Dr. Gay Hendricks | Turning Fear Into Fuel for Personal Growth

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Welcome to the Radical Responsibility Podcast. I'm doctor Fleet Mal
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and I'm excited to guide you on a journey of
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authentic transformation. In each episode, I'll bring you insights from
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leading experts to explore trauma recovery, mindfulness practices, positive psychology,
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and innovative breakthroughs in health, wellness and life optimization. This
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is a space for real conversations that inspire meaningful change,
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helping you find alignment with the person you are always
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meant to be. Let's get started. What if the greatest
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ceiling on your success isn't out there in the world,
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but inside yourself? In this episode, I sit down with
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day Hendrix, a true pioneer in the field of conscious
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living and author of The Big Leap. This is a
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conversation about expanding beyond fear, embracing your zone of genius,
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and learning to live from a place of joy and purpose.
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Let's get started. My name is doctor Flee Mall your
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co host for the session, and I'm really happy to
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be here today with doctor gay Headricks. Welcome gay NICs
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A lot.
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Fleet. Really good to be with.
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You, and I remember from our last interview you actually
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wrote one of the early books on breath work. Yes,
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breath and breath work have been a really important part
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of my discoveries about how powerful natural body wisdom is
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and how much an effect how many rapid changes you
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can create using the technology of your.
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Body, and breath work is getting a lot more intention
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has for the last five years. Ten Deco. Jim Lesler's
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book brought to a lot of people's attention. But you
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had one of the really early books there, and I'm
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sure we can explore that today in that like maybe
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just talking a little bit about, you know, how your
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career path developed, kind of what the origins of that are,
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whether it was elements of her and anxiety that you
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overcame in your own life to step into your career
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in the way you have and then developing the work
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with your wife Katie, the way you've reached so many
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really probably millions of people at this point, sooner if
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you could just you know, give us a little bit
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of the sense of the origin all of that.
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Yes, Well, I say my career really started with a bang,
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because throughout my childhood I was taken around to a
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lot of different medical specialists because I was obese, and
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everybody else in my family was skinny, and so they
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couldn't figure out what the problem was, and so I
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was given shots. I remember when I was in elementary school,
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and then again when I was thirteen or fourteen, given
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so many shots for about this problem, and also taking
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pills for it. When I was in ninth grade, I
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remember they prescribed some fantastic new diet pill that was
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actually amphetamine, you know. And I remember my ninth grade year,
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I made straight age because I couldn't sleep, you know.
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I basically was cranked all the time. But I never
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really solved the problem until one magic day, which solved
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my problem but also showed me what human transformation was
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all about. And up until that time, I had thought
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much about it because I wasn't a pyche major or
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I was a you know, in college or anything. I
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think I took one syche course that was largely about
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rat training, which didn't really appeal to me very much.
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But I was an English major and I always loved
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to write, and so I just hadn't had anything I
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really wanted to write about until this amazing day in
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nineteen sixty nine. At that time, by the way, I
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should tell you that I'm about six feet tall and
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at present, I weigh about one hundred and eighty five pounds,
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and you know, if you saw me walking down the street,
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you'd say, there goes an athletic looking old guy. You know,
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pretty healthy lifestyle and all that. And so when I
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had this experience, though, I weighed more than three hundred
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pounds and I wore big, thick glasses, and I was
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in this really toxic relationship with a woman that I'd
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been in for a couple of years, but I couldn't
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figure out how to get out of it because we
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shared this apartment and the other one of us could
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afford to move out, basically, So I hope you've never
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been that before, but maybe you were somewhere back there,
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but I know some members of your audience have been.
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I think I had about thirty nine dollars in the
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bank at the time. But what happened on this day
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I went out for a walk to clear my head
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after I'd had a big argument. And this was a
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New Hampshire where I was working at a little school
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for delinquent boys as a kind of a teacher, dorm
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counselor kind of person. And so I went out for
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a walk and also I smoked heavily at that time
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cigarettes and I went out for a walk and I
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was walking down this lonely New England country road and
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it had snowed recently, and I stepped on a place
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where snow was covering up a patch of ice, and
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my feet shot out from under me and I went
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lamb down on my back and I hit my head,
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but I didn't knock myself out. I always say it
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was an out of Hendrick's experience because it knocked me
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for about two minutes out of my normal way of
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seeing the world. And what happened during that couple of
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minutes really changed my life and really opened up my
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career for me, because what happened was was like it
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turned on the lights inside me in places I'd never
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seen before. And when the lights came un inside me,
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I realized how angry I was, and how the muscles,
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especially in my neck and shoulders, were tense with old anger.
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And I realized also that I smoked to try to
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get away from this intense grief I felt in my chest,
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and when I smoked, that went away, and then I
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went down even further in my body, and I realized
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I was anxious all the time. I was afraid all
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the time, and I'd never really even recognized the symptoms.
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Of it at the time.
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Now, you know, if somebody says, hey, I've got butterflies
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in my stomach, we could say, oh, are you scared
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about something? But I wasn't even aware of that feeling
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down there. And it's amazing to me now, being sensitized
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fifty years later to my body that I hadn't ever
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felt any of those feelings like anger or.
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Sorrow or fear.
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But in that moment, I saw that I was consumed
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by those feelings that I had never expressed or let
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myself feel. But the real magic happened is I realized
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that behind and beyond all of those feelings was this
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special place that I started calling pure consciousness. That was
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like being aware, but without any thoughts or pictures or memories.
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It was just like pure awareness. And I could realize
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in that moment that we're all that way, that there
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was nothing special about me.
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We're all wired for.
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Pure consciousness, but it gets obscured by the fact that
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we'd get lost inside anger we have dealt with, or
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fear we haven't dealt with, or sadness we haven't dealt
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with But on this magic day, I was twenty.
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Four years old.
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I had this experience, and two minutes later I started
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coming out of it. I realized, Oh gosh, I'm lying
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on the ground, I'm freezing. Oh my gosh, I want
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a cigarette. Oh my gosh, I got to walk back
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a mile in the cold to the house.
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You know.
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So I started my personality started coming back. But I
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had this really amazing insight at the moment, which I
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think it really changed my life and maybe even saved
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my life.
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I had the.
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Thought of I'm going to do whatever it takes in
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my life to feel that pure consciousness in every moment,
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and whatever it takes, I'm going to do it. And
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so as I came back, everything had Everything was the
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same in my life, except that commitment had shifted. And
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so you'll probably get a kick out of the radical
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way I went about losing my weight.
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I don't know if i'd highly recommend this as the.
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Diet for all time, but I started eating only foods
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that I hadn't eaten before. My theory was, okay, everything
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else had made me fat. What if I just started
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eating foods that I had never eaten before. And so
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that became my criterion, and for the first three days
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of my diet, all I could find there was this
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huge pack of blueberries in the freezer and I basically
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lived on blueberries for a few days. Occasionally I'd take
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a little hit of protein, and I lost like ten
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pounds in three days. And this led me to my
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first what I now call my upper limit problem. But
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I started losing the weight and by the end of
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the first month, I'd lost thirty five pounds. I'm going
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to stop here to wet my whistle and take a
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drink and take a breath. But that's the moment that
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everything got under weigh for me.
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What is transformation isn't just about thinking differently, but feeling differently.
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Science shows us that true change happens when we align
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not just our minds, but also of the neural networks
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in our hearts and guts. This heart mind connection is
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the key to deeper healing, resilience, and expanded awareness. That's
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why I created the Heart Mind all access, membership and community,
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a space designed to help you rewire your nervous system,
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cultivate heart intelligence, and live with greater clarity and purpose.
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With over one thousand hours of transformational teachings specifically curated
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to meet your needs. You'll learn from world renowned meditation teachers, neuroscientists,
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and experts in neuroplasticity, all sharing powerful tools to help
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you shift your mindset and heartset, regulate your emotions, and
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unlock your full potential. You'll also gain unlimited access to
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Wisdom worth over ten thousand dollars in growing, plus live
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If you're ready to step into a more heart centered,
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connected and conscious life, I invite you to join us.
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Clip the link to learn more and start your journey today. Yeah,
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I wonder if you had I don't know if you
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went to a doctor for that, if you were tested
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for a concussion, anything, But I'm wandering neurobiology. It almost
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sounds like to hit on your head, knocked your to
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Bulbole network offline for a minute, so you could have
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one of these more expanded state of consciousness experiences.
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I didn't experience any kind of blankness or darkness or anything,
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but I yeah, I didn't have a concussion. I checked
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on that later. But in fact, I went to the
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doctor to find out.
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At first, I.
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Thought feeling all these things was a problem because I
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didn't know how to deal with the like with fear.
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It took me a.
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Long time to figure out how to deal with fear because,
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as you probably figured out by now, fear isn't quite
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like the emotions of anger or sadness, because you have
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mechanisms like crying that are automatically wired in when you're
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feeling sad, and you can even see a cat or
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a dog, you know if if they have a loss
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kind of snuffling, and the same thing with anger, you know,
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you can go to an anger workshop or just turn
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around on your bed and pound on some pillows or
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say I'm angry and express it in some way, But
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what do you do with fear? And so I had
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to learn that, And that's what led me into breathing
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as a matter of fact, because I learned that breathing
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was not only a search light that you could use
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to explore your feelings with, but it was a treatment
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at least for fear anyway, because I mean, if you
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look into the medical research, you'll see that all it
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takes is three or four big, easy, deep breaths to
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begin to change the stress chemistry in your body. You know,
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it doesn't take fifty breaths or an hour of breathing,
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but three easy, big breaths will begin to lessen the
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charge of adrenaline and other stress chemicals in your body.
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I think breathing has immense capacities for healing, not just
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helping us feel better, but actually deal with problems that
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they haven't been able to be dealt with in another way.
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Let me give you an example. There was a study
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at Johns Hopkins where they had graduate students sit in
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the waiting room of a bunch of different medical doctors
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and these offices and when I was a cancer doctor,
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when I was a lung doctor, when I was a surgeon,
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when I was a dermatologist. So they covered the whole
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range of medical specialties. But here's what they found. What
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the graduate students were actually watching for is the person's
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breathing patterns. And they found out that almost ninety percent
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of people that were waiting to see a doctor about
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something were in an anxious breathing pattern. They were in
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an escalated breathing pattern. By the way, I think the
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research criterion is about fourteen or fifteen breaths permitted. If
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you have more than that around there, I think more
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than fifteen, let's say, breaths a minute, that's in the
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anxiety zone. And so these students were looking at whether
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the person had a breathing disturbance in addition to whatever
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else they were seeking treatment for. And that's when they
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found that nine out of ten of them did regardless
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of the problem that they were seeking treatment for.
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So, you know, I feel anxiety on some level. You know,
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there's kind of a biological baseline of this. I mean,
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you know, we're wired to survive, and we have all
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the mechanisms of fight or flight built into the limit
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brain and so forth to keep us alive, and was
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much more necessary to time when our lives were continually
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under threat. And then even at the cellular level, we
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know from celluar biology that even at the cellular level,
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there's kind of an imperative to stay alive, to eat,
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and to procreate, to pass on the genetic material. Right,
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So we have this kind of and fear can be intelligent.
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Fear can keep us alive. So there's some baseline of
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fear that's there. And to your earlier point, you know,
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I let a deep transformative workshop for many years. It's
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very intense and taking people deep into family of wards
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and stuff quickly, a lot of shadow work and integration work,
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and inevitably it was almost always rage work or grief work,
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and then that allowed us to get into the real
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healing work. But on the surface they had to go
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through either rage expression or grief expression to be able
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to drop it at a deeper level. But I'm wondering
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if this kind of you know, we can talk about anxiety.
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Some people experience anxiety mentally, emotionally, physically. It can be
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very much a physical experience of anxiety, and then there
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can be just kind of baseline existential anxiety. So I'm
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wandering if we think about fear and anxiety almost as
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to the level in which it's hardwired into our biology,
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can it be used as fuel for personal growth? Can
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it be used as fuel for evolution? I would imagine
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that breath practice can and help that, So I wonder
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if you could sure like to go with that.
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I really appreciate you bringing in the evolutionary aspect of that,
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because you know, beer has been around for a lot,
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a lot longer than we have. I mean we've been
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around in our current form. The brain hasn't changed that
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much in the past fifty thousand years, and the overall
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system hasn't changed that much in the past half a
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million years. But we as humans upright walkers, we're pretty
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new to the scene here evolutionarily speaking, and it remains
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to be seen how long we're going to be here
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if we can get our politics worked out. But so far,
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so good, because we've developed a really amazingly intricate and
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exemplary nervous system because what it allows us to do
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is bill skyscrapers and go listen to a symphony and
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appreciate a Mozart that wrote those things and died when
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he was thirty seven. So it has these exalted aspects,
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but it also has some very baseline aspects too, and
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fear is one of them. Fear is a real early
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arrival because it keeps us safe. A lot of people
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don't realize that fear actually has four different expressions, not
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just fight or flight, but the two other that we
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see in clients is fight, flee, faint, and freeze. And
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if you see animals throughout the Kingdom of Animelia, you'll
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see that A great many of them don't fight or flee.
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They roll up in a ball and pretend to be
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dead or asleep, and that's their adaptation, so they go
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for the faint mechanism. Some animals go for the freeze mechanism,
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Like if you see a scared rabbit, they will do
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their best to keep their eyes steady, so the twitch
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of their eyes, because the twitch of their eyes is
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what gives away their location. In fact, a friend of
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mine who is a hawk trainer, tells me that a
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good hawk can spot the twitching of a mouse's eye
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from a quarter of a mile in the sky. So
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the ability to read body language is very present in
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our world, and we happen to be not very good
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at it yet. And one of the things that I teach,
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and I imagine you teach a lot of, is how
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to take your organic ability to be aware, train it
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on the insides, kind of without flinching. And when you
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train it on fear, here's the big point I want
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to make. Since fear is here to stay, don't try
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to get rid of it. It's been around for longer
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than you have. Instead, make friends with it. Allow it
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to be the fuel, the juice that runs your creativity
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because it's freely available for that, you know, as long
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as it gets acknowledged and you're willing to let those
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feelings through. I think the big mistake that people make
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is they see you off the sensations of their feelings
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such that they can't really tell what they're feeling when
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they're feeling it. Oddly enough, we happen as human beings
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to be pretty darn good at letting people report certain sensations,
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like by the time you toddle off to kindergarten, you've
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usually mastered the ability to tell when you need to
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go to the bathroom or not. But the other feelings
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like fear and anger and sadness, we don't get much
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training on how to perceive those at an early age.
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No, we don't. And you know, absence some discomfort like
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needing to use the bathroom or feeling thirsty or hungry,
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we tend to ignore the internal landscape of the body
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and live up in our heads pretty much. So if
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we engage in some kind of training that is giving
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us greater access to introception or introceptive awareness of stematic
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awareness of the body, which will also give us greater
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emotional awareness and even when people really drop into deep
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states of being and through meditative means, they often report
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feeling there's this underlying God, almost like a hum there
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low level fear things that they realize that they've been
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interpreting that as anxiety, but it's really a fundamental kind
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of aliveness. It's kind of the biological spiritual aliveness in
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the body.
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I really appreciate you mentioning that fleet because you know,
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there's an old saying. My granddad used to say. He
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was a carpenter, and he said, and he was speaking
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of politics. He was saying, if all you have is
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a hammer, everything looks.
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Like a nail. You know.
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So if you only have one interpretation of a body signal,
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that's a problem because you could be interpreting it completely
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in a way that makes you sick. And so, you know,
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one of the big things that we teach is three
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fundamental feelings that get people in the most trouble, especially
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in relationships. Katie and I write relationship books like Conscious
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Loving in addition to our books for personal transformation such
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as The Big Leap and Entrepreneurship. But in those relationship books,
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one of the things that we've discovered is that if
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people just learned to communicate about anger, sadness, and fear,
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their chances of making the relationship work go up hugely.
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And if they don't learn those simple things, you know,
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tragedy is often ahead. And so wouldn't it be great?
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Here's my pitch for changing the educational system. Wouldn't it
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be great if we had first graders being able to
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learn how to say I'm angry with you, or I'm sad,
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or I feel scared right now, I don't know what
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to do. I had to learn those things the hard
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way as a grown up, and relationship arguments and things
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like that. And we've had about I think we're coming
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up on having worked with about five thousand couples over
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the past. Katie and I have been together forty five years.
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So we do relationship sentinars and big presentations as well
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as work in our office. And one of the things
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we've discovered and all of those people is how easy
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it is to change a relationship if you learn a
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few basic things. And that's one of them, how to
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communicate those three basic feelings without making the other person wrong.
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You don't have to say I'm mad because you're of
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no good, such and such you can say I feel
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angry right now with leaving the blame out of it,
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and it works. Real magic and relationships. Same thing with
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being able to talk about sorrow or grief or fear.
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Those are really important things to talk about. And we've
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seen real breakthroughs in our counseling office with couples where
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a person just gets able to say, oh, my palms
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are sweating right now. That was the only sensation he
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could report. And I said, okay, well that's a great
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What do you think that's about? And he said, I
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wonder if I'm scared about something. And I said, well,
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check and see. And he said, well, how would I
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do that? And I said, well, look for these sensations
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in your around your belly. Look and see if you
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feel some butterfly sensations, because you know when blood leaves
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the stomach and heads toward the muscles when you're scared,
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of course, it leaves behind a little unsettled feeling. Many
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people call that butterflies. But if you notice carefully, you
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have other sensations of fear, such as a tight belt
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around your belly where you're not breathing.
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That's a third thing.
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Your belly is tight and your breathing is going faster
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and shallower than would actually nourish your body. And so
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those are three easy things that even in an educational workshop,
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forget about therapy for a moment. In a relationship workshop
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in educational terms, you know, we've had five hundred couples
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in a big auditorium talking to each other and saying
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things like I feel scared right now, I feel butterflies
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floating around in my stomach, or I feel a tight
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belling and learning how to communicate those simple things incredibly
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restorative to relationships.
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Yeah, it's amazing how powerful the simple distinctions can be.
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That same training I referenced before, where we did a
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lot of rage and grief work. We used to you know,
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I mean, there's it can be great to develop greater
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emotional literacy, like in the work of nonmal communication. You know,
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there's hundreds of feelings words, and it's great to get
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that literate. But in that training we would bring it
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down to know, we're going to even talk about we're mad, sad, gladder, scared.
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Those are the poor emotions we're going to talk about,
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just to simplify it. And yeah, we used to being
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able to acknowledge Wow, I'm mad or I'm scared or
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I'm sad. Right, And you know, because we're just we
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haven't been educated or raised in a way in back generally,
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we're kind of most of us have been strongly andculturated
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to be disembodied and to deny our feelings.
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Our whole culture is about not feeling right. Well, a
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lot of my students are doing good stuff without that. Like,
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we have a couple of people that are educators who
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design something that we offered her a website called the
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Conscious Kid's Curriculum, and it's all full of the things
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that I wish i'd been taught when I was in
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elementary school. And so this can be implemented in any place.
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It doesn't have to be an official, you sanctioned elementary
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school or something, but anywhere kids gather in a cub
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Scout troop. We have lots of cub Scout troops that
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use the Conscious Kid's Curriculum as the basis of the
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things that they do with their cub Scouts.
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Yeah, I was young. I wasn't getting any social emotional
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learning or emotional intelligence draining, quite the opposite. But I
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do remember I was a competitive swimmer and right before
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it was time to do a race, to get up
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in the blox and race, I would get this terrible
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butterflies and the stomach thing right, and I talked to
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my coach about I mean, it was almost debilitating, and
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he said, just use that as fuel, Just use it
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as fuel.
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In fact, I eardly do that, and it.
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Was really advantageous once I was able to do that.
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Yeah, see that, because what I think we need to
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do is befriend all of our feelings because they all
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are different types of energy that are directed through different
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places in our body. But it's all that life juice,
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that energy that makes us feel alive. And gosh, I've
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learned so much about positive emotion too, once I learned
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how to deal with some of those painful ones, like
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for example, I don't ever remember feeling the genuine feeling
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of compassion in my chest until after I dealt with
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a lot of things in my grief background about you know,
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it was after that that compassion sort of started happening spontaneously.
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You know, I didn't go to a compassion workshop or anything.
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That just started appearing. And I think what happens is
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as you begin to deal with things like anger, and
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sadness and fear, it becomes more open to other things
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in that area, like, for example, with fear, I think
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that's the easiest entry point to what I'm calling fewer
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consciousness because fear most people experiencing down in the center
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of their bellyt maybe or up in their shoular plexus,
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or maybe up a little bit in their throat. But
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wherever you feel it, it's important to make friends with
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it and say, here, I am, let's just explore this
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rather than trying to make it go away. Because the
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sad fact about fear is the more you make it
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try to go away, the worse it comes.
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Back on you.
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You know. It's just like, I bet it's been a
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while since you've read swamp thing comic books. But if
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you look into swamp thing and the predecessor to that
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called man thing comics, I was a comic book freak
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when I was a little kid. Anyway, when I was
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twelve years old, we used to trade comic books.
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That was kind of like.
482
00:26:52.480 --> 00:26:57.160
Our currency with each other. But swamp thing lives on fear.
483
00:26:57.839 --> 00:27:01.559
And if I'm standing there on the shore and I'm scared,
484
00:27:02.240 --> 00:27:05.839
swamp thing will come up out of the bog and
485
00:27:06.000 --> 00:27:09.599
begin to move toward me. But if I open up
486
00:27:09.599 --> 00:27:11.440
and ask my fear, hey, what he got here to
487
00:27:11.519 --> 00:27:14.920
teach me? Or what can I learn from this? Swamp
488
00:27:14.920 --> 00:27:19.720
thing goes ooh, goes back into the bog again. So
489
00:27:19.799 --> 00:27:22.599
we want to use the energy of swamp thing, but
490
00:27:22.720 --> 00:27:24.880
not have it up in our faces all the time.
491
00:27:25.119 --> 00:27:27.319
And the only way I really think to do that,
492
00:27:27.839 --> 00:27:30.079
correct me if I'm wrong, But the ways I know
493
00:27:30.200 --> 00:27:34.119
to do that that really work are all somatic in nature,
494
00:27:34.200 --> 00:27:38.039
having to do with breathing, breathing or movement for example.
495
00:27:38.279 --> 00:27:41.839
I don't think we can think ourselves out of being
496
00:27:42.160 --> 00:27:45.799
scared permanently, and so I don't have a lot of
497
00:27:45.839 --> 00:27:48.839
faith in the purely cognitive approaches unless they have some
498
00:27:49.000 --> 00:27:50.720
kind of somatic.
499
00:27:50.200 --> 00:27:50.960
Element to them.
500
00:27:51.480 --> 00:27:54.720
Yeah, I completely agree with you, and I'm deeply involved
501
00:27:54.720 --> 00:27:56.480
in this kind of somatic work, and I teach a
502
00:27:56.480 --> 00:27:59.599
deeply embodied approach to meditation, and I think it's all
503
00:27:59.599 --> 00:28:02.839
about that, that body work. And since many of us
504
00:28:02.880 --> 00:28:05.400
are most of us unless we're really young and you know,
505
00:28:05.480 --> 00:28:09.240
getting to explore enjoy some alternative education, maybe we have
506
00:28:09.319 --> 00:28:12.480
the kind of education you and your colleagues are developing
507
00:28:12.480 --> 00:28:14.839
for children, but most of us we're not taught how
508
00:28:14.880 --> 00:28:16.599
to be in the body, and so the body can
509
00:28:16.640 --> 00:28:20.200
be a painful place and a fearful place. And instead
510
00:28:20.319 --> 00:28:24.000
we build this artificial home called the ego, the psychological
511
00:28:24.039 --> 00:28:25.960
separate self, to kind of live up there and live
512
00:28:26.000 --> 00:28:28.160
our lives from there. And I know in your work
513
00:28:28.240 --> 00:28:31.400
you sometimes talk about these the need to move beyond
514
00:28:31.440 --> 00:28:33.839
these these kind of ego based fears, these fears that
515
00:28:33.880 --> 00:28:37.880
are kind of purely almost self created, psychological fears that
516
00:28:37.920 --> 00:28:41.559
are part and parcel of not being an embodied human being,
517
00:28:41.920 --> 00:28:45.640
but instead living in this psychological construct we call the ego.
518
00:28:45.680 --> 00:28:47.640
I wonder if you could talk about that a little
519
00:28:47.640 --> 00:28:49.480
bit as a reality that we all deal with, and
520
00:28:49.480 --> 00:28:51.079
then how we can begin to move beyond that.
521
00:28:51.640 --> 00:28:54.319
Well, if you look at how the personality and then
522
00:28:54.400 --> 00:28:57.160
the ego developed out of that, I say we have
523
00:28:57.440 --> 00:29:02.200
personality one and personality two. Personality one is all the
524
00:29:02.240 --> 00:29:04.559
things you learn and you know, go back to when
525
00:29:04.599 --> 00:29:07.160
you were six months old. What were you doing when
526
00:29:07.200 --> 00:29:09.880
you were six months old? You're kind of hanging out
527
00:29:09.920 --> 00:29:15.039
and doing little things, and one day something big happens.
528
00:29:15.559 --> 00:29:20.079
One day you're being appreciated just for pure being you're
529
00:29:20.119 --> 00:29:26.599
being appreciated for just being there. And then a second
530
00:29:26.640 --> 00:29:31.519
personality develops. One day you realize, oh, there are certain
531
00:29:31.559 --> 00:29:34.319
things I do that they really like. When I go
532
00:29:34.960 --> 00:29:38.599
h they aha, they laugh, or when I go woh
533
00:29:38.839 --> 00:29:41.400
they do that, they really like that. And so one
534
00:29:41.480 --> 00:29:45.839
personality that develops is what I need to do for
535
00:29:45.920 --> 00:29:49.319
approval and recognition. That's a good thing because we all
536
00:29:49.359 --> 00:29:51.279
need it for food and everything we need to get
537
00:29:51.279 --> 00:29:55.720
along with our fellow humans. But then one day personality
538
00:29:55.720 --> 00:30:01.480
too develops. Personality two starts working when personality one comes
539
00:30:01.519 --> 00:30:05.279
to a grinding failure, like one day you don't get
540
00:30:05.359 --> 00:30:09.759
appreciated for what you're doing, or will you get punished
541
00:30:09.799 --> 00:30:13.960
for it? Like remember John Bradshaw, he wrote a book
542
00:30:13.960 --> 00:30:16.599
called Shame. It had shame in the title, and I
543
00:30:16.640 --> 00:30:19.319
can't remember healing the shame that binds us. Anyway, he
544
00:30:19.440 --> 00:30:22.039
was telling us one day about shame and he said,
545
00:30:22.039 --> 00:30:24.559
when he was a little boy, he ran into the
546
00:30:24.599 --> 00:30:27.279
living room he was learning body parts and he said
547
00:30:27.440 --> 00:30:31.400
this is my elbow and the adults went yay, and
548
00:30:31.440 --> 00:30:33.759
he said this is my chin. They went yay. And
549
00:30:33.799 --> 00:30:35.799
he pointed toward his penis and he said, this is
550
00:30:35.839 --> 00:30:37.640
my and everybody went, oh no, no, no, no, no, no no,
551
00:30:38.519 --> 00:30:43.240
And so he felt shame that he had thought he
552
00:30:43.279 --> 00:30:46.839
was doing something good but it failed, you know, and
553
00:30:46.960 --> 00:30:51.960
ended up getting punished for it. So personality two is
554
00:30:52.039 --> 00:30:55.400
not focused on what can I do for positive recognition.
555
00:30:55.920 --> 00:30:57.960
It's focused on what do I have to do to
556
00:30:58.079 --> 00:31:03.039
avoid pain? And so there are a number of responses
557
00:31:03.160 --> 00:31:06.240
to that question, but one of them, what do I
558
00:31:06.359 --> 00:31:11.359
need to do to avoid pain is not participate, not play,
559
00:31:11.880 --> 00:31:15.559
not be involved, because if I'm not involved, it won't
560
00:31:15.640 --> 00:31:19.880
hurt me as much. And that's a central problem in relationships.
561
00:31:19.920 --> 00:31:21.400
By the way, I have people in here in their
562
00:31:21.440 --> 00:31:25.720
forties and fifties suddenly realizing, oh my god, you know,
563
00:31:26.119 --> 00:31:30.680
I don't really know what love feels like separate from
564
00:31:30.759 --> 00:31:34.759
that feeling of defending myself. Yeah, And as I learned
565
00:31:34.839 --> 00:31:37.119
to deal with that feeling of defending themselves, then they
566
00:31:37.160 --> 00:31:39.839
get a pure feeling of love back and forth. But
567
00:31:39.960 --> 00:31:43.799
until then it's being filtered through that old program.
568
00:31:43.480 --> 00:31:45.359
Of personality number two.
569
00:31:45.440 --> 00:31:48.599
So personality number two always looks for ways to avoid
570
00:31:48.759 --> 00:31:53.119
pain and avoid losing in situations where you might want
571
00:31:53.160 --> 00:31:56.200
to win, and so don't play is one of the
572
00:31:56.240 --> 00:31:59.519
things that we make a decision on another one is very.
573
00:31:59.319 --> 00:32:03.559
Popular as play, but play like you don't.
574
00:32:03.319 --> 00:32:07.240
Care, you know, participate, but not care about being in
575
00:32:07.279 --> 00:32:11.359
the game. And so that's another big problem because I
576
00:32:11.559 --> 00:32:15.759
face people in relationship problems every day where their partner
577
00:32:15.799 --> 00:32:19.200
complains he's never there, he never seems to be there.
578
00:32:19.240 --> 00:32:23.039
It's like it's like talking to a brick wall. And
579
00:32:23.119 --> 00:32:27.240
so that I want people to let go of that
580
00:32:27.359 --> 00:32:31.720
brick wall and be more porous and permeable and just
581
00:32:31.799 --> 00:32:35.319
be direct about the pain instead of trying to conceal
582
00:32:35.359 --> 00:32:37.920
it or hide it or come out in ways that
583
00:32:38.000 --> 00:32:43.039
are destructive in life. It's easy, actually, but it feels
584
00:32:43.079 --> 00:32:44.680
hard if you're stuck within it.
585
00:32:45.319 --> 00:32:48.079
So continuing along this vein of how we can work
586
00:32:48.119 --> 00:32:51.279
with you know, fear that's as you said, it's been
587
00:32:51.319 --> 00:32:53.680
there longer than we have, and how we can work
588
00:32:53.720 --> 00:32:57.279
and sometimes manifests in various forms of anxiety. How can
589
00:32:57.319 --> 00:33:00.480
we actually use this as fuel for personal evolution, growth
590
00:33:00.519 --> 00:33:02.480
and so forth, And as you said, it could be
591
00:33:02.519 --> 00:33:05.359
one of the most direct means for realizing what you're
592
00:33:05.359 --> 00:33:08.279
calling pure consciousness, our actual nature, who and what we are.
593
00:33:08.759 --> 00:33:12.000
So another way you talk about this is stepping into
594
00:33:12.079 --> 00:33:14.599
our genius zone. And I wonder if you could talk
595
00:33:14.640 --> 00:33:17.480
about what you call a genius zone and the relationship
596
00:33:17.480 --> 00:33:20.880
between that and having befriended our fear and so forth.
597
00:33:21.279 --> 00:33:21.839
Great question.
598
00:33:21.960 --> 00:33:26.000
The two are very related because let's just use fear
599
00:33:26.000 --> 00:33:29.160
as an example. Let's say I'm scared about something. If
600
00:33:29.160 --> 00:33:32.319
I let myself feel it, instead of trying to make
601
00:33:32.359 --> 00:33:35.319
it go away lighting a cigarette or eating a piece
602
00:33:35.359 --> 00:33:38.559
of chicken or whatever we use to distract ourselves, turning
603
00:33:38.599 --> 00:33:42.039
on Star Trek or so instead of doing that, just
604
00:33:42.160 --> 00:33:45.680
letting ourselves experience it. It doesn't even have to be
605
00:33:45.759 --> 00:33:48.160
for a tenth of a second, but it's just the
606
00:33:48.200 --> 00:33:52.440
decision to feel it rather than override it. That's a
607
00:33:52.519 --> 00:33:56.400
crucial moment because the moment you open up to feeling
608
00:33:56.480 --> 00:34:00.720
anything like fear, what happens if you do what I
609
00:34:00.799 --> 00:34:04.200
call savor it, If you let yourself actually feel what
610
00:34:04.240 --> 00:34:07.960
it feels like, it disappears very quickly and you see
611
00:34:07.960 --> 00:34:10.000
that pure consciousness right there.
612
00:34:10.360 --> 00:34:11.599
It's there all the time.
613
00:34:11.960 --> 00:34:14.679
It's just that when we're scared, it's like we have
614
00:34:14.760 --> 00:34:17.400
a belt around our belly, and so we can't feel
615
00:34:17.440 --> 00:34:19.360
what the other stuff is in our belly. Because we're
616
00:34:19.360 --> 00:34:22.800
focusing on the tight belt, and so when you're scared
617
00:34:22.840 --> 00:34:24.639
and don't know how to deal with it, that tight
618
00:34:24.679 --> 00:34:28.239
belt stays on all the time, even stirring up your dreams.
619
00:34:28.719 --> 00:34:31.960
What happens, though, is you begin to let yourself feel
620
00:34:32.559 --> 00:34:35.599
what you're doing is really admitting that you are part
621
00:34:35.639 --> 00:34:39.440
of the universe because it has all of these flows
622
00:34:39.599 --> 00:34:43.039
in it, and you're participating in the flow now. And
623
00:34:43.119 --> 00:34:47.119
so it's a hugely different thing to be standing back
624
00:34:47.280 --> 00:34:50.199
watching the game rather than being right in the middle
625
00:34:50.199 --> 00:34:52.760
of it and feeling it. And since we're all here,
626
00:34:52.800 --> 00:34:54.639
I want us all to be right here in the
627
00:34:54.639 --> 00:34:57.440
middle of the game and not try to be thinking
628
00:34:57.480 --> 00:34:58.360
about other.
629
00:34:58.199 --> 00:34:59.199
Stuff all the time.
630
00:34:59.559 --> 00:35:02.960
And so if you're feeling what you're feeling, you're going
631
00:35:03.000 --> 00:35:07.199
to be feeling pretty soon pure consciousness. That relates to
632
00:35:07.360 --> 00:35:11.960
genius zone because it's basically the same thing that when
633
00:35:12.000 --> 00:35:14.679
you let go of all the stuff you've been doing
634
00:35:14.719 --> 00:35:18.480
to defend yourself and just feel the reality of the
635
00:35:18.559 --> 00:35:23.440
streams and powerful currents coursing through us at that moment,
636
00:35:23.559 --> 00:35:29.199
what happens is those automatically become the fuel for creativity
637
00:35:29.559 --> 00:35:32.400
because you don't have to do anything except let yourself
638
00:35:32.440 --> 00:35:36.960
experience it more because it's really I mean, if you
639
00:35:36.960 --> 00:35:40.519
look at the universe, how it works compared to us humans,
640
00:35:40.639 --> 00:35:45.519
We human beings often generate a lot of stress, tension,
641
00:35:45.559 --> 00:35:49.639
and anxiety to get things done. And sometimes that's based
642
00:35:49.639 --> 00:35:52.960
on purely a mental script of you know, having learned
643
00:35:53.000 --> 00:35:55.800
that that's what it takes, you know, in your family
644
00:35:55.920 --> 00:35:58.559
or whatever, to get things done. But there's a whole
645
00:35:58.599 --> 00:35:59.559
different way of.
646
00:35:59.559 --> 00:36:00.519
Getting things done.
647
00:36:00.679 --> 00:36:05.119
Like I have seven magnificent three hundred year old oak
648
00:36:05.159 --> 00:36:07.800
trees on my property and I like to look at them,
649
00:36:07.840 --> 00:36:10.079
and I like it. Every year they drop their acorns
650
00:36:10.119 --> 00:36:13.400
and that's a hassle to pick up, but still it's
651
00:36:14.159 --> 00:36:17.960
they participate in the flow of life. They don't ever say, oh,
652
00:36:18.280 --> 00:36:22.039
damn it, it's winter again, I got to drop my acorns.
653
00:36:22.400 --> 00:36:26.039
You know, they're just doing what they do organically. And
654
00:36:26.239 --> 00:36:29.079
human beings, I believe, if left to our own devices,
655
00:36:29.719 --> 00:36:33.559
we will tend to do what's spontaneously good for ourselves
656
00:36:33.639 --> 00:36:36.440
and other people. If we don't have to filter our
657
00:36:36.559 --> 00:36:41.679
energy always through the loops of undigested sadness or undigested
658
00:36:41.760 --> 00:36:44.559
anger or undealt with fear, well, I think.
659
00:36:44.519 --> 00:36:48.679
This is fascinating that you connect fear and getting in
660
00:36:48.679 --> 00:36:52.039
a relationship and befinding our feelings again coming back into
661
00:36:52.079 --> 00:36:56.199
the bay feeling as the access point to what you're
662
00:36:56.239 --> 00:37:00.639
calling pure consciousness. Even people and spiritualistions we talk about
663
00:37:00.679 --> 00:37:03.320
this is the nature of mind or enlightened mind, or
664
00:37:03.559 --> 00:37:06.840
people who reference the source or in quantum theory, we're
665
00:37:06.840 --> 00:37:09.800
maybe talking about us. And I know doctor Depak Choker
666
00:37:09.880 --> 00:37:12.760
when he talks about this level of experience, he says
667
00:37:12.840 --> 00:37:15.840
that is creative intelligence. So that is the genius zone.
668
00:37:16.280 --> 00:37:20.119
And very interestingly, you know, we are manifestations of that.
669
00:37:20.280 --> 00:37:23.519
So there's nothing in our experience there's not a manifestation
670
00:37:23.679 --> 00:37:25.920
of that source. So when we get in touch with
671
00:37:26.039 --> 00:37:29.719
something like fear and we can dissolve our resistance to
672
00:37:29.800 --> 00:37:32.920
it or the stories around it, or the identifications whether
673
00:37:32.920 --> 00:37:35.719
it or all the echoes around it, just getting in
674
00:37:35.880 --> 00:37:37.960
touch with it's the vehicle that starts to get us
675
00:37:38.000 --> 00:37:38.880
in touch with source.
676
00:37:39.199 --> 00:37:40.400
And that could be true for anything.
677
00:37:40.440 --> 00:37:43.360
I mean, even our thoughts, which can be pretty inane
678
00:37:43.440 --> 00:37:46.400
at times, but if we're meditative enough, even just the
679
00:37:46.519 --> 00:37:50.360
arisal cognitive energy itself is just another manifestation of Source.
680
00:37:50.480 --> 00:37:52.800
So it's really amazing you're talking about it that we
681
00:37:52.840 --> 00:37:56.679
can not only befriend these things to have a better
682
00:37:56.840 --> 00:37:59.840
life or heal ourselves, but these are the direct pathways
683
00:38:00.360 --> 00:38:02.719
into our ultimate destiny of what we can realize as
684
00:38:02.840 --> 00:38:03.400
human beings.
685
00:38:03.920 --> 00:38:07.320
I completely agree, and I had the joy of being
686
00:38:07.400 --> 00:38:11.119
on the front lines as people realized that many thousands
687
00:38:11.199 --> 00:38:13.039
of times. But I never get tired of it, because
688
00:38:13.480 --> 00:38:16.960
I mean, that's what happens in a session here, is
689
00:38:17.079 --> 00:38:19.960
that a person may go through all of that, but
690
00:38:20.119 --> 00:38:23.960
they leave feeling that pure consciousness and realizing, oh, that's
691
00:38:24.000 --> 00:38:26.960
where it all comes from. And once you realize that, also,
692
00:38:27.519 --> 00:38:29.960
you begin to wonder, why am I making up pain
693
00:38:30.079 --> 00:38:32.239
and conflict all the time? If I have the power
694
00:38:32.280 --> 00:38:34.920
to make it up anyway I wanted that didn't occur
695
00:38:35.000 --> 00:38:37.119
to me at the very beginning, though, you know, after
696
00:38:37.199 --> 00:38:39.239
I had to have a few more painful experiences. But
697
00:38:39.760 --> 00:38:42.400
Katie and I got together in nineteen eighty and forty
698
00:38:42.440 --> 00:38:45.239
five years ago, and we made a very crucial decision
699
00:38:45.280 --> 00:38:49.239
early on. We decided to have our relationship be about
700
00:38:49.320 --> 00:38:52.840
not only teaching us what we needed to know about relationship,
701
00:38:52.920 --> 00:38:55.639
but we also wanted to learn how to teach other
702
00:38:55.760 --> 00:38:58.679
people things if we found them to be useful. And
703
00:38:58.880 --> 00:39:02.280
so we basically been on the path of learning new
704
00:39:02.360 --> 00:39:05.440
things and passing them along for the past forty five years.
705
00:39:05.480 --> 00:39:07.679
And it's a great way to spend life. You know,
706
00:39:07.800 --> 00:39:10.920
I'm eighty years old now, and I can't imagine not
707
00:39:11.199 --> 00:39:14.039
doing what I do. You know, I can't imagine retiring
708
00:39:14.199 --> 00:39:16.840
from it or anything like that. I mean, what's better
709
00:39:16.960 --> 00:39:21.480
than drinking the pure existence of life every day? You know,
710
00:39:21.639 --> 00:39:23.440
being with that kind of nutrient.
711
00:39:23.599 --> 00:39:24.920
It's a very powerful thing.
712
00:39:25.639 --> 00:39:29.920
Indeed, indeed, you mentioned before this idea of the upper
713
00:39:30.000 --> 00:39:32.320
limit problem, and I know you talk about this in
714
00:39:32.400 --> 00:39:34.559
your book The Big Leap, So I wonder if you
715
00:39:34.599 --> 00:39:36.760
could talk a little bit more about this.
716
00:39:37.239 --> 00:39:39.119
Yes, well, this is one of the big things that
717
00:39:39.280 --> 00:39:42.800
I do is help people get in touch with and
718
00:39:43.199 --> 00:39:46.000
release their upper limit problems. And the upper limit problem
719
00:39:46.119 --> 00:39:51.920
is the tendency to sabotage ourselves when things start going better, basically,
720
00:39:52.320 --> 00:39:54.960
because what happens when things start going better is it
721
00:39:55.079 --> 00:39:57.960
stirs up fear, and fear is where all the upper
722
00:39:58.039 --> 00:40:01.400
limit problems come from. So I also want to make
723
00:40:01.440 --> 00:40:04.800
it really clear that I learned a lot of this
724
00:40:05.039 --> 00:40:09.960
working with very powerful people like CEOs and things like that.
725
00:40:10.760 --> 00:40:13.679
I started working with drivenile the linquents, but I think
726
00:40:13.719 --> 00:40:16.840
these things transcend all levels of life.
727
00:40:17.400 --> 00:40:18.119
Like I've had.
728
00:40:18.239 --> 00:40:22.280
Movie stars in here that had bigger self esteem issues
729
00:40:22.480 --> 00:40:23.719
than the average person.
730
00:40:24.119 --> 00:40:25.639
They just covered it over.
731
00:40:25.599 --> 00:40:29.480
With a lot of fear and rage performance, you know,
732
00:40:29.599 --> 00:40:33.239
but then life gets them when they get triggered in
733
00:40:33.280 --> 00:40:35.599
an argument with their beloved or something.
734
00:40:36.000 --> 00:40:38.519
So I think that I want to get back to this.
735
00:40:38.880 --> 00:40:42.639
Little subject of being able to use things that used
736
00:40:42.679 --> 00:40:45.079
to be fear, just the energy of it's drawing them
737
00:40:45.119 --> 00:40:48.360
for personal growth. Because if we start thinking that way,
738
00:40:48.920 --> 00:40:52.760
then we're starting to think of life being a journey
739
00:40:52.960 --> 00:40:56.159
that has different little twists and loops in it. And
740
00:40:56.239 --> 00:40:58.760
I think that's a very important thing to think of.
741
00:40:59.280 --> 00:41:03.840
That you're on a journey to fulfillment, and how fast
742
00:41:03.920 --> 00:41:07.760
the journey goes depends entirely on how fast we can
743
00:41:08.320 --> 00:41:11.559
let go of whatever those little upper limits are, and
744
00:41:11.760 --> 00:41:14.480
a couple of them are really important to let go.
745
00:41:14.960 --> 00:41:18.159
The upper limit problem. I'd say if I tossed a
746
00:41:18.239 --> 00:41:21.400
pebble into a group of one hundred people, it would
747
00:41:21.639 --> 00:41:25.480
no doubt hit somebody that had this belief I don't
748
00:41:25.679 --> 00:41:29.000
deserve the good things of life. And now that may
749
00:41:29.079 --> 00:41:31.960
sound crazy, but a lot of people, even movie stars,
750
00:41:32.039 --> 00:41:36.679
go around feeling underneath like I don't deserve the good
751
00:41:36.800 --> 00:41:40.360
things that happen to me. They feel like an impostor.
752
00:41:40.880 --> 00:41:44.559
I've had really well known people use that term to
753
00:41:44.679 --> 00:41:47.840
me dozens of times where they say I felt like
754
00:41:47.880 --> 00:41:48.559
an impostor.
755
00:41:48.639 --> 00:41:50.960
You know, in one person's case.
756
00:41:50.800 --> 00:41:52.880
I remember they were going down to get their palm
757
00:41:53.039 --> 00:41:55.480
prints on the Walk of Fame or what do they
758
00:41:55.519 --> 00:41:59.360
call it, down La and triggered an anxiety attack the
759
00:41:59.480 --> 00:42:02.480
day before, or because it brought all I don't deserve it.
760
00:42:03.039 --> 00:42:05.679
I've never deserved it. They're making a big mistake. I'm
761
00:42:05.760 --> 00:42:08.960
really a shit and nobody knows it. You know, if
762
00:42:09.000 --> 00:42:11.840
people only knew who I really was, nobody would buy
763
00:42:11.920 --> 00:42:14.920
my music. And so those kind of things. People get
764
00:42:15.000 --> 00:42:17.760
wrapped up in that at an early age, and even
765
00:42:17.800 --> 00:42:21.239
though they may build stuff on top of that, oftentimes
766
00:42:21.320 --> 00:42:24.199
that comes up and gets a grab of them. So
767
00:42:24.400 --> 00:42:27.760
being scared that I'm not worthy that will cause you
768
00:42:27.960 --> 00:42:31.960
to sabotage yourself over and over again. A second one
769
00:42:32.679 --> 00:42:36.320
is a lot of people have the feeling developed from
770
00:42:36.360 --> 00:42:39.599
early in life that they don't deserve to be in
771
00:42:39.679 --> 00:42:42.320
the spotlight. They don't deserve to be the star of
772
00:42:42.360 --> 00:42:45.719
their own lives, and so they kind of hide and
773
00:42:46.000 --> 00:42:48.360
kind of sit on the bench and don't really participate
774
00:42:48.440 --> 00:42:51.800
in the game as much. And there's a third group
775
00:42:51.880 --> 00:42:53.920
that I think have a lot of problems too, and
776
00:42:54.039 --> 00:42:56.280
that's people that can't let go of the past.
777
00:42:56.960 --> 00:42:58.199
A lot of people keep.
778
00:42:58.039 --> 00:43:02.280
Themselves limited and in check by fear, based on the
779
00:43:02.400 --> 00:43:06.599
fear that if I change, it will be disloyal too
780
00:43:06.920 --> 00:43:10.960
and hurtful to people in my past or people I
781
00:43:11.159 --> 00:43:14.239
know that are still in my life now from my past,
782
00:43:14.400 --> 00:43:18.119
or sometimes just mentally. I've had dozens of people in
783
00:43:18.199 --> 00:43:22.360
here talking about still arguing with their mother thirty years
784
00:43:22.440 --> 00:43:24.840
after she died, you know. So it's all things that
785
00:43:25.199 --> 00:43:28.960
we can internalize too. The important thing I need to
786
00:43:29.159 --> 00:43:31.079
wrap things up, I know, because we're running out of time,
787
00:43:31.119 --> 00:43:33.679
But I do want to make a super big push
788
00:43:34.239 --> 00:43:38.679
for opening up to loving your fear and exploring your
789
00:43:38.760 --> 00:43:42.960
fear and anxiety rather than trying to put it away.
790
00:43:43.440 --> 00:43:44.719
But if you want to put it away for the
791
00:43:44.840 --> 00:43:46.760
time being, if you're doing something you don't want to
792
00:43:46.800 --> 00:43:50.199
be bothered by it. My always advice.
793
00:43:50.199 --> 00:43:53.199
Is to take three or more easy.
794
00:43:53.039 --> 00:43:58.440
Breaths that last longer than ten seconds each. Okay, so
795
00:43:59.320 --> 00:44:03.960
five seconds in, five seconds out, and do that three
796
00:44:04.119 --> 00:44:07.400
times and just notice what's beginning to happen in your body.
797
00:44:08.000 --> 00:44:10.360
It makes a difference. And like I say, we don't
798
00:44:10.400 --> 00:44:11.840
want to go around all the time just.
799
00:44:11.960 --> 00:44:13.039
Making fear go a way.
800
00:44:13.079 --> 00:44:15.480
We want to open up to it and learn from
801
00:44:15.519 --> 00:44:18.360
our anxiety. But sometimes it's going to get a grip
802
00:44:18.400 --> 00:44:20.320
on our throat or something and we don't have to
803
00:44:20.400 --> 00:44:23.320
deal with in this So three easy breaths as your
804
00:44:23.360 --> 00:44:23.800
way through.
805
00:44:24.079 --> 00:44:27.000
You mentioned some of the real obstacles to change there,
806
00:44:27.079 --> 00:44:30.239
and I think another one related to our past or something.
807
00:44:30.639 --> 00:44:32.960
You know, you talked about what early early in life
808
00:44:33.000 --> 00:44:36.840
we start developing this personality and personality one personality two
809
00:44:36.960 --> 00:44:40.360
you know, adaptive personality, avoidan personalities kind of things. And
810
00:44:40.440 --> 00:44:42.519
we're doing this because we need some kind of identity
811
00:44:42.639 --> 00:44:44.800
to function, right, We can't go back into the womb.
812
00:44:44.800 --> 00:44:47.400
We need some kind of identity to function, and having
813
00:44:47.559 --> 00:44:49.760
some identity is better than having no identity because we
814
00:44:49.800 --> 00:44:52.400
don't know how to deal with pure consciousness and groundlessness
815
00:44:52.440 --> 00:44:55.000
when we're six months or eighteen months old or much less.
816
00:44:55.039 --> 00:44:57.480
It's difficult enough when we start trying to explore that
817
00:44:57.559 --> 00:44:59.800
as adults. So you often hear from people that's just
818
00:45:00.039 --> 00:45:03.639
I've always been, and it's almost like if I changed, who.
819
00:45:03.480 --> 00:45:03.880
Would I be?
820
00:45:04.639 --> 00:45:07.280
And I had gotten happy and suffering, but that's who
821
00:45:07.360 --> 00:45:09.039
I am, and if I change, well, who would I be?
822
00:45:09.119 --> 00:45:11.119
And is too frightening? The idea of not being who
823
00:45:11.159 --> 00:45:13.559
I am is too frightening to change. That can really
824
00:45:13.599 --> 00:45:14.360
be an obstacle.
825
00:45:14.920 --> 00:45:15.639
Well, not only that.
826
00:45:15.719 --> 00:45:20.599
I remember having a popular blues type singer in here
827
00:45:20.679 --> 00:45:22.920
one time that was really what it came down to.
828
00:45:23.119 --> 00:45:25.039
This person said, you know, I don't know who i'd
829
00:45:25.119 --> 00:45:28.000
be if I didn't feel pain. How would I even
830
00:45:28.599 --> 00:45:31.280
perform if I didn't feel pain all the time. Well,
831
00:45:31.760 --> 00:45:34.280
at a certain point in life you start asking a
832
00:45:34.400 --> 00:45:38.559
deeper set of questions. And I was totally confident that
833
00:45:38.719 --> 00:45:44.000
this person could be totally happy and also sing the blues.
834
00:45:43.679 --> 00:45:44.480
At the same time.
835
00:45:45.199 --> 00:45:48.280
So, no matter what kind of life you're in, I
836
00:45:48.360 --> 00:45:52.199
think having befriended fear is going to be one of
837
00:45:52.280 --> 00:45:53.239
your best friends ever.
838
00:45:53.880 --> 00:45:56.400
Well, I think that's a great message leave our audience
839
00:45:56.480 --> 00:45:59.039
with and really illuminating. I wonder if you might be
840
00:45:59.159 --> 00:46:01.480
willing just to the lead us in some kind of
841
00:46:01.559 --> 00:46:04.679
like a little exercise or something related to breath and
842
00:46:04.800 --> 00:46:08.519
relating to befriending fear or just connecting with our body.
843
00:46:08.360 --> 00:46:08.920
Something like that.
844
00:46:09.440 --> 00:46:11.960
I want to teach you a breathing secret. I mentioned
845
00:46:12.039 --> 00:46:15.239
the ten second round trip breath five seconds in, five
846
00:46:15.320 --> 00:46:19.079
seconds out. Don't make it a contest, but just with me,
847
00:46:19.480 --> 00:46:24.480
right now, take three easy breaths. I'm going to start
848
00:46:25.039 --> 00:46:35.320
in two three four out two three four in two
849
00:46:36.320 --> 00:46:45.880
three for out two three four in two three four
850
00:46:46.639 --> 00:46:51.960
out two three four, and then just keep being easy
851
00:46:52.119 --> 00:46:56.639
with it. Slow it down, go for more elegance, more ease,
852
00:46:57.599 --> 00:47:00.639
more peace. Just begin to slow it down. And a
853
00:47:00.760 --> 00:47:04.400
trick is not to stop at the top, roll it
854
00:47:04.639 --> 00:47:08.800
over in in in and roll over out out out.
855
00:47:09.320 --> 00:47:12.880
The reason is the fight or flight reflects catches a
856
00:47:12.960 --> 00:47:13.719
breath at the top.
857
00:47:13.840 --> 00:47:15.039
When you get scared, you go.
858
00:47:15.960 --> 00:47:19.559
But easy breathing involves or roll over at the top,
859
00:47:19.760 --> 00:47:24.880
so in real easy and then rolling over into the outbreath.
860
00:47:25.159 --> 00:47:27.199
Oh that was great. That was like just a reset
861
00:47:27.239 --> 00:47:31.239
button for the nervous system. I feel really beautiful, Goucy great.
862
00:47:31.800 --> 00:47:34.400
Thank you so much, doctor gay Hendrix. This has been illuminating.
863
00:47:34.480 --> 00:47:36.119
Thank you very much for everything you offered.
864
00:47:36.360 --> 00:47:37.119
Thank you very much.
865
00:47:37.159 --> 00:47:38.960
Blessings to you, you too be well.
866
00:47:39.639 --> 00:47:43.480
Thank you for joining me on the Radical Responsibility Podcast. Remember,
867
00:47:43.599 --> 00:47:46.239
real change happens when we commit to our growth, face
868
00:47:46.320 --> 00:47:49.880
our challenges with compassion, and stay open to transformation. If
869
00:47:49.920 --> 00:47:53.119
you found this episode helpful, I encourage you to subscribe
870
00:47:53.199 --> 00:47:56.480
and help us spread the message of healing and personal intolerment.
871
00:47:56.639 --> 00:47:59.920
Stay grounded, stay present, and stay true to you. Take care,
872
00:48:00.920 --> 00:48:05.840
instill the food per almost