Put your lab coat on and take a deep look at what’s inside! This session we talk about looking at our thoughts, that voice in our head, and focus on becoming more aware and more present. Where we can look at everything around us and observe it in a way that helps us understand everything that’s happening — all our thoughts, all our feelings — are outside of us. They are not our consciousness.
Video Transcript
Dr. A: All right everybody. Good morning. Good afternoon – in some places – but for most, it’s good morning still or happy noon. Time to get down and start thinking consciously about our lives again. So, we’ll wait a moment or so to give an opportunity for everybody to populate and then we’ll get going. I hope everybody had an amazing New Year. I hope you had a wonderful holiday season and now you’re ready to go to work and go to work on ourselves and as you can see by the title, preferably on the inside. So, I’ll just give about another 30 seconds before we get going but I hope everybody’s dialled in and ready to really expand themselves this year and really work on themselves. We spend so much time helping others and working with others, and just reacting to everything that’s going on in our lives and what I want to do today is kind of set the stage for this new year.
It’s the 3rd of January. It’s bringing the “new” so to speak and since we were little kids we’ve been told, “let’s make our resolutions.” “Let’s do things differently this year,” and most of the time we start out with great intentions and by February or March we’re back to the same old routine and the reason for that is because we’re working on things outside of us. Maybe our schedule, maybe how we’re going to work, maybe if we’re going to add exercise, but what we’re not working on is our programming which is our inside and so today I’m going to bring on this slide that will kind of set the stage, and that is inside or outside. What will you focus on during the next revolution around the sun? And that may sound kind of weird to you but I think it really sets us up to where we are in our lives and how we move forward and it actually— 365, it’s one more on leap year, but it takes that long for the earth to place your home, and where we are, to go all the way around the sun and I want to start connecting ourselves to everything that’s around us and it may sound like an oxymoron because why am I saying work on the inside but connected to the outside?
What I’m actually saying as a human, we are only here for hopefully, if you’re using the Habits of Health, we’re here for you know 82 up to potentially 100 years, of course, that cannot be guaranteed. The average lifespan for a woman is about 80 and for men about 75 now, but if we make the choices and changes necessary through learning the Habits of Health and really learning how to change our habits to be more productive in creating wellbeing for us we can change everything and so I want to set up this new year with working on the inside, because basically, people do things over and over again and then their default programming and their default future comes back to haunt them and because they haven’t really changed fundamentally inside, they’re operating on principles that they gathered all the way back from when they were little kids.
Our experiences of life would create the things inside of us, the unconscious things and the conscious things that guide us. So what we’re going to talk about today is what I believe is the most important thing you can focus on in the new year, and as you change, and you improve, and you become more conscious and less guided by all that stuff we have inside of us, you have the opportunity to break out, break free, and become the Dominant Force in your life.
So, we’re going to go ahead and start. As you know this is the Conscious Leadership Forum, it’s designed to be a place where we can exchange ideas and views about issues and have that for everybody and one of the things that I want to do this year is really build this and have you help me build this so we have a safe place for people who can come to kind of guide them on their journey to increasing consciousness and put themselves in position to truly make changes that are meaningful and get rid of— because sometimes in here [gestures to head] it’s nice and it’s fun when everything matches up the way you want it to be, but most of the time, most people would say inside of here isn’t a nice place to be. Lots of worries, lots of mental suffering, and we want to start working on that, and so this year I’d love to take you on that revolution. On a journey for self-exploration that puts you in position for yourself, for your family, for your friends, and for people you know to join us and become part of this forum. Where we can learn how to really negotiate and actually take ourselves to become the Dominant Force in our lives.
So, is your focus on improving your inside world or your outside world? Certainly, we want to improve, we want to maybe improve our financial situation. Obviously, hopefully, we’re wanting to work on our health, but the main thing is working on our well-being because when we’re sound inside and we’re calm and whatever happens in the world was like “water on a duck’s back,” it just rolls off. That’s when we really, really, really put ourselves in a position to be able to not just negotiate, but then organize their life around what matters most and then become the Dominant Force, where we’re literally in charge and we’re able to negotiate through all the things that life is going to throw at us. I mean things have changed dramatically and they’re changing very rapidly. In fact, this is the slowest change will ever occur. So we need to learn to focus, to build that emotional agility, stamina, become emotionally literate, so we can now handle our thoughts and our feelings, which are not us.
We seem to think that they’re us but they’re actually not us. So, with that, what results do we get by focusing on changing our outside world? Well, first of all, most stay the same if your perspective on life is that life needs to be a certain way, the world needs to be a certain way, my relationships need to be a certain way, then you’re not really going to make much of a change because you’re going to be doing the same things over and over again because you’re trying to get the world to do something and actually, our role in this world is impitismo. There’s eight billion people on the planet and we have very little control over the world. We like to think that we can control, and certainly control is important for us, but actually, the reality is if you’re trying to get the world to be a certain way, you’re going to suffer. You’re not just going to suffer but you’re not going to make much improvement and you’ll probably stay the same.
So, with that, few are ready to move. You’re not if you’re staying and working on the outside world and trying to make it the way you want it to be. You’re not going to really move, you’re not going to really make that shift. That’s why New Year’s resolutions don’t work because we try to get to do something for a certain period of time but we’re not actually evolving inside. Our perspective isn’t changing and so we’re putting ourselves in a position to be totally fighting with the way the world is, the way our relationships are, and all that’s not going to work and it becomes very difficult to become the Dominant Force because for you to become the Dominant Force, you need to be independent of what’s going on around the world. Certainly have to address those things and equanimity, which we’ll finish with today, is basically recognizing all the things going on but being calm during that and being able to handle it in a way that takes the outcome to best serve yourself and the people you care and love about.
So, where is your locus of control? This is really the most important part and I put this really colorful slide up because you can either have external locus of control that controls outside of me or the control can be internal. Life is going to happen and as life happens, how are you responding to it? All these words, the downside, the empowerment, feeling, luck, improving, others, learning types, mean, responsibility, all these are factors, but really when it comes down to it, and we’re going to talk about that, it’s your locus of control. Is it outside of you? Are other people, and other things, and the world responsible for what happens to you? Or are you taking control and becoming radically responsible? So, literally, if you look at this, everything— the form is what I’m saying is the outside world [referring to a slide on screen). It could be people, it could be events, it could be the weather. It could be all these things. What we’re looking to become is fully, consciously aware. Not interpreting it, not interpreting it through our filters of all our past and all our stored trauma, and all our stuff, but can we become over time purely unfiltered, so you can really enjoy it?
I got home at four o’clock in the morning and through the experience yesterday, it was pretty incredible travelling. I travelled from being out in the mountains with my daughter and through that whole day, which could have been very irritable, I made the choice to say, you know, let me look around and look at people, how they’re interacting, because I love to observe, and that’s how I learned and that’s how I’ve been able to help people is by observing their behaviors and looking at their perspective, and their perceptions, and how to change that. So, what we want to do this year is get you to the point where when you look at everything around you— like I’m back and I’m looking out at the ocean, and I got up this morning, and I hadn’t seen it for a couple weeks, and I actually spent time looking fully absorbed in that. Not thinking about, “God, I got to get on this call. I got to do this forum.” I actually, even though it wasn’t a lot of time I had before getting on this, I basically was looking at all this experience around me. Rather than being so caught up in having to get on the call, getting ready, all these other things that would have added now, another layer. So, with that, I could be fully present and that’s what you want to do.
The more present you can become, the more aware of what’s going on without interpreting it through your thoughts and feelings, you will see yourself become calmer, being able to address and handle so many more things, and so this is kind of our goal this year. It’s going to take some time. We spend so much time— like maybe going to the gym in January, nothing wrong with going to the gym, but what I’d really love you to do is work on this because if you can work on becoming non-filtered, and non-caught up on your stuff, and reacting, you become more present and more aware of your health, more aware of eating slower, more aware of eating the right— making the right choices, because you now become connected to everything versus just reacting to what you’ve thought in the past because this is what happens; basically, usually something happens. It goes in, it touches our stuff and it creates this dysfunction, it creates emotion, cognitive emotive loops— we’ve been working on this all year. We’re going to talk today, starting on how we’re going to manage that and how we’re going to do exercises, and go to the mental gym, and help ourselves.
[00:10:28] So, with that, what ends up happening is we try to change our outside world to fit what we need. So we try to change people. You know that in your relationships when you first met your spouse, or your boyfriend, or girlfriend, or your significant other. Bottom line is they were a certain way and they met because you were attracted to them, and you love them conditionally based on the way they presented themselves and obviously we get married, we settle down, we live together, and when that happens we kind of let down and go back to our natural tendencies and if you wanted them a certain way then you’re going to want to change them, or you decide, “I don’t like what they do here and I want to change them.” No, it’s not about changing them, it’s about changing your perspective and your perception of how they are, and what you care about them, and what you love about them, and if it doesn’t work out then it’s the new year. Maybe it’s time to make a change, but we try to eliminate our suffering because we’re not all right inside.
We have stuff inside of us that stresses us out and we think about it and when that happens we try to change the world, and that’s what most people will do. 95 percent of people, they showed earlier, will stay stuck in the way the world needs to be and they’ll try to change the outside. They won’t work on the inside. So that’s one of the things we’re going to be working on and because they’re not right inside they need things. I need things. I basically, to make me feel better because I’m not okay inside, when I get the perfect job, when I have the perfect house, when I find the perfect mate, all those things are things you need because we’re not all right inside, and so what we’re going to be working on is becoming whole. I have everything I need and that is because once we’ve changed in here [gestures to head] we’ve taken control and we have the psychological flexibility, everything in our life can change and everything can become like again, like “water on a duck’s back.”
Issues that bothered you before are just going to roll off. Our personal mind gets in the way, and when that happens we want that world to be a certain way. When it isn’t that way, it’s kind of like a clock that’s broken— it’s correct two times in a 24-hour period. When things are working like we want them to and we got the right things happening during the day then we’re okay, but otherwise, we’re not okay. So what we want to do is we want to work on the inside. So true inner growth is what we talked about last month, is this cognizance, this coherence between our mind, our thoughts, our feelings, and how they work together because once they’re in residence, it’s a beautiful symphony. Our physiology changes our ability to be adaptable to all the things going on in the world. It just makes us in a position to start lowering the stress, lowering the mental suffering, and put us in great shape.
So, if you look at this [referring to a slide on screen] internal locus of control, basically radical responsibility. Once we take radical responsibility for everything that’s happening in our life we can change our perceptions, change our relationships with people, change our relationship with our schedule, change your relationship with the weather. I mean if you think the weather needs to be a certain way or you’re miserable, that’s a great example of external locus of control. We think on the right side [the right side of the slide on screen is titled “Victimhood”] is victimhood, that in other words, people are getting in our ways, people are telling us what to do, our schedule is demanding and making us do all these things, and we have bad weather today and because of that I’m a victim and I wanted to go for a walk on the beach but it’s raining, or it’s windy.
I mean literally, the difference is night and day. So, the first thing we’re going to work on is basically taking full control. Taking back our power by coming inside of us knowing that we’re becoming the Dominant Force in our life. Not that the world’s happening around us and to us, which is the Drama Triangle, which we’ve talked about a lot. So with that, basically starts with becoming the witness and we’ve been talking about it but it’s putting on your lab coat and really looking at the inside. It’s looking at our thoughts, that voice in our head, stopping. That’s what meditation’s about, is just quieting that voice and becoming more aware, and more present, and that’s switching on a different way, that’s taking the filter off and actually putting on this conscious word that we’re in. What we like to call the witness, the conscious witness chair of observation, where we can look at everything around us and observe it in a way where we understand that everything that’s happening, all our thoughts, all our feelings are outside of us. They are not our consciousness. They’re not our awareness and then of course the other part is the emotions. The complicated part of— I don’t know what I did here, but there it goes [referring to the slides not appearing on screen], the emotions, the parts inside of us, the resonance that we have.
So, if we look at it, it’s about what we talked about a few months ago. About managing our psyche. Our psyche is our thoughts and emotions together that form our personal self. What I’m actually saying is we’ve got a construct called our personal self or our psyche, that our thoughts and emotions, and our experiences, and those things together give us a way of perceiving and doing comparative reality to the world and everything that’s happening around us. So understand, our psyche is non-physical. You can be sitting next to a good friend, a business partner, a fellow leader, and you don’t know what their psyche is doing. You only see what they’re doing and occasionally when you see the look on their face or something. We can tell they’re distressed, you can tell there’s something going on in their psyche where their stuff is being touched and basically there’s something going on, but we can’t measure it. Scientifically, we can’t measure and really most of the time you don’t know what the other person’s thinking. That’s why people say, God, they were such a wonderful person. Why did they end up going on a shooting spree? Or end up ending their lives? Because we can’t see that part. But we all have that and becoming— being able to manage that is so critical.
Your thoughts are in your head, that’s what we think about it. You either visualize or you verbalize your thoughts. You actually form specific objects about that. You’re thinking about it a certain way and you can actually visualize that. Your emotional part is unlike that, is from your heart. It’s your emotions. They’re like waves, it’s like— you know outside, I’m looking at the clouds going by. Those are the wave of energy that’s going through us and that energy will change. It’ll change dramatically and when, and we’re going to show you in a minute when our stuff gets touched, it kind of “deep-sixes” our emotions and puts us in this negative construct. So you can be walking along with somebody, be it your significant other, or a friend and you just had a wonderful meal together, and you walk outside, and I’ve mentioned this before, and your everything’s going fine and all of a sudden you see something, something outside touches your stuff and it changes your whole demeanor. You were so happy and having a wonderful time but your stuff got touched and so you’re letting these external things stimulate and touch your stuff and then you’re miserable. So, it could be, again, if you’re in high school, you had a boyfriend or girlfriend that had a yellow Mustang and that yellow Mustang drives by, and you don’t even know why sometimes because it’s you buried, it’s like coils. You push this stuff down inside and it’s all in there and it actually changes the way you behave and it triggers these emotional, these cognitive emotional loops. Siri’s talking to me, I love it [referring to Siri talking in the background]. Anyway, so hopefully, that’s helpful.
Emotions are always present. There’s a baseline of emotions and they could be, they can affect you. So if you’ve got something on your mind that you have to deal with, it can cloud and actually ruin your awareness of everything that’s happened around your kids, your grandkids, your friends in a conversation but because some things touch your stuff, it’s churned up and now you have these negative loops going on and you’re not really there. You’re no longer in the moment. You’re caught in this stuff, you’re caught in this emotional thought, emotion, feeling and what it does is it distracts us and we’re missing half of our lives because we’re being stimulated by that stuff.
So self-awareness allows you to assess, manage, and create. Getting back to that pure energy flow, that coherence, where our physiology, and our emotions, and our thoughts are all in resonance. When we’re in that spot and you know, you see a beautiful sunset, you’re seeing your grandkids, you know over the holidays you’re spending time in a loving relationship, all those things. You can feel that resonance when everything’s working together and that’s our goal. Our goal is to work on the inside and take back control so we can have this beautiful experience. Most of the time— and it isn’t about extrinsic motivation, it’s not about external, it’s not about the car you’re driving, it’s not about where you live, it’s not about how much money you have in the bank, it’s actually being in the moment and enjoying life to its fullest.
I really believe– you know, it’s okay to have an ego, but when we’re younger our ego’s in service of our self-interest and our goal here is to have our ego in service of our soul, where the things we’re doing are building residence. Our days— we’re only here for a brief period of time in a universe that’s been here for 14 billion-plus years. We want to work on having experience. It’s the most important thing you can do to start improving, creating greater wellbeing, health, psychological freedom, and psychological flexibility. So again conscious of our inside world. Awareness is about events, people, something’s going to happen. It happens all the time. Life doesn’t stay stagnant and that’s why people sometimes withdraw because they’re trying to minimize the changes that are occurring and all that does is isolate you more and if you take that track you’re not going to change, you’re going to become more dysfunctional and that’s why our country the United States of America has massive opioid abuse, a very high relationship with mental dysfunction and illness as well as in the whole world.
[00:20:27] I mean some of the things we’re doing in the world are crazy because we’re not aware and what we’re doing is basically, our ego, our personal mind gets in the way. It’s creating these negative thoughts and emotions and so what most people do traditionally is they stay in the Drama Triangle. 95 plus percent of the world is in the Drama Triangle most of the time and so they either suppress, put down those coiled springs, which becomes our stored trauma or stored stuff, or we project it out on others. We actually take it out on our kids, on our friends, on ourself and we’re creating these cognitive motive, dysfunctional loops that are taking up sometimes a lot of our day.
So let’s go back to the basics. Most people— there’s a stimulus and there’s a response. Something happens, your boss tells you you’ve got to stay late or you screwed up, and we respond. I mean we don’t even think about it. We don’t process, we emotionally just respond to it without processing. So this is basically stuff is all in the Habits of Health Transformational System and it’s important stuff. Element four is a great one for people to really start to understand. Most people don’t know that you don’t have to be a spinal animal, where you just respond to stimulus because when that happens your Labrador, your emotional brain, takes over and you respond without using your human brain— this prefrontal cortex. This area is where all our creativity, our ability to become successful in all aspects of our life, being the Dominant Force happens in here, and it can’t happen if we’re responding through our Labrador brain.
So, what happens is we’re in the Drama Triangle. It’s being; I’m a victim. It’s being done to me, it’s not fair, or basically, the hero because you want to avoid the pain. You try to reach out and help somebody or help yourself because I’m here to save the day. I am enabling victims, I’m enabling people to say, “oh woe’s me.” We’re not helping them or the villain and this is great, all you have to do is turn on any news station, doesn’t matter what your preference is, and it’s all about who is at fault and I blame you, I blame them, or I blame myself, and so this loop, this emotional Drama Triangle that cycles around is where most people stay and they actually they feel good when they’re doing it because it charges up their emotions. They get that adrenaline, they get the dopamine, basically pulse that just gives them that hit and they respond to it, so they feel. That’s why like shows like the Jerry Springer Show, people watch that stuff. He says, “hey my life’s not so bad, look how messed up they are!” It’s not a good place to be. It doesn’t add to anything positive and it creates massive dysfunction.
So, is it normal? We talk a lot about going below the line, above the line, we’re open, we’re curious and we want to grow and learn from all experiences. Obstacles are there to help us learn or basically, I’m closed, I’m defensive, and I need to be right. The need to be right is a major problem because what it does that keeps you stuck in that old paradigm where I need to be right and you’re not growing or learning and as the world becomes more complex, if you’re not open, curious, and want to learn, you’re going to find yourself left behind and you become irrelevant in the world and in your relationships. So, it happens, it’s okay, it’s basically the way we’re trained. We are negative biased. Ten thousand years ago we were always on the outlook for the negative things that could happen. So what happens is our stuff gets in the way when we get triggered and we move from being in sync, where we have this beautiful relationship between our mind and our heart, and our thoughts and our feelings, and we get out of sync, and when that happens this is a major “aha” moment for you because an emotion is generated when our core energy hits a blockage and produces a negative feeling.
So I showed you, in the focus on all the things that can happen outside, that “forms” those things, hit it, creates a negative feeling. The pure energy that’s flowing through us in the background, now hits a blockage and what ends up happening is we get negative feelings and this happens— it happens to all of us, I mean it happens. I spent a lot of time working on this and there’s still things that hit me that way and you have to basically put on your lab jacket and say, what can I learn from this? Why am I allowed something, an event that happens to stay caught in a cognitive emotive loop and stay in there? How do I work on that? And we’re going to work on that. This whole year, for you guys, we’re going to work on how we can overcome that and do things that can make new tools and exercises, but the main thing: it starts with awareness.
So how do we move forward? Well, most will just stay the same. You are ready to move and change your perceptions and that’s an important question for us. I’m asking everybody on this call and anybody that’s listening to this on the replay or going to the Conscious Leaders Forum on my site and really ask yourself: are you ready to really make the meaningful changes during this revolution that can change everything? Because I can tell you that you can make little changes in your health through discipline. A lot of time you’re trying to use willpower, which is pretty difficult long term because if you have perceptions of the way things need to be and you’re allowing your positive, your previous paradigms to control you this year, you’re not going to make much change. It’s not going to happen. So what we want to do is create a new future and I like to use this and we’ve created this with our leadership of “Lead in the future. Act in the now.” What do you truly want and are you willing to do the inside work? This work is not hard but it requires consistency. Just like if you’re going to go to the gym and learn a new exercise or learn a new sport.
Learning how to manage this is the most important thing, will make the biggest difference, I will guarantee you. If you’ll do the work on what we’re going to be talking about all year, that will help you give you the resource, but you’ve got to do it daily. You’ve got to go to the gym daily and it’s about changing the way we perceive and our perceptions, and our decisions, and our control is decided by what’s going on in here [gestures to head]. So if you’re willing to make that change, and hopefully you all are, we’re going to go on a journey this year, and bring your friends and family and other people. This is designed for everybody. I’d love to have 8 billion— I’ll tell you if we had eight billion people on this and people were learning these— and I, this is not my stuff. This is simply the work that’s being done in interpersonal neurobiology. All the sciences, where we’re learning, but most of it is very didactic. It’s way over most of our heads and I’m trying to make it in a form where we can actually work on it together and make a meaningful difference and start having a dent, and it starts with— and I’ll show you in a minute something I created 15 years ago, Stop. Challenge. Choose.
We’ll talk about how that removes that stimulus response and creates the gap and puts you in position to now make better choices and what you’ll do is, you’ll start feeling over time, the little things you’re doing, all the stuff that used to bother you will just disappear and you’ll kind of laugh at what— I used to be like that because you’re not going to be like that anymore because you’re going to do the work to make the changes and the changes that are necessary are about consistently observing. Going into self-awareness, self-management, and then the creative mode. So we’re going to talk about that, and becoming the Dominant Force changes everything. Once you are in charge, you’ve taken locus, the power, the locus of control, taking it fully back to you and you’re responsible for everything that’s going on.
I’m not saying you’re responsible. Somebody hits you in a car accident, but how you handle it? So things are going to happen, it’s how you respond to it that determines the outcome and you’ll start creating this power that will allow you now to be able to get up every day and rather than having low energy, feeling frustrated, feel like you’re on a hamster wheel, you’ll now wake up smiling and saying, you know what? Everything that happens to me, I’m now equipping and armoring myself with the things that are necessary so I can go through life being the Dominant Force. Being in charge, having great relationships, and really great wellbeing. That’s my goal for you and hopefully your goal for yourself.
So it matters about becoming aware, regaining our thinking brain. Again, most people react in the Drama Triangle through their Labrador or their emotional brain. You can read about this in the Habits of Health Transformational System because it’s all there and there’s places through the log in the LifeBook to help you. But Stop. Challenge. Choose., is your mind and body are tightly linked. Physically, your sensations are cues to signal you. So when you’re feeling that “icky sauce” you can Stop., not go down that rabbit hole. Not start having those cognitive loops and starting all this stuff— which a lot of it isn’t even true, it’s just made-up stuff. You can Stop., you can Challenge., basically. By getting good at stopping you put yourself in position to know how to understand what’s going on in here [gestures to head]. Why am I not alright? And allowing that stuff to come up and actually resolving it so it starts going away, and then Choose., the outcome you want.
So, what we want to do is we want to basically create a gap between stimulus and responses. You see on the right side [referencing the slide on screen] so that we’re now using this beautiful thing we have. No other species on the planet has this part. This awareness of awareness that we have and this ability to really just become the creator of our existence, of everything that happens to us once we engage this and we get out of that Labrador space. So again, if you look at it, we want you to respond from this [gestures to head], not from our limbic system. From our amygdala, from our reactive, from our negative bias. We want you to start becoming a fully productive human that’s now the Dominant Force. So, it’s all about helping build emotional agility, taking back control of your life, the locus of control, full responsibility. Most people are on the left side and that survival, contracted state, where the Drama Triangle is going on. What we’re looking at is becoming the creative expansive state, which is called the empowerment triangle where rather than being a victim, I’m now creating my new story.
[00:30:48] That’s what the LifeBook is about by the way. It’s taking a year and putting yourself in position because it takes time for these new perceptions and these new perspectives to set in and build these new habits and so what we have is we have a mechanism to take you through that, so you can start controlling this thing [gestures to head]. Second, rather than becoming the hero, you want to help other people get better and I want to empower others to be successful. Through relationships, through empowering, through having them start to understand about responsibility. About them taking the locus of control and of course being a challenger, rather than a villain. I’m open and curious, I want to learn. There were three or four times yesterday when I was traveling where there were just bonehead things happening and rather than basically get upset about it, and they all affected me from a standpoint of waiting longer, more dysfunction, losing luggage, I mean there’s all these, but instead: curious of why these things happen and why are all these people around me, because I was looking at their faces. They’re not equipped. They’re in the Drama Triangle. They’re not equipped to actually move into the empowerment and learn from these things, and grow from these things, and realize; you are the Dominant Force and you’re the only one that has control. No one else can give it. I can’t give that to you, I can help you with tools to practice. I can help you with a deeper understanding, but you have to go through the work of actually doing the work for that, but it is worth it.
Rather than getting the car your dreams or the house of your dreams, this will give you somewhat longer, incredible joy, fulfillment, if you learn this stuff because you know what? The car gets old, it gets scratched, it starts making rattles. The house has maintenance on it or it could be living on the ocean and a hurricane comes through and lose half of it, but once you learn these skill sets and you become emotionally agile, everything changes in your life. So this is what normally happens, and this is from the Habits of Health, this is in the LifeBook. We’re present for a second, something happens, we drift, most of the time it amplifies. We go down into the Drama Triangle and it becomes very difficult. Once we’re in the Drama Triangle, in that emotional, that Labrador brain. It becomes very, very difficult, because now when you’re at— it’s kind of like if you had kids. When they were little and they were reading, and they were practicing before they went to bed and if they made a mistake and they start getting frustrated you should give them a hug a kiss and say, “Good night. Great job, sweetie,” and that should be it. They shouldn’t continue because once you’ve activated that Labrador brain, that emotional brain, it’s very hard to get out if you don’t know how.
So, what the technology we created through Stop. Challenge. and Choose., which is a very simple thing, it’s extremely simple, is when something happens and we start to drift we want to Stop. Challenge. Choose., and we can shift ourselves back above the line into presence. We’re all going to go below the line, we’re all going to have times when we get frustrated, but it’s being able to know where you are that allows you to be able to shift versus going down into the Drama Triangle. So, again I mentioned this, the empowerment triangle is all about creating my new story. I’m in charge. What happens, I’m taking radical responsibility, I’m going to help others get better as well around me because that brings me great joy, because that’s really why we’re here. When we really— our ego becomes in service of our soul and helping others now we’re no longer taking or needing, we’re now becoming whole and we’re sharing, and we’re giving, and that’s a huge concept because that’s when life truly becomes meaningful at the highest level, the way we were created. I really believe we’re put on the earth to basically, fully realize and develop our soul, so we become really connected with our fellow humans and that just isn’t happening for most people now.
As you know, they’re in the Drama Triangle, so being able to use obstacles to get better is kind of help you “sharpen the knife” and you’re curious, you want to learn, That’s a very different— if you go into this new year starting to adopt that perspective on life you’re going to to find out this is going to be an amazing year for you. So when you feel you’re being triggered, don’t suppress or project, don’t suppress these feelings down inside of you, because, I don’t want to address this. It makes me feel bad or projected, I’m actually projecting, yelling at my kid because I’m frustrated about something else that’s going on in my life. What we want to do is be able to shift to appreciation and relax, and don’t resist, don’t put more stuff down the— first thing we want to do is stop putting more stuff down inside of us like coiled springs, and instead, anytime something’s happening, allow those emotions to become aware of them. The thoughts, become aware of them and just allow it. Takes about 90 seconds for that. So don’t put any more stuff, and then what we’re going to be doing this year is helping you get rid of that stuff, and the stored trauma, and all those things going on inside of us and allow us to become fully realized and become that conscious individual.
Witness in the seat of consciousness. Where we’re witnessing this world and responding in a way that serves us and basically allows us to be in full wonder of the joy, of being— the gratitude, of being on this planet. So that creates the calm flow state of presence, where the brain, the mind, and the heart, the feelings and emotions, are working in resonance. So equanimity, as I mentioned early, is this increasing our state of consciousness, where these things are working together and although the world’s going to have stuff happening, we’re all gonna— one thing, when I was training in critical care, my chief, who was one of the most brilliant men I ever met said, “You know, we all go from birth to death. We all have that in common, but in the middle what are we doing to actually optimize the quality of our lives?” and that is about managing this [gestures to head] and becoming the Dominant Force in your life.
So, as I’ve shown throughout the last year, what our ideal, our goal is during this year is to build the internal stability and external equilibrium where whatever’s going on in here we can manage at high level and get better, and better, and better and external equilibrium, when we’re interacting with the outside specifically, our relationships and developing relational health. We’re able to have that equilibrium so we can become not just the Dominant Force in our life, but the influence we have on all the people and things around us becomes profound, and that’s the way we’re going to change this planet, one healthy mind at a time. So, Rachel, I’d like to open it now for questions, and let me take this off and stop the screen share, and let’s see. Okay. so what do we got?
Rachel: First up we have Cassie. Cassie, can you come on camera and unmute yourself? There you are.
Dr. A: Hi, Cassie.
Cassie: Hello. I have, you know, I come from a victim mentality. I think a lot of people do, but I have felt that I have gotten better at it and I’m better now than I was six months ago, when I started the program or whenever it was. I feel that I’m doing okay and then something happens and it takes me right back to almost where I was, as far as emotions. Do you have any suggestions for me and, you know, for myself, and then for me to be able to help somebody else who faces that same thing?
Dr. A: Yeah, okay. Well, that’s great and by the way, it took longer today than I usually do. Usually, we have more questions and so I appreciate you, but I took longer today because I want to really set the stage. Everything we’ve just talked about, none of that is hard, it’s only hard because we’re competing with our ego, or our personal mind, right? And when you think of ego— most people think of someone with a big ego, they’re very [gestures large with hands], you know, but ego, there’s multiple parts. Ego, in essence, is your personal mind. It’s all the stuff in your experiences of your life and it starts all the way from when you were a little kid, and I mean, I don’t know your particular— by the way, I’m not a psychotherapist, this is simply stuff I’m giving for people. So, if someone has serious, serious things they need to work with the professional to help them individually, but what I can say, as a whole, awareness is everything. Becoming aware. Now, you know, Cassie, that when something happens and touches your stuff, now you have some tools you can use, right?
Cassie: Yes.
Dr. A: Okay. So, I can tell just by getting on right now, inside you’ve got massive emotional turmoil going on in there, and you could almost cry at any second here. Okay? I see that and I understand that you’re human. You’re human and people think— since you were a little girl, have been telling you how to be, what the way to be is, and so with that when you can’t keep up to those expectations, you get frustrated and what I’m saying to you is, that’s because you’re— anything whether it was your parents, friends, bullies in school, and I’m not saying because I don’t know you personally, but it could be an abusive, it doesn’t matter what it is, traumatized as a kid, all those things are in your past and they’re things that have gotten pushed down and most of them you haven’t dealt with emotionally because it’s too painful and so what now, your journey is to allow that stuff to start coming up, and sometimes you’ll note in a great thing that’s helpful for stuff, that’s really painful, or our dreams— our dreams are basically part of our consciousness and if something’s really difficult for us it’ll come across in a dream, in some kind of symbolic way, right?
[00:40:23] It’ll be something that happened in itself because if it’s too painful to deal with it, you don’t want to think about it. You want to keep it down. So the first thing is start being kind to yourself and start becoming the challenger versus the villain. Blaming yourself for these things or blaming others for it. All that stuff is in your past. Now that this technology, I like to call it Human Transformational Technology, is now ways you can work daily on yourself and it’s not going to happen overnight, but imagine if each time it’s one of those things bubble up and you start to feel like you’re regressing. Rather than basically pushing it back down, allow it to come up. Don’t resist it and basically, really pay attention to it, because resistance is when you push it back down it keeps it there and that’s why— by the way, when I was showing the slider it says, “I need this. I need these things.” You need these things because what they do is they either cover up— some people go to alcohol or drugs, or internet browsing, or whatever it is. They do it to distract them because this stuff is painful and they’re trying to stay removed from it.
I want you to start. When you start feeling, Stop. Try to identify what the emotion is and then work on it because that’s how you’ll remove it. You see all the external things when you use those, you’re just distracting and you can have the— you can say, “Once I have the house I want or once I have the car I want, I’m going to be okay.” No, you’re not, because what you’re trying to use is external things to block or break what’s going on inside. So all I want you to do is little baby steps. Start when you start feeling that feeling. Allow it to come up. It’s going to be painful because it was painful when it happened and so that’s why, as a little girl or — everybody’s different — we push this stuff away because we didn’t have the capability to basically deal with it. You do have the capability now and that’s what we’re doing here. We’re giving you the tools and the time to start working on it, and just take it when you feel it. Like I can tell you right now, you’re just an emotional ball of energy in there and I can see it. I see it right in your face. Don’t allow that which is based on your— remember your past is there to help you build a better future.
The only thing you have is right now. So when you feel this, start allowing it to come up and address it, because that’s how you fix— your actually, and when I say “fixing your inside,” you’re actually just removing stuff because when you were five years old if someone said something to you that was very emotional for you, we didn’t have— this wasn’t fully developed yet [gestures to head], so you didn’t have the ability to separate what was being said. That’s why, like, you know, one of the things we’ve tried to do as parents in the modern world, is because I remember as a kid being told many times how stupid I was, you know? Or how, whatever it was, and basically, maybe that helped me overachieve. Maybe that’s why I’ve always been successful, but now I realize that the real joy in life is being able to understand that we’re a fellow human and we have the opportunity to either become the Dominant Force, maintain the control, take responsibility for everything, and do it little baby steps and I’m not saying Cassie, that you should switch everything overnight because it’s not going to happen that way, but when you have those feelings, allow it to come up. Don’t suppress it and that’s what will change.
As far as helping others, the best— you can’t change someone else’s behavior, you can only emulate through your own behavior, so as you work on this, this year, people are going to notice. They’re going to see you’re becoming different than you were previously, you’re not going to be triggered by your stuff. You’re going to start letting that stuff go and it’s going to take time, but it will be worth every minute. Does that make sense?
Cassie: Yes.
Dr. A: Okay. So, I want you to start having fun. I want you to be grateful. Think about just being grateful, the odds of you being here in the middle of a void, the 99.999 percent of the universe is empty, there’s nothing in it. You’re on this beautiful blue planet, you’re sitting there in a very comfortable environment, and now it’s time for you to be appreciative of that, and have gratitude for that, and a great thing to do — we’re going to be talking about this — is right down in the evening, what am I grateful for today? What are the things that happen that are actually amazing? And start living and being appreciative that you’re a human being living in an incredible place, and you’ve been given the gift of life, and now let’s go out and enjoy it. And stop becoming the villain and beating yourself up. Let’s be the challenger and be open, and curious, and starting to learn, and feel these emotions when they start. Don’t resist. When they start to come up, allow them to come up, and those emotions will probably last about 90 seconds and it’s usually about something, about control, or about security, or there are things that we want and we don’t have, and so we get frustrated in it. It’s being dinged into our stuff and we want to start realizing that, you know, I’m appreciative that I’m alive. I mean, yesterday was a horrific day, according to statistically what happened in my travel, but yet this morning I haven’t even thought, even during it yesterday, in fact, what happened is, as you may or may not know, we had an athlete in a pro football collapse on the field and we happened to be between rushing, after waiting, waiting, waiting, rushing to get on another flight and we had five minutes while we’re standing there, and that came up, and that was– all of a sudden it was, think about the perspective of what just happened to that young man versus my inconvenience that I’m delayed and I’m going to get home late. Does that make sense?
Cassie: Right.
Dr. A: Cool. Awesome. Well, let me know how you’re doing on that, okay?
Cassie: Alright, thank you.
Dr. A: You’re welcome. Okay.
Rachel: All right, next up we have Shawnna. Shawnna, can you come off mute?
Shawnna: Hey! Happy New Year, Dr. Andersen! How are you?
Dr. A: Yeah, I’m doing great. Thank you.
Shawnna: January 1st, I had a really awesome experience. I’m a mom to five of my own and a bonus mom to three and we were out skiing [crosstalk 00:46:36]
Dr.A: Wow!
Shawnna: Yeah, wow! My youngest is autistic and I’ve had him skiing the past three years. He can’t do lessons because there’s communication gaps and he gets frustrated easy and so I do the accommodations for him and we ski together and he always says, “I feel free,” like it feels great and on the first, he was skiing, and I got to take the accommodations away and he was able to do it, and at that moment I got like a massive download or an awakening and I asked myself through what I was experiencing with him is, can I accept myself for being where I am? And that led to like more conversations. Like, how can I continue to have it stack? The practice of truly seeing and being without outside validation seeking competition, or other old habits that no longer serve me. So, I feel this growth happening and then I stall and— but the download was so massive that it just kind of opened this door of wanting more of that at a faster pace. So, how as people, how can we help when we feel a download? How can we help share that gift without sounding woo-woo or…?
Dr. A: Yeah. No, that’s see, and that’s where you’re becoming, moving from— becoming whole, right? That’s what we’re talking about, is this moving from, “I need this.” To, this whole where you’re starting to feel connected and you recognize that these things are simple. What we’re doing— I’ll give you an example, so I skied at a pretty high level and when I ski I have a dear friend that’s a ski instructor, we’ve become really good friends over the last 15 years and because I’ve been open, curious, and want to grow, I heli-ski with him now, and before that, you know, I was one of the— because I’m from Florida you know I skied once a year and was an okay skier, but always looked at people going down these bumps and doing all these other things, “God, I wish,” and I would say in regret, “Why didn’t I take a year off between college and medical school and go become a ski bomb,” right? For a year and I didn’t do that, but now, because I’m seeing the difference it makes once you understand and you then apply that it amplifies your results. So what I— last week when we were in the middle, we had a massive snow dump, and there was all this powder and if you’re not used to it, it’s a very different experience because it’s very deep and there’s no— you’re kind of in the fluff, and so there was one thing I wasn’t doing correctly that he saw. I made that— I wasn’t looking specifically down the mountain enough so I wasn’t building the upper body-lower body torque, and once I made that correction, man it was magic, and so what you’re having and what you saw with your son, is you’re starting to understand becoming that Dominant Force.
Understanding what you’re doing. Not allowing things like your son’s, you know, neurological program that’s different than what’s called “normal.” By the way, kids like that are incredible, right? We have so much down and because they’re in a different space, they’re actually more present in their space, and that’s why they become so brilliant in what they do, and so what you did is you gave him this feeling of freedom, and he felt that, and you saw the difference from that. So, what the most important thing you can do is keep working on yourself, just like— I ski with my daughters, and now they ski at a level— they’re in their 20’s and they ski, we ski together and we can all do the same stuff, which is because— and I knew that if I didn’t become better, they’d be saying, “See you, dad!” You know? See you, at the end of the day, right? Instead, we ski together and we have a great time and we do the double black diamond stuff together. That’s the same thing here, the more you practice it yourself, the more you become available for others and with that journey becomes one where you’ll become a professional.
[00:50:21] You’ll become so conscious and so aware that you’ll have that emotional agility, stamina, and literacy that allows you to now help others just by how you’re responding to it. If you’re going like this [Dr. A bumps his fists together], and then suddenly you’re here, and they’re trying to do this, it doesn’t work because without that — with it takes two, you know? You can only have an argument or have a dysfunction with both people involved and going into the Drama Triangle. So, you’re removing yourself. So that’s the most important thing and then start then with the little baby things. 95 percent of the world doesn’t understand what Stop. Challenge. and Choose. is. They think that everything that happens they need to react to it and they react to it, and it’s because inside of them they have all this stored stuff, and they react from a position of needing to be right versus open and curious, and want to learn, and want to grow, and you’ve already taken that tact and just the things that are happening in you are incredible.
What you want to do is encourage others to take the path by first becoming aware. Just becoming aware. There is a better way to live our lives. There’s a better way to manage this incredible thing we have in here [gestures to head], which you know, you’ve probably heard me mention this before, but Einstein, do we wear the same shirt for 10 days? He didn’t care about his personal mind. He cared about this great open, curious, and want to grow, and he would sit, and he was using this [gestures to head] rather than to make himself right, or make himself look right. He was using all this expansiveness, to simply sit and understand at a higher level, because our mind is brilliant. We all have that. Most of us basically, spend our time trying to protect our ego and our personal mind so that we look good to the outside and you said it’s not about being competitive, it’s not about comparing, comparative, it’s about actually, fully realizing ourselves and then putting ourselves in position to help others.
Shawnna: I love that and open invitation to come ski with us, and anyone else that commented, you’re welcome to come too!
Dr. A: Thank you and give your son a big hug for me.
Shawnna: I will. Thank you, Dr. A.
Dr. A: Who’s next, Rach?
Rachel: All right, next up we have Jennifer.
Dr. A: Hey, Jennifer, how are you? Happy New Year!
Jennifer: Hey, Dr. A. We’re enjoying feet and feet of snow up here in Winter Park and so [crosstalk 00:52:40]
Dr. A: Yeah, you’ve been getting dumped!
Jennifer: And I just wanted to say one thing to the first person who shared, was her name Cassie?
Dr. A: Cassie, yeah.
Jennifer: Yeah. Wow, you are six months into program and you’re having a direct mentorship conversation with Dr Wayne Scott Andersen! I just want you to take a minute and breathe that in. Like, wow. We are so blessed to have you, Dr. A, and then to the last person, I’m also an input person, who was talking about her son, who’s on the autism spectrum. One of the greatest pieces of advice that I remember you telling or talking to us about one time was that when people get into that, is it the limbic part of their brain? The part where they’re reactionary? And you know it’s really obvious when someone on the spectrum gets there because they’re in their preferred activities, or what have you, and then suddenly when something becomes outside of that preferential place for them, it’s really difficult for them and so they respond by— they, you know, react differently and you told us one time that when people do that, you have to immediately stop the teaching and immediately begin to connect with them on an emotional level, and that’s something that I implemented years ago and turns out after we got our autism diagnosis, it was spot on with what they told us and I’m like, “yeah, well we’ve been doing that for a while now thanks to Dr. A,” so thank you for that, and it kind of leads into my question.
So, it took me a while to figure out my word for the year. My word for the year, and I love you, by the way, you know that. You’d think after seven years of doing this that I had to have it all figured out and I haven’t even begun to scratch the surface, but my word for the year is “present,” and what that means to me right now is specifically, I just read, “Dopamine Nation” because Jim Dethmer talked about it and gosh, everything that we do can create a hit of dopamine. Even this business and social media, and all the things that we do. It can become addictive and so I have gotten into this, oh I’m going to grow, I’m going to do all the things and all this stuff, and then now this equanimity is very much like cyclic for me. Like some days I’m like, I am killing it. I am doing great, and then other days I’m like, ugh I am not present for my kids, I am working when I should turn my phone off. It’s not necessary, it’s non-productive productivity, and I guess it’s just I’m in that space right now where I need to hear from you again, how do I start again? And I’ve already like, oh I think it’s time for me to do my LifeBook again.
Dr. A: Yeah. Well, first of all. First of all, you’re a great student of this and you have been, and I’m one of your biggest fans. No seriously. You— I’ve just watched your growth, but one thing I want— you are enough. Right now, you’re enough, and that’s part of your old behavior, your old programming. You’re enough. You’re everything you need to be right now. You are enough and you become open, curious, and want to grow and just what you just stated there, you don’t need the search to be more. You just simply need— you are more, and you already understand, and you’ve worked with your team, you’ve worked with individuals, you work with your family and don’t do comparative reality at all and realize that there’s two parts of life. One is making sure that you’ve satisfied your self-interest and one of the things, you’ve obviously done that. The other part which is really the exciting part is when you undergo that transformational process and you transcend to a very different level.
At the level where, you know— and it’s hard. If someone’s struggling to make their bills, it’s hard to even understand what I’m saying, but what I’m saying is you are always enough and there’s an interesting Eastern philosophy where they say, “Once a gold brick, and a piece of dung, and straw all are the same to you, that’s when you’ve fully arrived,” and the point there is that the journey is inside. That’s why I want to start this year with this new revolution around the sun. Is that we if we work on our inside all itself is about getting rid of these concepts that were developed in the experience of life that were developed before you had the ability to really understand them. So for most, a lot of that stuff inside goes back to their childhood, and listen, our parents, I mean when we were young our parents didn’t know. They were doing the best they could, and so one of the things I always say to people is stop trying to have a better past. And I know this is hard to fathom, but if you had an abusive childhood, you had an abusive childhood. It’s time to let it go. It’s time to, as an adult, fully realize and actualize everything you could become and overcome those things. By focusing on: what future do you want to make? So I mean, hopefully for people in here, stop trying to have a better past, basically, because you can’t change it.
The only thing you have any control over is the present and what’s neat is, if you now look and say, “Okay, this year,” that’s why I want to start this year saying go on the journey of self-improvement. Listen, if you want to be healthier and have a healthy weight or be more, have more exercise, the best thing you can do is work right here [gestures to head]. I mean, I spent 20-plus years, I was really good at what I did as a critical care physician and I spent the last 20 years on this journey of searching to see so much suffering around me. So many people sitting there. I could just tell they’re just mentally a mess, suffering, blaming themselves and having no growth because they think that life has happened to them, and they’re stuck there, and they’re absolutely not stuck there. We have the ability as a human to go on this journey, and the journey is about exactly what you said, become more aware. Stop filtering it through your previous filters and start living life to its fullest and that fullest part will not come from extrinsic measures as everybody, look— fear and extrinsic measures are not great motivation. They can have you do something for a little while [crosstalk 00:59:24].
Jennifer: Short time.
Dr. A: Just like we talk about in the Habits of Health, about conflict manipulation. Once the pressure’s off you, you’re not feeling that negative emotion, then you stop doing it. Instead, we want to go to, you said, move from the limbic area of our brain to the creative, this functional area here [gestures to head] where we can actually organize our life around what matters most and we never needed this more than we do now, because distraction is around us every day, in every way, and so for us to truly build the life we want and become the Dominant Force and organize our life for what matters, you really need to sit down and know where— what do I want my life to look like? And then in the present do just that. Stop saying no. If it’s not a full body yes, say no, [crosstalk 01:00:11] because that makes all this— because part of it is inside of us, we want to be loved, we want to help others, and so we sacrifice our own health, and our own life, and our own mental health. Like, look at Mother Teresa, she was miserable most of the time because she gave everything, she had nothing else, but because she had reached that stage of wholeness, she didn’t need those things as much as most of us mortal humans do. So that’s really the journey this year, is to know you are enough. You’re more than enough. In fact, you’re, I like I said, I’m one of your biggest fans and I’ve watched your growth, and I know your heart, and just keep doing more of what you’re doing.
Jennifer: Thank you. Thank you so much.
Dr. A: All right. Okay. Do we have any time left? No, we’re overtime! All right, well listen, I’m sorry that we didn’t get to all your questions, but we’re going to do this next month and hopefully, just to put in perspective, you can go to my thought leader site at drwayneandersen.com, and basically, all the stuff, the story we’re— actually I’m working with my film producers to create art rather than using YouTube. To have an actual cache where we can keep all this stuff and I would— the first thing I would do is I would start going through, start all the way at the beginning because my journey has been your journey, and start with the first forums and then work your way up and there’s a lot more to come. I’m working right now on building some exercises and stuff on the side so you’ll have an opportunity to work on this. So as we start this revolution, this next year revolution around the sun, let’s work on ourselves. Let’s spend most of our focus on the inside because all that other stuff will get better as you become more in the internal control. That locus of control inside of you, and then you can reach out and help others do the same. So, God bless and have an incredible month of January. Bye.