belong’, you're not questioning yourself, you are just alive. That's the state in which you can drop into these deeper dynamics of how life actually comes into being, how situations converge and emerge in your life. How you can engage for your own best growth and wellbeing, which will also be the best for your collectives.” — Marti Spiegelman
“You can't think your way there and you certainly can't reason your way there. You have to learn how to have your experience.” — Marti Spiegelman
“in cultures around the world we find records of a very clear awareness of the purpose of humans—which is to be the conduit for the wisdom and guidance and creative potentialities of the entire conscious universe.” — Marti Spiegelman
“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” — Arthur C. Clarke
“The key to understanding our humanity, and understanding how to receive the universe's biggest gift to us, really comes down to our willingness to live in dialogue with the natural world, not with the ego. It is our willingness to be awake within our own experience, not standing outside trying to explain stuff or prove stuff to ourselves. But being in our experience, which is a connected thing moment to moment. You can't be aware of your experience if you don't have awareness in your connections to the world.” — Marti Spiegelman
“Stop doing everything alone and stop thinking so much.” — Todd Hoskins
Links
Reality by Peter Kingsley
Credits
Theme music courtesy of Cloud Cult