It is time to rip the cover off what really works to ditch addiction, depression, anger, anxiety, and all other kinds of human suffering. No, not sobriety. We're talking the F word here. Freedom. We'll share straight from the trenches what we've learned from leaving our own addictions behind and coaching hundreds of others to do the same. And since it's such a heavy topic, we might as well have a good time while we're at it.
(00:34): Many, many moons ago when Lee wasn't here with me, I told a story about his garage thingy. And now he's here to see if he can fill in all the details plus a whole lot more because with me just talking, it becomes quite a large chore. Welcome back guys to the Alive and Free Podcast. I made that song up just for you. To the tune of I Am My Own Grandpa, I thought you were going to end with Bore. Oh, by yourself. You're a Bore. Why would I say I'm a bore ? ? Come on. I'm talking to myself for hundreds of episodes here.
(01:15): How could I possibly be a boar? This is why we have people doing conversations now, so that you, dear listener, are not bored to frigging tear listening to me pontificate and so that the questions become relevant. So a while ago, you will note very, very well that I talked about Lee and cleaning out his garage and how much stuff that he had accumulated and acquired that me made no kind of meaning to him or sense to him and whatnot, and how much stuff he'd had from papers back from when he was in elementary school. And he's in his fifties, and so this is decades and decades of carrying stuff that he didn't realize he was carrying and just moving it from one home to the next as we are want to do. Because most of the time, in order to make something feel like home, our first reaction, think about it, you move to a new place, your first thing is to go fill it with stuff and then to bring all the stuff from your old life into it so that it feels like you belong there.
(02:11): And while that's great, it does feel like home. The fascinating part about change in life is that if you want to change, it has to not feel like home. Because if it feels like home, then you're back Where you started, it looks a little different, but it's like you're past dressed in drag. And so we had that episode, I don't remember exactly what it's called. I think it was just cleaning out the garage. And now Lee's here to talk about more. This one will be titled something. I think I'm going for the title Homeless because, well, this is where we're at right now. Lee has been on a journey. Do you want to tell him about where that journey has gone?
(02:48): Yeah. Well, I was just thinking that it's been almost two years since I went to my first Freedom retreat. Wow. And I was also thinking, , A long time, You've put up with me for two years. note, note, he was free after the retreat and had questions after that for a few months of like, well, how do I integrate that with this, that, and the other? But this isn't two years of coaching. This is just two years hanging out and helping other
(03:13): Eventually got involved with the Freedom Retreats, and it's just been fun to watch other people get freed up. I was thinking through all of this and just the chain reaction of things that just started to change on their own. And so much of it is just me moving towards more and more health. And a part of that movement towards health was saying what I was doing wasn't sustainable and wasn't a part of that movement towards health. And so I've been making some changes with the nonprofit that I've been working with. And I have been up until this point, housing a mentoring program for guys 18 to 27.
(03:51): Wait, let's back up a little bit. Yeah, because I think this brings up a good point about a domino effect. And I've talked about this in some recent emails that I've sent the people on the list. By the way, if you're not receiving our emails, you can sign up on our website and receive emails from us. I try not to pester people and try to offer some helpful stuff here and there if you want to receive some emails in your inbox. And in a recent one, we discussed the domino effect that happens in relationships in other types of things. In your case, talking about what's not sustainable before we even get to the job. So the domino effect we've talked about before of freedom from, and you came particularly to handle this lifetime of trauma that you want to say, right? Right. And there were other kinds of behaviors and feelings and emotions and other stuff wrapped up in that. So that disappears. So domino down the chain, we have health stuff. Talk about that for a sec.
(04:41): Yeah. Pretty immediately. Lost 30 pounds after the retreat, mostly because I wasn't going to food to for comfort and whatnot. And there was no choice in that. It was just something that happened. And then along the way, as I lost that way and diet changed and I started feeling better and started working out and started to lose more weight. And then as things came up and I had the tools to take a look at them, just more and more freedom has happened all the way along the way. So diet change, you've lost a lot of weight. You've the, you sleep apnea, is It? Yeah. Fascinating, right? Yeah. Before I had a sleep AP machine, I was stopping breathing 136 times an hour. Guys, that is, do the math, that's over twice a minute. You just stop breathing, you think that's great. Sleep . Yikes.
(05:35): And so I got on a machine which took the events down to 75 times per hour. And then as I've worked with you and lost the weight, I've lost a hundred pounds. Those events went down to 45 times per hour. And then just through discussions and finding this wedge pillow lately, I've had nights where I've had 0.4 episodes an That's so significant. It's huge. And what's cool about that is that puts the body in a, because you're getting oxygen one and you're getting rest, which is another significant thing. And so now the body becomes more and more at ease, which is something I've talked about a lot with regard to people. I mean, it's the main focus of everything we do. Understanding that your thoughts spring from your brain's not connected to the outside world. So every thought that you have is only based on the information that your body is carrying. And if that information from the outside world is going through a filter of my body feels like crud, then all the information from the outside, as good as it is, is it going to feel like crud? I mean, you guys listening know this, right? If you have a bad day, it doesn't matter if something good happened, you're like, nobody cares, and you do your little EO thing, come on, tell me you've done it. So the great thing is it that changes a bunch, right? So now you have more energy, now you have more capacity, your thoughts aren't muddled, right? Tell me about your thoughts. How often do your thoughts go to these dark places or because they were there a lot, multiple times a day maybe,
(07:07): Or Right? Yeah. Well, I mean, I would wake up and oh, I'm depressed. And just a simple process of saying, am I depressed and challenging that change things immediately. So previously I would be captured by that thought. I would not challenge it. And then me and my body would go through the whole day thinking I was depressed. And that could go on for days or weeks at a time, and it wasn't suicidal or anything like that. And I think I've said it on the podcast before that I wasn't hope less, but I also wasn't hopeful, but in the process of getting good nutrition, getting good sleep, and just how that changes everything about how my brain is working and if I'm in a positive mood or
(07:51): Not. So let's say if we try to do a metric, your sleep apnea machine, and we had a brain apnea machine, then where the brain goes anoxic and hates life, right? Or is life phobic? How would we vita phobic? We have to keep it into Greek and Latin, right? Yeah. Okay. So when your brain goes that way, how many events per day would you say you had? Was it predominant in the day? Was it per hour, would you say? Well, unchallenged, it was constant. Okay. I, I'm depressed and that's just the way it is. There was never a challenge. So it was a pretty steady stream. And then after the retreat that went from there to where, Well, there's the initial thought of the day, and then I would challenge it and it might come back and I'd challenge it again. But I would say anymore, if it happens one time a day, that would be rare.
(08:47): And usually if it's going to happen, it's going to be the first thought in the morning and not so much anymore because of other things we've in integrated, including diet, but earthing mats and all that, I wake up feeling physically better. And I think I was interpreting poor physical feeling as depression. And I think that was a part of it when I said, is this really depression? Then I was like, what else could it be? Well, I ache here. I ache here. I ate, had sugar before I went to bed or whatever. And so as those things have been challenged and taken a look at, then I'm not waking up with those feelings that felt like depression and it's created a new set of circumstances.
(09:28): I think it's worth pausing on that. A lot of people, I think get the impression that what I offer as a person and what the company offers is, oh, we help people who are in dire straits with emotional stuff, addicts, they're deep, clinically depressed, and a lot of your regular average Joe was like, well, I don't have a big enough problem. I don't need a solution like that. And yet these are the very people that it either matures into a solution like that or they just stay in the same boat their whole life where they're like, no, I'm fine and I don't want to deal with it. But they don't understand, or the idea doesn't come across that this is really a holistic kind of approach to life when I'm talking about building ease into the body, because that is the basis, that is the fundamental place that all of your thoughts, all of your emotions and all of your experiences, even consciousness comes from.
(10:18): If your body, your blood, pH, descends below a certain level or rises above a certain letter level, even your consciousness cannot be sustained. So every aspect of your life experience, which is all we're showing people how to do actually take the reins and change, make a change in their life experience. So they cease experiencing life in a certain way, whether that's behaviors, whether that's emotions or thoughts or anything else, but it feels like, okay, cool. And I tell 'em it's a body-based approach, but that does include paying attention to what you eat. So at the retreats we have, we're very, very conscious about how we feed people for those four now five days, because those five days are a way for us to get the body into more ease so that by the end, we've done everything we can. And then we've talked about earthing mats or ways that you're sleeping or how you breathe and how you move, the way that you move, the way you get into a car and get out of a car. And all of these things are on the table now when we understand it, if the body moves and breathes and feels at ease in the day, then your thoughts will come from a clear pond instead of a a turbulent stormy sea. And when your thoughts come from that kind of clear plastic stuff, it can just reflect reality. And instead of reflecting all of this other stuff that's going on,
(11:36): I think most people would understand if you're not healthy, if you're not eating well, then your thoughts have to be suspect. I was micro do dosing sugar all day long, you know what I'm saying? Because I needed to keep that high going, that extra energy. And when you remove some of those things and there's an equilibrium that happens, then my thoughts weren't as bipolar, I guess weren't always up and down and they weren't as drastic. And we could talk about neuroplasticity at some other point, but my brain is different in this process
(12:14): And mine too, because your brain's always changing according to your experience. And the more you push it in one direction, what entertains you, trains you. I make a huge point, two full paragraphs of different ways to say the same thing in a book, in the book. By the way, if you don't have the book Built for Freedom, you can get it on amazon.com, you can even get it on audible. Go get the thing and then you can read it and listen to the stories and stupid vo, you've listened to it. Yeah, very entertaining one, but very challenging and just an enjoyable process overall while talking about these major life transforming Issues. So you hear that folks, it's a non-fiction book that's very entertaining and also positive in it's Challenge. I was going to say this for later, but I do have one criticism for the book.
(13:01): Oh, good. Oh good. Lay it On me when you talk about me in the book and you narrate my voice, it's like I'm a 13 year old, 120 pound effeminate man. I have a deep voice. I have to make it. I know. I'm sorry. I do voices for the characters, not in the book book, guys, just get the book book then. No, listen to the auto book. It's good. And Lee, he's not a tw hundred 20 pound effeminate teenager. Mike McGirt at the end of the book is this deep voice. He has A deep voice, though I had to do the best I could. I sorry. Lee . Yes. Get the book, listen to the audible. It's great. Buy the copy, make notes in it, give it to your friends, pass it around. It's awesome.
(13:47): , you okay? You heard it here. And maybe we'll give some other kind of reviews and stuff over the next few weeks. Get a chance to hear about it. So back to Lee. And I think, so we paused here with this note that as your body became to more ease all of these other things, change your thoughts, change, your emotions change, and that the message that we're really offering people and the methods we're sharing with people are the fastest, most efficient ways I've found across the globe through years. We're talking decades of searching in all kinds of different ways. Some of it unconscious and accidental and some of it very, very deliberate searching to get the body to be in a sense under your control. It's not fully under your control, but to give you a chance to actually have a say in your experience,
(14:31): I'd say before freedom that February, I was just taking a survey of myself, I guess, and I felt 73. Wow. I felt 73 years old. And I'm like, at the time I was, I don't know, was I 52 ish? I was just like, I am too young to feel this old. And I knew it didn't feel right, but anymore legitimately in my head I feel 35. See, I feel like I'm three. Maybe You're about the size. When I was three years old, I would say that's a low bow blow, but it might be accurate. No, but seriously, in my head, I feel what I perceived, I felt like at 35, I don't know that I have all the physical capabilities yet of that, but when I wake up in the morning, I don't ache anymore, and I stand up, I'm like, wow, I feel stronger. And all of that impacts everything. If I physically feel well, I'm go, let's hit it. Let's do this. And it's good. Yeah, it's
(15:37): Really good. So then this has led over time as you've consistently just realized, because I think the question in your head is, and we wrote it in the book where I was, was like, wow, if this can change, what else can change? And that questioning, that kind of question seems to have led you down this road where you're like, I feel great and great, and now you're becoming more and more aware of other areas of your life where you're like, wow, maybe this isn't for me anymore and maybe we want to shift this. And I think here's where a point where I want to talk about fuel. Because a lot of times people then want to, people when they start to change, they notice things in their life that they're like, wow, I don't like this anymore. And so then they feel the need to poo poo on it in order to give them momentum or a sense that they've changed.
(16:22): And I want to talk about rocket fuel. In a regular vehicle, there's a certain amount of fuel, a certain kind of fuel, different octane and whatnot available at the gas pump that you would use. And depending on the car, the vehicle itself, there's a different kind of octane that's required. And so you were operating your vehicle, your body was operating in a certain way. And so the kind of octane, the kind of fuel that it was fueling on was sugar. And these are the kind of ruminating thoughts and maybe judgment or whatever else, or looking for comfort from other people and seeking that in order to fuel your life and whatnot in order to find purpose and meaning in it. And even a different way that you approached your faith versus now, which is still a faith, but it's like it's taken on to whole different quality. Then as the vehicle got upgraded, it's not that the other fuel was bad. If we put racing car fuel in a regular car, I don't know if it would work or not work or airplane fuel in a regular car. I don't know if it would work or not work, but that's not the fuel designed for it. I do know that if you put the wrong fuel in the lawnmower, it might cause problems, right?
(17:26): And so it's really important that based on how your vehicle is, the fuel that you need for that has to match the vehicle. And so the fuel of your old vehicle, your old self, there's nothing wrong with it. It actually helped you survive. And now as you move and you realize, wow, the old fuel is now dragging me down. It's not actually efficient for this new vehicle. That's when you start to say, oh, I need a different fuel for my life. And so then you started looking at job and other stuff. So go
(17:56): Ahead. Yeah. Well, I think I was making the best decisions. I knew how before freedom, before my experience with freedom, it's what I knew. I don't think we make purposely bad decisions. I might have to think through that. But with the information I had about diet and nutrition and breathing life and how to live, I was making the decisions. I knew how at that point, and then I learned something different and began to see those things actually make changes. And as those changes compounded and accumulated, more changes happen and more better decisions happen and more information came in. And which gets me where I'm at today, which is feeling like I'm 30, I'm 54, and feel like I'm 35, and I wake up more positive and feel like my joints have been lubricated somehow and making cornier jokes and whatever that looks like. It's good. Yeah, it's really good.
(18:55): If you or someone is looking to drop the F bomb of freedom in their life, whether that's from past trauma, depression, anxiety, addiction, or any other host of emotional and personal struggles, but they just don't know how or want some help doing it, head on over to the freedom specialist.com/feel better now and check out some of the things we've got in store for you or book a call so we can look at your unique situation and get you the help that you're looking for. So then along the way, you were making some changes with the nonprofit you were working with? Yeah. And go ahead. Yeah, I was just doing a lot of things that I wanted to do to be helpful, but also didn't recognize, wasn't helpful for my mental estate and where I was going and just said, okay, this is not sustainable for me. This is not something that I want to do, and it's helpful to me. And so began to have that conversation with the nonprofit, which I still love the nonprofit, and currently at the point of saying, what can I sustain in that work and move forward? And so some of those things had to change, including my home. I was housing, I was housing the program in my home. We were, like I said at the beginning, mentoring 18 to 25 year olds three months at a time and have enjoyed that work. And it was not helpful to my overall wellbeing to do that.
(20:24): And so I've decided not to do that anymore. And in the process have sold my house and gotten rid of a bunch of stuff. So this whole process started a long time ago when I was cleaning out the garage, which was that podcast that you mentioned. And that was really an interesting experience because I'm getting rid of these boxes that I have moved and not looked at for 15 years. And they were, everything about them cost me something. Like every time I walked past the storage room that they were in was this accusation of, you should have taken care of these things a long time ago, and I don't even know what's in. And it was overwhelming and there's so much stuff. And then tied to all those things were family and my mother and the stories and all those things that I had carried with me as a part of my personality and understanding of my own value. And so I literally moved them from Indiana to Colorado to a storage unit from the storage unit to a storage place in my house. And then they just sat there for 10 years.
(21:31): So I think this is an interesting bit because it can sound like this is a message of get rid of everything and the sort of minimalist message, which has its own appeal for sure. Definitely there's a weight that comes with it. But I think what's more important is that everything you own owns a piece of you. And if you like that, then you won't have any problems with it. You'll love it. So the people that carry old memories and keep them stored, and every time they look at it, it sparks joy as Marie Kondo would say. Then there's no issue there. Even she would say she's super, get rid of everything, tidy everything up and whatnot, live in a Japanese origami house and fit yourself into a suitcase kind of person. She looks like a Japanese doll even. And very endearing. And I went through that process for myself and whatnot, and absolutely loved bits and pieces, but even she would say that if you're a person that just loved the shoes you wear, even if you have a hundred pair, every single one of 'em just you pick 'em up and they let you up, then keep them.
(22:35): And then I also had a wealth mentor a long time ago, Ramit Sati, who used to say, look what I'm not trying to teach you to be a popper and a miser and tight-fisted about everything. I want you to spend lavishly on the things you care about and cut ruthlessly everything else that does not serve you. And it's that kind of interesting mentality that we're looking at here. It's like if it does serve you to have that stuff, great to own a home, great to own four homes, great to own 10 trailers and a boat and everything else. If in your heart of hearts and your body's response to that, not even your mind, if your body responds to that with energy, with this vitality, then in that's case, that's evidence to keep it. In your case, it was not doing that. You're walking by and it's like the devil reaching out at you from a
(23:22): Case. Well, so the weight of it completely was I needed to provide a house that I could store it in. I had to have insurance to protect it when I was gone. Then I had to buy a video surveillance doorbell to make sure who was coming in and out of my house. And every aspect of it was costing me something. And the interesting part was that as I was searching through it, I'm like, why am I keeping this? I'm finding mean, this says a lot about me. Okay, , like I had three ring binders from every semester of college. I had every syllabus, every assignment, every grade, everything. And I'm looking at someone's going to write my autobiography someday and need these college papers to figure out where I was at. No. And so I'm getting rid of those. And it was so interesting. I could talk at length about all the little,
(24:18): But I think what's cool here is the idea is cause I want to bring this home to the people listening to, which is, I mean, a lot of the things we're dealing with is a sense of identity, right? And these are things that you identified with. And there, this brings up two pieces, the hidden cost of maintaining an identity, the amount of effort and extra expenditure that's needed. And if you think of your identity as a social person, for instance, how much social events do you have to go to in order to feel like you're a social person? And if you stop going, do you stop feeling like yourself? And then there's a cost of losing that, right? If you feel like you're a religious person and then all of a sudden life takes its turn and maybe you got bunches of kids and you can't dive in at church so much anymore. And then what's the toll that costs on you because you're holding onto an identity instead of really looking at what life is there. So there's a hidden cost of it. And then there's this kind of a figurative idea of identity that it's not just physical stuff, it's mental stuff, the thoughts that you continue to share, the newspapers you keep reading, the articles that you find, the types of things you Google search, these are all in a sense identifiers. And those two are things that can be jettison if they're no longer serving you.
(25:34): For instance, I had hundreds of books that I needed to find a new place for, and I'm like, I don't even believe what these things say anymore. But there is some sort of value that you have by showing people all your books, this is my knowledge. I've looked at all of these things and I'm like, no. And it was hard to get rid of the books for whatever reason, I went to bookstores and no, we don't want 'em. And so I, with a lot of the things eventually, nobody wanted a bunch of it. And so I found a place that was a landfill, and I said, what? I went there and I said, what do I do with this? And she goes, just back up right there, push it all off. And in the background, there are these huge bulldozers just pushing things around. And I'm like, I don't know if I can do this. I was leaving my child behind or something. , no Child Left Behind. This is no book left behind as well as DVDs and notes and papers and all kinds of stuff. And I did it. I feel like there should have been some sort of crowd cheering on the side. Yeah,
(26:38): Angelic descent. Yeah. No, Yeah. So I pushed it off the end of my truck and drove away in the background watching these bulldozers make their maniacal way towards all my precious and I left, and I felt good about it, but it was a week later, I was in the middle of Colorado spring somewhere, and I'm like, the thought canyon was like, I bet I could go find it. Oh, I bet I could go find the stuff. I'm like, I could do this. That's the level of attachment though, right? Yeah, that's the crazy part. It was crazy. I felt crazy. I had the thought and the next thought was, you're insane, and Maybe you should just drive to the asylum, right?
(27:20): Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it is fascinating to feel how attached we are to things, even in this next level of that. Months after that felt so good about it. I'm like, I want to do more. I want to clean out more. And then this whole thing came up with Oz actually going to sell the house. I was like, okay, where do I start? Because there was times during that time, I'd open a drawer, I'm like, why do I have this again, the accusation and the weight of that? And I could live in a much smaller space and do all that. But as I approached the larger task of getting rid of things in my house, just realizing a lot of the stuff I had wasn't stuff that I hadn't even chosen, but there were things that I was given to by my mom that said, I could never get rid of it, or I could never sell it, or whatever.
(28:10): How many people are dealing with those types of things, physical or otherwise? Well, and I had set up my whole existence to care for others, and I found myself, not that that's A bad thing, not that that's a bad thing at all, but Yeah, no, but I found myself asking the question, what do I actually, what do I actually want? And what would it look like if I set this up in a way that things that didn't carry baggage for me, one but also things that I actually like and changed the environment to something that I wanted. So I mean, that became a larger process. And there are things that I, so basically what I've done is I've gotten rid of 99.5% of everything that I own. Yeah. What do you have left?
(28:56): I have 12, 13 bins. The plastic bins from Costco, black and yellow, yellow tops we use for the retreats. And I, I've even been in those several times since that point. I'm like, I could get rid of probably four or five of these. Again, stuff that I'm like, why did I keep that stuff that came over from the first purge I need to purge? But it was fascinating as I had friends and family, it was almost like a funeral when someone passes away, friends and family gather in their house, who wants what? And it was kind of fun for me because I love to give gifts and there's things that I thought of, this person is an aspiring cook, and they could use this KitchenAid mixer or whatever. And young couples that needed furniture, I was able to give them furniture and family that had tons of kids. I was able to give them all the food in my freezer, leftover meat and things that were helpful to them. But there was also this moment that remembering that when people were in my house, I was so careful about everything. I didn't want it to be broken, and it had all this value to me, and I earned that, or I bought that here. It had all these memories associated it. But when I chose to clean house, literally to detach from that value was pretty astounding to me. Because it happened pretty fast, right?
(30:16): Yeah. Oh yeah. It happened very fast because I got offer my house before Christmas, and I really didn't start cleaning anything out until the 4th of January. And then the house closed on the 17th of January. So it matter of a couple weeks getting rid of literally everything, every bit of furniture. Yeah. How long did it take, because you were talking about the mindset, it was as soon as you decided, oh wait, this is no longer going to be me, the ability to let it go was it had changed very before There was resistance, right?
(30:45): Very quickly. And part of it was the purge in April, because I had already knew what that felt like and it felt so great, and I wanted to do more. And then it was just like, let it go, let it go, let it go, let it go. And then just things started leaving the house very quickly, and it felt really good for me personally to give the things that I value to people that I cared about. It was really rich. It was really Good. So let's talk about the sort of difficult part of letting it go, which is all of the work that it took to navigate, oh, if I want to change my job responsibilities, all of the extra work that goes into changing that, then you don't anticipate. Or I want to let go of the house, and then there's the realtor, and then there's the touchups and the staging, and I have to take my dog with me everywhere and all of that stuff. The unexpected cost of also change.
(31:38): Yeah, it was exhausting. And it makes me kind of not want to own a house again because yeah, there was a list of 85 things I had to do to get the house ready for, and one of one thing would be paint the fence, 130 feet of fence. I had to paint one of the items on the 85 list. And so I got those all done before the house went on the market, and then, you know, started doing showings. And every morning I had to get up and clean the entire house and get rid of any sign of a dog because people don't want to buy a house. I guess they have an animal. And so that interrupted the life. And then you're scheduling, you get an hour or whatever notice before someone comes, sees your house. And so it's just all that interruption and all that in the middle of the holidays, which I was able to navigate pretty well. But then once you get an offer and ups and downs of that, and then there's inspections, and then there's a list of 12 things from the inspections that you have to change, and then people working on your house are coming in and out. And by the end of it all, I was like, I am ready to be done and free of this all. It was like, I just want to be out and free of it. And I am.
(32:47): Yeah, I want to make a point of that because when we're talking about emotional troubles, we're talking about addiction, we're talking about mental thought processes and the way that you've seen the world that has been troublesome or whatnot, or relationships or anything else that people that we'd work with consistently are dealing with. There comes a point where their system, their entire body just recognizes how much effort goes into maintaining the old thing that it makes me not want to own a house again. And they're like, I don't want to own a problem like this. Again, that is such a significant point. And to get to that point, all the things that go into it, there has to be that moment of buy-in for sure. And yet, it's an incredible point to reach because then your body works for you in avoiding any situation that could possibly lead to the same thing.
(33:36): And now we might call that triggers in some ways. If people who have had a bad relationship, then they suddenly avoid members of the opposite sex forever. And we could call those triggers. So it can be unhealthy for sure. Well, let's put it this way. It can be something that you don't appreciate about your life versus it can be something that you really appreciate. And in the case of addiction, for me, it was my body was like, it's not worth it. Even if the thought comes like, man, this would be so cool. It didn't take long before my body was like, no, sorry, I'm not going there again. And with so many other things, thought processes about not being worth anything or being a piece of trash that didn't have any skill or whatnot, that everybody, if everybody found out who I really was, oh my gosh, they would run away if I found out who I really was. Those thoughts were just like, my body's like, Hey, I don't want to have those anymore. And as they go away, then suddenly there's this resilience that's built up that says, that protects for the future against such kind of like, wow, okay, we really invested a lot in this. That's not where I want to pour my life anymore. And so it makes change a lot more possible. That moment of fatigue,
(34:41): This whole process is such a metaphor for my freedom experience because I had identity wrapped up in that house in those possessions, and there was a night when the house was ready to go on the market, I was like, this isn't my house anymore. It cease being the place that I had lived in, and it was prepped for other people's flavors and opinions and appetites. And I was like, this is just a box. It's just a box. And how does that relate to your freedom experience? Well, just as I've gotten rid of all those things that I had such possession in as far as the stories go or the habits go, realizing what is actually who I am and who I'm not, and man, things that I had that gave me value which don't no longer has the value it, it's just been so interesting because as I've seen what is actually there and what it has represented, and as I've gotten rid of those things, then what is left is closer to who I really am and that process. But also I'm more willing to get rid of stuff in my life as a whole. Is it this isn't just a chair, or maybe it is just a chair rather, it doesn't carry value to for me anymore.
(36:11): Yeah. So what's, because this brings it around to what I want to do is kind of bring it home in many ways. Full circle, you had an identity that was you, and when you realize, oh, those are just thoughts, and it's just my body and it's not actually depression and my body can feel better and oh, I had sugar the other day. And as you start to see things the way they really are, a lot of times what I'm trying to teach people is not how to add more to their life to make it better, but how to subtract the habit of making their life miserable. see a lot of people, they confuse happiness with what they're really getting. So what they really happen is that someone an advertisement comes, someone comes along and shows them something, and the thought is it the grass is greener.
(36:57): And as soon as there's that sense of I need that in order for my life to be okay, in order for me to be happy, there's an agitation, some kind of cavitation happening in the body, and therefore the brain body tenses up in response to it. And then that reinforces this cycle so they feel ill at ease until they get the thing. This is where goals come from. It's not bad. The goals are bad. If you want to have that experience of this, that's great, but in order to set a goal, in a sense, you are setting a goal and that's going to create some kind of agitation within you until you get it. So the people burn the mid oil, oil and they hustle and they grind, and all these things do not sound pleasant, but that's what we do to the body. And then when they finally get the thing, their body is released from the agitation, and they feel this sense of wellness and wholeness just there for a moment at least because they're free and they that gets confused with peace and happiness, when in reality it's just you stopped beating yourself up.
(37:55): So in your case, what we were trying to do was subtract literally all the things that were misery manufacturers, so that what you were left with is just Lee, but you've always been that it's just buried under a bunch of Stuff. Yeah, I am response able, right? like I am. I'm not a victim to anything or any space or anything. And I think as I have left the house and left those things, I've also left being tied down to those things. And as I've walked into more and more freedom and left the stories that gave me identity, man, it's significant. And I am not the stories that made me I am not those stories anymore. I am a hundred percent responsible for what happens next,
(38:49): Which is the only thing you can control. And even in the English language, the present happening changes how we view the past. So Yeah, I'm not tied to that house. I am completely 100% mobile and free at this point, just as in my life. I am not tied to any story or anything in me that has kept me in a certain location moving forward. I make the decisions Who we should make a caveat here, which is just because you go to a retreat and you attend freedom does not mean that you will end up as a homeless bum you living in a van dumb by the river or something like that, and you'll give everything away and move to India and wear a loin cloth and meditate in a jungle somewhere. No, I am teaching people this and I have a family and a house that I love, right? And six children. Yes. Six. And there's all kinds of expenses associated with that. And that also is an expression of freedom. So let the buyer not beware. This is not the end of, Lee is not the end of you.
(39:58): Right. And yeah, I'm a single guy. And so yeah, there's not a lot of those ties happening, but I do. I don't want to also negate the process and in the sense of you can be free, Talk about this for a sec because this is where we want to come full circle. In the beginning when you came, security the sense of knowing what's happening to come having a good plan, making sure everything's covered, these were survival mechanisms that you lived your life through making sure that you knew what was going to happen, that you were on top of things that you knew the people that were threatening to that. Well, and it was also my understanding of the trauma I had experienced and what trauma was and how that impacted me. I was living out of that. Yeah. I'm not anymore. Exactly. That's like now you literally don't have a home. Not that you won't in the Future, but there's things in process. You write things in process, but you literally don't have a home. You don't actually have a plan and you are not drowning. I'm not freaking out. And you're happier. Would you say that this is the happiest you've ever been?
(41:03): Yeah. Yes. And I Would like to include childhood. I mean, I'm like, yes, We can include everything. Yes. I mean, I think I mentioned to you, someone had asked me about my mother a couple months ago, and I said something about her and I'm like, I had the realization that I had not thought of her for 16 months. And before that point, she was the daily thought. As I looked at the sexual abuse and things that I'd gone through, it was a daily constant thought. Yeah, thank you for the context. I didn't want people to be like, and when you're free, you will no longer think about your parents. Yeah, Yeah. No, but I had an identity formed around it. My future was formed around it. All of those things around the trauma and the abuse that I had gone through and the freedom process has made me respond able to all of those things. And those don't have to determine anything about me, including my thoughts every day.
(41:56): And the fact that it happened automatically without you having to fight off the thoughts When I was astounded that I hadn't thought about her. Yeah. See, that's the kind of freedom that I was talking about, is that in the process of changing, it happens on its own. And this boils back down to what started this whole domino effect, which is the entire process is learning stupid human tricks. It's learning about how your body and mind are designed to put together. That doesn't mean becoming a neuroscientist, it doesn't mean becoming a lab coded medical doctor or professor or something like that. It doesn't mean that you have to be the most academically educated. It means understanding your body, your mind, and knowing what works to make that body and that mind swim in freedom effortlessly.
(42:43): I actually, I've in some ways taken the emotional ninja to that you teach about able A B L E and done that to spaces in my house. But I've all said into my entire life, I've acknowledged what's happened. created space for me to breathe. I've loosen things up, I've moved things around, and I've escaped the space and it not just the physical space, but the mental, emotional, traumatic space. Yeah, I I've done that to my entire life at this point. Yeah.
(43:11): I mean, for many people, I'll talk about the emotional jisu, which we teach in the Choose Your Own Emotion course in more depth. And we also kind of review in a physiological way at the retreat space so that the body gets it. But that's in the Choose your own emotion. So if you guys are interested in that, you can go check that out the freedom specialist.com, because that's where we have all the stuff in. I don't even know if we have a link to the book on the paper. Built For Freedom on Amazon. Get a link up at some point. Yeah. We'll revamp the website here soon to kind of reflect everything that we're doing. Now, end goal here, the end kind of final note here, and maybe Lee has a few kind of words of thoughts to sum it up. But what I see here, and one of the reasons we wanted to talk about this is that in some bizarre way, Lee's life is this amazing microcosm of all the things that can be or possible. Here's a guy that didn't think that he would ever be able to live in a space where he was alone, not securely tied down in a certain way, not identified with a job, not having a plan for the future. And he's happier than he is ever been. And at the beginning, I would say that if you had known that this was going to happen, you might not have left. No, No. Absolutely. who volunteers for that , Right? But along the way, it's what has it felt like to go through it?
(44:32): Well, in a way, it's a Pandora's box. Once you open it, you can't close it back up. Yeah. And the choice is only to move forward in my perspective. Yeah, yeah. But what it, is it a good Pandora's box? Well, I mean, there Are moments where it's definitely like, oh, wow, I got to look at this now. For sure. Yeah. You have shown me that life is a blank check. I get to fill in the amount and sign it and move forward on me, and I get to also see everything that has always been there, but I can never see, because all the other stuff was clouding my perspective on the goodness of actually what's there. Yeah. Yeah. So I know for myself that if I had foreseen all those years ago when I flipped the bird mentally to the entire mental health industry, and I was like, I got to figure this out on my own and just ditched the 12, 10 programs and stuff, if I had seen everything that would happen along the way, I mean right now, maybe that guy would be like, oh, cool, he has a house and he lives in a great place and stuff. But all the other things that entailed, I don't think I would've left. I think I was too identified with being a kung fu guy for at the time, I was too identified with the way that Jasmine and I needed to interact and my thought processes around it, and so many other things in my life and our income level and everything. And I was like there.
(45:52): And so if somebody had handed me this, I might have been just overwhelmed by looking at it. But it's the, what I've heard people describe in terms of driving at night, your headlights only go so far, but you can make the whole trip that way. And so what I want to reiterate is that you can drive all the way across the country, and as long as you have headlights, you're great. And that's what we're trying to give people is headlights. Because then you can go wherever you want and you can make a U-turn if you don't like what you see. Yeah. Because you got headlights. And I'm thinking, what do I want people to know out of all of this? And it is that they're, whatever place they're at right now is completely changeable. It's completely changeable there. And you can enjoy the change.
Yeah, exactly. There might be things that you just have to deal with. Let's say you lost a foot, you, you're not going to grow their foot back.
(46:45): Well, Not You maybe can say that. I'm always one to be like, I don't know, maybe. Yeah, I'm not going to plan on it necessarily. Yes, but maybe. Well, the point is that it's what you want is possible. It really is the change that you want and being able to enjoy life. And Because the change that you want isn't really your circumstances. The change is you want to feel good on the inside and recognizing that no one has ever experienced the future that they have imagined. Muji says this right in his invitation to freedom. It's like no one has ever experienced the mental imaginations that they go, this is what it's going to be like. Even the best visualizer on the planet has failed to take into account so many details that he never thought Possible. But this is a different podcast, but I was thinking about this the other day. No one has actually experienced the past that they've imagined either.
(47:34): That is also Because there is, yeah, that's been huge in my story and moving forward. But that's another podcast. That's another podcast. Okay, guys. Okay, so you're going this week. Just remember, all you need is headlights. And everything is possible. You can drive where you want. And the future that we will experience is something beyond your imagination in all the ways. So you just have to equip yourself now. And that starts with the entire train of domino starts with learning how to get your body into a place where it's at ease. And then when ready to make the next step, then the next step will arise. And when then it's ready to make the next one that will arise. And you'll never be pushed farther than what your body is ready for because you will naturally back off for it. So mull around on that for a week, and we'll talk again soon.
And that's it for today's Alive and Free podcast. If you enjoyed this show and want some more freedom Bombs landing in your earbuds, subscribe right now at wherever you get your podcast from. And while you're at it, give us a rating and a review. It'll help us keep delivering great stuff to you. Plus it's just nice to be nice.
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