Consciousness refers to the state of being aware of one’s thoughts and feelings. The more aware we are, the more we can consciously influence our thoughts and feelings and help others. But here’s the challenge: How do we put what we learn about consciousness into practice? This session dives deep into this topic.
Video Transcript
Dr. A: I want to welcome you to our conscious leadership forum that we do on the first Tuesday of the month. I’m very excited, there’s lots of great things going on. Hopefully everyone xunderstands that this is for anybody that wants to raise their hand and work on their perspective of what’s going on, how they’re managing their mind, their life, and start creating interest in this very important area of becoming the dominant force in our life.
With that, what is a forum? I’d like to put a couple if slides up so we can understand because this is a different format. I’m not going to sit as a physician and lecture to you, I’m going to give a little overview of the topic today which is something that’s universal. I mean, any human has a mind. We have emotions, we have thinking, we have stress, we have all this stuff going on. So this is for anybody. I also want to make sure there’s an opportunity for you to ask questions, and everybody learns when we do this. So, a forum is a place, meeting or medium where ideas and views on a particular issue can be exchanged.
Today our subject is, how do we move forward smoothly into our future? One of the things I was just talking to a group in england was AI. AI is really taking over almost all aspects of our life. You flip on something on social media, you go to buy something and all of a sudden you’re populated with everybody trying to get you to do something. To think a certain way, to be attracted to that. Most people are sleepwalking through life and this artificial intelligence is creating more and more influence on our minds and on what our actions ARE.
So, our feelings, our thoughts, and our actions are being influenced by things outside of us. One of the key things I know, and from studying this now for quite a while, is it’s so critical that we wake up and, as I like to say, grow up. In other words, we’ve got to find ourselves and put ourselves *in a position* to free ourselves so we can become the dominant force in our life. Without that, we’ll always be under the influence of somebody else.
[00:02:10] Today we’re going to talk about starting today. What are some of the things you can do? Where does it start? And, how can we move into a future where most people— we did an interview and there was a whole Gallup poll done a few months ago that talks that people really feel their well-being, even their health, are at the lowest levels they’ve ever been, and that doesn’t bode well to our future. This work, Human Transformational Technology, is about helping you start with the idea and understanding that you can become the dominant force in your life.
Many of you may think “Well, I don’t know about that right now, all of this stuff is going on, I’m stressed out, the world is changing around me.” We— first we had Covid. We thought we had stability in the world, now we have Europe in a big flaming mess. We’re going to talk about that and how we can start moving on a different track and hopefully this will be helpful and hopefully we’ll have some great questions come in.
So, how do we move forward? Most people are literally sitting there reacting to everything that’s going on and really being affected about it psychologically, to the point where emotional mismanagement is becoming, in my opinion, the leading cause of death in the world.
What we want to talk about today is really, are you ready to move? Are you ready to change? Our 10,000 year old operating system has been around for a long time and it was designed for real threats: something killing you, something biting you, all the time. Now, most of it is actually up in here, [gestures to head] it’s things outside of us, but because of technology, we’re influenced and exposed to so many things and most of them, as we know, is a negative bias. The brain was— in your thinking is about responding to negative bias because that’s what protected you. That program from 10,000 years ago was really important, today not so much.
In fact what we’re finding is that the cognitive emotive loops, all the thinking, feeling and emotions is stressing and churning up inside of us and most people, if they rated the life would say, as I mentioned earlier, that they’re not doing okay. The question is you have to be willing and ready to move. We’ll talk more about that.
Become the dominant force in your life. Taking back the locus of control. In psychology, we talk about that when we blame other people. We’ll talk about the victim triangle in different ways today. We’ll talk about how our thoughts and feelings create these loops inside and we’ll talk about how it turns us sideways and rather than being fully present, we’re in our mind. That voice in our head is talking to us all the time and most of the things it’s saying not only are they not real, but they’re actually creating stress inside us and creating poor physical health, and mental health… and relational health by the way.
I always like to bring up what consciousness is, just to have a standard to start with. Consciousness refers to the state of being aware of one’s thoughts and feelings. The more we are self-aware, the more we can consciously influence our thoughts and feelings and respond in a resourceful way to help others.
Let’s explore that. No one would doubt the conscious outside world. If you look at a flower pot or a flowerpot with flowers in it, or with leaves in it, a plant in it, we’re pretty aware that’s not us. We look at it and see it and depending on where we are doing comparative reality, we may turn it into something different. But as a whole we actually see and recognize that that’s not part of us. In the inner world, unfortunately, what ends up happening is events, people, something happens and we filter it. Our ego is designed, because it doesn’t feel we can handle the truth as it is. We say the world should be a certain way, our thoughts and the way we handle ourselves are relatively rigid. So when we see these things, we have thoughts, we have emotions, and we have feelings and we now interpret that in a very different way.
So, what we in essence look at is we become in the drama triangle. What does that really mean? It means we either internalize or push all the stuff down. If something happens in our life that creates pain for us psychologically, normally we’ll do one or two things: we’ll either project it and leash out at somebody and react to them, or the other thing we do is we basically internalize.
So, when it touches our stuff— we have a feeling or think that our stuff is actually us. Our thoughts, our emotions are inside of us. We’re pretty clear most of the time that the flower pot or vase is outside of us, but inside of us are these thoughts and our emotions. We actually think they’re us. We don’t create separation. That stuff just starts dwelling inside and pretty soon that’s why we’re depressed or why we’re judging ourselves or why we’re anxious or why we’re fearful. They’re all stuff inside that we think is actually us and defines us.
We’re going to talk about what that does. When you feel that way, when there’s a stimulus, you respond immediately. We respond without processing. We use the lower levels of the brain, the basal levels and the limbic areas, which are the ones that 10,000 years ago, the way you were programmed. You were programmed, if something was coming at you, you didn’t wait to figure out what was going on. You ran, you fought, you froze, or you fainted. The four “F’s” and you did that right away, you didn’t think about it, you just did it.
You know, I was watching yesterday, driving out of my drive, lizards, which are reptilian, they have the lower brain. They’re sitting there and they see you coming and they freeze. Now when you’re in a car with tires, unless I manage to go in the center, I’m going to run them over. What happens is, sometimes they decide to change their mind and they go from freezing to flight, and the last thing they do is they go and they get smished and end up like a grease spot on the road. Now, I’m exact— I’m not really exaggerating, but that’s what we end up doing, we respond in a way that’s pre-programmed. That we think is going to serve us best but with modern technology, just like 10,000 years ago, that lizard probably wouldn’t have got flattened because we didn’t have tires, we didn’t have cars, we didn’t have things that could go fast.
[00:08:24] What happens when we’re in, what we like to do, and we call it below the line thinking. When it doesn’t get up to this area in your prefrontal cortex, when it stays and you respond from the limbic area, that is a lower brain response. Just like that lizard, we do a bunch of things that get us flattened: flattened emotionally, flattened in our relationships, and flattened in all the key aspects of our life.
Here’s what that is: that’s the drama triangle, that’s when we’re immediately reacting and looking either to be the victim, and this is a big part of the world today. People think they’re being victimized, it’s happening in some areas right now, if you’re in the Ukraine, yeah. But it’s not having a “victim mentality,” it’s being “Yes, that’s what’s happening in your life.” But if you look at those Ukrainians, because deep in their heart, they love and they want their freedom. They’re fighting back and even though the Russians, and I’m not getting into the politics, but Russia is a huge goliath, and you’ve got David over here, and bottom line is their heart is keeping them because they aren’t taking a victim mentality, they’re standing up to what they need.
The second is the villain, and right now we can right away point to Russia as the villain. Who’s at fault? It’s the Russians, or blame themselves or yourself. Or the other is, you’re a hero and you’re here to save the day and enable the victims. We have to really understand those three components.
So, is it normal to go below the line? Yes, as I mentioned, it’s your design. Your amygdala is in your limbic system, it’s these twin organelles that are neural tripwires and when we perceive something, it doesn’t have to be reality. Yes, in the Ukraine right now it is a reality, it’s serving them well, they’re reacting, they’re taking cover. But over here, our thinking is “There’s going to be nuclear warfare, the world’s going to go bad.” We internalize it. We can’t operate during the day because we’re staying down in that cognitive mode of loops where the world is going to blow up.
That’s not helpful for us. It’s actually deteriorating our health and well-being, even though this thing is 2000 miles away. Is that potential there? Yes, of course it is, but just like the serenity prayer, we have to know the difference between what we can do and what we can’t do. We can give aid to them, which is what we can do to help them, and food and things like that. But whether this is going to be the end of the world, we have no control over that, but many people are glued to their tvs, watching this negative energy come in. Not just aware, but actually inside of them, letting it tumultuously change their mental health and their physical health.
What results do we get? Most people, 95%, are stuck. They’re feeling irrelevant, they don’t know how to get out of it and they’re stuck in their lives. The last few years have been so catastrophic to them that they’re in that negative feedback loops. All you have to do is look at everything, from adolescents, to adults, to the people that are now developing emotional and mental issues, in terms of their feelings and how they’re conducting themselves, is dramatic.
You have to be ready to move, you have to make that decision, because the work that we’re talking about is requiring you to raise your hand and move forward to become the dominant force in your life.
It starts with deciding “I am ready to move, I’m tired of being a victim. Things are happening to me. I’m tired of blaming other people. I’m ready to make the decision that I’m going to move forward. What I want to do is become the dominant force in your life.” I can tell you, I know in my own life and the people that I work with, to watch that conversion as they start to take more responsibility, take radical responsibility, and start to move forward and work on this, everything in their life is changing.
One of the things that you may or may not have heard is the technology I developed over 15 years ago, starts with creating a gap. Rather than just responding and doing things, which could make— just like that lizard that reacted and made a bad decision— we can now: Stop. Challenge. and Choose., to take back control and use this part, the rational part of your brain, the part that you can look out to envision for your future and inform yourself today so we start making decisions in how we conduct ourselves, how we relationally work with others, and how we move forward and become leaders.
When we do that, what in essence happens is this: we carried a gap from stimulus and response through Stop. Challenge. and Choose., and in that gap, when one of those emotions starts welling up, we observe it. We actually feel it, and we’ll talk about in a moment how we can identify, which is the first part to start to understand that letting that stuff come back up, letting it go through its natural course. Not repressing it, and not reacting to it.
The first part in emotional management, the first part in moving forward and starting to take control, is using Stop. Challenge. and Choose., to create less reaction and eventually no reaction, and responding in a way that moves forward and helps you in your future. Basically, moving from that survival contracted state, which is the drama triangle, to the creative expensive state, which is the empowerment triangle, makes all the difference.
Rather than being a victim where “It’s done to me,” “It’s not fair,” I now say “I’m in charge of what happens” and “I’m creating my new story.” The things that I’ve controlled— and most of the disturbances are our garbage. It’s our garbage inside and when it touches our garbage, we respond in a negative way. It can be, you can be walking down the street on a great, beautiful day and a car can go by that happens to remind you inside, not even at a conscious level but at an unconscious level, of your old girlfriend’s car or your old boyfriend’s car and all of a sudden your state changes and now you’re miserable.
What we want to do is start to first, be aware of when that happens, so we can help ourselves move forward. Same thing, moving from the villain, “Oh we feel better” we— “Well, who’s at fault? Who can I blame this on?” Or, blaming it on yourself and taking that mentality. Instead moving to challenging: “I’m open and curious, I want to learn. Why is this happening?” You can say this simple language like “hmm, what happened?” What was missing? and What was next?
That’s called upset technology and it allows us to take that “upset” where it’s starting to stimulate, or when you’re interacting with someone else who’s now getting their drama triangles stimulated and they’re below the line. That rather than go into that and switch around, rather than them be feeling they’re the victim and now you become the hero or the villain instead you just ask those simple questions which removes the emotional part and gets us back so we can then say: “Okay, these obstacles can help me grow.” Then of course the third is being the hero, rather than enabling people and “Here to save the day” like your Mighty Mouse, instead you’re here to help others get better and to empower others to be successful.
[00:15:12] With that, if we briefly look at it, they say that we’re present for about five seconds. We’re aware what’s going on and then something happens, it can be a phone call, a text message, it starts raining outside, it doesn’t matter what it is, we start drifting. And for most people, they drift down and say “Oh, it’s starting to rain, it just ruined my day. I’m a victim,” feeling sorry. They’re down in the drama triangle and when you’re in the drama triangle— I talk about being in the rapids, which is the stuff we have that creates the turbulence inside, in here. [gestures to head]
When you get there it’s very hard to get out, it’s just not easy because you’re emotionally churned up and you have to create that separation. That’s where if you let it get that far, you’re probably going to do something that you’re going to regret an hour later. Whether it’s eating a candy bar, yelling back at your colleague, yelling at your child, all those things put us in a position where we’re doing something which overall is not what we want and not leading us forward to create, become the dominant force.
So, instead, the idea of using Stop. Challenge. and Choose., is when something happens, if you now know, as soon as you start feeling that physiologic change, and by the way your physiology, your emotions and your cognitive areas, need to be in coherence. What I mean by coherence is they should all work together, and that’s one of the things we’re going to be working on through this technology is helping you learn how to create coherence, so all three of those are working together.
Instead we Stop. Challenge. and Choose., and yes, we’re starting to go into the drama triangle, but because it’s not about going— we’re humans. We are going to go in the drama triangle, but if you can catch yourself early then you can shift back out, back into full presence and not get caught up in it. Because as soon as you drift down in the drama triangle, it’s very difficult to get out, and you’ll have a conversation, do something, have a behavior or an action which you’ll regret later. We want to learn how to do that.
So, that’s what we’re talking about today. How do we move into this empowerment triangle? Where I’m in charge of what’s happening, I’m creating my new story, I’m open and curious to learn and grow. Obstacles, rather than looking at them as “Woe me,” they’re actually opportunities for me to learn and become stronger, more in charge, and be able to create the outcomes I want for myself and my future. Stuff is going to happen in your life, it’s how you respond to it that determines the outcome,in the long term, whether it’s advantageous or it actually turns into a negative.
I went over a lot of stuff really quick because I want to open this up for questions, but there is no “one giant step” on what we’re talking about, but a lot of little ones. What we talked about today is just becoming more aware of what’s going on around you and starting to recognize that you can stop, and take control, and command and re-establish that this area [gestures to head] is making the decision, rather than other areas.
The second part I want to talk about, which is going to be the fun stuff, which we’ll start to talk about in future talks is, when we get our stuff touched inside, we do think it’s us and we respond from that. We take, “This is happening to me, the world should be like this, instead this happened. This isn’t right.” And then we churn right into the drama triangle.
One of the things we’re going to work on as we become more aware, is understanding that we can move and start to understand that our thoughts and our emotions are just like the form of that plant vase, they’re outside of us. They’re not us. They’re things that are happening with thoughts and feelings, but they’re not us. What is us, is that full awareness of those things. We start by looking at your journey, it starts with just observing, that’s the first part. It’s realizing, don’t be on that automatic mindless track where you’re just reacting throughout your day.
Start to observe and when you’re having a thought or a feeling, start to feel that that thought and feeling isn’t me, in fact that voice in your head isn’t you either. If the voice in your head was you, and it’s telling you all this stuff, taking your thoughts, your emotions and telling you things to do. If it was you, then how can you hear it, right? You’re hearing it because it’s not you.
[00:19:20] That’s where we’re gonna go, and there’s much more to come. With that, Rachel, I want to open it now. Let’s open this up to questions.
Rachel: All right, Margie, can you come on camera and unmute yourself? There you are.
Dr. A: Hi Margie.
Margie: Hi, can you hear me?
Dr. A: I can, I hear you fine.
Margie: Hi Dr. A, all of this is so new for me, the conscious and the unconscious. I come from a very emotionally mismanaged family and as a matter of fact I’m the youngest of five siblings and right now we are going through a very traumatic time with my 93 year old mother. I am so thankful for these tools because yesterday I sent a text saying “What’s happened? What’s missing? And, what’s next?” So, I am just loving all of this and I’m also loving discovering who I really am. But, my question is in regards to our inner voice. We keep working on silencing our negative critic, the inner roommate. Do we listen to the good things that we tell ourselves? And if this voice isn’t us, who are we? I was watching a previous seminar of yours and you said that our thoughts and emotions don’t define us. If they don’t, then what does define us?
Dr. A: Wow, I love that.
Margie: I get the feeling that I’m going to become devoid, like I’m a machine or a robot. That’s all of my questions Dr. A.
Dr. A: Those are really cool questions. Those are the questions of a lifetime. Those are questions of the mystery of the universe, so to speak, but they’re actually clearing up. We have interpersonal neurobiology now, we have MRI’s, we have ways to light up different areas of the brain, we have the opportunity to think of thoughts. Let me just say this to you, your voice in your head are your thoughts and your feelings, they’re not you. You think “Oh my goodness” because what you did, you even have a story— now, I have permission to coach you right?
Margie: Yes sir.
Dr. A: Okay, so you start off with a story about your 90 plus year old grandmother.
Margie: That’s my mom.
Dr. A: Oh, it’s your mom okay. I’m sorry. I can’t believe it’s your mom, because you look too young to have a mom that old.
Margie: Well, I’m the baby of five.
Dr. A: Okay, the baby, all right, so here’s the situation, there’s something going on and it’s beautiful how you handle it. Because if you sit there and get pulled into the drama triangle, and if you notice the other thing about the drama triangle, there’s the victim, the villain, and the hero. You cycle around in that and within your family, people take different positions on it, and none of them are really helpful. It’s okay to grieve, it’s okay to be sad, but it’s not okay to have that take over your mind. Your mind and your thoughts are actually not you, so when you say “Okay, well if your thoughts and your feelings don’t define you, then I feel like a robot.” No. It’s the exact opposite, you’re acting like a robot based on every experience you’ve had in your life. You’re letting your reactive limbic system in your brain take you wherever it wants and not allow you to fully enjoy reality. One of the key things that’s going to happen Margie, is when you start to take that back, the opposite happens. Life is fully alive. So, if you’re driving, let’s say you’re driving on— where do you live?
Margie: Washington State.
Dr. A: Okay, great example because it’s beautiful there. Let’s say you just came out of a conversation and you got in your car, and someone was talking about your mom. You’re driving, let’s just pick a time, it’s in the fall. All the leaves are changing, it’s autumn and it’s gorgeous, it’s a sunny day, which I know you don’t have that many of, but it’s a sunny day. If you’re fully exposed to this drama triangle and you’re thinking about your mom and what was just said, you could take a drive down a 15 mile road that was absolutely exquisite and not see any of it because now your thoughts and feelings are creating a cognitive, emotive loop and rather than enjoying this space and time, you’re so preoccupied with it. Your voice in your head is churning up and making your story, it’s taking things and it’s actually contributing to you more and more and what happens is the exact opposite.
[00:24:24] When you free yourself, what you are, in the reality, is your full awareness. You are the consciousness. The highest level of expression of yourself is when you no longer let your stuff, people, things, events, touch your stuff. Your stuff are all the things when we were growing up, through to where we are now, until we start studying this, and wanting to become the dominant force. All that stuff is there, based on references and a lot of them don’t matter. When you looked at yourself when you were ten years old, if you go right now and look at yourself in the mirror, even though physically you’ve changed, inside of you, you’re the same person. You’ve had these conversations. You can go back to when you were ten and remember your first boyfriend or the prom. You were there, you were the awareness, and that’s what I’m talking about.
I’m not saying that you don’t have thoughts and feelings that are helpful of, course you do. How do we build everything we’ve got? How are we on Zoom right now? Somebody had those thoughts, put it in the creative state, which is what the prefrontal cortex is, and we created the things that were important to us, the things that really matter. We’re using this innate thing that we have over every other animal, which is this ability to create. Animals, primates and stuff can create little tools to help them gather food, we build skyscrapers, spaceships and beautiful amazing things. We build ships and all this stuff. That’s your thoughts, you’re using those thoughts in a creative way and that is awesome. When you feel a great thought or have a great feeling, that’s good. When you feel something sad, like the potential loss of your mom, that should make you feel sad. Sad in that moment.
[00:26:09] Today is four years from when my wife died and I’m sad right now, but I’m not sad today at all. I was so excited to be on this call. You have to realize, life is going to happen to all of us, if you’re focused on your wealth, you can’t take it to the grave with you. If you’re focused on your looks, you’re going to get older. If you’re focused on your fame, it’s going to pass. If we focus on the intrinsic things, the things we want to create in our life, everything’s possible. Although you’re dealing with one of life’s events, your mom is 90 plus years old, by the way life expectancy is 85, so if she’s 90 plus, she’d beat the damn average! You should be grateful for the time you’ve had with her and not spend a moment of time focusing on that.
I’m a critical care physician and I’ve dealt with families dealing with their loved ones at the last moments of their life and I would do everything I could to save them, but many times I would see they were letting their emotions keep them, they suddenly wanted to keep their grandmother, grandfather alive at 90 or 85 years old because they felt guilty inside, because they never spent the time with the relationship. What I’m talking about Margie, is when you fully start to understand, those thoughts and feelings are not you. The awareness of who you are is what always makes reality a beautiful thing. So in that, yes, you’ll have feelings of sadness and your feelings of joy and you should express and understand that life has both of those. Not just be in a good mood when something happy, when something sad happens, feel that experience. You’re a human, we’re fellow humans.
I have those same experiences, you saw when I talked about my wife. What I’m saying is, I don’t let those dictate my present or my future. I remember those with great honor in the time I had, just like your family should. By the way, you’re the one that’s working on it, your other family members that aren’t, they’re going to be in the drama triangle. Don’t get frustrated because they haven’t done the work yet. Until someone raises their hand and are willing to do the work, they’re not going to get what you’re talking about. But for you, you’re not a robot, you’re a conscious human being on a journey to become more. Does that make sense?
Margie: It does, thank you so much and once again, I just appreciate the tools that we are given and I am loving learning who I am.
Dr. A: It’s cool isn’t it?
Margie: It sure is.
Dr. A: It’s the best thing. You’ve heard me say this lots of times but I like it because I can’t think of it better. When you can let the stuff that happens to you be like water on a duck’s back, it rolls off you and you move on. Not that you’re not aware, not that you’re denying it. Actually, what we do with our voice in our head, we specifically push things down that are painful. We repress them and they’re in there and that’s part of your stop. Then, something else happens in the future, it touches that stuff, now you’re starting to become, what we talked about today, the first step. Just being aware of it, then we’re going to talk about being able to let it bubble up, appreciate it, be grateful for what it’s taught you and have no resistance. Let it go, surrender to it, it’s just part of the human experience. Cool?
Margie: Very cool, thank you so much Dr. A.
Dr. A: You’re welcome. Awesome, who’s next?
Rachel: All right, we have Lindsey.
Dr. A: Hey Lindsay.
Lindsay: Good morning Dr. A. How are you?
Dr. A: I am fantastic.
Lindsay: Fantastic, I’m coming to you today in total gratitude. It’s amazing God’s timing today because last weekend or last week, at Grow Global, I got an opportunity to touch my stuff, and what I recognized is that the things that I had been burying varied from my ten year old self that I’m now, like you said, working on allowing to bubble up, not overcome me but actually help me to address it, let it go. I recognize now that my level of commitment to touching my stuff directly impacts the people that are in my life and on our team, allowing them permission to do the same.
For the last four years over our coaching journey, since I’m burying and stuffing my stuff, they’re doing the same and my relationships with my clients and my coaches is very surface level because them digging deep forces me to dig deep and touch that stuff. It’s just amazing how you pour into us in such a timely manner that even after four years of feeling like this, I’m growing, that I recognize that I still have so much more to do and it’s only going to help more people grow and open up their their true potential and possibilities, so thank you so much.
Dr. A: You have a beautiful heart and the cool thing about it is, it’s a lifelong journey. If we think about it, and just to make an analogy, the Habits of Health is where I started helping people create health and well-being. As you get older, if you don’t work out, and I don’t necessarily lift weights, but do resistance training, go for walks or walk up and down the stairs. If you don’t do that, your muscles get flabby. As you get older if you’re not— and when working out, you can’t just do it for a month and then you’re fine. I mean, you can find a happy medium, I’d rather have someone be at a healthy weight and be active for the rest of their life because that’s something you can do into your 80s and 90s and hundreds. Same thing with your mind, and that’s why I showed little baby steps. That’s why it’s micro habits, it’s about “in your feelings.” There, you’re going to get your stuff touched, but instead of beating yourself up, recognize, it’s not you. You in your purest form, you’re just learning how to change. We’re changing the programming in your brain.
[00:32:06] Your brain was programmed for negative bias. 10,000 years ago you could get hurt in a lot of different ways and so just like most animals, we’ve taught the “Four F’s,” like we talked about earlier, and you would do that instantaneously. Today, most of those threats are perceived threats. They’re not real. They’re perceived threats to our ego, to someone judging us or judging ourselves. Those things are our garbage, they’re the stuff up there and when it gets touched, it’s going to try and spin you out of control. It’s not about fixing yourself, I want to be so clear on that, it’s simply about becoming aware and surrendering to the stuff that we used to let bother us and now move forward in small baby steps.
You’ll see over time, and I already see you’re seeing it, because you had those “aha” moments a couple weeks ago and now you recognize. Just like Margie, she can’t go to her family and start dissecting the drama triangle because first of all until your will— and this is the key part for everybody listening, until— and that’s why I showed that thing: “Am I ready to move?” It’s like “move it, move it” from Madagascar, the lemur, you’ve got to move it, move it. Until you’re ready to move it, move it, you’re going to stay with your old story, with your old program.
The life book is critical to our clients success because it identifies their current story about their health and their well-being. It shows them through the evaluation and assessment. It shows them where they are in those key areas and then they have the opportunity, over a year, at their pace to now change that story, to build the story, to become the dominant force in their life. That is available to every single human on this planet. It’s a matter of us taking the time in the space to first start with awareness, self-awareness, then move onto self-management, and then optimization. When I draw the little figure about internal stability and external equilibrium, to your point, once you’re working on that internal stability where no letting this stuff turn you sideways. All of a sudden, clearly you have this area, [gestures to head] which I was talking to Margie about, which is the prefrontal cortex, which allows you to build strong relationships, to listen to people, because as soon as you’re listening to somebody and they touch your stuff, man, you’re not listening to them anymore.
You’re now listening to your inner voice, which is now in disconnect. You wonder why some people like “God I don’t know why they’re, I’m telling them what to do but they’re not.” Don’t tell anybody what to do, allow them to disclose what’s on their minds so you can help them start to understand how they can raise their hand and start to grow up.
Lindsay: Let me share, that is a huge relief of burden from being the hero, because I get to set them up to be their own hero and empower them versus always having that feeling, that responsibility. So good.
Dr. A: It’s beautiful. Just so you know, that journey never ends because, it is changing. The world is never going to change as slowly as it is today. It’s continuing to accelerate and with machine-based technology taking over. I know when I go online there’s six things on the side of something I thought of in the past, somebody’s like big brother, watching every move I make. If I don’t stop, challenge, and choose and say “Wait, I’m in control, if I want to buy your thing, great I’m closing those things up and I’m focusing on what I’m doing.” The more you understand that for us to go on that journey, that’s how we’ll create optimal health and well-being for ourselves and be available to help others. So thank you so much, that was great. Rach, who’s next?
Rachel: We have Shauna next. Shauna can you come on camera and unmute yourself?
Shauna: Hello Dr. Anderson, how are you?
Dr. A: Good, how are you?
Shauna: I’m good. I wasn’t expecting to be on with you today and I want to thank Chris Pettit for putting in the chat and asking if I had any questions because if I had an hour with you Dr. Anderson, it’s a bucket list thing just so you know. A quick backstory is this last weekend we had a healthy hangout, a healthy retreat, with a bunch of girlfriends, from sound baths to yoga. We tried to find a middle ground on where to meet and we ended up meeting where I grew up. Probably less than a mile away from the house I grew up in. Last month we talked about our parents doing our best. It was crazy through all of these spiritual connections I was having with myself or my higher consciousness during this weekend, I could feel my alignment come back and be one.
It was profound to me that prior to that weekend and coming off of Grow Global there was this two percent shift or maybe a five percent or something happening. It was interesting that it took going in that deep with myself to find where I was off and really coming back into who I am and being okay with that. So, my question is, what can you share with us when people feel that alignment off? Whether it comes in as anxiety, as depression or it comes in as lethargy. What can you advise us to do to just bring it all back down our chakras?
Dr. A: That’s really good. As a physician I know a lot about physiologic coherence. The body is the most magnificent thing ever created. I remember in medical school, just fascinated, it was so cool. That physiology does so many amazing things, we have heart rate variability, it allows us to breath, it allows our alimentary canal to digest our food, it allows us to adapt to different light in different distances, better than super cameras, it’s incredible. But that physiology is sitting there as part of your emotional coherence and your cognitive coherence.
[00:38:21] If you think about it, your emotions are like all these little notes, the physiology is part of that, then there are all these notes. What we do cognitively, is bring that back into alignment. When that happens it’s like having an orchestra. All of a sudden, you have all the data points of your physiology shift into these tunes, but the tunes aren’t coordinated by something. Then, the sound is off and we’ve heard where an instrument’s off or not tuned right and even though you have an orchestra, if one instrument’s off it takes everything off.
It’s important for us to realize that we’re operating way deep inside our physiology, in our emotions, and like you were talking about, our energy centers, in our heart coherence. And people may, someone on the call today may think “Oh, they’re talking about ‘fufu,’” No, heart coherence! Some of the top institutes of cardiovascular research are looking at our heart coherence. It’s 5,000, well first of all it’s 50 times electrically more powerful than our brain’s electrical input, it’s 5,000 times more powerful than electromagnetic energy in here, [gestures to head] so all these things get out of a line.
What we’re looking for is again, you led right into it, is awareness. It’s awareness at whatever level that is. Again going back to the car where it’s a boyfriend’s car that you went out with in high school and you’d forgotten about and you’re walking with your significant other spouse. You just had a wonderful dinner, you’re walking down the street, and all of a sudden the car goes by. Inside, in your experiences, in your subconscious level, something connected that and took you back to your stuff. And all of a sudden your husband’s walking alongside you and you checked out, you’re totally checked out. If you don’t just say “Oh, I don’t know, I’m okay or everything’s fine,” that’s what we say and inside we’ve now stimulated this cognitive emotive loop, and we’ve taken ourselves fully out of coherence.
We’ve taken a beautiful pleasurable evening together and we’ve let something outside of it. It always starts, Shauna, it always starts with awareness. Here’s the key part, I’m using an extreme example to show how important it is. We know, we have intuition and we have instinct. This is about intuition, your cognitive areas have intuition and they inform your body whether it’s introspection, which is how your body sends signals up to your brain, or it’s introspection that you have where something’s off.
They looked at people on murderer’s row. These guys and girls that did horrific things, killed somebody, raped somebody, something horrific and when they evaluated them, there was a moment of clarity just before they had this horrendous, horrific act where they could have changed. And in that sense, they all said that. It wasn’t like a murder of passion. Yes, that’s what overwhelmed, which created these horrific events for the behavior to actually do that, but before that, there was a moment where there was awareness, but not how to manage it.
The whole thing at every level is when you start to feel something off, and that’s the time to get it, right when it goes off. Before it triggers all the stuff we talked about in the drama triangle, waking the limbic system, activating the endocrine system, the hormonal release of cortisol, epinephrine and norepineph. Before all that happens and takes you down the rabbit hole, which then becomes significant and it takes a while to get out. There is a moment, and it’s becoming aware, it’s like the conductor pointing over to that violinist and saying “Check your instrument, it’s off just a little bit.”
This area in your brain, [gestures to head] before you lose it and it’s taken over by the middle area in your brain, the limbic area, check yourself, quiet yourself. Don’t do anything reactive. That’s why stop, challenge, choose is always a great starting point, because you can instantaneously, as soon as you start feeling: stop. Stop thinking about it, stop processing it. Start engaging your feelings, take a calm moment, regather yourself, regroup, and say: challenge, “Why am I feeling this way?” In the case today, I’m using my own example— and by the way, I’m just a little farther ahead on the journey. I’ve been studying. I’m a human being just like you are, just like all your girlfriends were. I’d be curious to hear how it felt. Had you been near your old house, do you go there often?
Shauna: No, no.
Dr. A: Oh! So you were, okay, that’s great— I want to make sure we do this so I don’t forget this. When you looked at your old house, and saw it, what came up inside of you?
Shauna: It’s interesting because away from there, it’s not always the best memories but being there it was like this rush of happiness and remembering picking honeysuckles. I got to talk to the new owner of the home and I got to see the tree I planted when I was seven. It was just pure joy, it was amazing and I want to go back there all the time now.
Dr. A: Okay, so you’re on your journey. I always like to leave breadcrumbs or we talk about “The gaining the gap”. The gain you’ve had is you can go back there and have these overwhelming emotions. Some of them negative, some of them positive but you’re just like that tree, when you planted it as a little tree, that tree’s now grown into this magnificent, alive thing in nature that you watch grow. That parallel, that same thing has happened to you because you’ve raised your hand and said “I’m open, curious and I want to grow. I want to become more” and hopefully you’re going— are you going to cry?
Shauna: I am crying.
Dr. A: [claps] No, that’s it!! I’m crying for you. That is the connection of humans together. It’s not, this happens with guys all the time. I remember in high school playing football. The guys in the locker, you never cried. You were considered a weakling if you did. All that is a bunch of made up social stuff. When we fully start to explore ourselves each and every one of us has an incredible beauty and we’re more alike than different. When we stop letting our stuff take over, we start letting it go. That’s the key way to get back into that. Hopefully that makes sense.
[00:45:09] Is that coherence that occurs when you sense something, there’s a note off, or there’s a line in the song off. I’m glad you’re crying because that is the beauty of what it is to be a human being. It’s the beauty of feeling, of fully feeling your emotions and then recognize that emotion, then letting it go.
So, the difference between, if you see— okay, I do a lot of offshore sailing and if you’re not especially familiar with it, I know the difference between a nurse shark and a tiger shark and I watch people in that environment. In some of the areas I sail, because they get fed scraps, the nurse sharks come along and the nurse shark, yeah, they can hurt you, if you put your hand underneath. But you can pet them and they’re not going to do anything because you know what they are, and you look at them. Someone that’s scared to death because they saw Jaws 30 years ago and have imprinted in their brain a permanent loop of stuff, when they see it they’re not listening to me tell them it’s a nurse shark. They’re not getting in the water because they’re relying on their old story, their old programming, and they’re not willing to be open, curious and want to grow.
Shauna: Yep, I love this. Thank you so much Dr. Anderson.
Dr. A: You’re so welcome. Good, awesome. We have room, we have about 12 minutes left. We have room for maybe one or two more.
Rachel: All right we have Brooke next. Brooke, can you come on camera?
Dr. A: Hey Brooke.
Brooke: Hello! Oh my goodness, thank you so much Dr. A, these conscious leadership forums have been so amazing. I tell everybody who will listen to me about them because they’re just so powerful. I was blessed to be able to be at Grow Global a week ago. I had several coaches there as well and the thing that you said even today on this, you said there, was wake up. That has hit me stronger since Grow Global than ever. My question is, I’m so passionate and so excited about the mission and I really want to help people wake up, and that’s really my question. At Grow Global I saw my coaches wake up and their passion, their excitement, their energy is nothing like I’ve ever seen for them before and it’s awesome to see that. I want that for so many other people, to have that “wake up” experience. I know so many people that if only they would wake up, wow, their life could totally be changed. Do you have any tips? Or what can you share for us to be able to help wake people up?
Dr. A: Yeah, that’s a great question. Here’s the first part, I talk a lot about transactional and transformational leadership and obviously in our model there’s the opportunity for both, and both are important, but what you just saw, Brooke, is that the reason, it’s like when I talk about “aim to stay,” about intrinsic motivation, then the strategies of the tactics, the actions, and working together. Until someone’s intrinsically motivated. When there’s so much inside of them and whether they’re judging themselves, whether deflating themselves, or exaggerating themselves, either way, they’re not fully awake. They’re operating from a principle in a pattern, where stuff has to be a certain way or it’s not acceptable.
In this journey of 20 years, all of it’s important, I want to make sure that all of it is important. The four components, obviously the habits of transformational system, the six macro habits. The part that really accelerates the process and when Shauna was talking about how she felt five, six percent, once you start to realize where you are now, when you see what’s happening to them, it’s not a three percent change it’s a thousand percent change. Because once we have our mind and our thoughts working towards us, like I said, we can create spaceships, we can create amazing stuff, we can create a great healthy life, we can create great well-being, we can be great parents. All that stuff comes from not allowing the stuff to take over, and the voice in the head to keep you in this very restricted state where things have to be a certain way.
It starts with listening to people. For most people, people have these conversations but they’re waiting for the other person to stop talking and sometimes they’re not even waiting, they’re interrupting them, they’re starting to talk or the conversation started and they’re immediately saying “Oh yeah, I know what they’re saying, I’m going to fix them, I’m going to help them.” The waking up part is to recognize and realize the more we can be fully present, what I mean is, if we can understand that almost all the time we take our thoughts and feelings, our ego and they’re filters, where we take the world and we process through those perceptions, through those filters and as soon as we do that we really start to lower our ability to connect, build rapport, and have the person create trust.
The speed of trust is critical in any relationship, and when people start to understand and start self leading themselves, working on it yourself, waking up and now helping your clients, your coaches, and your business coaching, your business leaders all start to wake up, then everything changes. You have to have the balance of both, but what’s great about it, the best way is by representing yourself as you work on yourself, people will see that you’re interacting with them differently. You’re listening to them more, they’re resonating with you. We have mirror neurons in our brain that sense when someone, that’s why when I talk about the speed of trust, the two sides that COVEY? talks about. The one side is character and part of character is obviously integrity, you have to be intellectually, you have to be honest.
[00:51:06] The second part is intention. If our intention is to help others, if we care about them, we’re not trying to get them to become clients or coaches, but we’re actually trying to help guide them to the things that are most important to them. That signals out and the more they understand that, the more that they see that you’re actually listening and understand them. They’re responding to what they want, not having an agenda, but actually fully expressing. We’re not for everybody, we’re for those that raise their hand and want to get healthier.
They’re going to see you project that and that opens up curiosity and then, as you know, in the beginning of the app, in Habits of Health, it’s about stop, challenge, and choose. It’s giving them first an understanding. Most people, 95% of people, don’t know they have a choice. They think that their thoughts and feelings are them and they’re stuck in that story for their whole life. They never get out of it, they can be turned sideways just like we’re talking about the car going down the street, they’re stuck in the paradigm where the negative bias takes over, the ego tries to support and creates a world and that world creates continual misery and trouble for people. That’s where it starts. Your actions will change everything in your life. Cool?
Brooke: Yeah. So really, what I’m hearing is more conversations, just being more, listening without the agenda. Which you know just having more of those conversations with people.
Dr. A: Yeah, nobody listens to anybody. Brooke. People are so ready to talk and tell what they want to say. That’s their ego driving them, by the way, that’s the self-interest self. “I am the center of the universe and everything I say is more important, better” or “I’m miserable, you don’t know me, you don’t know who I am. I’m different.” All of it is a bunch of ca-ca<<<<CHECK, it’s all garbage, and stuff in our head, and it’s unpacking that stuff, unpacking and recognizing. That’s what I’m saying, that’s why I show the thoughts and feelings in here or emotions in here, getting that you understand the first spot is becoming the witness. The conscious witness, the observer of the stuff that’s going on, including your thoughts and feelings.
Then going down the path and start having kindness and understanding. There will always be good and bad in everything and understand “I’m taking control.” When Margie was talking about “I just feel like a robot,” no, that’s what you would think. Your thoughts and feelings are keeping you in a box, keeping you rigid the world has to be a certain way. It’s creating robotic behavior. Your ego is saying “No, things have to be this way” and when they are that way, it’s like, you heard Dan talk about a clock, broken clocks, two times a day. But the other 98% of the time, it’s miserable and it’s incorrect.
That’s where the voice at our head is, that’s where our stories are, and to start to become aware is where that starts. Just being aware. Be curious. I can tell you now because I’ve done quite a bit of work for myself, I just laugh at myself when I start to go down one of those paths. I just crack up and say “No, you’re not. I’m not doing that. I don’t do that anymore, I’m going to enjoy my day. It’s a gorgeous day I’m driving in the state of Washington and it’s beautiful. Yes, I’m dealing with a relative that’s sick in the family and I understand that. I will address that.” It’s not ignoring it, repressing it, denying it, or addressing it, but addressing it in a way that the rest of the time I am fully aware and charging up the energy coming into me about how incredible, appreciative and the gratitude I have for life, that I’m even alive. To be alive in this case. Hopefully that’s helpful.
Brooke: Very helpful. Thank you so much Dr. A.
Dr. A: Really awesome. We have four minutes. Rachel, we have one more short question I hope.
Rachel: Sure. Yes, Janine will have you go next.
Janine: Hi Dr. A. Thanks for taking my question. I have adult sons, they’re 19 and 23. I live alone, I’m divorced. One of my sons lives on his own the other one is in college and I drip a little bit of technology on them, you know, stop, challenge, choose. We talk a little bit about what you’ve exampled, the breathing, drinking water before you respond, but what is another good way to talk about this “thought technology” this “transformational technology” with a 19 and a 23 year old. I know you have girls similar ages without sounding preachy, because sometimes, if I get a little preachy, the hand goes up at that age. They already know everything, you know? How do you bring this to your kids?
Dr. A: Yeah, that’s cool. Well, I have an advantage because I’ve been doing it for a long time and they really know how much I care about it. I’m going to go back to motivation. Teenagers in the early 20s are motivated, the world is all about themselves. It’s got to be in around that and the three things you can do as a mom is intrinsic motivation, find reasons and things they’re doing, why they might like to learn it. Second is, have fun with them, do it in a fun way, and the third is love them. “He is the mom that comes naturally,” that’s the expression.
[00:56:22] Stay in there and don’t do it from an up one, down one. This is the hardest thing because when they were little and you had to change their diapers, you had full control, and there’s been this evolution. The teenage brain as it goes into early adulthood is evolving, it’s self-actualizing, it’s moving behind the social and parental guidelines, then moving on to discover themselves. Don’t take it personally when they’re not listening, it’s because they’ve listened to you most of their life and that’s been the environment, they’re now trying to find their way and that’s why in the early 20’s, late teens your parents have never so stupid.
Then they come back, they’ll come back to you. I think a really good one to use, which is simple, is what I was talking about earlier, the upset technology. What happened? What was missing? What’s next? Because they’ll see that, they’ll see because, if they, and take a couple situations where they’re upset. Ask those questions and you’ll watch them calm down, because now what we’re doing is going back up to this area. [gestures to head] That is nothing more than an actual example that you can ask those questions without getting into preaching them. Then, when they start to calm down and everything, you can reflect. Not then, because you say: “Oh, I see, I told you so,” then they’re going to go back, but wait and then you know at dinner that night or when it’s still in recent memory. Then say “Was that helpful for you?” And they’ll say “Yeah.”
And say “Yeah, that’s kind of what I’m talking about, there’s some things that I’m learning that I only want to share with you because I love you more than anything I and I know you’re finding your way, I know you don’t want me to tell you what to do. I don’t want to tell you what to do.” You’re treating him more as a fully grown human and that’s a hard role for parents. The helicopter parent taking over and doing that it’s kind of tough for them. Does that make sense?
Janine: Oh my gosh. So awesome. Thank you so much, I appreciate it.
Dr. A: Welcome. Awesome, well we are right on one o’clock, we like to keep this right an hour, I know you have busy schedules. Please, put in the chat other things you’d like to see, things we can do, things we can add. Make sure you’re sharing this. Rachel, can we put in the chat recording? Where we can give this out. I would give this recording out to people because I think people are really struggling with this. What’s nice about this, this is not just free but it’s designed not as a commercial application but just one human talking to another human, you guys interacting and giving people a forum where we can explore these ideas of improving, increasing our consciousness and helping us become the dominant force in our life. So, God bless and thank you guys so much.
