August 6, 2019 • 35 mins
Does it ever seem like personal development just doesn’t work for you? Have you tried mindset work and self help, but haven’t been able to create sustained results?
This week, Dan is back after a two week retreat. He’s fired up, inspired, and ready to give you the 6 foundations to an Amplified life. If you want to thrive physically, emotionally, and spiritually, this is your roadmap.
Discussed on the podcast this week:
- How your gut health directly affects other parts of your body, including your brain!
- Why doing trauma work can be the key to unblocking what is keeping you stuck.
- The power of discovering and living in your purpose.
- How doing body and energy work can give you a step up in building an amplified life.- The importance of your emotional fitness and what you can do to keep yourself on track.
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Find Dan on Instagram @cscdanmason
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Episode seventy four, Six Foundations of an Amplified Life. My
name is Dan Mason. In I was overweight, getting divorced,
battling depression, and feeling trapped in a career where I
was successful but bored and unfulfilled. And it's actually the
greatest gift I've ever been given. I use my pain
as a springboard to discover my life's purpose. Now I
(00:23):
want to share the same tools and strategies which helped
transform my life with you so you can live life amplified.
J Stanford writes, help is a state of body. Wellness
is a state of being, and perhaps one of the
biggest questions that you and I have to face during
our lifetime is how do we focus on our state
(00:44):
of being and how do we elevate that. Here's another
great quote that gives you a non answer. This is
from an unknown author who says there is no one
giant step that does it. It's a lot of little steps. Hello,
and welcome back everybody to life amplified. I'm feeling refreshed,
I'm feeling renewed. I'm just back from eleven days of
back to back retreats and seminars with my mentor in
(01:06):
my mentorship group, and quite honestly, just a time that
was desperately needed in my life. Because, as I recently
shared on Instagram, if you saw the post, and if
you don't follow me, I would love it if you did,
you can look me up at c SC Dan Mason.
I shared that the past couple of months of my
life personally have felt anything but amplified. I went through
(01:27):
a string of challenges just in my dating life, in
my personal relationships, and also in my business that set
me back and knocked me on my ass for a bit,
and I found myself facing old fears of failure in abandonment.
I found myself in moments of hopelessness and despair, and
there were some moments where you know, part of me
just wanted to give up. We all want to be
(01:49):
general manager of the universe. We want to control other people.
We want to make them show up for us the
way that we want. We want to control the outcomes
in our career and in our finances, and sometimes those
things aren't always in our control and it can be
very very painful. But thank God A that I've got
excellent mentorship and support in my life to drag me
(02:09):
through during those low moments, so that it's not a
permanent condition. It's more just a detour in my path.
But also it's just so thankful and grateful that I've
developed a foundation of skills and strategies and things that
I can use that have helped me really build to
where I am right now in my life and in
my career. And it made me reflect on the flight
(02:33):
home about if I had to narrow this down into
six principles that I could teach to anybody that I
would encourage you to incorporate into your life, what would
it be? And I wanted to get beyond just the
surface level stuff of well, you've got to have an
empowered mindset. Well, yeah, no, ship Dan, of course I
need to have an empowered mindset. But why is it
(02:55):
so often when I say positive affirmations they don't seem
to work for me? Why is it that my vision
board is just a collection of pictures up on the wall, Dan,
but I can't seem to bring it to life. And
that's because there's really some elements under the surface that
are the foundation of the amplified life that you want
to create. And if you're not incorporating these into your life.
(03:17):
You're building your house on sand instead of rocks. So,
with your permission, if you would like to give me
the next thirty forty minutes of your life, I'm gonna
break these down for you and as simple terms as
I can and help you start to build out through
the remainder of a strong foundation so that you can
make the best year of your life. These are my
(03:39):
six foundations to an amplified life this week on Life Amplified.
The first one is something you've heard me talk maybe
once or twice when we've had some health experts on
but it's not something that I've really understood in my
life until more recently. Because before we can start talking
about your brain and your mental health, we also need
(04:02):
to have a conversation about whole body health. A lot
of the work that I've done on myself and that
I believe in and that I teach to my clients
is very holistic in nature, and that's why we've got
to talk first and foremost about your microbiome a k A.
Gut health. And if you had asked me six or
seven years ago, I would have been like, Oh, yeah,
(04:23):
you just have to poop more and you have good
gut health. Right. You know, we all saw Jamie Lee
Curtiss something activity at commercials, just smiling while she was
eating her pooping yogurt, and we all thought that was
the answer. And yeah, probiotics are good, they are useful,
but gut health goes much deeper than that. And what
I wanted to talk to you today about the fact
(04:43):
is that you have got trillions of microbes in your gut.
And what we're learning right now through science and research
is that these microbes are the invisible force influencing your
mental well being. There used to be this belief in
science that we looked at the brain sort of this
top down mechanism, that whatever was going on in your
(05:03):
brain affected your body, and that's not the case. What
we now know is that there is a gut brain
access this is also known as the vagus nerve in
your body, and that it is bidirectional in communication. So
while your brain is sending signals down to the body,
you actually have ten times more fibers running from your
(05:24):
gut up to your brain sending information, and the bacteria
and the microbiome in your gut in many instances is
helping to create neurotransmitters like seratonin, like dopamine, which are
the feel good chemicals that our body releases. So if
you listen to the podcast, you know I'm a bit
(05:44):
of a research and ner and I wanted to share
with you a study firm neuroscientists John Crying from the
University College Cork in Ireland. He's been studying the power
of gut microbiome on mice and here's what he discovered.
By altering or in some cases eliminating or preventing the
development of a healthy microbiome in mice, here's what he
(06:05):
found That the mice without microbes, the ones who were
germ free, experience neurochemical changes within the brain. Also, the
germ free mice are unable to recognize other mice around them,
which makes them completely unable to socialize. Germ free mice
also exhibited higher risk behavior and they found that the
(06:27):
mice without microbes were unable to remember scary situations, suggesting
that your microbiome and the body is impacting neurological pathways
that are involved in fear conditioning. This is insane. We
never knew this years ago, and there's been some additional
research and Ontario Canada that says when microbes were taken
(06:48):
from quote unquote a normal mouse and transplanted into the
gut of a germ free mouse, that the mouse adopts
a similar personality to its donor. So it does make
you question what's going on here. It looks and sounds
like the gut microbiome is very influential in creating certain
actions and behavior that up until now had been totally
(07:11):
credited to the brain. So the big lesson here is
we've got to stop acting like our brain is in
control now. The researchers in Ireland have concluded quote dietary
treatments could be used as either adjunct or soul therapy
for mood disorders. And this might be controversial, and I
just ask that you hear me out, and I'll talk
(07:33):
a little bit about my experience having been treated for
depression and anxiety through pillform when I was in my twenties.
You know, I spent a couple of years on mix
a pro and couldn't get anywhere with it. And I'm
not a person who is anti medicine. I think it
saves lives in many cases, but the research suggests that
only about two out of ten people who go on
(07:54):
antidepressants or anti anxiety meds have real benefit beyond the
placebo effect. So there are many people that they're taking
medication who are still experiencing depression and anxiety as a baseline.
So this is a great time to look at what's
going on in your gut and also realizing that the
different bacteria and the different microbiome in your stomach, each
(08:16):
of them prefers certain kinds of food, So every meal
that you eat becomes very important and how you're nourishing
these microbes and determining how they operate in the body. Now,
how do you even know what foods you should eat?
You know, this isn't like you can go to your
usual doctor and just get a blood test and take
a physical and get these things checked out. Although if
(08:37):
you did some research online, there are companies that do
microbiome testing via the mail. It's not that unlike doing
twenty three in me. There are many companies where you
can send a stool sample through the mail and they
will analyze and send you all the results, including what
foods are right for your gut. Because the thing is
is our microbiomes are as unique to the individual is
(08:59):
our own d n A. Nobody has the same exact microbiome,
so you can get profiled on what foods are healthy
for you. You can also find out what foods you
should avoid. I did one of these tests about a
year and a half ago, even before I really understood
all the science behind it, and it was interesting for
me because the thing that I always made for breakfast
(09:20):
for about four years straight, every morning, I would just
get up and saute some spinach in a pan and
then add egg whites and make myself a scramble, and
that's what I ate almost every morning for about four years. Well,
I got back my microbiome reports and my gut health report,
and it turns out spinach is a food I shouldn't
even be eating according to my profile. So that was
(09:41):
pretty eye opening and it was also interesting for me.
And this is just my experience. I can't speak to
the science on this. That a lot of the foods
that I naturally have a taste for, we're showing up
on my list of foods like my superfoods that I
should be eating more of, things like Brussels sprouts, a rugala.
Salmon is one of my favorites. Those were all showing
(10:03):
up on my list, which also proves me that a
lot of times your body just knows what's good for it. Meanwhile,
some of the foods that I hate, like God bless
you people that can drink beat juice when you're juicing,
but that ship is so disgusting for me. I can't
do it. That showed up on my Foods to Avoid list.
So it's always worth looking into. There's a lot of
(10:24):
companies out there that do it. You know, I don't
want to make recommendations. I'm not an affiliate. I'm not
getting kickbacks on any of this. So the first step
and really looking at a holistic sense of your health
is to check out your gut microbiome, because you've got
ten times more fibers going from your body up to
the brain than you do from your brain to your body.
So we want to look at your health holistically and
(10:46):
also understand there is just some very beginning research out there,
nothing concrete, but it does indicate that your microbiome plays
a role in various health conditions, including autism, a d
h D, obsessive compulsive disorder, and also schizophrenia and bipolar
that they've noticed that people with these afflictions lack certain
(11:09):
bacteria in their gut, so talk to your doctor about it.
I would also suggest looking into a functional medicine doctor
because these are the people that are really specializing in
this science. But my goal here is to get you
thinking about maintaining a healthy gut and really focusing on
your microbiome step number two to create a more amplified life.
(11:31):
I believe this with all my heart. Friends, you gotta
do your trauma work, and we've done some podcasts on
this in the past. You can go back and listen
to an episode I did with Mask and Kid last
summer about how to hack your nervous system, and you
know a form of coaching that he's developed called trauma hacking,
also known as functional life coaching. And if you've listened
(11:52):
to this podcast over the past couple of years, you
know I'm a guy who is all about helping people
find their purpose as a coach and mentor that my
life's work is helping you take your purpose and bring
it forward into the world. But one of the things
that I've also realized now in doing thousands of client hours,
is that the one thing that's going to stop you
from living your purpose is trauma, and that is a
(12:13):
word that is so misunderstood because I think a lot
of times we limit it just to thinking about the
big te traumas, you know, abuse, neglect, domestic violence, sexual violence,
and trauma comes in a variety of shapes and sizes.
It comes in different flavors. Trauma exists in the United
(12:33):
States this week in a big way. I think the
news headlines for people are traumatizing. We're coming off the
heels of two terrible mass shootings, both in Dayton, Ohio
and El Paso, Texas. And I have seen people on
my Facebook feed, friends who I admire in respect, who
are saying they're having nightmares about their children's school, They're
(12:54):
having nightmares about being at work and having somebody show
up an open fire in the office. That's also a
symptom of trauma. Racism, misogyny, xenophobia. Those are traumas that
were enduring every day. And one of the things that
I find with people is they try to say, oh, well, Dan,
(13:14):
you know, I had great parents, I had a great family.
I don't have trauma. And that's not always the case.
You know, it can be much more subtle. One of
my clients is an aspiring author, an aspiring writer, and
growing up in elementary school, he was placed into special
ed classes, and the trauma of that and being made
fun of by classmates created this sense of feeling like
(13:37):
I'm behind. So every time he writes, he's always comparing himself, saying, well,
it's not as good as these other authors. But the
deeper trauma that was under that when you think about
the years he's been in special ed is he also
grew up in a home where there was an alcoholic parent,
and not knowing what he was going to go home
to every day created a lot of distraction. Wasn't able
(14:01):
to focus on his coursework or on his studies, So
the teachers didn't know how to diagnose that back in
the day. They just said, well, we're gonna place you
here in the special ed class, and that created an
identity for this person. So you know, things like bullying
can be trauma. I dated a girl once who told
me that she had no trauma. She didn't understand what
it was that I coach clients on until one day
(14:23):
we had a couple of drinks and she broke down
telling me about the time she got her hair cut
at seven years old, and her mom said it made
her look fat, so she became very obsessed about her
appearance and her weight. That is a trauma, and it
might not be in the ways that make news headlines
that we see with people who are enduring horrible suffering.
(14:44):
But we don't want to get caught up in trying
to compare levels of suffering because in your nervous system,
trauma all registers the exact same. And here are some
of the symptoms of trauma that goes unidentified and unhealed. Yes,
there's the big things, and anxiety depression PTSD, feelings of shame,
fear or anger. Self harm can be a symptom of trauma.
(15:08):
But you know what, so can lack of trust in
relationships or attracting relationships where there's no reciprocity, where you're
doing all the giving and you're taking care of people
but they don't show up for you. Procrastination the inability
to achieve goals. I guarantee you there is a trauma
underneath that procrastination that usually exists around the idea of
(15:31):
needing to be perfect to gain approval, self doubts, imposter syndrome,
chronic disorganization that is a big one for me. I
tend to be very disorganized as a person. But trauma
also affects the part of the brain that is in
charge of executive functioning and sequencing. But whatever the trauma
(15:52):
you have experienced in your life, one of the results
is it creates an inflexible nervous system. You find yourself
as a person who is feeling stuck. Now that might
be stuck in being depressed. It might be stuck in
isolation and loneliness. It could just be stuck in a
soul sucking job and you're afraid to leave. Maybe intuitively,
(16:13):
you're a person who's told yourself, God, there has got
to be something bigger out there for me. But the
thing that's blocking the natural wisdom of your body is
usually trauma. This is why, again, even working on mindset
and beliefs only gets you limited results unless you address
the underlying root cause of what made those beliefs. Nobody
(16:35):
comes out of the womb feeling not good enough, feeling
unworthy to be here. You were but ass naked, kicking
and screaming, making noise and announcing yourself to the world.
But there's usually something that happens along the way that
robs you of that ability, and at the end of
the day, the core of trauma is being disconnected both
to yourself and the people around you and not being seen, heard, known,
(16:59):
or recognized. And another prior guest on the podcast that
would urge you to go back and listen to if
you haven't done it was Connie Lawrence, who is a
very dear friend of mine and also a wonderful counselor
and therapist. In our episode about healing from trauma and
becoming a change maker, she talked about this idea that
trauma is very little about what happens to you, but
(17:20):
what happened after. Was there an empathetic witness, was there
somebody there to nurture you and make you feel safe,
Or when you experience the trauma where you blamed, where
you shamed for it, you know in many instances that's
what starts to shape the beliefs. And at some point
you gotta show up and you've got to do the
healing work around this, and the risk becomes if you
(17:42):
don't do the trauma work, you start to mentally organize
your world and your working model of the world based
on how you're feeling. More than objective reality. You're constantly
living in a state of anxiety or emotion, but there's
not a lot of higher level thinking that's helping you
solve problem. You're always living in a state of hyper vigilance.
You're looking for threats in the environment, but that also
(18:05):
keeps you for looking for answers or looking for a
path forward. And you're never going to be able to
heal this by yourself in a vacuum. You need expert
guidance and support. Make sure that you are talking to
a therapist who is trauma informed, or that you find
a coach who is trauma informed yours truly for example,
(18:27):
But just get the support around it. Because here's the thing.
This is the one step out of the six that
I'm giving you today that people will work their hardest
to avoid. A lot of people are like, yeah, Dan,
I hear you on the trauma work, But is there's
just some meditation? What if I just drink a ship
tom of green juice? When that help? If I go
to the metaphysical store and buy some sage and just
(18:48):
like burn some sage around the house, will that burn
off all the negative energy and eventually you know you
reach a point where you realize that your trauma work
is your spiritual assignment at the end of the day.
That's how we move through it. We live it, and
eventually we find ourselves going up against the same old
emotions that kept it stuck, the same fear of being
seen and being heard, of putting ourselves out there. But
(19:10):
we make a new choice and that is what helps
us move beyond it. My great wish for you is
if anything I'm sharing with you today resonates, reach out
ask for help. You can reach out and get info
on my coaching programs, but there's plenty of other resources
out there. This becomes the key because the third step
(19:31):
and creating your amplified life goes back to discovering your purpose.
And this is one of the biggest ships I've made
as a coach and mentor. Back before I really spent
two years diving in to all my trauma work. As
a coach, I would just start out with helping people
create a purpose statement. You know, let's figure out your purpose,
Let's figure out your dream job, Let's figure out how
(19:51):
you want to serve the world and move forward. And yet,
once my clients would create this plan, there would be
enormous resistance when it came time to take the action.
And what I realized is is even though they knew
the purpose, they didn't feel safe to bring it forward
into the world. You know, living your purpose means using
your voice, it means being seen. It means defying family expectations.
(20:14):
It means, in some instances, defying religious or a church's expectations.
It means stepping away from the approval of a peer group,
and that is frightening to your nervous system unless you've
done the trauma work. So trauma work is what really
helps you take your purpose, discover it, and bring it
forward into the world. As a coach, I can in
(20:34):
one session help you come up with a purpose statement
for your life. The work of how you bring that
forward is what takes time, which is why my clients
work with me, usually in three or six month coaching packages.
But there is such a huge link between purpose and
trauma recovery. Stacy shaff Roll is a PhD who did
(20:55):
a study for the National Institute of Mental Health. In
she wrote an article saying purpose in life is a
key factor associated with better recovery from trauma. So once
you know your purpose, it actually gives context to some
of the painful experiences that you've been through in your life,
and you realize that some of these setbacks and some
(21:16):
of the things that you have encountered have actually just
set you up to become a source of light in
the world to help others who are going through that pain.
You don't have to go back any further than one
episode to see this beautifully illustrated in action. When I
spoke to Nicole Openshein, who went through so much with
her postpartum depression and a lot of feelings of shame
(21:38):
and some really dark thoughts. But what she's been able
to do now is powerfully turn that message into a
movement and hosting events and writing up book deals and
going out and serving the world in a bigger way.
So many beautiful side effects that come with living your purpose.
It could extend your life span by up to ten years.
(21:59):
According to some studies. Financial abundance follows your purpose because
you're using your gifts to add value to the lives
of other people. You will always get paid for that.
You're setting an example for your children. There's so many
people I know who come to me stuck and and
my numbing soul sucking job who had parents who went
and trudged every day to a job that they hate,
(22:21):
and they learned subconsciously, almost like through osmosis. That's that's
what adult ing meant when you're living your purpose, healthier loving, romance, passion,
better relationships in all forms because you tend to surround
yourself with people who believe the same things that you believe.
I just spend eleven days at this deep dive trauma
event and made a best friend for life. Want to
(22:42):
shout her out Rain now because I know that she's
always listening and her cats actually enjoy listening to this
podcast as well. This is another story altogether. When you're
living your purpose, there is a reduced instance of cardiovascular events,
you get better quality of sleep, your immune function is better,
you have better cognitive functioning when you're aligned with your purpose,
(23:04):
and much better emotional regulation. And I truly believe that
stepping into your purpose is the single greatest gift that
you can give to the people that you love, because
you will be showing up with more energy, more presence
in your relationship. You're setting the example for your children
and your families, and they really want That's what people
want from you more than anything, more than the steady
(23:26):
paid check, more than the fancy job title. People just
want you to be present and they want your happiest,
most lit up self. You're able to give that to
people when you're living your purpose while you're also stepping
out into the world and doing work that is deeply
meaningful for you. Step number four for an amplified life,
It's all about the environments that you're in. You have
(23:48):
got to be able to create an environment that's going
to take these new beliefs that you're creating. Once you've
done your trauma work, once you know your purpose, you
need an environment that makes it real. Environment is everything.
I recently talked about this on an Instagram TV if
you go to my account. But there's a tremendous lesson
and ancient farming systems that tell us about the importance
(24:11):
of environment, because it turns out that the farmers in
Europe and through China were able to grow crops at
two times at a faster rate than American farmers. Now,
why is that where they better educated? No, I mean
this was still pretty primitive. We didn't have huge educational systems.
It was actually the environment that was conducive because Europe
(24:34):
through Asia is very wide, it's a huge land mass
that that whole area pretty much had fewer fluctuations in climate.
They had similar amounts of daylight each day, the temperatures
were very steady. It was conducive to cultivating two crops
and just planting them from France all the way through China.
(24:54):
And as they did that, they were able to better
feed their people. They were able to increase reach the
population faster, and as the population increase, they had the
ability to have more workers to build systems, you know, economically. Meanwhile,
over in North America, you know, it's much taller north
to south, it's not as wide of a land mass.
(25:15):
So think about that. You can't grow the same avocados
in southern California that you would if you were up
in Vancouver, because well, things don't grow very well in snow.
So the environment limited the amount of crops that could
be produced every year, and the American farmers were much
further behind. So environment becomes everything. A person in recovery
(25:38):
from addiction can't get sober going to the same bar
every night that they passed out at at two am.
We have got to be able to cultivate an environment
that makes the beliefs real. And if you are a
person who is separating from family expectations, if you're really
stepping into your purpose and saying, I am worthy of
an abundant life and I have a gift that I
(25:58):
want to share with other people. Bowl if you are
still hanging out with the people who tell you you
should be grateful and just stay exactly where you are
and keep a steady paycheck, you are never going to
break through and leave a soul sucking job. You can't
create space for a loving, soulmate relationship with somebody who
will honor you and cherish you. If you're staying in
(26:20):
an emotionally abusive relationship, environment has got to change. And
this is why you know when you look at the
quote from zig Zigler who says you're the average of
the five people you spend the most time with, it's
absolutely true. You cannot show me an example of a
rich person who hangs out and spends the majority of
their time with people living in poverty. In many instances,
(26:44):
in the case of like Bill Gates, they are donating
their money to help those people. But you tend to
see that who you hang out with is who you become.
And this is such a huge challenge for people on
their journey forward is because sometimes the people who are
your big as naysayers. It can be your spouse, it
could be your mom, your dad, to the people closest
(27:05):
to you. So I'm not telling you today that you
gotta go file for divorce or that you can't speak
to your family again, but you have got to proactively
cultivate a social circle that is going to love and
support you. It's why I myself sign up for group
mentorship programs because there is tremendous power and learning as
a tribe. And it's also why I do so many
(27:25):
group programs because people have that experience of just being
seen and having somebody loved the parts of you that
sometimes you're not even sure or lovable. Based on old
family conditioning. The fifth key to an amplified life that
has really been a game changer for me. Oh, I'm
gonna come out of the woo woo closet are and
I this is gonna be a little weird for some
(27:48):
of you, but I swear by this. You've got to
start thinking about body and energy work because as we
talk about healing the old emotions of trauma. What we
know through science. There's a book on this called The
Body Keeps the Score. You can look that up by
Bessel Vanderklke. But what we're learning is that trauma gets
stored in the body and that, as we say, the
(28:09):
issues are in the tissues, so you've got to get
that worked out. Massage can be a great tool, not
one of those like little frou frou like fifty dollars
Swedish massages that you get when you sign up at
massage and vy for you want to get deep tissue,
you want to have somebody work on you, but there's
other modalities as well that work on your energetic body.
(28:29):
A lot of people swear by John Barnes my o
fascial release. I have tried a couple of sessions of that.
I personally couldn't get anywhere with it, but I know
people who swear by it. I just don't think that
that was my journey. But one of the things that
I absolutely swear by is reiki. I had my first
reiky session almost two years ago with a practitioner who
is just a woman I adore shout out to Barbara Hall,
(28:53):
and it was so crazy because as she put her
hands pretty much just on the crown of my head
as I laid on the table, something shifted and Nick
this thing I knew. I had tears running down my face,
Like I wasn't sobbing, but all of a sudden, I
just found tears coming down my face. There was some
sort of release that was happening. And basically, the whole
modality is a technique that is based on a principle
(29:14):
that an attuned therapist a Ricky practitioner can channel energy
into you as a patient through touch and it activates
a natural healing process of your body and it restores
physical and emotional well being. There are a lot of
great Ricky practitioners out there. This used to be something
that was seen as being woo woo or sort of
like some weird occult sort of stuff. And now raiky
(29:37):
is starting to make its way into hospitals. They're using
it for treatments of cancer patients at this point, so
it's very much becoming mainstream. It is my preferred modality
when it comes to energy work, but there are other
things out there. You know, some people enjoy acupuncture, which
is something that I have done in the past. I
don't really utilize it in my life right now. But
(29:59):
even some of the friends who I have recommended reiki
two who are always skeptical about it, well at the
very least grudgingly admit when they come out of the
session that they feel deeply relaxed and they felt like
interesting sensations just like tingling in their body. So that
is something I would very much urge you to look
into if you are so moved, because we're talking about
(30:20):
sort of healing at the cellular level with your microbiome.
We're talking about healing emotionally with your trauma work. We're
talking about healing in terms of your connection to the
world around you by living your purpose. But I do
think body and energetic work is something that is important.
So explore find a modality that's right for you, whether
(30:42):
it be myofascial release, whether it's reiki, whether it's acupuncture,
or you can always just go to the trusty old
massage if that feels safer for you. And that brings
me to the sixth and final tip to live a
more amplified life. And I know that this we're talking
today very holistically, but this is where we started the podcast.
It's automatic, resilient thoughts, it's mindset. It's a practice that
(31:06):
we would call emotional fitness. You know. I think that
there are three levels of personal growth. A lot of
people who come to me are so shut off from
feeling any emotion. They're heavy thinkers that they're always surprised
when we get into the work and they're like, oh wow, wait,
I actually do feel things. I do have emotion, Dan.
And then the next level is to really build emotional intelligence.
(31:28):
We want a high emotional you know, a high EQ,
but that only gets you so far. And I think
that when I was spending a lot of time back
in therapy in my you know, mid to late twenties,
I found myself talking about the same four stories over
and over again, and I had a very clear intellectual
understanding of how it was keeping me stuck, but there
(31:49):
wasn't really a path forward. So the step really after
emotional intelligence is to create emotional fitness, which means that
you are showing up each day that you are the
author of your life. You're deciding how you want to feel.
You are taking bold, courageous action in the face of fear.
This is a lot of what surface level. Personal growth
(32:10):
is about you know, telling you that growth happens outside
of your comfort zone. And we say all these things
that look great on Instagram quote cards, But what I
want you to understand is without the context and the
levels underneath, if there is just inflammation and dis biosis
in your body, it's hard for you to have the
energy to show up for your goals every day. If
(32:31):
trauma is keeping you stuck living in the past and
reliving old stories and old patterns and old family situations,
you're never going to feel safe to move forward outside
of the comfort zone. So everything leading up to that.
If you have the wrong environment, you can be taking action,
but the first time something doesn't work out the way
(32:52):
you want, you're gonna have a bunch of a holes
around you go and see, we told you so this
is stupid. Let you go back to your corporate job.
So all the other components that we have spoken about
today really are what have to be in place. Yes,
take courageous action, but you also need a strong foundation underneath,
or you're going to be one of the people who
are taking two steps forward and two steps back at
(33:15):
any given time. Again, to recap six steps for an
amplified life. Number one, we want to look at your
microbiome health number two. We gotta do the trauma work
and help you recover so that you feel safe to
do step number three, which is to discover your purpose
and bring it into the world. Step number four creating
a healthy environment that will nurture you and your new
(33:38):
beliefs as you bring them to life in the world.
Step number five, you got to look into some sort
of body or energy work. And then step number six
building that emotional fitness, taking courageous action every day. All
of these things will require some mentorship along the way,
and if you're looking for a one stop shop for
somebody who can help you a it clear on your purpose,
(34:01):
remove those mental obstacles that have stood in the way
and kept you stuck up until now. If you're looking
to co regulate and create a healthy environment with a
mentor who believes in you and believes in your dreams
even on the day when you don't, and can help
you create grounded action steps and stay in daily action
toward your goals. Know that I've got you a couple
(34:22):
of spots left for V I P coaching in the
month of August. You can go to my website, Creative
Soul Coaching dot net and you can get all the
information there. And if this podcast is serving you today,
it would mean the world if you left us a
five star rating and review up on Apple or just
gave us a follow here on the I Heart Radio app.
(34:43):
You can also screenshot this podcast, share it to Instagram
and Twitter with your friends. Be sure to tell me
about any takeaways that you've had. You can find me
on both Twitter and insta at c SC Dan Mason.
We also have our private Facebook group for listeners of
the pod cast, Our Life Amplified Power Tribe. A link
to that is in the show notes. And while I'm
(35:05):
at it, let me shout out our listener of the week,
who is saber Cat seventeen On Instagram. She said she
was listening to our episode with Shannon al Gao for
the third time and amazed at the things that she
picked up in each new listen. She says pride in
yourself is a critical part of self care. Dan statement
there is greatness in your smallness from an earlier episode
(35:26):
has become a sort of mantra for me, and we
need to be proud of the smallness from which our
greatness grows saber Cat seventeen. That just made my week.
Thank you so much for listening and for sharing the
podcast with your friends. If you would like to be
our listener of the week, all you gotta do use
any of those avenues on social media. Be sure to
tag me and I will shout you out next week.
(35:48):
In the meantime, turned down the volume on your negativity,
turn up the volume on your purpose so you can
get out there and live life amplified. I'll talk to
you next week.
Episode seventy four, Six Foundations of an Amplified Life. My
name is Dan Mason. In I was overweight, getting divorced,
battling depression, and feeling trapped in a career where I
was successful but bored and unfulfilled. And it's actually the
greatest gift I've ever been given. I use my pain
as a springboard to discover my life's purpose. Now I
(00:23):
want to share the same tools and strategies which helped
transform my life with you so you can live life amplified.
J Stanford writes, help is a state of body. Wellness
is a state of being, and perhaps one of the
biggest questions that you and I have to face during
our lifetime is how do we focus on our state
(00:44):
of being and how do we elevate that. Here's another
great quote that gives you a non answer. This is
from an unknown author who says there is no one
giant step that does it. It's a lot of little steps. Hello,
and welcome back everybody to life amplified. I'm feeling refreshed,
I'm feeling renewed. I'm just back from eleven days of
back to back retreats and seminars with my mentor in
(01:06):
my mentorship group, and quite honestly, just a time that
was desperately needed in my life. Because, as I recently
shared on Instagram, if you saw the post, and if
you don't follow me, I would love it if you did,
you can look me up at c SC Dan Mason.
I shared that the past couple of months of my
life personally have felt anything but amplified. I went through
(01:27):
a string of challenges just in my dating life, in
my personal relationships, and also in my business that set
me back and knocked me on my ass for a bit,
and I found myself facing old fears of failure in abandonment.
I found myself in moments of hopelessness and despair, and
there were some moments where you know, part of me
just wanted to give up. We all want to be
(01:49):
general manager of the universe. We want to control other people.
We want to make them show up for us the
way that we want. We want to control the outcomes
in our career and in our finances, and sometimes those
things aren't always in our control and it can be
very very painful. But thank God A that I've got
excellent mentorship and support in my life to drag me
(02:09):
through during those low moments, so that it's not a
permanent condition. It's more just a detour in my path.
But also it's just so thankful and grateful that I've
developed a foundation of skills and strategies and things that
I can use that have helped me really build to
where I am right now in my life and in
my career. And it made me reflect on the flight
(02:33):
home about if I had to narrow this down into
six principles that I could teach to anybody that I
would encourage you to incorporate into your life, what would
it be? And I wanted to get beyond just the
surface level stuff of well, you've got to have an
empowered mindset. Well, yeah, no, ship Dan, of course I
need to have an empowered mindset. But why is it
(02:55):
so often when I say positive affirmations they don't seem
to work for me? Why is it that my vision
board is just a collection of pictures up on the wall, Dan,
but I can't seem to bring it to life. And
that's because there's really some elements under the surface that
are the foundation of the amplified life that you want
to create. And if you're not incorporating these into your life.
(03:17):
You're building your house on sand instead of rocks. So,
with your permission, if you would like to give me
the next thirty forty minutes of your life, I'm gonna
break these down for you and as simple terms as
I can and help you start to build out through
the remainder of a strong foundation so that you can
make the best year of your life. These are my
(03:39):
six foundations to an amplified life this week on Life Amplified.
The first one is something you've heard me talk maybe
once or twice when we've had some health experts on
but it's not something that I've really understood in my
life until more recently. Because before we can start talking
about your brain and your mental health, we also need
(04:02):
to have a conversation about whole body health. A lot
of the work that I've done on myself and that
I believe in and that I teach to my clients
is very holistic in nature, and that's why we've got
to talk first and foremost about your microbiome a k A.
Gut health. And if you had asked me six or
seven years ago, I would have been like, Oh, yeah,
(04:23):
you just have to poop more and you have good
gut health. Right. You know, we all saw Jamie Lee
Curtiss something activity at commercials, just smiling while she was
eating her pooping yogurt, and we all thought that was
the answer. And yeah, probiotics are good, they are useful,
but gut health goes much deeper than that. And what
I wanted to talk to you today about the fact
(04:43):
is that you have got trillions of microbes in your gut.
And what we're learning right now through science and research
is that these microbes are the invisible force influencing your
mental well being. There used to be this belief in
science that we looked at the brain sort of this
top down mechanism, that whatever was going on in your
(05:03):
brain affected your body, and that's not the case. What
we now know is that there is a gut brain
access this is also known as the vagus nerve in
your body, and that it is bidirectional in communication. So
while your brain is sending signals down to the body,
you actually have ten times more fibers running from your
(05:24):
gut up to your brain sending information, and the bacteria
and the microbiome in your gut in many instances is
helping to create neurotransmitters like seratonin, like dopamine, which are
the feel good chemicals that our body releases. So if
you listen to the podcast, you know I'm a bit
(05:44):
of a research and ner and I wanted to share
with you a study firm neuroscientists John Crying from the
University College Cork in Ireland. He's been studying the power
of gut microbiome on mice and here's what he discovered.
By altering or in some cases eliminating or preventing the
development of a healthy microbiome in mice, here's what he
(06:05):
found That the mice without microbes, the ones who were
germ free, experience neurochemical changes within the brain. Also, the
germ free mice are unable to recognize other mice around them,
which makes them completely unable to socialize. Germ free mice
also exhibited higher risk behavior and they found that the
(06:27):
mice without microbes were unable to remember scary situations, suggesting
that your microbiome and the body is impacting neurological pathways
that are involved in fear conditioning. This is insane. We
never knew this years ago, and there's been some additional
research and Ontario Canada that says when microbes were taken
(06:48):
from quote unquote a normal mouse and transplanted into the
gut of a germ free mouse, that the mouse adopts
a similar personality to its donor. So it does make
you question what's going on here. It looks and sounds
like the gut microbiome is very influential in creating certain
actions and behavior that up until now had been totally
(07:11):
credited to the brain. So the big lesson here is
we've got to stop acting like our brain is in
control now. The researchers in Ireland have concluded quote dietary
treatments could be used as either adjunct or soul therapy
for mood disorders. And this might be controversial, and I
just ask that you hear me out, and I'll talk
(07:33):
a little bit about my experience having been treated for
depression and anxiety through pillform when I was in my twenties.
You know, I spent a couple of years on mix
a pro and couldn't get anywhere with it. And I'm
not a person who is anti medicine. I think it
saves lives in many cases, but the research suggests that
only about two out of ten people who go on
(07:54):
antidepressants or anti anxiety meds have real benefit beyond the
placebo effect. So there are many people that they're taking
medication who are still experiencing depression and anxiety as a baseline.
So this is a great time to look at what's
going on in your gut and also realizing that the
different bacteria and the different microbiome in your stomach, each
(08:16):
of them prefers certain kinds of food, So every meal
that you eat becomes very important and how you're nourishing
these microbes and determining how they operate in the body. Now,
how do you even know what foods you should eat?
You know, this isn't like you can go to your
usual doctor and just get a blood test and take
a physical and get these things checked out. Although if
(08:37):
you did some research online, there are companies that do
microbiome testing via the mail. It's not that unlike doing
twenty three in me. There are many companies where you
can send a stool sample through the mail and they
will analyze and send you all the results, including what
foods are right for your gut. Because the thing is
is our microbiomes are as unique to the individual is
(08:59):
our own d n A. Nobody has the same exact microbiome,
so you can get profiled on what foods are healthy
for you. You can also find out what foods you
should avoid. I did one of these tests about a
year and a half ago, even before I really understood
all the science behind it, and it was interesting for
me because the thing that I always made for breakfast
(09:20):
for about four years straight, every morning, I would just
get up and saute some spinach in a pan and
then add egg whites and make myself a scramble, and
that's what I ate almost every morning for about four years. Well,
I got back my microbiome reports and my gut health report,
and it turns out spinach is a food I shouldn't
even be eating according to my profile. So that was
(09:41):
pretty eye opening and it was also interesting for me.
And this is just my experience. I can't speak to
the science on this. That a lot of the foods
that I naturally have a taste for, we're showing up
on my list of foods like my superfoods that I
should be eating more of, things like Brussels sprouts, a rugala.
Salmon is one of my favorites. Those were all showing
(10:03):
up on my list, which also proves me that a
lot of times your body just knows what's good for it. Meanwhile,
some of the foods that I hate, like God bless
you people that can drink beat juice when you're juicing,
but that ship is so disgusting for me. I can't
do it. That showed up on my Foods to Avoid list.
So it's always worth looking into. There's a lot of
(10:24):
companies out there that do it. You know, I don't
want to make recommendations. I'm not an affiliate. I'm not
getting kickbacks on any of this. So the first step
and really looking at a holistic sense of your health
is to check out your gut microbiome, because you've got
ten times more fibers going from your body up to
the brain than you do from your brain to your body.
So we want to look at your health holistically and
(10:46):
also understand there is just some very beginning research out there,
nothing concrete, but it does indicate that your microbiome plays
a role in various health conditions, including autism, a d
h D, obsessive compulsive disorder, and also schizophrenia and bipolar
that they've noticed that people with these afflictions lack certain
(11:09):
bacteria in their gut, so talk to your doctor about it.
I would also suggest looking into a functional medicine doctor
because these are the people that are really specializing in
this science. But my goal here is to get you
thinking about maintaining a healthy gut and really focusing on
your microbiome step number two to create a more amplified life.
(11:31):
I believe this with all my heart. Friends, you gotta
do your trauma work, and we've done some podcasts on
this in the past. You can go back and listen
to an episode I did with Mask and Kid last
summer about how to hack your nervous system, and you
know a form of coaching that he's developed called trauma hacking,
also known as functional life coaching. And if you've listened
(11:52):
to this podcast over the past couple of years, you
know I'm a guy who is all about helping people
find their purpose as a coach and mentor that my
life's work is helping you take your purpose and bring
it forward into the world. But one of the things
that I've also realized now in doing thousands of client hours,
is that the one thing that's going to stop you
from living your purpose is trauma, and that is a
(12:13):
word that is so misunderstood because I think a lot
of times we limit it just to thinking about the
big te traumas, you know, abuse, neglect, domestic violence, sexual violence,
and trauma comes in a variety of shapes and sizes.
It comes in different flavors. Trauma exists in the United
(12:33):
States this week in a big way. I think the
news headlines for people are traumatizing. We're coming off the
heels of two terrible mass shootings, both in Dayton, Ohio
and El Paso, Texas. And I have seen people on
my Facebook feed, friends who I admire in respect, who
are saying they're having nightmares about their children's school, They're
(12:54):
having nightmares about being at work and having somebody show
up an open fire in the office. That's also a
symptom of trauma. Racism, misogyny, xenophobia. Those are traumas that
were enduring every day. And one of the things that
I find with people is they try to say, oh, well, Dan,
(13:14):
you know, I had great parents, I had a great family.
I don't have trauma. And that's not always the case.
You know, it can be much more subtle. One of
my clients is an aspiring author, an aspiring writer, and
growing up in elementary school, he was placed into special
ed classes, and the trauma of that and being made
fun of by classmates created this sense of feeling like
(13:37):
I'm behind. So every time he writes, he's always comparing himself, saying, well,
it's not as good as these other authors. But the
deeper trauma that was under that when you think about
the years he's been in special ed is he also
grew up in a home where there was an alcoholic parent,
and not knowing what he was going to go home
to every day created a lot of distraction. Wasn't able
(14:01):
to focus on his coursework or on his studies, So
the teachers didn't know how to diagnose that back in
the day. They just said, well, we're gonna place you
here in the special ed class, and that created an
identity for this person. So you know, things like bullying
can be trauma. I dated a girl once who told
me that she had no trauma. She didn't understand what
it was that I coach clients on until one day
(14:23):
we had a couple of drinks and she broke down
telling me about the time she got her hair cut
at seven years old, and her mom said it made
her look fat, so she became very obsessed about her
appearance and her weight. That is a trauma, and it
might not be in the ways that make news headlines
that we see with people who are enduring horrible suffering.
(14:44):
But we don't want to get caught up in trying
to compare levels of suffering because in your nervous system,
trauma all registers the exact same. And here are some
of the symptoms of trauma that goes unidentified and unhealed. Yes,
there's the big things, and anxiety depression PTSD, feelings of shame,
fear or anger. Self harm can be a symptom of trauma.
(15:08):
But you know what, so can lack of trust in
relationships or attracting relationships where there's no reciprocity, where you're
doing all the giving and you're taking care of people
but they don't show up for you. Procrastination the inability
to achieve goals. I guarantee you there is a trauma
underneath that procrastination that usually exists around the idea of
(15:31):
needing to be perfect to gain approval, self doubts, imposter syndrome,
chronic disorganization that is a big one for me. I
tend to be very disorganized as a person. But trauma
also affects the part of the brain that is in
charge of executive functioning and sequencing. But whatever the trauma
(15:52):
you have experienced in your life, one of the results
is it creates an inflexible nervous system. You find yourself
as a person who is feeling stuck. Now that might
be stuck in being depressed. It might be stuck in
isolation and loneliness. It could just be stuck in a
soul sucking job and you're afraid to leave. Maybe intuitively,
(16:13):
you're a person who's told yourself, God, there has got
to be something bigger out there for me. But the
thing that's blocking the natural wisdom of your body is
usually trauma. This is why, again, even working on mindset
and beliefs only gets you limited results unless you address
the underlying root cause of what made those beliefs. Nobody
(16:35):
comes out of the womb feeling not good enough, feeling
unworthy to be here. You were but ass naked, kicking
and screaming, making noise and announcing yourself to the world.
But there's usually something that happens along the way that
robs you of that ability, and at the end of
the day, the core of trauma is being disconnected both
to yourself and the people around you and not being seen, heard, known,
(16:59):
or recognized. And another prior guest on the podcast that
would urge you to go back and listen to if
you haven't done it was Connie Lawrence, who is a
very dear friend of mine and also a wonderful counselor
and therapist. In our episode about healing from trauma and
becoming a change maker, she talked about this idea that
trauma is very little about what happens to you, but
(17:20):
what happened after. Was there an empathetic witness, was there
somebody there to nurture you and make you feel safe,
Or when you experience the trauma where you blamed, where
you shamed for it, you know in many instances that's
what starts to shape the beliefs. And at some point
you gotta show up and you've got to do the
healing work around this, and the risk becomes if you
(17:42):
don't do the trauma work, you start to mentally organize
your world and your working model of the world based
on how you're feeling. More than objective reality. You're constantly
living in a state of anxiety or emotion, but there's
not a lot of higher level thinking that's helping you
solve problem. You're always living in a state of hyper vigilance.
You're looking for threats in the environment, but that also
(18:05):
keeps you for looking for answers or looking for a
path forward. And you're never going to be able to
heal this by yourself in a vacuum. You need expert
guidance and support. Make sure that you are talking to
a therapist who is trauma informed, or that you find
a coach who is trauma informed yours truly for example,
(18:27):
But just get the support around it. Because here's the thing.
This is the one step out of the six that
I'm giving you today that people will work their hardest
to avoid. A lot of people are like, yeah, Dan,
I hear you on the trauma work, But is there's
just some meditation? What if I just drink a ship
tom of green juice? When that help? If I go
to the metaphysical store and buy some sage and just
(18:48):
like burn some sage around the house, will that burn
off all the negative energy and eventually you know you
reach a point where you realize that your trauma work
is your spiritual assignment at the end of the day.
That's how we move through it. We live it, and
eventually we find ourselves going up against the same old
emotions that kept it stuck, the same fear of being
seen and being heard, of putting ourselves out there. But
(19:10):
we make a new choice and that is what helps
us move beyond it. My great wish for you is
if anything I'm sharing with you today resonates, reach out
ask for help. You can reach out and get info
on my coaching programs, but there's plenty of other resources
out there. This becomes the key because the third step
(19:31):
and creating your amplified life goes back to discovering your purpose.
And this is one of the biggest ships I've made
as a coach and mentor. Back before I really spent
two years diving in to all my trauma work. As
a coach, I would just start out with helping people
create a purpose statement. You know, let's figure out your purpose,
Let's figure out your dream job, Let's figure out how
(19:51):
you want to serve the world and move forward. And yet,
once my clients would create this plan, there would be
enormous resistance when it came time to take the action.
And what I realized is is even though they knew
the purpose, they didn't feel safe to bring it forward
into the world. You know, living your purpose means using
your voice, it means being seen. It means defying family expectations.
(20:14):
It means, in some instances, defying religious or a church's expectations.
It means stepping away from the approval of a peer group,
and that is frightening to your nervous system unless you've
done the trauma work. So trauma work is what really
helps you take your purpose, discover it, and bring it
forward into the world. As a coach, I can in
(20:34):
one session help you come up with a purpose statement
for your life. The work of how you bring that
forward is what takes time, which is why my clients
work with me, usually in three or six month coaching packages.
But there is such a huge link between purpose and
trauma recovery. Stacy shaff Roll is a PhD who did
(20:55):
a study for the National Institute of Mental Health. In
she wrote an article saying purpose in life is a
key factor associated with better recovery from trauma. So once
you know your purpose, it actually gives context to some
of the painful experiences that you've been through in your life,
and you realize that some of these setbacks and some
(21:16):
of the things that you have encountered have actually just
set you up to become a source of light in
the world to help others who are going through that pain.
You don't have to go back any further than one
episode to see this beautifully illustrated in action. When I
spoke to Nicole Openshein, who went through so much with
her postpartum depression and a lot of feelings of shame
(21:38):
and some really dark thoughts. But what she's been able
to do now is powerfully turn that message into a
movement and hosting events and writing up book deals and
going out and serving the world in a bigger way.
So many beautiful side effects that come with living your purpose.
It could extend your life span by up to ten years.
(21:59):
According to some studies. Financial abundance follows your purpose because
you're using your gifts to add value to the lives
of other people. You will always get paid for that.
You're setting an example for your children. There's so many
people I know who come to me stuck and and
my numbing soul sucking job who had parents who went
and trudged every day to a job that they hate,
(22:21):
and they learned subconsciously, almost like through osmosis. That's that's
what adult ing meant when you're living your purpose, healthier loving, romance, passion,
better relationships in all forms because you tend to surround
yourself with people who believe the same things that you believe.
I just spend eleven days at this deep dive trauma
event and made a best friend for life. Want to
(22:42):
shout her out Rain now because I know that she's
always listening and her cats actually enjoy listening to this
podcast as well. This is another story altogether. When you're
living your purpose, there is a reduced instance of cardiovascular events,
you get better quality of sleep, your immune function is better,
you have better cognitive functioning when you're aligned with your purpose,
(23:04):
and much better emotional regulation. And I truly believe that
stepping into your purpose is the single greatest gift that
you can give to the people that you love, because
you will be showing up with more energy, more presence
in your relationship. You're setting the example for your children
and your families, and they really want That's what people
want from you more than anything, more than the steady
(23:26):
paid check, more than the fancy job title. People just
want you to be present and they want your happiest,
most lit up self. You're able to give that to
people when you're living your purpose while you're also stepping
out into the world and doing work that is deeply
meaningful for you. Step number four for an amplified life,
It's all about the environments that you're in. You have
(23:48):
got to be able to create an environment that's going
to take these new beliefs that you're creating. Once you've
done your trauma work, once you know your purpose, you
need an environment that makes it real. Environment is everything.
I recently talked about this on an Instagram TV if
you go to my account. But there's a tremendous lesson
and ancient farming systems that tell us about the importance
(24:11):
of environment, because it turns out that the farmers in
Europe and through China were able to grow crops at
two times at a faster rate than American farmers. Now,
why is that where they better educated? No, I mean
this was still pretty primitive. We didn't have huge educational systems.
It was actually the environment that was conducive because Europe
(24:34):
through Asia is very wide, it's a huge land mass
that that whole area pretty much had fewer fluctuations in climate.
They had similar amounts of daylight each day, the temperatures
were very steady. It was conducive to cultivating two crops
and just planting them from France all the way through China.
(24:54):
And as they did that, they were able to better
feed their people. They were able to increase reach the
population faster, and as the population increase, they had the
ability to have more workers to build systems, you know, economically. Meanwhile,
over in North America, you know, it's much taller north
to south, it's not as wide of a land mass.
(25:15):
So think about that. You can't grow the same avocados
in southern California that you would if you were up
in Vancouver, because well, things don't grow very well in snow.
So the environment limited the amount of crops that could
be produced every year, and the American farmers were much
further behind. So environment becomes everything. A person in recovery
(25:38):
from addiction can't get sober going to the same bar
every night that they passed out at at two am.
We have got to be able to cultivate an environment
that makes the beliefs real. And if you are a
person who is separating from family expectations, if you're really
stepping into your purpose and saying, I am worthy of
an abundant life and I have a gift that I
(25:58):
want to share with other people. Bowl if you are
still hanging out with the people who tell you you
should be grateful and just stay exactly where you are
and keep a steady paycheck, you are never going to
break through and leave a soul sucking job. You can't
create space for a loving, soulmate relationship with somebody who
will honor you and cherish you. If you're staying in
(26:20):
an emotionally abusive relationship, environment has got to change. And
this is why you know when you look at the
quote from zig Zigler who says you're the average of
the five people you spend the most time with, it's
absolutely true. You cannot show me an example of a
rich person who hangs out and spends the majority of
their time with people living in poverty. In many instances,
(26:44):
in the case of like Bill Gates, they are donating
their money to help those people. But you tend to
see that who you hang out with is who you become.
And this is such a huge challenge for people on
their journey forward is because sometimes the people who are
your big as naysayers. It can be your spouse, it
could be your mom, your dad, to the people closest
(27:05):
to you. So I'm not telling you today that you
gotta go file for divorce or that you can't speak
to your family again, but you have got to proactively
cultivate a social circle that is going to love and
support you. It's why I myself sign up for group
mentorship programs because there is tremendous power and learning as
a tribe. And it's also why I do so many
(27:25):
group programs because people have that experience of just being
seen and having somebody loved the parts of you that
sometimes you're not even sure or lovable. Based on old
family conditioning. The fifth key to an amplified life that
has really been a game changer for me. Oh, I'm
gonna come out of the woo woo closet are and
I this is gonna be a little weird for some
(27:48):
of you, but I swear by this. You've got to
start thinking about body and energy work because as we
talk about healing the old emotions of trauma. What we
know through science. There's a book on this called The
Body Keeps the Score. You can look that up by
Bessel Vanderklke. But what we're learning is that trauma gets
stored in the body and that, as we say, the
(28:09):
issues are in the tissues, so you've got to get
that worked out. Massage can be a great tool, not
one of those like little frou frou like fifty dollars
Swedish massages that you get when you sign up at
massage and vy for you want to get deep tissue,
you want to have somebody work on you, but there's
other modalities as well that work on your energetic body.
(28:29):
A lot of people swear by John Barnes my o
fascial release. I have tried a couple of sessions of that.
I personally couldn't get anywhere with it, but I know
people who swear by it. I just don't think that
that was my journey. But one of the things that
I absolutely swear by is reiki. I had my first
reiky session almost two years ago with a practitioner who
is just a woman I adore shout out to Barbara Hall,
(28:53):
and it was so crazy because as she put her
hands pretty much just on the crown of my head
as I laid on the table, something shifted and Nick
this thing I knew. I had tears running down my face,
Like I wasn't sobbing, but all of a sudden, I
just found tears coming down my face. There was some
sort of release that was happening. And basically, the whole
modality is a technique that is based on a principle
(29:14):
that an attuned therapist a Ricky practitioner can channel energy
into you as a patient through touch and it activates
a natural healing process of your body and it restores
physical and emotional well being. There are a lot of
great Ricky practitioners out there. This used to be something
that was seen as being woo woo or sort of
like some weird occult sort of stuff. And now raiky
(29:37):
is starting to make its way into hospitals. They're using
it for treatments of cancer patients at this point, so
it's very much becoming mainstream. It is my preferred modality
when it comes to energy work, but there are other
things out there. You know, some people enjoy acupuncture, which
is something that I have done in the past. I
don't really utilize it in my life right now. But
(29:59):
even some of the friends who I have recommended reiki
two who are always skeptical about it, well at the
very least grudgingly admit when they come out of the
session that they feel deeply relaxed and they felt like
interesting sensations just like tingling in their body. So that
is something I would very much urge you to look
into if you are so moved, because we're talking about
(30:20):
sort of healing at the cellular level with your microbiome.
We're talking about healing emotionally with your trauma work. We're
talking about healing in terms of your connection to the
world around you by living your purpose. But I do
think body and energetic work is something that is important.
So explore find a modality that's right for you, whether
(30:42):
it be myofascial release, whether it's reiki, whether it's acupuncture,
or you can always just go to the trusty old
massage if that feels safer for you. And that brings
me to the sixth and final tip to live a
more amplified life. And I know that this we're talking
today very holistically, but this is where we started the podcast.
It's automatic, resilient thoughts, it's mindset. It's a practice that
(31:06):
we would call emotional fitness. You know. I think that
there are three levels of personal growth. A lot of
people who come to me are so shut off from
feeling any emotion. They're heavy thinkers that they're always surprised
when we get into the work and they're like, oh wow, wait,
I actually do feel things. I do have emotion, Dan.
And then the next level is to really build emotional intelligence.
(31:28):
We want a high emotional you know, a high EQ,
but that only gets you so far. And I think
that when I was spending a lot of time back
in therapy in my you know, mid to late twenties,
I found myself talking about the same four stories over
and over again, and I had a very clear intellectual
understanding of how it was keeping me stuck, but there
(31:49):
wasn't really a path forward. So the step really after
emotional intelligence is to create emotional fitness, which means that
you are showing up each day that you are the
author of your life. You're deciding how you want to feel.
You are taking bold, courageous action in the face of fear.
This is a lot of what surface level. Personal growth
(32:10):
is about you know, telling you that growth happens outside
of your comfort zone. And we say all these things
that look great on Instagram quote cards, But what I
want you to understand is without the context and the
levels underneath, if there is just inflammation and dis biosis
in your body, it's hard for you to have the
energy to show up for your goals every day. If
(32:31):
trauma is keeping you stuck living in the past and
reliving old stories and old patterns and old family situations,
you're never going to feel safe to move forward outside
of the comfort zone. So everything leading up to that.
If you have the wrong environment, you can be taking action,
but the first time something doesn't work out the way
(32:52):
you want, you're gonna have a bunch of a holes
around you go and see, we told you so this
is stupid. Let you go back to your corporate job.
So all the other components that we have spoken about
today really are what have to be in place. Yes,
take courageous action, but you also need a strong foundation underneath,
or you're going to be one of the people who
are taking two steps forward and two steps back at
(33:15):
any given time. Again, to recap six steps for an
amplified life. Number one, we want to look at your
microbiome health number two. We gotta do the trauma work
and help you recover so that you feel safe to
do step number three, which is to discover your purpose
and bring it into the world. Step number four creating
a healthy environment that will nurture you and your new
(33:38):
beliefs as you bring them to life in the world.
Step number five, you got to look into some sort
of body or energy work. And then step number six
building that emotional fitness, taking courageous action every day. All
of these things will require some mentorship along the way,
and if you're looking for a one stop shop for
somebody who can help you a it clear on your purpose,
(34:01):
remove those mental obstacles that have stood in the way
and kept you stuck up until now. If you're looking
to co regulate and create a healthy environment with a
mentor who believes in you and believes in your dreams
even on the day when you don't, and can help
you create grounded action steps and stay in daily action
toward your goals. Know that I've got you a couple
(34:22):
of spots left for V I P coaching in the
month of August. You can go to my website, Creative
Soul Coaching dot net and you can get all the
information there. And if this podcast is serving you today,
it would mean the world if you left us a
five star rating and review up on Apple or just
gave us a follow here on the I Heart Radio app.
(34:43):
You can also screenshot this podcast, share it to Instagram
and Twitter with your friends. Be sure to tell me
about any takeaways that you've had. You can find me
on both Twitter and insta at c SC Dan Mason.
We also have our private Facebook group for listeners of
the pod cast, Our Life Amplified Power Tribe. A link
to that is in the show notes. And while I'm
(35:05):
at it, let me shout out our listener of the week,
who is saber Cat seventeen On Instagram. She said she
was listening to our episode with Shannon al Gao for
the third time and amazed at the things that she
picked up in each new listen. She says pride in
yourself is a critical part of self care. Dan statement
there is greatness in your smallness from an earlier episode
(35:26):
has become a sort of mantra for me, and we
need to be proud of the smallness from which our
greatness grows saber Cat seventeen. That just made my week.
Thank you so much for listening and for sharing the
podcast with your friends. If you would like to be
our listener of the week, all you gotta do use
any of those avenues on social media. Be sure to
tag me and I will shout you out next week.
(35:48):
In the meantime, turned down the volume on your negativity,
turn up the volume on your purpose so you can
get out there and live life amplified. I'll talk to
you next week.
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