Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: What exactly is happiness and happiness? So I build up to a definition of happiness, that happiness is the feeling character level that you experience when you're free from want and free from need.
[00:01:07] Speaker B: Welcome to supernormalize, the podcast, where we challenge the conventional break boundaries and normalize the seemingly supernatural. Join me, CJ, as we explore less uncharted realms of existence and unravel the mysteries of life. Experience my treasured listeners, if you have a life story or healing modality or unique knowledge that you'd love to share, reach out to me at supernormalized. That's supernormalized with a z at Proton me. Let's together embrace acceptance of the supernatural and unusual as what it really is. Completely normal. Hey, exciting interview alert. Join us today as we chat with Kevin Burke, headmaster of the Real Astrology Academy and creator of the human game. We'll discuss the power of stories, solving the happiness problem, and winning at the human gain. This has been a very interesting conversation, I should say. I'm recording it just afterwards and I'm sure you'll enjoy as well. So yeah, jump into the show. It's really, really good.
Welcome to supernormalized, Kevin Burke. Kevin, you've got quite an interesting understanding of astrology and the process of astrology, and you've converted it into an approachable method for people that you've called the human game. Now, can you tell us about yourself, your background, and your journey as an astrologer and author that led you to this?
[00:02:24] Speaker A: Sure, I have.
I've been teaching astrology since the year 2000. I've been counseling, I guess I started counseling as an astrologer in 1998, started studying it in 1995. It's always been something that has been of interest to me and it's never delivered on what it's promised.
What do you mean by that?
It always promised answers.
It's like I could see this practical answers, just wisdom. There was something there and it just kept on eluding me. And I take a very practical, critical thinking approach to things and I kind of stomped in and demanded to see the manager, as it were, and kind of just said, I'm going to figure out how this works. I'm going to understand why this works. I'm going to look at first of all, what's so hard about learning astrology because people study it for 30 years and can't interpret a chart and thing takes 30 years to learn. So clearly there's something wrong with how it's being taught.
And I like teaching things because when I teach something, it means I have to know it on a deeper level. And I learn more by teaching sometimes than I do by just figuring stuff out on my own.
And I pursued this for decades and kept on looking, went deeper with it, looked into classical astrology and found practical ways of applying that. And was just, every time I'd launch something, every time I'd do something, it had so much promise. And I would run these classes more than once. I had these experiences where I really just felt this profound kinship with the captain of the Titanic because I'd be a third of the way into a class that I was teaching or a training program. And I'm realizing, oh, yeah, that's definitely an iceberg.
Now that I'm testing this out, now that I'm putting this in the real world, now that I'm going through this again and seeing how people are responding to this doesn't go where I thought it was going to go.
Yeah, that's going to suck.
We're going to pick up the pieces and bring in the Celine Dion song and we'll get through this and then I will figure out what I'm going to do next because this isn't the way to go. And that's what happened two and a half years ago. No, because almost three years ago now, I was teaching and what was supposed to be an advanced natal interpretation training program, and it wasn't quite going the way that I thought because I was still focusing on how to interpret the chart and this idea of a synthesized interpretation of the chart, which, ironically, is the opposite of what one actually needs.
You don't want to try to wrap everything up because the astrology isn't the answer. You want to break things down to the smallest possible component so you can actually have something usable. Right.
But that took 20 plus years to realize that I and everyone else was sort of instinctively approaching it from the wrong end of the telescope, as it were.
And I started to play with, I don't know, I had these ideas that were just fun and inspiring and looking at how to get some practical use out of the elements, for example, and what the modalities actually were because I was trying to drill down to help my students really get a sense of those things. And I remember I started thinking in terms of the elements really are kind of literal. And I was thinking probably because of other things going on in my life about, like, homeowners insurance and disaster insurance. It's like, what kinds of disasters are we talking about? And, well, if it's a water based disaster that you could see astrologically, that's going to be an emotional thing and an air. And just playing with this idea of, oh, this is kind of interesting, that the elements really can sort of anticipate what kind of upset might be happening in your life and be able to track it with that. And then I started looking at the modalities and how we approach stuff, and some things with that just utterly blew my mind. And from that, I started piecing together the idea of the human game.
And it was very much I was approaching this instinctively from kind of a role playing reality, role playing game perspective, which is what I've come back around to sort of embracing. But I was literally going in and kind of writing the dungeon master's handbook for this, figuring out all of the details. Okay, well, this is the elements, and here's how these line up. And here's how this. Because I needed a framework to kind of understand what this was. And it was interesting. And my students, God bless them, were intrigued because I was more interested in sharing this stuff than getting them to do the stuff that they thought they were doing. And they had fun playing with this, but it was overwhelming and confusing, but that was the impetus of this. And I started playing with it and discovering more and more about, because this was dynamic astrology. This was stuff I could use.
This wasn't descriptive. This was active in a way that I'd been looking for for 30 years.
And I launched it as kind of a coaching program. I had a couple of little workshop things that were very, very heavy on astrology theory and have no bearing on what this is. But I was figuring out, what is this?
And it took about a year and a half to realize what it was. I knew what the human game could do, but I hadn't seen the elephant yet. I couldn't name what it was. And then I realized, oh, it's a philosophy.
And then I realized, oh, I'm not an astrologer. I've never been an astrologer. I'm a philosopher, because I've never cared about astrology for astrology's sake.
I've only ever cared about astrology because it promised me answers to life, the universe, and everything, right? And my approach to it has always been something other astrologers didn't quite understand, because I'm looking at it from the outside in. I'm looking at, what is the philosophy of this? How does this work? How can I make use of this?
I don't care about the academics of it. I care about what are the practical applications. And that just put my whole life.
It's just like, oh, now my life makes sense. I've always been a philosopher. I've always been asking these inconvenient questions. It's always been about figuring out what are my answers. I mean, I just want to make sense of my reality.
Something to help me to understand what the hell is going on here.
And that's really been what's driven me my entire life. And it's like, oh, this astrology. So the philosophy of the human game is that the universe is made up of stories.
Story is the smallest practical unit of reality.
And again, that's a line from a poem. And I really need to remember how to pronounce this woman's name. Muriel something.
Poem is the speed of darkness. It's like 1969 or something. So she's the one that came up with this original. With the original statement. The universe is made up of stories, not of atoms.
[00:11:54] Speaker B: Right?
[00:11:56] Speaker A: But I grabbed onto that and again said, okay, what does that mean? If that's true, what do we need to build around that seed of an idea to actually get something usable? Because this was such an intriguing idea.
And so I started exploring what makes stories work and how we look at things as stories. And then, of course, astrology fits in so beautifully because you can take little pieces of these theme level symbols and add them into your story.
[00:12:36] Speaker B: Brilliant.
[00:12:38] Speaker A: So you were expecting a short answer to that question, weren't you?
[00:12:43] Speaker B: No, I know I like long answers because you actually went into a lot of depth around it. And you went straight into my second question answered anyway. So I'm happy about that, too.
[00:12:51] Speaker A: Okay, cool.
[00:12:54] Speaker B: I would call myself a bit of an astrologer. I wouldn't say I'm an expert by any means, but I can read astrology in such a way that I can see it as a roadmap. So when things start to feel a bit stuck or a bit weird with my wife and I in certain ways that are playing out in our lives, I can pull it up and go, oh, this is what's going on for you right now? And she goes, oh, yeah, that's cool. I understand now I don't have to freak out anymore. And the same for me. I do that for myself as well. And sometimes I forget it. But then I have other astrologer friends and say, blah, blah, blah is going, blah, blah, blah. Okay.
[00:13:27] Speaker A: But this is the thing. It's not the astrology. It's the story.
All you need is a convincing story that explains what the hell is going on here.
And if you can blame it on the astrology if you can tie it to some astrology symbols and that gives you some perspective on it. Awesome.
That's one of the fun things about astrology.
And there's more that can be done with it. But that's also what you're describing is already a more dynamic approach to astrology than most people take because the present day popular understanding of astrology, the way that astrology is most commonly used, is as a system of personality typing, right? So it's inherently passive because it's sort of describing you. When I was teaching natal chart interpretation, I was talking about it in terms of you're painting an astrological portrait, you're trying to get a likeness of the person.
It's never going to be them, but maybe you're giving your impression, you're giving them a likeness, and that's great.
And also it's lovely having your portrait painter, and it's lovely sitting across from someone telling you how pretty you are for 90 minutes or so. And then when you're done, you have a portrait which kind of, you hang it up on the wall and you can look at it from time to time, but you can't do much with it and it doesn't completely describe the full depth of you. It's an insight.
And that's where my frustration always lied lay with astrology until I realized that's not a problem with astrology. That's a limitation of personality typing. That's a limitation of how we're applying the stories of astrology, saying this is who you are, this is why you do what you do, which is of limited value. It's much more valuable to be able to answer the really big question, what the hell is wrong with you?
Because astrology lets you put other people in boxes to be able to understand in your mind why they behave the way they behave. And that's really useful because other people are problems. And if you can at least understand, oh, Aquarius, that's why. And then they stop being a problem. And whether or not they agree with that doesn't matter. But now your behavior isn't freaking me out because that's such an aquarius thing to do. Yeah, okay, great. No longer a problem. I can get on with my life.
So that's incredibly useful.
And it was never enough for me, but what I was looking for. You can't just drill deeper in the personality typing to get the kind of answers and experiences that I was looking for.
It requires a different approach.
[00:17:08] Speaker B: Yeah, for sure. It sounds like your approach is more like seeing our life path as it plays out and be able to spot the pitfalls and be able to go, well, I don't need to walk into that pit because I understand that maybe.
[00:17:21] Speaker A: Well, yes, I look at that.
That gets really advanced, because ultimately, ultimately I've been intending to teach a course, a new course on predictive astrology for, I don't know, nine years now, ever since the Titanic experience, when I realized, oh, no, this is not what I thought of, and it's still happening, but it's like way down the line, because to do it with the human game, you must have such a solid foundation of understanding story. And a little astrology goes a long way.
But yes, ultimately, and I know there are people that really are eager to explore this dynamic of astrology.
I need to back up and put a little context in this, because I can't explain this without some terminology. That's not going to make sense if I don't explain the terminology first.
So the nature of story, what reality is story, everything is story.
And what you perceive as reality is what I'm calling the composite story. It's like the composite television signal. It's got a red channel, a blue channel and a green channel.
So you don't have any creative control over that composite story. You want to make adjustments. You need to actually look at the component stories. So the human game story matrix separates that composite reality into the three component levels of story. There's the plot level story, the character level story, and the theme level story. And these are each totally independent realms. And you've got different levels of creative control, but they combine to give you your experience of reality. So the plot level story is the external sequence of events. It's what happened. So everything that seems to exist outside of you in the outside world is basically the plot level story.
The character level story is the one that really matters. Because character level story is everything that operates inside you. Your actual experience of reality is your sense of identity and how you feel. And that's it. It all lives inside you. That's the only thing you have direct experience of. And then everything else appears to exist outside of you. But all you care about is how you feel. And we think that somehow engaging with the outside world creates ceilings inside of us, which is how we engage with the outside world. But we generally have that relationship a little bit backwards.
And then the theme level story is archetypal and universal and transpersonal and mythic. It is entirely symbolic. So that's where we find the deep meaning of life. But it's also not immediately practical.
So levels of creative control, you've got basically no creative control over the plot level story. You didn't create the external world, you have no control over the events, you can't control everything. And frankly, most of the time you can't control anything.
You have a lot of creative control over the character level story, which is how you feel about whatever's happening in the plot level story.
So you can encounter an obstacle in the plot level. So an obstacle is anything that interferes with your ability to achieve an external goal.
Just because something's an obstacle doesn't mean it has to be a problem. A problem is anything that interferes with your happiness.
Your happiness is a feeling. So that's a character level thing. So if you don't need the plot level obstacle, doesn't have to tangle up with your character level happiness, and then the theme level, which is where astrology operates, entirely made up, entirely symbolic, you've got absolute creative control at the theme level. But that's both the good news and the bad news. And this is why astrology is so amazing, because it means, oh, I don't ever have to face a blank page because I've got this bespoke toolkit of symbolic story tropes that are available for me and I can dip into them anytime I want to find meaning or find guidance or use this map to navigate my life.
So a little astrology goes a long way.
Once you've mastered all of the story stuff, which is pretty advanced, then you get to the predictive astrology where it's like, oh, what would I like to do over the next six months? What are my, what, what are the, what are these limited time offers that I could take advantage of, that I could incorporate these things that are happening now and happening in the future? And how can I incorporate those energies kind of live and dynamic and in the moment in a meaningful, productive way? I think that could be incredibly fun. But it's really advanced because to be able to do that, you also need to understand how to manage your existing stories and your existing character and also juggle. So it's like I'm going to build out modules for that that's going to exist. I'm going to figure out ways of making that more accessible because right now I look at it and it's like, oh, no, this is overwhelming to teach. Nobody could do this practically. How can I figure out how to make this available so people can pick one or two little things and go, oh, this is going to be fun for the next couple of months to look at this arc.
But to begin with, we're looking dynamically at the symbols in the birth chart on a couple of dimensions. So first of all, it contains all of your character attributes, so it shows your potential as a character and shows where you need to go and how you can develop the different parts of your personality that you need for various and sundry things.
And then it is also a map of the city of your life. So each of the houses in the natal chart is a different area of life. It's a different neighborhood that you can ultimately develop. Once you've got some basic mastery over your own story, then you get to go in and go, this is my kingdom. I would like to upgrade this and you can use the strategies in the birth chart to understand, oh, if I want to make more money, that's a second house thing. So which planet is in charge of that for me? And where do I find the resources for that? So this is the stuff I was originally working on that was kind of overwhelming for my students. But it's like this is the next step. But the first step really is let's solve a happiness problem. Let's get you to the point where you can play with things where there aren't these ridiculously high stakes, where you kind of understand how to take control of your own story, how to recognize, oh, this is my story, this is my character's story.
I get to decide how I feel, I get to decide what stuff means. I can see the patterns and engage with this.
And a little astrology goes a long way.
I mean, literally in the human game experience in the eight week, the big eight week. Let me take you through the tutorial of this so you can really explore and experience this.
We're looking only at the moon and Venus and then a brief look at your chart ruler.
But that's it. Because really you're looking at the moon, and the moon is going to help you to find your safety resources and specifically you're going to break it down by the element, the modality on the house. You've got three different options there. And we do the same thing with Venus for validation resources. And that's kind of it for the astrology because you don't need to know anything else. That's enough to build a happiness gps, that's enough to help you to get to your happily ever after, which then gives you options for the rest of your life, because now happiness is no longer a problem and you've got ever after to go decide what you'd like to do with things.
[00:26:54] Speaker B: Okay.
Wow.
Okay. I'm trying to get my head around that because that's a lot.
But I like your presentation.
I find it really, how would you put it? It's sort of like a bigger perspective in a story sort of arc for a life. Now, I like that because I've always seen life as a story myself or as a dream. And you get in court in other people's dreams.
This speaks to the idea of omen logic. Your life is like living in a story that is fully magical. And once you engage with it the right way, it feeds back to you perfectly.
[00:27:41] Speaker A: The amount of fun that you can have playing the human game, the amount of wonder and magic and adventure that is actually available to you in your life right now.
It's so mind blowing.
But the challenge is, let me help you step through the wardrobe.
Let me give you the step by step I need to help you to find your way in just that little connection where all of a sudden, for a minute, you're standing and seeing what I'm seeing, and then you find that connection in yourself, and then you're able to start experiencing these ideas from within, as opposed to just watching some of the videos and going, wow, that's a fun story that he's telling about the possibilities of what this could be.
And it's like, yeah, and you can have what I'm having.
This isn't just, oh, well, wouldn't it be fun if that were the case?
But I'm figuring out more rapid and effective ways to help people make that critical first couple of connections so the light comes on, like, oh, no, that was fun.
That worked.
And you have a couple of experiences of that.
And you start, oh, I have the option of playing, oh, I can look at this a little bit differently now because now I understand, oh, instead of looking at the composite story, let me look at this in terms of where's the plot, where's the character, where's the theme? Let me get a better understanding of this.
And it's a process because these are such new and abstract concepts, but as soon as a couple of them click in, then it's like, oh, no, I can play with that. I mean, I understand this whole thing, but this was fun. I'm going to play with this.
And then you have something to build on, and then these other ideas start to fit in, and then you start to realize, oh, yeah, I really have a whole lot of creative control because nobody knows what's going on in my head.
I can amuse myself. And as long as I don't get too overt about it, nobody's going to lock me up.
People see the stupid smile on my face. But that's okay.
I can live with that.
[00:31:07] Speaker B: You're living in the game. That's a good thing. Now, you've mentioned the GPS and building the gps, and you said it's simply those aspects and the understanding of those aspects and how they play out in your life. Is that really just it?
I don't want to simplify.
[00:31:26] Speaker A: On one level, yes, there's a lot of it that it is just so. The happiness gps is a component of a bigger story, and it needs for it to be functional. And it is functional.
I've learned that we need to build the story sequentially because it needs to make perfect sense to you.
[00:31:58] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:31:58] Speaker A: So part of this begins with recognizing that, okay, happiness is a feeling. So it's in the character level. Story has nothing to do with the outside world, nothing to do with the plot level story. Getting what you want doesn't make you happy. Getting what you want. You want an external thing that doesn't make you happy. Now, getting what you want doesn't prevent you from being happy either.
Getting what you want is fun. And let's face it, you still want everything you've ever wanted.
And there's nothing wrong with that. It's just getting everything you've ever wanted isn't, on its own, going to make you happy. So let me show you how to get everything you ever wanted and also be happy. They're two separate goals, but we can do them together.
The one doesn't have to happen, and the happiness is the more important goal. But there's a part of you that really cares about getting what you want. So we can do that along the way, too.
So then it's, what exactly is happiness? So I build up to a definition of happiness that happiness is the feeling character level that you experience when you're free from want and free from need.
And this is really important because happiness doesn't necessarily feel good.
Happiness just means you no longer feel bad.
Happiness isn't the end of the story. It's not joy, it's not prosperity. It's just happiness.
But I call it a foundation of happiness. Because really, when you are happy, you. You no longer have to do anything.
You're not driven by your wants and your needs. And when you have a foundation of happiness, nothing's going to affect whether or not you accomplish goals in the outside world, isn't going to affect the fact that you're happy.
And that's a story that requires some detail to make convincing, but it makes sense. And then, okay, great. Well, if happiness is a feeling and it's a character level thing, what do we need to be happy? And so I bring it up to, okay, there are two things. We need to be happy, we need to feel safe and we need to feel validated.
And so if you maintain a minimum balance in your safety need account and a minimum balance in your validation need account, then you are happy.
That doesn't mean there's still way more that you'd like to experience, but it means you're no longer in pain, not necessarily experiencing pleasure, but you've shifted away from being driven. So I'm happy, I'm no longer in pain. I want to protect that, I want to sustain that. But that's a paradigm shift in reality when you've got that breathing room.
And so what the happiness GPS does is it helps you to engage with the character level story separately from the plot level story because you've got some external objective, you've got some goal that you're pursuing because that's how we occupy our time.
But you don't care about achieving the goal. You care about what you think you're going to feel when you achieve the goal. You think when you achieve the goal, it's going to make a deposit in your safety need account and or your validation need account, because that's all we ever care about. And then that's going to make you feel better.
And when you separate that plot level goal, say, great, you can pursue that, but let's set it up so that there's no chance of losing. So if you don't achieve the goal, let's make sure, well, it doesn't mean you're going to go into a safety cris because you're not going to lose all those safety resources. Let's make sure you got another source of safety. So that's where the safety component of the happiness GPS comes in. And you look at, okay, how do I approach safety? The modality, you have a little story of how am I looking for safety based on the modality of the moon. And then you have a story of what language do I speak for safety based on the element of the moon and these little processes. It's a story. It's a literal story that I have. You walk through word for word to kind of tell yourself, and then you experience acquiring some safety resources and you get the reference for, oh, yeah, I do feel a little bit better. Oh, yeah.
I do see better options now because I've made these adjustments by telling this story and it reinforces that. And then the house tells you, where do you find safety resources? So you've got three options just for that that you kind of play with a little bit also in this bigger story of the options market and how you're making choices of things. So it's a complicated scenario with a lot of detail, but when all of these pieces are in place, it's like, okay, yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, I see where that, because the other thing that I talk about is I'm not making any of this up.
I'm not teaching you anything new. I am describing how you have always lived your life. I am describing how you have made every decision ever in your life. I'm just giving you words and a story and a shape to recognize the patterns and slowing it down so that you can go, oh, that's what's going on. And now that you have a story, now that you can define what this is, then you can do something with it, then you have, oh, yeah, okay, I'm not feeling very safe right now because I'm looking at the options available right now in the options market, and they all suck. They're all very expensive and none of them have very good outcomes. And I'm not feeling good about any of those things. I'm going to go off and build and grab some safety resources and I go and do my little exercise with consciously acquiring safety resources. And then I notice, oh, I've shifted some of the prices in the options market. So now this choice that wasn't great to begin with, that's looking a lot more attractive. And you've experienced this, think about, you can't make a decision about something.
It's like I'm driving myself crazy. I need to make a decision about this. Can't make a decision. And you finally go, fine, I'm done, I'm going to bed. Can't think about this anymore. I will deal with it in the morning.
You go to bed, you wake up in the morning and then, oh, there's the obvious solution.
Well, you went to bed, you slept, you added balance to your safety need account because you slept and recharged and you went back into the options market and you have a higher balance in your safety need account. And all of a sudden there's an attractive option.
So we've all experienced this, but now recognizing, oh, okay, this is what's going on.
And if I understand how to actually manipulate the options market in real time. Because I can go out and acquire some safety resources. I don't need to wait to see if it shifts. I don't need to go to sleep. I can affect some of this in real time. I can get a better answer right now because I'm addressing something at the character level. Because I can play with these little stories. And wow, that does seem to make a difference. That was fun. That worked. I liked that result. And so then you'll do that again because it worked and it was fun and it was a better story.
[00:40:37] Speaker B: Yeah, right. Cool. So I'm curious as to how you actually get people to understand this. I mean, your human gaming experience combines video tutorials, written gameplay objectives, personal coaching and community support.
How does that all fit together over time? And how long is the course for somebody, for example?
[00:41:01] Speaker A: So the human game experience is an eight week online program.
And what it does, I said, each week you watch a little video tutorial and it's a gameplay. It's not a class. This is one of the things that I have to really emphasize.
And it seems like a class because it looks like a class and it quacks like a class, but it's not a class, it's a game. You can't do it wrong.
And that's my job, is really to help people say, no, don't worry.
I want to help you to get as much out of this as you can possibly get out of this. And it's optional. It's a game. You're not failing. You're not doing anything wrong.
People struggle with that because they think it's a class to begin with, and that's fine.
So it's an eight week journey.
And the way it works, each week you start, you get access to the tutorial video, you watch the tutorial video. And then you download a section of the player's handbook and print that out. And then for the next three days, there are gameplay objectives. So it's a little questionnaire, it's a little process that you'll go through and write and journal about or something. And you'll post it in the online forum. And it's specifically looking at the topic. So the first week I introduce the concept of the human game and the concept of stories and the different story levels. And the first objective is what I call spot the plot. Because the very first thing that you need to be able to do is recognize the difference between the plot level story and the character level story. And realize how boring the plot level story actually is. And so the exercises, the objectives. In the first week, you're following examples in a structure that I give you, but you're taking a story from your life and you are breaking it down into just the plot, like six sentences that describe the three acts of the plot level story. Just the fact of that story. What was your goal?
What were the obstacles that stood in the way of the goal? What was the resolution?
And this is a fascinating. Objectively, it seems interesting. You go down to try to do it, and this is why it's so important to experience it.
And it's so fascinating how challenging it can be initially, because it's just not a satisfying story.
The plot level story is nothing. The plot level, plot level story of the Lord of the Rings is a bunch of friends take a road trip to dispose of a piece of unwanted jewelry.
Absolutely accurate, totally unfulfilling. But that's basically the plot.
And learning how to do that with your own stories, getting some practice and seeing how it feels to separate the plot level story and make the plot level story it as dry and as uninteresting as possible because you don't have any creative control over the plot level story.
So let's move as much of the story into the character level story as we can, because then you've got a lot more creative control as to how you feel about this whole thing and practicing that. And so again, it's a simple thing, but until you experience it, until you can do an exercise with it and then get some coaching on it, and then do it until it locks in, it doesn't quite make sense. And once it locks in, it's like, oh, that's great. And then the next week, we work on lowering the stakes.
So each week, one little simple concept adding to these stories, giving you something you can play with during the week.
And then there's a check in on Friday where even if you weren't able to do the objectives, you were living this. So the check in gives you the ability to claim your prizes for the week. Oh, yeah, I didn't do this, but, boy, I really was working on lowering the stakes this week even though I didn't objectively complete those objectives.
And then there's a community, there's other players playing with you, and so you're reading each other's stories and you're commenting with that.
So you're kind of going through it on your own with me coaching you to help you to find the connections. But you're not alone.
But it builds sequentially so that as we go through this, I'm taking you through the whole story of the quest for happiness. So we begin with just, here's the basics of how to step into story and separate out the plot from the character level story. And now let's help you to understand what happiness actually is. And now you're going to understand the safety component of things and how you're wagering safety resources and dealing with that. And we'll play with the astrology of that, and you'll learn about your panic room. And just, again, stuff that is so relevant because, oh, my God, most of our lives are spent dealing with trying to meet our safety needs. And so now you get a story around that that gives you a handle to recognize it. And then we start getting into validation needs, which is love and appreciation. And then we do validation games, which is where stuff gets really fun, because it's like, how do I play validation games with other people? Because love is what really feels good. You start meeting your validation needs, then you start getting into, like, joy, which feels way better than happiness. That's the thing we're looking for. That's the real prize. You start to get into that, and then I'll introduce you to the value compass. So you're getting all of these components, and it's a tutorial and it's a lot, but you don't need the master at all.
You'll get the little bits and pieces of it, and you've got an opportunity to be playing it and experiencing it, and then there's coaching available outside of it, but it's not like, oh, my God, I'll get to the end of this class and then I'll know everything. No, you'll play a little bit of this game. You'll fit it into your life however it fits in. You'll get a couple of pieces out of this immediately that are just fun.
You will probably experience some unanticipated, unexpected side effects, like a reduction in your guilt tax bracket, because you're no longer uncertain, you're no longer worried, did I make the right choice or the wrong choice? Because I give you a pretty compelling story that you're always making the best choice, you're always making the best possible choice given your available options at any moment. And that eliminates, not immediately, but kind of cumulatively, it sneaks up on you. This eliminates a whole bunch of background noise of guilt because maybe I made the wrong choice.
And when that's not there, when that happened to me, I was like, what's going feel lighter? What's missing. And then I had to realize, oh, yeah, I'm not carrying that background uncertainty anymore because I always know I'm making the best choice.
It doesn't mean I've got a great outcome. Best choice doesn't mean a good outcome. There's still going to be bad outcomes, but it doesn't make the choice wrong.
And that little adjustments in the story says, oh, it lowers the sticks. You end up little less worried, little less anxiety just from playing with these ideas. And then, yeah, if you'd like to keep playing, you keep playing. There's so much more you can do with this. But it's not like I have to complete the class and pass the test and master all of this and understand all of this. And then, no, it's not that.
Here's some fun ways of looking at things. You find the things that resonate with you, the things that make the immediate connections are where you're going to start from and you're going to play with that. And then other things will connect to that. You'll connect the puzzle pieces in that way eventually.
And I just give you a structure and a framework and a community and support to explore and enjoy this.
[00:51:02] Speaker B: That's excellent. I really appreciate the rounded understanding of that now. And I have some questions for you. I just wanted to cover off as well, circling almost all the way back to how this started. You talk about it like a role playing game. Have you been a gamer?
[00:51:19] Speaker A: Not actively.
I was exposed to the original dungeons and dragons in middle school was when it came out, and I was fascinated by it and never really had active people to play with, but I had all the books, loved exploring that, loved thinking of things in that way and just the storytelling of that. And on some level, I kind of wanted to live my life in that way from that point forward.
And so that, that is very much, that is very much an intentional model of one way that you can play the human game, because there are a lot of people that really understand fantasy role playing games and character attributes and stuff. And it's like, okay, here's the comparisons to that, because all the skills that you have building a character with dungeons and dragons, all that can apply to you. Your character in the human game, you don't have dice, you've got your birth chart, and so it's telling you where your attributes are and how you can gain experience and level up your character with that. And that's not the only way to engage with this. But right now, I think that's a way that people can sink their teeth into.
I can draw the correlations between that and astrology and I can put some structure around that. And then, yeah, the people that really love going into the nitty gritty of that. When I create the next module with the city of your life, where it's kind of doing plot level stuff, then it really gets into the whole, you really want to be relying on some of your DND understanding of managing resources and strategies and things because we're applying that to how do I accomplish money? Well, my money goals require that I also deal with relationships and maybe, I don't know, learning new things because I've got 7th and 9th house stuff that need to be related because I'm wired up that way with my second house. So how do I do that? And which character class do I need to play for this?
Because for me, my moon is in charge of my second house. So anytime I'm dealing with money issues, I need to play the character class of the moon, which is the archetype of the reflection. And so that's the vehicle that I'm driving. When I want to work with money, that's how I need to engage with it. But I'm a different character class. There's seven character classes in the human know. It's the seven different personal planets. So sometimes I need to be a different, sometimes I need to be Mars the warrior because Mars is in charge of a couple of know of different areas of my life and recognizing, oh, let me get to know these different character classes. And ultimately you're all of those character classes. And ultimately you need to learn how to gain mastery over those particular sets of skills so you can level up. And I'm liking directing this towards gamers because they can get as excited about this as I get excited about this because it's like, yeah, but all that stuff, it can actually apply.
You can apply it to you.
You can overlay this on your story and it's not comic Con cosplay. This is Monday morning staff meeting. You can do this.
You can make your daily life into this epic adventure quest in whatever form of story you, you know, it's just of, there's a lot of d d stuff out there that resonates. And so we can start with there's, there'll be Austin module. I know people that live their life as if they are a character in Jane Austen, and you can do that with the human particular.
I don't yet have tips and tricks on how you can do, but there's.
[00:56:15] Speaker B: No reason you can't that's right.
[00:56:18] Speaker A: There's no reason you can't do that. It's your life. It's your story.
You're the audience.
[00:56:26] Speaker B: My next question actually relates to some of the hints you've actually dropped in that commentary there about your future plans for human games. So you're actually developing modules, it sounds like, and how does that play out?
[00:56:37] Speaker A: Yes. Okay, so the plan and everything is taking way longer than I expect, but right now I have one module in the human game experience, which is the quest for happiness.
[00:56:51] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:56:53] Speaker A: I am planning by the end of 2024 to introduce a second entry module, which would be the quest for prosperity.
So the same fundamentals and a certain amount of overlap with the quest for happiness, except the quest for prosperity will focus specifically on money and prosperity stories, and there will be about 25% completely different information and 25%, that's just the basic story stuff. It's the same in both because you need both and then a chunk of it that is similar but with a slightly different vent because you still need to manage your safety and validation needs. You still need to understand the safety and validation to be able to deal with money. It's still a foundation of happiness first, then prosperity. But those are doable as ways people can sink their teeth into the human game.
I'm looking at the identity quest, which would be an advanced module. You would need to have gone through one of the entry levels so that you understand the story principles and understand your character. So the identity quest would be going more deeply into the character level story and exploring the three components of identity.
So you have the human seeming, the human doing, and the human being, the human seeming we touch on in the quest for happiness. That's your avatar, the planet that rules your ascendant. That's your character class in this lifetime. That's how you appear to other people. That's how you are typecast in other people's stories.
Embodying that is a key to your happiness. But it may not be how you see yourself, but that's how other people see you, and that's important to understand. And then the human doing is Mars.
That's your character.
Your character is the protagonist of your story.
This is the character you're playing in this lifetime. You're playing the character of CJ. I'm playing the character of Kevin B. Burke. Anybody else? It's the person pictured on your driver's license. That's your character in this story, and that's the human doing, and that's Mars.
And then the human being is the sun. The sun is the actor. The sun is your authentic self. The sun is the authentic, eternal part of yourself that is inhabiting this character. Because we are eternal, multidimensional beings. And you're currently having a human experience pretending that you're this individual person.
And it's important to understand all three components of that identity. But it's also important to recognize that there is one part of the identity that is far more important than the other two.
It's the whole point of everything.
The other two components support it. But you really are here to embody this particular part of your identity, which is Mars, because the sun doesn't really matter. Nobody pays $12 to see Meryl Streep. They want to see Meryl Streep inhabiting a character.
So this is a mind blower astrologically, because, yeah, the sun is really important and it's a big theme level thing. And it's not who you're supposed to be embodying in this lifetime. You're supposed to be embodying your character. Your job is to give the most entertaining, enjoyable performance as your character.
And that's informed by you, your eternal self, your authentic self, expressing through that.
But your identity is really about Mars.
And then discovering, reaching that point of self actualization, doing the deeper understanding of who am I? Now? I built a foundation of happiness, and what do I want? I don't know. Who am I? You got to answer the idea. So that's the identity quest that I'm exploring. And that will also involve a little bit of dealing with other people more directly. So that's one thing that I have planned.
I'm working on.
I want to do the plot level module, which is the city of your life, which is basically okay, how do I use the human game? How do I use astrology to accomplish external goals? How do I use it to. There are things I want to accomplish in the outside world. Great. How do I get everything I ever wanted? Okay, well, let's. And that's, again, you need to have the foundation of happiness or it's not going to work. So you've got to be able to manage that. But then when you're not risking safety or validation, then you get to look at the map, then you get to look at, okay, well, where's my warehouse for second house stuff? And what do I need to do for this? And what strategy do I have here? And we plan out strategies for what do you really need to do? What are the different levels of story for you to accomplish this goal? What's it really about? And then astrologically, where are the backdoors?
How can you navigate this in a way to take full advantage of the potential? What lessons may you need to learn about these things to really maximize the experience?
And so that's, again, a little bit more of an advanced thing. You need the foundation of it. And I have no idea when I'm going to have that ready, but I'm so eager to be able to do that because that's also fun. I mean, the practical, really embodying this in a coaching model of, yeah, you want to use astrology for coaching. Great, here's a way to do that. I want to have that available. I want to be able to teach other people to do that so that it's another option.
Cool. And there's more beyond that, but those are the ones that may show up in our lifetime, realistically, next three or four years.
[01:03:32] Speaker B: Kevin, you've got such a big thing happening here and I really appreciate the time that you've shared with us. Can you tell people how to find the human game and take part?
[01:03:42] Speaker A: Yes. If you visit playthehumangungame.com playth ehumangame.com, that's the best place to start.
That'll give you an intro video about the happiness problem. You'll be able to learn more about the human game experience.
You can register if registration is open for that. You can also register for the free human game introduction series of videos, which is a great way to just learn more about this in a more focused, less rambling way with really entertaining visuals.
[01:04:22] Speaker B: But it wasn't rambling.
[01:04:26] Speaker A: Thank you.
But I'm very focused in the human game introduction videos because I want to make sure that I'm communicating this clearly and that here's the one little thing we're looking at and exploring. They're fun and they're free and there's about a dozen of them now. Again, there's like five or six more planned, but takes a while for me to do them as I figure out what the next topic needs to be.
But again, they're a great way to learn about this. Get familiar with this. Explore some of these ideas on your own in your life.
You can benefit from this just from the free stuff, but right now there's a gap between free stuff. Explore it on your own, then the next thing up is, yeah, enroll in the human game experience. There's nothing in between that right now. Eventually there will be. I'm working on a book and some other stuff, but right now, free stuff and then if you think it's interesting and intriguing and fun, even if you don't think you fully understand it, then jump into the human game experience and let me help you find the connections in yourself so that you can start having fun with it. Because it really just.
You're going to have fun. That's it.
There may be even better side effects than that, but I can deliver on fun. I can deliver on. It's going to be entertaining and fun.
[01:06:22] Speaker B: Perfect. What a nice rounding out there. I love that. Thank you, Kevin, so much for your time, for being on supernormalized today and explaining your process and your game and your understanding of astrology in a completely different way and how it can actually help people. I really appreciate that and I appreciate all of your time. Thank you so much.
[01:06:38] Speaker A: Thank you so much for having me.
[01:06:40] Speaker B: All right, bye for now.
[01:06:41] Speaker A: Bye bye.
[01:06:47] Speaker B: Okay, Kevin, that was perfect. Exactly what was needed. And thank you. Appreciate all the time. I'm just going to put a little marker up there so I can find it on the video.
That was really cool.
One of my friends is an astrologer and also an extreme role playing gamer. So I'm going to say, come look at this.
He's going to be like, I'm in.
[01:07:14] Speaker A: I have a more complicated URL that literally takes people directly to the video where I talk about the role playing game aspect of it. And I have a little special report. I don't have that as a simple let me just give this out URL, but I've been trying to drive people to that page a little bit because if I can reach, there's a big market of people that play that are vaguely interested in astrology and really interested in DND and interest.
[01:07:44] Speaker B: Let me be the bridge.
[01:07:47] Speaker A: How do I get in front of them?
[01:07:49] Speaker B: You can become the bridge.
[01:07:52] Speaker A: And it's just right now my current obstacle is just how do I get those people finding my page? How do I get those people looking for this? I don't want to spend money on ads yet. I don't have the budget to run random ads until I know that people are engaged by the intro page that I have and actually want to know more. But I think I have something that people seem to be really intrigued for sure by the idea. And I know I can deliver on this. I can reliably deliver on what this promises.
So it's just a matter of time. It's just a matter of finding, of getting enough of a community.
That community starts drawing more people in.
[01:08:43] Speaker B: Yeah, maybe you could think of even gamifying the actual learning of the human game.
Turn it into an app that people can pick up on their phone and just do it.
[01:08:58] Speaker A: I have no problem if somebody ever wants to do that. And a lot of people have suggested that.
I don't know what that would look like.
Yeah, I am totally open to somebody coming along and saying, can I partner with you on this? And it's like, absolutely.
But for me to try to figure out how to funnel this and structure this into an app, it's not the best.
My energy is better focused on creating all of these other things that I'm still working out and creating. But I'm totally, I expect because a lot of people have suggested something like that.
[01:09:53] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:09:54] Speaker A: Somebody comes along and can present an opportunity that isn't going to require anything other than my blessing and a little bit of input, I'm fine with that, but I can't create. But if somebody else has a vision, of course, I love the idea of that. I want this information out there in as many possible ways and there's a teeny tiny little segment of it that I'm protecting that's like, no, this is me. This is mine. This is the copyrighted trademarked stuff. But a whole bunch of it is like, no, this is a philosophy. These are ideas.
[01:10:51] Speaker B: Yeah, cool.
[01:10:52] Speaker A: Go do whatever you go build with them. Go play in the sandbox. Just, you can't claim to be a human game coach unless I've licensed. You can't use any of my specific coaching forms and worksheets, but anything that I've got out there in the public realm idea wise, go fly, enjoy, do whatever with. Because that's the point of this.
[01:11:27] Speaker B: Yeah, well, it is nice.
Thank you again so much for coming on the show. I really appreciate it and all that you've shared today and yeah, I hope you have a really good, it's probably.
[01:11:39] Speaker A: Afternoon for you there or evening, late afternoon, early evening. Yeah.
[01:11:44] Speaker B: Nice. It's Saturday for you, it's Saturday morning at 08:00 a.m. Right now for me.
[01:11:49] Speaker A: Yeah.
I have a number of clients and human aim participants in Australia, so I'm used to the time.
[01:12:03] Speaker B: Sure, for sure.
All right, I'll say goodbye now, Kevin, and I'll do my pre recording after you log off and say thank you again and bye for now. Bye bye.
[01:12:11] Speaker A: Thank you so much.
[01:12:14] Speaker B: Well, that was really interesting.
Again, I've got to say thanks to Kevin for that. That was a whole different perspective on astrology that I'm certain that many people will appreciate. If you've actually had a touch of astrology and even a touch of gaming. I really like the idea of it and going to look more deeper into it myself. And if you've enjoyed today's show, please like the show. And most of all, contact Kevin and say you liked the show as well, because I'm sure that he'd love to hear that.
Everything that I need to say, I.
[01:12:47] Speaker A: Think, yeah, that's it.
[01:12:49] Speaker B: So until next show. Bye for now.
[01:13:28] Speaker A: Let it.
