Your full guide to re-invent yourself, kill limiting beliefs & make success easy | Aamer Janbey

Amber, I want to start this off with a quote from one of your sub-starch articles. Sweet. It was, you don't see the world as it is. You see it as you are. Ooh, yeah. I mean, yeah, there's a lot of, uh, please, that I could take that. I mean, our identities and, I mean, just us as human beings are constantly filtering the world in ways that we don't necessarily realize. At that filtering process is rooted through certain, like, neural mechanisms and psychological mechanisms, that aren't necessarily being consciously investigated. For example, is take somebody and they believe they are not charismatic. See, that person is actually charismatic, or a more objective, more objective level. That person will, will ignore every single person that smiles at them, every single person that kind of pays attention to them, every person that, that thinks what they're saying is interesting. And what they will notice is the one person who actually ignores them or, like, looks away. Right? And so, what does this actually mean? That person is subconsciously filtering out all of these, all of the things that are contradictory to their self-concept, which is, I'm not charismatic. And in an inner world belief, or an identity belief, I believe about one self, which would be the foundation of the inner world. The way that I conceptualize the inner world, which essentially navigates, or is the core navigating piece of your entire life, is composed of your identity at the bottom, which is the foundation. And then there's your beliefs, there's the emotions above those, and then there's the actions, which is what more in a society happens to actually focus on a lot. And so, our identities are, or the identity layer is composed of beliefs that we have about ourselves, right? Like, and these typically start with, I, I am, I am this, I am not charismatic, I am healthy, I am fat. And based off of those identity beliefs that we have, we are actually constantly filtering the outer world, right? And then, the things on the outside, according to those beliefs, another example of this is you take a person who, let's say, believes that they are fat, or just believes that they are, or doesn't, doesn't care too much about, about the, the health world as it is. You take another person who believes that they are healthy, and they can, and naturally they will care about things within the, the nutrition world, etc. And then, I am going to restron, and I mean, this might have happened with YouTube, but this happens with me a lot, or I've noticed this happened with me as my identity began to change. Yeah. Namely that if you look at a menu, and there are like, at the restaurant, there are like a lot of options, right? I remember very clearly having always navigated to the burger section of the menu, right? And this was one specifically I was struggling with bulimia. I had a very difficult time with bulimia because there was, and there's something that I speak about in the sub-sack as well where I was constantly trying to build this respectable physique, which I was able to build, but I was also constantly regressing. And I didn't really know why, but it was interesting that like during this period at the restaurant, right? Without even noticing, I would just skip over everything, and I would just notice certain items on the food menu, and I would just blur out the rest. And back to what I was saying about the healthy person, when I became a healthier person who actually identified as a healthy person who cares about his health, I began to filter out, for example, the unhealthy option on the menu. Without actually, and there was no, the key thing here is there's no conscious intention there. It's completely happening unconscious, right? And so like what you begin to realize here is that like the unconscious or the subconscious is driving our conscious behaviors in ways that we just don't, that we don't realize. And it's very, very weird to think, right? Like even the way that I'm moving my hands, the way that I speak, the next word that comes out of my mouth is just the result or the manifest symptom of things that are going on on the subconscious layer, right? So in that way, to kind of loop it back to where we started, your outer world, right? What you see, what you observe, what you have is just a reflection of the inner world. And this is why you can take two people, you put them in the same economy. One person sees all he sees opportunity or all she or he sees is opportunity or, or like this is going to be great. And you put another person in the same economy and they're like, we're fucked, right? And the reason lies is, I mean, the key thing here is they're seeing the exact, they're looking at the exact same thing. Yeah, yeah. Right? Like there's no difference in the outer world. The only difference is the inner world. Right? And so that's when you begin to realize that this, this dichotomy between Aaron outer world is, is a luxury. And it's not actually real in the ways that, that we think it is. Yeah, well, I can definitely relate to the two examples that you gave with, like, feel like you're not charismatic. And also like the example of identifying as a healthy person. Like for example, I grew up as an only child. And like, I barely had any friends and I was like a younger kid. So I think I grew up with like the feedback loop and the belief that like, oh, I'm not curious and I could all nobody likes me. So I developed this habit of like only noticing the people that don't like me only noticing like the the weird comments that people that people make rather than the people who actually do like me or the people who actually are praising me. It's like, I like even, even though like, I don't know, let's say, I would have like one out of every 20 people I interacted with actually didn't like me like one out of every 100 people. That was all I noticed. And then that just kept reaffirming that belief that I was on charismatic. And it was like a vicious cycle that I try out myself in. And then with with the health part, like, I remember I, like, I definitely had points more life where I just like start of myself like barely aid trying to be as skinny as possible. And then every time there was like the times that a fat on my face or like in my stomach, that was like all I noticed. And then I was like, oh my god, I'm looking so fat. And that's what body dysmorphia is. Yeah. You take the person who has, I mean, from the regular, I guess, the layman's perspective. Yeah, they seem to look completely fine. Yeah. Right. Or even perhaps they look, they look really good. Right. This was something that happened with me a lot. Yeah. Where yeah, I was, I mean, I had fucking ab veins at one point, right? And I usually do during the summer, but it's so crazy that even during these periods where I am abnormally lean. Yeah, like I'm truly anomalous within the population. I still managed to find a reason as to why I actually wasn't as things like thought I was right, which is body dysmorphia. And this was again, the inner world. My inner world, my belief that there's no like I'm not lean. There's no way I'm actually fat person. These these deep grudable leafs that have kind of solidified and been very entrenched within our psyches. They they find their ways they find their ways out, right, to project on the outer world. And so, yeah, that was very much the case with me as well. And that's what led to be the cycle of binging and purging and bulimia. So yeah. So what would someone's life look like if let's say they they are in a similar position to where I was and where you were like they are naturally charismatic person, but they have this belief in our charismatic. So that's all they see in the world. Or like they they have such a great physique, but they believe that they're fat. So like that belief just hijacks their mind. And let's say they don't do anything about those negative beliefs. What would their life look like 10 20 years on the line? Nice. Not too pretty. If if you don't find a way to break this loop that we find ourselves in. Yeah. And loop of I mean seemingly endless loops of just negative thoughts. It only seems to just get worse. Right. And I mean, I think the most insidious part here is that these beliefs actually just become further entrenched and further solidified within the within within the brain. And within the brain, literally within like you can just I mean on a neurological level. Right. And and just on a more existential level as well as we just truly begin to believe these things about ourselves. And this is where you begin to see things like learn helplessness and people who have a very, very difficult time trying to climb their ways. They're they're they're way out of these like seemingly endless voids. Right. So yeah. And what you begin to see is that your beliefs really do create reality. Right. Like and and not just in this weird move way, but in a very real way. Like what I've realized about identity is the way that I see identity kind of functions is that if you. I mean, first of all, there's there's this sort of principle of the mind of this dualistic principle of the mind. It's impossible to to to know something in isolation. For example, you can't know the concept light without knowing what dark is. Right. Like just try to think of light without knowing what dark is. It's just incomprehensible. Right. You can't you can't know what healthy is without knowing what for example unhealthy is. Everything exists with on a spectrum. Right. Yeah. And like a sort of dualistic spectrum. Right. Yeah. For everything that's like light, there's heavy. I could go on. And so in the same way when we begin to make statements about ourselves. Right. They also exist on this spectrum, this dualistic spectrum. And so if I say that I am not healthy, that is opposed to the belief I am healthy. And so if you take a set of scales, just like a metaphorical set of scales, every single time that I kind of repeat the belief, I am healthy, or I am not healthy, let's say, the negative belief here. I'm essentially, let's say, stacking a rock, that belief represents a rock that I am kind of putting on that side of the scale. And we have scales for every single belief that can essentially exist about ourselves, about ourselves on an identity level. So I have a belief set of scales for my charisma levels. I have a belief set of scales for how successful I think I'm going to become. And just for beliefs about the outer world, do I think money is hard or easy to obtain? Do I think that I should protect myself within the context of relationships because I got heartbroken before it? And these are examples that can be used for anyone. And the way to see identity is that, are identities, I think this conception, I don't know if it's completely accurate, I mean, this is something that I obviously struggle with, the lies, identities, such a loaded term. But one way that I have like to conceptualize identity on a more practical level is the total sum of all of these scales put together. Right. And every single set of scales, every belief that you have about the outer world and the inner world and yourself are put together, compose your identity. And so what you begin to see is that with the repetition of certain, certain belief, so let's say for example, I, I mean, actually importantly here and I'm glad that I'm remembering this is that the brain cannot distinguish between an event that happens in real life and an event that happens within the theater of the mind. This is very important and it's just neurologically true. Yeah. And this is why when you actually imagine yourself, or if you, if you, if you, if you recall a traumatic experience, yeah, or you recall a very happy experience, and you truly envision it, right? He calls your eyes, you think about it, you will actually feel the associated emotions with that memory or shrews, right? Like if I actually think about a very traumatic time or if I saw a bear, let's say in the, in the forest, I will, I will actually feel a surge of adrenaline, right? And like, don't mean in all of these the congeural chemicals. There will be a cocktail that, and a very similar cocktail to the one that was actually produced during the actual event. Yeah. Right. Sure. So with that said is, is when now I recall a certain memory about myself or my past, let's say that I, I believe that there was, I had an experience, let's say, and this was actually a story that I heard, but does the job here quite well. Let's say I was, I was, I was writing down a math problem and I got it wrong. I messed it up and the teacher calls me dumb. That only happened one time, right? Let's say that's it. I, there was one rock that was placed on that side of the scale. You right. However, that belief can be very traumatic and I can continue to repeat that belief in my head because the brain can't actually differentiate between the two, right? Every single time that I repeat that belief, I'm actually adding a rock onto that side of the scale. And so this continues to happen. Let's say I've now repeated the belief a thousand, I've repeated that memory a thousand times with the teacher. I've stacked a thousand rocks on that side of the scale with regards to that specific part of my identity, namely that I'm dumb, right? And again, this is dualistic. So like it's, that's in contrast to I'm smart or intelligent or capable, right? Yeah. Yeah. Because again, capable, the notion of capability is intimately tied with intelligence. And somebody believes that they are unintelligent. Oftentimes you'll see that they don't think they're very capable either, right? So yeah. And so importantly is once I stack so many rocks on that side, I won't, when I see a math problem, I won't be able to just, I will be able to do math. Like I will, I will just, I will look at a math problem and immediately I'll think I just, I'm dumb. Like I can't do this. I can't do this because that belief has become so entrenched within my psyche that it has literally manifested in the outer world and it has become real life, right? So our beliefs do become reality. You really do. And this is just true. And this is true completely. And this is, I guess like the, the, the, the main finding of that specific subset that you were referencing, which is your identity is a thermostat, right? And you access a psychological thermostat where whatever temperature your identity is set to the outer world, right? And so if this wasn't clear for anyone that's watching this, the outer world is like, could be what is your physical click right now? Yeah. Like physically. Well, how much money do you have in your bendy count? Right. Right. What do your relationships look like? Yeah. That those will always, always match the inner world precisely. And it's, and it's, it's uncanny and it's so real. And this is what I've realized is as soon as you begin to change the temperature of your identity, then the outer world just matches that. And your identity again is the foundation of your inner world. So change the change the, the outer, the geometry of the outer world, the geometry of the outer world will always match that of the geometry of the inner world. Yeah. Right. And so this is what you begin to see. And so yeah, like it's, it's all kind of ties together where our beliefs become very, very entrenched and they really do, um, guide our behaviors in ways that I feel like most people just seem to ignore. They just, they just think that way, right? People just think, oh, like I'm dumb, right? I just, I just can't do math. But they never have actually examined like, where does that belief actually come from? I was speaking to a friend recently and she, she said, I think I was asking her about content and, and she just said, I'm just not a creative person. Like I'm just not creative. And I mean, like that's, that's such a, I guess like silly belief to have about one. It's like, what do you mean you're not? It's like what, what, and the thing is this creativity. used to be there as a child at least. She used to definitely have creativity. So something has gone on. There is now this evident rift between who she used to be and who she is now and namely, who she believes that she is now and who she actually is on a deeper, more existential level. And I was like, what do you mean that you're not creative. And going back to your first question, I had given her several examples of ways that she was very like weirdly creative. But she didn't even realize, she completely filled with those out. And so she didn't even realize any of the times that she had actually been creative. And she only noticed times where she wasn't creative. And that deep, that deep rooted belief that she was not creative led to her being unable to just produce content. And until she actually examined, where did that belief come from? Who told me that? Was it one of her parents? Was it her friends? How many times does she repeat that belief about that? How many rocks were stacked on that side of the scale? And once she began to examine that, she began to realize that it was again, just an illusion of sorts. Right? So it's very interesting how once you just begin to inspect these beliefs that we have about ourselves, the outer world begins to change. Right? And again, like her outer world, right, was matching her inner world, her and it was a reflection of her inner world as we started where she believes she wasn't creative. She had this deep rooted belief that she wasn't creative. That led to that that was fed into her subconscious filter of the world. Right? And she filtered out now any evidence that would contradict that belief because in the end, something that's very important about the psyche and the brain is that the brain does not care about truth, objective truth, what's true about the world. It only cares about coherence. Right? That's what it cares about. It only cares about about being true to itself. If I believe that I am not creative, my brain will do whatever it can to confirm that belief. Why? Because it is energetically inefficient to do anything to change my self schema. That isn't energetically demanding process. Evolutionarily speaking, as human beings, we want to conserve that energy. That's why the self concept can be or trying to change one's identity and self concept can be a very sticky concept or a sticky process where your identity is very sticky. Right? That's normal. There's going to be a period of or several periods of resistance when you're trying to change that. Yeah. When you kind of breach the perimeter of your old self, also when it comes subconscious mind, it will see that it will see that as a sort of emergency or fire alarm. Right? And it'll be like, "Fuck no. What are we doing here?" It's like, "This is not who we are. This is not familiar. This is not energetically efficient. It will do whatever it can to sabotage that if it's a positive change or trying to make that change. It will do whatever it can." Right? I can talk with a self all day. I find that. that's so interesting. But where, so one thing this really come into my mind is the fact like so many people that either haven't thought of or don't even have any idea of like the unconscious things that are holding them back. Like a lot of people might actually be into be into this kind of stuff, learning about their identity, learning about their beliefs, but then they still have self-sabotaging patterns and like limiting beliefs in their unconscious that they don't even know about. So how could someone figure out what those are? Hmm. Oh, that's a good question. So yeah. So I guess like the parts of ourselves that we've suppressed or rejected, this is what Carl Jung would call the shadow. Yeah. I mean, we begin life and we go through our childhoods, learning that certain things are good and certain things are bad, right? That we should be a certain way that we should, so see it with certain behaviors, beliefs, inclinations, and certain things we shouldn't be like. Like, like, like, and certain things we just shouldn't be like. We should be sociopaths. The cake, we shouldn't eat all the cake, right? Show me you're a part of the cake. There are certain things that we learn through again, like socialization and trauma. Yeah. And the parts of ourselves that we reject or disown or suppress collect into this autonomous complex, as young calls in, I'll go into that in a bit. And he calls this the shadow. And so the shadow is also, as Jung says, it's exactly what we don't want to be or associate with. Yeah. And so a good example of and relating exactly to what you've said is, let's say there's a girl named Joan. And Joan, naturally, her authentic self is as it as a child. It is very expressive and she likes to dance and she likes to wear like tutus, et cetera. And Joan through through the socialization process within school, for example, begins to learn that or her friends, let's say, begins like a whisper about her and she notices. Yeah. Friends are kind of whispering about her. And she can tell this for her, they make it clear that it's for her being weird. Yeah. And she, she eventually kind of meets this junction where she has to choose, do I continue to perform in my or not perform, but express myself in an authentic way? Or do I potentially suppress these aspects of myself, namely the expressiveness creates like, not necessarily creative, but expressive, more loud, likes to be the center of attention, but on an ego to segue and a few way, we all like that to an extent. Does she suppress those things? And to the child mind, let's say like, let's say she's in grade one or just she's just a very young child. To the child mind, social ostracization, social ostracization, or just being ostracized from the group, is a is seen is seen to be a kind to death, right? Like, like, and you can remember this like in schools, well, like like the last thing that you want is to is to be an a part of the not to be a part of the group. Yeah. Right? And this is just this is just evolutionary is just evolutionarily encoded into our, into our genetics. And so she's chooses to suppress those traits. So Joan over time, she grows up and let's say, um, she, I mean, she actually begins to not only not only has she now suppressed these parts of herself, but she also begins to resent others who display these parts of herself. So she won't like naturally expressive people, um, naturally care, not charismatic, but people who who who are who stand out in a crowd, right? And she has a weird sort of, um, distaste and and, um, I wouldn't say hatred, but resentment, yeah, resentment, that's a great word. Yeah. Towards towards these people. And, um, she doesn't necessarily know where it comes from, right? Like, yeah, she's essentially forgotten about, let's say like, this is like now, just like when she's in her 20s. Yeah. She, she just, she just doesn't identify as it as an as an expensive person. She says that I would never be an expressive, um, I don't know how people can like go on dance shows and she says all these things, right? About other people not knowing that she's on a shoe that she's attacking these disowned parts of herself. Yeah. Now, um, I mean, and weirdly enough though, is Joan, let's say she actually finds herself attracted to Broadway shows, for example, but she, she watches them, but she always says I could never do that. I could, I could never, um, be be like a Broadway actress actress. And, so and so Joan eventually tries to try to find, let's say, a, a passion or pursuit in her life. Yeah. That, I mean, I mean, she, she, I mean, even before that, like she begins to feel like it's an emptiness, but she doesn't know why. Yeah. Because she can't find the thing. She, she, she happens, she happens to feel like she's missing something. Oh, do I have to agree with it? But yeah. And so she, she tries all these different types of, of job job or career paths and jobs and none of them seem to fit in the way that she wants them to. And this leads eventually to, um, Joan feeling like meaningless, like that she doesn't have any sort of meaning within her life because she doesn't realize that she's overlooking the one thing that she actually has, is, it has a natural sort of, um, disc inclination towards. Yeah. Right. Which is, which is like, like, to be an actress or a dancer or, and so on. And so she suppresses those, all of those, all those impulses and beliefs and she doesn't know it. And that can lead to like, for example, like depression, right? And so the, the, the, the way that this, I mean, and just kind of connecting back to your question, which was how like, what you were, you were asking how there's the unconscious something believes. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Right. And so we, we exactly end it. The way that this relates to like, limiting beliefs as well is that we can sort of have, I mean, limiting beliefs are very interesting. Yeah. But in the, in the case of Joan, for example, is that this, I mean, in many ways limits her life. Yeah. Right. In a lot of ways. She's unable to actually pursue what she is meant to pursue. Right. And so in the same way with limiting beliefs as well, is that we also suppress parts of ourselves, um, is that, that are, and this would be, like, the, importantly about the, the, something important about the shadow is that it doesn't only contain bad or negative things about us, right? It can also, it can also contain good things about us, right? Like it's, it's everything that we've suppressed. And so if there are certain, certain parts of ourselves that are, are healthy in many ways, right? Like, like, like, assertiveness or, right? But, what we might, for example, suppress assertiveness because it could be seen as like aggressive, or like, like, in a, in a negative way. If we are suppressing these healthy parts of ourselves, um, into the shadow, I mean, first of all, these would be named the, the, the gold in the shadow. Yeah. As young would call it. And the, the, the, the goal here is to find the gold and to try to bring that, first of all, try to find the good things that you've suppressed, um, and that you rejected in yourself. And you kind of bring those into conscious awareness. And that in itself is, I mean, a process we can, we can get into later, but is called integration. Yeah. So, and many of those many of those suppressed parts of ourselves can manifest as limiting beliefs. Um, yeah. And, and again, like, the, the important thing is is it, it takes a level of infrospection and to, and, and patients and time to find out what the, what those beliefs actually look like about ourselves. Um, and yeah, and how they can very much again, like, like I, like I said previously, um, truly become reality, right? Yeah. For sure. And so watching your cough, your content, actually, I've been able to learn so much about my shadow side and it's something, something pretty interesting that I've learned lately, or I guess I didn't really learn it. Like, it's always been part of me, but it's like I really suppressed it has been my natural competitive side and like, my naturally, my naturally disagreeable side. It's like I, like deep down, I, like, I'm a very, like competitive person. I always want to be the best at like every single thing I do. And like, I'm also like very like disagreeable and like high agency. I, like, I don't really rely on anybody else for, for my value and naturally just have this impulse to do whatever I want. And I think those are great things, but they've been suppressed so long because of for some reason, back in early childhood, I thought like, oh, these are bad. And like, I, I can't show this part of myself. And then I also think, at least in my case, like me surprised my shadow also created like this feeling of like underlying stress. - Of course. - Yeah. And I just always felt this, this baseline of stress for a reason that I could never even explain. - Yeah, I mean, that's interesting. So did you say that you, you suppressed your disagreeableness? - Yeah, definitely. - And would you appreciate it? And so would you say that you have now become disagreeable or like you've kind of, you've improved on that or do you think do you still find it that it's a, it's an issue that you still deal with now. I think, yes, I am still dealing with that. But I also think like it's something I'm getting better with each day. And then also doing on the tactics that you mentioned, like every single night, writing down everything that you did that was in line with here I did today. Like I've been, I've been doing that, but with the shadow side I'm writing down like every single thing I did no matter how big or small that's like in line with my shadow. And I've noticed like ever since I started doing that, I've noticed this a lot more. And another weird pattern I've kind of noticed is like, it's my shadow is coming out a lot more with like people who I just meet, rather than people I've known for a while. And I find if like, how so one thing I notice is like, if I ever like see my friends from high school, but I find myself like, I kind of feel weird about like my success. And like I kind of feel like kind of weird to be confident. For some reason like, I kind of feel my body like naturally contracting. But then with some like a lot of the time with someone who I just meet, I'm like, I naturally feel way more confident. And like show my more disagreeable side a lot more. - Right, right. - Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, so I think it's first of all important to be careful with how you use the term shadow. So remember that it just, it refers to what you've rejected in yourself. I think the example that you use is quite interesting with your old friends. Would I say that it's a mechanism of the shadow? I don't know, it really just depends. I mean, a good example of how the shadow can manifest is, I'll take, I'll just give it a quick example and then I'll bring it back. Let's say there's a kid named Johnny. - Yeah. - And Johnny as a young boy, again, as his authentic self, right? So we all have our, we are all born in a way authentic, right? Like with our authentic natural temperament endowments, as you might call them. So our natural dispositions are inclinations, right? We all as kids, naturally inclined towards certain things, right? But with time, again, we learn that some things aren't good, right? Whether that's the bullying or like the socialization process, whatever it is, we learn that these things might not be good. And when we suppress the acts. And so Johnny, just like any other kid, a five year old kid, let's say, he, when, let's say like he scrapes his knee and he begins to cry and he goes to his mom to cry. Okay? This is a very normal thing for a five year old boy to do, is to go and cry to their mom. However, Johnny's dad, for some reason, is very irritated about the fact that his son is crying, right? His dad is of the, of the ultrasonic, let's say hyper masculine psychographic of male. And Johnny grows up and over time, he begins to slowly learn that showing emotion, sadness is bad. So like I said, he was the baseball game. Johnny begins to cry about losing the baseball game and his dad, it says, you can't, like, why are you crying? Like there's no, like do you think, do you think the other team respects like loser, private, you know, private is let's say. And this kind of cycle goes on and on, right? With his dad. And his dad is constantly kind of pushing away of this, this more soft part of Johnny. Yeah. Now they're, they're, their indeed was let's say reckoning with Johnny. And again, this is just a hypothetical character. All these characters are, um, or fictional characters where Johnny is now, uh, uh, with his mom, his, his dog died. And Johnny's crying again. Johnny's dad comes home drunk and Johnny's dad, uh, is, is extremely irritated this time. And he beats Johnny while he's crying, until Johnny stops crying. So until he begins to whimper, what does Johnny learn in this moment? Johnny is now associated showing emotion and sadness and softness with danger or death. Yeah. In a way, right? And again, what's important about the child like mind is that it sees things in black and white. So there's no, there's no nuance. Johnny can't really think, oh, like if I'm this sad, then there's this amount of danger. No, it just, it simply thinks that showing emotion equals death slash danger. This is what it has, uh, has done. And so this would, this would represent what Robert Johnson in the book, owning your shadow, what he would call a collision moment, where Johnny's ego, right? Um, and again, the, the, the ego is, is the computer program that you play life through. It's, it's what makes, when you say the word I am or me or like, like I am, I'm a, and you are Sam, when you say the word I, yeah. What makes that coherent is the fact that you have an ego. Everything, everything seems to be happening from over here. The ego is sort of the, the captain of the ship, right? And so Johnny's ego, let's say, has, and, and the good way to kind of visualize this that, that I thought of was, let's say he starts as, or just any ego, right? And again, let's say when we're born the ego, this thing called, the, the, the, or ourselves are just completely full. It's a fully authentic version of our ship. Yeah. Yeah. And it, it will hit the boundaries of your environment a lot of times because, and these would be called collision moments. They could be more violent like Johnny's, let's say dad beating him, where his ego kind of knocks into this wall and a part of that ego, let's say, is a line, kind of laws off. And then it goes the other way. And then like he, like another experience happens. And then like part of, part of his ego falls off there and then another thing. And for example, with Joan, right? A collision moment for her would be the bullying that, that memory of her being bullied for being expressive. So her ego has now kind of collided into her environment, a collision moment. And part of her authentic self has also kind of fallen away. Importantly, is these authentic parts of ourselves don't just vanish. They collect. And that's, that's what the shadow is. Is these these authentic parts of ourselves collect over time into what is the shadow. And so over time, after all of these sort of collisions with your environment is what you know is Sam, right? You are the final product of all of those collisions, which throughout your childhood and your upbringing, and now you're like this very theme line, which is your, which would be your ego and then your persona would be the personality that you present to the world. And you have multiple personas. The persona that you have with me right now is different from the persona that you have when you're alone at home, which is different to the persona that you have with your mom, which is different to the persona that you might have with your girlfriend. If you have a girlfriend, we have different sort of personalities and masks that we put on to the world. And so back to the story of Johnny is this collision moment represents a critical moment where Johnny has now learned that expressing sadness is, and expressing emotion is dangerous and bad. And so that gets relegated to the unconscious, the shadow, right? The part of the brain that would be associated with this would be the, um, anterior, anterior singular cortex, which detects sort of mismatch between between your expectations and actually what happens. And so Johnny expects that like showing emotion is fine. And then he realizes that it is not okay. And then the interesting cortex is very good at being like, okay, what the fuck just happened, we are going to, I mean, we've detected massive mismatch. We're going to be suppressing that part of ourselves forever, essentially. So Johnny grows up, learns that, um, and he grows up to be just like his dad, a hyper masculine ultrasonic male. And he actually becomes a KCEO, right? And he or maybe like a military commander or, or, or, or a certain sort of, um, job figure that, that aligns with those traits. Fish and, right? Means like those traits are kind of, let's say like he's a CEO, those traits are favored for within the market. But we don't, within that, um, uh, what would it be the, that, that's fear of work. Yeah. That's fear of the world. And however, Johnny, let's say with his, with his, uh, let's say Johnny has a, a girlfriend or a relationship, he's unable, she, she realizes that he's unable to actually access his, his, his sadness and his, his softer, the softer side of himself. And she and she asks him like, Johnny, I can't, I can't access you. He's not like why you're not being emotional and he doesn't realize why, but he gets very triggered for some reason. And again, he doesn't remember the memory importantly of his dad, right? He's completely blocked it out. And this is very normal, by the way, is, is to block out these more traumatic memories. And so, Again, over time, Johnny's girlfriend has an issue with it. Like, she's sitting down at her mother's deathbed, let's say her mother dies, and Johnny just doesn't know how to sit in the sadness with her, and he's trying to figure it out, like, come up with a logical solution to make her feel better. When all she needs is someone to kind of just sit there with her and just be sad, he's unable to do that. And again, the cycle continues, and then he kind of is met at this junction where either his girlfriend essentially breaks up with him, or he needs to do the actual, like, the shadow war, as you would call it, to figure out why am I like this. Importantly, now back to what we were saying is an interestingly enough, is let's say like Johnny's at a dinner table with all of his friends, and he sees that, he sees that there's a five-year-old boy crying. He gets extremely pissed, weirdly pissed, but he doesn't really know why. Right, so he says, like, all of his friends are at the dinner table with him, and he's just like, why is that kid such a bitch? You know, like, there's this weird sort of intense affect that he's feeling, and that is a diagnostic feature of the shadow, is specifically how intense the emotional reaction you have to a certain person is, right, or a certain thing. Is so if you feel a lot of disgust towards certain people, or a certain type of person, or hatred or resentment, that is a very good diagnostic tool as to what your shadow actually looks like. And so Johnny, for example, gets very triggered when there are boys, or you see the boy crying to his mom, and he just says, like, like, talking to his friends, and his friend, and he's like, what a little like bitch. You know, like, again, like it's very harsh language. Yeah. And his friends are almost thrown off by it. Like, they're at the restaurant, for example, and they're like, I mean, like, it's maybe it's a little bit annoying that the boy's crying, but it's not that bad, dude, but, like this is a success. Yes, you don't need to freak out about it, but like Johnny just has this weird, like, again, compulsive attraction to the boy. That's also another diagnostic feature of the shadow, is not just the intensity of the motion, but the compulsive nature of the behavior. So like, he just notices it without, with, with, and he can't help it, he can't help but notice it, right? And so, interesting enough, is that is a very, very good diagnostic tool to use as to discover what your shadow looks like. And so, yeah, and so, over time, Johnny, and I mean, another interesting point here too, is, the somatic manifestation of a behavior. So, let's say like Johnny, when Johnny is asked to be an emotional with his girlfriend, his shoulders rise up like this, right? Why are they doing that? It's because like, that's the exact thing that he did when his dad beat him, right? It's like, they actually rose up. So, like, that's also a very interesting thing. You can use these sort of, like, they're, it's very interesting in how the body can keep score. There's a book called the Body Keep Score. Yeah, in how the body can keep score. And remember the trauma in ways that you, the mind cannot recall, right? Because remembering something and recalling something or two different things, right? He might not be able to recall the memory, actually see that, like, live the experience, but his body remembers it. And so, like, if you think about any sort of tension that you have in your body, whether it's in your chest or in your back or in your jaw, that is, that can be a very useful tool, as to figure out what your shadow looks like. But I would say even a better way of going about it is to really find out what is in other people that trigger you. And again, give rise to this very intense emotion, whether it's discussed or rage, that almost always is an indicator as to something that may have happened in your past. I'm gonna let me, you may have rejected in yourself. An example of this with me was, when I started doing shadow work, when I started doing shadow work about like three years ago, and I would get, when I would explain things to people, I would get really annoyed when they wouldn't understand. Like, when I would explain, like, let's say, like, science, biology, neuroscience, whatever it was, I would just get like, super annoyed when they wouldn't understand. I don't know why, I didn't know why though. And when I began to do shadow work, I remember that, again, it was, it was, it's very interesting how this can happen, but you'll just like have it access, you'll just enter this corridor of your mind, you'll get thrown into this memory. And for me, it was a memory of me and my dad learning math at the dinner table. And him raging at me when I wouldn't get it right, like, luckily you didn't do anything physical, but you would just get really pissed. And I kind of learned that not understanding is bad, right, that is bad. And so when other people would display that sort of same thing, I would get really angry. I didn't know why. And all those types of people for some reason just triggered me. And when somebody wouldn't understand, I would, in my head, I would have this weird, mentful dialogue of like, are you fucking retarded? Like, you know, like, you'd be really bad. And only when I began to investigate that, did I realize that there was actually, there were, there was, like, let's say like a micro-trauma, right, or like, there was something that had actually been, there was a part of myself that I had suppressed, which was namely was the, the, the, the child who didn't know or didn't understand things. I suppressed that part of myself. I hated that child because, again, being that, if I, if I, because that child brought me pain, let's say, at the dinner table. Yeah. So I began to resent that child. And we, we, we, we don't like these parts of ourselves. And that's why shadow projection can also feel very good, is you can almost punish this part of yourself that you hate, but onto another person, right? They begin to embody that part of yourself. For example, let's say I was explaining something to a friend, my friend is now embodying that child version of me that I don't like. And I can like get really annoyed with them. And when I actually do get annoyed with them, and I tell them, like, are you serious? How do you not understand this? It feels good. That's the thing about shadow projections. It feels good. And that's the disturbing thing about shadow projection, right? And so importantly is, you can also reverse this so that if you, if you analyze the type of people that you actually look up to, or admire, right, or see its idols, and you try to actually find the exact thing that you, that you admire in them. What is it exactly that is, that's making this person so attractive to you? That often is a part of yourself that you also denied or suppressed, right? Because this is also shadow projection and reverse, right? That's what idolatry is. Is you've now, this person rejects, right, like Joan, for example. She's extremely attracted to, she has this weird compulsive attraction through Broadway, and Broadway actors and actresses. But she doesn't know why she so attracted to them, right? And only she, and she never questions that until, like she does the actual process of introspection, but it's the same sort of idea where you can find the trait in the person and you can almost always kind of track back where you suppress that in yourself. And you'll begin to see, and this is why I think idolatry is unhealthy, is the reason why we do this, the reason why we have idols, and people that we look up to, is that it's safer to view this part of ourselves from afar and not actually embody that part of ourselves because it can be very dangerous, right? There's a level of responsibility that you have to take on by going out into the playing field, by going out onto the field. Right. And with me, for example, something that I found, I was so inspired by writers and by people who would speak on these podcasts and people who would express their ideas, and this was when I was 19, I'm 22 now, but when I was like 19, I was just so, I had a, I guess like a morbid attraction, right? I just couldn't stop washing these people, and I was so obsessed with them. Right. Like names like Sam Harris and Rupert Spira, et cetera. And I realized that it was because I had rejected that part of myself because of like, I had been bullied for it in school. But like it was always a bad thing to be the guy who, right? And I mean, no, it's almost seen as a very scary task to like post certain, and many people can recall this in high school, but it's like post certain things of you like, talking to the camera, trying to be like a social media and the Hulk was like, just get you bullied for it. - No, I was bullied for it. - Yeah, sure. - No, exactly. And so again, that is a perfect example of a religion moment, right? Your ego has kind of collided with the environment, namely bullying. And so I suppressed that part of myself. - Right. - But that suppressed part of myself actually was projected, right? Shadow projection, but this time it's just like Shadow Gold projection or idolatry was produced onto other people. So I would now find people who didn't suppress that part of themselves, who represented that part of themselves, and I would just cling to them. because they represented that part of me that I so badly wanted to express. But I didn't know why. That's important is that the shadow lives within the unconscious and, and probably should have made this distinction earlier, but the ego and the persona, the ego and the persona. So again, or within the conscious, that you're within, I mean, there's the conscious unconscious split. Yeah, they're within the conscious meaning that you are aware of them. Right, right now you are aware of this I'm aware of this mic, I'm aware of, there's a cup right there, this chair. These are all things within conscious awareness. Yeah. There are also things I'm, I'm also aware of my persona, like the mass that I'm putting on here, right? And I'm also aware of how I'm acting in that way. It's all within my awareness. Right, if I think about it, I can think about the way that I'm acting right now. There are things that are completely unconscious that are going on, right, within the unconscious, things that I'm not aware of, within the unconscious loves the shadow. So when you say, like importantly is you can't say, like I know what my shadow looks like, unless you've kind of done shadow work, but the big thing with the shadow is, it's like your shadow, you can't like turn around and see it. Right, it's always behind you and it's always been unconscious and it's driving your conscious behavior. But again, you don't actually know what's going on, right, you don't know what's going on there. And so again, yeah, I was very attracted to these people who expressed this part of myself, who the ISOBAD they wanted to, or the I had rejected it myself. And it was, and Robert Johnson talks about this in Oni or Shadow, is the only way to actually deal with this is to eat your heroes in a way. You want to actually take those traits and eat them and actually try to embody those traits. And interestingly enough is what you'll see is, you'll actually lose this morbid fascination with these people. You'll still have respect for them, but you'll lose the urge to be them. Yeah, right. And that is a very good feeling. And that's a feeling that I only sort of began to feel as I began to post more and more and more. And when I began to lean into my creative side more and more, right, because I initially was just posting fitness content, my transformation content. That definitely alleviated some of the suffering to do with posting online, but definitely don't alleviate all of it. There was still part of myself where I was still rejecting my intellectual side, the part of myself that wanted to talk about intellectual things like this. Right, I had always sort of suppressed that and rejected that and admired people who did express it. And I would always like look at these podcasts with Chris Williamson and like fuck, like it would just be so cool to just do something like that, right? And only when I actually began to lean into that part of myself that had rejected, right? And I had able to express it within school, within the context of a classroom, but I was not able to, I was still almost afraid of expressing that part of myself online. And only when I did that, did I actually begin to lose my, that idolatry began to disappear in a very cool way. And yeah, and that was, that was a very important moment for me, where it was kind of me seeing live the shadow, right? And so this would be essentially shadow integration. And so like bring this back to Johnny is like a way that Johnny can integrate, let's say his sadness, right? So you want to integrate parts of your shadow, parts that you've suppressed into consciousness, right? So you want to actually bring them from again, the shadow and the way that looks in a typical young, the end diagram is like there's an ego, which is kind of like a ball. And then there's a shadow, which is a ball. And there's a split between them. And you want to bring these traits when the shadow, like kind of into your consciousness. - Yeah. - And so the, the way that Johnny would do this is again, you would have to do it in a shadow, importantly, if anyone watching this is you don't want to jump into shadow work, because it can be quite dangerous in the sense that you can retraumatize yourself. Let's say Johnny just wants to, like he wants to go to his girlfriend, he's skinny and he realizes that, he was, he's been suppressing his authentic sadness. And he's like, I'm just going to go cry. I'm going to go cry and I'm going to go, I'm going to go show her I'm this super, like soft guy. And I mean, this is the act of crying. Yeah, first of all, it can just retraumatize him. Like that could literally cause him to kind of show a little bit. But secondly, it's like, let's say like his girlfriend just looks at him weird. She's like, okay, like what are you doing? That can be extremely traumatic, right? It's like a way that you would do it. It would be like, graduated exposure, which something that I take like my mentees through, which is by exposing them slowly to, like in the case of Johnny is, let's say like you would be asking him just to like watch a movie, for example, and just feel the emotions that, watch a particularly emotional movie and feel the emotions that come and go. Don't, don't, don't necessarily cry, but just try to feel, just observe them without like, tensing up and try to feel them. That can be a very anxiety inducing task for Johnny. And then over time, he can actually begin to integrate these, he can do more graduated exposure, like it's a lateral moment where he begins to, try to display this part of himself that has been suppressed slowly but surely, and graduated ways, until he can comfortably say that I am actually a soft and caring person, and I'm, which would be, which would stand in stark contrast to what he used to be, which was a very, again, very stoic, masculine figure, right? And that's a very healthy thing is now, Johnny has access to the full spectrum of emotion there. Right, and this goes back to like the core, the root of shadow work, which is to become whole, not purificed, but to become whole, right? So, yeah, and so, bring this all the way back to the example of your friends, is you will, it's interesting because, yeah, like you'll go back to your friends and you'll have the impulse to, yeah, like shut down, and there definitely is a, I mean, now that I think about it, yeah, like it's good that you notice that there's that part of you that begins almost awakened in the subconscious, where you just wanna like shut down, and you don't wanna express this authentic part of yourself, which is to be the more expressive version of Sam who can be on podcasts, et cetera. And yeah, that very much, I mean, they could actually trigger that part of your subconscious, and yeah, it can begin to manifest in your conscious behavior, which would cause you to actually act like that, and shut down. Also, interesting enough is, I mean, the brain is just very good at coupling things. It likes to just say, again, save energy. Like our brain just likes to save energy when it comes to anything. So, it could couple the idea of your friends with like being a, a sort of condensed version of yourself, or I don't know if condensed would be the right word, but non-extgressive version of yourself, a lesser for one to the better word version of yourself, or less authentic, I guess, right? And I mean, many people have experienced this sort of phenomenon where they'll go back home, and like, they don't even know why, but they just kind of fall back into their old behaviors. For sure. Yeah, and it's because the brain is white good at connecting these environments with certain behaviors as well. Yeah, it's a combination of things, but yeah, I took like a big sort of circle around the park there, but yeah, I think it's interesting that, you bring that up, because I do think that's a good example of, yeah, this part of your psyche kind of being awakened without you realizing it as well, but now I mean, it's important, right? You're beginning to realize this, which is also like the beginning stages of shadow work, is to ask yourself, I mean, again, what things trigger me in other people, what compliments make me suspicious, right? Like that's also a good act, like a question to ask, what environments, what they learn was wrong or right, and then even like what environments are causing me to, to kind of like shut down, could be like good sort of investigation questions. That's like what the shadow looks like, which would be like shadow mapping as they follow. No, that's, that's really good. It really made me think too. Was my mind kept going back to like high school, when I think it was triggered by your math example. So I remember back when I was a math class, like grade 10, grade 11, I like that he should always ask me if I want to help, and I was like, no, I don't need any help. I never said yes to like help on my math problems once in my life. And then I noticed a similar pattern going to my relationships. Like in my last relationship, I was just like afraid of being vulnerable around my girlfriend, like when something wasn't going well in my business, I was just like, oh yeah, that things are fine. Don't worry about me. Like everything's fine. Yeah, and then I think, I've had that pattern play I was so much in my life where it's like I'm afraid of people seeing my weakness or like my vulnerable side. And I feel like that's like that belief or that that state of mind so common. So what would be the first step for someone like me who does feel like that more unconsciously to break free from it or even just understand it better? So would you say that you still find yourself trying to be the person who is always okay? Like you can just like there's no there's nothing's going on like would you say that's something that you still they still do? I'd say yeah and it's hard for me to to be emotionally vulnerable around friends. Okay so yeah um I mean the first question that you that you should ask yourself with there I would say is and this can be difficult initially right like it can be initial to tap into the subconscious mind with unconscious where um I mean there are many sort of deep and hidden corridors within the mind um that require effort and patience to finally find and within those corridors are different doors and those doors let's say represent certain memories and so the goal for you would be to first find when did you learn that expressing that sort of emotion was bad right and there was definitely a point in your life or several points in your life where Sam learned authentic Sam because there was definitely a point in your life where you actually did express it's part of yourself. Yeah right there there there is an authentic self there authentic Sam that used to be used to be able to express this natural um vulnerable side of himself without issue but again that there was also a moment where you learned I can't do that and the the goal there would be and a question that you can ask yourself and I would recommend journaling about because I I never recommend you'll never be able to think your way there just by thinking yeah it will have to be through the through the act of journaling for many reasons um all of us are neurological but um yeah to ask yourself when did I when did I learn that that being vulnerable was bad and just just asking that question and like like certain follow up questions as well like was there certain experiences I've had or somebody where somebody acted that way and they were punished for it was their way that was or were they bullied for it was there a time where I was vulnerable and I was bullied for it even in the slide in the in the smallest way right and then to just write down just just just just and just to see where your mind kind of goes um can lead to very interesting places within on paper and within the mind so that would be like the the first way that I would um go about that specifically right and and you could also try to find again like you can ask yourself are there certain cases of men being vulnerable that trigger you and if so like what are the exact dynamics of that of that man or person does I mean probably man because in this case or a male um expressing the vulnerability what does that exactly look like again like for example with Johnny he gets very emotional when he sees a doesn't know why again doesn't remember why or doesn't consciously consciously know why this is happening but whenever there's a boy and he's hugged me his dad right he gets like super emotional but doesn't even know why he's like the fuck is going on yeah right and that's a hint right that's a hint and by I mean getting even like a journal and just trying to like this something that I used to do all the time and I still do is to just mark down moments or in the day where you've been triggered and to begin to to note the commonalities between those instances and over time you'll begin to see okay like there really is a pattern here right and from there you can uh really like it's interesting I mean a lot of people ask like how do you journal hammer it is a like a specific way it's a skill is the is the for Johnny it's like it takes still like it does take time to kind of tap into this up conscious mind and and to be able to just write right because a lot of time people start trying to work and like fuck this like this is I'm I just don't know how to do this yeah I'm not a creative person right I can't do shadow work I can't write but again these deep roots of Lisa we have ourselves sure but over time you'll begin to see that you you'll you'll you'll begin to enter this part of your mind a lot easier and that can lead to very profound experiences and um yeah like even man there's so much when it comes to shadow and young geons psychology but this this idea of active imagination for example where you can actually dialogue with these parts of you uh we with these parts of yourselves with these parts of yourself um on paper and weirdly enough like with chairs too so and with the chairs I mean this would be now leaning towards more modern interpretations of of young like internal family systems so IFS and other interpretations but uh what what it is an activation imagination is to I mean first of all an example of this would be me being on paper me writing on paper the conversation between me and let's say the inner child version of me right like the younger version of Amor yeah asking him questions and seeing how he responds and so this is now where this term that I've mentioned earlier this the autonomous psychological complexes that exist within us the key is their autonomous they have their own beliefs they have their own emotions they have their own thoughts and they really do like this is this is the this is the part that really seems like something weird is going on when you do this where you'll speak to this part of yourself I say the inner child and they will say things that you actually wouldn't ever think of consciously and it really does feel like you're speaking to somebody else interestingly enough and I've seen this with several mentees of mine and just with myself is that different parts of yourself I said like the saboteur the person the person who's trying to protect you but actually ends up uh sabotaging you right um all of us have this version or the protector or there's there's many manifestations uh there's there's many ways that the shadow can manifest they can have different hand writings which is it's really weird like the hell yeah yeah yeah yeah it's really weird and it really does seem like there are yeah there are these there are these real entities that live within your psyche in mind yeah and this is happening with me several times and it really feels like you're beginning to dialogue with a part of yourself and only and like again this happened several times where you won't really remember remember what they said because it's like you actually had a conversation with them you don't remember what you said but you won't remember what they said you have to look back at the paper who who yeah or like another another example of this would be chairwork which is like more a more gestal therapy um based or also internal families internal family systems where you take two chairs in one chair you you are yourself and then the other chair you first of all you want to visualize and and try to figure out what this part of yourself looks like let's say it's like the the let's say it's the saboteur right like the person the part of yourself that constantly seems to be sabotaging your success because they're trying to protect you yeah example from from something for example a way that this kind of manifests with me is when i'm trying to do work repeat work my saboteur is constantly trying to and i feel the anxiety in my chest like that's that's where he manifests is is really this this tightness for my chest where i'm unable to do deport because i'm constantly thinking of different things i need to be doing when it comes to my business and and just things i just things i need to be doing in general and i'm and i'll sometimes be so paralyzed that i cannot do the work but from the saboteur's perspective and when i dialogue with him i quickly see that he's just trying to make sure that i'm okay like that i'm actually doing everything that he's been doing right or another way this couldn't manifest that use manifest in my life was the amount of hours of work that you spend rather than the actual efficient hour yes yeah right where like you'll just tell yourself i need to work for 12 hours a day it doesn't matter how good like the the kpi is wrong right they're tracking where they're they're just looking at raw hours rather than efficient hours and again i would have this part of myself where if i didn't work like 12 hours a day or 16 hours a day i was like i i'm the failure right and it would be the saboteur speaking that like you are a failure um and again only when i began to dialogue with this part of myself that i realize his intentions and it sounds so woo i say it but it really is really yeah like um really should try it so but and by having this dialogue with them you can begin to negotiate with them and make contracts with them for example and then you'll just begin to see this like release and sometimes it's interesting enough is sometimes you'll see it like the release live while you're doing the work that you'll actually feel attention to your off it's fucked it literally feels like they were kind of like like like grabbing your throat or again like for me it just it's usually it feels like it's just metal play in my chest yeah and i'll just i i felt it like just drop right when you begin to like negotiate and tell them i understand that you've been trying to protect me for example i understand your intention i understand all these things but i like you need to see how much you've been suffocating me you know etc you you have this real conversation with dumb which can last over an hour and then you'll see the the resolution or the disassembly solution of these symptoms that really cause us to hurt and to suffer. Yeah. And so even so what I was saying with like and with the with the chair work is you can actually take the form. I have done this before is crazy, but you can take the form of the person that you want to speak to. So you want to you want to know what they look like and you want to give them a full appearance, what their posture is. And then so you fit in this chair. Yeah. And you you you let's say you asked you question like what is it that you're trying to help me with? You stand up, you go to the other chair, you take the position of the person, whether it's like like like a slouch, just slouch down like this or however they would, again, you want to visualize it. And you begin to speak and you begin to go from chair to chair and you have full conversation. And it really does feel like there are two people having full conversation. And it can lead to very profound experiences where it just feels like you just spoke to another person. And again, you it's like there are these real again autonomous, like, logical complexes that live within you to have their own feelings and and beliefs and behaviors that can only be seen when we allow them to be seen in in certain ways. So yeah. So which other ways did your saboteur appear in your life? And like what were some of the exact things that you noticed coming from your saboteur trying to self sabotage you? Yeah, I think like the the first one that comes to mind was my believe me tendencies, tendencies. So I yeah, many people know here that like I used to, I mean, I still do like I I like to bodybuild and I like to have a nice physique and I sure so do. But there was a point when I was 19 where I was very obsessed with it. And I again, I'm like I I was saying that I even look better than I used to, but despite being that obsessed is the obsession was coming from again, the saboteur. So like it was this it was this kind of called this part of myself and then my sub sack would be dark side of armor DS. Yeah. And his soul goal was to make sure that I was like, peak shredded, super like this riff, all of all these things. And it didn't really matter the cost. And so ways that if I ate too much, for example, like how I would just bomb it. Yeah, I just was like, fuck no, I'm not keeping this. And it wasn't really me, but it was the that part of myself, which is like you are not going to be holding an extra calorie, right? Or or I would just suffer on the treadmill for the next day for like four hours, right? And like, yeah, like it was fucked. I was super bad. Or I would like starve myself for a day and do cardio. I've done like 48 hour fast where I just became borderline like, like I was like high put like see make it points and I could barely function. I got blood tested on and because of my, my health was not good. And I had key tones within my urine, which means like I was undergoing keto acidosis, which is my body now was resorting to fat instead of which is, which is essentially something that you see in starved populations. Yeah, like you'll see like key tones within your own. Yeah, that that's what the saboteur, for example, did right? Was it was it didn't care about about how I felt or he didn't care about how I felt. It was more. Yeah, these these compulsive behaviors that would arise. No matter how hard I tried to solve them. And yeah, and there was a fight, there was this fight between this, the dark side of myself and the other part of myself that I believe myself to be was like the fat ugly loser part of myself, which would also fight back. And eventually I realized that in that period and from a kind of a different lens, a non-young game psychology lens, but I my true identity, who I really believe myself to be was a fat ugly loser. And I would always kind of fall back into becoming fat, although like again, by, by regular standards, I wasn't fat, but I thought it was fat. Right. And I hated myself. I had a vehement hatred toward myself. And it was only by doing, it was only by doing high-density work and, and really learning about these are in parts of myself and my identity and my identity as a thermostat that I began to realize. I need to change who I believe myself to be on a fundamental level to, to actually see change the outer world, right? And this kind of goes back to what I talk about, but as long as I believe that I was the fat ugly loser, no matter what progress I made in the outer world, no matter how short I got, I would always kind of fall back to this, to this set point. And that's where my identity thermostat was set when it came to my physical achievements. And it would no matter how hot my outer world would get, it would always just kind of come back down. Yeah. And so back to the saboteurs, like that, that's one way saboteur would manifest is, is in the belief, tendencies. Yeah. And with my business now that that's a, a, like holds a significant portion of my life, it would definitely be like a, a very suffocating tightness in my chest that I begin to feel when I do work because I feel like I'm not doing the work that I need to be doing. But even though I am reading the work that I need to be doing, I'm always thinking about little things that I haven't kind of done, bring the day. And again, I mean, you spoke of this too, it's like the open loops, right? Like, and how you want to close all these open loops. And as long as like my saboteur kind of was aware of open loops, it was like, you are not doing any work. Like there's no, and it was sad because I, I literally became paralyzed. I was just unable to do any work. And I mean, this is why obviously delegation is very important. You just don't want to be dealing with all those things, especially and the greatest impediment to, like, creative work, which is my most important work as a creator. The greatest impediment to that is anxiety or stress, right? Like if you're anxious, you'll just never be able to access your creative, your, the creative mind or the creative brain. So, and that, that also was a massive hit to my mental health because I get joy from creative work from actually like thinking and, and, and one of the probably one of the best periods of my life, if not the best was writing these, the sub sack, which your identity is or thermostat. That was one of the best periods of my life because I was, I'll never forget the moment of falling back into that creative world. And yeah, like my, my saboteur at that point was, was kind of a tractor of different issues. My, my business hadn't been really rolling. Not much, really. Like it's crazy thing, but like prior to that, I didn't have a business I was doing as much money as it's doing right now. Yeah. And yeah, that part of my psyche was just distracted with other things. So I was actually able to fall into this creative world and my, and fall into my creative self. And yeah, like all of those analogies and the river of your identity, your identity being a river, that was all created in that, in that, in that timeframe, when, when it just, when I didn't have that saboteur active, right? And so now I'm beginning to find that space again, as I've been able to delegate tasks effectively. And yeah, I think it's very important to, and another thing that's helped me to, or allowed me to have breathing space is to dialogue with, with the saboteur a lot like every fucking day right now. I'm just dialogging dialogue. Do that as well. Yeah. And just trying to find out what the intentions are and, and trying to find out what their intentions are, what their goals are. And it's just insane. Sam, like it's insane, but you will just see that it's so crazy. Like when you're doing work and you feel like the chest height is coming or however it manifests for you, you'll, you'll hear yourself be able to say like, it's okay. Like we talked about this. And it's like a little brief. It's just insane. Like it's like you've actually just like kind of talked to this person. It's like, don't worry. Like we're chill. But if you don't, that will always, like you'll always find it surfacing, right? No matter what, no matter what. Um, this is also why I have an issue with like cognitive behavioral therapy. Right. Um, that isn't done with identity work where people will just focus on the, the, again, the actions, right? Like just the surface level because again, and that's what modern society is kind of perpetuated is this idea of that we must focus on the actions and the things that we do. And Nike says, like, just do it. And all the, like we're also action oriented, but we don't really like address the, the underlying, like where these actions are actually stepping from, like the soil in which these actions are actually growing from. Yeah. Right? Because the actions are just like the plants, right? Yeah. Um, whereas the identity is the soil. And as long as we continue to try to plant new plants within raw materials, they'll, they'll, they'll just die, right? And they'll either away. That's for no, J. Um, yeah. And so it really takes, it's so important to, go back to the foundation of where are these actions actually stemming from. And you'll always find that it's from your identity, right? And your identity is the source code, right? It really is where everything, all the behaviors that you engage in, the unconsciously engage in, arise from. And so, it's called behavioral therapy. For example, like it just saw what we were speaking about. If you, if I tell you like, hey, like Sam, I understand that you get really anxious when you work, I'm just going to, uh, here's this breathing technique that I learned from here, I mean, and it's like, it's like the physiological side where like you just take two deep breaths in and you take a long breath out and like your heart rate will slow down because it will like physiologically speaking, like that will actually cause your heart rate to slow down. However, like you're going to have to keep doing that the whole fucking day. It's like getting rid of the symptom of the root problem. Exactly. Exactly. Right. And so only when you actually do the identity work, right? Like when you figure out like why am I actually anxious? Yeah. Why rather than trying to again do these breathing techniques or these certain cognitive behavioral therapy techniques, which are, which are focused on the action level, which can work, but they work in conjunction with identity work. That's the important thing. That's how I, that's how I work with them as well. Yeah, I'll use CBT techniques with in conjunction though with identity work because as long as I'm, again, as long as I'm just looking at the symptoms and not the cause, I'm bound to regress. I'm bound to fall back. And so if you, again, if you take like a really good example of this also within that sub stack was you take a, an obese person and you take a triathlon athlete, what's this called the matriathlete? That's the thing, right? Okay. And so you swap the minds between the triathlete and the obese person. Yeah. So essentially what you've done here is you, you have now taken the inner world, right? Because let's just say the mind, the brain contains the inner world and you swap them. So you swap the inner world to what do you see happen? The obese person now with the, with the mind, the inner world of the triathlete begins to wake up at a certain time and go to certain, like, and let's say go to like racing practice and begins to like actually look at the details of what they're eating, like the macros, et cetera. And over time you begin to see the obese person lose weight. You're a so quick as well too, like way faster than the average person. Yeah. Exactly. And then if the other, the triathlete now has the obese, the obese mind. Yeah, with the obese, the mind, the inner world of the obese person, you begin to see that they, they don't care about the morning routines and they, they begin to eat whatever they want and you be and you see that this, this beautiful physique that they build begins to deteriorate over time. And again, what is this showing? It's like their actions are changing, right? But like where are their actions coming from? Right? Like the only, the only thing that changed was the fact that their inner world changed. Yeah. And so like the outer world, they're, let's say in this case, are physiques, like matched their inner world over time, right? Like, like six months later, with one year later, the obese person looks like a triathlete and that triathlete looks like an obese person, right? And so you, again, you just, this is just like another confirmation of how real this is. You again, or you just take, again, the lottery paradox where so many lottery winners find themselves completely, like going, going completely broke or interestingly enough, going back to the exact place where they originally started, which is also very interesting. So you'll, uh, an example of this that I saw, which was really funny. I talked about it all the time. Is this guy, I think he had like 130, something thousand dollars in his bank account. Yeah. Winds a lottery. I think it was like a lot of match, something 33 million dollars or several million dollars. I think it was in the tens of millions. And like five years later, he was back at 130, something thousand dollars. Right? And so again, what is this showing? If you really think about it, his identity, thermostat, right? The beliefs that he about it had about himself, the belief, the beliefs that he about it, had about the world that were that money is, is, is this hard to get? Ex it, right? Like, like, however hard he thinks it is to get, I make this amount of money. I have this amount of money in my bank account. Like, it was all, all of these things were composed in a very, very meticulous way to make him sit at 130, something thousand dollars in your bank account. Right? And this is, and this goes for us too. Yeah. The amount of money that we have in our bank accounts right now are just a manifest symptom of our inner worlds. Right? That's it. And so, even if, even though he won, right? A lot of max, he went right back down. Like, like, the outer will he had this massive spike, his subconscious mind, as I said, these as almost a fire, fire is going off. And it wants to cool down the environment and the environment of his outer world, it just cools you back down until he comes back down to what his identity is set up. Yeah. This is why you see so many people who, or just like many homeless people who have won the lottery, just go back to being homeless. Right? Again, it's just the same idea as like, their identities or inner worlds are, their, their thermosets are set at a certain temperature. And the outer world is just always will fall back to that temperature. And this just reminds me of something that James Clear talks about in Atomic Habits, which, where he says that you don't, you don't, you don't rise to level of your goals. You fall to the level of your habits. Right? And this is just very true where, but I think like a better way of putting it would be like you fall to the level of your identity. Yeah. Right? Because where your habits coming from, it's like, they're, they're manifest symptoms. They're, they're the behavioral outputs of something deeper, right? Which your identity. Yeah. Um, yeah. I kind of redirected us there, but yeah. Now that was, that was amazing. And so I love the direction you take that because that, that was also a big topic I really wanted to dive into. So I, I really want to talk about more the correlation between identity and business. And like more importantly to like your journey with rewiring our identity to, to find success in your business because you're, you're making what around 200K profit right now. I can grasp by the way, fucking insane. A 22 200 K month profit, fucking wild. But you got there after, I, I believe you said about nine or ten months. Mm hmm. Yeah. Yeah. That, it's been a very interesting journey. I mean, it all does go back to, I mean, I began, I began to realize, um, I mean, a massive sort of inflection point in my life was when I realized this whole concept of the inner and the outer world, that was like a, whoa, what I, but a lot of people will listen to this and they'll be like, eh, like, okay. But some people will be like, wait, like this is very true. Like my life right now is the direct result of my, of my inner world. Like it is the exact, like there's, it is so, it's so precise and painfully precise. And a lot of people will never kind of, uh, they refuse to acknowledge that because it can, it's extremely painful to acknowledge that you are the, the soul, um, arbiter of your life and, and the, the, the, the main, the only reason why you are where you are is you. And that was also a massive point for me where like you have to be able to just take all the blame and people will do anything to avoid that. Right. And they, because it's very painful, right? Like to, if you're working, let's say nine to five and you just hate your life and your relationships are bad and you're overweight, it can be very difficult for you to, to acknowledge the fact that this is just your fault. Like it's just your fault, right? Like it's nobody else's fault. It regardless of how hard your circumstances are, um, there's somebody else who has a harder is what I realize and, and, and even still like it just doesn't matter. It's, it's still, and I can't like this can just trigger a lot of people, but it was only, it's only when you can actually take all of that blame that you, that you also gain agency. And now you can do something about it because the, the thing is, is people don't want to take the blame. However, by not taking the blame, they, they outsource agency and their ability to do anything about it because if I say like the reason why I'm poor Sam is because of you. It's like, well, what am I ever going to do about it? The, I'm now living a life based in, in, in, in, in, in, where the only way that I can become rich, let's say is if you do something about it, not me, because you now have the agency for my life, right? But as soon as I take back the agency, I'm like, knows my fault. Yes, it hurts like a bitch, but I can now do something about it. I've reclaimed my agency in that, right? So that was a massive moment too, where yeah, it was hard. I was like, yeah, like the reason why I mean, I was overweight, I had crippling anxiety and paranoia, although that was like a whole other story with my de-realization, but I, I, I didn't like myself, um, and I just wasn't doing as well as I wanted to be doing in my, my relationships were that great when I was, I, this was all around like 17 or 18. Yeah. And I realized like, it's my fault. And that was like very difficult. Um, but that was also again, the moment where I was finally able to do something about it. And so I began this journey. of beginning to reconstruct my identity on a foundational level. During this period, I was going to do something called de-realization, which if nobody knows here, it's a whole other conversation, but I essentially lost contact with reality in a very horrifying way for two years. And two years? Yeah, yeah, I became like a Shelby who I'm being. That's a whole thing. We can do a whole podcast on that. Yeah, and that that kind of threw me into this whole world of nothingness and me realizing that there is a lot more like we are constantly living on this precarious tightrope of sanity and I fell off completely. I thought I had lost my mind and I'd never, I generally think that was ever going to come back. I'd contemplated suicide and all these things piece. It was just horrifying, but not like in a depressed way. It was more in a, it's only people who have de-realized can kind of test to this, but it's more of a when you lose contact with reality and well, I'll go into this a little bit, but when you lose contact with reality and you don't believe anything is real, is essentially the experience of de-realization and you lose sense of self-eye, although I can again, I can go into this for a long time. That can make the world entirely gray in a way that isn't necessarily depressing, but you just, you just, you come to the logical conclusion that this is like this just isn't worth it. Like it's not even, it's so weird. It's not like a depressed sort of like, man, like this is so awful, like I'm gonna, I'm gonna end it all. It's more just like, you know, this is just, it's a very disturbing. And so I had been thrown into this and that's kind of what I was in biomedical sciences for two years. I had left biomedical sciences and then I was went to pursue biopsychology with folks in neuroscience and neuropsychology because I just wanted to figure out what the fuck was going on. And it definitely gave more answers, but I didn't give all the answers that I wanted. So then I decided to do a dual major in philosophy, which is now what I'm doing right now. So like the biopsychology with neuropsychology and philosophy, or just like neuropsychology and philosophy. And with philosophy, that's where I began to realize that my confusion and my lostness had a lineage. And that's where I was like, okay, like, like this, this is where things began to make sense. So how's my philosophy so important to me? And why I hold on to it very, very tightly. But yeah, so anyway, so I was, there was this entire period of my life where things weren't going the way that I wanted to go. And I began to realize that through identity work. And I began to study also Eastern philosophy as well. So like Buddhism and Taoism. If that the outer world began to just match my inner world, right? Like I began to change the way that I related to myself on a like existential level and on a neurological level. And things began to change. The the outer world began to really match my inner world. And in ways that was just very weird, like I just began to now just have like a crazy physique all the time. Rather than just some of the time, right? My relationships began to to improve. I began to find like true inner peace with myself, all these things. And this was all the result of me changing my identity or just the way that I related to myself. And then yeah, and I cried to cheat all these things like on the intellectual level of things. And I'm not that I've achieved that much, but don't do it very well. Thanks, bro. And then on the physical end of things, I was like business was just was no different. Right? And that was a cool part is when I was like, okay, I want to make money now. It's just about like just doing the work on an identity level. Becoming the person, right? And this goes back to what Jim Ron says is the major outcome of life is not what you get. It's what you become or who you become in the process of getting that thing of what you get. It's it's who you become, right? And so it's the question that you have to ask yourself when when asking what you want in life is not what you want. It's who do I have to become so that these things that I want or a natural byproduct of the person I've become, right? Like the reason why I have like the physique that I have or you have the physique that you have is not because you just want to think it's good physique. It's because you've just become a person who's values the gym on the identity level, right? Who values his health. And your physique is just a natural byproduct of that. Right? The reason why you're making money is not because you just want money. Again, like you realized the universe doesn't really give a fuck about what you want. It just cares about who you are. And the reason why you have those things is because on an identity level, you believe yourself to make some amount of money. And that you for example have inherited the belief that money isn't hard, hard to obtain, right? And that's why you've actually been able to achieve that. So your and your behaviors that stem from the identity will will will make you achieve those things. And so this was this was just the case in business. It's like it's no different. It's so crazy. Like once you get this, you just realize that you can do whatever the fuck you want. And your horizons truly become limitless. Like that's a very cool feeling. Because even now, like with how much I've achieved in like next month's crazy, I'm going to look to do like $500,000 or even more. And it's excited for you. Thank you. And it's it's weird because there's not a like a doubt in my mind about it. There's no like is this. It's just you learn that the outer and the inner world just match. They they just do no matter what they just do. And so when you just continue to push the limits of your inner world, you'll see that the outer world matches, right? And so I have very big goals now. My goals only continue to to grow. But I it's a cool feeling or you just no longer doubt whether they'll whether whether whether they'll come to fruition or not. You just know it will come. So in the case of business is I needed to just give myself a self a self audit of sorts where I had to ask myself who did I actually have to become so that having a like several six figure per month business would just be a natural about to audit up that not what do I want. If I ask myself yeah, like I want a million dollars per month. Like okay, though we all do. Yeah, like all of us do, right? It's a good way to become right. And so I and you this is what like the future self narrative is, which something I talk about something that's very useful to engage with is to create like a first person narrative of the person that you are in the future written as if you are that person. So like a good example of this would be like just describing the day in life of that person and who you've become in extreme detail and visceral detail. Using like all sensory modalities and how you feel during the day and what you do when you wake up when you go to sleep. What what your day actually looks like again with extreme detail. Yeah. And by rehearsing this part of this this version of yourself over and over every single. I'll say every morning and night. Especially right when you wake up and right when you go to sleep because the the subconscious mind seems to be more open per say or your brain is more neuroplastic in other words. You can you can you can really rewire neural pathways to in essence create a neural template of this person that you want to become. And when you have this template, you can now begin to really move towards that version of yourself and away from the old version of yourself. And you'll see that you begin you'll begin to actually behave in the way that person would behave. Which which can just again that's a very cool experience too is you'll just see retrospectively after doing after making a certain action that it was actually aligned with the person that you want to become. Right. So and that's a good sign that it's that something is going on subconscious right because now as we've talked about is your conscious behaviors are just being driven by your subconscious mind. So let's say like you have the regular habit of going on your phone opening it and going to Instagram. Yeah. And one time let's say you suddenly are like you're you're rehearsing your few yourself narrative day and night. And then one day you open your phone. And you don't check Instagram. And you don't really notice until after you're like wait. I did check Instagram. You know, you're like, Oh shit. Like something is going on. Sublime. Yeah. Yeah. You know, so that's the goal is like you just want to become a person. The thing is is like you haven't actually focus on you haven't had like a there was there was no sort of behavioral intervention there where you're like, I'm going to focus on the behaviors. I'm going to figure out like a way to slow down my action when I touch my phone so that like by the time that I see the Instagram app, I'm not going to tap on it. Like if you keep doing that as the same thing as what we were talking about the anxiety and the breathing technique is you're just eventually going to figure out ways to go back on Instagram. Whereas if you actually like reconstruct the the way that you relate to yourself and you're on on an identity level, you you won't have that inclination anymore. But on a much much more profound level that you've actually changed. And that's where real change begins to manifest in outer world, right? Because now that you haven't now that you're not doing that, you're probably doing other things that are conducive to your growth, right? And help you and align you in the way that you want to go. And then you just begin to see changes. And so again, with with with any endeavor that it is, whether it's business or whatever it is, is I tell people this all the time, It doesn't matter what it is. Like you can. make money through, there's just so many ways to make money and all of them work. Anyone who says, and I think you should always be wary of the person who's like, "Oh, trading is bullshit," or "dropshipping is bullshit," or "info is bullshit," or "car detailing is bullshit," those people have just, or the paradigmatic example of people who are just so, who haven't really seen through the surface of the inner world, right? They just see the actions and they, and it's crazy because like, I truly believe that if I wanted to, let's say, like go do trading, right? I could just be successful in it. Totally. It's just a matter of actually believing that, right? Like on an identity level that you are, that person that you can be in the, you can do whatever it is that you've set out to do, but again, on a, not that you want to do this thing, but you actually like are becoming this person where that thing is again, just a natural byproduct. You can just do whatever you want, right? And so now like with my businesses, I had achieved all these things, like I said, and business was just, was, was, was no different where I said, "Okay, I have to become a person where, what behaviors, what, what behaviors is this person naturally engaged in, right?" So like that is, for example, writing all the time and actually enjoying doing the work not. And this also very important is you don't want to be disciplining yourself. I feel, and this is something that I guess is like a hot take, but I think the, the notion of discipline is extremely overhyped and what's the, what's the good way to put it? It's people like mentally masturbate to the idea of, of discipline. And I think that it's just so wrong because it indicates that you don't want to do the thing, which means that there's probably something going on on an identity level where, it's like, why don't you want to do it? Like for me, and, and for you as well, right? And, and, and, and any other person, an entrepreneur is, you are naturally pulled, you should be naturally pulled towards the things where you were suddenly, right? And that's the big difference with identity. As soon as you're being pulled towards the thing, like as soon as it hurts not to do the things, that's when you know that you've done something right, right? Like, rather than having to discipline yourself and oh, fuck, I need to like, I need to write today. Yeah. Right. I need to read today. It's like, if that was the case, I would like be so like six feet underground, right? It's, it all came down to, to, again, you want to be, you don't, you don't want there to be a barrier between you and the thing for you to always be like having to like jump over, right? Like, like the, the, the person who body builds, and who's an insane bodybuilder doesn't, again, like they don't, even if they say it, like it's just bullshit, but they don't, they're not disciplined in that way. They have just built an identity where they just want to work out, right? Like, like, like, like C-bomb, for example, isn't going to the gym and like, oh, fuck, I need to work out. Maybe like on a cut, right? Like when I guess super extreme shirt, there's, there's differences there. Even so though he's still, I would still argue that he's pulled towards working out. But imagine if like every single day he had to say that to himself, oh my god, like, no, that's not, that's not how it, and it's in the same way people who are necessarily successful. Um, let's say when it comes to business are still pulled towards other things, like they are pulled towards going on their phone or playing video games, whatever it is. And they enjoy doing it because their identities are like coding for that, right? Like they, they're actually just pulled towards that. You can do the same thing. You can actually make the things that you don't think are enjoyable, enjoyable, right? You can actually change that. And that's when you see people make massive leaps and strides, right? And I feel like, like, and I mean, this is like something that you often just see with a lot of people who have their identities very aligned where you're just like, holy shit. How is that person making so much progress so fast? Yeah. Like there's no way that person, like three months ago, they were like whatever. And now they're, and it's because like they, they're being pulled towards their goals. They're not having to fight every single day, right? And so that is also, um, something that I feel that people just again overlook is like, like no, like I, like I hate my work, but I'm disciplined. It's like, bro, like there's nothing, there's, there's, there's nothing. Uh, I just don't, I don't know if there's anything to be proud of there. It's like, okay, like you hate your work. It's like, so you're just going to hate your work for the rest of your life. Yeah. And your work is your life. It's exactly so you hate your life. So, um, yeah, I feel like there's a massive disconnect there and people you shouldn't want to be disciplined. Um, if I ever have to discipline myself to do something, right? Like, and again, it's like almost like masochistic where it's like, why are you punishing yourself and getting pleasure out of it? It's like, yeah. Right. It's like, yeah, I, I, it's, it's, it's an odd notion to me. Um, and if I ever do have to discipline myself, I always have to ask myself like, what's going on here? That's, that's so true. That's so true. Like digging into that feeling like, why don't I want to do that? Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So this really reminds me of something Chris said at that show that we were both at. So if he was saying like, you judge the quality of your life based off how excited you feel to wake up in the morning and like, how excited you feel getting out of bed. So how does somebody find that thing that can just get them always fired up and like, that they don't even need to discipline themselves for it? Okay. So, I mean, I'm kind of glad that we now mentioned the story of Joan. Yeah. But so Joan, for example, has suppressed her expressive side, her side that likes to dance and to be theatrical and and love Joan. Yeah, love Joan. But sadly, Joan has hates this part of herself. She, she hates the people who who go on, on, on, on, dance stages and she, interestingly enough to enter her language, she'll have these Freudian slips. Right. I'm just thinking this is one time. So have these slips where a show shall be like, why is this person or are, shall, shall, shall say things like like, let's say there's a, there's a very expressive person within, yeah, within her work. Yeah. Yeah. She, she has a, a weird resentment towards them, right? And she, she doesn't really know how to, I mean, her language, the way that she, she, she uses her language in that, in that cases, she'll say something like, this is very interesting actually. It's just say like, we don't need to make a show out of this, right? Like the word show or, or no, no need to be so performative or again, performance, these certain words that she uses that are arising are indicators of her shadow as well. Back to her shadow. It's like, she's using words like, like theatrical, like why are you being like, why are you making such a performance out of it or, or again, you'll need to make a show out of it. That is an indicator as to what her shadow looks like, right? So it's very interesting how even people's language and like the way they, they, they reject certain certain things and other people or, or in them, in themselves and project onto other people, their language can also be indicators as well to suppress. Anyways, Joan has suppressed part of herself that, that, that wants to be expressive theatrical, can't find the thing, right? And now she, as a youngwood term, is living, is, is dealing with the unlived life, right? And she, she's trying to find the, like the life that will actually bring her happiness and joy and her depression is just a symptom, a symptom of her, of her psyche rejecting her circumstances, right? And that's what often what depression is is like, if you are depressed or if you are like severely anxious, that is very important. Like that's not something to necessarily just numb away. You should answer to like, why am I depressed right now? Like a lot of people will be, a lot of people will, and this goes into another conversation with the, the people just always resorting to medication and drugs, but a lot of the time prior to actually resorting to those interventions, pharmaceutical interventions, one should ask themselves, is there something that my psyche is screaming at, or screaming at me for, right? And in the case of Joan, her psyche is screaming at her to actually like, to, to go express herself in a theatrical way. And like a way that she could do that, for example, is to like, just begin like, and again, this, this thing would get with, with graduated exposure, because in the case, for example, within a car, she would, she would begin to like sing within a car, right? That would be like the first way that she would expose herself to, or integration specifically, or integrate this part of her, of her shadow. And then another like, small example, like would be like dancing in her room alone, right? To music. And then slowly but surely, increase like the difficulty, I guess, like the next thing would be like going to a choir where she's not the only person singing. So like her psyche doesn't freak out, her saboteur, whatever part of her psyche doesn't freak out when, let's say she makes a mistake, there's not, the, the stakes aren't that high because she's a part of a choir, she's not singing alone, etc. So she would build up. And so, back to what you were saying is, you want to find out, and so, even before that, though, by doing this Joan will eventually find happiness in her life is the big thing. she will find happiness because she has now found the thing that she has suppressed and she's actually able to pursue now, right? She's rejected her whole entire life. And that can be very hard as well. There's a grieving process the shadow work as well, where one must grieve everything that they've lost. And if in the case that somebody, and I think this this is a very good segue into like finding what that thing is, is like you need to ask for what is it that genuinely gives me like a weird spark? I'm like when does time really seems just just not feel real, right? And again, it can be difficult because sometimes we might have suppressed that thing in ourselves. And if we have, then again, it takes work to find out, again, what is it in other people to trigger me doing all these audit questions, trying to find out what you've maybe suppressed? That thing might be the thing that you have a real passion towards. But again, a lot of people just, I think it's very sad, right? Like a lot of people in the workforce who are doing 9 to 5s have these really like, have these inherent like inclinations toward certain things and projects, if they're just so good at, but they just suppress and reject because like there's no way I could be good at that. And I think that's just that's you are just you are destined to live a life of suffering. If you don't find the thing that you that your authentic kid self would want you to do, right? And so like I'm very privileged and lucky to be able to say like I've always just had a weird thing for just like learning and being in school and writing and reading. And I've been able to just make a job out of that like my job now is just to like read and implement things I read and and I go to school, I still go to school, right? Like you're probably making them out of money that I make to learn and then to implement those things I learn into what I teach. And even if I don't teach them, right? Like I they're still a part of me that will always want to just be in a classroom, right? Like I'm not going to just stop going into a classroom. If I've if I found all the things I need to teach to other people, I'm still going to I'm still going to include that as a part of my life because that's very important for my like psychological health. And it's always important for you to find those things that really bring out the best in you. And yeah, um, the things that you just have a natural talent for is the way that I would describe it. And everyone here watching this knows that there's something like that for them. Why does something that you, whether it's something that they used to be good at as a as a child or something that they're still very good at and they have a weird obsession towards? Like they're that little thing that they like you on the side. That's the thing in my opinion. And it's like you, I know I would argue that you can truly find ways to integrate that thing into a business model somehow. Right? Like whatever it is, some people are just like good at solving problem. They really like solving problems. They probably like the cuts that you can do a lot of things with that that make a lot of money, right? You don't need to and those people, I mean, this is why I also again, people just find themselves to so depressed in the nine to five life is because they've now just suppressed that part of themselves. They've they've rejected that part of themselves that that want to that that wants to be I mean, they've just they've they've disowned that authentic part of themselves that inclines towards certain things, right? And just as I put it, yeah, and that can be very, that can be very difficult. So I would say just to answer that question more directly is to find the thing that that that really seems to ignite a spark and then find ways to implement that into, I mean, ideally into just your working life, right? And I just again would argue that there are ways to often to do that. And that's how you get this feeling of waking up and and you're being like holy fuck like I'm so excited for the day, right? Like that's such a good feeling to have like it's such a good feeling to have. And it's a feeling that I genuinely hope and you everyone can feel, right? It's like wake up and just be so excited because most people have lost that. Most people are and again, it's just like the tragedy of modernness to the idea, I guess, right? 100% and something you were touching on before that was making me really curious was you were talking about how you created this exact future self narrative for the type person you're going to be when you're making a certain amount of money and when you're successful in business. I'm so curious who exactly was that person? Like what exactly did you write down that future self narrative in that day and the life? Hmm. Cool. Yeah. So I have several. Yeah, I've said love to them. I mean, the interesting thing about your self narrative is that you can actually, you can pace them differently. So you can write for yourself narrative that describes the day and the life of the person that you want to become in six months, the day and the life of the person you want to become in a year or two years, three years. I have like several. And one of the most important things I usually write is the feeling of enjoying the feeling of acquiring knowledge, like knowledge acquisition and enjoying it and what it feels like. And I'll just describe that process where yeah, like just like an example I can think of is I love or I the feeling of reading a book and the feeling that I get in my chest and in my face and in my body. And I'll describe that feeling, for example, like the electricity that moves that moves from from my chest to my body. And you really want to just be super specific in how you're describing it, just weirdly specific with a lot of somatic detail. And for example, like one of those things would be like acquiring knowledge. And so like when I'm reading every single day, when I'm actually going and reading and acquiring knowledge, I do feel that sort of that those those sort of associated sensations, right? And that goes for everything. So whether it's a person, if you are a resilient person or a person that is able to witness thoughts arise and pass away, right? Like what does it feel like? I notice anxiety rising my chest. I also notice it fall away. I notice the heat in my face. I noticed the weight in my chest. And you want to be again, describing this in just very specific detail. And then what it feels like when it rises, what you do, right? When it arises, just simply in in my case, it would be simply to observe it from a more Buddhist perspective. Yeah. And to let it pass, right? And to notice that like you are just this open empty space in which everything is arising. And there was there was something that I wanted to to say on that I forget. But yeah. And so, oh yes. And so by doing this the important thing is that again, you're creating a neural template for the person that you want to become. And so people who if you take two groups of people, right? And this is just a very interesting thing is you take a piano player and you tell them to think about playing the piano. You take another piano player and you're just getting to play the piano. Yeah. What do you actually see? The piano player who is thinking about it, which is visualizing playing the piano, actually visualizing and embodying that experience, you will see the same part of their brain activate the mortar cortex. As if they were playing the piano, it's fucked. Like it looks exact same. Like if you tell them to like think of the exact song and then the other and then they actually go and play it, the the the brain looks almost identical. Like it's so crazy. Like your brain is is very much rehearsing the thing. Yeah. Light, even when you're visualizing it, this is why athletes visualize a race. This is why gymnasts visualize doing this for an um, what is it? Like tricks or example, I'm a cynical tricks, but yeah, yeah, they're called tricks. Okay. Yeah. Well, gender tricks. Yeah. Well, it's called tricks. I'm sorry to do this. That's definitely no, they're called um, but it's it's very important. Like even the first time I got my first handstand, right? I had to visualize it and only after I had visualized it. Did I actually was actually able to do handstand? In the same way when you when you are reading the few self narrative and you were embodying that experience, you are also activating the same neural pathways that are used for that thing. So like if you if you are reading, let's say the urge, you feel the I feel the urge to go on my phone and again, you're describing in detail, you feel it in your right arm, you feeling it pulsing up to your like to your head and you feel the urge. If you're reading that video and you're also reading how you respond to it, right? Like the observation side of it every single day, you're also rehearsing the same neural pathways for that behavior. So when it actually happens, right? When it happens that you do have the impulse to reach for your phone, you have now rehearsed so much, you've embodied it so much that you're able to observe it and you won't actually reach and you won't actually reach for your phone and you really have, I mean, this is just a a a manifest symptom of of neuroplasticity and action, right? Where you have changed the neuroplathology. associated with a certain behavior experience. And you no longer, or you find yourself acting in that way that you've described. So, so vis-à-vis really. And this is why the future self narrative is so important. Another reason why the future self narrative is so important. And I think this is a novel insight. So this is the first time I think I'm going to say on YouTube. But so the same parts of our brain that are used to recall the past, or the same parts of our brain that are used to envision the future. Okay, so namely the default mode network, plus or your single-core text, type of campus, or other areas. And so this is, so this is, you got to stay with me here, but it's really cool. So, when you begin to write, so again, these parts of your brain are the same that are used to think of, recall your past, or the same ones that envision your future. Yeah. When you begin to write a few self narrative, and you actually begin to change the way that you view your future, because you are beginning to rehearse this part of this future version of yourself. Yeah. You are also, because it's the same parts of the brain, as far as I'm aware, but this is, I'm pretty sure it's correct, because it's something that I've experienced subjectively as well, is the way that you view your past begins to change as well, and because, again, it's the same for a separate brain. And so, you will begin to completely reinterpret memories. Really? In a way that aligns with this new identity that you've built, it's insane. And, like, I used to think that I was a loser in high school, and if you were to ask me like, why did you do this? It was because I was a loser. I was fat. I was ugly, whatever. Now, and this is, I just remember doing this is, when I was doing the future self narratives, the way that I would respond to those questions just began to change, where, oh, my, I wasn't a loser. I was just learning. You know, it's weird, but again, it was subconscious. I just didn't realize that my narrative of the past was changing. I began to block out certain memories, or just reinterpret certain memories. Importantly, too, this is extremely important, is memories are not stored like files on a hard drive within the brain. So, when you actually recall a memory, you are actually like reconstructing a memory based off of patterns that you remember. This is just true neurologically. There's no such thing as storing a memory like, it's not, it's not this file that you click on and open up, and you're like, oh, yeah, I remember that. No, no, no, it's, you are just, there are patterns that are associated with that memory, and you can reconstruct them, and then they pretty much like deconstruct. What does this mean? Memories are malleable. So, you can actually change the way that you remember things. And this is just very true. Like, if you lie to yourself about a certain thing, enough times, you will, you will begin to believe that thing actually happened. This is just very true. This is also why I'm, what I witness testimonial is, is very unreliable, because if you ask somebody, oh yeah, like, this is just like a very common example, but people would say that witness to murder, but witness to murder. Yeah. Sometimes they'll, the people who are asked them will intentionally put parts that aren't real into the testimony when asked them, so they'll be like, so did you see a man walking across the street, and he was wearing yellow shirt, and it's like, this is never happened, and the person will be like, yes, yes, I do remember that, but it just never happened, right? So, like, again, like, the memories are very, can be affected, and they're very delicate. And so, again, the, so when you are beginning to, to write your free self narrative, and rethink the way that you, you see the future, you are also changing the way that you now are viewing your past, because it's the same part that we're interested in. Yeah, and when you do that, right, when you change the way that you've viewed your past, the way that you've viewed your future also changes. Why? Because, again, if you think, because the way that we believe ourselves, and back to what we were saying is our identities are like the collection of beliefs that we have about ourselves, right? And many of those come from our past. And so, if I begin to change the way that I view my past, right, I will naturally, or inherently by doing that, my capabilities that I, the, the things that I think I'm capable of now, of doing now, that are based off of my conception of my past, right? If they will begin to change, given that I begin to view my past differently, right? This is also why it's very important to, if you can just tell someone to reinterpret their past in a certain way, they'll just think of themselves differently. They'll say, oh, oh, I can't do that. Or I am more capable of doing this, just by telling them, do you think that you may be seeing this, that you're viewing this wrong? Do you see how that's not necessarily like? And they'll be like, oh, yes, that's right. And by doing that, you can change the way that they view themselves now, what their capabilities are. And that will also change the way that they view their futures. They view their future. And so again, it's this is really cool loop that you see where change the way you view your future. And then you will inherently change the way that you view your past because it's the same parts of the brain that are being activated, which is also why the future of the narrative is very important. And you'll see this life, right? Like when you, when you begin to rehearse this future version of yourself, you'll just, I mean, you'll filter out certain memories just naturally because memories that don't cohere with your self-concept. Again, what is your brain care about? It does not care about truth. It doesn't really care about what happened. It cares about coherence, right? So if there are memories that are contradictory to that self-concept that you've built for yourself, your brain will just filter them out. Or it will just reconstruct them in a way that does fit with your identity, right? That's why it's also very dangerous that where if you believe that you are a loser, you only remember times where you were a loser, right? Or you will try to reinterpret memories in such a way where they confirm the belief that you are a loser. Yeah, but this goes the other way as well, right? So by changing your identity, you know, only do you change the way that you view the future. But yeah, your entire interpretation of your past and yourself as a whole just begins to change. So what do you think will be the first step for for me or somebody watching this to create the future self-inheritive? Yeah, so I would first do like a sort of audit where what are the, what is the person I've become now? What are the behaviors that I'm engaging with now? Who have I become? What do I value? What are my reasons as to what I what I'm doing everything? And like how are the the manifest outcomes of my life directly associated to my identity and who I believe myself to be? And so just like find those connections. And then after doing that, you can begin to now construct this future version of yourself where what is how does this person person act on a just on it on I mean again, see even there like I made a mistake. Not how does this person act how does this person act as a result of of who they are? So who who has this person become? Right. That's that's we want to ask is who do I want to become? Right. What do not what do I want? Right. You don't in a future self narrative. I don't think it's necessarily useful. Although I mean these things can be useful in other other circumstances to say like like I have a Ferrari and I have this and I have that. Those are wants outcomes. Yeah. And not actually like processes are just they don't and they don't everyone wants a Ferrari, right? But for sure. Yeah. You want to you want it to be you want Ferrari to just be a natural again, just symptom or byproduct of the person that you've become. So by asking yourself again, who you are now and then contrasting that to the person that you want to become and just and seeing what sort and just how they engage in their daily life again, has a result of the person that they become though. Right. Like when you say that in the future self narrative that you have let's say a respectable physique, it's a why though. Well, say why have it why do I have a respectable physique? It's like because I value held and because XYZ, right? Like who again, you're going by five NC level on a more existential level who you flee yourself to be. And then after doing that, then you can begin to into a more like neuro linguistic language, for example, where you you talk about like the actual actual somatosensory experience of being this person. So this is now what you name like the feeling that you get while doing certain activities in your chest and you want to name exactly. It feels like the warmth that you feel in certain parts of your body. And by doing all of those things and you can begin to create like a a a strong coherent vision of where you want to become. And then you want to rehearse that. So the way that I go about it usually is first thing in the morning like right when I wake up. You want it to be like literally first thing in your eyes open when you're almost in this like a weird liminal space when you wake up, you know, like when you're half dreaming almost. The subconscious mind is is particularly susceptible to change or just and I mean your brain is just is more neuroplastic. And so you get bit. This is when you want to be reading the few soft nerves. - Yeah, right. - Importantly though, you want to be embodying it as well. So really like taking the posture, like sitting in a certain posture and really trying to almost like half visualize it, right? Because again, you're just incurring more neuroplasticity by doing this thing or by reading in an on-body fashion. - Yeah. - Yeah. And the same thing at night, right? Like right before you go to sleep, and this just makes intuitive sense as well, is if I'm doing this right when I go to sleep, might, I mean, dreams specifically are a paradigmatic example of, or a paradigmatic illustration of what the subconscious mind looks like, right? So like your pre-functional cortex begins to kind of like shut off and your subconscious mind begins to just awaken within dreams. This is why Carl Young just always was analyzing dreams and a whole part of his practice was just like dream analysis. - Yeah. - And so again, if I'm reading this future version of myself right before I go to sleep, chases are, my subconscious mind, again, my dreams are going to be affected somehow probably, right? It just makes sense. But this is just true also neurologically, is your brain is also just more, your subconscious mind is more susceptible to change and your brain is more, I guess, a neuroplastic in the state right before you go to sleep. So those are the two times too, I feel are very important. And then I just like to carry my few self-native around with me all the time, like having in my bag. - Yeah. - It's a very good groundy technique where like if you do find yourself sleeping, you should just go back and read who this person is that you're wanting to become. Importantly though, you don't want to say, I want to have or I want to become, it's just I am, right? Because again, by introducing this gap between you and the person you want to become, you do create a permanent gap. And I would like, you're just going to be in this constanated becoming rather than just being, right? And so do you want to be in a state of being this person where you will see like the behavior is naturally flow. So yeah, I'm trying to, yeah, and also importantly is, it's important to know that like identity change and change when it comes to doing these sorts of practices like shadow work and future self-narratives is that they operate on neurological time, not psychological time. So it takes time for your brain to rewire, right? Like neuroplasticity is not a day or you read the future self-narrative and you're just chilling, right, it takes time for your brain to rewire. And it's very important to continue doing these sorts of these practices and other practices as well when it comes to identity consistently. Yeah, so that you have like, so again, that and with time you'll begin to see these changes. And then again, once you see these changes on on, on an identity level, you'll begin to see changes like in outer world, right? So what's the difference between neurological and psychological time? Yeah, so, so with psychological time, I mean, yeah, the reason, I guess I can clarify, I'm not there. So, like a lot of people think that when they read, I mean, like psychologically, when you're rearing the future self-narrative, you may believe that you are just going to be this, you are going to immediately transform into this person, ignoring the actual material processes that are going on underneath, which are the neurological processes. And those are very important to take into account because again, that is the thing that actually needs to change on an identity level. Yeah. Or it's the thing that needs to change for an identity change to occur, right? Like when you actually change on an identity level, you will see the brain, your brain just looks remarkably different, right? Then how it used to look. Literally looks different because the ways that the neurons have, have rewired essentially are very, very different from the ways they used to be. Right, that's why the identity changes. Is you take a person who's depressed and a person who's no longer depressed, same person. And if you take a look at their brain, the two brains, they look very different, right? And so that's the neurological time change. It's like you need to wait for the brain to actually change, right? It can't just be fully psychological, where you, I mean, many people will think like, I mean, it doesn't make sense to say like psychological change tracks when their neurological change, which is true, but there's also like an inclination for people to just think psychologically that they're just going to read something and they're just going to see change right away or do shadow work and they're going to see change right away. Rather, it actually just takes time, right? It takes time on a material level. What do you think is the limiting belief that you're still working through or an area of your life where you can feel that your identity is still holding you back? It's weird because, it's weird because I think by, with all the work that I've done, I, I don't know, like it's weird, I don't believe, I feel like I have very little limiting beliefs now because I've realized that limiting beliefs are so insidious. Yeah, in the ways that they can affect your life. And I'm very quick to notice any limiting beliefs I have. That's a good question though. Maybe, I mean, perhaps one, and I haven't put about this, but is, I have, like so I've had, ever since my de-realization of having anxiety, chronic anxiety. And I guess there is a sort of belief that the anxiety might just stick forever, this chronic anxiety that I have. Because of all of the sort of information I've, that I've come to understand. And yeah, maybe there is a, definitely there might be a belief there were, where I mean, I appreciate you for, I guess I'm making like surfacing this, but some of that I might need to investigate too, where, yeah, maybe I believe that my identity, or my anxiety is a part of my identity, where I actually talk about this a lot, where like one shouldn't say that they are anxious, but rather that they are feeling anxious, right? Because by saying I am, you are, you are identifying with something that is not you. And I feel that I do that with anxiety sometimes, while I do like I'm so anxious, whereas I don't, where I should be saying, I feel anxious, which is there's a big difference there, right? Like, if it's not like I am, like even when you're struggling with your business, for example, you shouldn't say I am stressed, like I feel stressed, 'cause you're not anything in that way, right? And this goes back to like Buddhism, where you shouldn't be identifying with these thoughts, because again, like identification with thought can very much create a lot of suffering, and the attachment with thought, and just attachment with certain things as well as what, is what Buddhism teaches, creates a lot of suffering. So, yeah, there might be a sort of, undercurrent of thought there that might not be, might not be, being investigated, when it comes to my anxiety. And because it's just never kind of one, like it's always there, I've been able to manage it very well though, to the point where now it just doesn't affect me, and it's nowhere near as bad as it used to be, because of the identity work that I've been doing, however there is still, there is definitely still is there, and sometimes it can surface more, if I'm more stressed, yeah, I can find myself to be more anxious, to feel more anxious. Yeah, so I think maybe, that would be a sort of belief that I have is, that maybe like my anxiety might stay, which I probably shouldn't have, and something that I've actually been working through. Now that you say, like I do definitely talk about my anxiety in all of my journaling and writing, as for more far reaching, limiting beliefs, I don't feel like I just, I don't know, I feel like I've kind of eliminated them. I just, and it's a very cool feeling where I just don't think there's anything that I cannot do, literally, like if I just want to do something, I'll do it. And it's just a matter of time until I do it. Right, like I want to become an author, and I want to become a writer, and I want to do things that are a lot bigger than what I'm doing right now, and I've no doubt that I will do them because of, again, this realization that like, the outer world and the inner world match, right? Even when I made my first 200 K-Mon, I was fucking making zero dollars before that. It was weird, I wasn't shocked. I was like, yeah, like it just, this was going to happen, right? And it still is, it's definitely just a real aspect to it. Like it is really cool. But I wasn't like, there's no way. Like that, I think is very negative. I think that if you have that, that's a sign that there is this sort of imposter syndrome going on where your identity hasn't yet matched your outer world, and then you might regress back to your identity, where if you have certain outcomes, you should be, there shouldn't be a sense of shock, in my opinion. There should be like, yeah, like I work for this. This is just who I am. Like I am somebody who is successful, and I'm somebody who has become this sort of person where 200 came on and more are just a by-product of who I am. So I don't ever worry about this after going away. I think if you do, then that is something to definitely, something that you should definitely analyze and ask yourself, and why is it that you feel like you might go away? Because this just goes back to lottery paradox. Persons and lottery, they're in disbelief. Oh my God, it's so insane how am I going to keep this, and they just lose it. Because they can't actually hold that success. Their identity hasn't, they don't have the proper scaffolding to hold a fucking like, like a 3,000 pound rock, for example, right? Like that's a massive thing. You need a lot of scaffolding to hold that. Whereas if you do have the proper scaffolding, and you do see this massive windfall, and the out-of-world does match, it's just more so, like, yeah, this is something I'm doing. For me, it's like when I hit the 200K, I was like, I want to be a lot more than this. Not only on a financial side, or on the financial aspect of things, or my entire aspect of things, because I think that's quite irrelevant. But just like on a bigger level, I just wanted to create something bigger than what I'm doing right now, and I want to do bigger things. And when I think of the money, for example, which is like, yeah, it's just going to be a byproduct, but it's never like a sort of, oh man, is this, yeah, there definitely isn't a limiting belief there. And I don't think I do have, I generally don't think I have anyone that comes to that, like what I could do. If, yeah, I think that when it comes to me being the biggest in the space, I think I can do it. And I know that I will eventually come back 'cause it's like two years. - I'm here. - Yeah. - Exactly, bro. And you should genuinely, and it's crazy, because when you really do embed that belief within yourself schema, it's just a matter of time until it just happens. - Right, it's just crazy. It's so, it's so fucking weird, but, yeah, like all of these limiting beliefs are completely illusory, and they've either been told to you by somebody, or, or, yeah, like probably just told you by somebody, or you've just probably heard somebody say it to somebody else. That's what it was. It's literally just fairy dust. Like it doesn't exist. Like what everything's limiting beliefs are that you have by yourself, are actually just completely fake. And it's so crazy, 'cause again, people really do stack the rocks on that side of the scale. And they, they truly believe that, like no, there's no way I could actually like, I don't know, make this amount of money or look like that, or it's like no, like it's, it's, it's, it's, it's like when you see it, when you see it, like when you see it, these things match, they enter in out of world. It's, it's just so crazy, crazy. And I guess sad to see that people don't see it this way. People actually believe that there are limits. It's fucking white, but like what's the limit? You know what I mean? Even when I say this too, you know, even with my anxiety, like again, like there's no reason why, like the anxiety should persist forever, right? So again, like I need to, like that's, that's something for me to anxiety and it, definitely something for me to examine. And worth questioning. Because yeah, like again, when you truly believe that you have an outcome, right? And this is, it goes back to the paradigm of, that talk about often is B do have, first have do B. - B do have. - Yeah, so I mean, most people live within the paradigm of have do B. So like I have to have the thing to do something else to become this sort of person. So a good example of this is you'll ask somebody, like hey man, like when do you think you're gonna start working out and they say, I don't know, like, what do I have more energy or what I'm more fit? And I mean, you'll look at them weird, right? You'll be like, what do you mean? Like when you're more fit? Like you need to actually start working out to become fit or to have more energy. Like the reason why you don't have energy because you won't work out or the person who, you ask them like, hey man, like when do you think you're gonna start that business? And they're like, oh, when I have more capital, like when I have more money, it's like again, like you can start the business to actually have money, right? And so they believe that once I have the energy or once I have a nice body, then I'll go do the working out or then I'll go just start the business and then I'll become the person, then I'll become fit. Right? Whereas you need to, this paradigm is just a complete lie where you need to flip the script, right? You need to become the person first, right? Like on an identity level, become a fit person, truly believe that you are that person. And to the point where you should be like borderline delusional about it, like when somebody asks you, like, hey, like even if you're not like, fit on an external level, like you haven't actually had the outcomes yet, you should be able to say, like, yeah, I'm a fit person. Like you truly believe that about yourself. Yeah. And then you'll naturally do the things, right? So you're now become that person, you're the size of your natural state of being, you'll naturally do the things that that person would do if a person would do. And then you just have, you'll have those things, you'll have to hit body, right? You'll have the good body, you'll have the business. So yeah, like, and I guess again, it's so crazy because 99.9% of people live within the first paradigm. The have to be, I have to have the thing to do something else to become the person. And no, it's just, it's just false. You need to become the person on an identity level and you will see that the outer world just matches, right? You will always see that like, once you become that person, the, the outcomes just follow, right? And if a person is a perfect example of this, a person who was once, let's say overweight, begins to really believe that they are a fit person, they, their identity changes on that level, that they actually begin to value things. And over time, they just, they lose the weight, right? That's just a good example of it. People, people have reversed the script. And if they don't do that, they'll regress. They'll usually regress. So like if you take two people, one person wants to lose weight and both people will want to lose weight, I put them both in a chloric deficit. However, one person says, I'm going to lose weight because I am healthy. And the other person says, I'm going to lose weight because I'm fat. They both lose weight. One of them actually keeps the weight off, which one keeps the weight off? - The one who's healthy. - Yeah, exactly. Because the person who believes like, I'm going to lose weight because I'm fat, they, again, their identity still is constructed on the, the, pre-supposing the belief that they are just like an unhealthy, unhealthy person, right? So, and they, they just like fall back to that. Yeah, so again, just like, to kind of like loop this circle. I don't feel like I'd have any limiting beliefs when it comes to the things that I can do. And yeah, like anxiety shouldn't even be a part of that either. Like, I don't know why that, that's funny. Like, I'm glad you kind of brought that up and did something that I, I guess I haven't questioned enough. I guess it's just because it's been a long time. So I guess my de-realization was just so traumatic that yeah, like it is very embedded within, within my self concept, like that anxiety that arose from it afterwards and that kind of stayed for the ride. But yeah, there's no reason why I shouldn't go. But when it comes to the other things, like what I can actually, I guess achieve, not that getting over anxieties on achievement, but the other thing is I just feel like, yeah, I don't think they're, I don't, I, I don't feel like I have limits there. Good. - Yeah. - Yeah. And okay, in terms of your anxiety, what do you think it's trying to tell you? Or what good do you think can come out of your anxiety? - Yeah, that's a good question. User of my anxiety arises, it's too, I mean, yeah, like there's a lot of ways that I've dealt with my anxiety. And now it really has, it has become a sort of gateway now and it's been very useful. And yeah, I used to be a prisoner. I'm no longer a prisoner. I guess it's more of a, when it comes, it is usually guiding me towards something that I need to be looking toward. - Right. - Yeah. - Yeah. And so within, again, like it's usually like a manifestation of like the protector of the saboteur, right? Who just wants me to be okay, wants to be hard and seen, and certain things, it may be saying that certain things need to be done. Which is, which is completely reasonable, right? And by just by observing that. And yeah, just sitting with that sensation, it's been very, yeah, like it hasn't affected me as the way that it used to. It used to be very, very scary. But again, anxiety is very interesting where, I mean, the way that I really just got over it completely. And like to the point where I just didn't affect me, was, was, by simply noticing that it was just a sensation, like any other sensation that it was arising in consciousness. So, yeah. A good example of this is, for example, if I'm at the gym and I'm lifting like a heavyweight, right? And there are a ton of associated phenomena that arise with that. So, like I'll have like a painful, let's say I'm lifting, doing bicep curls and my bicep begins to hurt and like I start breathing hard. And if I breathe really hard, like my throat, my case like a little bit like metal. And I start sweating. That is an experience in itself, okay? And so, if I'm now in traffic, say, and I'm sitting down in traffic and I experience that, that same sensation, I'm probably gonna call the like ambulance. Right. But the sensation itself is the exact same. So, nothing is treated. The only thing is like, yeah, like obviously the context is different, but the actual sensation is the exact same. There's nothing different there. And so, anxiety in a very similar way is just a sensation that is arising, just like any other sensation. And by being able to sit with it, and by noticing that, I mean, something that I've learned is that fear exists within the vague. And if you actually, and the way, the way this relates to anxiety is that, anxiety seems like this very ominous thunder cloud, right, that's coming towards you. And in just seeing this thunder cloud, and it's just very scary to look at. But when you actually go into the thunder cloud, you use realize it's water vapor, right? There was actually nothing there. So, in the same way with any of these sensations that arise within consciousness, if you go, if you get closer to the actual sensation and try to actually make contact with the sensation, you begin to realize that there was just nothing there. That it was just a sensory phenomenon. phenomenon. And, yeah, that is a, I mean, this is kind of like the doorway to Buddhism, is by being able to observe all of these things that arise and then fall away, you realize that, yeah, there is nothing more than the pure sensation. And what anxiety is and what all suffering comes from is when the conceptual mind begins to take over and begins to try to interpret these feelings in like with language, like, oh, this anxiety must mean something. What is this sensation? Or not even this anxiety, the sensation must mean something. It must mean anxiety. It must mean bad things. Whereas if you just sit with the sensation before the conceptual mind takes over, right, there's a gap between like sensory phenomenon and like the conceptual mind. In that gap lies like freedom, where you can just sit with it and you realize that there was just nothing there, right? Pain and suffering are very different things. You can have a lot of pain and no suffering, right? Like, you can go to the gym and incur a lot of pain without suffering. But you can also suffer with no pain either. There are many instances where you can just have psychological suffering because you're thinking about a thought or you're thinking about that one time where that one person called you fat and like you want to say that back and then you're in the car and you wanna crash the car because like that suffering, right? But you're not, there's no pain there. So they are mutually exclusive and unrelated pain and suffering. And the big thing there is, just going back to pain is pain is just a sensory phenomenon. And I mean, it was interestingly enough when I got my tattoo done when, and this was when I was meditating very heavily. I've been meditating for about four years now. But during this period I was meditating very heavily because I forget actually why there was a reason why I think it was like a harder period during my life. And when I was actually getting the tattoo done and I was trying to get close to the actual sensation of pain, the suffering just completely disappeared. It was very weird. Like there was no suffering left and it was just a sensation. Yeah, and so you can do this with any sort of sensation in general is if you just get close enough to it, you'll see that there was, that it was all in, it was thought, it's thought about the pain that creates suffering. Like even as something as extreme as like somebody stabbing your leg, if you try to get closer to the actual sensation, you'll see that the sensation itself isn't causing the suffering, it's the thought about the sensation that is. Although that can sound quite crazy on the surface. Yeah, so anyways, back to my anxiety. Yeah, I do think that oftentimes it just wants to be heard and seen and when I acknowledge it, it will usually calm down. Sometimes though it doesn't and even still, I'm now able to at least sit with it and acknowledge it in a, I see it as almost as a friend, you know. And to see anxiety as a friend and as someone to sit down with and hang out with and just see it as somebody who just wants to hang out and come along for the ride is extremely, it's yeah, like very lightning. And you just feel, yeah, you just feel lighter and you just see it as a, as a companion of sorts where it's not trying to actually hurt you, but it's just trying to, yeah, just like just hang out and that reframe also helped me a lot. It's so funny, like when you begin to reinterpret things again, it just goes back to the, to the car example where like the sensation is the same, but just like a simple context change or reinterpretation of it can change the experience itself and the, the way that experience affects you, right? So yeah. Yeah, change your perspective and reinterpreting it. Yeah, that's a great point. Yeah. And you were talking before about, about your goals and how like one, one thing that they really called my attention was you said you want to ride a bike. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of things I want to write about. Probably in 2027, I'll begin. 2026 is more so just to focus on what I'm doing right now. Yeah, I definitely want to write a story about my de-realization. I think that's probably the most profound story of my life. And that's the reason why I'm doing all of this in the first place is my de-realization. And I think it's something that, yeah, the world as a whole has kind of ignored and only certain people have experienced very few people have experienced. And it was, yeah, I think there's just a lot to be said there on a more philosophical level as well, what the implications of it are. That's one thing. I definitely want to speak about identity and yeah, my sort of realizations that I've come to over time. And yeah, like intertwining subjects of the subjects or domains of neuroscience, psychology, philosophy, within a book. And I mean, there's just a lot that I want to talk about, I guess. So I'm excited to speak up. But yeah, do I know exactly what that will look like now? No, I don't. Yeah, but I do want to get my PhD as well. What I know is I'll definitely continue pursuing knowledge in general. And I don't think knowledge needs to be pursued within the context of a classroom. But for me, I find it very useful with specifically with regards to philosophy and getting to know like an 85-year-old prof who's been reading his whole life is very, very valuable. So yeah, that's something that I will continue for sure. Yeah, man, I feel like you could write like 30 bucks. (laughing) Shit. (laughing) No, I'll be your first reader for sure. What are some of your other goals right now? You want me to be the biggest in the space? Yeah, yeah. No, you don't want to be going to. I'm going to. Yeah. We are. Yeah, I am. Thanks a lot, dude. Yeah, there you go. Yeah, I do want to be the biggest. I just want to be the person that people refer to when they think of the word identity, you know, within at least like the newer generation. Like, yeah, like, Amher Jenbe was the guy to go to. I wanted to be that sort of authority and I think I definitely can be and I will be. 100%. Yeah, and then, I mean, yeah, there's, mm. For it, man. My goal is like, I guess like, the big, that's like the big one. And with that, we'll come a lot of things like, with my business and so on. I think those are just like, again, those are just kind of byproducts of the person I want to become. I just want to become, yeah, like, I just want to continue to learn really like and continue expanding my knowledge. And with that, I think will come all of all the outcomes that will follow as I, as I actually do that, as I continue to learn and I don't see that ever stopping. And, you know, - Yeah, as for like tangible goals, I mean, there's a little bit, like it's funny, like the reason why I kind of, like on a small scale kind of like dodging it is because like B, B, it's like what I wanna do with my business and what I wanna do with like elevation is, I feel like those are like still like small scale, like I still feel like they're small scale. Like I'm like looking, I'm genuinely looking further than that and I want to look further. - The mall, yeah. - The mall, the mall, I don't care about like doing my millions of dollars per month. Like for me, like that's just small scale. Like I'm looking at something much bigger. Like I wanna like change the world is the goal. I wanna be able to change the paradigm in which everyone views everything. Like like just like identity and achieving things and success and how they relate to themselves, that's what I wanna do. You know, it's not so much, yeah I wanna make like a few million dollars per month or I wanna have like 50,000 people in elevation. It's like it's, again, I feel like those are still, it's like it's just small. Like it's, I don't know, it's just like, I just know that's still small and I think it's very important for anyone to, yeah, like and this was something that I was kind of alluding to earlier, which is that my goals, I guess I've just become so much greater than I thought once possible. Like I use to think, yeah, I do wanna make millions of dollars per month and I do wanna have this amount of people and all these, and I do wanna become like a bigger creator within the space. Like how's the biggest if I wanna become, it's like no, like I just wanna become, I know that I could, I wanna get to like Tony Robbins level, I wanna kind of impact the world in that way. But from a different sort of angle and different lens, a more philosophical existential lens. Yeah, and with that, you can kind of imagine everything else that comes to the unamore tangible level, but that's not what I care about anymore. - Yeah, that's so inspiring, man. And I've got no doubt about it. Thank you. So the last question that I like to ask to all the guests that come on here, and I recently changed it, it's, so I want you to think of your young yourself in your hardest time and think of one message for that version of Amher. - Good. And what would that message be? - I think it would be what I have written here on my hand, which is, I'm more fatty, which is love your fate. - Yeah. - And not to only accept what happens to you, a lot of people, a lot of people, I mean, for most people resist what happens to them, and they're like, why me, why me, why me? Like why's happening, there's no way this is happening. And some people accept their fate, they'll be like, okay, fair enough, like I'll accept it. And then some people actually love their fate, right? It's really actually sink into the feeling of truly loving what's happening to you, regardless of how difficult it is, there's a reason why it's happening. And there's a deep reason that you should love, right? No matter what it is, like no matter how awful it is, no matter if it's somebody that you've lost in life to actually love it. And it can sound very weird at first glance. Like what do you mean, how can I, if I were to tell myself derelizing five years ago, you should, you should just love your, it's okay, I'm just love your fate. I would look at myself weird, but that really is the truth, is understanding that regardless of how hard the current situation is that you're going through, that there is a way to find solace in it. And to be able to sit in it and to, yeah, to really love it. And I guess like we constantly find ourselves looking over the shoulder of the present moment, trying to thinking that the next breath, or the next action, or the next thing that we do is going to alleviate right now, suffering, right? Like after this, I might think, now I'm gonna get a drink of water, and then I'm gonna be punched at my thirst, and then after that I can go take a walk. It's like, I'm constantly leaning forward. We all are constantly leaning forward in life. Again, we're always looking over the shoulder of the present moment. And to simply see that we're doing that, I think is very important and to no longer, to try to sit in the moment as it is and try to just enjoy what's happening right now, because as Sam Harris would say, and as other people within the, well, the Buddhism is you have arrived as it is. Like there is nothing, there is, you're not going to arrive in the future. You are, you have arrived now. Like this moment right now is it, it's never going to be the next moment because you're never in the next moment. You're always here right now. So I think that there's an intimate link between that and loving your fate and being able to sit in, what's happening right now. And yeah, not to look over the, the, as I've said, the shoulder of the present moment. - I love that man. - Thanks, Mark. - But if you're waiting for it, you have arrived. - You have arrived. - Well, thank you so much for coming on, Amar. - Of course. - Had such a good time. I really appreciate it. - Yeah, no, thank you, Sam. Thank you, it was fun. - Yeah, yeah. - For sure. - And we're gonna be to find your Instagram. - Instagram would be the main place to go. Amar, Jen, Bay, with two, I got to spell that out. A, A, M, E, R, that's two A's, everyone spells the wrong. And then J, A, N, B, E, Y, Y, for the account. That's the main place. You can, you'll find out what I'm doing in there. And if somebody got value from this and they want to learn more about how to change their identity and how to rewire their mind to make it change their life, or get farther into their business, where should they go? - I mean, I am releasing a pretty, I've been working on something for a long time. And I'm releasing it on February. - Okay. - Yeah. So it's going to be, essentially like a full sort of system that I built and created and guiding people through. It's gonna take about three months. So if you're here before February 9th, or even after, that's something that I definitely recommend. I think it'll really help. So yeah, that would be the place. And then from there, you can figure out all the other places to go in terms of the things I can provide. Well, that's perfect. So if someone's interested in that, should they just like look up your Instagram and then follow you? - Yeah, yeah, Instagram follow me. And they'll see that just DM me, elevate for example. And it will be in contact pretty quickly. - All right, man. Yeah. - Yeah, that sounds great. I appreciate you coming on.