Episode Details

(0-10 minutes)

Corvas is a founder and CTO of Meow Wolf in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Meow Wolf is a psychedelic art installation that is a mix between Disneyland and burning man. Corvas runs their technology. Stewart taught Corvas yoga and meditation previously and they discuss how his practice has evolved over the last ten years as he has helped to build Meow Wolf into the thriving business and art collective it is today.

Corvas explains how he doesn't think that he would be able to do what he does at Meow Wolf without mindfulness.

He describes how he discovered meditation in college along with experimenting with other avenues toward self-exploration. The first time he meditated he had messages and insights waiting for him. From that moment on he felt like he had an internal knowing of what meditation is. He said the only instruction he had at the beggining was that meditation was about bringing awareness back to the breathing. Focus on the breath. Let his mind unwind until it gets quiet.

Stewart agrees and says that the breath is such a good meditation tool because it's always there. You don't need anything extra. Wherever you go you are always breathing so you never need another tool besides that for meditation. The breath is the thread that links many meditation traditions together.

Stewart asks Corvas about his informal practices that he uses throughout the day in order to remain mindful and present. Corvas talks about how it's important to maintain a certain mindset while in challenging situations. He looks at environmental triggers where you intentionally leave a mark or a symbol to help him to remember to come back to the present. Do you want to become more creative?

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(10-20 minutes)

Corvas talks about his experience investigating the shadow side of his personality. When he encounters dark thoughts he uses his environment trigger to look and acknowledge these negative purposes. These shadow aspects have value. If we look away from these and pretend everything is great, then we become distorted. Corvas is learning how to appreciate these moments.

Stewart brings up the cult of positivity and how it's difficult to share negative emotions with other people because they have taught to be positive all the time. We are all humans and we are fallible. Corvas says that fear and anxiety are really powerful motivators and that if you can have a healthy relationship to these negative emotions, there is great power there.

This brings Corvas to talk about public speaking and the anxiety that comes with that. He's learned that just by acknowledging these emotions they tend to lose their power. They are still there but they don't bite as deep as they used to. Stewart brings up something one of his friends once said to him that "Anxiety is excitement without the breath".

Stewart talks about his own experience with public speaking and how they are actually his best opportunities for mindfulness because they are the most emotionally affecting. Corvas says that human beings usually hear tone and body language before they connect with the linguistic and intellectual components of speech. You can talk about the most important things, but if you do it with no emotion, nobody will connect with it. This also works the opposite way too.

(20-30 minutes)

We talk about the beginning of Meow Wolf and how difficult it was in the beginning. Stewart asks whether Corvas was doing individual work to create the first exhibitions. He says that yes and that everyone was. It was an organization without hierarchy and if you were a part of the team you were creating. Now Corvas is in more of a strategic role and doesn't do as much creation.

For Corvas, as an artist, he has had to adapt become an administrator. He says that because Meow Wolf is such a cre