December 12, 2025 • 40 mins
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We explore how mental habits form, why fear sits at the front of the mind, and how reframing, second thoughts, and small wins create real change. We share stories about weight, visibility, and guilt, and end with practical tools for forgiveness and inner parenting.
• using the event–interpretation–emotion model to see choices
• catalog, category, curator: how the mind stores meaning
• fear-first interpretation and its costs
• second thought method to surface hidden beliefs
• visibility, safety, and weight loss reframes
• self-love as a practical foundation, not conceit
• small wins over grand targets to build trust
• breaking the guilt–punishment cycle
• observation over criticism to grow engagement
• training resistance and the anterior cingulate cortex
• forgiveness as letting love come first
• extracting wisdom from old wounds to reassign meaning
Our goal is to be helpful, to help people learn how their mind works and how they can use it to their own advantage and how our mind can really be the most powerful tool because it's where everything begins.
We hope this helps a little as you go through your day.
We would love to hear your feedback or questions.
We will respond to both in future episodes.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:08):
We are on the line.
SPEAKER_01 (00:10):
I wouldn't say that the sun is up, but it's telling
us it's gonna be up.
Somewhere down behind things,but it's a whole lot lighter.
SPEAKER_00 (00:20):
And it's snowing again.
SPEAKER_01 (00:22):
Holy smokes.
More snow.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (00:28):
So we are thinking about Fridays being sort of like
a topic roulette type idea fromlisteners.
So I put it in the chat, but ifyou guys have any topics,
questions or questions,something you're thinking about
today.
Any idea?
SPEAKER_01 (00:49):
Something you're working on, something that
really pisses you off.
You know, for me, what I what II guess I can say is that I
really believe that for most ofus, for most of our lives, we
use our minds in ways thatactually work against us.
We have thought patterns andthought forms that we've been
(01:10):
trained in, largely in fear,largely in reaction to things
that aren't substantive.
And we use our mind againstourselves.
We we ruminate, you know,something happens and it's
negative.
And so we hang on to it and wejust dwell on it, right?
Or things aren't going the waywe want in some aspect of our
(01:31):
life, and we put a lot of energyinto um blaming and figuring
out, you know, whose fault thisis and never really coming up
with a solution.
There's so many ways.
These are just simple examplesof so many ways we use our mind
against ourselves.
We get in the way of our ownbest interests.
And it's just mental habits.
(01:52):
And for me, that's like that wasthe magic of hypnosis 20 odd
years ago, was that it helped menot just start to reverse some
of those habits or to stop someof those habits, but it helped
me to see how they come aboutand how I have lots of them.
Maybe, you know, when I went tosee Peggy and Peggy gave me
(02:12):
hypnosis, she helped me with acouple of them.
And some of them were draggingon from prior lives and all
kinds of ways to describe it.
But the point was that Irealized I got more of this crap
and I'm doing it to myself.
SPEAKER_02 (02:27):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (02:28):
And then it was, well, here are some, you know,
people talk today that thephrase is mind hack, right?
But the idea is there are ways Ican use my mind that help me
rather than get in my way.
And so depending on what we'redoing, depending on what we're
experiencing, there aredifferent ways to think of
(02:49):
things differently.
And that is at its core thebasis of a reframe, thinking
about something differently.
Now, the reframe has to beaccurate, it has to be closer to
truth, it has to beunderstandable.
These are the things that thatwe do.
So for me, when when somebodysays to me, comes in the office
(03:11):
and says, you know, I justreally dissatisfied with the way
I eat and my weight.
Well, away we go.
Let's start thinking about foodand exercise and life and
yourself and you know, thisthing that you're calling a
problem.
Let's just think about itdifferently.
SPEAKER_00 (03:27):
Yeah.
Les sees me smiling because I'mlooking at the comments is so on
track with what you're talkingabout in different ways, but
it's just exactly sort of whatthe listeners would like to hear
today.
So they were talking last nightabout the times that we want to
do something healthy forourselves, yet we just don't do
(03:48):
it.
We say we want this improvement,but we continue to stand in our
own way.
SPEAKER_01 (03:53):
There's a million reasons for that.
And in many ways, everyone's isunique.
Like I think it's so importantto understand that we all
assemble our mind.
We all so uh I use that modelthat we use all the time.
And it's I think it's if youthink about everything in your
life that results in a mentalengagement, a mental thought, a
(04:17):
mental emotion.
If you think about everything asbeing an event, a stimulus, and
an interpretation of thestimulus of the event, and an
emotion that results uh fromthat interpretation, then you're
you're understanding why you doeverything.
That's that's how everythinghappens.
(04:38):
And what happens is that there'shabits.
So the way we interpret somethings now, or more importantly,
the way we were taught tointerpret some things, we hang
on to and we continue tointerpret them that way.
And it gets, yeah, it getscataloged, it gets categorized,
and it gets curated.
This is my new thing, right?
(05:00):
I'm thinking about this for thelast three days.
It gets cataloged.
Your mind is a massive memorything, it's a massive video
recorder.
Everything that happens is inthere.
I can find, you know, usinghypnosis, we can go into your
mind and I can find whathappened Wednesday, the 14th, is
16 years ago, right?
(05:22):
It's it's in there.
So it gets it gets categorized.
Um, it gets it gets cataloged,and then it gets categorized as
events, it gets categorized asemotions, and it gets
categorized as meaning.
And they cross-reference eachother really, really quickly.
But worse, it gets curated,right?
(05:44):
We pick and choose what we allowourselves to dwell on.
We pick and choose certainthings that we've interpreted
and we turn them into beliefs,and then we take beliefs and we
put them right up at the frontof the catalog, and we we grab
them first, and so much so thatwe use the beliefs to interpret
(06:07):
the events, yeah.
Right.
So the big one that we all do,and it comes to us in a million
ways, is fear, right?
We keep all our fear stuff rightup front, right?
And we interpret everything thathappens to us through that lens
of fear, through that curatedmuseum of my life based in fear.
(06:31):
And so I immediately seesomething and I say, How's that
going to affect me?
What does that mean about me?
Right.
And then the answer to thatquestion is waiting for me in my
curated beliefs, right?
Which start with, you're indanger.
The world's a scary place,people can't be trusted, right?
And then all of a sudden, youreinterpret this situation,
(06:52):
which might be absolutelyinnocent.
You know, some person yesterdayI was walking down the street
and I saw some guy and I thoughtI recognized him.
I kind of squinted.
And he looked at me and he kindof squinted, and we just said
hello to each other, right?
Now, it could have gone in amillion directions, right?
You can understand how for somepeople that could turn into a
fist fight on the street.
And for other people, it couldturn into a handshake and a how
(07:15):
are you doing, and it becomes afriendship, right?
So there's a lot of possible,but what comes of it is really
about what each of us believesabout ourselves and that
situation.
We we interpret that situationbased on that curated,
categorized, and collected,right?
Um cataloged set of experiences.
(07:38):
And when you start just breakingeverything down now, I find that
I open myself up to two things.
The first is an awareness of mybeliefs about myself, and
second, the opportunity toreinterpret the situation,
right?
If I slow it down, I get thechance to reinterpret it.
(08:02):
I get the chance to choose uhwhat I'm going to put there as
meaning.
SPEAKER_00 (08:09):
Yeah.
Uh yeah.
I like the idea.
I I use it with clients, thisidea of second thought, and I'm
gonna explain it.
So as you maybe know, we doparts work and all that stuff.
And when we when Les talks aboutthese beliefs, they're usually
(08:30):
not conscious in many, manyinstances.
So it's not like we're walkingaround thinking about the
belief.
It's just that when we go to dosomething healthy for ourselves
or expanding for ourselves, thebelief is underlying and it and
then it crops up when theresistance hits.
(08:52):
So just the easiest example thateverybody sort of knows about is
Monday.
We start the the diet or thelifestyle change, whatever you
want to call it.
And by Tuesday or Wednesday, theresistance has hit, but we don't
know where that resistance comesfrom, right?
Maybe it's an emotion that we'rewhat we're filling or a void
(09:14):
that we're filling.
So I I like to use this idea ofa second thought with clients.
So we're looking for thelimiting belief that's sort of
underlying the situation.
So we think of situations likeif I lost the weight, how would
I feel?
If I was successful, how would Ifeel?
If I was good with my finances,how would I feel?
(09:34):
If I was able to, you know, forsocial anxiety, let's say, if I
was able to go out to parties orif I was able to be social, how
would I feel?
So I I say it to clients, youknow, let's use the weight one.
If I lost the weight, a part ofme would feel, and usually the
the right there, right in frontof them, oh my God, I would feel
(09:56):
great, right?
I'd fit into the clothes thatI've been hanging on to for 20
years, you know, you you wouldfeel good.
And I then say, I sort of bursttheir bubble a little bit, but
I'm like, okay, now what's yoursecond thought?
And usually the second thoughtis the one that's oh, well,
maybe I I would be a littlescared of being seen or
(10:19):
something, right?
A big one is if I'm successful,if you're successful, how would
you feel?
Part of a part of you, how howwould you feel?
Oh, I would feel amazing.
You know, it's always that thatfirst one, right?
And that first thought gets youthrough the first few days.
But if we give it a littlesecond thought, it it sort of
(10:42):
pulls up the next thing thatthat comes up, whether that's an
emotion or right away a littlethought in your mind.
And so we use that thought,whether we regress on it or we
pull it out of our bodyenergetically, in the
imagination, whatever comes tous to unlock where that comes
from.
So let's say I'm gonna give anexample if it's okay with you.
(11:04):
I give the example of that comesup a lot, actually, like more
than more than uh I uh wouldimagine, but over the years this
has come up.
So if I lost the weight, a partof me would feel great, oh my
god, great.
Second thought, I'd be a littleemotionally scared to be seen,
(11:25):
right?
Okay, well, let's go back towhere that came from.
And what comes up a lot is catcalling.
Do you know what cat calling is?
Yeah.
So, you know, you're young,whatever, uh you're walking down
the street minding your ownbusiness, and some guy yells at
you out the window or from afrom a window of a car or from
(11:49):
whatever a construction site uhis the stereotypical one.
But immediately there's fear,right?
Immediately, and that fear locksin.
And then it's compounded, right,over years, and then it ends up
getting in the way and beingthat belief system that pulls
(12:11):
you back on Wednesday of yourdiet, but you're not exactly
sure where it's coming from.
It's just this little bit offear like, well, what if this
happens?
What am I gonna be safe?
Anyway, second thought.
SPEAKER_01 (12:25):
Yeah, and to to take that further, you know, for so
many people, you know, I I'deven go so far as to say all of
us.
For all of us, there is always aquestion in our mind of whether
or not we can handle what'scoming our way, whether or not
we are good enough.
And we have lots of experiencescatalogued away that can remind
(12:48):
us of the moments, and we tendto curate them by bringing them
forward quickly of the momentswhere we we we didn't do things
as well as we might, when thingsthat we hoped would would go
well didn't go well, and we turnthat on ourselves as being
somehow inadequate.
When I work with people withweight, men and women, it's
(13:10):
really often a question ofself-acceptance.
Do I look at myself with love?
Do I look at myself with anappreciation of what a wonderful
creation I am?
SPEAKER_02 (13:24):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (13:24):
You know, and and you go, it doesn't take long,
you know, it doesn't take longto go back to remember that we
were raised to believe thatsomeone who thinks highly of
themselves is conceited, pain inthe butt.
These are bad people, they'redifficult, right?
We see that as conceit, we seethat as a negative
characteristic.
We don't, if if I love somebodyelse, if I look at the people in
(13:48):
my life and I love them, right?
That makes me a wonderfulperson.
And the instant I turn that loveon myself, now I'm conceited.
SPEAKER_00 (13:56):
Yeah, you're selfish.
SPEAKER_01 (13:57):
Yeah, right?
I'm self-centered, I'm I'mselfish, I am, I'm, I'm
difficult, I am, you know, uhnarcissist yourself.
Yeah, we we quickly paint thaton somebody, but that's the way
we're that's the way we'reprogrammed, right?
We're programmed to take care ofourselves.
Our our our mammalian brain, ourour uh sympathetic nervous
(14:19):
system are all wired.
That the instant there's aperception of a threat, we go
into self-protection.
And we do all kinds of things,physical, mental, emotional, to
to engage that protection.
So, you know, to to rememberthat self-love is generally the
issue.
I I I would go so far as to saythat there's no such thing as a
(14:44):
person who's struggling withtheir life that doesn't have an
issue with self-love.
And that that self-love comesfrom an honest place where we've
learned to interpret acts ofself-love as either indulgence
or conceit.
SPEAKER_02 (15:00):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (15:01):
So, so what'll happen then is you know,
somebody will start the journeyof losing weight and they'll
have lost some weight andthey'll feel good at themselves.
And then the first thing they'lldo is remind themselves, well,
don't get all cocky.
All right, you're just you'rejust at the beginning here.
Who knows what's going to happennext, right?
You might blow this.
(15:21):
You've blown it in the past,you're gonna blow it again,
right?
All of a sudden, all these whatare meant to be truly protective
ideas.
We're trying to protectourselves from ourselves.
So often the subconscious mindis programmed to protect
ourselves from ourselves becausechange triggers fear.
(15:42):
We talked about that now fordays.
Change triggers fear.
What am I going to do?
How am I going to handle it?
And then it is, well, I don'tknow if I can handle that.
Yes, there's going to be, Ithink for a lot of people, the
idea of losing weight, forexample, turns into I'm more
attractive.
And then that can triggermemories of being attractive to
(16:03):
people that you didn't want themto be acting like you were
attractive, people acting inways that that made you
uncomfortable, that made youfeel afraid.
You know, and believe it or not,that happens to men too.
And and, you know, I've I'vedealt with that with my clients.
But there's also deep, deepself-acceptance stuff, you know,
(16:26):
on multiple occasions workingwith people losing weight.
We've had to go back to early,early times of self-acceptance,
that I am a full-fledged humanbeing that was created, I'm
meant to be here.
The free frame I often use is Iam an essential part of the
(16:46):
universe.
The universe is incompletewithout me, which is the truth,
right?
And no matter whether you wantto call it some deity, or you
want to call it the universe, oryou want to call it nature and
the process of life, the fact ofthe matter is the universe did
create you, right?
You have been created, you'rehere, and yeah, the universe is
(17:09):
creating for a purpose, right?
And you serve a purpose, beinghere, right?
But we've been really, reallytrained to play small, and we
become really good at playingsmall.
SPEAKER_03 (17:23):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (17:24):
And we become really comfortable playing small.
Now that doesn't mean you needto turn on the assertiveness
jets.
What it means is thatassertiveness that when it's
necessary comes naturally tosomebody who loves themselves.
SPEAKER_02 (17:38):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (17:39):
You've got to appreciate yourself, who you
are, that you've got a placehere.
You're meant to be here.
What you're doing when it's donefrom a place of loving kindness,
it's it's meant to happen.
You're having an impact,whatever that's supposed to be.
And you are meant to be who youreally are.
(18:00):
And when you look in the mirrorand acknowledge that I'm not
meant to look like this, I'm notmeant to weigh this much, I'm
not meant to be eating likethis, you start to acknowledge
who you really are.
And that's where that commitmentis going to come from.
Because it's going to be a newunderstanding of who you are.
(18:23):
So, in my experience, workingwith people who are trying to
make those kinds of changes,right, that they think are going
to make them healthier andbetter, you've really got to
spend a lot of timeacknowledging your innate value
as part of creation.
You know, the the technique Iuse in hypnosis, uh, it's really
(18:44):
simple, and I'm using it on theschool.
If you've listened to the schoolreframes at all, you'll know
I've used it there.
And you imagine bringing home apuzzle of 10,000 pieces, and you
put together all that effort andyou get the puzzle right down,
and there's one piece missing.
And it doesn't matter if it's apiece out of the middle or if
(19:04):
it's off to the sides, itdoesn't matter if it has all
kinds of colors on it or it justhas one color on it.
The point is that there's apiece missing, right?
And I encourage my clients tosee the universe as feeling the
way you feel when that piece ismissing.
The universe feels that way whenyou don't step up and be
(19:26):
yourself.
SPEAKER_00 (19:27):
Yeah.
That's beautiful.
I like when I work with clients.
I know we're sort of veeringtowards weight loss, but it is
sort of this, I don't know, themost, I guess the biggest one we
normally work with in terms ofof this kind of stuff.
But I think the the conceptsthat we're discussing here can
(19:47):
be overlaid onto other thingslike success and like finances
and stuff like that going out ifyou're uh have social anxiety,
things like that.
So I like to talk to my clients.
It's about little wins.
At this point, you've probablytried it over and over and over
again.
(20:07):
And the mind, the subconsciousmind, is not trusting any
longer.
So getting those those littlewins, I will never tell a
client, oh, you're gonna you'regonna lose 10 pounds by next
week.
Right.
Number one, it's not reallyfeasible in a healthy way,
(20:28):
right?
Number two, the mind is going toimmediately push back on it.
And it's just gonna be a hardtime moving forward.
So getting those little wins in,whether it's a little win of
like looking at your bankaccount or have feeling a
(20:48):
little, let's say gettinggetting a few things on your
list done that that is drivingyou to be in your mind
successful.
Those little tiny wins, insteadof instead of placing this big
number on you, say, sorry,number I went to weight loss,
but like letting go of the scalenumbers, right?
Okay, so let's say you're 200pounds and you want to be 150.
(21:13):
Well, let's let go of the 150because that puts a lot of
pressure on in the beginning.
And just think of it in littletiny wins, right?
Moving backwards on on thescale.
Being kind to your kinder toyourself as you're moving
through this.
I remember I had a client.
I love this story.
It's so kind of funny, but so sotrue what we do to ourselves.
(21:37):
So sh she came in and she waslike, I eat I eat a large pizza
all to myself, and I want tostop doing that.
Okay, great.
So we worked on it.
And then she came back.
I don't know if it was a weeklater or two weeks later.
Anyway, it doesn't matter.
She came back and she's like,Oh, I'm still eating pizza.
And I said, Well, how much pizzaare you eating?
(21:58):
Are you still eating the fullpizza?
And she said, No, but I had likethree slices.
She was beating herself up stillfor the pizza, right?
So so seeing those as uh littlewins, right?
You've you've made thesechanges.
Yes, it's working for you.
Give yourself credit, right?
(22:20):
It's so easy for us to beatourselves up for not staying on
this exact track that we that wewant to stay on.
And so that leads me into whatwe spoke about yesterday, guilt.
Guilt when it comes to any,let's say addiction, fuels the
addiction.
So you wake up in the morning,you've got guilt from eating a
(22:42):
whole pizza the night before.
Whether or not you're thinkingabout the guilt or it's
subconscious, you start your dayfeeling a little bit of that
guilt.
Shouldn't have done that.
Beating yourself up if it getsthat far, beating yourself up.
And guilt, as we discussedyesterday, demands punishment.
So what do we do that afternoonby midday or at night?
(23:07):
We maybe eat a lot again, or wedrink a lot again, or we go
gambling again or something,right?
And we we sort of set thispunishment cycle into you know,
go on starting, right?
This cycle starting.
So it sounds counterintuitive toa lot of people when they're
(23:28):
first starting out, but the veryfirst thing I start I start
working on with people, evenbefore limiting beliefs, is uh
letting go of that guilt.
Because if you wake up with theguilt, it's just going to fuel
it.
It's like that wagging finger,right?
And now you deserve punishmentor whatever you and what do we
(23:51):
we don't receive punishment fromoutside of us for the most part,
right?
But we receive punishment fromourselves.
And so it just started the cyclejust continues and continues.
So when we can wake up in themorning, let's say we had a
giant pizza.
I know I've done it before.
We have a giant, we eat like afull pizza to ourselves.
(24:14):
We can wake up the next morningand go, I'll make a different
decision next time, right?
That's not guilt, that is havingthe ability to make choice,
having that that buffer zonebetween the wagging finger
outside of us and and our ownability to make choice.
So having that ability to makechoice is is very important.
(24:38):
And then we work on the limitingbeliefs and stuff like that.
So yeah, that's my swee.
SPEAKER_01 (24:42):
And I like it.
I think for me, like I'm I'malways trying to think of the
mind and how it comes about thatwe think being hard on ourselves
is a good idea.
And and I know I come back a lotto parents, but I also, you
(25:03):
know, when I'm when I know thatmy clients are dealing with
self-worth, one of the reframesI always bring forward is
parents can be wrong, right?
We don't like to think badlyabout our parents.
We don't like to think of themas quite possibly being
incompetent at raising children,right?
(25:23):
Like because they might be,right?
Um, it's hard to be more of aparent than you had.
And if that's the case, we canbe very forgiving of our
parents.
It's not about saying it's myparents' fault.
I like to visualize it with myclients, imagine it as a chain
(25:44):
that's been handed down fromparent to child, to parent to
child, to parent to child.
And all of a sudden the childfinds himself being a parent,
right?
This is not something that yourparents got up and said, geez,
how can I screw up your life?
SPEAKER_03 (25:57):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (25:58):
Right?
It's that, you know, the parentgot up and wanted to protect
you, wanted to shape you into avery happy, successful person
that they haven't been able tobecome, right?
But they have nothing in theirrepertoire except what was shown
to them.
And so parents imposediscipline, often in the form of
(26:21):
criticism, often by pointing outfailures rather than celebrating
successes, which is very, verycommon, right?
Look at this.
You got nine out of ten on thistest.
What happened with this one?
SPEAKER_03 (26:35):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (26:36):
Right?
Right?
That's just really natural.
Why?
Because the parent loves you andwants you to be, wants you to
get 100%.
They want you to be very, verysuccessful.
And they were raised in a worldof criticism.
They were raised in a world ofchallenge.
And they don't know anythingelse.
So what happens is that in yourown mind, you start to, again,
(27:01):
curate, bring forward, keep atthe front these memories of
failure, the times you didn't doit.
You don't enter into a new partof your life by thinking about
the ways you haven't been ableto do it in the past.
To me, you start with the child.
(27:22):
Remember, you know, this isstuff I've been working on now
for years, but you know, how amI going to be the parent that I
never had?
How am I going to guide myselfthe way I wish my parents had
guided me?
Now that I have this insight,now that I've learned where this
has come from, I'm notinterested in blaming my
(27:43):
parents.
I'm interested in fixing theproblem.
Oftentimes that's what we do,right?
We focus more on blame than thesolution.
Whose fault is this?
Seems to be more important thanwhat's the solution.
But think of our political worldtoday, right?
This is just busy blaming andhating the other people because
it's their fault we're allscrewed up, instead of saying,
well, what could we dodifferent?
(28:04):
How could we make this better?
So there's just this realtendency to turn to blame and
avoid solution.
So to me, the solution, if youcan acknowledge that you have
been programmed to be afraid, tobe afraid of your own failures,
to be afraid of your owninadequacies, to be afraid of
(28:25):
your own mistakes, to judgeyourself based on those
mistakes, to question your ownability to even cope with your
successes.
Right?
Don't let that go to your head,right?
There's that voice.
Don't, you know, don't get a bighead about that, right?
SPEAKER_00 (28:43):
You're not all that in a bag of chips.
SPEAKER_01 (28:45):
There you go.
These are the things that weturn to because they're the
things that we've been raisedwith.
And that's when, you know,imagination, again, imagination
is one of the most incredibletools that we think as adults we
shouldn't use any.
We think as adults that that'sfor kids.
We want kids to haveimagination, but we train it out
(29:06):
of them and replace it withhere's a list of things you
should do and get on them.
And if you're not successful,it's because you're not trying
hard enough.
And put in more effort, moreeffort, more effort without, you
know, yeah, sometimes it, youknow, pushing on a pull door is
not going to get you anywhere.
So, you know, more effort isjust going to make it worse.
(29:27):
The point that I'm trying to getat is that there's a shift that
you can make in your own mind oftreating yourself like a child
that needs to be guided in theway that's going to get it where
it is.
And that that can start with,you know, celebrating the small
successes.
You know, think of if you if youwanted to make a child
(29:48):
paralyzed, if you wanted to makethem sit in a chair and never
move, all you have to do iscriticize everything they do,
right?
It's what children do.
Children will just lock up.
They'll just, if they get introuble for every time they
move, then yes, they will justsit and look at that iPad.
They will just sit in front ofthe TV and do nothing.
(30:08):
There's comfort there, there'speace there, there's no chance
of being criticized there,right?
Until there is.
Now I'm getting criticizedbecause I've sitting in front of
TV too much, right?
The point is that criticismleaves us with no alternatives,
right?
Whereas suggestion, kindness,loving encouragement, you know,
imagine that you had a littleone that you loved completely
(30:32):
sitting beside you.
Think of the way you would talkto them, knowing everything that
you know about life and knowingeverything that you know about
how difficult things are, andlearning all these things that
you're learning about your ownmind and why and how this has
come about.
How would I talk to that littleone to actually keep them from
having all these experiencesthat I had and keep them from
(30:53):
having all these beliefs that Ihad, right?
There was an experiment.
I always like, you know, I'mconstantly trying to learn.
There was an experiment wherethey took a kindergarten class
and the teacher stopped usingpraise and criticism and instead
used observation.
So think of it this way (31:13):
the child gets a piece of paper and
some crayons, and the teachersays, Oh, I like the way you
stayed into the lines there,right?
That is good and bad.
The teacher said, That's lovely.
The teacher says to Mary, that'sbeautiful, Mary, and says to
Johnny, Johnny, you got to tryharder, right?
The teacher now does the, oh, Iyou really used a lot of blue
(31:36):
there, instead of, is this goodor bad, right or wrong, what
we're trying to do.
This is what the child justsimply observed what the child
did.
And they conducted the classroomthat way.
And in a matter of a month, thechildren stopped turning to the
teacher for approval and theyjust discussed their work among
themselves.
(31:56):
This is five-year-olds, right?
Five-year-olds talking to eachother the way the teacher was
talking to them, not competingfor the teacher's attention, not
competing for the teacher'sapproval, but just engaged.
And the level of activity wentup.
The children were much moreinterested in these activities.
The children as a whole werereally engaged in it.
(32:20):
To me, you know, there's so muchto learn from that.
Like, that's huge to me.
And what if you could do thatwith yourself, right?
You've decided that you're gonnago to the gym, right?
And that means you've got to getover a whole world of resistance
to go to the gym.
You've decided you're gonna loseweight and you're gonna change
(32:41):
from eating a lot of bread toeating a lot of vegetables,
right?
You know, there's there'sthere's a lot of resistance to
that.
Bread just tastes better, right?
Until it doesn't, right?
And that's the thing of it.
So you're gonna go through a lotof resistance.
And this thing that I again, I'mgonna go back to something I
learned recently, and I I'mpracticing doing it.
(33:05):
You know, the anterior corticalcingulate, whatever that was
yesterday.
I'm not really good at uhremembering that.
There's a part of your brainthat actually grows when you do
things that are difficult.
And as I was exploring thismore, and we talked about this
before, but I was exploring thismore was a simple way you can
practice building that part ofyour brain and that kind of
(33:27):
mentality that flows with it,the kind of confidence that
flows from it.
I can do this, I can do this,this is good for me, is holding
your breath.
There's a study that showspeople who practice holding
their breath get better andbetter at holding their breath.
They hold their breath longer,but it also builds this part of
the brain that they rely on todo things that they have
(33:52):
resistance to, right?
SPEAKER_03 (33:54):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (33:54):
So I think if you practice, if you practice doing
things that you're resistant to,and that became a new challenge,
a new mindset.
And you started to encourageyourself like you would a little
child that you really care aboutand you want them to be able to
avoid all of these life'sproblems.
You're you're you've got arecipe there for, I think, for
(34:15):
success.
Anyway, you were looking at yourphone, something's going on.
SPEAKER_00 (34:18):
Uh, I was just looking up the word that you
were trying to say.
SPEAKER_01 (34:20):
Yeah.
Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_00 (34:21):
Anterior cingulate cortex.
SPEAKER_01 (34:24):
There it is.
C A C C.
Thank you.
SPEAKER_00 (34:28):
We're not scientists over here.
Let's just say we're going tobe.
SPEAKER_01 (34:30):
No, but it's good to use science.
Yeah.
Any any window into the way mymind works is something that I
love.
SPEAKER_00 (34:37):
Yeah.
Yeah.
So yeah, that's why we get inour own way.
SPEAKER_01 (34:40):
So I'll finish off with this idea.
As you're trying to learn how todo these things and stick with
your decisions, and you'velearned to celebrate the small
things and practice small thingsand encourage it like a child.
There's nothing more powerful inthe history of humanity than
forgiveness.
And forgiveness is reallysimplified.
(35:03):
Forgiveness is letting the lovecome first.
Uh, when somebody does somethingand it hurts me or upsets me, I
can let the offense come first.
I can let what they did comefirst, or I can let my love for
them come first.
So it's it's about not that, youknow, my wife did this thing to
(35:24):
me.
It becomes the person that Ilove did this.
And it just changes the context,it changes the situation.
Forgiving yourself is aboutfreedom.
I'm gonna let go of this so thatI can move forward.
I'm not gonna cling to thisbecause it's just brain cycles
(35:45):
I'm using to get in my way ofmoving forward.
And so if I let the love formyself come first, and I decide
I'd rather be free to try againthan be focused on the mistake I
made, um, you're really freeingyourself.
You're letting the love comefirst.
And that's really important,especially when you think about
(36:06):
the little child, letting thelove come first.
If every time you wanted tocorrect your child, you started
with something loving, you know.
I think you're great.
Why don't you try this?
unknown (36:18):
Right?
SPEAKER_01 (36:18):
It's so completely different from you did that
again?
Come on, right?
Which is unfortunately reallynatural for parents and the way
that parent was probably raised,and the way their parents were
probably raised, and the waytheir parents were probably
raised.
And that's forgivable too.
SPEAKER_00 (36:39):
Before we wrap up, I wanted to just give a little
technique.
We we spoke earlier about well,what is that limiting belief
attached to and going back intime and wherever that sort of
brings you, whether it's a catcall or something further back
in time when you're young, andwhat do we do when we get there
(36:59):
in our mind?
Okay, well, I know where it'scoming from, or I think I know
something's there.
If you were to reach out to theuniverse, let's say, or your
higher self or yoursubconscious, and ask, what is
the wisdom of this situation soI can just let it go and just
allow wisdom to come through,right?
(37:20):
Sometimes it's especially withparents, comes up a lot where
they were doing their best withwhat they knew at the time.
And like you just said, that'swhat they were taught.
It's not that it's right, it'sjust what they were taught and
they didn't know.
And it's not about lettingpeople away with what they did.
It's just the magic is in thewisdom, applying the new meaning
(37:42):
to the situation.
And if you go back to somethingthat you just think, how can
there be any wisdom in this?
Because it happens.
I think the biggest things youcan say to yourself is I
survived, I made it, I'm okay,I'm here today to tell the tale,
right?
Those kind of those kinds ofwisdoms.
(38:03):
But try it out, you know, if yougo back to something something
in your mind that that secondthought brings you back to, just
see it as if the universe istalking to you and it's giving
you like little bullet points,you know, of what wisdom there
is.
What is what did you learn fromthis?
What what lessons are there inthis?
(38:24):
And just let that take place ofthe old meaning and see how that
helps.
Yeah.
Thanks for coming to my TEDTalk.
SPEAKER_01 (38:40):
Yeah, let's let's do that.
Let's thank you for thesuggestions and the questions.
Let's, you know, that helps usbe more helpful.
That's that's our goal, is to behelpful, to help people learn
how their mind works and howthey can use it to their own
advantage and how our mind canreally be the most powerful tool
(39:02):
because it's where everythingbegins.
You know, I'm I'm I'm there now.
Everything's about the mind.
It's it's all about mind.
Uh, that's my that's my mantra.
I go around saying that.
At first, you know, when peopleare concerned with what's going
on around them, they'reresistant to that idea.
And then they realize thateverything going around them is
(39:23):
being interpreted by them, andthat's in their mind, and that
there's not a lot of reality outthere, only experience.
Then they start to really seehow their mind is where the game
is being played and the place tofocus.
And understanding that,understanding that that's the
first place to look, that it'spatterns in there that can be
(39:47):
changed, that it is totally andcompletely under your control if
you want it to be.
And that just changeseverything.
And so, yeah, my goal is to helppeople.
People see that they have amind, help them use their mind,
help them understand their mind.
And when you guys out there say,Here's what's going on in my
(40:09):
mind, or here's the one of thethings in my mind I struggle
with, that is that is giving usthe opportunity to be more
helpful.
SPEAKER_00 (40:17):
Yeah.
Thanks for hanging out today,guys.
Have a good day.
We are on the line.
SPEAKER_01 (00:10):
I wouldn't say that the sun is up, but it's telling
us it's gonna be up.
Somewhere down behind things,but it's a whole lot lighter.
SPEAKER_00 (00:20):
And it's snowing again.
SPEAKER_01 (00:22):
Holy smokes.
More snow.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (00:28):
So we are thinking about Fridays being sort of like
a topic roulette type idea fromlisteners.
So I put it in the chat, but ifyou guys have any topics,
questions or questions,something you're thinking about
today.
Any idea?
SPEAKER_01 (00:49):
Something you're working on, something that
really pisses you off.
You know, for me, what I what II guess I can say is that I
really believe that for most ofus, for most of our lives, we
use our minds in ways thatactually work against us.
We have thought patterns andthought forms that we've been
(01:10):
trained in, largely in fear,largely in reaction to things
that aren't substantive.
And we use our mind againstourselves.
We we ruminate, you know,something happens and it's
negative.
And so we hang on to it and wejust dwell on it, right?
Or things aren't going the waywe want in some aspect of our
(01:31):
life, and we put a lot of energyinto um blaming and figuring
out, you know, whose fault thisis and never really coming up
with a solution.
There's so many ways.
These are just simple examplesof so many ways we use our mind
against ourselves.
We get in the way of our ownbest interests.
And it's just mental habits.
(01:52):
And for me, that's like that wasthe magic of hypnosis 20 odd
years ago, was that it helped menot just start to reverse some
of those habits or to stop someof those habits, but it helped
me to see how they come aboutand how I have lots of them.
Maybe, you know, when I went tosee Peggy and Peggy gave me
(02:12):
hypnosis, she helped me with acouple of them.
And some of them were draggingon from prior lives and all
kinds of ways to describe it.
But the point was that Irealized I got more of this crap
and I'm doing it to myself.
SPEAKER_02 (02:27):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (02:28):
And then it was, well, here are some, you know,
people talk today that thephrase is mind hack, right?
But the idea is there are ways Ican use my mind that help me
rather than get in my way.
And so depending on what we'redoing, depending on what we're
experiencing, there aredifferent ways to think of
(02:49):
things differently.
And that is at its core thebasis of a reframe, thinking
about something differently.
Now, the reframe has to beaccurate, it has to be closer to
truth, it has to beunderstandable.
These are the things that thatwe do.
So for me, when when somebodysays to me, comes in the office
(03:11):
and says, you know, I justreally dissatisfied with the way
I eat and my weight.
Well, away we go.
Let's start thinking about foodand exercise and life and
yourself and you know, thisthing that you're calling a
problem.
Let's just think about itdifferently.
SPEAKER_00 (03:27):
Yeah.
Les sees me smiling because I'mlooking at the comments is so on
track with what you're talkingabout in different ways, but
it's just exactly sort of whatthe listeners would like to hear
today.
So they were talking last nightabout the times that we want to
do something healthy forourselves, yet we just don't do
(03:48):
it.
We say we want this improvement,but we continue to stand in our
own way.
SPEAKER_01 (03:53):
There's a million reasons for that.
And in many ways, everyone's isunique.
Like I think it's so importantto understand that we all
assemble our mind.
We all so uh I use that modelthat we use all the time.
And it's I think it's if youthink about everything in your
life that results in a mentalengagement, a mental thought, a
(04:17):
mental emotion.
If you think about everything asbeing an event, a stimulus, and
an interpretation of thestimulus of the event, and an
emotion that results uh fromthat interpretation, then you're
you're understanding why you doeverything.
That's that's how everythinghappens.
(04:38):
And what happens is that there'shabits.
So the way we interpret somethings now, or more importantly,
the way we were taught tointerpret some things, we hang
on to and we continue tointerpret them that way.
And it gets, yeah, it getscataloged, it gets categorized,
and it gets curated.
This is my new thing, right?
(05:00):
I'm thinking about this for thelast three days.
It gets cataloged.
Your mind is a massive memorything, it's a massive video
recorder.
Everything that happens is inthere.
I can find, you know, usinghypnosis, we can go into your
mind and I can find whathappened Wednesday, the 14th, is
16 years ago, right?
(05:22):
It's it's in there.
So it gets it gets categorized.
Um, it gets it gets cataloged,and then it gets categorized as
events, it gets categorized asemotions, and it gets
categorized as meaning.
And they cross-reference eachother really, really quickly.
But worse, it gets curated,right?
(05:44):
We pick and choose what we allowourselves to dwell on.
We pick and choose certainthings that we've interpreted
and we turn them into beliefs,and then we take beliefs and we
put them right up at the frontof the catalog, and we we grab
them first, and so much so thatwe use the beliefs to interpret
(06:07):
the events, yeah.
Right.
So the big one that we all do,and it comes to us in a million
ways, is fear, right?
We keep all our fear stuff rightup front, right?
And we interpret everything thathappens to us through that lens
of fear, through that curatedmuseum of my life based in fear.
(06:31):
And so I immediately seesomething and I say, How's that
going to affect me?
What does that mean about me?
Right.
And then the answer to thatquestion is waiting for me in my
curated beliefs, right?
Which start with, you're indanger.
The world's a scary place,people can't be trusted, right?
And then all of a sudden, youreinterpret this situation,
(06:52):
which might be absolutelyinnocent.
You know, some person yesterdayI was walking down the street
and I saw some guy and I thoughtI recognized him.
I kind of squinted.
And he looked at me and he kindof squinted, and we just said
hello to each other, right?
Now, it could have gone in amillion directions, right?
You can understand how for somepeople that could turn into a
fist fight on the street.
And for other people, it couldturn into a handshake and a how
(07:15):
are you doing, and it becomes afriendship, right?
So there's a lot of possible,but what comes of it is really
about what each of us believesabout ourselves and that
situation.
We we interpret that situationbased on that curated,
categorized, and collected,right?
Um cataloged set of experiences.
(07:38):
And when you start just breakingeverything down now, I find that
I open myself up to two things.
The first is an awareness of mybeliefs about myself, and
second, the opportunity toreinterpret the situation,
right?
If I slow it down, I get thechance to reinterpret it.
(08:02):
I get the chance to choose uhwhat I'm going to put there as
meaning.
SPEAKER_00 (08:09):
Yeah.
Uh yeah.
I like the idea.
I I use it with clients, thisidea of second thought, and I'm
gonna explain it.
So as you maybe know, we doparts work and all that stuff.
And when we when Les talks aboutthese beliefs, they're usually
(08:30):
not conscious in many, manyinstances.
So it's not like we're walkingaround thinking about the
belief.
It's just that when we go to dosomething healthy for ourselves
or expanding for ourselves, thebelief is underlying and it and
then it crops up when theresistance hits.
(08:52):
So just the easiest example thateverybody sort of knows about is
Monday.
We start the the diet or thelifestyle change, whatever you
want to call it.
And by Tuesday or Wednesday, theresistance has hit, but we don't
know where that resistance comesfrom, right?
Maybe it's an emotion that we'rewhat we're filling or a void
(09:14):
that we're filling.
So I I like to use this idea ofa second thought with clients.
So we're looking for thelimiting belief that's sort of
underlying the situation.
So we think of situations likeif I lost the weight, how would
I feel?
If I was successful, how would Ifeel?
If I was good with my finances,how would I feel?
(09:34):
If I was able to, you know, forsocial anxiety, let's say, if I
was able to go out to parties orif I was able to be social, how
would I feel?
So I I say it to clients, youknow, let's use the weight one.
If I lost the weight, a part ofme would feel, and usually the
the right there, right in frontof them, oh my God, I would feel
(09:56):
great, right?
I'd fit into the clothes thatI've been hanging on to for 20
years, you know, you you wouldfeel good.
And I then say, I sort of bursttheir bubble a little bit, but
I'm like, okay, now what's yoursecond thought?
And usually the second thoughtis the one that's oh, well,
maybe I I would be a littlescared of being seen or
(10:19):
something, right?
A big one is if I'm successful,if you're successful, how would
you feel?
Part of a part of you, how howwould you feel?
Oh, I would feel amazing.
You know, it's always that thatfirst one, right?
And that first thought gets youthrough the first few days.
But if we give it a littlesecond thought, it it sort of
(10:42):
pulls up the next thing thatthat comes up, whether that's an
emotion or right away a littlethought in your mind.
And so we use that thought,whether we regress on it or we
pull it out of our bodyenergetically, in the
imagination, whatever comes tous to unlock where that comes
from.
So let's say I'm gonna give anexample if it's okay with you.
(11:04):
I give the example of that comesup a lot, actually, like more
than more than uh I uh wouldimagine, but over the years this
has come up.
So if I lost the weight, a partof me would feel great, oh my
god, great.
Second thought, I'd be a littleemotionally scared to be seen,
(11:25):
right?
Okay, well, let's go back towhere that came from.
And what comes up a lot is catcalling.
Do you know what cat calling is?
Yeah.
So, you know, you're young,whatever, uh you're walking down
the street minding your ownbusiness, and some guy yells at
you out the window or from afrom a window of a car or from
(11:49):
whatever a construction site uhis the stereotypical one.
But immediately there's fear,right?
Immediately, and that fear locksin.
And then it's compounded, right,over years, and then it ends up
getting in the way and beingthat belief system that pulls
(12:11):
you back on Wednesday of yourdiet, but you're not exactly
sure where it's coming from.
It's just this little bit offear like, well, what if this
happens?
What am I gonna be safe?
Anyway, second thought.
SPEAKER_01 (12:25):
Yeah, and to to take that further, you know, for so
many people, you know, I I'deven go so far as to say all of
us.
For all of us, there is always aquestion in our mind of whether
or not we can handle what'scoming our way, whether or not
we are good enough.
And we have lots of experiencescatalogued away that can remind
(12:48):
us of the moments, and we tendto curate them by bringing them
forward quickly of the momentswhere we we we didn't do things
as well as we might, when thingsthat we hoped would would go
well didn't go well, and we turnthat on ourselves as being
somehow inadequate.
When I work with people withweight, men and women, it's
(13:10):
really often a question ofself-acceptance.
Do I look at myself with love?
Do I look at myself with anappreciation of what a wonderful
creation I am?
SPEAKER_02 (13:24):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (13:24):
You know, and and you go, it doesn't take long,
you know, it doesn't take longto go back to remember that we
were raised to believe thatsomeone who thinks highly of
themselves is conceited, pain inthe butt.
These are bad people, they'redifficult, right?
We see that as conceit, we seethat as a negative
characteristic.
We don't, if if I love somebodyelse, if I look at the people in
(13:48):
my life and I love them, right?
That makes me a wonderfulperson.
And the instant I turn that loveon myself, now I'm conceited.
SPEAKER_00 (13:56):
Yeah, you're selfish.
SPEAKER_01 (13:57):
Yeah, right?
I'm self-centered, I'm I'mselfish, I am, I'm, I'm
difficult, I am, you know, uhnarcissist yourself.
Yeah, we we quickly paint thaton somebody, but that's the way
we're that's the way we'reprogrammed, right?
We're programmed to take care ofourselves.
Our our our mammalian brain, ourour uh sympathetic nervous
(14:19):
system are all wired.
That the instant there's aperception of a threat, we go
into self-protection.
And we do all kinds of things,physical, mental, emotional, to
to engage that protection.
So, you know, to to rememberthat self-love is generally the
issue.
I I I would go so far as to saythat there's no such thing as a
(14:44):
person who's struggling withtheir life that doesn't have an
issue with self-love.
And that that self-love comesfrom an honest place where we've
learned to interpret acts ofself-love as either indulgence
or conceit.
SPEAKER_02 (15:00):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (15:01):
So, so what'll happen then is you know,
somebody will start the journeyof losing weight and they'll
have lost some weight andthey'll feel good at themselves.
And then the first thing they'lldo is remind themselves, well,
don't get all cocky.
All right, you're just you'rejust at the beginning here.
Who knows what's going to happennext, right?
You might blow this.
(15:21):
You've blown it in the past,you're gonna blow it again,
right?
All of a sudden, all these whatare meant to be truly protective
ideas.
We're trying to protectourselves from ourselves.
So often the subconscious mindis programmed to protect
ourselves from ourselves becausechange triggers fear.
(15:42):
We talked about that now fordays.
Change triggers fear.
What am I going to do?
How am I going to handle it?
And then it is, well, I don'tknow if I can handle that.
Yes, there's going to be, Ithink for a lot of people, the
idea of losing weight, forexample, turns into I'm more
attractive.
And then that can triggermemories of being attractive to
(16:03):
people that you didn't want themto be acting like you were
attractive, people acting inways that that made you
uncomfortable, that made youfeel afraid.
You know, and believe it or not,that happens to men too.
And and, you know, I've I'vedealt with that with my clients.
But there's also deep, deepself-acceptance stuff, you know,
(16:26):
on multiple occasions workingwith people losing weight.
We've had to go back to early,early times of self-acceptance,
that I am a full-fledged humanbeing that was created, I'm
meant to be here.
The free frame I often use is Iam an essential part of the
(16:46):
universe.
The universe is incompletewithout me, which is the truth,
right?
And no matter whether you wantto call it some deity, or you
want to call it the universe, oryou want to call it nature and
the process of life, the fact ofthe matter is the universe did
create you, right?
You have been created, you'rehere, and yeah, the universe is
(17:09):
creating for a purpose, right?
And you serve a purpose, beinghere, right?
But we've been really, reallytrained to play small, and we
become really good at playingsmall.
SPEAKER_03 (17:23):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (17:24):
And we become really comfortable playing small.
Now that doesn't mean you needto turn on the assertiveness
jets.
What it means is thatassertiveness that when it's
necessary comes naturally tosomebody who loves themselves.
SPEAKER_02 (17:38):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (17:39):
You've got to appreciate yourself, who you
are, that you've got a placehere.
You're meant to be here.
What you're doing when it's donefrom a place of loving kindness,
it's it's meant to happen.
You're having an impact,whatever that's supposed to be.
And you are meant to be who youreally are.
(18:00):
And when you look in the mirrorand acknowledge that I'm not
meant to look like this, I'm notmeant to weigh this much, I'm
not meant to be eating likethis, you start to acknowledge
who you really are.
And that's where that commitmentis going to come from.
Because it's going to be a newunderstanding of who you are.
(18:23):
So, in my experience, workingwith people who are trying to
make those kinds of changes,right, that they think are going
to make them healthier andbetter, you've really got to
spend a lot of timeacknowledging your innate value
as part of creation.
You know, the the technique Iuse in hypnosis, uh, it's really
(18:44):
simple, and I'm using it on theschool.
If you've listened to the schoolreframes at all, you'll know
I've used it there.
And you imagine bringing home apuzzle of 10,000 pieces, and you
put together all that effort andyou get the puzzle right down,
and there's one piece missing.
And it doesn't matter if it's apiece out of the middle or if
(19:04):
it's off to the sides, itdoesn't matter if it has all
kinds of colors on it or it justhas one color on it.
The point is that there's apiece missing, right?
And I encourage my clients tosee the universe as feeling the
way you feel when that piece ismissing.
The universe feels that way whenyou don't step up and be
(19:26):
yourself.
SPEAKER_00 (19:27):
Yeah.
That's beautiful.
I like when I work with clients.
I know we're sort of veeringtowards weight loss, but it is
sort of this, I don't know, themost, I guess the biggest one we
normally work with in terms ofof this kind of stuff.
But I think the the conceptsthat we're discussing here can
(19:47):
be overlaid onto other thingslike success and like finances
and stuff like that going out ifyou're uh have social anxiety,
things like that.
So I like to talk to my clients.
It's about little wins.
At this point, you've probablytried it over and over and over
again.
(20:07):
And the mind, the subconsciousmind, is not trusting any
longer.
So getting those those littlewins, I will never tell a
client, oh, you're gonna you'regonna lose 10 pounds by next
week.
Right.
Number one, it's not reallyfeasible in a healthy way,
(20:28):
right?
Number two, the mind is going toimmediately push back on it.
And it's just gonna be a hardtime moving forward.
So getting those little wins in,whether it's a little win of
like looking at your bankaccount or have feeling a
(20:48):
little, let's say gettinggetting a few things on your
list done that that is drivingyou to be in your mind
successful.
Those little tiny wins, insteadof instead of placing this big
number on you, say, sorry,number I went to weight loss,
but like letting go of the scalenumbers, right?
Okay, so let's say you're 200pounds and you want to be 150.
(21:13):
Well, let's let go of the 150because that puts a lot of
pressure on in the beginning.
And just think of it in littletiny wins, right?
Moving backwards on on thescale.
Being kind to your kinder toyourself as you're moving
through this.
I remember I had a client.
I love this story.
It's so kind of funny, but so sotrue what we do to ourselves.
(21:37):
So sh she came in and she waslike, I eat I eat a large pizza
all to myself, and I want tostop doing that.
Okay, great.
So we worked on it.
And then she came back.
I don't know if it was a weeklater or two weeks later.
Anyway, it doesn't matter.
She came back and she's like,Oh, I'm still eating pizza.
And I said, Well, how much pizzaare you eating?
(21:58):
Are you still eating the fullpizza?
And she said, No, but I had likethree slices.
She was beating herself up stillfor the pizza, right?
So so seeing those as uh littlewins, right?
You've you've made thesechanges.
Yes, it's working for you.
Give yourself credit, right?
(22:20):
It's so easy for us to beatourselves up for not staying on
this exact track that we that wewant to stay on.
And so that leads me into whatwe spoke about yesterday, guilt.
Guilt when it comes to any,let's say addiction, fuels the
addiction.
So you wake up in the morning,you've got guilt from eating a
(22:42):
whole pizza the night before.
Whether or not you're thinkingabout the guilt or it's
subconscious, you start your dayfeeling a little bit of that
guilt.
Shouldn't have done that.
Beating yourself up if it getsthat far, beating yourself up.
And guilt, as we discussedyesterday, demands punishment.
So what do we do that afternoonby midday or at night?
(23:07):
We maybe eat a lot again, or wedrink a lot again, or we go
gambling again or something,right?
And we we sort of set thispunishment cycle into you know,
go on starting, right?
This cycle starting.
So it sounds counterintuitive toa lot of people when they're
(23:28):
first starting out, but the veryfirst thing I start I start
working on with people, evenbefore limiting beliefs, is uh
letting go of that guilt.
Because if you wake up with theguilt, it's just going to fuel
it.
It's like that wagging finger,right?
And now you deserve punishmentor whatever you and what do we
(23:51):
we don't receive punishment fromoutside of us for the most part,
right?
But we receive punishment fromourselves.
And so it just started the cyclejust continues and continues.
So when we can wake up in themorning, let's say we had a
giant pizza.
I know I've done it before.
We have a giant, we eat like afull pizza to ourselves.
(24:14):
We can wake up the next morningand go, I'll make a different
decision next time, right?
That's not guilt, that is havingthe ability to make choice,
having that that buffer zonebetween the wagging finger
outside of us and and our ownability to make choice.
So having that ability to makechoice is is very important.
(24:38):
And then we work on the limitingbeliefs and stuff like that.
So yeah, that's my swee.
SPEAKER_01 (24:42):
And I like it.
I think for me, like I'm I'malways trying to think of the
mind and how it comes about thatwe think being hard on ourselves
is a good idea.
And and I know I come back a lotto parents, but I also, you
(25:03):
know, when I'm when I know thatmy clients are dealing with
self-worth, one of the reframesI always bring forward is
parents can be wrong, right?
We don't like to think badlyabout our parents.
We don't like to think of themas quite possibly being
incompetent at raising children,right?
(25:23):
Like because they might be,right?
Um, it's hard to be more of aparent than you had.
And if that's the case, we canbe very forgiving of our
parents.
It's not about saying it's myparents' fault.
I like to visualize it with myclients, imagine it as a chain
(25:44):
that's been handed down fromparent to child, to parent to
child, to parent to child.
And all of a sudden the childfinds himself being a parent,
right?
This is not something that yourparents got up and said, geez,
how can I screw up your life?
SPEAKER_03 (25:57):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (25:58):
Right?
It's that, you know, the parentgot up and wanted to protect
you, wanted to shape you into avery happy, successful person
that they haven't been able tobecome, right?
But they have nothing in theirrepertoire except what was shown
to them.
And so parents imposediscipline, often in the form of
(26:21):
criticism, often by pointing outfailures rather than celebrating
successes, which is very, verycommon, right?
Look at this.
You got nine out of ten on thistest.
What happened with this one?
SPEAKER_03 (26:35):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (26:36):
Right?
Right?
That's just really natural.
Why?
Because the parent loves you andwants you to be, wants you to
get 100%.
They want you to be very, verysuccessful.
And they were raised in a worldof criticism.
They were raised in a world ofchallenge.
And they don't know anythingelse.
So what happens is that in yourown mind, you start to, again,
(27:01):
curate, bring forward, keep atthe front these memories of
failure, the times you didn't doit.
You don't enter into a new partof your life by thinking about
the ways you haven't been ableto do it in the past.
To me, you start with the child.
(27:22):
Remember, you know, this isstuff I've been working on now
for years, but you know, how amI going to be the parent that I
never had?
How am I going to guide myselfthe way I wish my parents had
guided me?
Now that I have this insight,now that I've learned where this
has come from, I'm notinterested in blaming my
(27:43):
parents.
I'm interested in fixing theproblem.
Oftentimes that's what we do,right?
We focus more on blame than thesolution.
Whose fault is this?
Seems to be more important thanwhat's the solution.
But think of our political worldtoday, right?
This is just busy blaming andhating the other people because
it's their fault we're allscrewed up, instead of saying,
well, what could we dodifferent?
(28:04):
How could we make this better?
So there's just this realtendency to turn to blame and
avoid solution.
So to me, the solution, if youcan acknowledge that you have
been programmed to be afraid, tobe afraid of your own failures,
to be afraid of your owninadequacies, to be afraid of
(28:25):
your own mistakes, to judgeyourself based on those
mistakes, to question your ownability to even cope with your
successes.
Right?
Don't let that go to your head,right?
There's that voice.
Don't, you know, don't get a bighead about that, right?
SPEAKER_00 (28:43):
You're not all that in a bag of chips.
SPEAKER_01 (28:45):
There you go.
These are the things that weturn to because they're the
things that we've been raisedwith.
And that's when, you know,imagination, again, imagination
is one of the most incredibletools that we think as adults we
shouldn't use any.
We think as adults that that'sfor kids.
We want kids to haveimagination, but we train it out
(29:06):
of them and replace it withhere's a list of things you
should do and get on them.
And if you're not successful,it's because you're not trying
hard enough.
And put in more effort, moreeffort, more effort without, you
know, yeah, sometimes it, youknow, pushing on a pull door is
not going to get you anywhere.
So, you know, more effort isjust going to make it worse.
(29:27):
The point that I'm trying to getat is that there's a shift that
you can make in your own mind oftreating yourself like a child
that needs to be guided in theway that's going to get it where
it is.
And that that can start with,you know, celebrating the small
successes.
You know, think of if you if youwanted to make a child
(29:48):
paralyzed, if you wanted to makethem sit in a chair and never
move, all you have to do iscriticize everything they do,
right?
It's what children do.
Children will just lock up.
They'll just, if they get introuble for every time they
move, then yes, they will justsit and look at that iPad.
They will just sit in front ofthe TV and do nothing.
(30:08):
There's comfort there, there'speace there, there's no chance
of being criticized there,right?
Until there is.
Now I'm getting criticizedbecause I've sitting in front of
TV too much, right?
The point is that criticismleaves us with no alternatives,
right?
Whereas suggestion, kindness,loving encouragement, you know,
imagine that you had a littleone that you loved completely
(30:32):
sitting beside you.
Think of the way you would talkto them, knowing everything that
you know about life and knowingeverything that you know about
how difficult things are, andlearning all these things that
you're learning about your ownmind and why and how this has
come about.
How would I talk to that littleone to actually keep them from
having all these experiencesthat I had and keep them from
(30:53):
having all these beliefs that Ihad, right?
There was an experiment.
I always like, you know, I'mconstantly trying to learn.
There was an experiment wherethey took a kindergarten class
and the teacher stopped usingpraise and criticism and instead
used observation.
So think of it this way (31:13):
the child gets a piece of paper and
some crayons, and the teachersays, Oh, I like the way you
stayed into the lines there,right?
That is good and bad.
The teacher said, That's lovely.
The teacher says to Mary, that'sbeautiful, Mary, and says to
Johnny, Johnny, you got to tryharder, right?
The teacher now does the, oh, Iyou really used a lot of blue
(31:36):
there, instead of, is this goodor bad, right or wrong, what
we're trying to do.
This is what the child justsimply observed what the child
did.
And they conducted the classroomthat way.
And in a matter of a month, thechildren stopped turning to the
teacher for approval and theyjust discussed their work among
themselves.
(31:56):
This is five-year-olds, right?
Five-year-olds talking to eachother the way the teacher was
talking to them, not competingfor the teacher's attention, not
competing for the teacher'sapproval, but just engaged.
And the level of activity wentup.
The children were much moreinterested in these activities.
The children as a whole werereally engaged in it.
(32:20):
To me, you know, there's so muchto learn from that.
Like, that's huge to me.
And what if you could do thatwith yourself, right?
You've decided that you're gonnago to the gym, right?
And that means you've got to getover a whole world of resistance
to go to the gym.
You've decided you're gonna loseweight and you're gonna change
(32:41):
from eating a lot of bread toeating a lot of vegetables,
right?
You know, there's there'sthere's a lot of resistance to
that.
Bread just tastes better, right?
Until it doesn't, right?
And that's the thing of it.
So you're gonna go through a lotof resistance.
And this thing that I again, I'mgonna go back to something I
learned recently, and I I'mpracticing doing it.
(33:05):
You know, the anterior corticalcingulate, whatever that was
yesterday.
I'm not really good at uhremembering that.
There's a part of your brainthat actually grows when you do
things that are difficult.
And as I was exploring thismore, and we talked about this
before, but I was exploring thismore was a simple way you can
practice building that part ofyour brain and that kind of
(33:27):
mentality that flows with it,the kind of confidence that
flows from it.
I can do this, I can do this,this is good for me, is holding
your breath.
There's a study that showspeople who practice holding
their breath get better andbetter at holding their breath.
They hold their breath longer,but it also builds this part of
the brain that they rely on todo things that they have
(33:52):
resistance to, right?
SPEAKER_03 (33:54):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (33:54):
So I think if you practice, if you practice doing
things that you're resistant to,and that became a new challenge,
a new mindset.
And you started to encourageyourself like you would a little
child that you really care aboutand you want them to be able to
avoid all of these life'sproblems.
You're you're you've got arecipe there for, I think, for
(34:15):
success.
Anyway, you were looking at yourphone, something's going on.
SPEAKER_00 (34:18):
Uh, I was just looking up the word that you
were trying to say.
SPEAKER_01 (34:20):
Yeah.
Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_00 (34:21):
Anterior cingulate cortex.
SPEAKER_01 (34:24):
There it is.
C A C C.
Thank you.
SPEAKER_00 (34:28):
We're not scientists over here.
Let's just say we're going tobe.
SPEAKER_01 (34:30):
No, but it's good to use science.
Yeah.
Any any window into the way mymind works is something that I
love.
SPEAKER_00 (34:37):
Yeah.
Yeah.
So yeah, that's why we get inour own way.
SPEAKER_01 (34:40):
So I'll finish off with this idea.
As you're trying to learn how todo these things and stick with
your decisions, and you'velearned to celebrate the small
things and practice small thingsand encourage it like a child.
There's nothing more powerful inthe history of humanity than
forgiveness.
And forgiveness is reallysimplified.
(35:03):
Forgiveness is letting the lovecome first.
Uh, when somebody does somethingand it hurts me or upsets me, I
can let the offense come first.
I can let what they did comefirst, or I can let my love for
them come first.
So it's it's about not that, youknow, my wife did this thing to
(35:24):
me.
It becomes the person that Ilove did this.
And it just changes the context,it changes the situation.
Forgiving yourself is aboutfreedom.
I'm gonna let go of this so thatI can move forward.
I'm not gonna cling to thisbecause it's just brain cycles
(35:45):
I'm using to get in my way ofmoving forward.
And so if I let the love formyself come first, and I decide
I'd rather be free to try againthan be focused on the mistake I
made, um, you're really freeingyourself.
You're letting the love comefirst.
And that's really important,especially when you think about
(36:06):
the little child, letting thelove come first.
If every time you wanted tocorrect your child, you started
with something loving, you know.
I think you're great.
Why don't you try this?
unknown (36:18):
Right?
SPEAKER_01 (36:18):
It's so completely different from you did that
again?
Come on, right?
Which is unfortunately reallynatural for parents and the way
that parent was probably raised,and the way their parents were
probably raised, and the waytheir parents were probably
raised.
And that's forgivable too.
SPEAKER_00 (36:39):
Before we wrap up, I wanted to just give a little
technique.
We we spoke earlier about well,what is that limiting belief
attached to and going back intime and wherever that sort of
brings you, whether it's a catcall or something further back
in time when you're young, andwhat do we do when we get there
(36:59):
in our mind?
Okay, well, I know where it'scoming from, or I think I know
something's there.
If you were to reach out to theuniverse, let's say, or your
higher self or yoursubconscious, and ask, what is
the wisdom of this situation soI can just let it go and just
allow wisdom to come through,right?
(37:20):
Sometimes it's especially withparents, comes up a lot where
they were doing their best withwhat they knew at the time.
And like you just said, that'swhat they were taught.
It's not that it's right, it'sjust what they were taught and
they didn't know.
And it's not about lettingpeople away with what they did.
It's just the magic is in thewisdom, applying the new meaning
(37:42):
to the situation.
And if you go back to somethingthat you just think, how can
there be any wisdom in this?
Because it happens.
I think the biggest things youcan say to yourself is I
survived, I made it, I'm okay,I'm here today to tell the tale,
right?
Those kind of those kinds ofwisdoms.
(38:03):
But try it out, you know, if yougo back to something something
in your mind that that secondthought brings you back to, just
see it as if the universe istalking to you and it's giving
you like little bullet points,you know, of what wisdom there
is.
What is what did you learn fromthis?
What what lessons are there inthis?
(38:24):
And just let that take place ofthe old meaning and see how that
helps.
Yeah.
Thanks for coming to my TEDTalk.
SPEAKER_01 (38:40):
Yeah, let's let's do that.
Let's thank you for thesuggestions and the questions.
Let's, you know, that helps usbe more helpful.
That's that's our goal, is to behelpful, to help people learn
how their mind works and howthey can use it to their own
advantage and how our mind canreally be the most powerful tool
(39:02):
because it's where everythingbegins.
You know, I'm I'm I'm there now.
Everything's about the mind.
It's it's all about mind.
Uh, that's my that's my mantra.
I go around saying that.
At first, you know, when peopleare concerned with what's going
on around them, they'reresistant to that idea.
And then they realize thateverything going around them is
(39:23):
being interpreted by them, andthat's in their mind, and that
there's not a lot of reality outthere, only experience.
Then they start to really seehow their mind is where the game
is being played and the place tofocus.
And understanding that,understanding that that's the
first place to look, that it'spatterns in there that can be
(39:47):
changed, that it is totally andcompletely under your control if
you want it to be.
And that just changeseverything.
And so, yeah, my goal is to helppeople.
People see that they have amind, help them use their mind,
help them understand their mind.
And when you guys out there say,Here's what's going on in my
(40:09):
mind, or here's the one of thethings in my mind I struggle
with, that is that is giving usthe opportunity to be more
helpful.
SPEAKER_00 (40:17):
Yeah.
Thanks for hanging out today,guys.
Have a good day.
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