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, wheelchair 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.
(0:34) And welcome back to The Live and free podcasts, you know, Lee had this idea, and I'm gonna blame it on him. Nice. The book that I wrote that is out on Amazon right now see it, get it installs now for you? Don't Amazon, it's called built for freedom. It's by yours truly, Bob Gardner. And it's an audible and paperback versions. And there's a lot that goes on to it took me about a year to write and he thought, what if we did like a book club, and we just like break down the chapter. And then of course, I took it further and then surprised him with it. We're doing it today. So so we're gonna start that and some of the rest of the team is here. Jeff is here as well. Yo, yo, what up? I'm Jeff. As well as Tucker. How's it going, guys? And, and so as I was so sultry, how's it going, guys?
(1:26) It's his late night FM radio voice. And so we're gonna break down a few things in each chapter over the next 10 weeks 10 adventures in the book, each one is called an adventure. And this first adventure is a docked on the radar. And I figured you know, Lee could take it from here. Well, I mean, I think we should back up just a little bit, like, say more about why did you write the book? Ai? Whoo, that's a good question. Tucker and I had been talking about this for a while. And I had had this thought in my head for a long time that I wanted, I felt like there needed to be a way to like I had been explaining the same thing over and over and over again, so many other people and, and I also realized that the way we operate isn't the cheapest thing in the world, like in order to be able to have one on one time and attention and to run retreats. Like this is a little bit of an investment for people. And I wanted to find a way to have it accessible so that those that could benefit from just a book format, or something that was really inexpensive could do that. And those that really felt like they needed the extra attention or wanted the extra attention to explore these things. The other stuff that we do is available as well. So did you have anything else with that
(2:33) one, I think kind of looking at early on when Bob and I first discussed the idea of a book for me, it just felt like this brilliant idea. Because I often had people ask me, what do you do? What do you do for work? What does your business partner do? What are you guys doing? What are these retreats, you know, that you've been talking about? And I think he gave a pretty generic answer. But it felt like we needed something more substantial. And so I started talking to my parents and family and friends a little bit more in depth about what it was we're doing and just thought like, man, if we had something that kind of covered the range of like all of this incredible stuff that we've been doing inside of the retreat space, the online programs that we just handed someone, if you really want to know what we're doing really look at this for yourself and explore this, then here's something that will give you a really good sense of what that looks like.
(3:26) Yeah. And it also became a way I think for as we were talking about it a way to like the people that have come to retreats, they don't know how to describe this, they don't know how to explain it. It's like it's experience. It's an experience beyond average normal day life. And they got to go home and talk to their family about it. And all they talk about are these weird, odd little bits and pieces that don't make any coherent sense of the family. And they're like, then their parents look at him weird, or they're like, What are you doing this breathing thing for? And then it ended up being a little, like, hard for them to explain it. And so this also became something like pass this along, just hand them the book, you don't have to explain it, then you can just share your experience. Yeah. And for me, whose job most a lot of my job is talking to people on the phone about what we do. It's been a real change, since the books been out talking to people who've had access to it, about the body based approach and things like that. It's like, when I talk to people before they're like, oh, yeah, I've tried. I've tried exercise before. Like, which is not bad. I'm not laughing at exercise. It's great.
(4:29) Yeah, but just beaten then being able to have these conversations with people after they've read. Okay, it's not about just exercise, but it is about the body. So it's been a real help for my job, cool. Maybe a little bit more housekeeping stuff as well, like, people are going to get the book and look at the cover and they're like, what's this all about? You want to tell us the vision behind the cover and what's happening there? Yeah, I can tell you a little bit about that because I kind of designed the cover and drew up the guy I on the cover and everything else. It's sort of a in some ways, it's whimsical, but it's also anatomical, I didn't want it to look like this is a body based approach everything we're doing everything that I've ever seen anywhere else eventually seems to lead back to if you handle the body, right, then all the rest of it goes away. And so we have this title built for freedom, which has been the sense of things ever, that we were born this way that our bodies are made for freedom. So how do I convey the idea that we are that the bodies are this way without turning it into an anatomical diagram, and without making it super serious looking, so it's kind of a cartoon figure, but there's organs that are relatively, you know, accurate in terms of their reference to anatomical structures, except for the heart, which is just the Doofy heart. And behind it is a cloud, no, the guy did not fart. Okay, it is an ink stain. And in the book, I referenced Rorschach inkblot tests. And, and that's later on in another chapter, and we will get there on another week. But that was a personality test that, you know, was used to kind of determine a couple of different things that we will talk about in the book. And so I wanted to reference that as well. Because in the end, the message behind that little part is like, there's actually nothing wrong with you.
(6:12) Or the other significant thing on the cover is like, there was a time that you are known as the porn guy, or the guy who works with guys who struggle with porn rail. And the cover says at all that this isn't just about that it says adventures through stress, anxiety, depression, addiction, trauma, pain, and other in our bodies and inability to leave them all behind, which I think is significant, because the issue really isn't porn, right? or depression or anxiety or any of those things, it's really boils down to something far more fundamental. Well, I personally, I think I bought 15 copies, and they were gone before. I mean, like, all my friends were like, I want one of these. And they're like, yeah, here you go. And one of them just took it. And I was like, That was $15. Wow. Okay. So I want to I want to get into this. And I just want to say like, if you haven't bought the book, or gotten the Audio Copy, the audio is just very entertaining and moves along very quickly. Except for in this first chapter, Lee has a beef with it.
(7:15) Well, my beef is that my story is in here. And he's he's relaying the conversations that him and I had, and I sound like 120 pound effeminate, 13 year old. And I'm a six foot 10 300 pound man. And that has nothing to do with your voice, the voice here. It's been an ongoing joke ever since. I'm not bitter. But I'd say All jokes aside, as someone who loves to read a physical copy of a book, this is one book that I would highly recommend the audio because it is in Bob's voice. And all jokes aside, the difference in the voices and everything that's going on there, makes the book really entertaining to listen to. But it's also engaging, especially with the content. There are parts in here that think, Wow, this is something I've never explored before, but in a way that's inviting, and wants, at least for me to keep listening and engaging with the content that's there. That's easy for you say, your you talked about your dad in the back. He doesn't use an effeminate or at the end of the chapter. It's not an effeminate voice. I only have so much rain.
(8:29) Well, I don't know if I've ever told you this. But like, Well, I'll say that said throughout the book, especially in the audio version, because you can't do it in a book you're reading. There's sound that comes in the background. And then there's a poem that's read. And this poem that you start out the chapter with another traveler, from the beginning, since the first time I heard is one of my favorite poems of yours. It just, it just so easily matches the original poem. And it's clever, and it's insightful, and I just love it. It's really great. Yeah, I think it matches my story pretty well. Yeah. So that's great. So kudos, I love that and even as you read it, I was like, ah, yeah, this is great. So a.on the radar. We started out with a story of Guppy gardener so I know this like when whenever pilots get their their nicknames it's attributed to some experience or something funny that happened so where to Guppy come from for your dad?
(9:26) Yeah. Now this is funny about nicknames by the way. They're they're called call signs in the Air Force. And I didn't put this in the book. I was trying to figure out how to work it in but I can't be like super serious and dramatic and whimsical at the same time all the time. I guess. There were a couple of call centers that ran around the squadron that he was in one was Zippy the Pinhead Another one was duster and you know, like they they had all these other ones like his backseater at Dutch Holland like Holland was his last name. So they call them Dutch. Right? So my dad was a swimming competition swimmer in high school. And he was just really good at swimming and so he ended up with the name of a blind fish at that, which is interesting, given that he had really good eyesight, but not so much anymore because he stared at a screen for a long time. But yeah, so Guppy came from he was a swimmer. Oh, that's great. You haven't read the book yet. Or if you have your there's a lot of stories throughout the book that refer to flying or an incident and we wait to get into that with a with a flight. Is it just because of the connection with your dad?
(10:29) I mean, I grew up with around airplanes. I mean, like one of my favorite sounds is a jet engine flying over the top of my head at like close range. I mean, it's like deafening but my whole body is just like you lie what's next. And I remember 1/4 of July, I was sitting on the back porch of my in laws place. And the they were doing a fourth of July show at the stadium at the college. And they had arranged to fly by from the Air Force jets and whatnot. And the path of that they flew was directly over the house of main lesson I didn't know that was just standing on the porch. And all of a sudden I hear this. And everybody tore off inside the dogs are barking my kids started screaming I was sitting there on the deck like yes, let it be. So the the main thrust of this and the pilot stories in general is it started out with and I go into this in the book a little bit later, but I had run into a story of a plane crash. And that ad when I looked at it, I thought it was a nice metaphor at first and then as I looked into it, it got deeper and deeper and deeper. And that's that's New Zealand flight 901. And it was a plane crash with all of these different discrepancies and errors along the way. Now, the reason I started this way, because I felt like it was a great metaphor for what's going on. We're dealing with flying instruments, pilots go through a lot of training to learn their flying instruments, but if they are given faulty information, or they don't know how to work their instruments a certain way, everything goes haywire. And I thought here's the human body. And it's there are certain flying instruments so to speak. And if you don't know what they are, you don't know how to pay attention to them, then the human body can go into massive distress so you can get into diabetes, not the genetic kind, you just the regular kind of type two diabetes, you can get into depression and anxiety and a whole bunch of other kind of mental psychosis and all kinds of other things just because you haven't worked with the body in a great way and partly because that's not common knowledge in today's society. So I didn't grow up with my parents understanding diddly squat about the body other than workout, you know, it's good for you, you know, do some cardio, play racquetball, you know, have a good time. But you should do something physical, none of this around, like how the body is actually tied to psychology, none of this around, like where are these things come from what emotions are none of that. So because I wasn't given the instruction and the flying instruments, I flew into a bunch of buildings, not the Twin Towers, other buildings, called My life's problems, okay, we would call them addiction and depression and all the other stuff. So I had a lot of plane crashes in my life. And only because I wasn't given the training. And as soon as I started figuring that out, suddenly I could fly. And I liked the idea of comparing that to the experience of flying when you do know what you're doing. It's the same instrument, it's the same machine. But given the knowledge and given the experience, suddenly the experience, like changes dramatically.
(13:19) That's great. I, one of the things I love I mean, I get to know your the story of this process a little bit better. Obviously the the bug in there is a few I thought I'd read everything in the book multiple times as you went through and wrote it and all that. But I don't know that I knew about the very the kind of the beginning of it. There's this section here, it says on the outside look like a charismatic, intelligent, talented young kung fu teacher. Someone with all the suppose the potential to do great things in the world on the inside, I'm a mess. Anytime I didn't have anything to do. So you want to tell us more about that, like with this whole process. I'm thankful in a weird way that you went through it, because we're all writing in the wake of that experience. You know, we're all getting the benefit of that. But would you say more about who you were at that time and just started this exploration?
(14:14) I mean, I own a kung fu school I had I had spent a lot of years dreaming big believing that there I you know, really believing that there has to be some purpose for which I'm on the planet seeking for what that was trying to find out whether or not I was worthy of divine grace in some way shape or form. And so I had spent a lot of time living up to it and my dad was military everything was kind of by the book. You know, they had a hard deck which you if you watch Maverick, the Top Gun Maverick right? There's a hard deck and this is it and of course he exceeded in my dad's rule was if the hard deck said like 500 feet you fly at 1000 Right and so it was always a very like calculated like, you know, you do things intelligently and you don't like even threaten breaking the rules. And so everything I had done on the outside looked like You know, I was the kid that the teachers praised and, you know, parents got to be proud of, and I did all the things at church and I did went to all the meetings, and I read all the scriptures, and I memorize them. And I got, I graduated from a seminary and I served a mission and I got the things at church and I taught lessons and I became very good at communication and a whole lot of other things. So on the outside, I looked like this kind of gutsy little entrepreneur, Kung Fu teacher with like, multiple degrees black belt, and like, you know, out there, like not normal society, you know, most of them did not have a regular day job. And so people were intrigued by me my by my experience and stuff, and had a great time, and I was teaching people great things. But when the noise died down, and I was left with myself, it was a hole. And I found myself in desperation, constantly striving to learn more or do more, or be more as a way of avoiding being with myself, because it was a hole. And as a way of also trying to prove that I was worth something. And I almost felt like, it didn't matter where I looked, there was some thought in everybody else's mind that I was not worth it. And that I, you know, like that I was, I was the, if there was anything wrong, it was me. And it was my fault. And I was gonna have to fix that.
(16:18) Yeah, I resonate with that a lot like that. Are you talking about that pressure, like, just recently, going to church, Sunday school, or middle of the week, Sunday school with my wife, and they were talking about vocation, and it like, brought me back to college and went to Evan Jellicle college. And that was like, this huge emphasis of like, your vocation. And it was just like, I realized, like, I don't know what that is like. And now thankfully, I'm like, it doesn't meet, like, I feel like my vocation or my calling is to like, live life well, and but for in this conversation in the Sunday school class, it was like, it's tied to your job in this special way. And just, I realized how much of growing up through high school in college I just assumed, like, put so much pressure on myself. And it just wasn't helpful, like looking for beyond just, oh, I want to support my family, I want to, you know, do things that are helpful and intrigue me and things like that. But then also, I need to fulfill this purpose and, and do these things. And, yeah, it's just, it was hard. Like it ended up getting me a little jammed up about some stuff.
(17:31) Yeah, I think I would, I'd say most of the people that we encounter, I mean, maybe it's different in like, Polynesian cultures and other culture cultures that seem more laid back. But I don't know, because I'm not them. But most of the people we encounter are people who have struggled to try and like find some sense of self identity in a calling of some sort, this is my mission on the planet, this is what I'm here for. And the struggle that's come out of the backside of that has been extremely high highs, when they find when they find something that they really identify with, it's great. But when an element of doubt creeps into that, then it's a low low, and I went up and down on both of those, you know, I'd find something and I would feel like, this is what I'm doing, I'm gonna change the world, I'm gonna make a big difference, I'm gonna do all these things. And then like, it's not working, it's something else. And then I tank for a long time. 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 want some help doing it, head on over to the freedom specialists.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.
(18:48) There is a chapter you you bring in my story and tell your story and Danny's story throughout that. And there is some similarities. I think, even in my own story to what you both have just said, in the sense that on the outside, you know, I've been in the nonprofit world for 28 years working in ministry and speaking across the nation, and about sexual abuse and trauma. And on the outset, you know, I'm a leader, I'm out there talking, I'm helping people with the very things that I'm not resolved with. And I in the book refers to this, but in the section of redefining physics, was like when I contacted you initially, I was like, man, I've tried everything. Yeah. And I was like, Can I really? Can I risk it again? Can you know, someone told me that the scariest thing is hope, you know. And so like, as I was entering the process to even begin to hope was too scary. Yeah, I mean, consider who we were just working with this weekend. We just barely finished wrapping up a retreat and there was a guy that we were doing some physical work with this weekend and, and we've worked with him a little bit and he's always got, he's been through a lot of stuff. And but He still kind of held it together and the scary the fear of him being able to let go of the facade, just so that he could like really be honest about how much sadness he was really carrying on the inside. And I mean, it, when it finally when he was finally able to let go, it was like a good solid 45 minutes of just sobbing, because he felt finally, in some way, shape or form that he can finally let it go. It's hard to let go that facade. I mean, it was for me for sure. It's I still is in the places that I still think I'm holding it together.
(20:33) Well, the cool thing, you know, like, I'm sure with all the stories that are that are represented in here. And even my story is that this isn't the end of that story. Like, as I've continued to work with the team, and be at the retreats and work with the other guides. I was thinking even this morning, as we were, you know, saying goodbye to the guys that were leaving, have all the resources that are available. And I don't know if I've ever told you this Docker, but I was mowing my yard this last summer and listening to the podcast between you and Bob. And you're talking about God on some level. And the question came to my mind as I was mowing was like, when will I let go of my idea of an angry guide? I was like, right now. I'm gonna do it right now. You know, so like, the stories that are represented in this book aren't the end of the story. Like there's so much more I can even tell about my story, you know, about losing 100 pounds, and even my journey with sleep apnea.
(21:32) Last week's last week's episode, we covered a lot of them. Yeah, talking about. And so like, even as, as I think about Danny, and we can talk about Tucker's story here in a little bit. There's so much more. And this is just like the beginning the beginning of the story. Yeah, we and I think for me, just Tucker again, if you didn't recognize my voice, but sultry, so there is still the beginning of of my story, right? When when you look at a chapter and you see a little bit of what I was going through any there's a lot more information, there's a lot more detail there that isn't in the book, but enough to capture a little bit of how difficult things were in my life for a long period of time. And then getting to a place where I was able to start seeing things more clearly that you know, what, what the real issues were, what the things were, that were driving me to these very dark, difficult, challenging, unwanted places in my life, and the continuation of that story, you know, fast forward five years to where we're at now. And looking at everything that's happened between the moment I met Bob, and this moment now where I'm sitting in a room of the home, where we just ran this four and a half day retreat, and the phenomenal opportunity that I've had, I think, at least 20 times now, at these events, from the very first one to this, this most recent one, to see, the story is begin for a lot of people to finally like come to a place of realization, knowing that, wow, like there's so much available so much opportunity so much that is possible. And to leave the things behind that are really prohibiting or keeping someone from, from seeing what what is possible. And so for me, the continuation of that has just been this beautiful evolution of exploration of like men, there's things that excite me, and I'm going to pursue those. And then when they don't excite me any longer, I'll pursue something else. But being able to just have a glimpse into especially in the retreat space, some of these things that aren't normal, everyday activities. And for a lot of people, the things we do here are new, in a sense that they're the first time they're, they're encountering them. And what that does for an individual is they get to explore themselves in these new experiences. And so definitely big continuation of that story. The event for me, the first one, and then the subsequent events after they always feel like kind of this new foundation, not of settling but of a new way, a new opportunity of looking at life and and what's possible.
(24:01) Yeah, a couple of key highlights in the first chapter like for those of you listening, that even in the first chapter, I'm trying as much as I can to give as much instruction and help along the way. But I did consciously decide to write all of this in storybook form, like, I consciously decided not to write it as a how to book because I realized that I myself, when it's a how to book, I tend to skim through a lot of the pieces and I don't want to do the steps. And then I would get overwhelmed by the steps. And most of the people who are stuck in anxiety, or depression or stress or all these other things, they tend to already be overwhelmed. Some of them don't even want to get out of bed in the morning. And so I'm like, Well, like I don't want to overwhelm them with 300 pages of okay, and then do this and then do this and then do this. And this is so we built our programs that way. And I wanted to build the book that way. So everything is written in this kind of storybook mentality like it's an adventure story. And if that's all you do, and you get to the end of the story, and you start to feel like there's some hope then A change has happened. But along the way you could, in this first chapter, for instance, follow along with Tucker. And so the breathing that I described with Tucker, I tried, I tried to describe it in as clear enough detail so that someone who's reading could do what we call the breath switch. And that is, it's very similar to sort of a Wim Hof kind of style breathing, 100%, fill the lungs all the way and breathe out, and relax, and then do that for three minutes. And then all the other stuff that's in there. So if you're reading a few you're hot dogs, let the body do what the body is capable of doing.
(25:40) Wim Hof rules. Also, book as long as we're doing a book club, sure. Talking about the style, the style of the writing, check out how it's a story, not a how to like, the sentences in this book rule. I was talking to my wife about this like that. In my language arts book. It's like you learn. Here's this part of a sentence. Yeah, practice that. And then at the end of the language arts books, you put it all together. Yeah. And you get these paragraph long sentences that are like super compact. It's like, yeah, it's it's, there's some sense. It's fun. I have sentenced you to a life of reading. And there's some short, like, you know, sentence fragments in there. A lot of those a lot of a lot of alliteration, a lot of alliteration. I tried to make it playful about having a good time. Yes. I mean, I wanted to be whimsical, I wanted to enjoy the process of reading and, and reading it out loud and having to read it over and over and over again to the people who had to go through that.
I think it's I think it's completely appropriate. In the sense of like, we we look at addiction and trauma and all these things as such serious things. Yes. Like they'll never be over overcome and the playfulness of the way you've written the book, and the way you read the book, I think is appropriate for how easy it is to actually overcome some of these things. It really is.
(27:07) Yeah, I mean, it really is, when I'd say that it's true, kind of across the board. Like when I started working with Bob and going through the email content that he had written and this online program, it was super playful, and you're talking about this thing that I was dealing with at the time, which go into little more detail in the book with like, pornography habit, and depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation, like really heavy, heavy stuff. And like constantly my head physiologically, just like shut down, physically and emotionally depressed and just dark. And so that I'm coming into this experience where I've, I've had experience with 12 Step programs, a lot of therapy sitting in these dark emotions, and just feeling like crap, probably 99% of the time. At least that's what it felt like at the time. And then all of a sudden, I've got this guy, cranky, lean members. Yeah, exactly. So then I've got this guy cracking jokes. And I'm like, Is this okay? Like, is it okay to like, make light of like, some of the worst possible moments and experiences of my life. And that was the thing that really struck me as different from the outset was, not only am I reading and engaging in content that's playful, but like, I'm actually engaging in physical activity that can be playful, some a little bit more intense, but like, overall, just like, why would we make you go through heaviness? When that's the thing that you're trying to come out? Yeah. And so that shifted so much. And so that carries into the book, you know, a lot of the conversations and podcasts you'll hear that and not in the sense of like, it is it makes light of, because if you want to make your burdens light, right, not Yeah, so makes light of some of these really heavy things. And I think that can be kind of abrupt or even a brace of at first for people. But then, like, it feels different. And it's
(29:01) so much better. Yeah, like coming from 12 step meetings, like you're saying, and then me coming to a retreat and just being like, yeah, it's like, very consistent with the teaching. When we're in this space, there's this emphasis on Hey, the way you're sitting right now, are you comfortable? Yeah. And like, oh, no, but I thought I had to sit like this so that no one would think I was weird. And that was like, from the very beginning. One of the things are just yeah, that playfulness, like, you know, cross talk is allowed. There's not these like it's much more you know, you're not like I remember in a sponsor telling me when I wrote my first step where I like, laid out all the sins of my life. He's like, you can't say jack off that's going to be triggering to people, compared to do a retreat. And it's like,
joking, joking about that stuff and joking about the language that in 12 steps for me to like, you're in a 12 Step program for pornography and sex addiction. But we're not going to say masturbation, because that might be triggering. Yeah. And then all of a sudden, I've got guys making sexual jokes. In an event where I'm trying to deal with pornography stuff and at first like, and that's not the whole of the retreat, I will make that very clear. Okay. Yeah, make it clear. Yeah, they come up because there's guys involved. Yes, they do not the same in a women's retreat, just so you know, like, yeah, for me, it just took the power out of those things in a huge way. It was like, Oh, this is funny. Like, there are funny things about this. And when, and I would feel that, but then have to, like, keep it in and be like, No, this is serious, because it destroys lives. And like, sure, that's true. And let's not make that be true anymore.
(30:46) Like, it's Harry Potter all over again, fear of a name only increases fear of the thing itself, you know, like, Okay, we might as well talk about a little more. But that that is, I think there's a lot in that, that I mean, everything there that I agree with, just in terms of like taking the heaviness out of it, especially so my favorite, my favorite analogies in the book that I had, like, I don't know, I probably have a lot more. I had some I've listened back to the book and like, busted out laughing going, I didn't, I didn't remember writing that. But there was like one, like faster than a teenage part clears a tiny room. You know, that was a good one. And I also imagined like, this is not going to help you out that might have been in the first chapter like, you know, we're relating this to kind of stressors and triggers. And so I have this like savage fragile, like a tiger chasing you down across the Serengeti. And I just imagined some guy being like, who and being triggered and whipping out his phone and getting on PornHub. And like, this will help you know. And like this kind of images, I was like, let's just make it playful.
(31:46) Yeah, and I think in a playful, like element of the book like it is, it's inviting. And it's captivating. This is something that I can jump into. And the I think you alluded to this a little bit, Bob, that you talked about, being able to experience, the experiences you're talking about in the book, as you're going through and reading, I'd opportunity to talk with a client, I think two or three weeks ago, and he had come to one of our earliest I know, he actually came to our first retreat, and then he came back and volunteered in another and I've done a lot of work with him over the past three years, and he's gone through a ton of progression, deep dive into all the online content really took what he learned here to a whole nother level. So this was someone that spent a lot of time piece by piece meticulously looking at everything that that you are presenting. And yet, as he read the book, started realizing like as he was reading that he was experiencing shifts just from reading it inside of the book, things that he had done, he was now again experiencing on an on a physical level, and taking things to a whole nother degree that he didn't even know was possible. And so all of a sudden, you know, he's reading about breathing, and he's focusing on his breathing as he's reading. He's reading about posture, he's changing his posture as he's reading. So he's having these very tangible, physical and emotional experiences just reading because he had context. And I would say that the same is true for someone who doesn't have context who's reading this for the same time, we take that as an opportunity, regardless of what you're hearing about, or what you're reading, like, Bob's talking about breathing, he's talking about posture, he's talking about movement, he's talking about just changing your environment, explore that as you're reading the book, and it will become a tangible experience for you and has been, at least for the people that I've had the opportunity to talk to you like really delve in and look at what's here. Yeah. Cool.
(33:43) You said something at this retreat, which is kind of along some of these lines, you had said that if you want to live your life in survival mode, then everything in your life will be about survival. Yeah. And I was like, dang, like I, you know, like, for me, coming to freedom, like everything in my life was about dealing with trauma. It wasn't about life. It was about trauma. And the invitation for Bill for freedom is to life, not to deal with the trauma and all that other stuff, but it's to life, which I think is important, which I think also goes back to that. I think I just want to say this and the several of us have said this, but at the end of this first chapter, holy cow, like the things that you state there as far as what is happening in the US and in one neighborhood
(34:31) this this was this was a distillation. It took me a long time to kind of piece together this type of information. There's a lot of stats on the state of the nation in terms of like, what are the depression rates, what are the suicide rates and what are you know, how many people are getting into drugs and how many people are are reliant on drugs for help or prescriptions for help and, and what's the state of things and I was like, none of those. Those stats sound like impressive when you hear them as a number, but they did ever drove them home? And so I was like, what would it look like if I walked out my door? And I imposed those statistics on my own street? And so I had to kind of like, what's the average number of people in the street, I had to do some weird calculations in mathematics based on census data. In order to try and paint a picture of what, what if you looked down your street or the next street over? People you actually know would you find?
(35:27) That's astounding, and you say it would take 25 families in your neighborhood. That's about 80 people total, including kids, teens, adults, and the elderly. And if things keep going the way they have been in 2021, I'll just read a few of these 10 of the families, people you actually know will likely go through divorce in the next five to eight years. 10 of the parents, five of the teens and even a couple of the kids already struggle daily, with anxiety or depression, for the adults are using four of the adults are using opioids, opioids to manage pain, and it goes on. It's just like, you know, suicide rates and kids using drugs and alcohol and all that stuff is just like, holy cow. If there's if there's a reason to try something different. You stated at the end of the first chapter is like, we've got to do something different.
(36:14) Yeah, not not keep climbing up the same tree not looking for another branch on the tree. But like, what if we have the ladder leaning leaning against the wrong wall? And, you know, I go further and further in the book to try and like illuminate what what I'm talking about by shifting the wall, the letters on, but essentially, the ladder, if I were to parse it down into one thing is the operating paradigm is there's something wrong here. And we need to just stop it from happening, as opposed to what if all of this is actually an indication that something's right, and we're just using the machine the wrong way. And so that ends up our first chapter discussion is a fine ending point. You know how I knew that. Lee gave me a little wink and a nod. And we've just fingers because he didn't want to use his 12 year old feminine voice in order to tell me that it's a 13 year old, 14 year old Sorry, sorry. Does this sound like a 13 year old boy? He's trying really hard to be deep. That's a deep thought there. So anyway, so that's the first chapter. If you haven't read the book yet. I invite you to go do it. If you have read it, I invite you to go like go look back and try the breathing again from that we do with Tucker or ponder on like, what's going on with some of those things and consider the possibility Hey, what if there's absolutely nothing wrong? What if you just haven't learned to fly your instruments?
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