It's 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 have 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.
Bob: Hey guys, welcome back to Episode 7 of the Alive and Free podcast. We are rocking and rolling here. This is exciting to me; to be able to share in a broader way some of the things that have really radically altered my life. Speaking of life, we're going to start today with a poem that I wrote. Yes, yes, you're going to listen to me recite and read a poem. But a poem that I wrote specifically about this – it's this confusion of what life really is. [0:01:03.3]
I want to get on with my life people say. I want to have a good life people say. I want to build a good life people say. They tell you to get a life people say. Or life is hard people say. Or life is tough or life isn't fair. Or that is just the way that life is. And we talk about life as if all of us have some sudden understanding of what life is. The reality is I think we are all kind of off base or my favorite question, what if we are kind of wrong about this? We think life is one thing when really all we are referring to is circumstances and events and in the way that we judge them; we're referring to the episode when we talked about the mind. [0:01:47.6]
So here's the poem. It's "Life" or Life? Life is hard, I often hear. A test, a trial, cruel, unfair. Because life, to them, is expectations, judgments, rules, and occupations. It's all that fits twixt birth and death for anything that dares draw breath. Wrong. Life is not life at all. Life, what drives a beating heart, makes breathing start, throbs within each crawling ant and blade of grass and fruity plant, dances madly in the breeze and shafts of light and deepest seas, rushes wild through herds of elk and helps a worm turn leaves to silk. Those who will not see are blind. They tell me I should get a life. But why trade life for life? [0:02:46.3]
So I wrote that way back in, ooh, it was February of this year, as I was hearing people constantly talking about this idea that life was hard, that life is a test, that life is unfair. In church, we hear this a lot that like this life is a test, you're here to prove yourself and if you do well in this life, you'll get on to the next life. And all the time, we're sitting here talking about life as if it's this grand difficult thing that has to be managed, and when really what we're all referring to is just what happened. Hey guys, how's life? And when somebody asks you that question, almost immediately, you reply back, oh, life's good! And what you're talking about is good is not life itself. You're saying, no my day was good. And what do you mean by "your day was good?" Do you mean like I liked the events that were happening in my life. Are the events that are happening life itself or are they something that are possible because life is beating in your heart and throbbing throughout this planet and universe? Life isn't hard at all. Think about it. [0:03:55.9]
Here we sit on a spinning globe in the solar system and the sun is shining, although this cloud just covered the sun just a second ago, so it's a little overcast. The wind is blowing. Trees and grass are just blossoming around me. There's nothing I have to do for any of that. There are peaches that are starting to grow on some of the neighborhood trees and citrus fruit that was dropped off to us by a family member a while ago. They brought it all the way up from Arizona, where there are some amazing citrus trees. Shout out to everyone down there in Arizona. There's water running down in streams, through the mountains. My heart is beating. I'm breathing. Breathing is a funny thing, guys, because we think have control over breathing when the reality is like just hold your breath for as long as you can -- pretty soon your body will take control back. And the fact that you're breathing is actually a function of several things - one - if the trees weren't breathing out what they breathe out, there would be nothing for us to breathe in and we'd die. So we're entirely dependent on them for that. [0:05:04.2]
Two - if the atmospheric pressure weren't what it is, then we wouldn't actually get air in our lungs. You go up high enough, even if there's enough oxygen; it has to be pressurized in order to get it into us. So we're actually kind of being breathed by the atmosphere and by the plants around us and by the universe, and we get some say in our experience of that, but very limited amounts. So breathing itself is happening. And there, the sun is back out again, and there are colors that we can see and life abounding and wildlife everywhere and there's the dog pooping in the backyard. And all this stuff is happening without us really having to lift a finger. Now you tell me - what's powering that? What is inside the grass that's making it grow? What's inside your heart that's making it beat? What is keeping us all alive? [0:06:01.7]
And are you really doing that? And if not, is that really hard? Is life, itself, the energy and power of life, is it really hard? Is it really unfair? When Jesus said the rain falls on the just and the unjust alike, he was right. There's nothing unfair about it. That's us calling life unfair. And what we're calling unfair isn't life. We're confusing life itself with the events of life. And what's funny is, we have this field of study and school called biology, and a lot of people want to be zoologists or marine biologists or molecular biologists and stuff. The word biologist means the study of life, or one who studies life. But they don’t actually study life itself. What they study are things that somehow have life in them, the x-factor that makes them alive versus not alive. [0:07:03.7]
And so they don’t really know any more about life itself than they do know about many other things, but they're just studying the things that have had life. But we confuse ourselves to think we understand life, and we don’t. The reason I bring this up, and why this is relevant is - in your mind, it's really easy to look at your life, meaning your life circumstances and think that your life, meaning that thing which is keeping you alive right now, and to confuse them for one in the same thing. And if you do, then it really will feel like life is unfair. It really will feel like God has something against you. It really will feel like there's pain and anguish and horrible things in the world all the time. It really will feel like life is unsafe. It really will feel like all of this negativity stuff, because you've confused what life is and this gift of life with circumstances, which are by and large what we create with our gift of life, with the mess of our mind, when it's a mess, instead of magic and with the problem of our body when it's a problem instead of a possibility. [0:08:16.7]
We do that. So our life circumstances aren't all in our control. Life itself isn't really in our control unless you get to a really, really high level, and I've met some tremendous and trained with some tremendous people over the years who have a totally different level of ability and perception and awareness, for sure, and I've learned a lot of things along the way.
If you, or someone you know, is looking to drop the F Bomb of Freedom in your life, whether that's from addiction or depression and anxiety or just anything that's making you feel flat out stuck, but you have no clue how to shake it and just want help doing it, head on over to LiberateaMan.com and book a call, where we can look at your unique situation and give you the roadmap you've been missing.
But we don’t really have control over life itself, nor do we have complete control over our circumstances because other people get a say in that. [0:09:12.5]
Everybody has their dreams. They're all trying to make them happen at the same time and a lot of times they cancel each other out. So you get a mess. It happens. But we confuse those, and we believe that God, the thing that's keeping us alive, is the same as our circumstances, when the reality is those circumstances are partly our responsibility and partly other people's responsibility. But it's not like God created those circumstances all the time. He certainly may have created the possibility of them. When I say the word "God," not like, whatever that means for you. You can think of creator or the source of creation if you want, if that's easier. So you don’t have to be Christian or something in order to think on these lines. Okay? So here we are. We're sitting here and we're confusing these two. And so then what happens is circumstances go a certain way and we start to assume that the creator itself or the source of all creation is like angry with us or mad with us or trying to test us or trying to make us grow in certain ways. [0:10:15.5]
When the reality is like he made us into a seed. All you have to do is like plant the dang seed and water it. That's it. It'll grow. But we think, no, we have got to see how strong the seed is and all this other stuff, because we're interpreting our circumstances as if that's the will of God, when the reality is your will is partly or maybe even mostly responsible for a lot of those things. We confuse the two. So a lot of people that get up and when I'm talking to them, they're freaking out a little bit because they're like, oh, I'm supposed to feel bad about my circumstances, basically. I'm supposed to feel bad about what I did, the events in my life. Because if I don’t feel bad about it, how is that repenting? How is that changing things and how is that like, if I don’t actually feel bad about them, then I'm just numb to things. And so these are very religious people and they really want a spiritual connection with something divine. [0:11:06.1]
They want it deeper. They're not like, they're not dumb. They're not idiots. They're not brainwashed, superstitious, religious zealots. These are like really intelligent people that have a certain way of looking at the world and they want their deepest possible experience they can get out of life. And the words they use to talk about it are words that involve God and repentance and remorse and stuff, where another person might use the divine or universe or the source, and when they're talking about repentance, they're talking about change or anything else. Different terminology. So here these people come and they're like I really feel bad about this, and you know, like am I, you know like, and if I don’t feel bad like and my wife wants me to feel bad about it, and we have these expectations about how bad we're supposed to feel about stuff because somehow that's going to make things better. It's a confusion when we're thinking that we have to do that. [0:11:55.4]
So for instance, I tell them, well which is the greater sin - to do something like this, meaning your circumstances go a certain way, to realize really quickly that that is not very helpful, to get over it, get back to where you're totally happy and clear and free again and to learn from that lesson, to not repeat it again, move on with your life and enjoy every moment that life is giving you and enjoy it while other people are just ticked off at you because you don’t feel bad and you're coldhearted, and how dare you - it's a bad thing. You're supposed to feel bad about it. Is that the greater sin? To get over it quickly? Or is it to wallow in it and to assume that your life circumstances are somehow God's will and therefore miss every single moment that God is still giving you; to miss out on the exuberance of every heartbeat; to miss out on the joy of every breath; to miss out on the song of bird singing in the morning; to miss out on the feel of the wind on your face; to miss out on the sun on your skin; to miss out on the glory of life and human relationships. [0:13:07.2]
Which is the greater sin? To get over it quickly and enjoy all the gifts that God is still giving, with gratitude in your heart, while other people get pissed because, welp, oh, sorry - I said the "p word"… Other people get upset while because you're doing your stuff because you're not feeling bad about it, or to actually just, okay, well fine, I'll just like give up on every other gift that God is giving me because I did one thing, and I'm just going to wallow. If you think, and you're trying to hold people hostage for how they feel and how they should feel a certain way in order for you to be okay with the way that they are, that's a problem within you. That's called co-dependency. You have to feel bad for what you did; otherwise I'm not okay with it - that's called co-dependency, in some mild form probably. I mean, obviously, a counselor or a therapist wouldn't think of it that way. If God is looking at you and you need to behave a certain way for God to be happy, that's called co-dependency. [0:14:03.9]
That God needs a therapist and that ain't the God that actually created the world. That's an idea you've got in your head. There's no way on earth that you could make God "unhappy." No. I mean, maybe he feels sadness for your situation and empathy for what's going on and cares deeply about you. I'm not saying that. Whatever your version of God is, but if you consider a God that needs you to behave and be a certain way in order for that God to be happy, that is like that God needs a therapist, in a big way, or maybe we should send him through my program. This could get really sacrilegious. God, if you're listening and you would like to go through the program… I'm joking, folks; chill! Okay. But the point here is, we have confused our life circumstances and our ideas about life for life itself, when that's not the case. [0:14:56.9]
So I want you to go back to this idea of what life really is. Think about your life. Think about what's happening in your life, the circumstances that are happening in your life, and then set those aside for a moment. Second question - second thing to do - now that you've like acknowledged all of the events that are happening, sit back and look a little deeper at all the things that are happening without you having to even put your finger to it. Pay attention to your heartbeat. Pay attention to beating of your pulse. Pay attention to your breathing. Pay attention to the sounds of children playing in the other room. Pay attention to the sun shining. Pay attention to the moon rays on the earth. Pay attention to the light as it bounces off the mountains. Pay attention to the way that the leaves rustle in the trees. Pay attention to the smell and the taste of food. Pay attention to all of that. You didn't do any of it. Your skin is regenerating at an amazing rate. You're not doing any of it. That's life, and that's what God thinks of you. [0:15:58.4]
If you're worried about whether or not you deserve to be alive, just check. Ask yourself - am I alive. If you are, guess what? You deserve it. And whether you deserve it or not, you are alive. But that's maybe, what if that's what God thinks of you? And if you can just get that perspective on life and stop beating yourself up about your circumstances and behaviors, which you just haven’t figured out how to fix yet, maybe, just maybe you could drop the shame and the guilt and the constant judgment of yourself and recognize that life has judged as far greater than you've judged yourself. It's judged you worthy of its constant, nonstop gifts. Just because that's life and it's beautiful. So when someone tells you to get a life, you can just sit down and be like, I do have one; it's pretty amazing. Someone says life is hard, you can sit down and be like, not the life that I know; this life is beautiful, even if I have to do things that are difficult at times. [0:17:08.4]
You see, is there anything really wrong with a toddler who doesn’t know how to walk? No. They just haven’t learned how to walk yet. It's not a problem. Is there anything wrong with a seed that hasn’t sprouted yet? No. It's just a seed in its stages of development. It hasn’t sprouted yet, but it's still perfect as a seed. Then it sprouts and it's perfect as a sprout. Then it continues to grow and it's perfect as a sapling. After that, it grows and it's perfect as a tree. Then it starts to grow fruit, and it's perfect as a fruit-bearing tree. Then it gets older and it starts to die and it falls over, and it's still perfect as a log. There's no flaw in the tree - only a human would come up and say that tree is ugly or that tree's not perfect or that tree's flawed. The tree itself is perfect. It's still growing, but it's perfect, and maybe you're the same. [0:18:04.4]
What if you really are the same and that our whole concept of perfection is absolutely misguided and we can't see what God himself called good because we judged it already from the beginning as not good, not good enough, broken, messed up, and needs fixing. And I'm here to have you consider the possibility that it's not you that needs fixing, at all. It's what we talked about when we talked about the mind. It's that idea you've concocted about who you are. It's the idea that you created in yourself that needs fixing, maybe. A character flaw is a flaw in the character you're playing. When you take off the costume and see the actor underneath - no flaw. It's not you that needs fixing. That's why you're still alive. If you deeply believed you were broken and knew that to be true, too many people have gone that route and have taken their own life or have simply just died of a broken heart or died from any other means because their body shut down because of firmly rooted belief that they really are broken and they could no longer receive the gift of life. So my challenge for you today, and this week, is to go out, folks, and get a life. A real life, not your life circumstances. Those will come and go. But never lose life. Go get a life, guys. That's a wrap for today. [0:19:32.2]
Next time, I'll dig a little bit more into my story and maybe some of the things I went through and what it takes, what I call the Freedom Formula in order to get a person completely out of addiction. So, off we go.
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 ear buds, 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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