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. Let's pick apart another phrase from scripture this week. I've had some requests to do some of those things, just because people appreciate having an alternative way of looking at scriptures that they're so familiar with it. Sometimes you can read past them and like miss some of the freshness that's in there. And so, I wanna, I want to pull back to part of what's in the Sermon on the Mount. If you're an LDS, it's also in the book of Mormon, this whole idea that Jesus starts talking about considering the lilies of the field and the birds of the sky, right? And he talks about this idea that like, when you look really, really, really look at the lilies of the field, they toil not neither do they spin, but Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. [01:25.7]
Now that's beautiful, that's a wonderful image. It sounds poetic and whatnot. But if we really look at it, it's a little bit of a challenge in many, many ways. You don't hear a sermon on this, by the way. It's rare that you will hear someone really, really deeply look at what this might be pointing to. Because most of the other things on, on the planet that you're going to hear in terms of sermons about what's supposed to happen and what is right and what is wrong is about doing stuff is about going out and doing the right actions and thinking the right thoughts and having the right feelings about people, talking about your thoughts and your words and your deeds. But here, the words that have come down to us attributed to Jesus are the exact opposite of that. That he's suggesting that there's a guy in the Old Testament by the name of Solomon Shlomo in a Hebrew, who was, he was the son of David. Very, very wise was given a gift of wisdom from God. He's heralded for that. You know, like people came from all over the place to go trade with the kingdom of Israel, according to the records that are there, he had all of these thousands of wives and he made the temple. And then he also built his own palace, which may or may not have been bigger than the temple. I can't quite remember. He was exceedingly wealthy. It was like the golden age of Israel, according to the scripture and everything else that's going on. [02:46.6]
And so, here's a man who has literally everything on the planet, literally everything that anybody could want. He's not just rich and wealthy, but he's also not a punk. He's like a good guy. He's very wise. He leads his, his kingdom well, all of these things are happening. Yeah, he also has a bunch of other wives and that ends up being problematic later down the line, apparently. But ultimately here's a guy who has everything and Jesus is saying, why don't you go outside? Look in the dirt in the field at the Lily. Not one of these lilies that you get at the flower shop that we've cultivated and fertilize, and just go out into the field and look at a Lily. [03:24.6]
And I want you to consider this for a second, just a second, and ask yourself, what does a Lily in the field of Israel, which is a unique white Lily, it's an endangered species. What does it look like in Israel? Right. And so, it's not going to look like the same thing when it's got a face on it and all of these other things, it's just out there in the field. And he's saying, Solomon didn't have any of this. Now what is a Lily is plugged into the field in a way that it cannot move it stuck, where it is. It sits there and if you trample on it, that's what it gets. If it rains, that's what it gets. If it doesn't rain, that's what it gets. It is completely subject to whether the bees come and fertilize it or don't fertilize it. I'm not quite sure how Lily's pollinate, if they pollinate or whatnot, or what's, that goes on. It's subject to the winds, it's subject to animals coming and eating it, it's subject to all of these things. And all it can do is sit there and the only thing that it's doing is like just soaking in whatever sunlight comes, whatever nourishment comes and then it's growing from within. And that's all that's going on. [04:25.3]
And if you look down over the field, yeah, you would see definitely you would see like a color in there. And so, you would say, wow, look at these beautiful lilies and stuff like, look, it's just this white flower. But if you went and looked at it closely, there'd be dust on the inside of it that had collected. There would be possibly ants or bugs around it. There might be nibble marks from caterpillars and things that had been feeding on it. And Jesus is saying, ‘Consider the Lilies of the field, consider those, just look at them for all that they are.’ Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like that. Completely naked, no accoutrements, nothing. Why on earth would Jesus sit there and tell people with a straight face that the lilies of the field had more than Solomon ever could. Think about it. [05:15.2]
Now let's create a parallel here. Who would we compare Solomon with today? You would say Jeff Bezos, or you would say, you know, Steve Jobs when he was around or something. But some of the richest men like Elon Musk and Richard Branson, and some of these other people that are now going out to conquer space, they're billionaires. They have all of this money. They're doing all of these inventions. They're creating all of these things. Some of them exceptional and innovative and amazing. Others, maybe not so much and possibly destructive to the environment and whatnot, but they're out there and they're succeeding in the world and they're doing things that other people like, and there's a lot of commerce going on around them. I don't know how many wives they've had. So, I don't know if that's the case, but there are wise enough to be able to run businesses well and understand funding and all of these different things. And to be able to relations between all of the different bits of their business. So, there are definitely intelligent people and here they are, and they have everything. And would Jesus look at them and say, still go look at this dirty flower in the middle of the field, not in a vase, not that's been spritzed with a water bottle, go look at the lilies of the field. Jeff Bezos has nothing on them. Elon Musk has nothing on them. Why would he say that? [06:20.9]
Is that the life that you want is that the life that you're aspiring to? Hmm. Yeah, me. I just want to go sit in a field for my whole life and just hope that people feed me and hope there's sunlight and clothing and that I don't get trampled on or drowned out or anything else. Hmm…yeah. I would prefer that over having a big, nice posh house and all of these other things. Can you see the problem? If you really sit there and look at it, what would the Jews have been looking at? I mean, they look at the lilies of the field. Yeah, they're beautiful and stuff, but then they would go home and they would think about, oh man, I live in this ratty house or there's this. And then there's the Romans and then they would see the wealth of Rome or they would see the wealth of the upper classes or an echelon of society, of Jewish society or whatnot. They would have run into some similar issues. [07:03.7]
So why would Jesus say this, ‘Toil not neither spin, and yet Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.’ This is where we get to look at the nature of happiness possibly for the first time. Last time we looked at love, a little bit. Now we get to look at the nature of happiness. You see, because most people think that happiness, they wouldn't confuse it. I mean, I don't think anybody's like would confuse happiness with like the excitement from your team, winning the Superbowl or from like, oh, I received a gift and I have granted, they wouldn't, they wouldn't necessarily confused like, oh, that's lasting happiness and joy. They would look at those as pleasures, you know, like, you know, I had a good ride down a rollercoaster and they would have fun and they would have excitement and they wouldn't confuse that with real true happiness. But then the question then becomes, well, what is happiness? Because everyone on the planet in some way, that's all they're searching for right now. And only on the basis of happiness can life blossom and develop because that is the chemistry, which the human body operates on. [08:04.5]
If you are not operating from a place of happiness and wellbeing, your body is literally either sucking fuel from the bottom of the tank and the drags or the oils out and dirty, or you need a new timing belt or something else is going on in your system. The lights are going haywire, and you're wondering why life isn't going well and why you need so much self-care and maintenance. And your car has to keep going into the shop all the time. Well, because you're not operating on the right fuel. You put bad fuel into the car, it's going to mess up the engine. It's gonna burn weird. It's going to create problems, burn too hot, too cold, too dirty to something. You got to put the right fuel. The right fuel for humanity is happiness and wellbeing enjoy. But is that the same thing that we're talking about as somebody who's just like on a high, because they're thinking about stuff and it's like really filled them with excitement and whatnot. And I will submit to you that it is not. That it is of the same nature in a second way as love, but we're going to go deeper into it here just so that you can really see what's going on. Because last time we were really talking about connection with somebody else. [09:09.7]
Here, I want you to consider something like, God is love is the phrase in the scriptures, in the Bible. But what was the heck does that mean? Because when you love somebody right now, it's temporary, right? So how could God be that unless he's like vanishing from existence from time to time. When you're happy, it's the same thing. Happiness, the way that most people know it is this fleeting experience where they're trying to get their circumstances to be what they want, or they're thinking about something or someone did something for them, or they're having a really incredibly amazing bodily experience doing something, and that's what they call happiness. And so, when it disappears, they are chasing that because they think that is really the stuff of life. That is beautiful. Those are beautiful experiences. They are part of life, 100% part of life. But if you're trying to chase those down in order to be able to live well, because you need that happiness, that kind of excitement and that kind of feeling in you in order to be okay, you're going to be exhausted. Life is going to be rough, and you're going to be basically compulsively chasing anything and everything on the outside of you to make that happen. I did that. I know I have done that so many times and because I'm like, I can't say that I don't do that now sometimes, but way, way less. Happiness is something totally different than most people think. [10:28.5]
So, most people think, think of it as this good feeling. But again, that good feeling usually comes from thinking about something or having a great bodily experience. Really like exuberance or a great sweetness in the body experience, we would call pleasure or health. A sweetness of emotional stuff, the chemistry in the body, we might call love. Sweetness when it comes to the mental faculties, we might call life or peace. We might call it peace, right, when you have these aha moments and there's this level of clarity and peace that comes. A certain exuberance or sweetness, energetically that goes on, we might call ecstasy or whatever else you want to call it like just a heightened, energetic state where you're just like on. And those are all ramping up of different experiences in the body, their experiences. But what we're talking about is like a level of wellbeing underneath it. So, what we're talking about when we're talking about happiness is total wellbeing where it just felt good to be alive. Didn't necessarily feel ecstatic. Didn't, I really feel like down, didn't necessarily feel lovey-dovey or romantic, didn't necessarily feel like, oh, well, endorphins after a run, just an overall sense of wellbeing where there's no pro, no issue in the body, you know, like you just feel good being alive for no reason at all. It just this feels good. [11:41.6]
I want you to take a moment and I want you to think back on the times where that's happened. Doesn't it feel great? For instance, think about a time, have you ever zoned out, you know, you're sitting there it's been a day or whatever you've been thinking, and all of a sudden, your brain sort of shuts off and your eyes may be blurring. You're gazing off melodramatically into the middle distance. And the people around you are like, is he here? Is he not here? But just think about the experience of zoning out. Doesn't it feel great. That's what I'm talking about. For that moment you were just alive. Not thinking, not doing, not toiling, not spinning, just alive and feeling good. And I would submit to you that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of those. Why Solomon was busy all the time. How many of you are busy all the time? How many of you, when it's time to be sitting alone, you feel the need to be “productive,” or you need to keep yourself busy because an idle mind is the devil's workshop. Because someone gaslit you are indoctrinated you as a child to believe that. [12:49.5]
How many of you are constantly worried about what's coming or making plans for the future and goals and trunks constantly trying to, to do that. How many of you are busy with foreign relations, trying to keep up friendships and friends circles and the local gossip and all those things. You think Solomon was busy in his lifetime? How many wives and dude one wife is enough for me. It's hard enough, it has been over the years to create an environment where there's real deep connection in that. And then to have a thousand of them, and then I'd have to figure out how they're going to interact with each other and all of those other things. Solomon was a busy guy. He was so busy out, accumulating and acquiring in his life, where did he have time to simply be there toiling not neither spinning and feeling the life throbbing from within him, causing him to grow in a way that he himself could never do. Where was the time? [13:44.7]
A few weeks ago, a few weeks back. I did an episode on the ruthless elimination of hurry and suggested everybody take time to stop. Here I'm going to give you a smaller way of thinking about that. If happiness is this just that sense of total wellbeing and it can happen when you're zoning out, then we don't necessarily always have to like set aside time in the calendar to take a day off as much as I recommend that because you've wound up your system enough. It's going to take it a while to wind down sometimes. But if you have moments in the day or minutes in the day where you just let yourself stop, like Pomodoro, where they talk about five minutes, every 25 minutes on five minutes off for 50 minutes on 10 minutes off where you literally sit and do nothing, that that can be a powerful way of doing things. [14:34.1]
There was a lady who used to sell hearing aids and she hired me one time for several hours to teach her some basic healing movements. She’s from based on Chinese chi gong and Chinese acupuncture to kind of start working things in her system. Well, so that she could be healthy and strong. And every 15, 20 minutes, I can't remember how often it was, her alarm would go off and she goes, oh, hang on a second, I got to take a breath and she'd take a breath. And then she would take another one. And she said, I just realized that I talk all day long and I'm constantly going on and If I don't set an alarm to remind myself, I'll forget to breathe. You can do that for yourself. You can just set a simple reminder that reminds you to take a moment and breathe because breathing and life is happening on its own, and you're not enjoying it, but you could stop and enjoy it each time. [15:21.6]
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. [15:50.5]
Now, let's think about unhappiness for a moment. Just we can contrast that and help you understand what happiness is. If you think about the times where you have been unhappy, what is the common thread? What is the common denominator? Because I would bet that some of those times have been when you're just physically ill. Some of that, some of those times might've come from an injury that some of those times might've come because your kids weren't doing what you wanted them to, or a friend did something weird so, it was a relationship thing. That some of those times might've come from financial circumstances where you're looking at things and you didn't, you know, there's tightness in, you're experiencing stress. That some of the unhappiness might've come from work. And so, with such a massive array of possible things where unhappiness might come from, including spiritual things like worries about your station with God and whatnot. I would ask you; can you find a common thread between all of those experiences that can help you see and pinpoint the source of unhappiness? [16:50.1]
Because the feeling is essentially the same variations on a theme. So, if we can pinpoint the source of that feeling, that one feeling, now we have a chance to eliminate it from all the places that it shows up. If we can't pinpoint the source of it, then we're just coping with it wherever it shows up, which is useful and helpful to do. But if we can pinpoint the source of that feeling, then we have a chance at actually making it so it doesn't show up anymore. So, what's the common thread. Can you think of one? And I'll submit to you this, that the common thread in all the times that you have ever been unhappy is that in those moments you have been thinking, it doesn't matter what you're thinking about, but you have been thinking in a way that has produced negativity within you. Not unlike love Most of the love people feels is a thinking thing or excitement or happiness or stuff like that. All a lot of it is thought based, but unhappiness, unless you're dealing with illness itself, there's the physical discomfort. And then the unhappiness comes when you start to think about how long it's going to last and what you're not going to be able to do when it's relationships, it's like, oh, do I have to live the rest of my life this way? Or is my wife never going to do this? Or, oh man, why didn't he remember my birthday? Or that this, that, or the other. That all the unhappiness in your life boils down to times when you've been thinking. [18:06.6]
Now, hold on, hold the horses, wait, Bob, are you saying that thinking is bad? No, I'm saying that you haven't learned how to think in a way that supports your wellbeing. And so, as a result, your thoughts run away with you. Now, this is important for survival purposes, the way we think and analyze things and cut up life and kill it and put it on a plate for us to look at it so that we can assess what's best. I know that was a gruesome, but that's a survival skill. Because we have to survive in the world. It's important to be able to look at what's there identify problems and be able to navigate those. But how much of your day is your survival really at risk? If you're listening to this podcast, my guess is none. That you might have some times where you have to consider some moves about the future or get a new job. But I didn't even have a job at a certain point, we were on and we were on welfare or my family was helping out like your survival is not really at stake. If you have the technology in your hands to be able to listen to this podcast. [19:05.9]
I've met homeless people who survived throughout an entire cold Rocky Mountain, winter, sleeping outside, and getting food from food kitchens. There is stuff in place where your survival is not very, very much at stake unless you're living in a place where there's a lot of gang violence, or you have a bounty on your head, or maybe you are a president of a country or something and so you might be at risk that way. But your survival is not really at stake or you're a soldier, in which case that's the case. And it is important in those places to be able to look at or a police officer, right, and identify threats and real danger, and then act in accordance with that. But I will submit to you that being aware of danger does not have to produce unhappiness. It can produce intelligent action, but it does not have to produce unhappiness. [19:51.6]
Fear and unhappiness and all of these things are unintelligent responses because they just poison, they literally poison your system and they make it work less efficiently. In some ways, yeah, you can produce some adrenaline, but that's like rubbing the engine on your car. Do you want to do that all the time? Because now you're going to put more wear and tear on the engine and you're going to get horrible gas mileage. And it’s going to be a lot louder of a ride. So, when we're looking at unhappiness, just step back and consider that almost all of it, if not all of it is coming from the way that you think and the moments where you've experienced true wellbeing, true oneness with life, a true sense of just being here and loving being alive, whether you were in the middle of a long run or a stroll in, in nature, or whether you were just sitting and zoning out or watching the rainfall or anything like that, or the ocean or you in the middle of a sporting event or anything like that, that the moments where you really felt truly happy and well and connected. And like you belonged here on life and things were just good. [20:58.3]
Those are the moments when you stopped thinking you were just being, you weren't toiling, toil doesn't exist. You could be doing an activity. Toil is not a thing. You weren't busy working. That's a concept in mind. And we'll probably address that on another well, we might address that on another episode. You weren't spinning your mind in all kinds of theories about what was going to happen, you were just sitting there. And what that does is produce a chemical state inside the body that actually enhances human experience. And if you're willing to nourish that and allow yourself to sit in that more often, you may find that your entire experience of life becomes something that you couldn't even imagine becomes unrecognizable of what it was before. On the outside it might look the same to other people, but on the inside, it's a totally different experience. [21:49.0]
The word for eternity in Hebrew means or refers to one of the words used when common word used for it, refers to that, which is beyond what you can see. So, it doesn't refer necessarily to time. You know, what has passed I can't see, cause it's not here. What's future I can't see cause it's not here. But also, what's behind that mountain I can't see because it's beyond what I can see. And so, the idea of eternity being something that is hidden or beyond what I can see, and then that's often translated as everlasting as a happiness that lasts forever. But if you change that and you say a happiness, that is a hidden kind of happiness, one that isn't visible to the naked eye, then we start to touch it something that's really profound about human life. For happiness, wellbeing, love is a state of being on the inside that really leaves no trace on the outside. It is a beautiful, wonderful experience of life that happens when you're no longer toiling and spinning when your mind isn't running away from you, but rather when it stopped and you're here finally enjoying the gift of life that you've been given instead of racing to do something so that you can be happy some other time that never comes. [22:59.5]
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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