Brain Awake: Finding the Gold in Our Untapped Potential with Joseph Kao

How do we maintain focus, clarity, and determination when the going gets tough? How do we stay in the zone? What makes us come alive? These are some of the questions iAwake developer Joseph Kao asked in the process of designing Brain Awake—and some of the interesting psychological dynamics he elaborates on in this warm, articulate, and informative interview with John Dupuy, CEO of iAwake Technologies. 

In his work as a psychotherapist, Joe has learned that building on people’s strengths is key to building mental well-being, and in Brain Awake Joe uses his master hypnotherapist expertise to guide us to tap into and amplify specific areas where we are already skillful, so these skills become readily available to us and we begin to experience states of peak performance, enhanced focus, increased creativity, improved learning, and more. Accessing our strengths, our flow, and our untapped potential is what makes us come alive, and on the flip side, this tends to crowd out self-doubt, anxiety, and depression. Joe also talks about capturing the spirit and excitement of when brainwave entrainment first came on the scene, and using a strategy of “tension then release” to create an experience of focused intensity.

• Introducing psychotherapist & master hypnotherapist Joseph Kao, creator of Brain Awake (01:10)
• The story behind the creation of Brain Awake: tapping into key areas of human potential & possibility and amplifying them, making them accessible (03:00)
• Capturing the spirit and excitement of the early days of brainwave entrainment (04:38)
• Building on people’s strengths is key to building mental well-being (07:36)
• Addictions and compulsions are substitute activities we do when we can’t get into the flow (09:05)
• Brain Awake uses the strategy of “tension and release” to create an experience of focused intensity (11:01)
• The many ways to use track 2, the vocal-free soundtrack (16:30)
• John’s reawakening of his songwriting talents while using Brain Awake (18:40)
• How we deal with challenges and creative blocks is important (22:51)
• Finding the gold in half-formed ideas (24:50)
• Who will benefit from using Brain Awake? (29:31)
• The brainwave entrainment technology in Brain Awake: oscillating primary frequencies with a layer of background gamma, 3-D nature sounds (30:54)
• Trusting and taking pleasure in your work: allowing the struggle—and the success (34:57)

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Joseph Kao, creator of the very popular Profound Releasing, Profound Renewal, Sound Asleep, Journey to the Center of the Self, and Journey to the Depths of the Soul, is a hypnotherapist and a solution-focused therapist with a private practice in Cambridge, UK. Joe works as a teacher and a developer of psychotherapy training courses, and has been the head scriptwriter for over 800 professional hypnotherapy recordings.

Joseph has practiced meditation since the late 1990s, and he’s used brainwave entrainment as a core part of his practice throughout this time. He is a father of two, a keen cold-water swimmer, and he is currently exploring how theater and improv intersect with psychotherapy and personal development. Learn more about Joseph at https://joekao.com/.

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John Dupuy is the CEO of iAwake Technologies, co-host of the podcast Deep Transformation: Self-Society-Spirit, author of Integral Recovery, and travels internationally to teach and inspire on the subjects of Integral Transformative Practice and the use of brainwave entrainment technology to deepen one’s meditation practice and in the treatment of addiction, depression, and PTSD.

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This blog was created by Heidi Mitchell, John Dupuy’s longtime assistant and project manager/editor of the Deep Transformation: Self-Society-Spirit podcast. John introduced Heidi to Integral practice and sound tech-enhanced meditation in 2007. Heidi is also a freelance editor of nonfiction books, blogs, and websites. She can be reached at www.heidimitchelleditor.com.

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