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: Hey guys let's talk today about unworrying yourself, shall we? I'm assuming that if you're listening to this, you or a human being who consumes podcasts and has a lot of things on your plate and sometimes worries about the future or money or other types of stuff. And this is a real thing in people's lives. And often, even though a lot of the people we work with have been dealing with some big, big stuff like trauma and abuse and addiction and depression and anxiety and panic attacks and all kinds of stuff that they've been dealing with for a long time. There's also a large segment of people that we deal with that just have a low-level worry or pessimism, or, you know, smaller things that they, they, they think to themselves, you know, like, well, my problem's not big that big, I don't need help, I'm fine. And so, they just continue to persist with their problem and their problem involves a lot of worrying a lot of times. [01:28.5]
Worrying about what's gonna happen in the future, worrying about their family, worrying about how they look worrying about getting everything, right? Worry, worry, worry, worry. Well, on one level, where did, where would this come from, right? Can we try and free you of it or give you a way out today, which shall we do this? Where would worry come from? Well, on one level, it would be something of a survival, a survival mechanism gone astray, gone awry, meaning your brain, whether it's from evolution or by design, from a creator, what we can, from what I've read from what we've heard from, from researchers and what, what and what, from what I've observed in my own, right? Your brain's really good at matching patterns. It's looking around, it's basing, it's an it's assessment of the situation on your past. So, if it's something comfortable and familiar, you feel one way. If it's unfamiliar, feel another way, if it's certain in your own mind, it feels one way. If it's uncertain, it feels another way. If there's a lot of information, you feel good, your like, you know, what's going on. If there's not a lot of information, you feel like you don't know what's going on. And by information, you have the same amount of information in every given second by information. I mean information that you recognize. [02:43.4]
So, if it's unfamiliar information, then there's this sense of, oh no, maybe this is dangerous. I don't know yet. And so, your body naturally goes on a certain level of heightened alertness. Alertness, isn't the issue because if there, if you need to pay attention to something, you pay attention to something, the gazelle wander around the planet, worried about the lion or the cheetah all the time, not from what we can tell. Animals with social structures have studied a lot with baboons, I think Robert, Sapolsky's done a lot of research on this one. And some of the book, some of the book that I've read from him around stressed, he's looked a lot into baboons and other things. I think he wrote the book, ‘Zebras don't get ulcer ulcers’, or ‘Why zebras don't get ulcers’ or something like that. And, and the main notion in there is these animals in social structures, they do experience stress, they do experience, stuff like that. When they're around other unpredictable stuff, like, okay, when's the chief baboon gonna come and show everybody and give me my come up at kind of thing, right? And so, they're around unpredictability, they do experience stress. And the lowest one on the totem pole experience is the most amount of stress cause he's everybody's whipping boy. [03:49.0]
So, there is that in nature, but that's in response to direct threat, direct possibility of threat. When that possibility is gone, that animal is not experiencing stress. Now enter homo sapiens. supposedly the man who knows homo sapiens. Sapien means knowing, the one who knows is the one who just reacts to things that they don't know. It's ironic is some sort of strange paradox in the name, homo sapien. Maybe we're just talking about it's the, the being with the ability to know, and we haven't gotten there yet knowing themselves. Either way what's happening with worry is that a perceived threat? Meaning some information has gone in and a pattern in your brain has been like, oh, the last time that happened, there was something big happening. And so, there's a perceived threat. And so now as long as that's there, oh no, this is happening. So, you start to ruminate on thoughts even though in each individual instance, the only thing important is the information in that instance. [04:53.9]
You don't have to know what, which car has the right of way at a stop sign necessarily. You just have to pay attention to which one's going when and you'll figure it out. You'll figure your way across, depending on I guess, where you live and how rude the drivers are or how pushy the drivers are. You might, you might, you might have a lot of people honking at you, but you get the main idea that happens, whether you know the right of way or not. You don't have to like, just because somebody walking down the street with a certain something, one time I, I went and dropped my kids off at a play date one time. And the, the mothers, there were all talking about a guy who was wandering around Costco, which is a big warehouse store. He was wandering around Costco and I think he was in a clown suit and this wasn't at Halloween time. And the, they were freaking out because, well, you know, people dressing in clown suits and then clowns and all the movies with clowns in them and all this other stuff. And I watched these two, three mothers while I was trying to pick up my son, all three of these mothers talking about it, their eyes are getting huge, their heart rate going up. You can see them starting to freak out. You can see them start to get jittery. And none of that is actually happening. The guy didn't follow her home from Costco. She didn't have any interaction with him. In fact, she stayed away from him in the store, that might have been intelligent, it might have been a threat who knows. [06:10.9]
There wasn't anything in the news about it, but continuing to freak out about it when, she got home continuing to talk about it. That's the worry part. Oh no, but what if you've done this? Oh my gosh. This, that worry part that is destructive to your body, to your higher cognitive thinking processes. It's not like it makes you more intelligent. It actually makes you dumber more reactive, more emotional. So, when you're sitting there saying, well, I just worry about you. That is making you less capable of doing anything for me. So, all to all you wonderful mothers out there who worry about your children. I love that you think about them. I love that you do, you care, for them. I would love it if you would stop worrying so much, because it's not making you capable of being the kind of mom you want to be, it's actually poisoning you. It's working on your health. It's making it so that you don't have wellbeing on the inside. So, what do we do about this? [07:07.4]
Well, the way I've sort of looked at it the last couple days is that most people that I see sort of operate in three main ways where I see three main paths that I see, two, that I see people operating with and a third one that I wanna suggest to you, that would be the best way out. The first one is control the F out of everything. Meaning let's go into micromanaged mode. Let's be the helicopter parent. Let's be the boss that gets on everybody's case. Let's make sure and run around double and triple checking that everything is done the way it's supposed to be done so that everything happens the way it's supposed to happen and so on and so forth. If you don't do stuff like this, I'm sure you know, people who do or who you've seen do it. How stressed do they feel? How happy are they in life? They're trying to get rid of worry by doing something that will produce more worry, because the more they focus on, oh, this needs to get done this way, then that needs to get done that way. And they're not willing to let other people have a shot at it. Then they end up taking more on their plate that gives them more things to think about which they then end up perpetuating cycle by worrying about it until finally they get too much for them and then they need a day off or they hide in their room and they just binge watch something in order to take their mind off of things, which doesn't actually help their system, but they get some distraction from it. And then the other partner has to pick up the slack and so on and so forth. It there's a lot there, even if you're single same thing. [08:37.1]
So, one way to try and get rid of worry is to try and control everything that you can. I see this happen a lot with people who deal with anxiety, people who are, who deal with OCD. These are people that honestly like it's debilitating for them, how much they feel like they have to control things because it doesn't feel safe. It feels like something bad's gonna happen all along the way. Now, a lot of times that came from early experiences in life that then got built on over time or big experiences that happened to them, that cemented some kind of root issue. And then as a result of it, in order to control all the fear that's going on inside of them, or the sense of uncertainty, they start controlling everything in sort of an obsessive way. Now I will note here that what I will offer in the third path out actually has shown in my own clientele. The people that I've worked with has shown to have some positive impact on this. Okay. And meaning it's, it's OCD to massive extents, right. [09:37.9]
So, but this leads us to the second piece, which is a root issue. When you finally get tired of controlling everything at some point something in you goes, okay, we need to make a bigger change here, cause I don't wanna live the rest of my life this way. So, you head toward the root issue, cut it out at its look for the cause of it. What's the bigger underlying problem and let's go there. Now, this is valuable because it gets rid of deeper down the source of where the worry is coming from. It's exceptionally valuable. And we work with people on, on this at a mental level for all of the stuff that is verbal and cognitive. We work with it on a somatic level, body level for all the stuff that is pre-verbal meaning you didn't have words for it at the time. And it's not necessarily cognitive. It's stuck in the body. It's muscle memory, it's chemistry and things like this. We work with it on emotional level where it's just emotion and it's not really there's anything about the emotion, it's just a few that you've sort of memorized in a certain way. And so, on every possible level, we're working with people in order to be able to reset their system. [10:45.9]
So, the root issues that you may find in your life, if you go to somebody who helps you with beliefs and limiting beliefs and stuff, that's great. Those are the ones that are verbal, but there is more to the puzzle than that, especially for a lot of the deep-seated ones that have been ingrained in you for a long time. [11:03.7]
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. [11:31.8]
So, working with that, what we've seen though is even if you're just working at the belief level or others, what it gives you is a, because you're hacking off major branches of the tree or the trunk itself, then you're, you're not stuck out in the, out on the limbs having to hack down every little twig that's coming your way. There are fewer twigs that you have to deal with. And the more that you handle these, the more you finally get to the trunk and you might be able to start hacking down the trunk at some point in time until there's nothing left there that's bothersome. You've dug into the root ball; you've churned it up so that it won't grow back. And now the grass can grow over and you can have something else. We watched this actually happen in Arizona. I watched him take down this massive Mesquite tree whose roots had gotten into the water pipes and around and was starting to break water pipes and stuff around right in front of the, our front yard of our town home there that we were renting and we watched them. [12:30.8]
I loved that tree saved some of the wood that they chopped down, but we watched them first chopped down the outlying branches and then start chopping down the bigger branches in chunks. And then the finally the, the entire trunk, they cut down in chunks. And finally, they dug into the root ball and destroyed the root ball with some chip wood chippers and the things like that machinery so that there was nothing left for the plan to grow back into. And so, then it grew over with grass and the next year it was fine. And so in like manner, people who are wanting to do this with root issues, that's very, very helpful. Here's the issue. Did you hear how much work that took it's value work it's useful sometimes. And sometimes it's the only thing that you're gonna know how to do. We do this a lot. So, with, with people and we show them how to do it for themselves, because I think it's important that every human on being on the planet knows how to identify what's underneath all their worry and nip it in the bud, in at least the most efficient way that they, and so that it stops being such a huge issue. [13:36.8]
And there are simple processes that once you train them that like they help you so that it starts to become an automatic thing and you don't even have to think about it. You're automatically starting to get rid of some of these core things. So, it's helpful, but it is a lot of work. As I mentioned in the episode, we were talking about five different of kinds of freedom. At a certain point, it gets tiring to constantly find a new root issue and dissolve it, a new root issue and dismantle it because ultimately everything that you are dealing with, we talked about this in the episode where we said, you know, 1, 2, 3, 4 as far as emotions are concerned. The one, two, the three, four loop, right? The only thing you're dealing with is a sensation in the body. That's it? As far as you are concerned, what you are perceiving, all the things you're thinking, well, that's being expressed inside of you. It's an experience you're having in your body. Your body's reacting to thoughts, it's reacting to emotions, it's reacting to your external environment. And the only way that you know that that's happening is in your body. [14:39.2]
So, I'm gonna offer you a third way out. Are you ready? The other day, I was reading to my kids as I often do at night. Just whatever books they were having me read. I I'm a little snarky about the books. I don't like reading books that I think are dumb so, I'm a little picky about it, but we've been reading them. For some of them a Harry Potter, for some of them, you know, Magnus Chase, or Percy Jackson. We're reading them some of Dan Millman's books right now. And I finished, you know, doing all the voices, whatever I finished, I got up. And in the moment, I got a head rush. Now, if you had one of those, you get up and your eyes start to tingle and black out and stuff. I love these. I used to be worried about them until I started just paying attention to what was going on. I know a lot of people that don't like these at all, but I love it when it starts to happen, because I'm having this massive experience inside myself. [15:28.5]
So, I got up and I had one of those, but it was very minor. And I just felt my whole-body kind of light up from my bottom of my feet, all the way to the top of my head with this wonderful, like zinging beautiful sensation. And it felt incredible to me. My kids were talking, I was very, very aware of their conversation. And I was also aware that nothing that they were saying was of really any cosmic significance. And so, I just sat and they were talking about stuff and arguing, and sometimes I get kind of get wrapped into it or annoyed that they're arguing. But in this case, I was feeling so good on the inside that it didn't matter that they were arguing. I was great. They're like, dad, well, what do you think? And I just said what I thought. And then I went back to my experience. Easy peasy. This type of inner exuberance is what I wanna offer you is the way out. Have you had days where you just felt good? You just felt so good on the inside. Have you ever had one of those days? Did you notice that on those days, nothing could really pull you down? [16:27.9]
Yeah, sure, things might have gone haywire at work or at home or something like that. But when you were really on, you just had a great day things didn't phase you. Whereas if you're having a horrible day and then someone comes along and tries to play like nice music and you wanna strangle them, it may be really nice music, but still, it's not the music that's making it happen. It's your inner environment that is causing the whole mess. It's your inner environment that is producing whether or not you experience life in a positive way or a negative way. And what's interesting is that in my experience, my own personal experience and yeah, I, I dabbled in psychedelic drugs for a period of time. And so, I had some massive experiences that way, where I couldn't like my brain just stopped working for a bit, or I was having things, big things happen and nothing on the outside of me mattered at that point, cause I was busy on the inside having an experience. So that can happen. [17:26.3]
And this is often when it happens for people. See usually their internal experience of life is only really arresting or really intense when they're sick, meaning their body's screaming at them or they're stressed, depressed, or, and otherwise emotional or they're injured or they're on some kind of medication or drug or caffeine or something that they're ingesting in order to get their body up. Or they're going to sex to do it where, so there's porn addicts and sex addicts all over the place or they're doing risky things. Now, risky things could be physical like activities outdoors, or it could be starting a business or I'm gonna post this thing online, little or risks, big risks, any number of them applying for a job could be risky, right. Calling that, you know, girl or guy that you really like and you, ah, I don't know if I wanna put myself out there kind of thing. All of these create an inner level of exuberance, but it's not under your control really. It really isn't. If you put an, a substance into your body, it's in control of your experience. And even though you're in control of putting it in, once it's in there, you're not the one in control. [18:37.0]
Sex, it takes a lot of orchestration in order to have that kind of thing happening all the time. It doesn't last long and it's tiring. Risk, sometimes it goes well, sometimes it doesn't people get into gambling for, for this kind of stuff, games of chance and whatnot. Some little risks, not a big deal, others, huge deal and people have lost entire fortunes and wrecked all kinds of stuff because of risk. Injury, probably not gonna suggest that getting stressed and depressed or anxious or panicked. Mm I'm gonna, I'm gonna say let's steer away from that one getting sick. Hmm I I'm I'm gonna suggest that that's probably shouldn't be on your list. So generally speaking, there's not a lot that most people know that can enhance your internal experience. That's unfortunate. That's really unfortunate because when your internal experience what's in, going on inside of your body is zinging super exuberant. What's going on on the outside of you will have no control over how you feel. [19:36.8]
If it does have some effect, it's minimal only because when you are on fire inside, it doesn't really matter. Especially if it's a bonfire inside, it doesn't really matter. If the wind's blowing, you'll just light everything on fire. But when all you've got on the inside is a match the wind blows it's out. And so, what, what is important is not necessarily to run around, trying to control everything in order to get rid of your worries, to micromanage everybody. It's not necessarily to keep chasing problems and looking for all these root issues that you may or may not have. None of that. What critical is that you light the fire on the inside that you build a bonfire of wellbeing inside. Now, how do you do that? I'm not gonna leave you hanging. How do you do that? The ways that I teach people to do that are with things that I didn't want to have to carry around all the time. So, your body movement can do that. Every movement can do that. If you start to explore movement, not way of stressing yourself out, when you do it, I gotta go to the gym. I gotta work out. Hold on a second. If you want to experience really powerful, wonderful sensations. Think about when you stretch and yawn in the morning, not like, oh, I gotta do my stretching. But like when you stretch and yawn, now there are some stretches that feel great, but that is a movement that feels wonderful. And it's still got tension in it, but it's a movement that feels wonderful. [20:55.3]
Have you ever like put your hand underneath like a running water and just like felt the water run over the hand and just it's about finer tuned attention to the way the body moves. Now, I taught people Tai Chi for a number of years, you know, as a certified instructor and, and Tai Chi at my Kung Fu school that I ran for a number of years. We teach them Tai Chi and Chi Gong, and I've built programs to teach people how to do some of these basic movements in order to start to create from just every movement that you make, the possibility of joy, pleasure, just removing that experience will keep you enthralled. he way that you listen to your own voice, it's the loudest voice in your life, your voice. Everyone else comes from the outside, yours resonates from the inside and the way that you pay attention to the resonance of your own voice can do things. [21:48.6]
Now, there are very, very fast ways to start to enhance how your body feels because negativity is ultimately chemical in many, many ways, chemical intention based chemical mechanical. So, we teach people, some breathing methods that do it. The ones that I've put together, we're rooted in like Wim Hof has some, some breath. And I know a lot of people have tried that he has a free app so that you can time it. It kind of teaches you some ways to do that. It's very, very simple. I have some variations that I've put on it in order to get that into the body and some different ways. And then we build on it from there to do some really, really intense things. But what I want you to note is if you want to jumpstart that inner exuberance, it doesn't take more than a few days to give yourself a jumpstart. And then it only takes some daily stuff in order to keep the maintenance up and help yourself feel good. And those types of jumpstarts are what we do with people inside of our event spaces, right? We run them through physical, physical, like deep tissue releases and lots of intense breathwork to clear out old emotions and memories and all the other gunk that's built up over time, as well as all the chemistry that's been involved in it, we're retraining their nervous system and movement to get them to relax better inside of stress situations, to get them to be more creative and open their mind to different things. And we're really pushing them through the ringer in a series of very, very calculated step by step experiences so that they get to a place where they feel absolutely incredible over the course of four days. [23:15.6]
Then when they go home, literally, it's, it's just simple things. The way that you breathe, the way that you move all of that other stuff. And if you build that consciously pretty soon, your inner exuberance, how you feel on the inside just makes it so, it doesn't matter if the outside is falling apart. You're fine. Years ago, the outside's falling apart, I would put on a happy face and I would go and do my best, but on the inside, I was frustrated and miserable. Now something unexpected happens and people ask me like, how are you doing? And I'm like, well, I, I feel wonderful. And this thing is happening that we gotta go take care of. But I feel wonderful because the inner exuberance has taken over the key to not being stressed out about stuff and still being able to function so that you can take care of it is to build an inner bonfire of wellbeing, because when you have that, and it's more than just a match that can be blown out with the slightest wind, then it doesn't matter if life blows hard on you. You'll just light it on fire anyway. [24:22.5]
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. [24:40.8]
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