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. [00:27.9]
Bob: You know, many moons ago, several years ago, when I was stuck inside of a really depressive atmosphere, my family was really struggling financially in some huge ways. We had been on food stamps before and scraped our way out of it. We had been through bankruptcy and kind of scraped our way along that way. And I had been, I had found my way outside of addiction, and I had found a way to really solve a lot of these root core issues that were underneath me, but I hadn't figured out a way to live a life that wouldn't continue to produce those types of problems anymore. You see a lot of people when they go into addiction or they go into depression or anxiety or trauma programs, What they are going to do is they're trying to root out this nasty thing that's in their life, just like I did. [01:19.8]
And it's such a beautiful, beautiful experience to be able to do that. The levels of freedom and love that you can feel are so wonderful. There's these moments of just total like sense of self-worth that come. And yet inside of all of those programs inside of all of those processes, there still, isn't a retraining of your nervous system of your thought processes of your emotional self that gets it to be to where you're living life in a way that doesn't continue to produce those problems. It's too easy to leave something behind them and think that the addiction is the culprit or the depression is the culprit or the disease is the culprit without recognizing the ground and the circumstances that you've created in your life to make it so that that thing can breed. And there's this beautiful movie, I think I've mentioned it before called ‘The Four Feathers’ where Heath Ledger was one of the actors. His friends went off to war, he didn't agree with it, he was afraid of dying. So he bailed out of the army and they all gave him four white feathers, right of cowardice. And, and then he started hearing about the army having trouble, so he went back on his own to go find them and in the process nearly died. [02:27.5]
And this Bedouin, this outcast had found him and nursed him back to health and then stayed with him the entire length of the movie. It might be a movie that I'll want to go revisit watching, it's been awhile. And at the end, he asks him, why did you stay with me? You saved my life all this time, but then I took you through all these other kinds of things. Why did you stay? And the man's response, when something along these lines, “When you save a man's life, it's your duty to stay with him until he can live that life.” And I, that struck me really deeply for it so true that in a society that we live in right now, where everything is about, rooting out the evil, solving the problem, killing the bug and everything else, we have lost wholesale awareness of what it means to retrain that life so that they are capable of living in a state where they no longer go back to their vomit, like a dog or where they no longer go back and recreate those situations. [03:20.2]
This is why when you go to an event or when you go to these programs, which are necessary in many, many ways, like I would not have gotten where I was without them, but this is why when you go, if there's nothing else that you've learned, if there's no other skill sets that you've embodied, if you haven't become that new thing, then you have this honeymoon period afterwards and then slowly things start creeping back in. That's something I wanted to eliminate in my life. And so there I was struggling and I found online a coach who was speaking to all the problems I was struggling with in my life, not it was struggling in relationships, struggling in a financially, struggling spiritually, struggling in all these different areas. And he spoke with such powerful conviction and such powerful terms that I bought into this idea that what I needed to do was I needed to go to war with my life to identify what the real culprit was and to really pinpoint it. And then from there level an all out war against this thing. [04:20.5]
This is an idea that I've been around for a long time as a martial artist, the idea that if you can clearly see the enemy, then you can do something about it. In fact, this is an idea that that is baked into in many ways, how you handle a root issue, you've got to clearly identify it, and then you can start to dissolve that. And so I was already leaning that way. And so, and his descriptions and his discourses and his discussions of what needed to happen were so huge. And I don't want to give his name here only because he was really influential in my life, changed a lot of things, he's the reason why I've started helping people with, with their addictions, depressions, anxiety, and everything else, and the reasons why I've been able to help so many people is because while I got a kick in the face at the right time, from a guy who really needed to give me that push. But the entire mentality behind his, his, his approach was you are a warrior and it's time to go to war. [05:13.2]
And so you wake up in the morning and you're at war with, with sleep and with drowsiness and fatigue. And so you wake up earlier and you, you do all of these power practices and things to build a power in the day. And then you go to war at work, and then you go to war against everything that's against your marriage, and you go to war against all these other things. And so I built all these practices and for months and months, I was doing things day in and day out that gave me this illusion of power, this illusion of control little did I know things were deteriorating. On the flip side of that, I had seen this very mentality play out in so many different ways. When I was in going to 12 step programs, especially when I was struggling with pornography and unwanted, constant viewing of that, whether think of that as an addiction or not, obviously that's a debate that isn't really helpful most of the time, unless you're a therapist and have to diagnose things. And that's my opinion on the matter anyway [06:07.2]
But I was stuck there, and at the time I was looking at it like an addiction and all of the verbiage and all of the, the literature around it was like, this is every man's battle. In fact, there's a book by that name and, and we are like dragons, we are waging war and Satan is against us, if you were on the religion side. And he's, it's been a war in heaven, that's continued here on earth and everything was painted in terms of war. And I remembered growing up, feeling like that, this was how the world was built. There is this idea of some dark, other, other party that is constantly trying to wage war against me, that Satan is tempting me, or that the rich are against me or that the world is trying to teach me something. And this was a paradigm, a paradigmatic worldview, right? [06:50.6]
Never mind that in that same religious tradition, there were scriptures that would suggest that the spirit of contention itself was free was of the devil that God didn't actually wage war at all. That that was the Satan waging war that God just simply said depart, but I couldn't piece those pieces. I couldn't pull those pieces apart at the time, I couldn't really discern what was happening. And so I got swept into this idea that yes, life was a battle. Life was a battle. And what I found out was war is a miserable way to live a human life, both on a microscopic level, on a relationship level, on a societal level and on a national level. It works for a period of time and then it, doesn't, it's a little bit like holding your breath. When you hold your breath, because you're trying to do that last pushup or that last rep in the gym, you get a little bit of extra power, but at what cost? at what cost? Spike and blood pressure, strains and tears in the muscle, and you're out of breath and a being who's totally out of breath is dead. [07:55.9]
And so that means you're creeping yourself a little bit more toward death. Of course, I didn't see this at the time. And if you're a person who's been waging war on depression or waging war on obesity or waging war on terror or waging war on government or waging war on disease or waging war on drugs or waging war on anxiety and depression or waging war on anything that you happened to be waging war on slavery and everything else in, I am not here to tell you that it is not at times very, very necessary. There are times when we can look at what the body does to heal from disease and say, look, the body is at war. And that is one way to interpret it what's going on, for sure. And there, it doesn't mean that it isn't time to take decisive action in order to create a better future. [08:41.1]
But I want you to consider what what's going on inside of war when your body is constantly at war, if that's what you want to call it, when it's constantly fighting off disease, what is it not doing it? Isn't repairing things. It isn't digesting food well, it isn’t operating so that higher mental functions can, can occur. In fact, all it's doing is marshaling all the resources you have, the life that you have to try and neutralize what it sees as a threat. And those resources are literally your body. We talked about it last time in terms of the stress response, when your body goes acidic, and then you're leaching stuff from your bones. So what happens is the body starts to wither itself away when it's at war. [09:19.1]
In a relationship level, when you're at war, what happens? Well, that means one of you has to win. And when one of you wins and a relationship as a whole is just one thing, what happens is you basically cut the relationship in half and then one person wins and the other loses. That's not a relationship anymore, right? You destroy your relationship when you're at war. And we did an episode, a number a while ago about how to have an argument where both people wins. If you're, if you're curious a little bit about doing something like that, you know, I went in depth on some processes that you can do to start to have conversations that don't involve you pitying yourself against somebody else. I think Chris Voss put it best. Who's this great hostage negotiator was that for a long time, like top one in the FBI or something like that, he's written a book called ‘Never Split The Difference.’ He's done a master class online, which is what I got introduced to him through. And his discussion is this. The other person is not the enemy. The situation is the problem. And the two of you get to collaborate on a solution. [10:18.1]
This is something he was doing with bank robbers, because he eliminated the notion that the two of us are at war. On a societal level when we have races and we have terror and we have whites versus blacks, or we have rich versus poor, or we have corporations versus small business, anytime there's painted in us versus them, what we do is divide ourselves and then pretend that killing the other one off somehow produces a solution when it doesn’t. On a national level, same thing I mean, how many wars have been around on the planet? And have they really solved anything but creating more and more seed for war, World War I is a great example of this. The amount of humiliation we attempted to put Germany through, planted the seeds for World War II to happen. And had we not done that who knows what might else could have happened? [11:05.8]
If you or someone you know 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 wants some help doing it. Head on over to thefreedomspecialist.com/feelbetternow 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. [11:34.4]
So here I was going through all of these processes and feeling this level of power, you know, the rush of adrenaline, this surge of energy that comes when I win something, I achieved something, I accomplished something I'm at war with my life and everything else. And I didn't think of it as a war, so I don't want to paint it in those terms. And the coach I was learning from it wasn't necessarily a negative war for him like he was fighting for all, all evil or anything else like that. Like, it was just like this, this mentality of approach, go fight, win. How do I fix my relationship? Identify problem, go destroy, win. How do I solve my parenting problems? Identify problem, go fight, win. How do I solve my, my money issues? Go fight, win. But then recently I've seen this same person continue to use that same approach in times where fear has just grown out the roof. . [12:27.6]
I mean, at the time of recording this, what we have, COVID-19 going, going on the pandemic is, I mean, it's June right now. So it's been a little bit eclipsed by other events. And I've seen this person and many, many others instead of continuing to grow and evolve, sink back down into a level of fear where they're literally spreading all of this sphere in this warmongering around. And so I was in the middle of this and just something didn't sit, right? Because in my martial arts training, it was Chinese Kung Fu for 17 years of it. And I'd done some other martial arts around before then some Korean ones, some Japanese ones. And and during that period of time, I'd study a little bit of Krav Maga, the Israeli martial art, not enough to be any level of master of that particular art or anything else, a number of Chinese systems. [13:14.0]
And the word for warrior in Chinese is a character and that character, and I probably said it wrong. So if you're Chinese and you can hear this, my apologies, right? And that character is really divided into two different characters. One of them means ‘Stop’ and the other one means ‘Spear.’ We could go really deep with this, but we'll start with that to stop the spear. The character is ambiguous as to whose spirit is, are you stopping the enemy spear? That would make sense. A warrior is someone who's capable of stopping the enemy spear. And most people stop at this level. And they think that it's a virtue to be able to stop the enemy spear. What causes the enemy's spear in the first place? And how often is it that our own spear is the very thing that generated the enemy, feeling the need to pick up the spear. [13:59.1]
And it's ambiguous in the character because perhaps a true warrior is the one who can stop every spear, both theirs and their enemies. And they can beat their swords into plow shares because they no longer have the need to continue to fight right? Now, furthermore, the word for spear is apparently one that came from two different characters as well. One meaning hard and one meaning soft combined into one thing. And if you think about a spirit has a, a long flexible handle that's that keeps it lightweight for war purposes is a Chinese spear, right? Usually done in wax wood, from what I've seen, I haven't seen any rattan spears or anything like that, but a lot of wax wood spheres. And then on the tip, you have a hard pointed object. So it's hard and soft unified into one thing. And so to stop a spear is to stop all of this division between hard and soft stop all of this division of us versus them to stop all of this division of there being some other entity out in the world that needs to be subdued in order for us to be safe. [14:56.1]
Because ultimately war comes out of this idea of fear of a loss of control. And typically the way we respond is to try and exert more and more and more control. Okay. And we'll talk about that on another upcoming episode about control, cause I think it merits its own discussion. But I was in the middle of this and it just didn't sit right. I knew that inwardly, it just felt so true that all violence needed to be removed. And yet here I was trying to insert violence in my life and to go attack things and ideas and beliefs and everything else in order to win somehow. And so I'd get a little bit of a spike of like, yes, and then my life wouldn't, it would change, but it never felt different. And so finally, after some period of time, I stepped away from it and I started just trusting what my own inner guidance came from. And things started to open up in a different way, in a completely different way. The idea that you have to create a positive situation in your life by conquering what is there before is the very idea that keeps the enemy in play, right? [15:58.2]
The, the truth about fighting is that if you are trying to fight something, it doesn't matter if you're winning and it doesn't matter if you're losing, as long as you are fighting it, you are acknowledging its existence and you are still in the arena with it. You could be sitting on its face and you're still in the arena with it. It could be sitting on your face and you're still in the arena with it. And back and forth you go and you feel this great when you hold up that title championship, but how much longer is it going to take before it asks for a rematch? Just because the life has been built around identifying something as the enemy and declaring war on it. And this goes in all areas of life. [16:37.0]
So there I was inside of my own situation with money and everything else. And I was busy identifying all these things as the enemy that I needed to go and conquer. And I would just go on these emotional rollercoasters of feeling like I was on top of the world. And then feeling like, like there was no point, but the whole thing was pointless that it would never succeed, that it was an endless battle. And that was the same narrative that I had received for so many years that this is every man's battle with the porn thing or that that life is a test and life is a trial and life is a struggle. And yet, as I looked out over the world in all of my practices and, and some of the things that we teach our clients to be able to really deepen their awareness and their sensitivity, I could feel that the war wasn't, the world wasn't at war at all. [17:23.2]
In fact, quite the opposite, the world was a constant creation. It was constantly just bursting forth into life. Doing everything it could, finding every opening to continue to just express itself in the fullest way possible. And then as humans, we look at that, because we're so conscious of war and we see it as war. ‘That is the young Fox out there on the Tundra, struggling for life, I can see elements.’ Were the elements really fighting against the Fox? Was the Fox really fighting against the elements? Or were they both simply in their own way to whatever level of consciousness they have finding what opportunities they can to simply express the fullness of their life. [18:05.2]
And so I want to offer you today a suggestion that anything that you feel like you have to fight or overcome, that the key to overcoming is not to suit up for battle to prepare yourself for it and to go and win. That the key to overcoming the problem is to stop creating the problem in the first place. No, this doesn't mean that if you have a flat tire, you're supposed to just ignore it. It doesn't mean ignore the raw data of circumstances. It means stop making that data into problems. It means just look at it and deal with it as needed. A problem, doesn't exist in the world. Look around, can you take a…can you buy a problem from a store? I'm not talking about something, branded with the word problem I'm talking about, can you buy a problem from a store? Can you take one out on a date? Can you find it anywhere in physical existence, in the creator's creation? And the answer to that question, if you really look is ‘NO.’ [18:58.5]
There are all of the circumstances are there, there are people that are punching and hitting and attacking. There are people that are laughing, enjoying, and making more noise than you want. There are all these things, but the creation of the problem lies solely within me and solely within you. And so the solution is to stop seeing it as a problem. And when you stop seeing it as a problem and start seeing it as raw data, what happens is you start finding opportunities for your life to express itself, just like a plant does. It's absolutely incredible and counterintuitive, and it feels like you have to lose in order to win. And that is why most people don't do this. That is why most people have a hard time, including myself to cease making things into a problem and to start simply looking at the data of their life and going, Hmm, what do I want to do now? [19:42.8]
Because you can ultimately have three solutions to this. You can say poor pity me. You can say that other guy is, is atrocious, meaning— blame others. So you can play the part of the victim, you can blame other people. Or the third side of the triangle is simply to turn the triangle around and say, well, what do I want to do here? What do I want to do now? And if you can simply ask yourself that question, then all this war and all this struggle and all this hard work and all these myths that we were given that says, Oh, hard work, work doesn't exist. It's a measurement of an exchange of energy. It's not a real thing, right? It's not, it's not a real thing. You can't buy work either, right? There are certain things that are happening on the planet and we use the term work to describe an exchange of energy. But why does it have to be hard? Because we have this idea that hard work somehow means something about us. And so then we start looking about hard work. And if you just look at the history of, for instance, the arts, you had paintings and drawings and people who are doing these things that are beautiful creative endeavors. And we called it art and we call it painting. [20:43.4]
But nowadays, because work has been so elevated in the pantheon of virtues, what has happened is if you listen to poets, if you listen to writers, if you listen to artists of any kind, they will talk about their work. They say the work is about this and the work is about that. And they'll talk about it as work instead of as creation or instead of as play, or instead of as fun because the word work legitimizes it. It's all over our society where we have this myth surrounding the idea that war and work and struggle are the things that make our life meaningful and valuable. And I would only ask you this, what if we're wrong? What if there's an easier way? And what if your life was valuable, no matter if you did work or not. Those were the questions that helped me finally start to wind my way outside of the addictive cycle and live a life where I was able to be free. [21:39.8]
Not just the addiction to pornography, as I called it, not just the addiction to food, eating, not just the addiction to being poor and being addicted to being right about the way the world works with money and what I deserve and everything, not just my addiction and religious views in terms of being the no, my view is better than others, addictions and compulsions of all times of all sorts and all kinds. The way out is to start to simply ask that question. What if we're wrong? And what if there is an easier and better way. So this week as you go about your day, as you go about your week, as you're looking at the things that appear to you to be struggled, I'm just inviting you to disbelieve your thoughts about it for a second, just inviting you to step up and say, what if I'm wrong here? And what if something else is the case, and then run with that train of thought and see what it does to open up your creativity and possibility to learn through joy, not pain, and to live in effortlessness and ease instead of always having to have it be work. And that way work can be an enjoyable exercise if you want to have it. And that way pain can be something you explore. And that way negative emotion can be an adventure instead of an accident. And you can begin to have a choice in your life only because you gave yourself more than one option. [22:58.0]
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. [23:16.9]
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