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 for another edition of The Alive and Free Podcast. Today I wanna talk a little bit about a couple weeks ago, maybe it was a month ago or more ago, I talked about the notion of need. And I spoke particularly around Ellie Tom een, one of my teachers, and the fact that he's been without food or water for a long period of time. Well, I went and actually trained with the dude. I've been training with him online for some period of time cuz he's a nomad and it's currently walking barefoot across half of Africa or whatever else. But he was in the States for a couple weeks and I went and met up with him in Sedona, Arizona and trained with him for a full week, solid week, just seven, eight hours a day. Well, it was a lot longer. We were hanging for a long period of time.
(01:22): I watched him like a hawk. I was sitting there, I wanna see what's going on with him and I wanna see how he interacts and I wanna see how he thinks and responds to issues so I can understand his way of thinking and what his experience might be. He never flinched around food. Food. He treated food like that we were had around as if it were furniture. It was something that he needed to navigate his way around. But there was no mouthwatering stuff. I never saw him go to the bathroom. . I never watched any sense of needing to get a drink or snacks being smuggled in anywhere. I mean, the dude was legit and his approach to life was very different. So as we're doing all of this training, and a lot of it is just really subtle sensitivity training, it's building this sense of the life that we talked about last week, this flowing, gushing energy of life inside the system in such a way that it starts to sustain your body on its own.
(02:15): And I could feel that happening. But what was fascinating was on the second to last day, there was, or maybe it was the last morning, it was the last morning I was there, we were sitting there and we were doing this kind of seated, meditative process, just feeling into things. And I had this very, very distinct sense of my whole body being charged up like a battery, but totally satisfied. And I hadn't eaten anything in a long time and I wasn't thirsty. And he just made a remark. He said that this is the source of your life. Food is not the source of your life. This is the source of your life. Pay attention to it. What you need is this. And food may be one way that people attempt to get it, but this is what is actually making your body get up and go.
(03:05): And as I thought about that afterwards, it was so powerful because afterwards I was like, yeah, but I want to go have this drink. I was heading outta town and there was a special little juicery there and they had some cool little berry milks and stuff. And so I went and got some. And I noticed that that feeling inside me started to diminish when I had some food. And I was like, wait a second. This is different for me to note that I feel slightly less alive, slightly dimmer, slightly less aware, slightly less perceptive, the more food I put in my belly. I thought about food comas and how the more you put in your belly, the more you just pass out because it is a tax on the system to have to digest things. And is there some return on the investment? Sure.
(03:50): So I started to think, well what about clay? If I made a little clay sculpture, I take the mud and I put it together and it's this kind of wet clay thing, the water being the life that's in it, right? As that water dries up, then the clay sculpture starts to crack and then crumble and eventually it falls apart. So one way to add more water is to add more mud because there's water in the mud. And so I might get some more, but it's not the dirt itself that's making the thing kind of moist and stay there. It's the water inside the dirt. And could I go directly to the source, to a water source and not have to add more dirt to it in order to keep it moist? Or if you think of a robot that has all these metal parts and then it has this power source, this battery, and that thing needs to be charged in order for the robot to get up and go.
(04:39): It's not adding more metal parts, which is what your body is. You've taken dirt from the ground and your body has formed that into a human system. It's not adding more fat and more protein and more amino acids that actually powers the thing. Or we could stuff food into a dead body and it would get up and go, there's something else. And so this idea that there is a life inside of me and that food is no longer just, it's no longer the source of life. The one thing that we worship , if you go down main street, the one thing that everybody on the planet is totally okay with, they're good being polytheists when it comes to food. There's all of the restaurants as temples to the different food Gods one day will worship at the Puerto Rican temple the next day, the Mexican, the next day, the Italian temple.
(05:26): And then we'll hit the mariachi band afterwards and think about all the things that our life revolves around food and how much worship there is in the sense of time and energy is spent attention to and focusing on and applauding and longing for and wishing for when it comes to food, when really that's just a way that we're trying to get at this, whatever the source of life is that's coming toward us. And as I consider that, I just thought, man, I didn't realize the distinction between them. So food then started to become not the source of life, not fuel necessarily. Though I'm not food free by any stretch of the imagination at the moment. Maybe it'll happen, we'll see. But that food really is an experience just like sex is an experience, just like drugs are an experience, just so many other things are an experience. And so then the question then started to hit at me within what am I pouring my life into? I have been pouring this beautiful experience of life into food to have experiences. And that's not wrong, that's not bad, but it's challenged me to become more intentional. And that's where shortly after that Lee and I were getting together and he's here again.
(06:35): Hello there. Yeah, he'll be here for the next couple episodes cuz we're recording him all at once. And that's the way it goes. And so he's like, I just watched this documentary on minimalism and I think you ought to talk. You would really appreciate it, whatnot. And so I'm gonna have him talk a little bit about that because then it's sort of intersected with this notion of intentional living, A front end recommended the middle list documentary. And I'm in a transition right now where I am trying to sell my house. And if you remember a number of podcasts back now, probably in April or May, Bob talking about cleaning out the garage. And that was about me cleaning out my garage. But I'm in the place now where I am Getting rid of his garage,
(07:21): Getting rid of the garage and asking the question of what am I holding onto? And really, there's a really challenging part of the minimalist documentary where it is talking about mindless consumerism and how we just consume, especially as Americans, we just consume, consume, consume. And it was either in the documentary or in their TED talk where they're talking about America consumes seven times as much as the next, I don't know if it was the rest of the world or the next nation or something, I'm misquoting it. But suffice it to say is that we consume a whole lot more than everybody else. And I'm looking at the stuff that I have at my house and the stuff that I've gotten rid of and just my connection to all this stuff. And I'm just having this moment of I'm shocked by how unintentionally I'm living or have lived at certain points in my life.
(08:21): Certainly a lot of that has changed recently. But just asking myself the question of what would it look like if I lived intentionally with the things that I consumed just stuff for the house or for clothes or whatever. And then as Bob and I spent some time together, we were gassing up to leave on a road trip and Bob's walking down the aisle where all the nuts and candies and candy bars and chips and sunflower seeds and all those things are at. And he has his hand out and he is just kind of taking a re and what's there. And I'm like, that was a whole different level of intentionality that I'd never thought of. And maybe you wanna speak to what that looks like for you as what you're doing and how you're interacting with the space around you. But that type of intentional living is something that I am taking a look at and trying to say, okay, what am I putting into my body? What am I bringing into my house? What am I putting into my mind? And it's kind of fun to see where this is gonna
(09:24): Go. So some of that intentionality came from, or what I was doing there came from a lot of the sensitivity development that I've done since I was 16. I started training in Tai chi and Chiang and meditation work for a long time. And ultimately if you get rid of all the cultural labels and all of the lingo that's associated with it, what you end up with is what are we developing? We're developing all of the nine human senses. So not just the external ones, but the internal ones. And I don't really know anybody talking about this in this way. Most of them end up talking about it in this sort of like, well, let's go over to the eastern world and let's pretend that their culture is better than ours and we shall adopt their robes and use their lingo and then we shall come back and tell the western world that they all suck .
(10:13): And I don't appreciate that because I don't think that there's any one culture that is right, but rather that all of us are humans and that there is some wisdom to be gained everywhere. But all of them are pointing back to direct, natural, tangible experience in a human body. And so as I developed over time this sensitivity, and especially with my experience with to this notion that my life, the feeling of life inside me can be dimmed or brightened depending on what I engage with. I had my hand out going, if I just wave my hand over something, I can kind of feel whether or not it feels heavy or light. I can do it without waving my hand over it. I can just think about something and my body will feel heavier or light. And that often has to do with this sort of, if you ask me, and there's no research on this.
(10:58): So I'm trying to piece this together based on my own deep experience as well as what lingo is out there in a sort of more scientific way. But I would suggest that it's possibly the electromagnetic field of the heart. That's the one that extends the furthest out from the body and it navigates electromagnetic fields. So it gives certain people like a sense of direction. The people that you can stick in a room and spin 'em around blindfolded and they'll always know which way north is. That is a sense of direction, but that's a sense around mag electromagnetic fields. And then you can also sense when some might be thicker or denser or heavier or have a different kind of sense to them. And when danger might be coming, it is the field that is the farthest from the body. If you read in the Heart Math Institute and it can detect certain things and kind of guide you towards your life. Is this possibly the way that the law of attraction works? I don't know. There's a lot of questions around it. So I was just reaching my hand out and being like, does this feel like it's gonna drain me or not? And every time it felt like it was heavy, I was just, as much as my nostalgia was like, oh yeah, I remember those peach gummies .
(12:09): My body was like this is what it's gonna feel like when we eat those. It's going, your body's gonna drag a little bit more. And I just didn't want that experience. That doesn't mean that experience is bad, but that was not an experience I wanna pour my life into anymore. Do I still pour my life into some experiences with who? Yes. But that kind of intentionality was there because I've just like what kind of experience of life do I want? And so that's what was going on there. Yeah, we've talked a little bit about pizza as I have done, tried to tune in more to what my body is saying and what the lack of intentionality has done. And as I tune into being more intentional, we picked up pizza, which I love and My body. Me too, me too, me too. My body also struggles from time to time with gluten and with cheeses and depending on what, who made it and where it's from, it can have a different effect. But when we brought the pizzas into my truck immediately my joints starting to ache. And it was so obvious to me that the only thing that had changed was that the pizza had come into the truck but then we got to your house and I ate pizza , so I chose to do that.
(13:24): Did your joints ache afterwards? A little bit, but I also had this sense of my body being like, okay, you or you do us, whatever that is. And also had this sense of how long is my body going to tell me what I really need to know if I'm not paying attention to it? In that situation, I knew that it would impact my body, but I did it anyway and that I wasn't intentionally trying to harm myself. But there was a part of it that I was like, I'm choosing to have the aches. I'm choosing to have the cloudiness in my head. I know that sugar, if I eat sugar, I can tell there's either a depressive or there's certainly a lot of more anxiety around it around my life and every interaction. If I eat sugar, how long am I going to live this way and not choose health or choose a better experience? If you or someone 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 want some help doing it, 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.
(15:06): It seems like, because I started this business a number of years ago and it was around helping people with very specific problems. And I keep trying to sidestep 'em away from that because all of the specific problems they're dealing with are just symptoms of not being in touch with the life that is in them and not knowing how to allow space for that to grow. And so as a result, it gets squeezed off and they end up either with mental health issues or physical health issues, usually both because they're connected, even if it doesn't present physical symptoms, your physical symptoms of depression are a real feeling in your body. They just might not be labeled with a disease yet other than a mental health disease. And if you haven't had a diagnosis yet, that doesn't mean that your body isn't in pain. And so everything that I've been teaching is to try and get people back in touch with that piece that's in them and to give them practices and ways to do that, to alleviate the tensions that are there that are numbing them from that sense.
(16:05): Because in a very real way, I got out of touch with it and started to rely on outside authorities to tell me what the best thing for my body was and to tell me what the best thing for my life was. And I really steer people away from this. I tell them to challenge me at every turn. I tell them that I cannot be the author of their life and authority, that they need to be the author because if I'm the author, then they're just gonna have to suffer whatever the heck I say. And some people do that for a while and they're like, oh, well Bob's doing this so I have to do this, I guess, or I'll be doing this later. And I'm like, no, because your life is unique. The genius that is in you is unique, is one of a kind.
(16:45): It may, there's nothing that's gonna show up again it seems and hasn't been here before. And we have to nourish that genius and the thing that knows it best and knows exactly what's gonna be best for that nourishment is your system, your body or your, it's giving you all the information you need. And the thing is, we just didn't grow up in a society that taught us to tune into that, to pay attention to that and to actually take action on it when it shows up. And so pretty soon we're, we've developed all of these tension patterns and tightnesses like loud background noise makes it difficult to hear the whispers of the system when you're in a dance hall with blurring music and all your friends are head banging, , jumping up and down and screaming and yelling and having a great time, but not being able to hear some of the subtler things of life and the places where ease lives, the places where you can get in touch with the deep well of your being otherwise known as your wellbeing.
(17:43): And that's the place that I try to work to get people to experience and feel. And that's why we do both the physical retreats and the online stuff. The online stuff's great. It starts to build that sense of wellbeing on the inside, and yet there's so much noise still inside of a person that needs help, needs direction, sometimes needs, especially from I needed it. I went through all kinds of stuff to find it and other people do. And that's there as you reduce the noise that's inside your physical body and being discomfort and tension, and as you start to commit yourself to what would actually take care of this body that has taken care of me for so long. It's not just that you'll feel healthier and younger and leak and speak to that a little bit, but it's that your own intuition about the best way to move your life will start to open up and miraculous, seemingly miraculous and magical things just start happening around you almost without you trying. It's just you just start to notice that this life is something of a fairytale life and you're doing nothing other than paying attention to the system that you live in and treating yourself with better care.
(18:53): Yeah, I mean, it is almost, I regret that this is so much about food because it seems so much larger. And at the same time, when I found out who you were and found you on Facebook and started doing the coursework and just consuming all of that and then came to a retreat, what I learned and what was challenged at the retreat changed and impacted almost immediately how I handled food. Like I said, it's so much larger than food, but I didn't cognitively choose to change my diet. I didn't make a meal plan, I didn't do anything like that. But within four or five months after the retreat, I had lost 30 pounds. It was just gone. But it was because I wasn't using food to charge the system in the same way that I was before. And I, I'm at a point where I heard this last summer that the feeling of a full stomach feels like love.
(19:59): And I'm able to look back at that my a hundred pounds heavier now self and be like, bless you, because you survived food served a purpose and that was the help me feel loved. And I know that there's more now and that lifestyle isn't sustainable, but at a hundred pounds lighter at this point, a year and a half or almost two years after that retreat, I feel like I've gained so much more life. I feel like I'm 20 years younger and there's all this, we're in this journey. I feel like we've lost something because of the things that we've gone through and I feel like I'm regaining so much. And some of that is around food and so much more of it's about intentionality
(20:47): As well. But consider why, I mean, we'll get to some more intentionality around other things here toward the end, but consider why food is there. I mean, when you're born, food is the thing that solves your uncomfortable cries, , it brought people to you. So it created emotional connection with other people and attention and awareness so that you didn't feel alone. So it solved loneliness, it solved discomfort after eating sometimes where you were sucking on something like a binky or a pacifier and something. So when you were emotionally distressed, it became the place of social engagements. It became the way, think about it. We go on dates like, okay, I wanna meet a girl and we're gonna go out and do something. What is generally the space? Or if you're a girl and you're gonna meet a guy, generally you go out for some activity and food and Oh, we're gonna meet.
(21:40): You guys wanna meet up for lunch, you wanna meet up for dinner? The entire society is built around food in so many different ways. And so it's natural that concepts around food would change. As you start to be more powered up and your emotional stuff needs are met, then your hunger will also disappear because hunger isn't na all the time generated by actual nutritional deficiency. I will say here that food is needed in for at least a phase of life because that's what your body's made out of. So we're not suggesting that no child should be left behind in terms of food. What we're suggesting is that food is not the source of your life. It is not the thing that gets you up out of bed, meaning it powering your life and powering your brain and stuff. It is an experience you're having that can bring some more life to you.
(22:26): But because a lot of people are living in this really draining way, and so what we would call healthier food is food that drains you less. And then at a certain point, then you find some food that drains you less. And then at a certain point you find some that drains you less until maybe one day you decide maybe, maybe food isn't what I wanna feed on. And this kind of approach to life isn't about going without food, it's about really going to the source of power, the source of life to sustain your life. That man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word, aka. A word is just a reverberation. And many of those ancient words that get translated as the word of God literally refer to some kind of active principle. So if you think about energy in the universe as so the word or the emanation from God, then you're not gonna live by bread alone, but by every emanation or reverberation that comes from the mouth of God or the source of God or from the source of life.
(23:25): And maybe it's not about going without food, it's about going with better food. And then maybe that better food ceases to look like food to normal people. But it's really this flow of beautiful sensation in your system. And that can also come from different activities that we do. There are some activities that are draining all of you know what it's like to have an argument , and there are some activities that feel energizing that build you up. There are some things in your house that when you look at them, you're like, oh. And then there are others that when you look at them, you're like, whoa, I love this thing. And that's where years ago I did the Marie Kondo thing. Go through the house, find your, go through all your clothes, go through all your pictures, go through everything that you own and just touch it and see does this spark joy in me?
(24:14): And that's a mainstream way that people have done the same thing I was doing in that gas station, which is hovering my hand over something and seeing does this actually make me feel more alive? And you can do that with activities. If you look at your calendar and you see certain things on your calendar, do you dread them? That's an activity, at least the way that you're doing that activity that is draining life from you. It's not bad. Taxes currently are a thing you gotta do, and they provide when you do them, they provide time for you out of jail, so that you can have other life things. So it's not bad to have things that necessarily drain you, but the question is, how are you charging your life up? And are you spending more time draining your battery than charging your battery?
(24:58) Yeah, I mean I'm following a nutritional plan right now and trying to get better. And part of that does not allow for coffee creamer. And there are days that I have coffee creamer because it serves a purpose for me. There's a certain amount of comfort for me, and I'm okay with that. I get to intentionally choose what am I gonna do and choose the benefits or the negative aspects of as well. But it's like I'm thinking about people that might be listening to this and might be overweight or might have issues with food. And if you are hearing this is as a way to condemn eating, that's not the case at all. It's an invitation to say, really with everything. And food is part of that. What do I want to invite into my life? And is the ramifications of that also what I want?
(25:59): Yeah. So as we close off today, then talking about this notion of living intentionally, I just invite you maybe to have a question in your mind, what am I pouring my life into today? What do I want to pour my life into? And when you're in the middle of an activity, ask yourself, is this something I still wanna pour my life into? That isn't a question of moral right and wrong, and I want that to be as clear as possible because everybody has their different beliefs on that. And if you do have a belief about moral right or wrong, likely any activity that infringes on something that is right and makes you feel in the wrong, we'll feel like a drain on your system. And so that's what I want you to be aware of. Do I want to continue pouring my life into this?
(26:43): And if you don't know how to get out of that rut, that's what I'm here for. That's what we help people with. That's one of the things that we help people with. So it's not like you necessarily have to know, or you're gonna automatically be somebody who has just transcended and become an ascended master and is in touch with all the things that all these people in all these traditions talk about. It starts with an awareness. It starts with acknowledging what's there and recognizing that you are pouring your life into everything you do everywhere you go. And so then stop to stop for a second and go like, I'm pouring my life into this feeling of depression. I'm pouring my life into this feeling of resenting my wife for doing X, Y, and Z. I'm pouring my life into being irritated at my children. I'm pouring my life into hating driving and traffic.
(27:30): Instead of loving it, I'm pouring my life into listening to agitating news and anxiety driven politics, and I'm pouring my life in, or I'm pouring my life into this cereal or this particular food item. I'm pouring my life into everything. Is it serving me? Is it helping me feel more charged up more in touch with that living experience of flowing life beneath your skin? Or is it draining? Do I get done at the end of the day and feel like I've got nothing left? And so I just turn on a television to unwind, which the television is actually drawing life from me because it's demanding that my visual cortex and my senses pick up information, process them and pour them out into an experience. Have I drained myself so much that all the energy I have left is to sit on the couch and watch television?
(28:17): Have I drained myself of life so much that all the energy I have left is to stay at home while others are out having adventures and doing the things that I want? Have I drained myself of energy so much that I've resigned myself to years and years and decades and decades of working in a job that I dislike just for security purposes? And none of those are wrong. None of those are necessarily bad. What I'm asking you to look at is what are you pouring your life into? Because you don't get this life back, you don't get the seconds. You've listened to this podcast back. Do you still wanna keep listening to me? Is it really worth it? ? Do you still wanna keep listening to the other people that drag you down? That doesn't mean you have to hate them. It's not about hating what drags you down. It's about consciously choosing what builds you up. What are you pouring your life into? Do you wanna keep pouring your life into that? What else could you pour your life into? What else could you entertain yourself with that naturally leads you to a more abundant sense of being alive?
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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