November 17, 2025 • 40 mins
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We pull apart the difference between facts, opinions, and beliefs, and how identity gets fused to ideas that were never proven. Along the way we examine authority, algorithms, memory, and why healing is an ongoing choice rather than a finish line.
• defining beliefs as temporary interpretations
• the spectrum from I don’t know to fact
• how emotion and repetition harden opinions into beliefs
• evidence versus proof and the misuse of science
• social media, suggestibility, and everyday hypnosis
• the critical factor and why children are more impressionable
• memory, childhood recall, and what really sticks
• reframing harmful self-beliefs and staying fluid
• healing as repeated willingness to let go
• practical questions to test authority and meaning
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_01 (00:11):
We are on the line.
I don't know why I sing it everyday.
That's a thing.
SPEAKER_03 (00:17):
Very very nice.
I like it.
SPEAKER_01 (00:20):
Give us a give uh give us a thumbs up or something
in the chat if you can hear us.
It's Monday morning, and we'rejust making sure our brains are
working well.
Everything's turned on.
Okay, it's good.
SPEAKER_02 (00:33):
Thanks for being here.
And you too.
Thank you for being here.
SPEAKER_01 (00:36):
Me?
Yeah.
Thank you.
Me and my snivelly, snivellyself.
SPEAKER_03 (00:44):
Weather report.
It is a clear sky, clear skywe've had in a long time.
Sun is just coming up over thehorizon.
I am looking out there and notseeing a single duck, goose, or
swan.
Which surprises me.
SPEAKER_01 (01:00):
There's a bunch of them the other day in a in a
group.
SPEAKER_03 (01:02):
Yeah, they were hanging out together.
Isn't that amazing?
What we could learn fromanimals.
If swans and geese and ducks canhang out together, human beings
can figure it out, right?
It would help.
SPEAKER_00 (01:15):
It would help.
SPEAKER_03 (01:16):
And there were seagulls in there too.
Yeah.
And if you can get along with aseagull, you're doing great.
SPEAKER_04 (01:21):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (01:22):
Do you have the right microphone on?
SPEAKER_04 (01:23):
I yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (01:27):
It just hit me.
unknown (01:28):
Yes.
SPEAKER_03 (01:29):
Let me ask as I leaned back.
I thought, I wonder if thatmight pick me up.
SPEAKER_01 (01:32):
Yeah.
So today we're we're talkingabout beliefs.
Beliefs.
Belief, belief.
SPEAKER_03 (01:39):
What a stupid idea.
You know me.
I like to see through theseideas.
When you think of beliefs, youknow, what do you think of?
SPEAKER_01 (01:49):
Well, I think at first I think about spiritual
beliefs or religious beliefs or,you know, political beliefs.
The biggies, right?
The big ones that I think wetend to assume the word goes to
immediately.
But I guess, you know, as as Istart to dig deeper, beliefs are
(02:12):
really anything you believeabout yourself to be true or
others to be true or the worldto be true, your environment to
be true.
And it's all stemming from way,way, way, way, way back.
SPEAKER_03 (02:25):
Those are the questions I like to ask.
It's funny, I'd like tochallenge that which we assume,
right?
And that's mostly everything,right?
Like I talk about, you know, howwe're using language right now.
Isn't that an amazing thing?
The human beings yearn tointeract and communicate so
badly that they create systemsof noises made through their
(02:48):
mouth and their nose.
And it's not just that it's, youknow, get out of my way or don't
touch that or that's mine,right?
It's that we have poetry, wehave prayer, right?
We we yearn to connect with eachother so badly that it's
basically the first thing weteach babies is how to make
(03:12):
noises in the form ofcommunication.
Mama, dada, right?
Papa, mama, right?
It's amazing how badly we wantto communicate.
It's amazing how we take thatwhole system for granted.
SPEAKER_01 (03:26):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (03:27):
You're smiling, you might be insilly.
SPEAKER_01 (03:29):
No, no, no.
I'm just laughing at the dog.
SPEAKER_03 (03:31):
Yeah, she wants to be heard, so she's chewing her
bones.
SPEAKER_01 (03:34):
It's like she knows every day at the same time.
SPEAKER_03 (03:38):
I like it because it reminds me of that old saying,
give the dog a bone.
SPEAKER_01 (03:41):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (03:42):
People are turning you on to this podcast.
You've just tuned in, and yourhead, your mind, was somewhere
else.
It was off in the distance.
It was like, okay, maybe I'lllisten to this.
Or, God, I gotta stop thinkingabout that, so I'm gonna listen
to this.
Or maybe, oh geez, it's the endof the day.
I can finally stop thinkingabout all the things I have to
(04:02):
think about.
Maybe I want to listen to this,you know, and so it just reminds
me of that.
Give the dog a bone.
Just like a dog is gonna chew,the mind is gonna think.
If you let the dog chew whateverit wants, you're gonna lose your
shoes and your clothes andfurniture.
So you give the dog a bone.
Your mind is gonna think, it'sgonna be filled with stuff all
(04:24):
the time.
So give it something good tothink.
Give it something worth thinkingabout.
And so today I want to thinkabout beliefs as an idea, as a
concept, and sort of thestrengths and weaknesses of
that.
Because for a lot of people, youknow, beliefs are considered a
strength.
Whereas as hypnotists we'velearned that beliefs are
(04:46):
actually a problem.
SPEAKER_01 (04:47):
Yeah, they can certainly get in the way.
SPEAKER_03 (04:49):
I don't know.
Do they ever help?
Can a belief help?
SPEAKER_01 (04:52):
I think so.
I I think I think if you youknow have the belief I'm strong
or I'm I'm I'm confident, or isthat a belief?
I don't know.
I think that's a belief, abelief in the chat, a belief in
oneself.
So like if you believe inyourself, I think that's good.
SPEAKER_03 (05:10):
Well, what do you believe about yourself?
SPEAKER_01 (05:12):
Me personally?
SPEAKER_03 (05:13):
Well, I I ask that question generally, and I hope
that anyone hearing thequestion, I love questions
because questions demand ananswer.
So a question is a great way tocommunicate if you're trying to
get someone to consider an idea.
So, you know, are your beliefsabout yourself all good?
SPEAKER_01 (05:32):
Well, I can't say they're all good, but I do have
good ones, I believe.
Uh yeah, I I have yeah, I havegood ones and bad ones.
I think I think everyone wouldprobably have a sliding scale of
like good ones versus bad ones.
(05:53):
And it just, you know, howmessed up you feel kind of is
based on if the bad ones are areway more than the good ones,
maybe.
SPEAKER_02 (06:02):
Well, what's the difference between a belief and
an opinion?
SPEAKER_01 (06:06):
I don't know.
Maybe an opinion can be changedeasier.
I don't know.
Nothing.
I need another coffee.
SPEAKER_03 (06:16):
Yeah, we're gonna go through some coffee today,
that's for sure.
No, I'm coming to the table withthe experience of having
countless beliefs myself overthe short span of my life, and
how many of them have had tochange, they needed to change
(06:38):
for me to move forward in mylife.
And as a hypnotist, how I haveto always find a way to sneak in
to my client's mind and get themto consider that maybe what they
believe is incorrect, and atleast even if they are gonna be
convinced it's correct, but it'snot helpful.
SPEAKER_01 (07:02):
An example comes to mind if I can remember it
properly.
I had a client that uh just keptsaying, like, I have scientific
proof, or I have empiricalproof.
Empirical evidence, that's whatit was.
I have empirical evidence thatI'm a failure.
SPEAKER_03 (07:21):
That's so wrong in so many dimensions, eh?
SPEAKER_01 (07:24):
Well, certainly not helpful.
SPEAKER_03 (07:26):
Well, it's absolutely not helpful, yeah.
And so and so and it's soincorrect, right?
SPEAKER_01 (07:32):
Oh, yeah, it's incorrect.
SPEAKER_03 (07:34):
It starts with uh it starts with a misunderstanding
of success and failure, yeah.
And then builds on that andapplies it in a judgment form
onto the person.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (07:47):
Uh in the chat, a belief has surpassed the
critical factor.
SPEAKER_03 (07:52):
Well, that's that's what we deal with as hypnotists,
isn't it?
Right?
It has, it's something that hassnuck through because it's part
of the natural mental processes.
Yeah, do you see?
SPEAKER_01 (08:04):
An opinion he sees my eyes looking down the
computer.
An opinion is temporary and canstill be influenced.
SPEAKER_03 (08:12):
But if a belief is really no more true than an
opinion, why did one go in?
Yeah, and and why do we takelike this?
This is we're talking in theright territory here because why
do we elevate opinions tobeliefs?
And why do people fight overtheir opinions and fight over
their beliefs?
(08:32):
We know unequivocally that abelief or an opinion is
something we can't prove.
Yeah, that's inherent in thedefinition.
Something we can't prove, and wefight over them.
We argue about them.
SPEAKER_01 (08:48):
Well, I think we we atta we must attach it to our
ego and who we are who we are.
SPEAKER_03 (08:52):
Yeah, the the equivocal or sorry, the the most
meaningful part of the phrase mybeliefs is the word my.
SPEAKER_04 (09:02):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (09:02):
We turn it into a part of our identity.
SPEAKER_04 (09:05):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (09:06):
And here's the awful thing that's how we interpret
the world through the lens ofour beliefs.
SPEAKER_00 (09:12):
My brain is melting.
SPEAKER_03 (09:14):
Well, this is this is so yeah, this is so important
to me because this is anautomatic thing, right?
This is something we do everyday, all day long, with
everything around us, right?
We are never seeing things forwhat they are.
We are only ever seeing thingsfor what they mean about me.
SPEAKER_01 (09:34):
Yeah, that's true.
That's true.
And we tell our clients that,like, it's never about you.
You know, you can be someonefight me on the not fight me,
but like I said, you know, uhyou could be you can be Mother
Teresa and someone's still gonnahave an issue, right?
And then they said, Well, haveyou heard what Mother Teresa has
(09:55):
done?
And I was like, Oh my god, theydo know what do you know what I
mean?
SPEAKER_03 (09:59):
There you go.
There's this natural, yeah,yeah, there's a natural tendency
to challenge everything.
That critical factor is a reallyactive thing.
Unfortunately, it's not verylogical, right?
That critical factor is the sameas the subconscious mind.
It's still a child, yeah, right.
(10:20):
And some people are actuallyraised to believe to challenge
everything, right?
Challenge everything, don'taccept anything anybody says,
and they get in the habit ofdoing that, which I think in
some ways is really great.
SPEAKER_04 (10:36):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (10:36):
In a world full of crap, yeah, and people trying to
control you and get you to dothings you don't want to do.
Yeah, I can see there's valuethere.
And then there's also theincredible anchor that puts on
your life, right?
Because at some point oranother, you have to decide what
you will let in.
(10:56):
And I think this is where peopleget really messed up with
science, right?
They think that's they labelsomething as science and that
lets it in.
And science is a method and aprocess, it's not a thing, it's
a method of analysis.
And it's a method that can be aseasily manipulated as anything
else.
People do it all the time.
You know, for me, the question Ialways ask, if somebody says, I
(11:19):
want, I'm gonna live my life byscience, right?
I'm gonna say, Well, you gottaask every time who paid for the
study.
You gotta ask every time whopaid for that study, because
they won't pay if they don't getthe result they want.
So who paid for that study?
Who who has something at stakewith these beliefs?
SPEAKER_01 (11:39):
Yeah.
And you would have to be in away, and I don't think people
generally are like this, becauseI think the idea of basing your
opinions and beliefs on onscience is sort of in a
deep-down way locking things in.
But you would have to be someonewho is open to change, right?
(12:03):
The science says one yearcoffee's good for you, next year
coffee's not good for you.
Oh, five years later, coffee'sgood for you.
You know, like it's constantlychanging.
SPEAKER_03 (12:14):
And the people who share it share it for a reason.
SPEAKER_01 (12:17):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (12:17):
Their own reason.
SPEAKER_04 (12:18):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (12:19):
Whatever they might be.
So this is the critical factorthat may be very, very uh
tightly bound, might be very,very open.
You know, we talk about people,we call them maybe naive or we
call them gullible, right?
And they're people who justbelieve things because they
heard it, read it.
It's on the internet, it must betrue.
(12:42):
But I don't know.
We make that joke, but I don'tknow anybody who really thinks
that way.
SPEAKER_01 (12:46):
If it's on the internet, it must be true.
I don't know.
SPEAKER_03 (12:49):
But I think sometimes when things are
published, yeah, right, we havea tendency to let certain forms
of information in.
SPEAKER_01 (12:56):
Well, my my biggest thing right now that I'm I've
been thinking about is, and wedon't have to go down this
rabbit hole because it mighttake us in a totally different
direction, but what is authoritynowadays?
Right.
I I was going through reels onInstagram or something, maybe
TikTok.
And I was thinking to myself,everyone scrolling through these
(13:19):
reels, like what what is goingin?
You know, like you're zoned outcompletely as you're scrolling.
And what made me think about itwas this random woman popping up
in a reel saying, your brainstarts eating itself in
(13:39):
perimenopause.
And that was it.
And then she went on to talkabout it a little bit.
But my God, the amount of peoplewatching that, liking it,
comments, tons and tons ofcomments.
Oh my God, I knew it.
I knew it.
And so who is the authority?
Is she really an authority tosay that kind of thing?
(14:01):
And you you you scroll and it'sright there, it's going right
in, you know, you're in thatzone.
And I mean, think about me.
Like I remember it.
I don't believe it, but Iremember it.
And where do you start saying toyourself, no, no, I'm not going
to believe every single thingthat comes across that.
So who is the authority?
(14:23):
So now we're looking at AI.
Yeah.
Like Chat GBT has become anauthority.
SPEAKER_03 (14:28):
And that bugger just makes things up.
Oh my God.
That's that's just a peoplepleaser if there ever was one.
That one goes out of its way togive you answers on things it's
never considered because itknows you want an answer.
It's always polite and lovingand kind when it answers you.
Oh, Les, that's a really goodquestion.
I think we should consider thatfrom a couple of angles.
(14:51):
Right?
And then it says stuff, and thenit's I'll ask it a topic, a
question about a topic that Iknow about, and then I'll get
something back and I'll say,Well, what about this?
Oh, that's a very good point,Les.
We should include that in ourconsiderations, right?
And then I'll say, But but youforgot about this.
Well, Les, my I have limits tothe things that I can access.
(15:13):
So I'm sorry, sometimes myanswers are incomplete.
I really encourage you to doublecheck this research.
Like you talk to me like youknow, and you're my best friend,
and then you say, Yeah, I'm I'mjust making stuff up.
SPEAKER_01 (15:28):
There's a great um, I don't know who sent it to me.
Maybe my brother.
I can't remember.
Anyway, there's a great comicright now with two panels, and
the top panel is some guyasking, excuse me, asking Chat
GBT, can I eat this mushroom?
Chat GBT is like, yeah, thatlooks like an edible mushroom,
(15:48):
blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
And then the bottom panel isthis tombstone RIP.
And Chat GBT is like, well,actually, I think I was wrong on
that.
SPEAKER_03 (16:00):
So, yeah.
We actually have a story aboutbudding Brian is a runner, and
Brian runs like 10, 20 clicks aday.
He just runs, and he likes tojust get off the roads and into
the bush.
And so he came across this thingthat was on the road, and now
he's he's he's funny becausehe's just in the last year got a
(16:21):
phone with data.
This is a you know, this is a65-year-old man who just got a
phone with data, right?
Yeah, and he takes pictures ofthings and asks Google what it
is.
So he took a picture and it wasand the picture said it was some
kind of mushroom.
Google said it was some kind ofmushroom.
(16:44):
And he he was smart enough tosay, I don't I don't think I
believe that.
And he took more pictures and hekept looking.
And then Google said, Well, no,it's an animal scat.
Nice.
It's poop.
Oh my gosh.
Anyway, he tells that story,tells it very, very well.
SPEAKER_01 (17:04):
But yeah, who is who's becoming the authority?
SPEAKER_03 (17:07):
Well, that's the thing about the mind.
You know, this is to me one ofthe valuable things to know
about the mind.
The mind has a critical factor.
We know that.
We know that the critical factorforms at some early age in our
lives when we became responsiblefor ourselves.
When our parents started makingus responsible for ourselves, we
started to lock in our beliefs.
(17:29):
When we started to interfacewith the world at large without
our parents' intervention,that's when we started to really
lock in our base knowledge, ourbase awareness.
That's why so many people, whenthey come to hypnotism, they
want help.
That what they're saying is, I'macting childish.
You know, I don't like the wayI'm behaving, I don't like the
things that I do, I don'tunderstand why I can't do
(17:51):
something different, I don'tunderstand why I say this or say
that.
I want to stop being this way.
Their complaints are summed upwith, you know, I'm I'm behaving
in a way I don't like it's kindof childish.
And that's because so much ofour mind, in terms of our
beliefs, and then the that theguards that we put around our
beliefs are really justchildren.
SPEAKER_04 (18:13):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (18:14):
And they have very incomplete knowledge.
SPEAKER_04 (18:16):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (18:17):
And they hear things like, you know, my beliefs
matter, my opinions matter.
And that starts to become abelief.
My opinions matter.
And, you know, you're sayingsomething that I don't like and
you should stop.
SPEAKER_06 (18:33):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (18:34):
Because my beliefs matter.
My opinions matter.
We get lots of conflict, right?
Conflict, because first of all,my beliefs don't align with your
beliefs, but more importantly,my beliefs don't align with my
other beliefs.
I have beliefs that conflictwith each other, and I don't
know how to reconcile becausethey are very child.
So I guess I'm get making my wayto my first reframe.
SPEAKER_04 (18:56):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (18:57):
Right?
I put beliefs on the samespectrum that I put opinion.
And on one end of the spectrum,there is I don't know.
And on the other end of thespectrum, there is this is a
fact.
Yeah.
This is a fact.
There are facts, there arethings that are inarguable.
Right now, the sun is in my eye.
There is nothing between my eyesand the sun.
(19:19):
It is a clear day, right?
I might judge it and say, it'sbeautiful outside, right?
Or I might judge it and say, Oh,that sun is burning my eye.
Right.
But the fact is the sunshine ismaking its way directly to my
eye.
Yeah.
Right?
That's a fact.
Then we use things likejudgments, interpretations.
You know, I can take my judgmentand say that the sun is
(19:42):
beautiful.
And then I can turn that into abelief that sunny days are
better days than rainy days.
SPEAKER_01 (19:48):
And then you'll fight someone on it.
SPEAKER_03 (19:49):
And then I'll get up in the morning when it's raining
and think, well, this is asecondary low qual quality,
low-caliber day, right?
And I'll approach it that way.
Oh, it's raining.
The day is crap.
Uh uh.
Right.
So a fact can feed into all theother facts I know.
And then I start to formopinions.
(20:11):
And when my opinions are really,really important to me, then I
call them beliefs.
And they're my opinions areoften based on my beliefs.
So that's kind of like takingfiction and creating fiction
from fiction, right?
It's taking something that'sreally, really unreliable and
then making something even moreunreliable from it, and then
making that your fundamentalkudo, right?
(20:35):
Your, your, your, sort of, uhmaybe maybe I mean the word
credo, your your absolutephilosophical stance on the
matter, and that it's mine.
So I'm at stake if peopledisagree, because I'm so darn
smart that I've come to thisconclusion, and this is my
belief.
And anybody who believesotherwise is just wrong, right?
(20:59):
So I've I have offered a reframein the past.
Opinions are temporary things.
If we think of opinions astemporary, because we haven't
finished our research yet,right?
Opinions are temporary.
It's based on incompleteknowledge.
I know that my opinion is basedon incomplete.
So my opinion is aninterpretation based on
incomplete knowledge.
I should treat it as temporary.
(21:20):
And if I'm not going to finishthe research, then I should
throw my opinion out because Idon't plan on finding the truth.
So walking around holding a notan incomplete truth is not a
helpful thing.
A belief is an opinion that Ihold about myself or about the
world, and it's the same kind ofthing.
So the easy reframe I offer isbeliefs can change.
(21:44):
And that's the way I get aroundit with clients.
SPEAKER_01 (21:46):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (21:46):
A belief is is not really, you can't prove a
belief, right?
Otherwise, it wouldn't be calleda belief.
If I could prove it, it'd becalled a fact.
Right?
So a belief is a temporary thingthat I choose to accept without
complete proof.
And when it's about me or aboutthe world I'm living in, or
about others, it can becomeproblematic and unhelpful.
SPEAKER_04 (22:09):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (22:10):
A belief like everybody is good.
That can get you in sometrouble.
A belief like, you know, allthese people of this particular
persuasion can't be trusted.
Whatever that might be.
Men can't be trusted.
Women can't be trusted.
People from this particularreligion can't be trusted.
People from this political partycan't be trusted.
SPEAKER_04 (22:29):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (22:30):
Right?
These are all beliefs.
SPEAKER_04 (22:32):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (22:32):
And they they don't have the quality of fact.
They don't have even, in a lotof cases, real facts behind
them, though we can claim tohave empirical evidence.
SPEAKER_06 (22:46):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (22:46):
And evidence, we use the word evidence and we don't
use the word proof as lawyers.
We talk about evidence.
And talk about proof is aconclusion that you come to from
the evidence.
And that's an interpretation ofthe evidence.
And evidence can be interpretedin a lot of ways.
So we're really cautious aboutthat, or at least we pretend to
be really cautious about that atlaw because people's lives are
at stake.
SPEAKER_06 (23:06):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (23:07):
Well, anyway, so an opinion should be a temporary
thing until you complete yourresearch.
And if you don't plan oncompleting your research, then
you shouldn't have an opinion.
And it's okay to say I don'thave an opinion on it.
SPEAKER_01 (23:18):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Uh but I think, you know what'sinteresting, what's coming to me
is when I do interviews, there'salways a question that I don't
know the answer to, right?
Of course.
And uh I I don't sit there andmake something up, right?
I'll say, I I'm not sure.
I don't know.
I I haven't done that yet.
Something like that.
(23:39):
And you wouldn't believe howmany people, when they reach out
to me, say, quote that, like, Inoticed you said this.
And I felt like I that was themoment I trusted you because so
many people are out there, andI'm not trying to toot my corner
or anything, but like so manypeople are out there trying to
(24:00):
grab for authority.
And in grabbing for authority,they're just making they're
they're just, I don't know,making stuff up.
I don't maybe not, but like theyare positioning themselves like
I know everything.
And I think you can read it.
I think I think more and morepeople know when they're
watching that.
I don't know, that just came tomind.
SPEAKER_03 (24:20):
Well, I think that feeds into many people's
mistrust of authority, right?
SPEAKER_01 (24:24):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (24:25):
That becomes a that that becomes a belief.
How do beliefs come about?
They come about from repeatedexperience.
And let's remember thatexperience is an interpretation.
SPEAKER_06 (24:36):
Right.
SPEAKER_03 (24:36):
So we go back to that simple equation.
Things happen, events.
We put the meaning on thoseevents.
That meaning will evoke anemotion, and that emotion
becomes part of our experience.
The event, what it means, andthe emotions that it evokes is
the experience.
SPEAKER_04 (24:54):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (24:54):
So that's why beliefs are so hard to shake,
because there's an emotionalcomponent to them, right?
Based on the meaning we put onthem.
And the best way to shake abelief is to change the meaning.
And I just think all beliefs, wecan shift the meaning of beliefs
right across the board just bysaying, a belief is not a fact,
(25:15):
my beliefs can change.
SPEAKER_01 (25:16):
Yeah.
And that's sometimes scary forpeople.
I I've I've had numerous peoplesit in our first meeting.
And once they realize what wewould be doing together, they
still go through with it, thankgoodness, but they they realize
that change is coming.
And it's scary for a lot ofpeople.
Who do what does that mean?
Who am I after that happens?
(25:38):
Do I lose myself if I if I thinkdifferently about myself?
How do I get through this world?
SPEAKER_03 (25:45):
Our beliefs, our opinions, we identify with.
And, you know, that was theconversation we had last week.
You know, if I was to lose mytone, would I disappear?
Well, heck no, right?
It might change the way I viewthe world, depending on how I
interpret it, but I don'tdisappear.
If I lose my beliefs and realizemy beliefs aren't facts and they
(26:08):
can't be universally applied,and they don't need to be
thought of.
It's not something to fight withsomebody else over.
Then maybe I'm still here andI'm a fluid thing.
I'm not a solid thing.
You know, I'm not this body, I'mnot a solid thing, I'm a fluid
thing, I can change.
My opinions can change, mybeliefs can change, I can
(26:31):
change, I can change my body, Icould change my mind, I can
change, I'm in constant change.
I have lots of evidence to provethat I am in constant change.
unknown (26:43):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (26:46):
And I think you want to be in constant change.
I know a lot of people goingthrough the healing process,
they're like, well, I'm back atthis thing.
I'm working on this thing again.
When is this going to end?
When am I going to be healed?
I think that that I thinkthere's a belief there that
needs to be looked at that thereis an end in healing.
(27:08):
There isn't an end in healing.
You you don't, I don't think youwant an end in healing.
And that's, you know, hindsight.
That would be hindsight.
I think that if we're notconstantly changing and healing
and growing and learning and allthese different things, then we
just become, you know, thevisual that I get is that I
(27:29):
don't know where it's from,maybe an old movie or something,
but that old man rocking backand forth on a porch near a
cornfield with his dog and thegun.
And like he just becomes thisdoing nothing person and just
wasting away on the porch, youknow.
SPEAKER_03 (27:46):
Fighting for your beliefs.
SPEAKER_01 (27:47):
Yeah.
Yeah, maybe.
Yeah, exactly.
So I think I think that like theTetris game, like we talk to
people about, you're constantlyclearing rows of stuff, you're
healing, you're learning, you'redoing.
And that's getting lighter andlighter.
But I don't think there's likesuddenly one day you're healed
of everything, you know?
SPEAKER_03 (28:08):
Well, I think it's important to think about how the
world is multidimensional.
And so healing is going to bemultidimensional.
You're going to bump into manydifferent kinds of circumstances
that are going to trigger oldwounds.
And though, in certaincircumstances you've already got
that figured out, maybe youknow, there are other
circumstances that haven't comeup yet that will trigger that
(28:31):
old wound and you got to healsome more there.
But I also think that there'syeah, there's another way of
looking at healing.
The instant I want to be healed,the instant I want to let go of
something, the instant I'mwilling to forgive it and
release it, in that moment I amhealed.
Now, what happened is that themind is habitual.
(28:54):
The mind repeats itself.
Even when you have had a uniquenew thought that is healing in
nature, the subconscious mind isgoing to drag you back to old
thoughts.
And when it drags you back toold thoughts, it reactivates the
hurt and puts you in a placewhere you have to heal it all
over again.
So the power starts to becomeyour ability to dispose of old
(29:19):
experiences that haven't provento be helpful.
How much can I cut ties with mypast?
Right?
We have fridge magnets that wegive to clients.
And, you know, one of myfavorites is the past only
matters when I drag it into thepresent.
SPEAKER_04 (29:35):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (29:35):
And if I'm not thinking about my past and
double-checking everything in mypresent as it relates to my
past, then my past can just bereleased, it can just be gone.
It can just because the past isgone.
The only place it can exist isin your mind when you dig it up,
right?
It doesn't exist anywhere exceptin your mind.
(29:56):
And then that's subject to aninterpretation.
Because when you experiencethis, There was an event that
you interpreted to meansomething, you stacked an
emotion on top of it, and thenyou filed it away under
experience.
And then you use all thoseexperiences to create beliefs,
most importantly, beliefs aboutyourself.
And those beliefs about yourselfcan be really, really limiting.
(30:20):
Really, it's like a cage.
It's like a box, your beliefsabout yourself.
And sometimes the best thing youcan do is just ditch all your
beliefs about yourself and seewhat you discover.
Just, ah, let's see what I dotoday.
Let's see who I am today.
Let's see what happens today.
I'm just not gonna care aboutanything that's happened in the
(30:41):
past.
And I'm not gonna cling to mybeliefs.
People come about their beliefshonestly, and then they get
reinforced by the people wholove us, our parents and our
friends and the people we admirein the world.
And we get ourselves in a placewhere we're trapped and limited
by our beliefs.
(31:02):
And to just keep them soft, mybeliefs can change.
My opinions are temporary.
I'm always open to newinformation that is trustworthy.
And I will determine trustworthyas I meet the information.
And I will do my best.
SPEAKER_01 (31:18):
Yeah.
In the chat, there's an opinionthat's temporary and can still
be influenced.
I wonder what influence, whathow who influences it?
Or again, back to thatauthority.
SPEAKER_03 (31:29):
Yeah, there it is.
SPEAKER_01 (31:30):
Is it just like pig pong?
SPEAKER_03 (31:32):
It's authority, it's trauma, and it's hypnosis.
SPEAKER_01 (31:36):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (31:36):
Right?
So when I say hypnosis, I don'tmean sitting in the chair.
I mean sitting in your chair atnight with your face stuck in
YouTube.
SPEAKER_04 (31:44):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (31:44):
Right?
That's hypnosis.
SPEAKER_01 (31:46):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (31:46):
Right?
Your AI feed is deeplyhypnotizing.
SPEAKER_01 (31:51):
Think of the visual that comes to me as kids.
And they marketing agencies dothis stuff on purpose, like kids
looking at TV when they're whenthey're kids, obviously.
And you just see them glazeover.
They're just watching, watching,watching.
They like their show.
And then bam, there's acommercial with lots of great
(32:13):
colors and this toy.
And it's going, it's all goingright in.
It's no different than, I don'tthink.
It's no different thanscrolling.
SPEAKER_03 (32:23):
No, it's completely the same.
You know, and and you know, themany scientists will tell you
that the dominant brain state ofpeople under the age of seven is
the theta state.
The theta state is asuggestibility state.
I think that it's important torealize that when they're very
young, they haven't accumulateda lot of experience.
(32:44):
So they don't have a lot ofstrong beliefs.
So it's very easy to shape theirbeliefs about the world.
For us as adults, we've crossedthat time where we've become
locked in.
We've developed a criticalfactor, we've developed critical
thinking methods, for better orworse, and we've become locked
into our beliefs.
(33:05):
And so we defend them a lotstronger and a lot better.
A child's mind is very muchdifferent.
I mean, child psychologists havebeen advocating for 50 years
about children's TV.
I mean, that was the reason whythey invented the children's
television network, and we hadSesame Street and all those
things.
It was very much about knowingthat the child's mind develops
(33:32):
and is easily shaped and thestuff we expose them to on a
medium like television, in amedium like children's books,
right?
There are so many children'sbooks out there.
Like you think about reading thekids who grew up on Grimm's
fairy tales.
You gotta figure they they got acompletely different mind than
(33:55):
the kids who grew up on Dr.
Seuss.
And even that's kind of a greeneggs and ham kind of mine.
SPEAKER_01 (34:05):
Mine was mine was the green forest.
So I'm I'm all fairy tales andtalking blue jays.
SPEAKER_03 (34:13):
And my and my eldest son could continues to be just
madly in love with the bookWhere the Wild Things Are.
Right?
Which is really a story aboutyou know, a kid who who was bad,
was told to go to bed withoutsupper, and then had a nightmare
when he fell asleep.
SPEAKER_01 (34:36):
You know, something just come came to me, and I
don't know, this is probablyalready a thing, but we we think
about how kids are living intheir theta state mind.
And when someone goes throughhypnosis, they're living in
their theta, alpha theta statemind.
And as much as they come out ofhypnosis and they they're like,
(34:58):
oh yeah, I went through that, Iworked on that.
It it's not, it's likedaydreaming, right?
You just it's easilyforgettable, right?
And so you have adults, and Ihear it a lot when people come
in.
Well, I don't remember mychildhood, so it must have been
really messed up.
Like I must have tons of trauma.
But what's coming to me now, andand and sometimes those people
(35:19):
don't have tons of trauma, butwhat's coming to me now is like
if they if as children we're inour theta state, then maybe
that's why we don't reallyremember our childhood, is
because it was all dreams.
It was all hypnosis, it was alldreamlike, right?
But we think there's somethingreally messed up with us if we
don't remember our childhood.
Well, but we were in that thetamind, which is easily, easily
(35:41):
forgettable, right?
Unless there's emotion attached.
SPEAKER_03 (35:45):
Well, I think, you know, I I think there's a
simpler way to to soften yourthoughts on that.
Um, first of all, go back fiveyears and realize that you know,
the years five years ago to tenyears ago, you lived them the
exact same way you're living thepresent.
And then go back to those yearsand ask yourself how much you
(36:06):
remember of them.
SPEAKER_01 (36:07):
Yeah, no.
SPEAKER_03 (36:09):
And mostly what you remember are the upsetting thing
or the really, really positivething.
You certainly don't remember,you know, what socks you were
wearing on the Wednesday of theseventh year, eighth month,
right?
Like you just don't you don'tremember the little things that
quite quite confidentlyhappened, yeah, but you don't
(36:32):
remember them.
So then go back another fiveyears, and guesses are that your
memories are limited to just thehighlight.
And you actually have to thinkabout them and you'd have to
make reference to the year, thedate, the moment, the event,
yeah, and then go back anotherfive years, as many years as it
takes you to be five years old.
Like I know I went tokindergarten, I remember the
(36:54):
name of my kindergarten teacher.
I remember thinking that she wasso pretty and she was so nice.
Right?
I don't really remember muchabout kindergarten.
I remember when Bobby May pukedon the carpet.
I remember that.
I remember playing on the snowhill and getting in trouble from
the teacher.
And really, other than that, Idon't remember kindergarten.
(37:18):
But it was, you know, a fewyears ago.
And I think that to say I don'tremember my childhood is pretty
darn normal.
SPEAKER_04 (37:25):
Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (37:26):
And that if events stand out that are negative in
your interpretation, I thinkthat's pretty darn normal.
SPEAKER_01 (37:33):
I'm I'm, I don't know, this is not really
pertinent to the conversation,but I remember what's what's
coming to me is I remember mykindergarten teacher, she had
these slip-on shoes that hadthese frills and tassel things
on them.
And I would sit there and playwith them while she was talking
(37:53):
to people.
I don't know why she would letme do that.
Like what?
SPEAKER_00 (38:02):
Oh my god.
And oh my gosh.
SPEAKER_01 (38:05):
I also like uh, you know, my my after kindergarten,
I was put into French immersion.
So like the very first years oflearning was pretty mixed up,
right?
So there are, you know, there'swords that when I look at
(38:27):
something, the English word doesnot come to me first, which is
interesting.
But anyway, yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (38:33):
Anything else from the questions or comments?
SPEAKER_01 (38:34):
Not right now.
SPEAKER_03 (38:36):
So with that said, yeah, I'm ready to close the
book on this one.
Yeah, beliefs are not facts,they are temporary things, they
are changeable things, they arebased on experience, which is
based on interpretation.
They're loaded with emotionbecause they're based on
experiences, and we tend tothink of them as mine, which
(38:59):
makes them part of our identityand makes us somewhat unwilling
to change them.
Yeah, but for the vast majorityof people, the willingness to
change your beliefs is whatopens the door to a better life.
So they're not as important,they're not as valuable, they're
not as essential to who you areas you think they are.
(39:20):
And it's in allowing yourself tochange your belief, which will
change how you interpret what'sgoing on in your life now.
Yeah.
I am an eternal child of theuniverse, and nothing can change
that.
SPEAKER_00 (39:32):
Yeah.
All right.
Well, thanks for joining ustoday, talking about beliefs.
Be a leaf floating on the wind.
SPEAKER_01 (39:42):
There you go.
I don't know, God.
I do need more coffee.
All right, we'll see you later.
We are on the line.
I don't know why I sing it everyday.
That's a thing.
SPEAKER_03 (00:17):
Very very nice.
I like it.
SPEAKER_01 (00:20):
Give us a give uh give us a thumbs up or something
in the chat if you can hear us.
It's Monday morning, and we'rejust making sure our brains are
working well.
Everything's turned on.
Okay, it's good.
SPEAKER_02 (00:33):
Thanks for being here.
And you too.
Thank you for being here.
SPEAKER_01 (00:36):
Me?
Yeah.
Thank you.
Me and my snivelly, snivellyself.
SPEAKER_03 (00:44):
Weather report.
It is a clear sky, clear skywe've had in a long time.
Sun is just coming up over thehorizon.
I am looking out there and notseeing a single duck, goose, or
swan.
Which surprises me.
SPEAKER_01 (01:00):
There's a bunch of them the other day in a in a
group.
SPEAKER_03 (01:02):
Yeah, they were hanging out together.
Isn't that amazing?
What we could learn fromanimals.
If swans and geese and ducks canhang out together, human beings
can figure it out, right?
It would help.
SPEAKER_00 (01:15):
It would help.
SPEAKER_03 (01:16):
And there were seagulls in there too.
Yeah.
And if you can get along with aseagull, you're doing great.
SPEAKER_04 (01:21):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (01:22):
Do you have the right microphone on?
SPEAKER_04 (01:23):
I yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (01:27):
It just hit me.
unknown (01:28):
Yes.
SPEAKER_03 (01:29):
Let me ask as I leaned back.
I thought, I wonder if thatmight pick me up.
SPEAKER_01 (01:32):
Yeah.
So today we're we're talkingabout beliefs.
Beliefs.
Belief, belief.
SPEAKER_03 (01:39):
What a stupid idea.
You know me.
I like to see through theseideas.
When you think of beliefs, youknow, what do you think of?
SPEAKER_01 (01:49):
Well, I think at first I think about spiritual
beliefs or religious beliefs or,you know, political beliefs.
The biggies, right?
The big ones that I think wetend to assume the word goes to
immediately.
But I guess, you know, as as Istart to dig deeper, beliefs are
(02:12):
really anything you believeabout yourself to be true or
others to be true or the worldto be true, your environment to
be true.
And it's all stemming from way,way, way, way, way back.
SPEAKER_03 (02:25):
Those are the questions I like to ask.
It's funny, I'd like tochallenge that which we assume,
right?
And that's mostly everything,right?
Like I talk about, you know, howwe're using language right now.
Isn't that an amazing thing?
The human beings yearn tointeract and communicate so
badly that they create systemsof noises made through their
(02:48):
mouth and their nose.
And it's not just that it's, youknow, get out of my way or don't
touch that or that's mine,right?
It's that we have poetry, wehave prayer, right?
We we yearn to connect with eachother so badly that it's
basically the first thing weteach babies is how to make
(03:12):
noises in the form ofcommunication.
Mama, dada, right?
Papa, mama, right?
It's amazing how badly we wantto communicate.
It's amazing how we take thatwhole system for granted.
SPEAKER_01 (03:26):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (03:27):
You're smiling, you might be insilly.
SPEAKER_01 (03:29):
No, no, no.
I'm just laughing at the dog.
SPEAKER_03 (03:31):
Yeah, she wants to be heard, so she's chewing her
bones.
SPEAKER_01 (03:34):
It's like she knows every day at the same time.
SPEAKER_03 (03:38):
I like it because it reminds me of that old saying,
give the dog a bone.
SPEAKER_01 (03:41):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (03:42):
People are turning you on to this podcast.
You've just tuned in, and yourhead, your mind, was somewhere
else.
It was off in the distance.
It was like, okay, maybe I'lllisten to this.
Or, God, I gotta stop thinkingabout that, so I'm gonna listen
to this.
Or maybe, oh geez, it's the endof the day.
I can finally stop thinkingabout all the things I have to
(04:02):
think about.
Maybe I want to listen to this,you know, and so it just reminds
me of that.
Give the dog a bone.
Just like a dog is gonna chew,the mind is gonna think.
If you let the dog chew whateverit wants, you're gonna lose your
shoes and your clothes andfurniture.
So you give the dog a bone.
Your mind is gonna think, it'sgonna be filled with stuff all
(04:24):
the time.
So give it something good tothink.
Give it something worth thinkingabout.
And so today I want to thinkabout beliefs as an idea, as a
concept, and sort of thestrengths and weaknesses of
that.
Because for a lot of people, youknow, beliefs are considered a
strength.
Whereas as hypnotists we'velearned that beliefs are
(04:46):
actually a problem.
SPEAKER_01 (04:47):
Yeah, they can certainly get in the way.
SPEAKER_03 (04:49):
I don't know.
Do they ever help?
Can a belief help?
SPEAKER_01 (04:52):
I think so.
I I think I think if you youknow have the belief I'm strong
or I'm I'm I'm confident, or isthat a belief?
I don't know.
I think that's a belief, abelief in the chat, a belief in
oneself.
So like if you believe inyourself, I think that's good.
SPEAKER_03 (05:10):
Well, what do you believe about yourself?
SPEAKER_01 (05:12):
Me personally?
SPEAKER_03 (05:13):
Well, I I ask that question generally, and I hope
that anyone hearing thequestion, I love questions
because questions demand ananswer.
So a question is a great way tocommunicate if you're trying to
get someone to consider an idea.
So, you know, are your beliefsabout yourself all good?
SPEAKER_01 (05:32):
Well, I can't say they're all good, but I do have
good ones, I believe.
Uh yeah, I I have yeah, I havegood ones and bad ones.
I think I think everyone wouldprobably have a sliding scale of
like good ones versus bad ones.
(05:53):
And it just, you know, howmessed up you feel kind of is
based on if the bad ones are areway more than the good ones,
maybe.
SPEAKER_02 (06:02):
Well, what's the difference between a belief and
an opinion?
SPEAKER_01 (06:06):
I don't know.
Maybe an opinion can be changedeasier.
I don't know.
Nothing.
I need another coffee.
SPEAKER_03 (06:16):
Yeah, we're gonna go through some coffee today,
that's for sure.
No, I'm coming to the table withthe experience of having
countless beliefs myself overthe short span of my life, and
how many of them have had tochange, they needed to change
(06:38):
for me to move forward in mylife.
And as a hypnotist, how I haveto always find a way to sneak in
to my client's mind and get themto consider that maybe what they
believe is incorrect, and atleast even if they are gonna be
convinced it's correct, but it'snot helpful.
SPEAKER_01 (07:02):
An example comes to mind if I can remember it
properly.
I had a client that uh just keptsaying, like, I have scientific
proof, or I have empiricalproof.
Empirical evidence, that's whatit was.
I have empirical evidence thatI'm a failure.
SPEAKER_03 (07:21):
That's so wrong in so many dimensions, eh?
SPEAKER_01 (07:24):
Well, certainly not helpful.
SPEAKER_03 (07:26):
Well, it's absolutely not helpful, yeah.
And so and so and it's soincorrect, right?
SPEAKER_01 (07:32):
Oh, yeah, it's incorrect.
SPEAKER_03 (07:34):
It starts with uh it starts with a misunderstanding
of success and failure, yeah.
And then builds on that andapplies it in a judgment form
onto the person.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (07:47):
Uh in the chat, a belief has surpassed the
critical factor.
SPEAKER_03 (07:52):
Well, that's that's what we deal with as hypnotists,
isn't it?
Right?
It has, it's something that hassnuck through because it's part
of the natural mental processes.
Yeah, do you see?
SPEAKER_01 (08:04):
An opinion he sees my eyes looking down the
computer.
An opinion is temporary and canstill be influenced.
SPEAKER_03 (08:12):
But if a belief is really no more true than an
opinion, why did one go in?
Yeah, and and why do we takelike this?
This is we're talking in theright territory here because why
do we elevate opinions tobeliefs?
And why do people fight overtheir opinions and fight over
their beliefs?
(08:32):
We know unequivocally that abelief or an opinion is
something we can't prove.
Yeah, that's inherent in thedefinition.
Something we can't prove, and wefight over them.
We argue about them.
SPEAKER_01 (08:48):
Well, I think we we atta we must attach it to our
ego and who we are who we are.
SPEAKER_03 (08:52):
Yeah, the the equivocal or sorry, the the most
meaningful part of the phrase mybeliefs is the word my.
SPEAKER_04 (09:02):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (09:02):
We turn it into a part of our identity.
SPEAKER_04 (09:05):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (09:06):
And here's the awful thing that's how we interpret
the world through the lens ofour beliefs.
SPEAKER_00 (09:12):
My brain is melting.
SPEAKER_03 (09:14):
Well, this is this is so yeah, this is so important
to me because this is anautomatic thing, right?
This is something we do everyday, all day long, with
everything around us, right?
We are never seeing things forwhat they are.
We are only ever seeing thingsfor what they mean about me.
SPEAKER_01 (09:34):
Yeah, that's true.
That's true.
And we tell our clients that,like, it's never about you.
You know, you can be someonefight me on the not fight me,
but like I said, you know, uhyou could be you can be Mother
Teresa and someone's still gonnahave an issue, right?
And then they said, Well, haveyou heard what Mother Teresa has
(09:55):
done?
And I was like, Oh my god, theydo know what do you know what I
mean?
SPEAKER_03 (09:59):
There you go.
There's this natural, yeah,yeah, there's a natural tendency
to challenge everything.
That critical factor is a reallyactive thing.
Unfortunately, it's not verylogical, right?
That critical factor is the sameas the subconscious mind.
It's still a child, yeah, right.
(10:20):
And some people are actuallyraised to believe to challenge
everything, right?
Challenge everything, don'taccept anything anybody says,
and they get in the habit ofdoing that, which I think in
some ways is really great.
SPEAKER_04 (10:36):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (10:36):
In a world full of crap, yeah, and people trying to
control you and get you to dothings you don't want to do.
Yeah, I can see there's valuethere.
And then there's also theincredible anchor that puts on
your life, right?
Because at some point oranother, you have to decide what
you will let in.
(10:56):
And I think this is where peopleget really messed up with
science, right?
They think that's they labelsomething as science and that
lets it in.
And science is a method and aprocess, it's not a thing, it's
a method of analysis.
And it's a method that can be aseasily manipulated as anything
else.
People do it all the time.
You know, for me, the question Ialways ask, if somebody says, I
(11:19):
want, I'm gonna live my life byscience, right?
I'm gonna say, Well, you gottaask every time who paid for the
study.
You gotta ask every time whopaid for that study, because
they won't pay if they don't getthe result they want.
So who paid for that study?
Who who has something at stakewith these beliefs?
SPEAKER_01 (11:39):
Yeah.
And you would have to be in away, and I don't think people
generally are like this, becauseI think the idea of basing your
opinions and beliefs on onscience is sort of in a
deep-down way locking things in.
But you would have to be someonewho is open to change, right?
(12:03):
The science says one yearcoffee's good for you, next year
coffee's not good for you.
Oh, five years later, coffee'sgood for you.
You know, like it's constantlychanging.
SPEAKER_03 (12:14):
And the people who share it share it for a reason.
SPEAKER_01 (12:17):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (12:17):
Their own reason.
SPEAKER_04 (12:18):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (12:19):
Whatever they might be.
So this is the critical factorthat may be very, very uh
tightly bound, might be very,very open.
You know, we talk about people,we call them maybe naive or we
call them gullible, right?
And they're people who justbelieve things because they
heard it, read it.
It's on the internet, it must betrue.
(12:42):
But I don't know.
We make that joke, but I don'tknow anybody who really thinks
that way.
SPEAKER_01 (12:46):
If it's on the internet, it must be true.
I don't know.
SPEAKER_03 (12:49):
But I think sometimes when things are
published, yeah, right, we havea tendency to let certain forms
of information in.
SPEAKER_01 (12:56):
Well, my my biggest thing right now that I'm I've
been thinking about is, and wedon't have to go down this
rabbit hole because it mighttake us in a totally different
direction, but what is authoritynowadays?
Right.
I I was going through reels onInstagram or something, maybe
TikTok.
And I was thinking to myself,everyone scrolling through these
(13:19):
reels, like what what is goingin?
You know, like you're zoned outcompletely as you're scrolling.
And what made me think about itwas this random woman popping up
in a reel saying, your brainstarts eating itself in
(13:39):
perimenopause.
And that was it.
And then she went on to talkabout it a little bit.
But my God, the amount of peoplewatching that, liking it,
comments, tons and tons ofcomments.
Oh my God, I knew it.
I knew it.
And so who is the authority?
Is she really an authority tosay that kind of thing?
(14:01):
And you you you scroll and it'sright there, it's going right
in, you know, you're in thatzone.
And I mean, think about me.
Like I remember it.
I don't believe it, but Iremember it.
And where do you start saying toyourself, no, no, I'm not going
to believe every single thingthat comes across that.
So who is the authority?
(14:23):
So now we're looking at AI.
Yeah.
Like Chat GBT has become anauthority.
SPEAKER_03 (14:28):
And that bugger just makes things up.
Oh my God.
That's that's just a peoplepleaser if there ever was one.
That one goes out of its way togive you answers on things it's
never considered because itknows you want an answer.
It's always polite and lovingand kind when it answers you.
Oh, Les, that's a really goodquestion.
I think we should consider thatfrom a couple of angles.
(14:51):
Right?
And then it says stuff, and thenit's I'll ask it a topic, a
question about a topic that Iknow about, and then I'll get
something back and I'll say,Well, what about this?
Oh, that's a very good point,Les.
We should include that in ourconsiderations, right?
And then I'll say, But but youforgot about this.
Well, Les, my I have limits tothe things that I can access.
(15:13):
So I'm sorry, sometimes myanswers are incomplete.
I really encourage you to doublecheck this research.
Like you talk to me like youknow, and you're my best friend,
and then you say, Yeah, I'm I'mjust making stuff up.
SPEAKER_01 (15:28):
There's a great um, I don't know who sent it to me.
Maybe my brother.
I can't remember.
Anyway, there's a great comicright now with two panels, and
the top panel is some guyasking, excuse me, asking Chat
GBT, can I eat this mushroom?
Chat GBT is like, yeah, thatlooks like an edible mushroom,
(15:48):
blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
And then the bottom panel isthis tombstone RIP.
And Chat GBT is like, well,actually, I think I was wrong on
that.
SPEAKER_03 (16:00):
So, yeah.
We actually have a story aboutbudding Brian is a runner, and
Brian runs like 10, 20 clicks aday.
He just runs, and he likes tojust get off the roads and into
the bush.
And so he came across this thingthat was on the road, and now
he's he's he's funny becausehe's just in the last year got a
(16:21):
phone with data.
This is a you know, this is a65-year-old man who just got a
phone with data, right?
Yeah, and he takes pictures ofthings and asks Google what it
is.
So he took a picture and it wasand the picture said it was some
kind of mushroom.
Google said it was some kind ofmushroom.
(16:44):
And he he was smart enough tosay, I don't I don't think I
believe that.
And he took more pictures and hekept looking.
And then Google said, Well, no,it's an animal scat.
Nice.
It's poop.
Oh my gosh.
Anyway, he tells that story,tells it very, very well.
SPEAKER_01 (17:04):
But yeah, who is who's becoming the authority?
SPEAKER_03 (17:07):
Well, that's the thing about the mind.
You know, this is to me one ofthe valuable things to know
about the mind.
The mind has a critical factor.
We know that.
We know that the critical factorforms at some early age in our
lives when we became responsiblefor ourselves.
When our parents started makingus responsible for ourselves, we
started to lock in our beliefs.
(17:29):
When we started to interfacewith the world at large without
our parents' intervention,that's when we started to really
lock in our base knowledge, ourbase awareness.
That's why so many people, whenthey come to hypnotism, they
want help.
That what they're saying is, I'macting childish.
You know, I don't like the wayI'm behaving, I don't like the
things that I do, I don'tunderstand why I can't do
(17:51):
something different, I don'tunderstand why I say this or say
that.
I want to stop being this way.
Their complaints are summed upwith, you know, I'm I'm behaving
in a way I don't like it's kindof childish.
And that's because so much ofour mind, in terms of our
beliefs, and then the that theguards that we put around our
beliefs are really justchildren.
SPEAKER_04 (18:13):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (18:14):
And they have very incomplete knowledge.
SPEAKER_04 (18:16):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (18:17):
And they hear things like, you know, my beliefs
matter, my opinions matter.
And that starts to become abelief.
My opinions matter.
And, you know, you're sayingsomething that I don't like and
you should stop.
SPEAKER_06 (18:33):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (18:34):
Because my beliefs matter.
My opinions matter.
We get lots of conflict, right?
Conflict, because first of all,my beliefs don't align with your
beliefs, but more importantly,my beliefs don't align with my
other beliefs.
I have beliefs that conflictwith each other, and I don't
know how to reconcile becausethey are very child.
So I guess I'm get making my wayto my first reframe.
SPEAKER_04 (18:56):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (18:57):
Right?
I put beliefs on the samespectrum that I put opinion.
And on one end of the spectrum,there is I don't know.
And on the other end of thespectrum, there is this is a
fact.
Yeah.
This is a fact.
There are facts, there arethings that are inarguable.
Right now, the sun is in my eye.
There is nothing between my eyesand the sun.
(19:19):
It is a clear day, right?
I might judge it and say, it'sbeautiful outside, right?
Or I might judge it and say, Oh,that sun is burning my eye.
Right.
But the fact is the sunshine ismaking its way directly to my
eye.
Yeah.
Right?
That's a fact.
Then we use things likejudgments, interpretations.
You know, I can take my judgmentand say that the sun is
(19:42):
beautiful.
And then I can turn that into abelief that sunny days are
better days than rainy days.
SPEAKER_01 (19:48):
And then you'll fight someone on it.
SPEAKER_03 (19:49):
And then I'll get up in the morning when it's raining
and think, well, this is asecondary low qual quality,
low-caliber day, right?
And I'll approach it that way.
Oh, it's raining.
The day is crap.
Uh uh.
Right.
So a fact can feed into all theother facts I know.
And then I start to formopinions.
(20:11):
And when my opinions are really,really important to me, then I
call them beliefs.
And they're my opinions areoften based on my beliefs.
So that's kind of like takingfiction and creating fiction
from fiction, right?
It's taking something that'sreally, really unreliable and
then making something even moreunreliable from it, and then
making that your fundamentalkudo, right?
(20:35):
Your, your, your, sort of, uhmaybe maybe I mean the word
credo, your your absolutephilosophical stance on the
matter, and that it's mine.
So I'm at stake if peopledisagree, because I'm so darn
smart that I've come to thisconclusion, and this is my
belief.
And anybody who believesotherwise is just wrong, right?
(20:59):
So I've I have offered a reframein the past.
Opinions are temporary things.
If we think of opinions astemporary, because we haven't
finished our research yet,right?
Opinions are temporary.
It's based on incompleteknowledge.
I know that my opinion is basedon incomplete.
So my opinion is aninterpretation based on
incomplete knowledge.
I should treat it as temporary.
(21:20):
And if I'm not going to finishthe research, then I should
throw my opinion out because Idon't plan on finding the truth.
So walking around holding a notan incomplete truth is not a
helpful thing.
A belief is an opinion that Ihold about myself or about the
world, and it's the same kind ofthing.
So the easy reframe I offer isbeliefs can change.
(21:44):
And that's the way I get aroundit with clients.
SPEAKER_01 (21:46):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (21:46):
A belief is is not really, you can't prove a
belief, right?
Otherwise, it wouldn't be calleda belief.
If I could prove it, it'd becalled a fact.
Right?
So a belief is a temporary thingthat I choose to accept without
complete proof.
And when it's about me or aboutthe world I'm living in, or
about others, it can becomeproblematic and unhelpful.
SPEAKER_04 (22:09):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (22:10):
A belief like everybody is good.
That can get you in sometrouble.
A belief like, you know, allthese people of this particular
persuasion can't be trusted.
Whatever that might be.
Men can't be trusted.
Women can't be trusted.
People from this particularreligion can't be trusted.
People from this political partycan't be trusted.
SPEAKER_04 (22:29):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (22:30):
Right?
These are all beliefs.
SPEAKER_04 (22:32):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (22:32):
And they they don't have the quality of fact.
They don't have even, in a lotof cases, real facts behind
them, though we can claim tohave empirical evidence.
SPEAKER_06 (22:46):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (22:46):
And evidence, we use the word evidence and we don't
use the word proof as lawyers.
We talk about evidence.
And talk about proof is aconclusion that you come to from
the evidence.
And that's an interpretation ofthe evidence.
And evidence can be interpretedin a lot of ways.
So we're really cautious aboutthat, or at least we pretend to
be really cautious about that atlaw because people's lives are
at stake.
SPEAKER_06 (23:06):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (23:07):
Well, anyway, so an opinion should be a temporary
thing until you complete yourresearch.
And if you don't plan oncompleting your research, then
you shouldn't have an opinion.
And it's okay to say I don'thave an opinion on it.
SPEAKER_01 (23:18):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Uh but I think, you know what'sinteresting, what's coming to me
is when I do interviews, there'salways a question that I don't
know the answer to, right?
Of course.
And uh I I don't sit there andmake something up, right?
I'll say, I I'm not sure.
I don't know.
I I haven't done that yet.
Something like that.
(23:39):
And you wouldn't believe howmany people, when they reach out
to me, say, quote that, like, Inoticed you said this.
And I felt like I that was themoment I trusted you because so
many people are out there, andI'm not trying to toot my corner
or anything, but like so manypeople are out there trying to
(24:00):
grab for authority.
And in grabbing for authority,they're just making they're
they're just, I don't know,making stuff up.
I don't maybe not, but like theyare positioning themselves like
I know everything.
And I think you can read it.
I think I think more and morepeople know when they're
watching that.
I don't know, that just came tomind.
SPEAKER_03 (24:20):
Well, I think that feeds into many people's
mistrust of authority, right?
SPEAKER_01 (24:24):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (24:25):
That becomes a that that becomes a belief.
How do beliefs come about?
They come about from repeatedexperience.
And let's remember thatexperience is an interpretation.
SPEAKER_06 (24:36):
Right.
SPEAKER_03 (24:36):
So we go back to that simple equation.
Things happen, events.
We put the meaning on thoseevents.
That meaning will evoke anemotion, and that emotion
becomes part of our experience.
The event, what it means, andthe emotions that it evokes is
the experience.
SPEAKER_04 (24:54):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (24:54):
So that's why beliefs are so hard to shake,
because there's an emotionalcomponent to them, right?
Based on the meaning we put onthem.
And the best way to shake abelief is to change the meaning.
And I just think all beliefs, wecan shift the meaning of beliefs
right across the board just bysaying, a belief is not a fact,
(25:15):
my beliefs can change.
SPEAKER_01 (25:16):
Yeah.
And that's sometimes scary forpeople.
I I've I've had numerous peoplesit in our first meeting.
And once they realize what wewould be doing together, they
still go through with it, thankgoodness, but they they realize
that change is coming.
And it's scary for a lot ofpeople.
Who do what does that mean?
Who am I after that happens?
(25:38):
Do I lose myself if I if I thinkdifferently about myself?
How do I get through this world?
SPEAKER_03 (25:45):
Our beliefs, our opinions, we identify with.
And, you know, that was theconversation we had last week.
You know, if I was to lose mytone, would I disappear?
Well, heck no, right?
It might change the way I viewthe world, depending on how I
interpret it, but I don'tdisappear.
If I lose my beliefs and realizemy beliefs aren't facts and they
(26:08):
can't be universally applied,and they don't need to be
thought of.
It's not something to fight withsomebody else over.
Then maybe I'm still here andI'm a fluid thing.
I'm not a solid thing.
You know, I'm not this body, I'mnot a solid thing, I'm a fluid
thing, I can change.
My opinions can change, mybeliefs can change, I can
(26:31):
change, I can change my body, Icould change my mind, I can
change, I'm in constant change.
I have lots of evidence to provethat I am in constant change.
unknown (26:43):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (26:46):
And I think you want to be in constant change.
I know a lot of people goingthrough the healing process,
they're like, well, I'm back atthis thing.
I'm working on this thing again.
When is this going to end?
When am I going to be healed?
I think that that I thinkthere's a belief there that
needs to be looked at that thereis an end in healing.
(27:08):
There isn't an end in healing.
You you don't, I don't think youwant an end in healing.
And that's, you know, hindsight.
That would be hindsight.
I think that if we're notconstantly changing and healing
and growing and learning and allthese different things, then we
just become, you know, thevisual that I get is that I
(27:29):
don't know where it's from,maybe an old movie or something,
but that old man rocking backand forth on a porch near a
cornfield with his dog and thegun.
And like he just becomes thisdoing nothing person and just
wasting away on the porch, youknow.
SPEAKER_03 (27:46):
Fighting for your beliefs.
SPEAKER_01 (27:47):
Yeah.
Yeah, maybe.
Yeah, exactly.
So I think I think that like theTetris game, like we talk to
people about, you're constantlyclearing rows of stuff, you're
healing, you're learning, you'redoing.
And that's getting lighter andlighter.
But I don't think there's likesuddenly one day you're healed
of everything, you know?
SPEAKER_03 (28:08):
Well, I think it's important to think about how the
world is multidimensional.
And so healing is going to bemultidimensional.
You're going to bump into manydifferent kinds of circumstances
that are going to trigger oldwounds.
And though, in certaincircumstances you've already got
that figured out, maybe youknow, there are other
circumstances that haven't comeup yet that will trigger that
(28:31):
old wound and you got to healsome more there.
But I also think that there'syeah, there's another way of
looking at healing.
The instant I want to be healed,the instant I want to let go of
something, the instant I'mwilling to forgive it and
release it, in that moment I amhealed.
Now, what happened is that themind is habitual.
(28:54):
The mind repeats itself.
Even when you have had a uniquenew thought that is healing in
nature, the subconscious mind isgoing to drag you back to old
thoughts.
And when it drags you back toold thoughts, it reactivates the
hurt and puts you in a placewhere you have to heal it all
over again.
So the power starts to becomeyour ability to dispose of old
(29:19):
experiences that haven't provento be helpful.
How much can I cut ties with mypast?
Right?
We have fridge magnets that wegive to clients.
And, you know, one of myfavorites is the past only
matters when I drag it into thepresent.
SPEAKER_04 (29:35):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (29:35):
And if I'm not thinking about my past and
double-checking everything in mypresent as it relates to my
past, then my past can just bereleased, it can just be gone.
It can just because the past isgone.
The only place it can exist isin your mind when you dig it up,
right?
It doesn't exist anywhere exceptin your mind.
(29:56):
And then that's subject to aninterpretation.
Because when you experiencethis, There was an event that
you interpreted to meansomething, you stacked an
emotion on top of it, and thenyou filed it away under
experience.
And then you use all thoseexperiences to create beliefs,
most importantly, beliefs aboutyourself.
And those beliefs about yourselfcan be really, really limiting.
(30:20):
Really, it's like a cage.
It's like a box, your beliefsabout yourself.
And sometimes the best thing youcan do is just ditch all your
beliefs about yourself and seewhat you discover.
Just, ah, let's see what I dotoday.
Let's see who I am today.
Let's see what happens today.
I'm just not gonna care aboutanything that's happened in the
(30:41):
past.
And I'm not gonna cling to mybeliefs.
People come about their beliefshonestly, and then they get
reinforced by the people wholove us, our parents and our
friends and the people we admirein the world.
And we get ourselves in a placewhere we're trapped and limited
by our beliefs.
(31:02):
And to just keep them soft, mybeliefs can change.
My opinions are temporary.
I'm always open to newinformation that is trustworthy.
And I will determine trustworthyas I meet the information.
And I will do my best.
SPEAKER_01 (31:18):
Yeah.
In the chat, there's an opinionthat's temporary and can still
be influenced.
I wonder what influence, whathow who influences it?
Or again, back to thatauthority.
SPEAKER_03 (31:29):
Yeah, there it is.
SPEAKER_01 (31:30):
Is it just like pig pong?
SPEAKER_03 (31:32):
It's authority, it's trauma, and it's hypnosis.
SPEAKER_01 (31:36):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (31:36):
Right?
So when I say hypnosis, I don'tmean sitting in the chair.
I mean sitting in your chair atnight with your face stuck in
YouTube.
SPEAKER_04 (31:44):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (31:44):
Right?
That's hypnosis.
SPEAKER_01 (31:46):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (31:46):
Right?
Your AI feed is deeplyhypnotizing.
SPEAKER_01 (31:51):
Think of the visual that comes to me as kids.
And they marketing agencies dothis stuff on purpose, like kids
looking at TV when they're whenthey're kids, obviously.
And you just see them glazeover.
They're just watching, watching,watching.
They like their show.
And then bam, there's acommercial with lots of great
(32:13):
colors and this toy.
And it's going, it's all goingright in.
It's no different than, I don'tthink.
It's no different thanscrolling.
SPEAKER_03 (32:23):
No, it's completely the same.
You know, and and you know, themany scientists will tell you
that the dominant brain state ofpeople under the age of seven is
the theta state.
The theta state is asuggestibility state.
I think that it's important torealize that when they're very
young, they haven't accumulateda lot of experience.
(32:44):
So they don't have a lot ofstrong beliefs.
So it's very easy to shape theirbeliefs about the world.
For us as adults, we've crossedthat time where we've become
locked in.
We've developed a criticalfactor, we've developed critical
thinking methods, for better orworse, and we've become locked
into our beliefs.
(33:05):
And so we defend them a lotstronger and a lot better.
A child's mind is very muchdifferent.
I mean, child psychologists havebeen advocating for 50 years
about children's TV.
I mean, that was the reason whythey invented the children's
television network, and we hadSesame Street and all those
things.
It was very much about knowingthat the child's mind develops
(33:32):
and is easily shaped and thestuff we expose them to on a
medium like television, in amedium like children's books,
right?
There are so many children'sbooks out there.
Like you think about reading thekids who grew up on Grimm's
fairy tales.
You gotta figure they they got acompletely different mind than
(33:55):
the kids who grew up on Dr.
Seuss.
And even that's kind of a greeneggs and ham kind of mine.
SPEAKER_01 (34:05):
Mine was mine was the green forest.
So I'm I'm all fairy tales andtalking blue jays.
SPEAKER_03 (34:13):
And my and my eldest son could continues to be just
madly in love with the bookWhere the Wild Things Are.
Right?
Which is really a story aboutyou know, a kid who who was bad,
was told to go to bed withoutsupper, and then had a nightmare
when he fell asleep.
SPEAKER_01 (34:36):
You know, something just come came to me, and I
don't know, this is probablyalready a thing, but we we think
about how kids are living intheir theta state mind.
And when someone goes throughhypnosis, they're living in
their theta, alpha theta statemind.
And as much as they come out ofhypnosis and they they're like,
(34:58):
oh yeah, I went through that, Iworked on that.
It it's not, it's likedaydreaming, right?
You just it's easilyforgettable, right?
And so you have adults, and Ihear it a lot when people come
in.
Well, I don't remember mychildhood, so it must have been
really messed up.
Like I must have tons of trauma.
But what's coming to me now, andand and sometimes those people
(35:19):
don't have tons of trauma, butwhat's coming to me now is like
if they if as children we're inour theta state, then maybe
that's why we don't reallyremember our childhood, is
because it was all dreams.
It was all hypnosis, it was alldreamlike, right?
But we think there's somethingreally messed up with us if we
don't remember our childhood.
Well, but we were in that thetamind, which is easily, easily
(35:41):
forgettable, right?
Unless there's emotion attached.
SPEAKER_03 (35:45):
Well, I think, you know, I I think there's a
simpler way to to soften yourthoughts on that.
Um, first of all, go back fiveyears and realize that you know,
the years five years ago to tenyears ago, you lived them the
exact same way you're living thepresent.
And then go back to those yearsand ask yourself how much you
(36:06):
remember of them.
SPEAKER_01 (36:07):
Yeah, no.
SPEAKER_03 (36:09):
And mostly what you remember are the upsetting thing
or the really, really positivething.
You certainly don't remember,you know, what socks you were
wearing on the Wednesday of theseventh year, eighth month,
right?
Like you just don't you don'tremember the little things that
quite quite confidentlyhappened, yeah, but you don't
(36:32):
remember them.
So then go back another fiveyears, and guesses are that your
memories are limited to just thehighlight.
And you actually have to thinkabout them and you'd have to
make reference to the year, thedate, the moment, the event,
yeah, and then go back anotherfive years, as many years as it
takes you to be five years old.
Like I know I went tokindergarten, I remember the
(36:54):
name of my kindergarten teacher.
I remember thinking that she wasso pretty and she was so nice.
Right?
I don't really remember muchabout kindergarten.
I remember when Bobby May pukedon the carpet.
I remember that.
I remember playing on the snowhill and getting in trouble from
the teacher.
And really, other than that, Idon't remember kindergarten.
(37:18):
But it was, you know, a fewyears ago.
And I think that to say I don'tremember my childhood is pretty
darn normal.
SPEAKER_04 (37:25):
Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (37:26):
And that if events stand out that are negative in
your interpretation, I thinkthat's pretty darn normal.
SPEAKER_01 (37:33):
I'm I'm, I don't know, this is not really
pertinent to the conversation,but I remember what's what's
coming to me is I remember mykindergarten teacher, she had
these slip-on shoes that hadthese frills and tassel things
on them.
And I would sit there and playwith them while she was talking
(37:53):
to people.
I don't know why she would letme do that.
Like what?
SPEAKER_00 (38:02):
Oh my god.
And oh my gosh.
SPEAKER_01 (38:05):
I also like uh, you know, my my after kindergarten,
I was put into French immersion.
So like the very first years oflearning was pretty mixed up,
right?
So there are, you know, there'swords that when I look at
(38:27):
something, the English word doesnot come to me first, which is
interesting.
But anyway, yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (38:33):
Anything else from the questions or comments?
SPEAKER_01 (38:34):
Not right now.
SPEAKER_03 (38:36):
So with that said, yeah, I'm ready to close the
book on this one.
Yeah, beliefs are not facts,they are temporary things, they
are changeable things, they arebased on experience, which is
based on interpretation.
They're loaded with emotionbecause they're based on
experiences, and we tend tothink of them as mine, which
(38:59):
makes them part of our identityand makes us somewhat unwilling
to change them.
Yeah, but for the vast majorityof people, the willingness to
change your beliefs is whatopens the door to a better life.
So they're not as important,they're not as valuable, they're
not as essential to who you areas you think they are.
(39:20):
And it's in allowing yourself tochange your belief, which will
change how you interpret what'sgoing on in your life now.
Yeah.
I am an eternal child of theuniverse, and nothing can change
that.
SPEAKER_00 (39:32):
Yeah.
All right.
Well, thanks for joining ustoday, talking about beliefs.
Be a leaf floating on the wind.
SPEAKER_01 (39:42):
There you go.
I don't know, God.
I do need more coffee.
All right, we'll see you later.
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