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've 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.
(00:36): And welcome back to the alive and free podcast. Today. We're gonna talk a little bit about the effect of your own mind on your wellbeing, on your freedom, on your ability to experience life, even on your overall physical health. There has been for some time, and even in your own knowledge and awareness, that there's such a thing as a placebo and by placebo, we mean the Latin term, uh, form of the word. It means I will please. It's kind of a future form of the, of the verb to placate or to please. And so I will please meaning you would do something in order to please somebody else. So a placebo would be, uh, that this drug or this thing, this injection, this, whatever else that's happening inside of your system is doing it to just satisfy your mind like, oh, okay, cool. Now that I've had that, now I have permission to finally get better and let it go.
(01:28): It's almost like a person saying, they're sorry, saying, sorry, doesn't change anything about the situation, but because the person said, they're sorry, suddenly you can let go of the grudge or the resentment. So the placebo would be the drug form of an apology. How's that? And there are many of these in the medical world today, and there are tons and tons and tons of, uh, studies that have been done and incidences that have been recorded to indicate the power of placebo. Now, uh, we're talking things like placebo surgeries, so we're going way beyond sugar pills. And oh, they took a, a, a random pill that doesn't do anything in, in them. And all of a sudden they got better. We're talking like placebo surgeries, placebo, injections, anything, and everything that a person can do. Med medical professionals have tried. Researchers have tried to see if they can understand this workings of the mind.
(02:25): And when they're testing out new pharmaceuticals or new drugs, they test them against the placebo. Meaning they wanna know if this drug is providing better results than just somebody's mind being affected in some way, shape or form. Often what happens in that regard is that people hear this and they're like, oh, oh, it's not a placebo. I wanna like disabuse you of that idea for a second. The placebo effect is always in operation. Your mind is always assessing things by whether or not you think they will or won't work. And so the question isn't whether or not it's a placebo or an effective drug, it's a question. The only question they're actually trying to answer is whether or not the substances in the, in the prescription or in the drug or whatever it is, are doing something above and beyond what the placebo is doing for the average person.
(03:16): But there's a recognition that the placebo effect is always a given. You are always going through your life. And when you believe something to be negative, then all of a sudden your body responds as if it's negative and you get negative emotions and, and all kinds of other things. There was a story about a man. I, I may have shared this on the podcast before, who was, um, he was walking through the Bush. He said, so he is from Australia or New Zealand, I think. And he was headed out to the, to the beach or something. And he got pegged by a twig. And then all of a sudden, by the time he got to the beach, uh, he passed out and he woke up in the hospital that twig that had like scratched him or poked him, actually turned out to be one of the more poisonous snakes on the island.
(03:56): And he had come out barely alive and barely survived. So another time he's going through the Bush and he gets scratched by a twig and he flips out and he passes out and he has to come to later. And it's only because his body thought that bit of stimulus was in fact, another snake bite. When in that time it was actually just a twig. So his body had produced at least temporarily the effects of a snake bite, simply because of his utter conviction. That that's what exactly had happened. This happens in politics. This happens, uh, across the globe in all kinds of different things, even with your bank account and your finances with things that you think are hard or easy, suddenly they are hard or easy just depending on your assessment and your approach to them, which should be an indication that maybe it's worth your time to consider how you talk and how you think about things.
(04:51): This is one of the things we harp on with, uh, the clients we work with and we show them ways to kind of cut through the way they've looked at stuff so that they can be freed of faulty assumptions and begin to see things as, as clearly as they can for what they really are. So it's not about challenging beliefs that are reflections of the truth. It's about challenging everything and getting rid of all the assumptions that are untrue so that all you're left with is the truth about reality. So in some ways, this kind of challenging your thought process, isn't about, um, disabusing you or changing faith or anything it's about helping you see the truth more clearly. And if your faith is true, then it should also reaffirm that in some really, really powerful ways, because then you'll have a deeper perception of it.
(05:37): So, as we're talking about this, and we're going through this notion of placebo, I wanna give you a story in 1957, a psychiatrist by the name of Bruno club fur was summoned, uh, to look for his expertise and to look at some, um, documents and some, some research that had been done on patients, cancer patients, some of whom had, had been patients inside of a mental institution. Some of whom had been patients just in the normal population and the people who were researching. It found something really bizarre. What they found was that for some odd reason, cancer growth was far less for the patients that were patient, um, residents of a mental asylum, or people dealing with schizophrenia and other stuff than, than the cancer growth in the regular population and, and your normal citizens of the planet. And they couldn't account for why that would be the case.
(06:34): What is it about mental patients, uh, or people suffering from mental illnesses, quote unquote, because that term itself, uh, is one that needs to be, uh, reassessed, but what is it about them that makes it so that cancer grows more slowly or goes into remission or whatever? Not at all much, much more commonly than it does in the regular population. So they called in a psychiatrist, somebody who deals with mental illnesses and he's like, look, I am not a medical professional. I have no clue why cancer is growing this way. That's not what I study. I'm studying the mind only. They said, okay, we just wanna get some insight here. We have these roar shock ink block tests. Uh, could you take a look at them? Now, those of you who don't know what that is, this is basically a holdover from, and I think they still do them.
(07:23): Um, but a holdover from early psychiatric attempts to understand the, the inner workings of a human're subconscious whatever's going on, the associations they have in their mind. So what they would do is put, uh, certain like blots of ink on a piece of paper, and they would make certain designs out of 'em that were somewhat randomized. And they would show a patient, these ink blot patterns, and the patient would just by free association, just the first thing that comes to mind, they would name and based on the associations they were having, and based on the things they would name, then the psychiatrist would kind of deduce something about their personality, their character possible traumas. They were going through or possible limitations, et cetera, et cetera. And so they said they had these for all of these patients. Part of the testing they had done was to assess them with this ink blo testing.
(08:11): And so Bruno club fir the doctor goes in and he assesses the situation. And as he's looking at the situation, uh, he just looks at the, the tests that have been given and he devises a way of like assessing their personalities. And what he notes is that there is one common thread among the personalities of those who have fast cancer growth versus those who don't. And so, as he sees this pattern, he's like, Hmm, let's test this. So he had made this assessment based on a small number of the patients. And so then they gave him the rest of the patient records and based only on their ink blood tests, just that he made a prediction about whether or not they would have fast growing cancer or slow growing cancer. And it turns out that in, with different batches of, of patients, he was anywhere from 75 to 90% accurate with his predictions, just based on an assessment of personality, based on answers, given to random pictures of dots on a page, isn't that remarkable?
(09:16): So what was the common thread? The common thread between all of these different cases and all of these different studies was his follows the people he said that were busy, trying to live up to other people's expectations and being a good person. Those were the people who had the fastest rates of cancer growth, those who, who didn't care, what other people think and who were busy, simply being themselves. Those were the people who had the slowest rates of cancer growth. Let me repeat that or say it in another way, those who were more worried about what other people think of them about measuring up and being good enough were those who had the fastest rates of cancer growth, those who didn't care, either the ones that were well adjusted in society. And didn't really, it didn't really bother them. They were living their life happy to be who they were or those who were utterly psychotic and were sociopaths and deal with it.
(10:14): Folks, I'm just having a good time being me, you know, or off their rocker in some way, shape or form. And so far gone that their concerns about whether, what other people think about them. Weren't a concern. Those were people who had the slowest rates of cancer growth. Now the doctor club for, or whatever you call a psychiatrist, I'm assuming it's doctor, uh, his, his theory about this was that there's basically so much energy that you have to run through your life. Think about it. Every thought you have is a firing of electricity in your body. That means there's a there's energy that is used up and ATP molecules are used up. And then they have byproducts and waste products that are then shunted out into the brain. And as that energy from those chemical reactions is, is used up. Then there's not, then there's more energy that's needed and so on.
(11:02): So every thought you have is a leakage of energy. Every tension pattern, muscle Twitch you have is a leakage of energy or a using of energy. Every, uh, organ function, you have uses energy to a certain extent, and you can optimize these it's, it's not a big deal, but understanding this at its basic core, every function inside of a waking and sleeping, but waking human life is a use of energy in some way, shape or form. So his thought process was that there's some limited amount of vital energy that each human has. It may not be the same for each human and the am. If the amount of that energy that is wasted on trying to measure up and worrying about what other people think means that that energy is no longer available for the healing of the body. And so the body can't deal with foreign invasions, attackers and all that other stuff.
(11:50): Now, whether or not that theory is accurate is a different question. But if you just take it as a common sense sort of approach, considering that every amount of thought and energy you put into trying to keep up appearances is an amount of energy of thought. And, uh, is an amount of thought and energy that cannot be used toward healing the body. Then this starts to make sense. What do we do when people are sick? We have them rest. We put them in bed. We don't have them go out and exercise. We feed them liquid food. So their body doesn't have to work so hard at digestion. Uh, uh, we, we shut off the lights. We make sure there's less stimulus. There's so many things we do for a person who is under the weather so that they can convalesce. And in a sense that frees up the energy of the body to be able to do that, if you or someone, you know, is looking to drop the FBO 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 want some help doing it. Head on over to the freedom specialist.com/feel better now 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.
(13:11): What's fascinating about this in a very real way is how much most of us are concerned about what other people think we think about ourselves. And so we wander through our life trying to measure up to what our parents expect of us, to what society expects of us, to what religion expects of us, to what politics express of us and, and the community at large and the neighbors and our friends to what our boss expects. And we spend so much thought and energy, not only just doing the basic actions required, but worrying about it, that most of us are making ourselves sick. So whether there's a pandemic going on, whether it's a simple, cold or a flu, how much healthier would you be if you were no longer spending your energy, worrying about what other people think, how much healthier could you be? How much more energy and motivation could you have to do the things you care about in life, if simply your worry about what other people think went away now, why is it that we worry about what other people think?
(14:17): Why is it that we care so much? When, what other people think doesn't really amount to much. Most of the time, it doesn't really have any bearing on our life. Most of the time people could be thinking about me right now. You could be thinking about me right now, and it doesn't have any bearing on my life unless I start considering it. And then all of a sudden my own energy is caught up in it. So the question then becomes, why do we worry about this so much? Well, think about it when you were born. It's not because you were traumatized that you're worried about what other people think, trauma or negative events or intense events in a person's life can make them more heightened about this, but have you ever worried about what other people think you're gonna get up on stage to give a talk or do a dance?
(15:01): And you worry about an audience. You, uh, you do a project for your teacher, or you do a drawing for your parents and you wonder, Hey mom, what do you think about this? We've trained it in our youth from the time they were born to worry about what it is that we think. And in some ways that was very wise, but we forgot to untrain them from it because we were never untrained from it. See what your parents think is very, very important. When you're a little kid who has no thought process of their own and who is high intent, 100% dependent upon them for survival. Then what your parents think is, is critical and crucial. And when they yell at you for crossing the street, they're, they're looking out for your wellbeing. And when they're showing you how to interact in society, they're looking out for your wellbeing.
(15:48): But as you grow and you start to have thought processes of your own and observations of your own, what starts to happen is when you do something or I do something that your parents or friends or neighbors or teachers don't like, then they tend to tell you about it. Or they tried to correct you. And they often that comes with some sort of negative emotion. So to avoid the negative emotion, we learn to start reading people. What is it that this person wants? What do they not want? Cool. Will they be okay with this? Will they not be okay with this? And we start to worry and make ourselves feel a little bit negative in response to it. We stress out about what other people think or don't think I have a family member who loves to serve people, but stresses out. I have several family members who do this, but stresses themselves out in when they're trying to serve people, they love to cook food for them.
(16:41): They love to serve in some way, shape or form. They love to, to make things they love to do so many of these things that just to, to just provide a good experience or to have a good time among the family. And as they're doing it, their concerns about how it's gonna come across and whether or not people are gonna like it start to show up as well. That's not because they're a bad person. That's not because they're stupid. That's not because they're some way in some way, shape or form defective. It's because they've been trained. They have trained themselves and been trained by others to care. What other people think to the extent that it now starts to weigh on them. And it now starts to poison their system. And it starts to create a stress response on the inside, even when they're doing something that they love.
(17:26): And if that's the way you're working with your system, it's gonna deteriorate over time and you will find yourself more susceptible, not just to ailments or diseases like colds and flus and whatnot, possibly to injuries, but definitely to even autoimmune diseases. And I have seen these show up in these people's lives. So then how do we get rid of this? Worry about what other people think and the answer that I found that has worked over and over, and again, for so many different people boils down to being able to see what's really going on, as opposed to what we think is going on. See right from the beginning, we've been trained that thoughts are more significant and more valuable and more important than life itself. I know you wouldn't say that in a common sense situation, but consider it. You wake up and your parents are teaching.
(18:14): You sounds and ideas to refer to things. This is a spoon. This is a plate. This is a fork, good job, all this other stuff. And they want you to respond to the sounds that are coming outta their mouth. And they want you to respond to the words they write on a page and the ideas that they have in their head more than they want you to respond to and perceive what is actually going on in reality. And as a result, we filter out all the information about nature and about life and about what's going on inside of our own bodies, because we've been trained to only focus on things associated with ideas, doctrines, teachings, beliefs, news articles, um, uh, degrees books, uh, the latest fad, uh, you name it, you know, Facebook posts like we've been, we've been taught to care about certifications and, uh, credentials and all of those things, and to hold them above a perception of what is really going on.
(19:11): So to get back out of that hole, to get back out of that trap requires developing the ability to perceive what is actually happening for the last couple episodes. I've been talking about interception, proprioception, these other human senses. Um, but even just the main five senses that people refer to these themselves are a gateway to seeing what's really going on for instance, oh, my mom doesn't like me, or she doesn't like what I'm doing. Or my mom is really upset with me. Hold on. Let's look at what's really going on. Is she actually upset with you? Your, your intuition might say, yes, she's upset. I did something. And then she freaked out in some way, shape or form. And my mom's not upset with me right now. So this is just a, a, an example, a hypothetical situation, right? So I did something and then she freaked out.
(20:02): Is that really what happened? Start to train your perception a little bit, look at it. You did something that much is, is true. She then saw that you did that thing. She then decided with in her own mind that that was not a good thing that produced a negative feeling within her system. She didn't like the negative feeling and didn't know how to get rid of it, because maybe she hasn't been trained to get rid of it in any way, shape or in one way, shape or another. And so then she looked to find the cause of it and mistook you for the cause of her own feeling. But if she had been unconscious of what you had done unconscious, while you did, or unconscious of it and not aware her whole life, she would never have been upset with you, even if you had done the thing.
(20:55): So is it that she's upset with you or is it that she has a worldview that doesn't match what's actually going on and she's upset with that? She doesn't think she can handle that. And so she's felt negativity and she's pointing at you because she's just trying to get it out of her own body. And when you look at it that way, can you actually see that the person is upset with you at all? If you think through your entire life, have you ever seen another human being upset with you or have they only been upset with the circumstances? Because if they were upset with you, then they would have to be upset from the day you were born till now, if you were the cause of their upsetness, but no, that it's a circumstance and funny, even the same circumstance feels different in them, depending on how they've been handling their inner life.
(21:38): And what's been going on before and after. So it's not even the circumstance they're upset with. Ultimately they're feeling negative and they're trying to find a way to feel positive. And the only tools they've had in their belt to date have been to blame somebody else to try and get an apology, to try and get someone else to change the circumstances because they don't know how to change it because they think that they need things to be different for them to be happy. Uh, I recently saw an older, um, audition for, I think it was the X factor or something where a lady came up. Um, her name is night bird, uh, her singing name, name, I think her, her regular name is Jane. And she auditioned. And the song she sang was an original song called it's. Okay. And it was about the last year of her life.
(22:22): They found the judges when they found out about this, you know, they were asking her questions. They found out she'd had cancer for a while and that she still had cancer in her spine and in her liver and in one other area, uh, maybe in her lungs or something, and that she wasn't really a hundred percent healthy and that she was there to audition anyway. And she's, you know, it's, she wanted to be sure that people don't define her by some of the things that are going on in her body. That she's so much more than that. So she sings this song. It's a be, it was a beautiful song, an absolutely incredible courageous, wonderful, gorgeous song. And maybe it's the context that made it. But I definitely had tears in my eyes while I was there watching it. And Simon call at the end, the notorious, you know, kind of straight shooter that people love to hate.
(23:09): He, uh, he was just taken aback by it. It really got to him. And he's like the way you just so casually talked about what's going on with you. And she said, you know, you can't wait until everything is perfect in your life before you decide to be happy. And it was just a shocker. You could see it on Simon. Call's face his response to that where it just really hit home. But that in that was a, a very recognition that how you feel isn't dependent upon your outside circumstances. And if you really wanna be free of the tyranny of what other people think, it's time you started to realize and practice seeing that a person who's upset with you is actually just a person who is creating upsetness inside themselves. They're masters at it, just like you are at times. And they're just trying to find a way out.
(23:57): And it isn't about you at all. And it never was not a single time that a person has become upset has been about you. They themselves have a worldview that has been rattled because it doesn't match the outside circumstances. And they're clinging to their thoughts as if they're more important. So they're still trying to hold to their belief that the world needs to be different. And as a result pain, the more suffering you feel like the bigger, the difference between the outside reality and your thoughts about reality, the greater, the amount of suffering you will experience, or the greater amount of surprise you will experience as well and excitement. So people sometimes cling to their beliefs because then they get to experience things as miraculous because it's outside of their worldview. So then they feel special and they get to feel special because something that they don't believe is possible now starts to happen.
(24:45): You can start to be free of all this suffering and all of this being jerked around by life circumstances, by simply learning to see what's really going on. This is something we teach. This is something we practice with our clients. This is something I've been practicing for years and years and years, it does take practice. And I've got methods that I've created to help people jumpstart this practice, but it starts simply with backing down to your senses. What do you actually see going on back down to your perception? What would absolutely have to be true in order for their, this, their upset with me to be accurate? It would have to be that just your presence is making it happen and it would have to happen all the time, but that's not what's happening. Which means that there has to be another thing happening. And the more you are aware of, and it can actually perceive it, not just think it, but can actually perceive it, which is a whole different skillset.
(25:31): Suddenly the tyranny of other people's opinions will drive will just disappear. And on top of it, your health will improve. And maybe you won't be a cancer subject, or maybe you won't be as susceptible to other diseases because your fear of what other people think will have gone away. And that's it for today's alive and free podcast. If you enjoyed this show and want some more freedom bombs landing in your earbuds, subscribe right now at wherever you get your podcast 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.
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