Unstoppable Body and Mind

Episode #25- Healing Back Pain with Matt

in this episode I interview Matt, who had debilitating back pain for 10 years.  He just finished my 6 week coaching program and has some amazing results.  

Not only is he pain free most of the time, he learned mental tools to improve the relationships, and spirituality in his life.  He learned emotions can be felt and processed instead of repressed and felt as pain.

Matt is actively pursuing new goals, now that his mind is free of the mental preoccupation with and fear of pain.  He understands the importance on investing in his mental capacities, just like we know a healthy diet and exercise is good for the body.  He sets aside time daily for mental work and focus.

Matt feels like he has been on "maintenance mode" for the last 10 years, and is now able to live hope for a future he is in charge of.  Amazing results!

 

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Transcript:

This is Betsy Jensen and you are listening to Unstoppable Body and Mind—Episode 25–Healing Back Pain with Matt.

 

In this podcast we learn to upgrade our brain and understand the power of our thoughts to heal and to create the results we want in our life. Become the person in control of your healing and make peace with your life. Become unstoppable, body and mind.

 

Hey, Matt, good to have you here. 

 

Thank you. Thanks for having me.

 

Oh, my pleasure. Matt just finished coaching with me for six weeks. And we're going to talk about some of the things that he learned and how it went. Matt, could you start by just talking a little bit about your history of back pain?

 

Yeah, so I've had debilitating back pain for a little over ten years now. And I've tried everything. I've been open to trying everything: every physician, holistic medicine, full therapy, acupuncture stem cells, I mean, the list goes on and on. So I really have been on a long journey of trying to deal with my issues.

 

Yeah. And what was your activity level? 

 

I couldn't do much at all, which was very frustrating. I was very active before, very athletic, played some sports in college—a big way I dealt with stress. When my back started acting up, I couldn't do really any physical activity and so it was very, very difficult for me from an emotional standpoint as well.

 

Yeah, I remember you saying you couldn't lift more than about twenty pounds.

 

No, yeah. And I just had to be really careful. Anything I lifted had to be pretty light and I couldn't bend over day to day, things were difficult. I mean, I even went through periods where like, I couldn't put my socks on. I had to have my wife help me put my socks on. So yeah, it was pretty bad.

 

Yeah. And I think there was a lot of fear involved too, right? Like there was fear about exercise or doing too much.

 

Yeah, for sure. I got to the point where I felt like I could manage things, like keep things from getting worse. And in my mind, there were certain things that would make it worse. And so yeah, I would say I had a huge fear of doing anything outside of the safe activities. I would stay away from them as much as I could. And any time I came close to doing something that I thought would mess my back up, I would just be very anxious and just nervous and yeah, huge fear component for sure.

 

So it was really affecting your life in a lot of ways. 

 

Yeah, definitely. And then your wife is a coach, and she reached out to me, and you had just gotten John Sarno’s book right before we started coaching,

 

My wife let me know about you. I had never really entertained the idea that part of my pain could be associated with the way I'm thinking about it and essentially stem from my mind, my subconscious, my emotions. Before I went on our first call, I picked up John Sarno's book, Healing Back Pain and read it. I read it in like an hour. I read it cover to cover. It was really exciting. 

 

That's awesome. 

 

Yeah, I remember my first feeling when I was reading the book was it was never on my radar. I don't know, even if it had been on my radar, if I would have been open to it. But I remember feeling for the first time when I was reading that book for like the first time in ten years, like hope, I guess a little hopeful that I wasn't stuck with these back issues for the rest of my life that hey, maybe there was a light at the end of the tunnel for me. It was really exciting actually.

 

That's awesome. And I know he talks specifically about personality traits, like perfectionism and people pleasing being highly correlated with back pain or chronic pain in general. And how do you think that resonated with you?

 

I felt both of those described me well, as we spoke about it. I really felt like a lot of my emotional anxiety had to do with my desire to people please. One of the other things he talked about was anger and kind of subdued anger. And I thought I had no issues but even diving into that to realize that, hey, I was repressing things and not dealing with things and thinking I didn't have issues, but really did. I just wasn't dealing with them.

 

So how do you feel like you started to unrepress those emotions to get them out?

 

So there are a few things. And honestly, this is where you were so helpful, right? So I read the book and really, John Sarno was like, okay, you know, a lot of this chronic pain is in your mind. So just go out and exercise. You're fine, basically. Right? And I'm thinking okay, for me, I couldn't just flip that switch. And so, you know, you gave me a lot of tools to help get me there. One of the first things was the journaling or the mind dumping, right, so just kind of writing down emotions. And it was helpful for me to just focus on a certain emotion and just kind of write down everything I felt and kind of let myself almost be a child again in that sense, and just feel the raw emotions and write down what I was thinking no matter how bad I thought it was. And it was really, honestly, it was a really great emotional experience to do that. And to feel those things, let myself feel them.

 

It's interesting, because I think we don't talk about a lot of emotions in our society, and especially for men, that's kind of frowned upon almost to be emotional or to acknowledge that you have emotions, right? 

 

Yeah, for sure. I think there's that stigma, right? The strong man doesn't cry, or, you know, in my case, I should be this nice, calm person. So I don't get angry. That's kind of who I built myself up to be. I think a lot of people when they do think about letting some of those emotions out, they're kind of worried that rage is going to just take over then or that they are going to become this angry person if they start validating that they have anger. 

 

Did you experience any of that?

 

I experienced that feeling initially. Right when I first started, I had the thought, Well wait, I can't write this down because that makes it real, right? And then that makes me a bad person, but I just kind of pushed through it, like per your advice, and I just went for it. And if anything, it all kind of spilled out. The first session, I went for, like 30-45 minutes. I had just pages of these raw, raw emotions and then you had me do a little meditation exercise afterwards and it felt so peaceful and calming. And I felt like I was just kind of getting the gunk out of me and I felt like cleansed, if anything. It didn't hang around and have the opposite effect.

 

I think a lot of people, like I said, are just kind of worried about once I open those floodgates, then what's going to happen, you know, I've been containing these things for so long and it feels more safe to not acknowledge the emotion. Yeah, it's good that you had that experience. And I think at some point, you can kind of just allow the emotions and let them flow through you and not bottle them up.

 

Right. Another thing that was really helpful was realizing that our emotions aren’t scary, right? I mean, they're just these feelings in our body and when we're able to recognize them and pay attention to them, we realize, okay, what does that emotion mean? I mean, it's nothing crazy. Maybe it's a slight tightness in my chest. But honestly, if I pay attention to it, it goes away pretty quickly, and it causes no harm or anything. I mean, in the grand scheme of things, it's a pretty minor thing.

 

Do you feel like you've noticed how emotions do correlate with sensations or maybe even pain in your body?

 

Yeah, for sure. And then another thing that has been really helpful for me during our sessions is being able to focus on the pain. You took me through exercises where I kind of just felt the pain almost from a neutral position where I wasn't scared of it.  I wasn't anxious. I just almost looked at it as a third party and just kind of observed it. That has been super helpful from the pain standpoint. But also from an emotional standpoint, I found myself doing the same thing. Whenever I had emotions pop up, and I'm like, “Okay, let's just observe what this feels like in my body.” And yeah, I felt like I haven't had the tools to better deal with the things that have popped up on a day to day basis. Even taking away all the pain stuff, just from an emotional standpoint. Those two, yeah.

 

Yeah, the pain is sometimes viewed as a gateway to kind of this bigger expanse of knowledge that you're able to access and really, how do you feel like it's affected your life to have this new view of emotions and pain? 

 

Yeah, huge. It's been like a huge, huge thing. And again, something I don't think I would have been open to before. I think it's not talked about as much in our society where we're very conscious about our physical health, right. And you know, we diet, and we exercise and we do all these things, but we're not super proactive about our mental health unless something's really wrong, right? And then we maybe go see a counselor or a therapist or take some medication, but I realize I need to be as proactive with my mental health as I am with my physical health. And it's been super eye opening and super helpful that way.

 

Yeah. Because these tools, I mean, you can apply them to pain and healing. But you can also apply these same tools to, you know, getting results that you want in your life achieving goals. Just that mindfulness is so important, right?

 

Yeah, I agree 100%. Yeah, you can apply it all over the spectrum.

 

One of the things I really was impressed with with you is that you did a lot of studying on your own when I would suggest maybe reading something or listening to a podcast, you would do that and you tried the Curable App. Were there some things that you found helpful outside of the coaching as well?

 

Yeah, I think one of the great things about going again through it with you is you had a lot of tools for me. So yeah, the Curable App was really helpful, very well put together. There's a lot in there and so much to choose from, but they obviously are experts in their field and really sound like they have a passion for helping people with chronic disease and pain and so that was really helpful. You recommended a tapping app that was helpful as well for some meditation practices. So yeah, I felt like you had really great tools, but it was very helpful to be able to walk through using the tools with you and not just on my own.

 

Ah, great. Thank you. I think the one on one sessions really add a lot too. Of course there are a lot of resources that are available. To do things on your own, but having the guidance just as that little extra addition to really help get things going quickly and see some results faster. I was thinking about one of the times that we started working on having you imagine yourself doing activities. Do you remember that? People might find it interesting to hear how that went for you. When you were sitting in a safe place. You weren't moving your back at all, but you were imagining yourself doing things. What happened for you?

 

I think you asked me to imagine jogging and I couldn't bring myself even to imagine jogging, like I couldn't picture myself doing it—my mind almost felt like I had a block there. And yeah, just with me, I almost had the sensation that my mind was trying to protect me like okay, that's so harmful that you don't even want to think about it. And it was a super enlightening process for me to realize, hey, my mind is this powerful, but at the same time, it's holding on to some things that aren't true. And I was able to kind of, you know, work through them again, with help. And it wasn't like right away. It wasn't like flipping a switch. We had to do some exercises to get to the point where I could even imagine myself doing some smaller things. But yeah, in the end, I was able to get past and even imagine doing that. 

 

I think you said your back muscles were tightening up just sitting there and imagining that, right?

 

Yeah, I did feel that. When we were talking about it I remembered. Yeah. So I got some of that same tightness and pressure that I would get from trying to do an activity that I knew I “shouldn't be doing.” 

 

It's fascinating. It just goes to show that the brain can produce pain signals that you feel in your body. Even though there isn't a physical stimulus causing that to happen just purely by imagination, you are creating pain in your back.

 

Right? And then conversely, I mean, when you had me observe the pain and they do the same thing on the Curable App, as you know, if you're able to kind of be totally neutral and observe your pain, it just almost like melted away and not every time, but a lot of times, you know, and it would just kind of go away and it was really eye opening for me and made me realize, hey, this pain isn't 100%. You know, this pain isn't structural. I don't have some structural damage going on to my back. This has been generated by my mind.

 

I think that was a fascinating experience to probably realize that connection is so strong, because I think a lot of times we assume pain means something's gone wrong with the body that we need to fix physically.

 

Yeah, I know for sure that was a big, big eye opener for me.

 

So how is your activity level? Now? It's been a couple of weeks since we talked actually. So maybe there's some new things you've been trying?

 

I'm actually doing well. I'm doing things I haven't done in years and years. I'm back to, you know, swimming, which I hadn't been able to swim for a long time. And that was one of the things I did enjoy as a form of exercise. I'm back to doing some kind of yoga/pilates type things. That again, I haven't done because I didn't think I could do it. I was just too scared of what I would do. Yeah, been more active in general, with the family, hiking, things like that. So a lot of things that I haven't been able to do in a long, long time. I've been able to do very quickly, you know, considering this has been going on so long, and it's just been, you know, less than a couple months, right? 

 

Yeah. That is amazing. I think you told me about like on a Saturday where you were helping some people move and you are lifting heavy things. 

 

And we're actually building a shed for someone's Eagle Scout project. And I remember in the past and even then I didn't like to go to these things because I wanted to help. But also, I felt embarrassed that I couldn't do things, right. Like, if someone's like, “Hey, can you grab this for me?” And I'd be super embarrassed. You know, I'm a young, from all outward appearances, healthy guy. And I can't lift this up for you, right. And so, you know, there was maybe an element of pride there. But I would often avoid like things like helping people move and helping people with outdoor projects. But we went and again, I was a little nervous. And one of the first things someone said, “Hey, can you grab this for me?” And I'm thinking, ah, that looks really heavy. And I was nervous. But anyway, I ended up spending like six hours there and did stuff I hadn't done in a long time. And I remember leaving, and I was super sore all over the place, but not my back. My back wasn't sore. I had all kinds of sore muscles that I hadn't used in years and years, like a good sore, right, like I worked out. So yeah, it was it was great.

 

How would you describe your pain level now?

 

Honestly, I don't, you know, it's not completely gone. But I feel like when it does come, I'm able to, again, right away I go back to our exercise and I just try to observe it. And most of the time I can, you know, get it to relax and it feels okay. And so I mean, most of the time I'm running pain free.

 

That's amazing. Yeah. And what I teach a lot is to have people when they do have a sense of pain, to look at it as you know, kind of a time to check in what could be going on emotionally or mentally, of course, physically too, but most of the time, I think, you know, instead of thinking what's the physical cause of this pain, we can start to think the other ways too.

 

Yeah, no, and that's actually one of the things I've changed just in my daily life. I didn't really spend a whole lot of time on my personal well being and improvement and so I've set aside some time and I've made a goal to kind of every day I have a little bit of time where I'm kind of focused. On the mental and the spiritual aspect of things, and that's been really helpful. And so I'm trying to be really proactive there and not just try to respond to like, Oh, hey, my back's flared up what could be going on? I think that's been helpful for me staying on top of it that way.

 

It sounds like you really have been able to expand in different areas of your life as well. Now that you're not in fear of the pain and focusing on pain. It's really opened up a lot for you.

 

Yeah, I think just emotionally I mean, I'm feeling a lot more peace, but too I'm just hopeful for, I guess, more possibilities in the future. I always thought, okay, I'll work as long as I can. And eventually, maybe I'll retire early because my back won't be able to take it and then you know, after that, I guess I'll just kind of maintain but you know, now I almost got a whole different hope and viewpoint that hey, I mean, all these possibilities are open for me. So, for me, that's super exciting.

 

That is exciting. Do you have any new goals now?

 

Yeah. I mean, I've set some different business goals and some goals that I'm working on with my wife. I've got exercise goals. Yeah, I feel like I have all these huge goals that I set, maybe I had before. And then were on the back burner, because I'm like, I was just almost in maintenance mode for the last ten years. I'm like, Okay, well, I'll just get through it kind of a thing. And I'm not at that point anymore.

 

Well, and another interesting thing to point out is that this has been a year that's been particularly hard for a lot of people. There's a lot of things going on with Corona and with, you know, riots and with just the state of the world. It's been a hard year for a lot of people.

 

Yeah, that is interesting, because honestly, for me, I'm going to look back at 2020 as a year where I've made so much progress, and that's not to take away I know there's a lot of things going on around us and people are hurting physically and emotionally, you know, but at the same time, what's the quote, I'm a firm believer that, you know, our circumstances don't dictate our emotions and outcomes. Sometimes we think they do and sometimes we let them but they don't need to. Right? And so for me, it's been a great time to progress emotionally, spiritually. And honestly, I was out of work for a few months and having that downtime was super helpful to kind of take a break and just reset things a little bit for me, something I would not have done probably, otherwise on my own.

 

Yeah, that's very cool. Do you have any advice for people who are struggling with back pain or chronic pain?

 

Yeah, it's hard for me. I had to go through all the steps, I think to get to the point where I was open to something like this. And that was just my mind, right? I guess my background going to school and you know, I wasn't going to believe it unless it was scientifically proven. And there's very little science on this, although there's a lot more now. I mean, now that I've been researching and reading, there's a lot of science on it just not as talked about, right? I mean, you go to the physician and “Okay, this is wrong here, here's your pill. And this is going to mask your pain.” Right? So I guess I would hope that people would give themselves permission to be open to this, right? I didn't give myself permission to be open until I had exhausted everything and then almost felt at rock bottom. And sometimes I guess we need to do that. But how nice would it have been for me years ago to give myself permission to explore some other avenues of what could be wrong? So there's no harm in exploring this avenue and trying, right? I mean, we talked at one point and I told you I mean, I spent tens of thousands of dollars easy in the last ten years just with different avenues and nothing really improved it and so for me, this is just a no brainer.

 

I think a lot of people are starting to see the value of coaching just for mental acuity and living with purpose, but especially, you know how it ties into the pain that might be, you know, devastating your life right now or even chronic disease, the connection is just not talked about as much. But definitely I think it's important and coaching I think can be super helpful for just mental hygiene is what I call it where it's like, just like you were saying, we want to be physically fit. We want to eat healthy foods, we know that exercise is helpful for our bodies. And we're just I think, right at the cusp of starting to realize that the same is true for our mental capacities. You know, that we can clean up our thinking and that we can really live our very best lives once we are working on our mental hygiene and mindfulness as well.

 

Yeah, I would a hundred percent agree and I would say as much pain as I was in and as great as I feel now. If you took that whole aspect away, and I didn't feel any physical improvement, just the tools to deal with some emotions and the mental tools are worth it, for sure, just that alone, but add on everything else, and it's, it's a no brainer for me.

 

Fantastic. All right. Well, thank you so much for your time today.

 

Thank you. Thanks for having me.

 

What a great interview with Matt, I think that is going to help and inspire a lot of people on their healing journeys. I do believe that coaching provides one on one feedback and support that can really help with this process. So if you're curious about coaching, or if you've been working on things on your own and you feel like you're just not getting the results that you want, then please email me at info@bodyandmindlifecoach.com and check out my website, bodyandmindlifecoach.com.

 

Thank you so much for listening. I hope you learned a little bit about your brain today that helps you in your life like it helped me. Please be sure and subscribe and leave a review. And, of course, be sure and share this podcast with someone you know who wants an unstoppable body and mind.

 

Episode #24 - Failure

In this episode I talk about failure.  Why we hate failing, how we "fail ahead of time" by not trying, and how to view failure in a positive way.   Failure is not something to be avoided at all costs, this keeps us stuck and not trying.  Failing is part of living your best life.

 

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Episode 23- Einstein Time

In this episode I discuss the concept that time is relative- Einstein time!  

Do you feel like you are a victim of time- that there is never enough or that your results aren't happening fast enough?  Do you feel like you should be busy in order to be a worthy human?  

Time is actually a neutral phenomenon, so blaming time or feeling like a victim is a powerless place to be.

Take control of how you see time- and learn that you can make time!  

Learn about Einstein time and how it can bring about greater peace in your life and in your healing journey.

 

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Youtube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvXZSYYGL2cfJl-oEOzqspA

 

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If you like this podcast, please give it a five star rating and review on Itunes  https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-unstoppable-body-and-minds-podcast/id1493360543

Transcript:

This is Betsy Jensen, and you are listening to Unstoppable Body and Mind—Episode 23–Einstein Time.

 

In this podcast we learn to upgrade our brain and understand the power of our thoughts, to heal and to create the results we want in our life. Become the person in control of your healing and make peace with your life.  Become unstoppable, body and mind. 

 

Hello, my friends, this is Episode 23, where we are going to talk about Einstein Time. If you haven't heard of that, I first heard about it in The Big Leap, the book by Gay Hendricks and he talks about time in a way that he said Einstein explained. So basically, time is relative. So just like there is Newtonian physics and quantum physics, there's also Newtonian time. Which would be that there are sixty seconds in a minute and twenty-four hours in a day and seven days in a week.  That's very quantifiable and measurable, and Newtonian. And then Einstein time is based more on our perception of time, which can be different from person to person or situation. 

 

So if you think about putting your hand on a burning-hot stove for a minute, that could feel as long as an hour. But if you are with someone that you love, and you're enjoying your time, an hour might pass by and feel just like a minute. Basically, when you're trying to escape from your current experiences, like with your hand on a hot stove, you're contracting away or you're fighting for what's going on. It makes time go more slowly. But with your beloved, you're completely open and time essentially disappears. 

 

You've heard the term “Time flies when you're having fun” or I think too when you're busy doing something, time can go faster. I've had a job before where I did not have much to do, which I thought would be awesome. But time would just drag on and it felt like forever. But when I was more busy, then time seemed to go by quite quickly. Or if you think about taking a timed test, or sometimes I think about those shows where they have to like bake a cake for a competition in an hour, and how quickly an hour can go by. Also, when you're in the zone, you know, when you're in flow time, it's like time almost contracts. 

 

I think for most of us, I know definitely for me, time has almost seemed like an enemy. There was just not enough time. There's always too much to do. Those were some of my main core beliefs in life that I didn't even realize I had. When I saw myself in relation to time I was this helpless victim and I would blame things on time that I just didn't have enough. I didn't get that done because I ran out of time. But really time is neutral. If you think about the model, time would be on the circumstance line. So it wasn't time that was good or bad, or abundant or scarce. It was just my thoughts about time that created a negative relationship that I had with time in my mind.

 

In Episode 18, I talked about silencing the inner critic and I talked about the main first thing to start with is not saying negative things about yourself out loud, and noticing how you speak about yourself out loud. So I also want you to start noticing how you speak about time. Do you find yourself often saying that you're too busy, that you don't have enough time? It's fascinating sometimes when people ask “How are you doing?” We'll respond, “Oh, I'm busy.” So of all of the emotions available, you could choose fantastic or wonderful or amazing or fabulous. You're going to define yourself as busy. It's almost like a badge of honor in our culture. It's rewarded. 

 

I definitely felt that my worth was based on my accomplishments. And I didn't even realize that I was thinking that but at a subconscious level, I didn't really feel like I was a good enough person, unless I was accomplishing things and there was a numerable amount of things that I had to accomplish. And that's why there was never enough time. I mean, I could never get enough done because what is enough? I definitely had a victim relationship with time. 

 

And have you ever heard that how you do anything is how you do everything. If you have a victim relationship with a phenomenon like time you're probably going to see yourself as a victim in other areas of your life like with relationships, or with money. So really stop speaking like you are a victim of time, try to notice it and try to stop it. So instead of saying, “I don't have time for that,” you could say, “I'm not willing to make time.” You can see why it's kind of nicer to play the victim here. Like you don't want to tell your friend that “I'm not willing to make time to call you back.” It's much easier to say, “I've been so busy. I've just been swamped. I totally ran out of time last night.” It's so much easier to be the victim than to take responsibility, but by saying, “I didn't make time,” you're the one who keeps the ownership. You have the place of power. 

 

Gay Hendricks says that being in a hurry is a sign of mental illness. So I don't think he actually meant mental illness like you would go to a psychiatrist, of course, but he does have a good point. So the mental capacity that you have when you're in a hurry, or you're feeling scarcity around time, is not your clearest, most competent self. How many times when you're rushing to get out the door do you lose your keys or you can't find your phone? I've literally been talking on my phone, and I'm like, “Where's my phone?” Because, you know, when you're flustered and you're hurried, and you're rushed, you're just not thinking clearly. 

 

This example drives me crazy. If I have a busy day planned for the next day, and I'm thinking about it the night before, then often what will happen is I wake up sometime in the middle of the night or 3 a.m. or something—I can't get back to sleep. And I just lay there worried about how much I have to do the next day, and how tired I'm going to be. And I cannot get back to sleep. So frustrating, but totally an example of how our thoughts really create our reality. I'm going to bed thinking, I'm going to be exhausted tomorrow because I have such a big day. And then I end up not sleeping and even starting my day before my big day arrives already exhausted.

 

What other things can you think of that happen when you're busy, when you're rushed, when you're feeling like you are a victim of time? If I'm driving somewhere crazy, I'm actually more likely to get hurt or get in an accident. Sometimes when I'm rushed, I end up having to go back and redo things because I didn't do it right the first time. And then of course, when I'm super overwhelmed with all of the things that I have to do, is when I'm actually more likely to just avoid doing everything all together, and scroll on Facebook for an hour, or I'm more likely to procrastinate and essentially just end up wasting more time. So watch yourself when you're feeling really busy. When you have that scarcity of time, maybe if you're panicked about being late. Are you driving like a crazy person? Are you yelling at your kids? And are you blaming other people for how you ran out of time? 

 

Being busy is really a terrible place to live. You're not using your higher brain, you're in fight or flight. And we know that chronic fight or flight leads to chronic pain and disease. Your body cannot run on high speed. You can't sprint all the time without taking a break, or your body breaks down. Think of a computer that's running with twenty tabs open, how slow and ineffective it is. So being busy is really not a badge of honor. It doesn't make you more awesome or more worthy because you're busy. 

 

I remember a few years back hearing about a study about how multitasking wasn't effective. And I totally thought that I was the exception to that rule, that for other people, I could see how it's probably not effective. But I truly believed that I was a good multitasker. But as I started getting coaching and talking about the results that I had in my life, I was realizing how many unfinished things I had started and never gotten around to finishing, and started to realize that yes, even for me, multitasking is not effective. And of course, I find this so ironic. It's just another way that my brain would prove my thoughts true. So I thought I didn't have time to do everything I needed to. I would leave a bunch of stuff undone and then I would have all of this evidence of all these things I see I had to do, proving my thought true that I am too busy. 

 

If you find yourself not finishing things or even not starting things, if you're procrastinating, if you're creating a lot of mental drama about time, if you're complaining, or feeling like a victim of time, then I really want you to think about Einstein time. Since time is something you can choose how to think about, rather than being a victim of time. 

 

You could also think of yourself as a producer of time.  There's a quote, “You'll never find time for anything. If you want the time, you must make it.” So what if instead of running out of time, you can make time? Wouldn't you rather be a producer of time than a consumer of time? That feels a lot more abundant. To think of being able to make time, I think the first step to get rid of your victim mentality about time, is to realize that all of the things that you're doing are things that you choose to do. So if there are some things that you're doing that you're not actually choosing to do—you feel obligated to for someone else—you may consider telling that person you don't want to do those things for them. 

 

But really think about it. If it's things like, I have to work, or I have to make dinner and then I have to clean up, what if those things or the way of phrasing it isn't exactly true? What if you don't have to work, but you like working because you like money, and you like making dinner because cooking at home might save money or you prepare more healthy meals and you like cleaning up because you like having a clean kitchen. Now it doesn't necessarily mean you really like every single aspect of those chores or going to work, but you like them. That effect, the result that it creates. And so it's still a choice that you're making to do those things. What if you aren't a victim at all in these things you choose to do?

 

I think of life as 50/50. So even in your dream job, or in a relationship, there are going to be positive and negative things. In starting my own business, there may be things I'm super excited to do and super passionate about, like recording podcasts. And inevitably, there are things that I'm not going to find as exciting, but they are part of having a business. So I can still think that I'm choosing to do things without thinking of myself as a victim, and still realize that I don't enjoy some of the things but I'm choosing to do them anyway. And sometimes with those less enjoyable tasks, I can think of some ways to make them fun.

 

One of the things I like to do is to set a timer and try to get the chore done in a certain amount of time. So if I'm doing the dishes, did you know that doing the dishes can like sometimes just take ten minutes? We sometimes put it off and make it into a big deal. But when you actually just get at it, and don't stop and procrastinate and do other things and complain about it, then sometimes it can go actually quite quickly. 

 

Sometimes I'll listen to music or listen to a podcast while I'm cooking or walking, for meditating. Sometimes I'll do a guided meditation, or I like the Muse headband for meditating. It gives me feedback and it tracks my progress each day on an app, which I like. Back when I used to do a lot of driving my kids around places, I chose to look at it as a time that I could spend one on one with a kid and it totally changed my perspective about taking them to a friend's house or feeling like I had to drive them around like a victim. 

 

Now, here's the thing that I thought was interesting. When I started learning about Einstein time and practicing getting myself into a calmer state about time, when I would feel rushed, say I was getting ready for work or to go somewhere, and I started feeling that sensation in my body where I was getting a little bit anxious or tense. Usually my stomach would get tight, my heart rate would raise, I would notice it and I would call myself, usually taking some breaths, reminding myself to slow down that it would be okay. Sometimes I would even say Einstein time in my head, and I would literally be able to get myself to a calmer state for my nervous system. And I felt more abundance than I did scarcity. And I found that time would usually work out. 

 

So even if I thought I was gonna run late for something, I would purposely not check the clock very much. I would do the things I needed to do in an efficient, but timely, way. And any time I started feeling that anxiousness or stress, calm myself down, get to work by driving as I would without craziness and without yelling at people and wishing they drove differently. And most often, I would arrive on time, or within a few minutes, and usually, like the meeting would end up starting a few minutes late that day, or there was still a spot open for me at yoga class, or the person that I was meeting would actually get there later than I would. I mean, I would still try my best to be on time, but having this calm attitude didn't mean that I was getting there hours late, and that I was negligent. But it did make my drive time more enjoyable. When I did get there, I was in a better mood. I wasn't frantic. I didn't lock my keys in my car or forget important things at home. 

 

I would suggest that you try a little bit of Einstein time in your life, because although our brain wants to go to the extreme, like, oh, that will never work and you'll never do anything. If you aren't forcing yourself to be rushed and busy all the time, it's going to turn out better for you. I even hung in my car some flower leis that my daughter had, and I realized that it covered up the clock in my car, and I left them because I really liked not having that time staring right back at me. So if I want to check the time, I just move them over to the side and look, but I found it helpful. Because each time I would look at the clock and start to get a little bit panicked, I would have to remind myself to calm back down and it was easier just not to obsessively check the clock. 

 

Really try to feel these sensations in your body. Try to drop in to what you're feeling, be mindful. Notice when you start feeling anxious or rushed or scarcity or a victim about time, remind yourself that time is relative, try calming yourself and trying Einstein time and see how it works out for you.

 

Now, as always, I like to relate the concept I'm talking about to chronic pain or disease. And I hear a lot about time when people talk about their healing journey and it's usually from that place of the optimization and scarcity. I think every person I've worked with at some point, including myself, have often said things like, “Why is this taking so long? I'm not sure if I'll ever get better. What if this never goes away? I wish I was better already.” And it makes sense because no one wants to be in pain. But remember, as Nicole Sachs says, chronic pain is an epidemic of fear when things don't seem like they're happening quickly enough, especially if we are getting better and feeling better for a few days, and then start to have some symptoms again, or feel like we're getting worse. That can trigger some fear, which of course, makes the healing more difficult. 

 

The time we're feeling pain, it's like our hand on the hot stove. It feels like it's forever. And sometimes it's interesting because we're so focused on the pain that we don't even notice when we don't have pain. 

 

When I'll ask people about their symptoms, they'll describe over the last week, like there was a couple times that my arm really hurt when I moved it this way. And then when I start questioning them, they're not even recognizing, like, 90% of the time that they are feeling good and they didn't have pain. And they don't even think to bring that up to me. But they're so on the lookout for those times that they did have pain and try to put meaning on it. What could that mean? When we're focusing on pain, that makes time expand. So it's also very hard to be patient with ourselves. When we feel the sensations in our body, we definitely try to make sense of it by giving it meaning like, I must have done something. I wonder what's going on on the inside. Is there damage that's permanent? But what if we could think of our healing journey, not as a struggle line, but a path that we're traveling that has some ups and downs. 

 

Because most of the time, that's just how it is. Especially when people start the journey. And they start feeling better and better and better. And they learn about how powerful their mind can be in healing, then sometimes they start to beat themselves up that they aren't healed a little bit faster. But think about the relativity of time here. If you have had back pain for ten years, you know, it might not be something that goes away in just a week or two. But if you could think like, I'm giving myself three months for this process, and I'm really going to keep working on things and if I had it for ten years, three months really relatively is a short amount of time. And I'm not saying that, you know, if it's ten years, it'll be three months, like it's different for everyone. 

 

But what I do know is when you start beating yourself up and feeling really bad about how it's not happening faster, that ironically, that will make it take longer. Emotions are definitely a factor in our healing. And that's why patience and compassion for ourselves and remembering that sometimes things do take time. And the more we try to control the speed in which things happen, and get frustrated and beat ourselves up for them not happening faster than they're happening, then the more difficulty really it's going to create for ourselves. You are feeling exactly what you need to be feeling right now. And remember, life is 50/50, so you're not going to feel good all the time. 

 

So whether you've been feeling better and then start feeling worse again, or you have a new pain symptom come up, think of pain as a teacher for you. And it won't go away until you've learned what you need to learn from it when things don't happen in the time that I want them to. And if it's not a quick and easy fix, then I try to think of things as the long game. Sometimes in life, there are things that are quick, the short game, and sometimes we play the long game. 

 

Like I thought it might be easier for me to learn a song on the ukulele than it was. But it turns out that it took me a longer time than I thought it would. But it's not a big deal. It's the long game. My website took longer than I thought it would to get it looking how I wanted. But it turns out that I just had an expectation that wasn't realistic. And it doesn't mean anything bad about me or anyone else. It's just different than I thought it would be. 

 

We're playing the long game when you're in a rush for things to change, then that's when they usually end up taking longer. So just recognize, you do have control of your perception of time, you can have control with your relationship to time. And rather than trying to control every aspect of time and when things happen, the more easily you'll actually be able to attain your goals. 

 

Thanks for listening to this episode. If you have not yet gone over to iTunes, please give me a rating. Give this podcast a review. If you have a few extra minutes, I would really appreciate it. I want this podcast to be able to be shared and found by other people. And I definitely appreciate your time listening and rating or reviewing it for me. 

 

Thank you so much for listening. I hope you learned a little bit about your brain today that helps you in your life like it helped me. Please be sure and subscribe and leave a review. And, of course, be sure and share this podcast with someone you know who wants an unstoppable body and mind.

Episode 22- Making Decisions

This episode is all about decisions- why we make the decisions we do and how to make decisions from a more conscious place.  Indecision drains our energy, so learn my best tips and tricks to make decisions on purpose to get the results you want in your life.

 

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Transcript:

This is Betsy Jensen, and you are listening to Unstoppable Body and Mind—Episode 22–Making Decisions.

 

In this podcast we learn to upgrade our brain and understand the power of our thoughts, to heal and to create the results we want in our life. Become the person in control of your healing and make peace with your life.  Become unstoppable, body and mind.

 

Hello, welcome to the podcast. Today we are going to talk about decision making, why it's important to make decisions and how we can make decisions most effectively. But first, a little reminder if you've been liking the podcast and would be willing to do me a favor. Go on over to iTunes and rate and review it please. Rating it literally just takes a few seconds and a review does take a little more time and thought and effort, but I do read all the reviews and really appreciate them. And it helps the podcast be found by more people. 

 

Decision making used to be super hard for me. I used to even describe myself as someone who hated making decisions. I would much rather have someone else make decisions for me than to have to make decisions. I hated it. And I think part of it is that I thought of myself as kind of an easygoing person, not someone who has a lot of strong preferences and opinions, but I was also definitely a huge people pleaser. I would rather let someone else who did have a stronger opinion, make a decision, and I would just go along with it so that I would be liked. I also had a lot of self doubt. And I was definitely a huge perfectionist. And that can play into decision making too, because once you make a decision, you have to get to work on it. And it wasn't that I was afraid of work, but I was afraid of showing up imperfectly. And so if I could stay in indecision, I wouldn't have to make the wrong choice, or put work out into the world that wasn't totally perfect and be vulnerable that way. 

 

But like the Rush song says, “If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.” So indecision is making a choice. It's a choice not to act. And the worst part about it is that when you are struggling in indecision, it drains your energy. Have you ever had that? It's like part of your mind just keeps cycling around this unmade decision, and you keep weighing the options in your head and you keep thinking of the pros and cons. Mentally, it's draining. 

 

When I started learning about life coaching about five years ago, I realized how important making decisions is for your state of mind. And I got better at making decisions because it is a skill you can develop, and it grows stronger as you practice it. You can learn to listen to yourself and trust yourself and stop doubting yourself so much as you practice making decisions. 

 

First, let's talk about why we make decisions. All of the decisions we make, the things we choose or choose not to do are because of how we think it will make us feel. So if you choose to eat a salad, it could be because you want to feel healthier. If you choose to eat a box of Pop Tarts, it could be because you think you'll feel some satisfaction or pleasure from it. If you choose not to decide right now if you are going to change jobs or not, you may think you will feel more sure of yourself after you weigh out all the options or ask a few more people's advice. We are motivated by our feelings. That's why we make the decisions that we do. And that's how we get the results that we have in our life. 

 

Think of all the results that you have in your life as a collection of the decisions you've made. And your day is full of decisions. You're making them either unconsciously, or you're making them in a way to get the results that you want. How do we make unconscious decisions? Remember, 95% of our thoughts are subconscious. So those decisions could look like habits. Like I get up and I make my bed each morning. Or I find myself checking my phone approximately a million times a day. Like it's totally a subconscious decision. I'm maybe feeling bored, or I'm usually avoiding doing something. And then I find myself checking email that I've checked, like two minutes ago. 

 

Think about the decisions you make each day. Do you think there are some unconscious decisions that you make? The first step in making better decisions is to realize and be mindful of the decisions you're already making. Just like we can become the watcher of our thoughts, we can become the watcher of our decisions, and we can decide if they're serving us or not. Another thing that we can do subconsciously when we're making decisions is to say, “I don't know” Do you find yourself saying “I don't know” a lot? Sometimes it can even feel very true: “Like this is just a fact. I don't know.” Something like, “I don't know how to stop my kids from fighting.” “I don't know how to provide more value to my customers.” “I don't know how to quiet my mind when I meditate.” But the thing about “I don't know” is when you say that, it literally blocks your brain from giving you the answers. It shuts down your inner voice, and it keeps you in indecision, which, remember, drains your energy? 

 

Try and notice when you say “I don't know,” either out loud or to yourself, and question that. You might just be in a habit of saying, “I don't know.” It seems easy. And it seems true. So I'll often say to people when I'm coaching them, when they tell me, “I don't know,” I'll say, “What if you did know?” And then, most of the time, unless they say, “I don't know” again, they actually come up with an answer. So give yourself that option. What if I do know when I'm stuck with an “I don't know.” I like to write things down. I like to get out a piece of paper. And if I'm thinking I don't know how to get my kids to eat healthier, I could write down the things I do know. Maybe I know that if I wasn't buying as much junk food and bringing it to the house, then the kids would not have access to those foods. I know that when I cut up fruits and vegetables and put them out at dinnertime, then they get eaten more than when they're sitting in the fridge. Maybe I do know that I haven't had a discussion with the kids about what they already know about healthy eating and what types of foods they think are healthy, and what kind of foods they're interested in eating that are healthy foods. Once you start opening up your brain to thinking of the things you do know, then you can start filling up the page with things that you know, and have a jumping off point rather than just saying, “I don't know” and shutting it down and feeling helpless. 

 

When I'm making decisions between two options, like if I was thinking of buying a new car or getting my old one repaired, I also like writing. So take out a page and make two columns, one for new car, one for repairing the old car. And I would write down the reasons for getting a new car in one column, and the reasons for repairing the old car in the other column. Then I would suggest crossing out any of the reasons that are fear based. We don't want to make decisions from fear. Remember, when we're in fight or flight, we're not using our prefrontal cortex, we're not using our best judgment and logic. So, for example, if I am thinking I'm afraid of how long it would take me to find a new car, I really don't even know that's true. And I would rather base my decisions on reasons that I like, rather than things I'm afraid of, or I'm trying to avoid. Fear is based in the primitive brain and I want to make decisions from my higher brain, my prefrontal cortex. Then, looking at the two columns, I would pick the one with the reasons I like the most, and you could listen to your inner voice here. I talked a little bit about listening to your inner voice on the last episode, and just like decision making you get better at listening to your inner voice if you practice doing it. Sometimes I like to imagine that there are no wrong decisions. Or what if I knew both of the options would work out? Which one would I choose? If I knew that there were no failures in life, that I was either winning or learning? What would I choose? If I knew that I could find a new car I wanted and I could sell the old one, and I could afford the payments or the repairs, which one would I choose?

 

What if in life, there are no mistakes? What if we're either succeeding or learning but there is no failing? And what if in life, there are no wrong decisions, just decisions that teach you what you don't want to do? Those kinds of thoughts can help with decision making. We already have so much fear of the future. A lot of times as humans, we're deciding a lot of things out of fear. But really, we don't even know how the future will turn out. We're just basing our projection of the future on what we've learned from the past. But most of the times, the things we worry about don't even happen. 

 

I find this a lot when I'm trying to predict how other people are going to react. Like my son might not eat anything if I stopped buying junk food, or my boss might fire me if I tell him I want to cut back my hours, or my friend might be hurt if I don't go to girls night that she invited me to. But remember with the model, what we say or do is just in the circumstance line of other people's models. They are in charge of how they think and feel and act because of what we do or say. So we definitely don't want to be basing all of our decisions on trying to control other people's behavior. I like to make decisions that are most loving for me and loving for all of the people involved. So if my friend planned a girl's night, and I don't want to go, is it the most loving thing for me to still go? Is it loving to her if I go when I don't want to? Imagine if I don't want to go, but I go, because I don't want to make her mad or make her feel bad. And then I go, and I'm resentful. That might not even be the most loving thing to her. And it's definitely not the most loving thing to me. 

 

Now, we talked about how indecision is an energy drain, but also if we make a decision, and we're waiting a while to tell someone. Like if I made that decision not to go out to the girls night, but I waited a week to tell my friend, then that also is going to be draining my mental energy. It can be exhausting mentally if it's still hanging over my head. So I might be still dreading telling her or thinking about when I'll tell her or thinking about how I'm going to tell her. If possible when you make the decision, try to act on it without allowing a lot of time to go by so you aren't just taking up that mental space. 

 

Another concept about decision making is to try and make decisions ahead of time. So we want to use our prefrontal cortex, which is good at making decisions. That's the highest form of our humanity. That's where we want to be making our decisions from. So say you're starting an exercise program. You could decide on Sunday night what you want that exercise program to look like for the week, like “Every morning, I'm going to get up and go on a thirty-minute walk with my dog,” or “I'm going to do yoga three days a week, on these days and at these times.” The more we make decisions ahead of time, then we don't have to struggle in the moment—the decision is already made. If we don't decide ahead of time, then you can guess what kind of decision we're going to make. When the alarm goes off and you're not committed or devoted to your decision, you'll probably talk yourself out of going on the walk or just go back to bed. The prefrontal cortex, the highest part of the brain, is the best decision maker. And it only works when we're not making decisions in the moment. When we don't make decisions ahead of time, or we're not committed to those decisions and we leave the decisions up to what we feel like doing in the moment, our primal brain is going to win every time and it's going to want to seek pleasure, avoid pain and do whatever is easy.

 

Another thing to think about with decision making is decision fatigue. So if you imagine cleaning out your closet, taking everything out of it and going through piles and piles of things, you might start out kind of thoughtful about each item and trying it on. And after a while, after a few hours, your brain has made so many decisions that you're just exhausted from making so many decisions. And so you either start just getting rid of everything, or if you're like me, you start hanging everything back up and thinking like, Maybe I'll go through it later, or I'll give it a few months and see if I'm actually going to wear those things and I'll just decide then. So don't try and make a lot of big decisions at once or make a lot of little decisions before you're making big important decisions. Just be aware that there is decision fatigue. In order to reduce decision fatigue, you could give yourself a certain amount of time and commit to making a decision at the end of that time. 

 

An example I've heard of is from my mentor, Brooke Castillo. She said that for clothes shopping, she only goes to one store. So she has one place that she gets her clothes. And she doesn't go to all of the different places, all the different stores and look at a bunch of different things. She knows her tastes and her style and what she likes. And so she only buys things from that one store. 

 

The more you can make decisions ahead of time, decide quickly, not go back on your decisions and not make tons of decisions at once or when you're already mentally fatigued, this will help you make better decisions and it will save mental energy so you're not feeling as drained. If you have a big goal, which I recommend, for the week, or a goal for the month, or the next three months or a goal for the next year, your brain will get overwhelmed with the immensity of this big, huge goal. So what you can do is write down all of the little things you'll need to do to accomplish that goal. Next to each of those things, write down all of the obstacles you might anticipate happening. And then focus each day on the next right thing or the next best thing to get you towards that goal. So “What is the next right thing for me to make this certain amount of money within a period of time?” Or “What is the next right thing I could do to show my body more love so that I can be healthy?” Or “What is the next right thing I could do to be a more present mom with my kids right now?”

 

You can decide that you're a decision maker. That's what I did. I saw that I was already making decisions, which I was. And I just decided on purpose that I am able to make decisions and I practiced making decisions on my own without polling a bunch of people and asking people's opinion and searching online for hours. And when I made a decision, I purposely didn't second guess it or doubt myself or go back on it and change it. And I did get better at making decisions and at listening to my inner voice. 

 

Making decisions is an important skill. And even if you are thinking of yourself as an indecisive person, remember that by not deciding you are already making a choice, and you're wasting your mental energy by spinning and indecision. You might have some strong neural pathways and beliefs about yourself and your ability to make decisions. But as we know from neuroscience, you can always rewire your brain. You can start making decisions consciously, you can start believing in yourself that you can make decisions and the more you practice, the more you will learn about yourself and what types of decisions you can make easily, and what types of decisions you don't want to make in the future. And the more you'll be able to trust yourself in the decisions you do make. So I invite you to notice the decisions you're making in your life and to start making decisions from a conscious place. And if this is something you struggle with and would like some coaching on, please reach out to me. You can go to my website, bodyandmindlifecoach.com or email me at info@bodyandmindlifecoach.com.

 

Thank you so much for listening. I hope you learned a little bit about your brain today that helps you in your life like it helped me. Please be sure and subscribe and leave a review. And, of course, be sure and share this podcast with someone you know who wants an unstoppable body and mind.

Episode 21- Love is Letting Go of Fear

In this episode I share my favorite quotes and discuss the book Love is Letting Go of Fear by Gerald Jampolsky.  

There are basically two emotions- love and fear.  We are programmed for fear but always have the capacity of love.

Approaching more of our life with love is how we get inner peace.  And that means continually letting go of fear.   

 

Follow Betsy on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/bodyandmindlifecoach/

 

Youtube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvXZSYYGL2cfJl-oEOzqspA

 

Website https://bodyandmindlifecoach.com

 

*Free Nervous System Modules- 4 free videos explaining the nervous system, how it affects your health, and how to regulate it  https://view.flodesk.com/pages/620ffa96e0eda1a0d870b5a6

 

*Curable App- 6 Weeks Free with this code http://www.curable.com/betsyjensen

 

If you like this podcast, please give it a five star rating and review on Itunes  https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-unstoppable-body-and-minds-podcast/id1493360543

Transcript:

This is Betsy Jensen, and you are listening to Unstoppable Body and Mind—Episode 21–Love Is Letting Go of Fear.

 

In this podcast we learn to upgrade our brain and understand the power of our thoughts, to heal and to create the results we want in our life. Become the person in control of your healing and make peace with your life.  Become unstoppable, body and mind.

 

Hello, welcome to Episode 21–Love Is Letting Go of Fear, based on the book by Gerald Jampolsky of that name. I love this concept of basically two emotions, love and fear, and you can't have fear when you have love, and you can't have love when you have fear. They're basically like north and south, like you can't go both places at the same time—opposites. I love thinking of all of the emotions that are kind of more stressful, anxiety-ridden on the lower half of the vibration, emotion chart. The fight or flight type of responses where the body is tense, there's some anxiousness and worry. That's all categorized as fear, and any of the more loving emotions which would include, of course, love. And I would say things above 200, you know, courage, willingness, acceptance. Even neutrality is more on the scale of love than fear. And those are the emotions that are associated with rest and repair. 

 

So as I talked about, you'll want to rest and repair sometimes for your body on a physical level because we are physical and emotional and mental beings. But you also want to emotionally get to a state of rest and repair. And that is something where the energy is constructive, not destructive, and where you're able to reach that level of the parasympathetic nervous system that you can slow down, rest, digest, get back to a neutral state, or even regain some of your power or your health. Fear is what happens as humans as we perceive reality from our physical senses. We think that's what there is. We consider our perceptions real. But fear always distorts our perception and confuses us as to what's going on. Love is the total absence of fear.

As humans, we believe that.

 

As humans, we believe the fears of the past can predict and prevent any fears of the future coming true. Or at least we can try to control it if we're afraid. But basically, when we are afraid of the past, and we spend our time worrying about that, then we're thinking about the past and not in the present moment. For most of us, we spend our time either worrying about the past or fearing something in the future. So being in the present moment is really such a difficult thing for most of us. Have you ever tried meditating? Sometimes it's so hard just to be still and to have no sounds and very little input, and just to watch your brain. It's like a fish flopping outside of the water. I'd be interested to know how much time people in general spend in the present moment. 

 

If 95% of our thoughts are subconscious, and 5% of the time, roughly, we're thinking conscious thoughts, I wonder if that's divided between the past and the future? Because being in the present moment is something you really have to practice and the way he's suggesting we can do that is to get rid of fear. He says with peace of mind as our single goal, forgiveness becomes our single function. Forgiveness is the vehicle used for correcting our misperceptions and for helping us let go of fear. Simply stated, to forgive is to let go. I think the forgiveness has to start with ourselves. It's so important. It's so important if you have any kind of chronic pain or disease, that you start being more compassionate with yourself, wherever possible, and forgiving yourself. 

 

And sometimes it seems silly to have to forgive ourselves for just being human. But

we're pretty harsh to ourselves. We really think if there's some parts of us that we don't like, it's kind of unforgivable. We have to accept the part of ourselves that, you know, it's kind of like when you have kids, and you love them, but you don't love everything they do. We have to be that same way with ourselves. We might not love everything we do. We definitely have room for improvement. That's always true. But beating ourselves up, coming from a place of fear, trying to motivate ourselves will not have the same effect as if we come from a place of love for ourselves, and forgiveness for all of those human parts of us, the humanity we share, and that includes the darkness and the light. 

 

If you're struggling with chronic pain or disease, you might need to forgive yourself for having that. You might want to work on forgiving your body. Sometimes we feel like our bodies have betrayed us, or that we should somehow be guilty for the pain that we do have and the effects of that on our loved ones and families and you can really have a lot of guilt or anger or shame or blame on the pain. Other people do not have to change for us to experience peace of mind. I love this because that's really good if we don't expect other people to change because that can be really disappointing, right? I mean, they're not good at changing how we want them to.

 

I know there are a couple people right now that I really wish would change. And it seems impossible that I could have peace of mind unless they just did some things differently and apologized. But we know this from the model too, right? The actions other people take, the things they say, those are just in our circumstance line. So the rest of the model is what we have control over:  our thoughts, feelings, actions and results. I'm going to read you some of his themes to live by:

Peace of mind is our single goal. Forgiveness is our single function and the way to achieve our goal of peace of mind. 

Through forgiveness, we can learn to judge. Through forgiveness we can learn not to judge others and to see everyone, including ourselves, as guiltless.

 

What do you think about that one? I have a hard time seeing myself as guiltless. I think it's just something, you know, it's how we're raised and in our survival instincts and our genetics that we want to see ourselves as bad so we want to improve, right? But yeah, seeing ourselves as guiltless. 

We can let go of fear when we stop judging, and stop projecting the past into the future, and live only in the now. 

We can learn to accept direction from our inner intuitive voice, which is our guide to knowing. 

 

What do you guys think about the inner voice? I have found that to be something I'm working on developing, but like super cool. I like how Glennon Doyle describes the next right step. Also, I've heard Nicole Sachs use that. So the next, or the next best considered action. So we get very overwhelmed if we're thinking of some big goal in the future. But if we can just take the moment, again, center in the moment, that's already a first step that's hard for us to do, but good for mindfulness every once in a while to check into what's going on in reality, not in the past or future in your head. So in reality, say we have a moment that we are making a decision, we can ask for what is the next best considered action and just listen. This takes some practice, but the more you practice listening, the more you'll hear. 

 

Did I lose anyone there? I hope not. If so, welcome to this level of the podcast. I believe in the inner voice. I really do. Okay, what works for me is the sway test. If you close your eyes and calibrate, so say, “Is my name Betsy?” and then I would kind of unwillingly, unwittingly lean forward, like I'm kind of pulled one direction or another, and forward is yes. And backward is no. So then I would ask, “Is my name Jack?” and probably feel this pull back. After calibrating that way, I can close my eyes and ask a question and see, you know, where my body is pulled. So, I think that's a cool way of just answering some yes or no questions to practice listening to your inner voice. And again, I would try to ask kind of relevant questions to what's going on. I guess you could ask it, you know, things about the future, but I think for that next best considered action, that is a way you can start asking yourself and your body and your inner wisdom some of these questions. So after our inner voice gives us direction, it will also provide the means for accomplishing whatever is necessary. Ooh, I like that. 

 

Glennon Doyle, in Untamed, talks about listening to her inner voice and then doing what it says and then this rush of liquid gold that she feels in her veins. I love that. For me, I've felt, you know, I consider it gratitude when I have that kind of response to something serendipitous that happens or me following that inner voice and having that reward. I feel like it's this lightness in my chest and kind of this fluttery, quick vibration that feels like a warm fuzzy, basically, inside my chest.

 

In following one's inner guidance, it's frequently necessary to make a commitment to a specific goal, even when the means for achieving it are not immediately apparent. This can be a reversal of the customary logic of the world and could be thought of as putting the cart before the horse. So basically, I hear this a lot with, like manifesting and the law of attraction. So if I haven't lost you already, here we go, another layer. But for you, for those of you who stick with me, I know you are my people. So, when you want to manifest something, you don't need to know the how. In fact, the more you get hung up on the how, the more confused you get, and the less likely you are to manifest it. 

 

So basically, have things you are working towards. Sometimes I think the law of attraction, people think that it just means have those goals and then just sit on the couch and hope for them. But I'm saying, like, have those goals, you don't have to know the why. But you can ask the next right action, the next best thing to do, the next best considered action to make money, to do whatever it is that you're trying to achieve. But the difference is, rather than trying to control reality, and plan out all the things and follow all the actions, you're having an intent, and you're having a commitment, and you're still putting in the work, but in a very, like trusting and loving way. And I think the more you do this, the easier it becomes. There are more of those serendipities which is that liquid gold and things just tend to work out, right?

 

We do have a choice in determining what we perceive, and the feelings we experience. 

Okay? Is that a hard one for you guys? Like, I get that if you think the world is a loving place, you are more likely to see those examples of love in the world. But it seems a little much that we can really determine what we perceive and the feelings we experience. But that's because he talks about kind of a continual letting go of the past and the judgment and the fears you have. And so you could be perceiving the same thing. But you determine what you perceive, because you're not seeing it through this filter of fear and defensiveness.

 

And the last of the themes to live by:

Through retraining of the mind, we can learn to use positive action imagination. Positive action imagination enables us to develop positive, loving motion pictures in our minds. 

So basically a positive, loving movie that you're watching and seeing in your mind, instead of perceiving things through a lens of fear. Sounds super easy and simple, right? Okay, maybe it doesn't, but this is the way to have peace of mind, to have more love than fear, and really the way to healing. He says, “With love as our only reality, health and wholeness can be viewed as inner peace and healing can be seen as letting go of fear.”

 

Okay, so this is why we have fear. Our belief system is based on our past experience, which is constantly being relived in the present with an anticipation of the future being just like the past. Yep, I think that's true. Our present perceptions are so colored by the past that we are unable to see the immediate happenings in our lives without distortion and limitations. So think about, you know, fear changes our perceptions. I mean, think about it when you're scared, like playing hide and go seek or something, and you're scared of being found. And your perceptions are changed, depending on what you're thinking and what you're on the lookout for. So, since we have so much of our present consciousness filtered through this lens that we take in reality through, we're basing basically everything we're coming into contact with in the present. We're seeing it through this filter from the past and our belief system from the past. And then we are anticipating that the future is going to be just like the past. So we're basically all in our heads all of the time. 

 

And reality is something that none of us can clearly see—none. Not one person. We're all confined to the reality that seems limited by our physical center. We're all confined by the reality that we perceive from our physical senses. So to have freedom, to have peace of mind, we have to detach from thinking of the past and the future, and choose to live in the now.

 

If you think of an interaction with someone, we can choose to have either love or fear. When people have fear, you would definitely think they would be defensive, right? But people can also be attacking from fear. He basically says that you wouldn't attack unless you feel threatened. To try to demonstrate your own strength, if you feel threatened, then you might attack first. So attack is really a defense. So whenever someone's acting defensively or attacking, you can know that they're acting out of fear. In order to experience peace of mind, instead of seeing someone as attacking us, we can see them as fearful. We're always either expressing love or fear. Fear is really a call for help and therefore, a request for love. 

 

To have peace, we must recognize that we do have a choice in determining what we will perceive. Peace of mind comes from not wanting to change others but simply by accepting them as they are. True acceptance is always without demands and expectations. That would be the manual, right? Those demands and expectations we have for other people. If we can throw away our manual, true acceptance, not wanting to change others, we can have peace of mind. Inner peace must be reached through forgiveness. And I love how he talks about forgiveness here. Forgiveness is the letting go of the past and is there for the means for correcting our misperceptions. Hmm, we're just remembering it wrong. Or not remembering it wrong, but like remembering in the human way through the senses that we filtered through our brain, right? So maybe we just didn't perceive the whole situation. And maybe we can just forgive ourselves for the humanity we all share. And know that we're just not going to be perfect all the time. And knowing that thought is only causing us pain, you know, any of the disappointment we feel in ourselves. 

 

For forgiveness, we have to let go whatever we think other people have done to us, or whatever we think we have done to them. Through this process of selective forgetting, we become free to embrace a present without the need to reenact our past. So really, how often do we reenact our past by judging what's going on in the current situation? And, you know, This is how these types of certain people react. When I say this, it's going to have this effect. We need to basically try to see the world through fresh eyes and try to see just, Is someone reacting out of fear, or out of love, are they needing love? Most of the time, I bet the people that bug us are reacting out of fear and we're reacting out of fear too. If we don't have the fear about the people that we're interacting with, then we probably have some fear from guilt and shame going on. 

 

Love in our society is often thought of as something that we get from someone else. If we think we need to get something from another we’ll love that person when we think we get what we want, and we’ll hate that person when we don't. We frequently have love/hate relationships in which we find ourselves trading conditional love. The getting motivation leads to conflict and distress and is associated with linear time. Giving means extending one's love with no conditions, no expectations, and no boundaries. Peace of mind occurs. Therefore, when we put our attention into giving and have no desire to get anything from or change another person, the giving motivation leads us to a sense of inner peace and joy, that is unrelated to time.

 

Okay, there's so much there that I think is so, so brilliant, so simple and so brilliantly said. Basically, we come to relationships often with this emptiness that we want filled. And if someone is not doing the right things that we're expecting, then we will not feel loved by that person. And if we do realize that they're doing some of the things, then we love that person. So conditional love, but when you could move into unconditional love, you're not trying to change the other person. And you have this timeless part of your relationship that is just peace and joy. 

 

Episode 9 is about relationships. It's really interesting because it is about how relationships are basically thoughts about the person that you have in your head, and how much you can control of what you perceive about the other person in relationships. And how, if your purpose is not to receive love from someone, but to give love, how much it changes your perception of the relationship, and as well, you just feel more love, because love is a feeling that you get by giving it. You can't feel loved by someone unless you're thinking thoughts that they love me. That's from your thoughts. But feeling love is something that is always available to you. Because all you have to do to do that is love someone else; to give love to someone, you get love. 

 

Here's some questions you can ask and retrain the mind. 

1. Do I choose to experience peace of mind? Or do I choose to experience conflict? 
2. Do I choose to experience love or fear? 
3. Do I choose to be a love finder or a fault finder? 
4. Do I choose to be a love giver or a love sender? 
5. Is this communication verbal or nonverbal? Is it loving to the other person and is it loving to me? 

Okay, I love that last sentence:  Is it loving to the other person and is it loving to me? That is such a good thing always to keep in mind, especially if you're trying to distinguish between being a people pleaser, or doing something out of unconditional love. So you might think that you need to let someone come over to your house every time they want to, and play with your kids as much as they want to show unconditional love. But if you are not finding that you're having the sense of love, if it's not loving to both you and that other person, then that's not unconditional love. That is what you're trying to do to get someone to like you or approve of you or to make them happy. That's people pleasing.

 

What we're striving for is communication that is loving to the other person and loving to yourself. When we find ourselves irritated, depressed, angry or ill, we can be sure we've chosen the wrong goal and are responding to fear. When we are not experiencing joy, we have forgotten to make peace of mind our single goal and have become concerned about getting rather than giving. We think the outside world is the reality, the outside world is the cause and we are the effect. What if what we see is actually just determined by the thoughts in our mind? So perception is more like a mirror of what we already believe than a fact out there in reality. Knowing that, you can choose to awaken in the morning and see a friendly world through the glasses that filter out everything except love. It is from our peace of mind that a peaceful perception of the world arises. Throughout the day, whenever you're tempted to be fearful, remind yourself that you can experience love instead.

 

How does fear of the past lead to wanting to control everything? I think a lot of us like to do that, right? So we have a belief system that our fearful past is going to become our fearful future, making the past and the future one. The memory of the fear and pain makes us feel vulnerable. And the feeling of vulnerability makes us want to control and predict the future at all costs. So an old belief system might be something like anger occurs because I've been attacked, and I am justified in a counter attack. So I'm responsible for protecting myself by talking back to someone who is angry at me. We change the world we see by changing our thoughts about it. By changing our thoughts, we are actually changing the cause, then the world we see, the effect, will change automatically. 

 

How crazy is that? It's kind of backwards of what we think. If we resist relinquishing the predictability of our past belief system, we resist assuming responsibility for our thoughts, feelings and reactions, since we always look within before going without. Since we always look within before looking out, we can perceive attack outside us only when we first have accepted attack as real within. Actually, we try to hide from ourselves that the attack we perceive is coming from somewhere else, when it actually came from our own mind. Those are called attack thoughts. And those are hurting us when we have attack thoughts of anger. When I believe that attacking others brings me something I want, let me remember that I always attacked myself first. I do not wish to hurt myself again today.

 

I like the concept of thinking of acting out of fear or love. When I think about things in my life, like if I'm making a decision, am I making that decision because I'm scared of what other people will think, or I'm scared of making the wrong decision, or am I making a choice out of love, love for myself and for my children, or whoever's involved? So, for example, if I was wanting to lose some weight, I could do that from fear or from love. I could be hating my body and want it to be different and think it's taking too long and I could eat a salad and I could exercise out of fear. Or I could take those very same actions of eating salad and exercising, because I love my body, because I want to fill it with good food. And I want to train my muscles and be in good physical health because I love my body and I love the way it feels to move it. And to feed it well.

 

He uses an example of living in the present. If you think of a little baby, they have this look of wonder in their eyes, like everything is so new. They don't have these preconceptions of the past. They don't see the world even as separate from themselves yet; they're not seeing the world as fragmented. They're seeing as them as part of the whole. But once we experience some emotions, the painful ones, the guilt, the loss, the grievances, the dissatisfaction, the rejection, we hold on to those and invest. We hold on to those experiences and become attached to them so that we end up having them in the future. Instead of thinking of the future as the extension of the guilty past, we can think of the future as an extension of the peaceful present that never ceases.

 

So if you're curious about coaching, or if you've been working on things on your own and you feel like you're just not getting the results you want, then please email me at info@bodyandmindlifecoach.com and check out my website, bodyandmindlifecoach.com.

 

Thank you so much for listening. I hope you learned a little bit about your brain today that helps you in your life like it helped me. Please be sure and subscribe and leave a review. And, of course, be sure and share this podcast with someone you know who wants an unstoppable body and mind.

 

Episode #20- Clean Pain vs Dirty Pain

In this episode we talk about all of the kinds of pain- emotional pain, physical pain, and how each kind can have clean and dirty pain.  Clean pain is the kind of pain we want to feel in our life- yes there is pain we want to feel!  Dirty pain is characterized by 1-resisting reality, 2-layering negative meaning onto the pain,  or 3-making it mean something about the future.  Learn how to lessen the emotional and physical pain you are causing yourself by dirty pain.

 

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Episode # 19- Pen-Vent

Pen-Vent is the 15 minute process I suggest you do daily for your mental hygiene.  Just like you brush your teeth or take a shower to take care of your physical body, you also need to clean the junk out of your mind.  This is how you can access thoughts and feelings in your subconscious and let them go so you can heal.  

 

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Episode #18- Silence the Inner Critic

In this episode we will talk about negative self talk and how to silence the inner critic.  Learn how the negative narrative that runs unchecked in our brain can cause negative effects in our life.  Beating ourselves up does not make us want to be the best versions of ourselves, and actually rewires the brain to take less action, have more fear and holds us back from doing the things we really want.  If you are a perfectionist or have chronic stress you definitely need to listen to this episode.

 

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Episode #17- Podcast with Lisa- Quitting Pain and Quitting Pain Pills

This episode is amazing- My friend Lisa talks about her journey with decreasing chronic pain (Ankylosing spondylitis- AS, and Fibromyalgia).  She recently quit an opioid pain pill she had been on for 9 years and found her pain is actually much less now than when her body was dependent on the drug.   She also found relief through thought work about her perfectionism, people pleasing and childhood trauma.  She is an example of what is possible when you are willing to put in the work to heal your body and mind.

 

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Episode # 16 - How to Process Pain

In this episode we discuss processing pain.  Emotional pain is created by our thoughts, and much of chronic pain is the top-down kind of pain that acts like an emotion.  Learn why avoiding, resisting and reacting to pain don't work, and how to process pain so it is no longer the focus of your life.

 

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