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. [00:27.6]
Bob: All right, welcome back to the Alive and Free Podcast. Today, we're going to talk about the three brains. We're going to hack your three brains and give you a sense of how do you dissolve this stuff. This is the how, now I should give you a caveat. There's no way to really explain how, because the way that we do it is a very experiential process. So I can explain it to you until I'm blue in the face. You can theoretically be like, Oh, okay, I get it. And you still won't have a clue how it works because you haven't experienced it, right? So understand that, do the best you can with this. But I wanted to explain this because it's really a simple process and for some people, for some reason, people think this is really hard. I mean, I was just on the phone with somebody, I mean, having correspondence with somebody today who like their belief is that in order to change these core issues, what you have to do is imagine a new version of yourself and just beat that into yourself over and over and over by repetition or by some miracle, have some massive event happen that you're not really in control of that allows it to like re pattern it really quickly. [01:32.6]
In other words, traumatize yourself, or take a sledgehammer and beat it into yourself. Otherwise it's not going to work. And I've seen people work with this and I used to do this and so I'm not going to say it's bad. I know a lot of people teach deaf this stuff, things like vision boards, things like affirmations and declarations things where they're literally sitting there in their own life and they are calling to light, the very, very thing that is going on. They are saying, I am not this thing that I want to be and so therefore I'm going to do something that keeps saying, I'm this I'm this. But the problem that I found with that for trying it for years was that I never believed I am that like, I would have powerful experiences. I would have incredible shifts inside myself. And yet at the end, the feeling would always come back, maybe a little bit less. But this was, that was a long term play. Like if I repeated enough and I didn't want to spend the rest of my life like that. I didn't want to sit there affirming, No, I am powerful, I'm intelligent or money comes easy to me or all the things that I used to say, right. [02:30.9]
And because all of that would do is I would have this really powerful emotion that I could create in that. But then in the background, I was literally confirming the opposite by saying money comes easy to me as a way of like giving myself a pep talk. What I was doing was literally opening up to my own awareness that I didn't believe it. I wouldn't need a pep talk if I believed it, you know, nobody needs to go, Hey, you got this. If there's no doubt on your face, you'd be like, yeah, I know. So why are saying that? We only give ourselves pep talks because we doubt the thing that we're giving ourselves a pep talk on. So we talked about root issues before in some other episodes, go back and check those. Here's a quick tip on finding a root issue and I may go into deeper into, into this, but anytime you're giving yourself a pep talk about anything, whether it's something as heavy as addiction or something as simple as like, okay, I got to go do a, give a talk in church, or I've got to go do this online business thing or whatever else it is. If you're having to give yourself a pep talk like, no, okay, no, I can do this, this is whatever. Inside that pep talk, that is the thing that you're struggling against. When you say I can do this, what you really mean is I don't believe I can do this. I can't do this. [03:39.3]
And so you're using, I can do this in order to try and push that away and scare that off. And well, there are some people that I know of like Seth Ellsworth, for instance, who has kind of a cool program called The Breakthrough Challenge. I think it's the breakthroughchallenge.net or something that you can go through. And he uses a powerful way of doing that to really dislodge that old belief, but still in the same vein what we're doing is we're sledgehammering through it. So you might go check out Seth Ellsworth stuff, he's a good friend of mine. He's a great, wonderful individual and incredible at what he does. [04:10.7]
And so here I was sitting there going like, I don't want to give myself pep talks anymore. I don't want to have to keep fighting against this thing. Yes I can, but it's a lot of effort. And so I had to go back in and go like, well, cool. Well, if I have this belief that I'm not good enough. Let's list some of the common beliefs that humans have shall we? You grow up. Here's one, you have to do what you're told, hmm. If you look at the political climate and the political milieu today, what you'll see as, as very, very partisan, very, very divided views against each other. Because as a teenager, what happens well, when you're, when you feel like I'm supposed to do what I told what I'm told, but someone tells you to do something you don't like rebellion happens. And so you rebel and you might call them names or you might kick stuff or slam a door or stomp off, or do what teenagers do. And if you look at what's happening in the world with riots and all the name calling and everything else that's going on, we're basically just a bunch of teenagers because we believe we have to do what we're told, especially by authority figures. [05:07.1]
And so with anybody, if it seems to be claiming some evidence or some authority or anything says, No, this is the right way to do it. And you don't like it, out comes the teenager and they rebel because, well, you have to do what you're told. Right? You're smaller. Just think about a kid like you're small, you're weak, you're not strong enough. You're not fast enough. You're not smart enough because you don't like, you're an infant, right? And so your comparison of yourself with the world is here's all these jolly green giants, they're three to four times my size. They know more, they're better skilled at everything and all this other stuff, right. And they're unhappy with me. So I'm the one that causes people pain. I'm a disappointment. I'm a failure. I'll never be good enough. God hates me. There's a lot of these in there. [05:50.0]
And whatever it is for you, if you go in and look at it, what's happened in order to make that show up is a simple, simple thing. And we're going to go through that today. Okay, cool. So you have three brains, there's your brainstem, right? That is like the basic, basic part of it, right? So you've got your brainstem and your initial brain there, and that's deals with sense data, sensory information, all that stuff. It's like very, very, very responsive, like light sense data everything comes in there. It goes through the reticular activating system stuff is filtered out and then kicked up to other processing centers in the brain. So just think about that first brain as your feeler brain, not feeler let me call it your sear. Okay. Because we're gonna talk about feelings and that could get confusing. So you're seeing brain or you're sensing brain. There you go, Sensing. Okay. And then you have another brain on top of that, that's your lizard brain and that's the emotional brain. And that one allows you to like, what does it mean? It's kind of the meaning associated one. And when you're an infant, that's really the governing one until you're, I mean, it's, you don't really have, have anything beyond that in the beginning. And so when you're an infant, a lot of this stuff is governed by feelings. So you're perceiving things or sensing things and you're having feelings that are running through your system. [07:03.0]
There's no words attached to them. So if you're like, well, I don't know my root issue is I just feel this way. It might be an old one that came from when you were an infant. And so it's just a memorized feeling state and it doesn't have words attached to it, it's not that kind of root issue. Okay. And so then the third brain that comes on top is your neocortex, that's your thinking brain, your analytical brain. That's the brain that has the ability to shut off and dial down the noise, and the sensing brain and whatnot. It allows you to meditate. It allows you to reflect. It allows you to seek cause and effect and analyze and all that other stuff. That one doesn't really start coming online. It's not there much when you're an infant and it starts to grow and develop over time. So that by the time you're eight up until you're age eight, you're really dealing with concrete stuff in the world. So you could say, don't hit your sister. That's a very concrete thing to do. Kids below age seven and eight, they get that right. [07:57.3]
If you say, be nice to your sister, then they go, okay and then they turn and deck their sister, because nice is an abstract word. It doesn't exist in the world. And most of the root issues we have are like, we have these weird abstract words that have been latched on to feelings, but the feeling was real, but the word isn't. And so there's confusion and that's why we can't let it go, right? So you have your thinker up to age eight, you're dealing with concrete stuff, about age eight you start really kind of diving into abstraction. Some kids do this earlier. Some probably later, depending on brain development and all kinds of other stuff. So around age eight, between age eight and 12, you're starting to get ideas for abstract concepts. [08:39.7]
If you're a religious person, you might say, okay, then around age eight is when sin can conceive in the heart. In other words, the abstract concept of sin doesn't, you might've heard it a bunch as a kid, but it doesn't really start to make sense as if it's a thing itself until around age eight and so good, bad, right, wrong, ugly, beautiful. Like all of these words are just words you're playing with before. Then they start to have emotional weight somewhere around age eight. And then you move in and about age 12 is where you're now starting to be able to navigate these and start to piece two abstracts together. Meaning sin is bad. I am evil, right? That's a one abstraction, right? When like, addiction is an abstract word. It's not a real thing, right. In, in terms of a concrete thing in the planet. And so there's all these words. And then around age 12, you're able to start piecing them together. And then that continues. And, and men, their cognitive development, at least in this days, day and age, right. It could have been different than other times. You always have to take a look at who's being studied, but men, you know, not until your late twenties does, it does a real good sense of cause and effect really gonna get there. [09:56.5]
So your thinker, is in ever going, developing a situation and that's the last brain there. So you have three brains, a sensing brain, a feeling brain and a thinking brain. Okay. Pop quiz. How many of you have had some kind of core belief about yourself, challenged it and been able to look at it from a different angle, be like, see, that makes so much sense. I'm not that. Have you ever felt like you've dealt with some stuff like that? Cool. How many of you have dealt with something like that? And still had the feeling come back like, Oh man, I thought I've dealt with this before, but it just keeps coming back. And if you've ever felt that way? Because if you have it's because you've probably only addressed one of the three brains. Talking about things in logical terms is really only going to address one of the three brains. Which brain is it? The sensor, the feeler or the thinker. [10:48.9]
If you said the thinker you are right. Now, there's some ways that you can talk through things that can kind of get down to the bottom of the other stuff. But most of the time when you're talking through something and you can see it in a new light and all that other stuff in the end, you're just thinking your way through it. So you've released it logically, haaaaa…it doesn't make sense. Like, and I get on the phone with people a lot where they're like, no, no, I don't believe I'm a failure. Okay, cool. Well then why are you telling me that you're not then? Like, clearly you would have had that belief; otherwise you wouldn't have gotten on here and had to say the opposite. Oh, I don't feel like I'm a failure. So there's something in there. What is that about? Right. And so they were like, no, no, but it doesn't make sense. Like that doesn't even make sense. I'm like, I get that it doesn't make sense, but there's only one of your three brains that is busy making sense. It's your thinker. Nothing in the world has to make sense to be alive. Nothing in the world has to make sense. Human beings are the only things that make sense of stuff in the, in the way that we thinking about. I'm sure there are other animal species that, that have more highly developed neocortex and stuff.
But like really humans are the only ones that make sense of things. So cool. I am. So for you that you've found a root issue and then you've been able to look at it from a few different angles or something and reframe it in your mind to where you're like, no, that's not me. But if it still feels like you guess what? The feeling brain and the sensing brain, they are still engaged. They are still there. And they are still kicking that story. [12:11.5]
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. [12:39.2]
And so what happens when a, when a belief is cemented, when a core issue cemented is there's either an event or a series of events that happen in your life that give you a bunch of sensory information, boom, boom, boom, boom, buddooom, buddooom, buddooom, downloads, right? You've got light information and sound and taste and touch and smell. And you even have the chemistry on the inside of your body, how sick you are, all those things playing into this stuff, right? Biometric data and all this stuff. So you have all that stuff going in there. Boom, you have some sensations. Those sensations often get a little bit acute, meaning they're a little more intense than your average daily life. And because they're more intense, your body's like, Whoa, hold on a sec. What's going on here? Right. At that point, feeling shows up and thought, kind of at the same time, I mean, adults kind of tend to work, thinking to feeling, but kids are almost all feeling, a feeling comes and they just go with it, right [13:35.2]
So a feeling arises and that feeling gets linked to that sense data. And that's the meaning of it. Oh, when I feel these things, this is the feeling I have. And I don't want that feeling. And so the, it gets linked up in there. And then on top of that, then you have some idea in your head, some pictures, some image or something else it's like, Oh my gosh, you know, like that's the truth. So whether you believe like I did that, I was defective or that there was something wrong with me. Or whether you're dealing with life isn't fair or whether you're dealing with your failure or you'll never measure up or any of those types of things. Nobody wants me. I'm not lovable, whatever it is that that language, we can talk around it all day long. But the feeling of not being wanted, the feeling of nobody loving you, that one sticks around despite it, because you don't have to be thinking words in order to feel the feeling. [14:27.1]
And so in order to, that's where the root issue comes from is like all three, you feel, you sense something, you feel an emotion about it and you have a thought about it. And those three come together and then that's the sense you've made of it in your life. And if nothing comes along later to dismantle that root belief or that root issue, then what happens is he just sits in the background, like, see, I guess this is what was going on and since it made me survive, it must've be right. And kids guess all kinds of stupid stuff that has no logical foundation at all and, and then they go on the rest of their life. That way, your first experiences with money, you're guessing things about money and then the rest of your life, unless you challenge them really and dismantle it, you're running your money issues like your seven year old or a nine year old, because that was the first experience you had money. Same with big things like sex, same with big things like kissing and relationships and all kinds of physical interactions that way. The same with sports, social groups, religion, and God like your first few formative experiences. You're guessing like mad, What is this? Why is it happening? Do I like it? Do I not? Like it? All those questions are showing up. And how you make sense of them, those become your beliefs about it. [15:37.3]
Some of them, I mean, all of them have kept you alive until today. So congratulations, you have survived. But some of them keep you alive in a sense like this. If you grow up feeling like life is hard. Well good. What that's going to do is it's going to make you aware of, okay, life is going to be hard so I can predict some things and I can avoid it early. And you'll develop skill sets that will enable you to successfully navigate life. And you'll do an incredible job, you'll probably be very successful in the world and some, some people are that way and what not. So you have this life as hard saying, and that's common sense like, just look around life is hard and feels like so true to you. But at the same time, if you're operating on the program, that life is hard then underneath the hood, your body is trying to match that command and it's making life harder for you, which means that you'll be on alert a little bit more often. You might be a little more anxious. You might be a little bit more stressed out about things like little things might set you off at times. And your immune system is going to take a hit and your blood chemistry is going to take a hit. Your digestion might take a hit and your body might not have the capacity to recuperate very well. [16:41.9]
So you end up, you survive, but you end up sacrificing quality of life, just because your idea about life never got really examined. Life can be hard at times, but just, just the generality that life is always hard and go back and listen to the episode on life if you really want a different perspective on it. But to suggest that life in general is hard all the time everywhere. That's not true, but that's kind of the sense people make of it. And we make general statements all the time in public, just listen to politicians, but listen to people all around you. It doesn't matter where they're coming from. We tend to make all these general statements because we're like really proud of ourselves that we figured something out when we haven't figured anything out in terms of generalities. We've figured out our unique situation and how it felt at those times and that's all we knew. [17:30.9]
So what happens is cool. I've got this root issue. Let's say the root issue is nobody wants me or let's say it is Nobody wants me. And maybe that was a series of things throughout your childhood. A lot of or I don't matter. This is a big one. Like a lot of first children, like who are the oldest child, they, they feel like they don't matter. Just not because of the parents necessarily did anything wrong, but because another child showed up and now all of a sudden their attention gets taken away. And then maybe another child shows up and then pretty soon the oldest child that has less and less attention from the parents, like, well, now that the other one showed up, I don't matter. Right. And my sister, and I've talked about this a lot, my older sister and I, because this is a very real thing. And it's not the parent's fault necessarily. Some parents do that to their kids, but most of the time, it's just the kid trying to make sense of why all of a sudden, mom and dad don't want to spend so much time with them anymore, even though the parents are still providing for them. And so it's a belief that gets stuck in there and you can say, well, no, can't you see? And my sister be like, yeah, I get it. But you got to get down to the feeling and the sensing. [18:27.6]
So how do you hack the three brains then? I'm going to tell you one simple way of doing it. It's not the easiest thing to do on your own, but it takes some practice, but it is very simple and direct. And that is if you happen to have a memory or a series of memories that reinforce that idea for you, the earliest ones that are there are the biggest ones or whatever. First thing you're going to want to do is acknowledge that the way you feel is your interpretation of the situation. Cool. I don't matter, Awesome! That's one way of looking at the situation. What's another way and give yourself a couple of other options. I don't matter Or Hey, your, your siblings had some stuff and you did matter and your parents made sure that you were okay while also making sure that they had time for your siblings. They also still read to you, they put food on the table and stuff. In fact, your parents, you mattered enough that your parents made sure that you had food, even though, and clothes and whatnot, even though there were more kids in the table, that's how much you matter, more kids in the family. Right? So that's another one. [19:27.2]
Another, another way of looking at it is, Well. You just felt like you didn't matter, but the reality was, there's no way to tell it, tell. You're made of matter so clearly you matter, and you just felt like you didn't matter because in that one moment, their attention was somewhere else. So the moments when you wanted attention, it wasn't there. But were there moments when you weren't looking for attention and yet they were giving you attention? Why would they do that unless you didn't matter, right? So you give yourself, that’s the thinker, give yourself another way to think about it, then close your eyes and go back to those memories. And you could say, look at it, just look really, really thoroughly at this. Do you actually see in that memory that you don't matter; that you don't matter is something in the world. Did you actually see that as a thing in the world, your concept is running around, like see, so, and so doesn't matter, is that really there? The answer's always going to be, NO. I know, it'll feel like you don't matter, but did you actually see it's there? So you were going to the sensing brain and your is going to be NO, because any idea you have is just an idea, it's not out there in the world. [20:31.3]
You did not see what you thought. You thought what you thought, but you didn't see it. So did you actually see that you don't matter? No. Well, what did you see? Well, I saw that at the moment, I wanted some attention and then it gets in, it didn't get any attention. Okay, cool. What else did you say? Well, I saw my mom taking care of, you know, baby sister. I saw that I mattered enough to myself to go take care of myself then. Yup. The one person that's been with you the whole time, you matter to them and that's you. And if you're a God fearing person and you believe in God, then there's two people right there. But with yourself, especially, who's never given up on you. Who's always been there for you no matter what's happened. Even when the chips were down, even when it seemed like everyone was against you, even when you hated what you were doing, who still stuck around because you mattered? You did. Who still stuck around because you are worth loving? You did. Yeah. That's it. [21:28.2]
Can you see that? And you, you look, you have to look inside the memory and use your senses. Look for sights. Look for sounds. Look for tastes. Look for touch. Any sensations. What was your body position like? What were the clothes you were wearing? What was that experience? Did you actually see what you thought was happening? Did you actually see that? And the answer is always going to be, NO. This does take some practice because I know the feeling would be there, but you have to see once you see it, what will happen is you already start to feel some of the emotion kind of like dissipate and then in that moment, then you go, cool. What would have been like if in that moment, right at that moment, when you're like, what's happening is that I don't matter? You know, some older version of yourself were there and they showed up and they were like, well and you, you turned to them and you asked like, well, is it because I don't matter? And they said, no, it's not because you don't matter. What's happening is, well, your sister has a baby stinky diaper and your mom doesn't want to have to like, deal with that. And so she's cleaning the diaper so that she can be around and do more things with you. She's taking care of everybody so that there's more time to spend with you. [22:32.5]
Like the reality is that you matter enough that every day, day in and day out, you're getting food, you're getting shelter, you're getting clothing. And I know this isn't the case for some of you out there, but somebody took care of you, even if it was just you. Day in and day out, you mattered and you've mattered and you've been around. But the only thing is, you've just been paying attention to the times when you were, when you wanted attention and didn't get any. But if you look back and see all the times that you were given attention, some of them, when you wanted attention and got it, were there times like that. Some of them, when you wanted attention, didn't get it. Some of them, when you weren't looking for attention and you got it, some of them, when you definitely didn't want attention and they still were giving you attention. Did you matter to them? Yeah. You mattered enough that frequently, they keep paying attention to you. When you talk, they listen even if they don't want to hear what you have to say, when you talk, you matter enough for them to still listen. You matter enough to somebody who's mad at you for them to be mad at you. If you didn't matter, then they wouldn't be mad at you. They'd be like, whatever. It doesn't matter. And they'd move on. They would treat you like a nothing, right? [23:34.7]
The people that are around you, that give you hugs, you matter enough for them to give you a hug. The people that disagree, if you didn't, if you weren't that important, then, then by all means they would, they would be like, okay, cool. That guy has an opinion, but you matter enough that they'll stop and they'll disagree with you and they'll argue back. Your existence on the planet is proof that you matter to everyone. And the only thing that's happened is that there are some times that you want some attention from somebody else and sometimes they weren't around and that's all that's happened. And then you ask yourself, what would it have felt like to have had that answer back then to have been able to go and talk to that older version of yourself and have them explain that to you? What would that have felt like? And any number of emotions can come up at that point, Man, it felt amazing! It felt wonderful, felt incredible. I feel so free. It would be, I would have been so free. I wouldn't have had so many issues in my life and so on and so forth, right. All from feeling. [24:29.1]
So we did the thinker and then we went down to sensing and then we come back to the feeling and what would it have felt like? So we hit all three brains and in, so doing, you will start to find that the belief that you don't matter crumbles, and maybe it doesn't go all the way away cause deep beliefs tend to have a few they're like patterns of thinking. So they have a few other supporting evidences that need to be dismantled. But that's one way; there are several really powerful ways that we use to help people dismantle them. But you have three brains and you want to address all three brains. A root issue comes from sensing, some stuff, feeling some emotions and thinking some things about it all tied together usually with intensity. So dismantling, it means thinking different, seeing different, feeling different, all tied together with a little bit of intensity. Taaa-Daaaa, you've released a belief and it doesn't take that long when you, when you really get good at it. Again, it's harder to do for yourself than it is to do for somebody else naturally. And it does take some finesse, if there are deeper patterns and stuff, it's easy. If they're just one off beliefs, but that's how your mind works. [25:30.6]
Notice, like we mentioned last week, I didn't mention God in all this, but we will say this, your mind was created in a certain way, it functions in a certain way. And when you learn to, to work with it, the way it's designed, now you get a choice and what kind of experience you can have with it. Just like when you learn to drive a car, the way it's designed instead of grinding gears and pushing the wrong pedal, when you want to stop and you know, never putting oil in and having the engine explode and whatnot. When you just simply learn to work with a car, the way it's designed, you can go places you never could, when the car breaks, if the car were to break down. So the same thing with your mind, the same thing with belief. When you want to hack the three brains, this is one way to do it. We do it with the body. Again, if you really want to experience this at a deep level, you need to come to one of our retreats there four days, they're absolutely incredible and you'll experience it with the breath. And we do things with the breath. We do things with the body. We do things pre linguistically. We do things with these beliefs. You get one on one help group, group, and experiences and training, all packed together and four days of really incredible intensity. [26:35.0]
So if you'd like to do that, just go to thefreedomspecialist.com/schedule and set up a time to go, to, to talk to us about, about coming to an event, we'd love to have you. But just recognize like this isn't just related to really deep, dark mental health issues, really learning to do this can help you with any place in your life where you're stuck. There's no need for you to be stuck anywhere you weren't born, stuck that came later, which means it can be undone. And that's the beauty of this whole process. When you really learn to do it, you just subtract the gums that you got buried in, and suddenly you're free to live a good life without having to sit there and sledge hammer your way into a new sense of freedom and identity and peace. [27:14.6]
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. [27:32.8]
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