I've had a lot of conversations on The Spiritually Curious Therapist. But this one with Nahum Vizakis stopped me more than once.

Nahum is a former competitive bodybuilder, a military veteran, a massage therapist, and the author of The Biohacker's Guide to Spiritual Bodybuilding. He was back for part two, and this time we went somewhere I wasn't fully prepared for. We went into the territory of ego, embodiment, acceptance, and the question that's been at the center of his entire journey.

Is what I'm doing hurting me or helping me?

That question doesn't sound revolutionary. But when you sit with it long enough, it changes everything.

The first thing Nahum made clear is that spiritual bodybuilding has nothing to do with having a perfect body. His philosophy, outlined in his book, is about mastering your body, your consciousness, and your mind. It applies to anyone, regardless of whether you've ever stepped foot in a gym.

The real question at the center of spiritual bodybuilding is this. Are you living from your head, or from your heart? Are you operating from a place of external validation and ego, or from a place of genuine service to yourself and others?

For most of his adult life, Nahum was operating from the first place. And he was very good at it.

Nahum started his bodybuilding journey after a breakup. He wanted to get jacked. He wanted to look so good that she'd regret it. His words. And he did exactly what he set out to do. He was disciplined. He was scheduled. He was tracking every meal, every supplement, every set.

He thought that meant he was doing it right.

That's the part that stayed with me. Because that story isn't just about bodybuilding. It's about every person who has ever pushed themselves toward a goal from a place of pain and called it discipline.

The breaking point came at nationals in 2013. He'd worked for six months. Spent everything he had. Alienated people he loved. And placed 33rd out of 38. Not because he wasn't prepared. Because the foundation was wrong. His coach stopped speaking to him during peak week. His energy was off. He was holding water. And when he stepped off that stage, he had nothing left.

That loss was actually the beginning of something.

After nationals, Nahum ended up in massage school. Not because he was seeking healing. He thought it would be a smart career move. He figured he already knew the body. He figured it would be easy.

He was not prepared for what happened.

A few months into training, a classmate put gentle pressure at the base of his skull. And Nahum had what his instructor called the most intense somato-emotional release he had ever witnessed. For two hours, in front of the entire class, years of stored emotion moved through his body and out.

He said it was his first real spiritual awakening.

And after that, everything changed. He didn't want to train the same way. He didn't want to eat the same. He didn't want to be around the same people. His empathic sensitivity, which had always felt like a curse, suddenly made sense. He started understanding that the body isn't just a vehicle. It's a record. A representation of the subconscious mind.

And that understanding shaped everything that came next.

This is one of the things Nahum talks about consistently in his book and in his work. Every physical ailment has a correlating emotional imbalance. And unless you address that emotional piece, healing doesn't stick.

He's seen it again and again. Friends who've had kidney transplants from years of performance-enhancing drug use who can't stop. A client who won eight consecutive shows, developed a disordered relationship with food, permanently altered her thyroid function, and spent a year afterward barely able to function. People who have surgery, recover physically, and then the symptoms return because nothing underneath changed.

The emotional state is not a side note. It's the center of everything.

For clinicians, this is familiar territory. We talk about this constantly. But hearing it through the lens of competitive bodybuilding and biohacking grounds it in a way that I think a lot of people haven't heard before. Because Nahum isn't coming from a therapy office. He's coming from the weight room, from massage school, from the military, from years of pushing his own body to its absolute limit.

He learned this the hard way. And he's trying to help others learn it a little easier.

One of the most powerful things Nahum said in this conversation is that the longest journey isn't to the gym.

It's from your head to your heart.

When we operate from the ego, from a place of external validation and service to self, our nervous system is stuck in fight or flight. We're addicted to chaos. We're chasing the dopamine hit. And that works for a while. Until it doesn't.

The shift from head to heart doesn't come from information. It doesn't come from more willpower or better strategy. It comes from slowing down. From getting honest. From asking whether what you're doing is self-loathing or self-loving.

And that process looks different for everyone. Nahum makes this clear. You don't have to sit in lotus pose. You don't have to meditate for an hour a day. Slowing down might look like pickleball. It might look like playing with your kids. It might look like going for a walk.

What matters is the willingness to stop running and start listening.

Nahum came back to competitive bodybuilding in 2022, after seven years away and years of deep inner work. He won overall. First place.

He felt nothing.

Not in a sad way. In a complete way. The old version of him would have been lit up, already planning the next show. This version was ready for dinner.

He wasn't attached to the win. And that, he said, is what true self-mastery actually feels like. Not never feeling the highs and lows. But not being pulled apart by them either. Staying centered. Staying in what he calls the middle path.

That image has stayed with me. Because I think so many people are waiting to feel that way before they do the work. And what Nahum's story shows is that it goes the other way. You do the work, and then the feeling follows.

Nahum ended our conversation with something that felt urgent. He talked about the energy we're moving through right now, and the way our nervous systems are being pulled harder than ever. He said our nervous systems are our antennas. And whatever shadow work we haven't done is going to hit harder now.

His message was simple. Get still. Find the 15 or 20 minutes in your day. Breathe. Walk. Be.

And most importantly, stop trying to think your way out of this.

You cannot analyze your way through this moment. You have to feel your way through it.

I said it back to him because it needed to land twice. And I'm saying it again here because I think it's true, and because I think a lot of us need the reminder.

The work is not in the information. It's in the willingness to stop and actually feel.

If this conversation is landing for you, you can find the full episode on The Spiritually Curious Therapist wherever you listen to podcasts. And you can find Nahum's book, The Biohacker's Guide to Spiritual Bodybuilding, in the show notes.