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. [00:28.0]
Bob: Welcome students to this year’s Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. This is Albus Dumbledore, ready to take you on a rollicking adventure through the Wizarding world of words and help free you from the spell and power. You know, we grow up, we don't, we're not born with language, but we grow up with language and, and it quickly shapes how we think and how we believe in how we feel about things in life. The way we see the world is shaped by our language. There are languages, for instance, the Eskimos have like 19 or 21 different words for snow because each word makes them aware of certain things, right? That now, nowadays you would say snow or ice, but they would say, “Oh, snow fall after a hot melt”, or I don't even know what the words mean. But each one would help them identify where to find seals, which ones were not good enough to walk on with their dogs and so on and so forth. [01:29.4]
The language encapsulates how they see the world. Likewise, the Tahitian language doesn't have a word for sadness. The word that's closest related to it is the fatigue that you feel after having had a cold or something. They don't actually have a word for it. And if we didn't have a word for it, would we be experiencing it as much? It makes us call into question a lot of the endeavors we have to go classify things and make up new words for stuff. I mean, would we have as many diseases in the world today if we weren't looking for them? It's a good question. So today to help you in your journey to feel more life and more freedom, I want to expose the words that we use for what they really are. They are just sounds, they are just sounds coming out of a mouth, but you've been hearing them so long that your brain automatically assumes that they mean stuff. [02:17.9]
You and I are having a little bit of a conspiracy right now. You see, I'm speaking in English, a language. I'm making a set of really just ridiculous sounds that a bird sitting near, would be like, “Wow! What the heck is that guy doing?” But you having learned this English, we've got an agreement that the words we use mean the same thing and so then we can communicate and send ideas and pop little nuggets and seeds and plant them in other people's minds so that they do things that we like or so that they laugh when we tell a joke or so that they cry when we give them bad news or so that they, they follow the rules if I'm the employer and they are the employee. Words are spells. In fact, we spell them and that's the first thing we learned to do is we learn the letters, the letter of the law, so to speak. And then we learn to spell because in being able to spell and spell correctly, we can cast these spells with other people. [03:11.9]
So go back to your, your, you know, I read frequently read books to my kids at night and I tried to do all the voices for people like, you know, Hagrid, he's down there sitting in the, and the care of magical creatures class and Buckbeak, the hippogriff, he got sentenced to death and you know, tried to get Ron Weasley when he's like “Felt weird though fucking you be careful again”, you know, talking about the dementors and I've got to do Harry Potter, you know, where he's just like, well, I don't know, you know, just some sort of English accent and I've got a sound like Hemione, but I don't have a girl's voice, so I just have to sound like a, know it all. [03:50.6]
“We could have been expelled!” you know, that kind of thing. Some of them are more convincing than others, but I have a good time doing it “Oh Weasley.” And so I do this and it’s fun, the kids laugh, we have a good time. And as I started thinking about it, I reflected on something that happened recently. I was out a training with one of my martial arts instructors and we were talking about a certain book, a book, a book written by an incredibly it was coauthored right. The author is someone I've trained with, I know him well, his life history and everything and the other author is it a tremendous martial artist and incredible, an incredible martial artist by all accounts, you know, and we're sitting there talking about this book and this incredible martial artist is my teacher, but also my other teacher's teacher. [04:36.4]
So he's been training with him for like 20 years or so. I've been training with him for like, I don't know, three or four. And so we're chatting about this book and I asked him if he'd read it. Now, this particular, the guy I was training with at the time, he, he said, no, he hasn't read it because he can't stand the writing style. So he has an opinion about the writing style. He feels like it's not, it doesn't carry together as a theme. It's, you know, there's no theme through the book. It's, it's kind of dry and flat and the other, the coauthor is really uninspiring and uninteresting. And I know I'm keeping it very vague because I don't want to, I'm not here to try and poopoo on people. So, so so he's talking about how he can't read it. Right. And I'm sitting there going, trying to defend the coauthor going, he's amazing. You have no idea. Some of the things that he's done, cause I know a little bit more about his life history, but obviously my friend who I was training with, it was, you know, wasn't having any of it. And so I went home trusting my friend thinking like, well maybe it's not that good a book. And then suddenly it hit me like a ton of bricks. [05:32.5]
This same friend who was telling me that this book was uninspiring and uninteresting, this same friend he had just the previous year slogged through some of the most— dense, uninteresting, absolutely thick and technical manuals on consciousness and on neurology and on neuroscience. It had taken him, sometimes he'd have to passages two and three and four times to try and understand them and he'd spent six months reading a book trying to get something out of it and he's telling me that he won't read the book because it's uninteresting, because it's not written well and cause it doesn't carry a the same theme. But I'm looking at the manuals and things that he's written going that he's reading going, that's not true at all. It's not like those are written with an arc, a narrative arc and a theme and it's not like the authors are any more interesting than than the other guy. [06:23.7]
What's really going on is that my friend had a certain rule in his head that said, “No, I'm interested in the neuroscience stuff and so I'm going to read it.” He wasn't interested in reading that book. His interest is in going and training with that other martial arts master and just getting it straight from the source. There's nothing wrong with that except that with his own words, he cast a spell over himself to try and make himself believe that it was the writing that was the issue, when it wasn't. It was that he wasn't interested. [06:51.5]
Second example, we're getting ready to move and you know, we're packing up the car and whatnot. We're in this place where the landlord's here and he's doing stuff all the time and there's always people in the front lawn and whatever. So one morning I'm out and I'm unloading the car and I'm walking back to the car and I said to myself, “Man, I'm so happy, we're moving in a couple months.” And in that moment I stopped myself cold and I looked and I was like, wait a second, I'm not actually happy in this moment. Like I'm frustrated with what was going on. So why did I say that? I was happy and I realized what I had done was I didn't want to look at my frustration and I didn't want to own up to it. I didn't want to be honest with it cause maybe sometimes it's you just don't want to do it. So I had cast a spell over myself with my own words to try and make myself believe that I was happy by thinking of a positive thing. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with this, but I wasn't being honest and I wasn't being truthful. I was using words to cast a spell over myself to try and fix the problem instead of just looking at what was really going on and solving that. [07:52.1]
Words have a kind of, they're nothing more than sounds, but because of the meaning you and I learned to attach to them, they seem like their reality. They seem like though content, the meaning behind them is actually going on is actually happening when it's not. It's just me gurgling sounds into your ear buds and your ears getting sound vibrations and all the rest is made up in your mind. And here's the thing, when I say the word Blue, I'm referring to what I've always called blue, but there's no guarantee that you're experiencing at the same way we might call the same things Blue, but I might see it as Purple and you might see it as Green and another person might see it as Blue. But because we've all agreed that that whatever that color is for us is called Blue. We think we're talking about the same thing, we're not! The sound is a spell. So I decided to try this. [08:40.03]
And on a flight home I was like, there was a couple sitting in front of me speaking in English, but you know how airlines are kind of noisy and Khhhhhh…khhhh and stuff. And so, I couldn't hear them very well. And I decided what if I could try and just hearing the sounds of the, of the language without actually hearing the content of it. And it worked for the most part, except when on occasion they'd use the word watch or something like that. And then I'd be like, Oh, I know they're talking about watches. But I was amazed at the variety of sounds that the English language has and that could come up when I'm just listening to it as sound. And I realize, wow! There is a gap between the word and the sound. So I raced home and I told my wife about this and she's like, “What do you mean words or spells? Come on Bob, you are, you're smoking something.” I was like, okay, look so I look over across the room, there's the word. She's like, “What do you mean words are spells? And she's like, what about the word chair?” And I was like, okay. So admittedly, not a very powerful spell. If I say it it, nothing really happens other than an image comes to my head. Then an image comes to your head automatically a spell, a small one. It's a charm, you know, and not a spell. And in fact, in our English language, we have words that say, “Man, that guy was speaking, he was spellbinding, she was enchanting, he was charming. [09:58.8]
And when we swear at people, we call it cursing, Oh dear, curses on you. But the point is like, we have the language, we already know that they are spells that they're not real, that they are enchantments, right? So I told her, okay cool, chair is not a really powerful spell. But if I say, “Hey, will you please bring me that chair?” And if I say it to a person near it at the right with the right intonation, maybe with the right hand gesture or something like Wingardium Leviosa versus Wingardium Leviosaaaaaa, right? Like that happened in the first Harry Potter movie. But if I say it the right way, what happens? All of reality bends itself to my spell. A person picks up the chair and it magically floats itself to me. Like I use the imperious curse and said Imperio and then I just had them bring me a chair only. I use the quote unquote “Magic words” folks. [10:53.0]
Yes, please! And thank you. Because why? Why do people want to learn magic? Why do they want to learn spells? Why are we in chanted by it? Because it seems like it would make life easier. If I can use my words in a certain way with a magical wand or a wave of something and I get what I want without having to get physical with it — that's less effort for me. And what happens when your words don't work? Well, sometimes you use the words differently. Come on!! Nobody’s listening to me. Why won't you guys just listen to your parents, right? How many of you have done that? And then you know the kids were like; bring the chair over here now and then you use it as a command and the kid goes like Fineeeee. He's not happy about it, but it still works. And if that doesn't work, what happens? Then we get physical. We dragged the kid over and say, pick up the chair, bring with me. Or we just go pick up the chair and do it our self. The, the better we are at our magic, the easier life gets. And the worst we are, the more effort it takes— physically and the words we're using literally as us casting spells on the world. So you go into a library and you read a bunch of books. It's casting a spell on your mind, teaching you to do things. [12:00.0]
You have to learn the language first, you have to be able to read the ancient runes of English or German or whatever else, what other other languages you read and as you're reading them, suddenly they cast a spell on your mind. So if you're reading scriptures, Oh my gosh, that's casting a spell on you. It's offering a certain worldview and shaping your perception in a certain way. If you're reading technical manuals, I pity you, sorry. But if you're reading about up about business and marketing, it is casting a spell on you and marketing and persuasion is the same thing. Literally they're trying to get you to be to like read their headlines. There's nothing wrong with it, but read this headline, do this so that they can get you to take a certain action. That's what marketing is, it's just casting spells. That's what it is when you're trying to persuade someone to believe the way that you are, that you think is what it is when you're listening to a podcast or a speaker or to me, all of this is spells right. Now let's go deeper with it. [12:55.9]
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. [13:22.0]
When two people are arguing what's happening, it's a wizard's duel folks, your sitting here casting your spells and they're counter cursing and shooting a spell back and your counter cursing and whatnot and one of you who gets the better. The better, the more clever wizard, BOOM, suddenly you get it. But are there bullies in the world that no matter how sound your logic is, they'll beat the snot out of you anyway. They just show up and they intimidate you? Absolutely. 100% Yes! Some wizards are just powerful. They, they suck at like really intricate magic, but their sheer force of presence is enough to intimidate you. And if you were intimidated, wouldn't it be hard to say the spells? Right? Like Neville Longbottom? Yes, you got it. Furthermore, there are unspoken spells and now we hop over to the world of Eragon. I told you it's going to be a tour of the Wizarding world. In Eragon there are unspoken spells, that's how Eragon eventually defeats Galbatorix in the end. Sorry, spoiler alert…huh… Spoiler. It's not an alert if I told you after the fact, whatever. [14:28.6]
Anyway, so that's how he finally defeats that Galbatorix because he casts a spell with his mind to make him see all that he's done and Galbatorix can't handle all the stuff that he's done to everyone around and eventually ends his own life. This was an unspoken spell. And do you and I cast unspoken spells? Yes. Have you ever glanced at your kids or your wife in a certain way or rolled your eyes at people? Have you ever gestured something? Have you ever just been in a mood, breathed heavy? Have you ever just walked in the room and felt somebody else's presence and been like, Whoa, WOV WOV WOV WOV WOV, something's coming off of them and then you leave. They're casting spells on the environment— inadvertently sometimes, advertently sometimes, intentionally at times, unintentionally at times. Everybody's casting spells to get what they want out of life. Nothing wrong with it. So why do we bother with this? What's the point, Bob, of talking about all these spells? if there's nothing wrong with it and if all it's okay to use your words and your language and your gestures and your emotions to get what you want out of life. [15:29.9]
The reason is this, if you want to be able to be free and not be manipulated, then it's important to be able to separate the sound coming from people, which is always the truth of how they are, from the words they're speaking cause sometimes they're trying to lie. And if you can just perceive the rest of life that isn't what you believe the meaning of the word is, like if you pretended they were speaking a foreign language. One time I showed up on a doorstep in, in Brazil, I'm from the US I don't look white, but that's what I would call myself on all of the nationality, gender papers and I had a companion who was from Brazil. So we were, we were partners together on the missionaries and he had just gotten there. So I was kind of training him and stuff, but he was shorter, really white skin, sandy hair… looked European. And we're in Northern Brazil with a lot of these people who like have really dark skin. [16:19.6]
And so we knock on a door and he talks to her and he says, Hey, it's almost [speaking in Spanish] She looks at him and then she looks at me and she says, “No follow Americano”, which, which means I don't speak American. Now he had said, “Hey, we're missionaries. We got a message for you. Can we come in?” Right. And she says, I don't speak American. When she's looking at me, and I looked at her and I said, “He doesn't speak American either. He's Brazilian,” but she had with her, like she looked him over and assumed in her mind, Oh, he's just not going to speak my language, and so all the words didn't register. And if that were the case, your ability to navigate life is going to be totally different. When someone tells you something is right or wrong, instead of automatically believing their words. What if that just gave you a chance to go look at it and look, see, is this working in my life. Is it long-term going to help me or not? And let me make my own decision instead of taking everybody else's opinion for fact, ahh you should do this. You shouldn't do that. Right? Those feelings, whatnot. You know advice from parents or friends, people who think that they can give you business advice, but I've never run a business. [17:27.3]
You know, I heard about this once it should work, right? Well instead of if instead of feeling like you have to take everyone's advice, what if you could like just listen to the words and enjoy the melodic sounds of their voice without having to like even for a second fret about what it is that they're saying. What if someone were yelling at you and screaming at you and cursing you and getting in your grill stuff? And you could just listen to the words and the sounds and feel the vibration of the sound run through your system without attaching any meaning to it and without also ignoring the fact that they, if they're threatening you obviously get out of the way, but anything like that, if they could just like rant and rail on you and it doesn't have to attach any meaning to it. [18:07.7]
This happened to me! Sometimes my wife's upset and she comes in and she's talking to me and I'm perfectly happy and I'm listening to her and I get what she's saying. But I'm also hearing the sounds of her voice. What if the kids are screaming? And my wife is not always railing at me, you guys, this happens very rarely. Okay, so FYI as an example, right? And what if the kids are screaming and yelling in the other room and you want it quiet cause I can't stand the noise. But what if you could step away from all that and just experience the beauty of sound vibration? What I'm telling you is the words that are in the air, the words that you read on billboards are nothing more than ink on paper or lights on a screen. Certain patterns of light and your making up the meaning as you see it. [18:47.9]
Pornography is just dots on a screen. Dots of light that's not permission to go looking for it, so don't blame me if that's your choice, right? I'm not going to tell you what to do, but see it for what it is. It's just pinpoints of light. It's not a real person, has nothing to do with a real person. You’re making up all the rest. It's all in your head because you were caught under the spell of illusion that you know, hyper realism and photo realism and all of these realism's in these different movements in art to try and make a person believe that what was there on the canvas or there on the board or they're on the screen is legitimately reality when it wasn't, when it's been manipulated. We do it in movies now, we're casting spells everywhere and none of it is real. [19:33.4]
All the meaning is stuff that you're making up in your head. And life— this glorious thing that's happening outside of all that, that's making your heartbeat and keeping you breathing and digesting your food and making grass grow and the sun to shine and is doing all of these incredible things in your life every moment and giving you infinite possibilities for experiencing true happiness at the deepest possible human level that's available to you if you can step outside of the spell. So today, the reason we went onto this like rollicking ride through the wonderful world of wizardry and all of these other things is simply to give you an opportunity to, whenever you want remember that life isn't what people are saying. The way they say it in the Tao Te Ching is the road you're talking about is not the road you're walking on. If you can get in touch with life, there is a joy and a happiness that surpasses anything I could possibly describe that you can just feel pulsing through your system and when you recognize that, what we say to each other is a fun game, right? [20:44.6]
We're, we're playing spells, we're asking for things. We're trying to get what we want. There's nothing wrong with it. It works in society. It's a societal thing. It's a relationship thing. It's a communication thing, but it has nothing to do with reality except when we can cast our spells strong enough that people now start to reality bends to our will because of the way we've been able to cast our spells. And if you want to be free, totally free, it'll irritate the snot out of people because you can't be swayed by their opinions. You'll look at the things yourself. But what kind of amazing political discussions could we have that people were free of the rhetoric and the spells cast by campaigns and marketing ads. I mean, I know a guy who used to run marketing campaigns and he told me he quit because he realized they were just rigging elections with the way that they were sending out certain envelopes to different voters at different times and the things they said in the envelopes and all this other stuff that they could pretty much guarantee an election. [21:38.1]
I mean, he won 30 out of 33 elections, that's pretty amazing for a campaign manager. And it's just because of the spells. And if you can free yourself of the spell by understanding that the words you're reading on a page are just marks, they're not words, they're just little ink dots. And the things you're seeing on a screen are just little lights, little blips. And the things that you're hearing are just sounds and you can start to look at what's real and figure that out— you will save yourself so much anxiety, so much depression, so much emotional drama because you've, you didn't forget that you're the player of the, of the board game. And instead of just being the actual game piece. So many people think they're the game piece and when something happens on their turn they freak out because somebody blocked them or some they drew a bad card. But when you remember that you're the one that's playing the game piece, then it doesn't mean anything about your life. It might make the game a little bit tough at times, but it doesn't mean anything about you and you can still have that abiding peace and joy that comes from being in touch with life itself. [22:44.5]
So go cast your spells wisely, make sure that you don't do it in the court yards and no operating within Hogwarts grounds, but also recognize that you don't have to counter curse even if you can see past it. Cause this is what Galbatorix did. He had learned the name of the ancient language and when he spoke the name, all the spells that were cast just crumbled and they ceased and he never had to fight them again because he had learned to control the language itself. So learn that the words coming out of your mouth aren't words, they're just sounds. They're fun to make and they make things work for you. But people talking to you, you don't have to buy any of it. Just look at reality, get in touch with life and go have a rollicking good day. [23:26.9]
And that's it for todays “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 podcasts 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. [23:46.5]
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