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.
(0:35) Welcome back to our tiny little book club, folks, this is week five, I hope you're hanging in there and that it's been useful for you, obviously, you can send all complaints to an email address I will not give you and I will have my assistant Jorge, he will get your email and he will send back and me nasty reply, you can send to Jorge at the freedom specialist.com. Jeff was just commenting about how I was doing all these racist accents. It's not intentionally racist, I graduated high school in New Mexico, I have a right to say essay. And Miho, okay, and I'm not meaning it in a disparaging way. I at all, I just find the sounds funny, and they probably find my sounds funny. Please do all the impressions you can of me, and make sure that Lee's is also a 13 year old. It's a little higher pitch than mine, and you'll be fine. Alright, so this chapter is called The ultra violet catastrophe. And essentially, the theme of the chapter is this, essentially the courage to challenge the prevailing theory. So in the last week, we talked about like fluoride of gold. We talked about like the prevailing theories around addiction, we also also depression, also anxiety, these are all theories. And in this chapter, there's a lot of kind of fun little stories about people who challenged the prevailing status quo, the prevailing theories about how everything worked, including Max Planck, which without him, we wouldn't have supercomputers and you wouldn't probably have dishwashers, anything with an integrated circuit, and all of that kind of stuff. And like Susanna Hokulani, who's Elle, who happens to be from Brazil, by the way. And I say that just because I've been to Brazil, and for some reason, Jeff and I were talking about this, like, oh, no, I've been there. It's like, my grandma's favorite recipe comes up, and I'm like, I love this. Shout out to Brazilians. Anyway, shout out Brazilians. Yeah, they don't sound like Jorge, at all. Do they sound like he would be sure. At least I've seen I don't think it's racist to do a Brazilian accent. No, no, no, but I wouldn't know how to do a Brazilian accent. Oh, yeah, no, no, you say mozzarella like this? mozarella. And there you go. Okay. So anyway, back, I don't know, is mozarella more interesting than the ultra violet catastrophe. Also, what's an integrated circuit and integrated circuit is different than a dissected circuit. Okay, just so you know. Anyway, Link, thanks, plank. And so, the challenge, the courage to challenge the status quo, and we have with us this week, a special guest that hasn't been with us so far in the book club. And her name happens to be amber, spelled with an A, in case you didn't know. Okay, and so she's here as well. And her story forms a big part of this chapter. And so in the beginning, I gave a couple of examples of people who, because of their courage to challenge the prevailing theory, like a lot of what we experienced today, things that we take for granted are in existence. And one of them challenged the myth that, you know, we only use 10% of our brains, and the number of brain cells that we have, and all this other stuff, and because of that other types of comparisons in neurobiology have been able to be made. And other types of advances in that field are starting to happen just because she decided to challenge something that everybody thought was the truth, which is humans only use 10% of their brains, which came from a number that humans have 100 billion neurons in their brains, and that 10% of them were neurons based on nerve cells based on some other kind of function or some microscopy or something like that. And it turns out that none of those nobody knew where those numbers have come from. And just because she thought to ask a question, all of a sudden, these things came up, Max Planck was just looking at bands of light, and none of this, none of the science that he knew none of the physics that he loved, covered it. And so he challenged it and as a result, things happen. So then we go into Amber and her story, and the prevailing theories about everything that haven't heard, which was dealing with chronic pain, do you want to kind of it's too long, let me sum up, you know, kind of thing. That's a Spanish kind of accent, right? So she Lyme disease, all these other kind of comorbidities. You've been through a lot of things the book covers like how she got persuaded into this is the only answer and that's like, do you want to speak to that particularly?
(4:59) Yeah, Absolutely, I really didn't know exactly where to go. I'm coaching her on where to put the microphone. Thanks, Tom. So yeah, I had been through all of like the natural healthcare options, as far as what I knew, and everything from the medical community, and I just wasn't sure what else to do loads of pain, not able to really get up out of bed and live my life. So after the fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth 10th Doctor said, go see a pain specialist. I did that.
(5:36) And then the pain specialist, how did it I think maybe it's helpful to talk about how easy it is to just believe in authority, because I don't think I don't think even many of the authorities are intending all the time to just like impose their view on other people. I've a lot of the ones I know have questions about it, too, they have doubts about whether this, this or that is the most effective, they're just trying to do the best that they know. But from the standpoint of someone who is struggling, and you go into somebody with an authority, they have a lab coat, or they have a stethoscope or you go into this facade of a building that you have to go through and fill out forms and you do all this other stuff. And you walk in, and there's this pressure you and I just had this experience, like last week, we walked into a place and Amber was going in for a routine treatment. And we went in and the doctor, there was some new doctor there. And he was orienting. And so somebody else came in and she took charge of the whole thing. And Amber's got treated in a very different way, just because they were trying to do things according to procedure, right. And so, at one point, they were recommending that she start taking she take a couple of different things to help out with her blood pressure, and whatnot. And I was watching her face. You know, and you looked at me at one point and like utter desperation like, I don't
know, I did, I felt desperate. I was like, Bob help. I don't know what to say at this point.
(6:57) Because they were just like, This is what you need to take. And this is why, which to them probably felt like just a straightforward declaration. And so I was watching the whole thing. And I said, Well, do you want to know the honest vibe that I'm getting here? They didn't really appreciate that. But they have nicely ever since. Which was I feels like she's being strong armed into doing something that she wasn't prepared for. Right? And that look of quiet desperation was one that I did. What did that same feeling happened back then when you were doing the pain pills and stuff like you walked in? And absolutely, but I was completely alone at the end of all options, and didn't know what else to do. And there's a doctor, not just with a lab coat and authority, but with a prescription pad and a pen. And promises of this will be better.
(7:45) And you were hesitant to take the pain pills, because you had heard about addiction stuff. Yeah. Oh, absolutely. And then my husband at the time, had been kind of in that world and seen people really addicted, gone on calls. With people really addicted and overdosing, and it was not a world I was eager to enter. Yeah. But you did anyway. Yep. Because in the book, particularly and when I was interviewing you for this part to make sure that we got it accurate. There was this sense that like it wasn't just, this will be better. But also this will be better for your family as well. That was the big thing. Like, it didn't have to be better for me. I didn't really know what that even looked like. But the idea that my kids would have their mom back that my husband would have a wife that was functional on so many levels. That thought worth it.
(8:36) Yeah, yeah. And so then you took them, you went on this big roller coaster, eventually, the doses continued increasing, that led to Addictive spurts. You guys can read all of this stuff in the book, we don't have to rehash all of it. And in the end, you finally kind of came to this place where you realize, look, it wasn't really helping the pain all that much. And maybe you could speak to that for a second. But also, I don't like who I am, and you quit on your own. Right, which we mentioned before people do when they're done, they're done. And like that, again, flies in the face of the prevailing theory, you can't quit compulsively chasing after stuff. And that's the first challenge. And she did it. You did it on your own. Just because you didn't want something different. Just like I did it on my own. I didn't have any answers. I was just like, I can't do this anymore. Speak to whether, like how much the pain pills were helping.
(9:23) So the pain pills in the beginning felt like they were helping some to the point that I was like, oh, okay, I can get up and I can function just like the doctor said, just like you promised, right? So if some is good, then more is better. Right? And then maybe I can get up and stay up for longer and do more things. And so that is a slippery slope. It is and then by the end though, like when you stopped taking them did the pain increase again? Is that what happened? Or when I stopped taking them? Everything got worse. It was really really difficult. I was taking loads of pain pills, and I went from that to Nothing. Nine days later, when I saw the next doctor, who was the one that prescribed Suboxone, he's like, no, nobody can just stop taking this amount of pain pills. Like, what are you doing? No, literally, I stopped. I wasn't in a good place. It was really, really painful. Physically, mentally, emotionally. I just, it was a struggle. And he was like, Yeah, you can't just stop. But I had. And his suggestion was, oh, well, I feel like if you would have stopped for one to three days, you would end up in the hospital? Well, it's been nine. And this isn't great. But also, I'm doing it.
(10:38) Yeah. And so, but then you decided to go ahead and use what he was suggesting again. So what was that experience? Like? Yeah, it was miserable. I was in a lot of pain, struggling really hard, lots of tears and darkness, and probably more emotional than physical, certainly more emotional and physical. So he told me, I'm gonna put you on Suboxone, you're going to need, you know, four times the normal dose because of how much? How many of the pain pills you were taking? No, I wasn't going to do that. So I said, What's the normal dose? We talked about that for a while. And then you said, you're going to feel so much better. And it wasn't until my second or third visit there that he said, This is a lifelong medication. You won't ever get off this. No. How did that feel? Like to realize, wait a second, I had been put on something that I'm stuck on.
(11:31) I was so angry. I yelled, I cried. I told him how mad I was. And he was like, Woah, woah, woah, I get that you're mad. But this is better than where you were just a few visits ago, right? Well, he wasn't wrong. But now I had just traded in one set of pills for something else. Yeah. So in the end, it's I don't think that the doctor was no, it was malicious, or anything like that. We actually joked around a lot and laughed and talked. And I enjoy him as a human. Yeah, yeah. So he's coming at it with the best that he knows. Yes. And how much did the authority of the power play into your like, just submission to that? He just gave me all the data, right? Like, you know, I don't, I don't help people get off of this. I put people on it. And that's because this is where they stay. Yeah. And some of the data he gave was like about your immune immune receptors and other things in the brain. So those are things that obviously you're like, not academically up to speed on. Right? Right. So you just kind of gotta take his word on. Yeah. And when he's talking about, like, you know, flipping on this mu receptor, and then you can't really turn it off once it's been turned on. And you have no idea when, like, cravings are gonna kick in if you get off this medication. Yeah, there was a lot there.
(12:47) So So I think this is this is where this is a germane point, the difference between and we've talked about this in past weeks, but the difference between data, real data, and then the conclusions based on the data, you know, and I did use data and data as two different varying pronunciations of the same word stuck on it, people, okay, so, but this is where like, you can't really turn it off. Like that is a metaphysical statement. That is a statement beyond what a person can ever actually declare that you can't really turn something off. Because he hasn't, he'll never be able to explore all possibilities as a human being. And I don't think humans, it doesn't seem possible, at least if I'm thinking about it at the moment that any human could explore all possible abilities. And so we might find something that was under our noses the whole time that we were just never sensitive to before that actually gives the answer. So anybody telling you like, this isn't possible. This is just the way it works. These are statements that no scientist can actually make with certainty. And some of the best scientists I've ever read or listened to, or spoken with, they're really, really hard to pin down, like they want they're confident in their their field of knowledge. But they're really hard to pin down if you like, pin them on it. And they'll be like, Well, no, well, it seems like this is the case. Or this is what the current prevailing theories are. And those seem to, you know, like to help out explain a lot of features. But then there's some other stuff that isn't explained. Those are those are very, very does. These are research scientists, right, that's their job to be very, very specifically clear. But that's not what doctors are that necessarily, they're trained to be like, This is how things work. And then they just accept that that's the case. 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. And so somebody who's a layperson who goes into one of these offices, And and gets handed like this is just how it works without themselves having access to what did the research study this was done on what body types what you know, like? What's the margin of error? What's the data that was thrown out all that stuff like suddenly you don't have access to that, and it feels like it can feel like, I don't have a choice. Right, right, especially if they don't have any other options. And that's how so many people feel about depression and anxiety. Right now, the prevailing theory among the popular popular culture is, we want to normalize mental illness, we want to say that stress is a fact of life, that anxiety is a fact of life that like meaning. And when they say that they mean, like, you're just going to experience it not that it happens. Because that much I think is observed, it happens. But as soon as somebody starts to say, because it happens, this is human nature, that's a stretch. And those kinds of categorical claims are where I found the most freedom to play. That doesn't mean that I'm right all the time. But it definitely allows me the freedom to go back and be like questions, some things and some things that I've questioned, I'm like, wow, I don't have another option. But many of them, and possibly the majority of them, as I've questioned them have opened up other avenues of exploration.
(16:10) But I think just as a side note to that, too, is is not just like how they're they're talked about, but how they're defined as like negative things. So not only are you going to have this, and it's a fact of life, but it's also a bad thing. And I think that that carries with it its own weight and connotation so that we've now looked at these things. And systemically or, you know, through throughout the world, we've got these bad things that everyone's going to deal with. And it's just going to be a part of life rather than like, Oh, this is an experience, and maybe one that I don't care to live in for a long time. But I think that there's a significance in recognizing that it's, it's not just like stress, it's not just depression, it's like these things are going to happen. And they are
(16:54) bad. Yeah. And we, Amber and I, particularly and in the next chapter, in the next episode, we'll talk about it. But that's pain was another one to really question like, What is pain? Where does it come from and all that stuff? So you know, we get a chance to question that on the next time. And but this one, one of the big things in this particular chapter was Brad story, which was one of the first clients that I one of the earliest, maybe, maybe the second or third client I've ever had, where I was working with, and trauma, man had been abused for like eight years, eight straight years by his babysitter as a kid. So this is like a weekly bi weekly occurrence, you know, and in, molested in various different ways and didn't remember any of it until he was in his 20s. And then all of a sudden, all of these memories start coming back. And the prevailing wisdom, he's always gonna have to deal with this. He'd spent over 100, grand on therapies and all this other stuff. And so this is the second Brad in the book. And he had spent all of this stuff and still to no avail, he was still using masturbation as a way to help himself cope and shut off his mind so that he could sleep at night because his mind would just race whenever he was quiet. And so I met him. And this is where we introduced the delete button in the book, which is something again, that as a reader, you can follow along with as a process of helping you do something what's been fascinating, even this week, as we've watched people kind of play with that is the the intense variety that you can have in that experience. So in the book, I give you detailed kind of instruction of what I took brad through, and the basics of how to do the delete button in story form, as we mentioned, because I can and because that's the way I wanted to share it. And from there, there's so much variety that can happen. And so we've seen some people this week, like adapt that in so many different ways. So rather than burning something, they'll blow it up, or they'll hack it up with an axe and have this sort of bloody Kill Bill mess. Or they'll do some, some from the movie, Inglorious Basterds, like this inseam where everybody burns up and all this stuff, and he burns the whole theater. We've had people like, imagine patchy helicopters unleashing their payload on things and lightsabers and wood chippers and television, and have sledgehammers and all kinds of stuff. Because it's your mind. It's your imagination. So as you're reading note that that is not the only way to do it. That is the basics from which you get to experiment and do things in in that right. So the point of this particular chapter was really this notion of challenging the prevailing theory and how much those prevailing theories can influence us without us even realizing it in one way, shape, or form. I mean, leave you, you were inside that world of trauma for five decades. And it's not like anybody who was preaching that was malicious, but did it feel like there was a way out? Did it feel like there even could possibly be other options beyond just like, well, we've just refined the ones we have? Absolutely not. I mean, they had all their theories and their ideas, and it was a lot of feel good stuff, but it wasn't an answer.
(19:58) Yeah. I mean, even Max Planck who we talked about in the chapter, you know, even at that time, this was at the end of the 1800s. Like these, these are physicists saying, like, we've already discovered, basically all the natural laws in the universe. I mean, this end of the 1800s, people have already discovered everything. And any new discoveries are going to be found in the sixth place of decimals, like, like, we're just learning, we're finding little, you know, numbers, and we're gonna get more and more refined on our stuff. And like, we haven't done aviation hasn't happened, like, no moon shuttle is like Space Shuttle stuff. None of that stuff has happened. I just finished, Neil deGrasse Tyson's book, death by black hole. And he's like he's making the same observation that you're making is like, there was a time where scientists would look at the sky and say, there is nothing beyond the Milky Way. That was the prevailing science. But it was all according to what the tools that they had and what they could see. But but now we no different, you know, different. Yeah, you've challenged those. There's something beyond the Milky Way. There's something beyond the theories and the way that we have taken care of people or tried to take care of people or the way that we've dealt with trauma, counseling, all that stuff there. There are other ways. And there's a whole lot more beyond the Milky Way.
(21:12) Yeah. And I think that this, I mean, the reason I wanted to bring this up in the book, I mean, I was very, very carefully like laying out step by step, how we could get people from this entrenched view of this is what's going on to like, Wow, maybe there's a possibility. And then then the later chapters now then explore what that possibility might be. So this is kind of the last one laying some of the groundwork, this one in the next one about what's really what might be going on.
(21:37) Yeah, so if you're reading the book, or you're listening to this podcast, if you don't know what you don't know, is it possible that there's something more? Is there possible that there's a better way? Is there is it possible that you can be done with your trauma or your addiction in a matter of days, or moments? You know, like anymore? We've talked about this a good bit, but like, I used to wake up and just feel I feel like I was depressed. You know, and, and anymore, if I just say, is it really depression, that it gives my brain and my being the opportunity to entertain something different? Yeah, let's talk about the authority that's most important to challenge is your own authority, about your own story, in your own circumstances, it's hard enough to bulk in authority that's out there that seems to have it, you know, especially when it comes with a stamp of approval from some national organization. And to recognize, well, nobody can actually make a definitive statement about whether or not it's possible to do something different. There's plenty of examples of people who've done it. So clearly the possibilities there. But you've said this, Lee, and this is challenging your own authority about your own life, which is nobody's ever experienced the past that they've imagined. Right? Do you want to talk more about how that has helped you? what that's been like?
(22:51) Yeah, I mean, just simple questions, too. Well, like, for instance, a part of my story is sexual abuse by my mother. And I perceive that as a child, that there was something wrong with me. And I had never questioned that. It was just a statement of fact that there was something wrong with me. I was a bad kid, I wasn't smart enough. I wasn't good enough. I had done something wrong, or whatever. And it was in one of our conversations one time, where were you asked me like, Would something if there was another child in the same situation? Would that have? Would they have experienced the same thing? And I was like, yes, well immediately understood that it wasn't about me at all. And when I began to look at that, and actually see what was happening, it changed the whole story. I had to look at myself differently. Because I wasn't the bad kid that was unlovable or wasn't worthy of love. And it wasn't about anything that I did or didn't do. I was technically irrelevant in that story. Except, except that I experienced what I experienced. But then I could, because I saw it with my own eyes. I could I could challenge the story that I created, and see what was actually there. And the fact was, there was nothing wrong with me.
(24:02) I mean, this includes the story, like you go research online on WebMD. And you like, oh, man, I have this symptom. This and I probably have this disease that includes like, you get the question that you might have that dizzy, like, I don't know, but like you might not, and it might not be as severe as you think and what people think about that disease might not actually be as accurate as it could be, and all that stuff. So it includes stuff like that. Yeah. I, I got this email from my boss, or my boss, my doctor, after I had a blood test, they kind of do this blood test. And it's sad because there's no elevated white blood cells. In my account. It was evidence of kidney disease. And this was on a Friday and I didn't have any chance to talk to him and I emailed him back, like what are you saying, you know, so the whole weekend I'm researching kidney disease, and all sudden my back is aching. I'm like, Oh, this is kidney disease. I'm dying. You know, I'm looking up and like, I gotta find a donor. What's my blood type, you know? Two days into it, and I've got full blown kidney disease. I get this email from my doctor on Monday. And he's like, I think you misread. The thing is, like I'm saying there's no evidence that there is kidney disease. But in my mind, because I'm, I'm ultimately the authority, right? Like, I didn't question what was there I created a disease in my body.
(25:21) Yep. Just like Mr. Right? Yeah. Now, what's fascinating here is, this weekend we had, there's two people, there's two particular people that I want to talk about one, we went through one of the breathwork exercises, and we had them look at some specific things. And we're using the breath that kind of amplify and amp up the nervous system so that the realizations that are happening inside of this, this exercise, have a chance to like sink in, right. And so we're having him kind of look at different periods of his life. And at the end of it, he says, I just realized that I think I was wrong about my whole life that I had my whole life backwards. I was sitting there. And I believe that my life was difficult and hard. And there was there's all this darkness and whatnot. But when I was going back and really looking at it, I found all of this tremendous joy, and all this excitement, and all these other things that were going on. And I couldn't actually see any of the stuff. And I couldn't remember any of the things that I thought were there, you know, this general trend of things. And he's like I did like, for decades of his life he's looking at and he's like, I don't actually see there was a couple of events that happened. And I think I just took the feeling of those events and just sprinkled it over everything else without realizing that there was actually none of that stuff happening. So he got a chance to challenge his own authority about his past. Because the past is just what you make up right now about what's happened as accurately as you can. But it's always flavored by everything that's happened since then. And the second one was, there was a guy, he pulled me aside in the morning, and he's like, What do I do about forgiveness? You know, his spouse, there was another guy, and they were kind of close to, and he had made some advances on his on his spouse, and his spouse had put an end to it. And to stop, he had texted her once or once or twice and had to, like, try to hold her hand and stuff. And she was kind of nice, like, what's happening? You know, what do we do, and then she had put a stop to it. The way that he saw that particular experience was one of betrayal, in a sense, like, oh, my gosh, this guy's going behind my back when I'm just going behind my back. And there was some suspicion that had crept in. And he was asking, like, how do we do this? And I told him, Look, when you see things in a, in their proper light, forgiveness happens on its own. And I said, look at that, there was a moment that you're seeing betrayal. But that was a moment where she had a chance to ditch you, and she chose you. And that's not the only moment she's done that every morning, she wakes up, she chooses you and chooses you over and over again, not because you deserve it, not because you've earned it, because because she looks at you. And she says that I want me some of that. And that's it. And that's all. And if you could look at that. And you could see that she made a choice for you. Instead of seeing that she made a choice away from you, what would that change? And you really have to go back and look at that situation. And ask yourself like if in that moment when I was amped up thinking I got betrayed, and there was somebody else there like going whoa, whoa, whoa, look at this, she actually did the opposite. How would that have changed how you felt at that point in time, and then like relief washes over, there's tears, there's other things that start to happen, when there's this realization that what I thought happened, what I thought was going on wasn't there only because we challenged the authority of our own story. And so, I mean, the bulk of this chapter, I think hinges on that basic idea that everything gets to be challenged. And I think Jeff would challenge me on this all the time. But everything we say is in some way, shape, or form lacking in its capacity to represent reality, and in some way. And so in, he'll be like, but you wrote a book about it. And I'll be like, Yeah, I know, just to help, but I am willing to admit that, like, it's still insufficient to tell people about what I'm trying to point at. It's just an attempt to point at things, then I appreciate that challenge. And, and the sort of whimsy that comes from like, we're trying to use language when life doesn't happen that way. But we use it and, and so but to be able to hold every assertion that we make with some level of like, yeah, and it's probably insufficient. So everything we say is more or less a theory is it useful, then becomes a better tack, so to speak anything else during the chapter that you felt like you wanted to touch on?
(29:20) I think we're good I think we went around the barnyard and got all the animals done. That's good. We do Russian accent to finish the show this time because they haven't done Russian accent except inside the book. So you want to hear more you have to go back and read the book is built for freedom. You can find it on Amazon and only on Amazon and audible which is also Amazon and Kindle which is also Amazon and then you can join us for chapter six of our book club and please shout obscenities at your your podcast provider or whatever else if you're like stop being dorks. 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. Wherever you get your podcasts from and while you're at it, give us a rating and a review. It'll help us keep delivering a great stuff to you. Plus, it's just nice to be nice
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