How To Stop Negative Mind Loops With Barbara Ireland

Today, we’re diving into a fascinating discussion with the wonderful Barbara Ireland, author of "How to Stop Negative Thoughts: What My Near-Death Experience Taught Me About Mind Loops, Neuroscience, and Happiness."

Trigger Warning: This practice may include references to death, dying, and the departed.

Transcript

Hi,

I'm Michelle Chalfant,

Psychotherapist,

Holistic life coach,

And human,

Just like you,

Learning to navigate life's challenges.

With over 25 years experience,

I teach people how to get healthy using the Adult Chair Model.

The Adult Chair Model is where simple psychology meets grounded spirituality,

And it teaches us how to become healthy adults.

From anxiety and depression to codependency and relationship issues,

You can use the Adult Chair for just about anything.

Each week,

I share practical tips,

Tools,

And advice from myself and a wide range of experts on how to get unstuck,

How to live authentically,

And how to truly love yourself,

All while sitting in your adult chair.

Welcome to the Adult Chair Podcast.

Hello everybody,

And welcome to the Adult Chair Podcast.

I am Michelle Chalfant,

As always,

And I really mean this,

Delighted to be here with you guys today.

It's so fun to be back.

I love being back with all of you,

And something that I really,

I mean,

It hit me so hard while I was away,

And I think I mentioned it last week on last week's show,

I miss you all.

I miss interacting,

And as much as I love the podcast,

And I do love this podcast,

This is a one-way street,

And I don't get to connect with you,

So wait for it,

Because there are some really exciting,

New,

Fun things coming down the pipeline,

Because I want to connect with all of you.

Just wait for it.

A couple weeks,

You're going to hear about it.

Anyway,

All right,

We have a very exciting guest on the show today.

We have Barbara Ireland on the show,

And you know I'm all about expanding comfort zones,

Expanding your awareness,

Expanding your thought,

Being open.

This is what we do,

Honestly,

In our adult chair.

We get curious.

We wonder.

We listen.

Today on the show,

Barbara Ireland is talking about her de-looping method.

Now,

Who does not have negative spirals sometimes?

I know I sure do,

And I loved talking with her all about her de-looping method,

And we got into it in the show today,

Her three phases of this de-looping method,

But here's the thing that I'm inviting you to expand your comfort zone on.

The reason that she developed this,

One of the big inspirations,

Was due to her near death experience that she had.

She learned a lot from her near death experience,

And she's going to talk to you guys today about,

I mean,

Oh my goodness,

Her whole journey and what happened the day that she died,

What happened,

And then what happened afterward for her to then create this incredible model that will help you de-loop,

De-loop those negative spirals that we all get in.

It's phenomenal.

She got into it.

She explains it right on the show today.

I can't wait for you to hear it.

We're going to jump right in right now with the lovely Barbara Ireland.

Welcome to the adult chair podcast,

Barbara Ireland.

Hello,

Michelle.

I'm so happy to be here.

I am so happy to be here with you too,

And we were just chit-chatting,

And I'm sitting here talking to you.

I feel like I've known you for certainly a very,

Very long time.

This is very easy.

You're a soul sister going on.

Definitely a soul sister thing going on.

I am thrilled to talk to you today.

I heard you and found you a month or so,

A few months ago,

Actually.

I was like,

I need her on the show because who the heck doesn't need to talk about de-looping?

How do we stop looping in the mind?

Also,

The way that you discovered this or created this methodology was unique because you didn't quite go to school for this.

You did study a ton of it.

I did hear you say that.

You did a deep dive research,

But you had an awakening via a near-death experience.

I thought,

Let's go ahead and start out with your story because it's an incredible story.

This was in,

Well,

A little before 2010,

The near-death experience was in 2010.

A little before that,

I was working on a career as a singer.

I was in a band with the guitar player for Pearl Jam,

Stone Gossard,

And we had our own separate band.

We were on a little tour in Brooklyn.

While on stage,

We were having a great time,

Fun audience,

And I suddenly noticed this man standing in front of me in the audience,

Hating the show,

Hating it,

And making it very abundantly clear with his giant body,

Just like,

Ah,

Rolling his eyes.

I thought,

Okay,

So someone out of these hundreds doesn't like it.

We aren't Pearl Jam.

That's fine.

That's normally what a thought would say,

But no,

My thought started shifting to,

First,

What's wrong with him?

What's his problem?

Then I thought,

I'll stop that.

Then it went to,

What's wrong with us as a band?

We had a few different musicians on stage,

And then it very quickly went to,

What's wrong with me?

I can't sing.

Why did Stone bring me on stage?

I'll never remember my lyrics.

I can't hit that high note.

Oh,

No,

I'm forgetting my lyrics.

Just crazy cascade of negative thoughts about myself while I am performing.

I had these two parts of my brain.

One was the performer having to continue acting like I'm having a great time,

While the other one was just mean,

Just like throughout my whole life,

Bringing up every possible mean thing it could.

A third part of my brain or my self,

It felt like it was behind me,

And it was saying,

Wow,

Look at you.

You're doing all these things at once,

Like a witness observing,

And I thought,

God,

Get me off this stage.

It was a strife.

Well,

I finished the show.

No one could tell,

As far as I could tell.

That night,

I was laying in bed,

And I thought,

What were all those negative thoughts?

That was so strange.

Do I have them all the time?

Do I just not notice these things?

What's going on?

I'd had therapy.

I'd done other things,

And apparently,

They didn't kick these things out,

So I was trying to figure out what would,

And I came up with what I thought was a great idea,

Which was signing up for one of these crazy camps where they throw all sorts of scary things at you,

And you push through boundaries and develop courage.

I thought,

Oh,

That'll do it.

When I got home,

I signed up for one of these camps.

Two months later,

I'm going to this camp.

It's in a very remote area of Vancouver,

BC,

Canada,

And I brought my best friend with me.

Thank God.

Every day there was terrifying,

And I signed a non-disclosure statement,

So I can't say what happened,

But I definitely developed courage because you needed it to get through this.

It was things with heights,

And fires,

And scary people popping out just to freak you out to see how you would respond,

Which I hated.

Yeah,

It was in sleep deprivation,

Three hours of sleep a night.

Yeah.

I was developing courage.

I thought breaking through boundaries,

I think I did,

But the last day was an endurance exercise in the sun,

Carrying heavy things,

And timed,

So you can't dilly-dally.

I had this woman from Mexico as my partner,

And I was going fine until halfway through,

I started noticing really strange symptoms,

Flashing lights and echoing voices from people around,

Wobbly legs,

Feeling jittery and spaced out.

It got worse and worse,

And I thought,

Maybe I'm dehydrated,

So I drank more and more water.

Well,

What was going on was two things,

Heat stroke and hyponatremia.

Hyponatremia is something that happens to a lot of marathoners when they're pushing their body too much,

Drinking too much water,

And sweating too much,

And all the sodium goes out of your blood,

And it crashes your blood pressure.

I had that going on,

And I had heat stroke going on,

Which was creating stroke-like symptoms,

Which changes your whole,

All your sensory organs start getting weird.

I somehow made it through this exercise,

Barely,

And I asked someone for a medic,

Because I said I was going to faint.

Well,

They brought this man who was clearly very,

Very unexperienced,

And terrified when he saw me.

He did give me electrolytes,

Though,

So I got a little bit of sodium in me,

And that helped on a physical level,

But he said,

Let's just take you back to your tent and have you lay down.

So,

They drove me,

And my friend saw me.

She said my skin was gray,

My eyes were vacant,

I couldn't walk by myself,

I was just dying,

But I didn't know it,

And so I laid down.

It was too hot to be in the tent,

So I was laying under this beautiful tree,

And slowly,

These terrible things started happening.

My left leg just went away,

As far as I was concerned.

I had not a left leg anymore,

I couldn't feel it,

Then my right leg.

As these are happening,

I'm screaming to my friend,

My legs are gone,

And then my left and my right arms,

Same thing,

So now I'm this helpless head and torso laying under a tree,

And I can't move,

And at that point,

Also,

I started feeling this very odd sensation of this air-like thing going out of the top of my head,

And I don't know if your audience has read things about this,

But I see you nodding,

That they say often,

When people are nearing death,

That their life force starts going out of the top of their head,

And I was like,

Uh-oh,

You know,

This might be worse than I thought,

And right then,

Some really interesting things began,

Because I was actually moving towards death,

And as I got closer to that line,

The first thing that happened was this,

What I call a movie,

Started playing in my mind's eye,

I think my eyes were closed,

And it was something that had happened two weeks earlier,

I was in a band with my brother,

Also,

And we had gotten into an argument at a rehearsal,

And so this was replaying,

But it was not like what we call a memory,

Because memories are spotty,

And they aren't really linear,

And they don't have all the senses involved,

This was like watching a total movie of that experience,

I was watching it,

And I was re-experiencing,

I was in it,

And watching it at the same time,

It was a very odd perception,

And at some moment,

This movie stopped in the middle of my debate with my brother,

And all of a sudden,

This male,

Neutral,

Gentle voice,

I could hear it in my head,

It was not my normal internal voice,

It said,

What were you thinking at that moment,

And I was like,

Oh my gosh,

I have a question,

Who is this,

But I wasn't like clear enough to really ponder that,

I just went with it,

And I thought,

And I answered,

And the moment I answered that,

This movie went off,

A new movie came in,

This was from a month earlier,

Another experience with a person that wasn't quite right,

And in that one,

I raised my eyebrow,

And it said,

It stopped,

The frame stopped,

And said,

What were you thinking that caused you to raise your eyebrow at that moment,

And I answered,

It went off,

Another one came,

I turned my head down,

What were you thinking,

The frame framed,

At the moment you lowered your head,

And this went on for hours,

And I know this because I asked my friend,

And also,

Later,

I saw the sun,

And how low it was,

And hours of reviewing these moments,

These tiny,

So-called tiny moments in a life,

And this is what near-death experiencers call a life review,

Or a version of a life review,

And I was reviewing these moments,

Later I'll get back to why my life review was a little different from some other people's.

Were you having experiences of what the other person was feeling as well,

Or was it just your thoughts,

That's it?

That's exactly,

I was not having the others,

And that's a very common thing for near-death experiences,

The life review,

We get to feel what someone else was feeling when we were yelling at them or something,

So,

Which is amazing,

Talk about a life lesson,

But so this one went on for hours,

And at one moment,

Suddenly they all stopped,

And it was like a blank screen,

And the voice said,

Barbara,

Now you have a choice,

Would you like to stay or go?

Now,

I knew what that meant,

Because the whole time during these hours,

I could feel that life energy leaving the top of my head,

I could feel myself weakening and weakening,

And leaving this plane,

I'm getting chills right now,

At the moment I was given that choice,

I literally,

Or I guess not literally,

But I had one foot here,

And one foot on the other side,

And I knew that,

Because it felt like I was standing at this place where the veil is very thin between the two sides,

I knew I was still here,

But I felt what was on the other side,

I didn't get a glimpse,

But I felt it,

And Michelle,

That side is,

It's a sense of love that I don't feel like we have here,

And it always makes me start tearing up when I talk about this part,

Because I think once someone has experienced that,

They won't ever forget it,

It instantly took away any fear of dying,

Being dead anyway,

Not necessarily the death process,

But the dying,

The death,

And it's like a feeling of every cell,

If they had cells,

Every molecule of wherever that is,

Is love,

And so it's like you're breathing love,

You are love,

You're walking through love,

Everyone you talk to is love,

Love isn't even a word that comes close to what that feeling is,

Everything you can possibly imagine that you enjoy when you're around the person you love the most,

Like support,

Comfort,

Kindness,

Affection,

Non-judgmental,

Non-critical,

All of those at once,

And when that voice said you could go there,

I was like,

Dang,

That feels awfully good,

I think I want to go there,

Because this place is really,

Really cool,

But it's not easy here at all,

And so I asked questions to this voice about projects I was doing that weren't finished,

People that I felt maybe we weren't complete with,

Different aspects,

And also,

Michelle,

I love so many aspects of life,

I didn't necessarily want to stop eating peaches,

Or going to sleep and having dreams,

Or walking through forests and hearing bird songs,

And kissing,

And all the really,

Really fun things about being alive,

So after this discussion and me pondering,

I decided to come back,

The moment I said that,

This guide said,

Okay,

You need to do something,

The very next week you get back,

You need to go to four people,

And you need to tell them these specific things,

Two of them were to tell them I love them,

And it's not in the way that we go around and say,

You know,

I really love you,

It's like,

No,

It wasn't that,

I was told I had to go and say what I loved about that person,

What qualities do I admire,

How has their presence in my life affected me,

What have I learned from them,

Just the deep,

Incredible stuff that we don't often tell,

Because it's so heavy to do,

So it freaks people out,

That was one,

Another one was gratitude,

Really deep gratitude for something this person had done,

Another one was also love,

But also apology for something,

And the last one was nothing big,

Just to call this person every single week,

Even for just a couple minutes,

And say hello,

And start rebuilding a connection with them,

And I will tell you,

The three that I had actual deep conversations with,

They were so crazy,

Michelle,

Because I was crying and telling them about my day-to-day experience,

And just going,

I love you,

It was like,

Whoa,

Not one of them could look me in the eye,

Because I was so present,

And you know what,

When you look someone truly in the eye,

And you are being truly,

Truly present,

Something very different happens,

And people can feel that,

And so I did those things,

Or I said I would do those things,

And the moment I said yes,

The life energy started reversing direction,

Going back in my body,

Each one of my limbs came back,

I could feel them,

No problem,

I slowly started opening my eyes,

And Michelle,

I opened my eyes to this crazy,

Amazing world we get to live in,

Like every day,

We could be viewing the world that I saw when I opened my eyes and realized I was not dead,

And every night,

When we go to sleep,

It's like a mini death,

We have the option,

I did that this morning,

Where I woke up,

And I said,

Oh my gosh,

I get another day to live,

Wow,

Look at my room,

Listen to those birds,

This place is wildly cool,

And hard,

I know,

But it's wildly cool,

So for the first month,

I had the most extraordinary experiences of being alive,

Because I was in that state of full,

Awake,

Presence,

Bliss,

Every food tasted exaggerated,

Music I heard through my whole body,

Not just through my ears,

I smelled every flower,

I was like super authentic with everyone,

And I was not having any negative thoughts about myself,

About other people,

No resentments,

No worries,

None of that,

And I was like,

Phew,

Thank God,

That's gone,

And then guess what happened after about a month?

My regular life started seeping back in,

I started hearing music through my ears,

I started forgetting what a cool place this is,

And I started hearing worry again,

Which was my most common negative thought,

And then self-doubt,

That was another one,

Judgment,

Resentment,

Oh my God,

They started coming back,

I was like,

You gotta be kidding,

I went through a near-death experience in that horrible camp,

And I still have these things,

I was kind of P.

O'd at that moment,

But the good part is that that moment was my turning point where I sat down and I really thought about those hours of watching the little movies,

Life review,

And I said,

What was the common denominator of all those questions,

And that's when I realized every single one were about my thoughts,

Every question was about my thoughts,

What does that tell you about the potency of our thoughts,

If you,

I mean,

Again,

It brings tears to my eyes because we come here with these brains,

These minds,

But no one teaches us how to use them,

And they're so powerful,

They are continually creating our existence,

And if we get into unconscious negative habits of thinking,

We are unconsciously creating negative outcomes,

And that's what I came to discover,

And that's what it was trying,

They were doing actually a really good job of showing me,

Is this relationship between thought and outer life,

And something can happen in the outer life,

And it could be then my reaction,

Again,

A thought about something I may have actually created with my own thoughts,

And that's looping back into this negative relationship,

Or scenario,

Or lack of abundance,

Or ill health,

Or fears and worries,

Or anxiety,

Or all this stuff,

It's this feedback system that starts with our thoughts.

When I started,

It started dawning on me,

I thought,

Oh my God,

I have to start researching this,

How do I break this pattern,

And that's when,

As you said,

I went through deep research for three years,

I basically quit everything I was doing,

And dove into,

From a layman's perspective,

Neuroscience,

What causes anxiety,

What causes depression,

What is worry,

The cellular biology of how our cells actually start becoming addicted to negative emotions,

And so if,

Well,

I won't hassle another rabbit hole,

And also the spiritual traditions,

What they say about this,

I was looking into that,

And what I realized,

Michelle,

Is there are two different kinds of negative thoughts.

One is a negative thought that can come and go,

Like the night I was performing,

I could have said,

Oh,

Look at that guy,

Too bad,

He doesn't like the show,

I know we're not Pearl Jam,

And let it go,

Oh well,

Bummer,

Wish he had liked us more instead,

But no,

There's a second kind that I had going really big that night,

And that's what I call a mind loop,

Where the thought comes in,

And we suddenly grasp onto it,

And we pull it in,

We make it ours,

We chew on it,

We're the hamster on the wheel,

We won't let it go,

It's like a dog with a bone,

You know,

It's like,

I'm not letting this negative thought go,

And those are the ones that cause a lot of problems,

Because a negative thought like that,

We may or may not be conscious of,

Many we're unconscious of,

But they're feeding us,

And they're feeding our emotions,

They trigger all sorts of things,

Anxiety,

Depression,

Disappointment,

Jealousy,

Just resentment,

And then they cause,

Those emotions cause behaviors,

Overdrinking,

Overspending,

Overworking,

All the overs,

And fights,

Starting fights with people,

And procrastination,

And not going for our dreams,

Because we don't think we're good enough,

All of that,

And then caretaking,

Overtaking,

All these things come from that,

And that just keeps us down,

And when I started realizing this,

Then I started realizing what I need to do then is break these looping patterns of thought,

If I can just break the thought,

I can't control the thought that's going to come into my head,

But I can control whether I'm going to grasp it,

And hang on to it,

And so that's what I started practicing on all these different techniques,

And I found what started really working for me,

And it was some simple steps that started breaking these loops,

And I thought,

Oh,

It's gone,

Okay,

Oh,

I suddenly started feeling better,

And within a short period of time,

This is over three years of working on this,

But after I really kind of got something down that worked for me,

I cannot tell you how my life changed,

I mean,

Every aspect,

My relationships,

So amazing,

They just quit being hassles,

Maybe I was not a hassle to them anymore,

My health got better,

My appearance changed a lot,

I mean,

My health,

My fitness,

My energy level,

My abundance was a total switch from a scarcity mindset over money to just being open actually,

And suddenly,

When funds and opportunities started coming in,

And I got a taste for what that's like to not be afraid,

That started blossoming into a real abundance mindset,

Yeah,

And I was on antidepressants for years up to this point,

And I was off antidepressants within probably,

I don't know,

Maybe a year and a half maybe after my near-death experience,

I worked on it,

And to the point where it was like,

I'm feeling fine,

And I want to stress,

I don't have a problem with those,

Because when we need them,

We need them,

And they saved me,

But I didn't want to be on them for the rest of my life,

So I haven't even gotten near needing something like that again,

My whole life went to a different level,

So that's what I call when I created the delooping method,

And that's what I started,

You know,

Friends started saying,

What's going on,

You're like a different person,

And I started teaching them these steps,

And they started changing,

And I thought,

Okay,

I need to write a book,

So other people can know this,

So that's how that happened,

Take a breath.

Wow,

Okay,

I have so many questions,

I love all of this,

Fascinating,

Absolutely fascinating,

First question that I have,

And I have to say,

I've been saying this to people,

And I talk to you lately,

It's really hitting me,

Everyone says this loosely,

We are spiritual beings in human form,

You know,

Everyone goes,

Oh yeah,

You know,

I'm a spiritual being in human form,

Whoa,

Do you understand what that means,

You are a spiritual being,

Energetic being that is squished into this little tiny human body,

Like really,

I don't think humans get it,

I think that we're not grasping how magnificent it is,

And I'm going to say,

I'm the first one that took it for granted for most of my life,

But what I realize now is exactly what you said,

When you're debating coming back here and being in human form,

Or going,

You know,

And crossing over and dying,

I think people forget things like,

Like you said,

Eating peaches and kisses,

And we have human form,

A human suit,

A human body,

So that we can hold hands with someone,

Because when you're just energy or spirit form,

You don't have a human body,

We can't taste chocolate,

We can't taste peaches,

We can't feel the drip of peaches coming down our chin and all over our neck,

Right,

We can't feel the wind on our face,

Because we don't even have a face,

And I've noticed the more that we slow,

That I slow down,

I'm going to speak from my personal experience,

I really practiced over the last year or so,

Slowing down,

Slowing down,

Slowing down,

And I'm in that concept that we are spiritual beings in human form,

It's like,

I'm like,

Wow,

Why would I sit in front of the television and eat dinner?

Or why would I sit in front of the television and consume this food that I can't do when I'm in spiritual form?

So I get it,

Not to your level,

I'm sure,

But I really,

I really appreciate that you chose to come back for the experience of hiking,

Eating food,

Making love,

Holding someone's hand,

Eating chocolate,

All the things,

Because we,

And I'm inviting everyone to just contemplate that for a moment,

It's amazing that we have these human bodies,

And life is hard,

Like you said,

Life can be very hard,

But you have a body.

Think about that just for a moment.

I wanted to ask,

Go ahead,

Sorry.

Can I respond to that?

Please,

Yes,

Please.

First of all,

I too have been saying the exact same thing that you did,

Where everyone says,

Oh,

We're spirits in human bodies,

But did you really think about that?

I've been saying that too,

Because it's such a giant thing to say,

And then just kind of toss off.

I will tell you,

There's at least three near-death experience people I know who have said,

When they crossed 100% over and completely left their body,

They saw a line of souls waiting to get here.

Goosebumps.

Goosebumps.

I have heard and read the same thing for 20-some years,

Yes.

I agree.

I think that we,

Obviously,

We forget.

I love that you brought that up.

Yeah.

I mean,

This is the place to be,

And hey,

Anyone listening to this right now,

You have hit the freaking lottery to be here.

I know you might be going through a divorce,

You might be having a health issue.

I know it's hard.

I get it.

You chose to come,

And you were granted the golden freaking ticket.

Find the things that you do love here.

Make this worthwhile while you're here.

I know you are.

I know you are.

You're listening to this,

You know Michelle had all sorts of things to make it more easy or helpful or more cosmic.

Which is why I have you on today,

My darling.

I've had a weird fascination.

I don't know if it's weird,

Honestly,

Since I was a little girl with,

Really,

Who is God?

What is God?

I was born and raised Catholic,

But it never resonated as deeply as,

Let me say it like this.

Going to church,

And we went every Sunday,

Italian Catholics from Rochester,

New York.

It never resonated so deeply with me,

Going to church,

As what I felt my whole life already.

I felt this deep connection with God,

Source,

Universe,

Whatever you want to call it.

Even when I was in college,

All my research papers were always on death and dying,

Because I wanted to understand what happened after you died.

This is back in,

I went to college,

Everybody,

In 1986,

87.

It's been a long time,

My whole life.

I never felt this,

Like,

Why don't I feel like I fit here?

I think I remembered a lot of what it was like being in line.

I was like,

Why doesn't anyone else remember?

Of course,

You get here and you forget it all.

I remember reading.

That's why I said,

I read this 20 years that we line up to come here.

We're so excited to take on human form,

Because of all the things like eating peaches.

Yes,

And experiencing the hard things to show us our .

.

.

It's an odd thing.

It's this contrast thing.

It's a lot easier to say when I'm not in something hard.

If we don't .

.

.

You know what it's like.

I'm in Seattle.

It's gray all winter,

A lot of autumn,

And a lot of spring,

And suddenly there's a sunny day and you're like,

Wow,

Look at the sun,

It's over the top.

Someone in LA is just like,

Yeah,

Sun.

Yeah,

Big deal.

The contrast,

My friend.

Yeah.

That's why we're here.

Exactly.

You can't feel love if you don't have hate,

If you don't have fear,

If you don't have sadness.

You can't have joy.

It's like,

We really do experience both.

Question for you.

Talk a little bit about,

You said you had a discussion about going back.

You crossed over and you said you were speaking with your guide or whomever that was about going back.

You said,

Well,

I had a discussion.

Then you went on.

I'm like,

Hold on now,

Barbara.

Tell us about that discussion.

Tell us.

What did you discuss?

I'm curious because I know you said,

Well,

I have things I still need to get done.

I still have to get done on this earth.

Can you share a little bit about what your discussion was like?

I will.

I'm laughing because this is one of .

.

.

Actually,

There were two really funny aspects about this whole cosmic part of my story.

One of them is this because it was so humbling.

I said,

But I had a couple albums out at that point and I was working on a couple more.

What about my unfinished music?

What about these great songs I'm writing?

What about my half done or my written screenplays that aren't made into movies yet?

What about my short stories that have never been published?

The guide said,

Oh,

Barbara,

Those don't matter that much.

I was like,

Oh,

My ego is just like,

Ah,

Like,

Pricked my balloon,

Man.

I'm like,

What?

This was really,

This is a huge,

Beautiful lesson I got.

This guide said,

Those are great for experiencing creativity and feeling joy and things like that.

But they really count or they really matter when they are connecting you to another person,

Connecting that person to another person,

Or connecting you to yourself in a deeper way.

If someone is,

For instance,

Creating an album to show themselves that they are worthy or because they want to make money or because they want to be a star,

And I'm not saying maybe the worthiness piece,

The other two weren't part of my deal.

The worthiness piece probably had a piece in there.

Those are ego-based reasons for doing something.

Someone wanting to build a business to make millions of dollars so I can have Ferraris and it's like,

Okay,

Have fun,

Enjoy that.

But it doesn't really matter.

When you're having life review,

No one's going to say,

How much money did you make while you were down there?

How many cars did you have?

It doesn't matter.

But did your company connect you with other people or did your company connect that person with another person?

It's all about relationships.

And the voice said,

How you show up is what counts.

How you enter a room,

How you leave a room,

Are you leaving detritus behind you of like negative energy or just something gross,

Or are you leaving it fresh?

Are you bringing in good vibes?

Are you smiling?

And not fake,

But doing the best you can in that moment.

That's what that was about.

It sounds like it's love.

You know,

Are you entering the room with love and leaving the room with love?

Right?

I mean.

.

.

To whatever degree we can in that moment.

So was there something in particular that that guide said to you that made you say,

All right,

I'm staying for sure?

It was not so much about my projects anymore,

Although I could,

Obviously I could tell myself that I could adjust some things to make them more meaningful to others or to me,

But it was more about the people.

I really needed to clean some stuff up.

I didn't want to die with a resentment towards them or from them.

Yeah.

It makes a lot of sense.

This is why we need to clean up before we do pass.

I get that for sure.

Yeah.

Clean it up.

Let's talk a little bit about,

I love what you're talking about,

Thoughts.

Again,

This is another thing I think we humans,

Myself included,

I'm certainly not perfect at this,

But our thoughts,

And you know,

Again,

This is another term or a phrase that who doesn't know,

Thoughts create.

Kind of like saying again,

We're spiritual beings in human form.

Okay.

But you had a much deeper experience around this,

That your thoughts,

And I've heard this from a lot of people that have had near-death experiences.

We need to really be more conscious of our thinking and our thoughts because it truly is creating what's out there.

Like I'm pointing for those of you that can't see me,

But like outside of me,

But even inside of me,

Because what you said was it's even creating depression,

Anxiety.

It also creates your behaviors,

Your regrets,

Illnesses,

All of it.

Can you talk a little bit more about that?

Because this is so important and it's interesting because if you think about something that's really negative,

Let's say,

They have a very negative outlook on life and they might be depressed or anxious or have some sort of physical issue and they're trying everything under the sun and it's not working,

Right?

So it's like,

We need to be looking at the source,

Which is not just physical body,

Right?

It's like,

We've got to be looking at what the heck we're thinking.

That seems to be the root of everything.

That's the tap root to everything else.

Please talk about that.

Please.

Yeah.

I think it's interesting,

Michelle,

Because up until literally about three months ago,

I really saw this whole mind loop thing as helping me and helping other people just deal with life.

I didn't really make this full on understanding of my near death experience about the creation of this world that I see with my eyes as coming from my mind.

But it's suddenly,

Like you were saying,

You've had these huge kind of openings or spiritual awakenings lately,

And so have I,

And I think a lot of people are.

And it suddenly became super clear that that was the deeper meaning of this life review I had.

It was literally showing the correlation between my thought and my experience.

And when people talk about the law of attraction or manifesting,

The thing is they don't realize they are 100% every waking moment doing that.

It's undirected.

I guess you could say instead of conscious creating,

It's unconscious creating.

And so we definitely have the power to start creating the things we do want in our life because we can see what's happening.

And I know for sure,

I mean,

When you start tuning into this and noticing what's going on in your.

.

.

I mean,

The first step of the deluping method is detecting what you're thinking.

And when you start becoming aware of what you're thinking,

You start seeing correlations all over the place about how your thoughts are affecting everything.

It's so bizarre.

And I'll give you just one example is I had a lot of grief over the last year and a half.

I had a lot of really close people die.

And I'm a hiker,

I'm very fit.

I swear to goodness,

My hips were just like,

No,

We're not even walking a mile on flat ground.

We are so sore.

And I'm like,

What's going on?

I mean,

I was going to.

.

.

I actually went and got x-rays done.

I'm like,

There's something wrong with my hips.

It must be cartilage,

Like a bone on bone,

Especially my right hip.

There was nothing wrong with them.

On the x-ray,

It was like,

Perfect.

I was like,

But I can't even walk.

And this lasted for a couple of months on and off.

I mean,

It was terrible pain,

Pain,

Arthritis,

Like terrible.

And then I'm like,

Hold on,

What am I thinking?

And I started noticing.

Oh,

I mean,

Obviously I was noticing my grief thoughts.

I was going through grief,

But I was more and more aware of the thoughts that started right before it got so painful,

I couldn't walk.

And they were hardcore.

They were kind of like,

How can I live?

Not that I wanted to die,

But it was that feeling of how can I live without this person in my world?

How can I move forward?

How can I.

.

.

Oh,

What a metaphor that is,

Barbara,

Right there.

You need your legs and your hips to move you forward.

Exactly.

Wow.

And as soon as it started dawning on me,

The relationship between my thoughts and how it was affecting my actual physical body,

When I didn't notice that,

It would start changing at least the way I was phrasing things.

And I would allow the pain to start moving forward in those moments instead of holding onto these pain,

The pain I would cry or something to let this stuff move and start talking to my body,

Start talking to my hips and thanking it for helping me and thanking it for holding all this grief right now and doing all these different things.

And I mean,

I hiked six and a half miles a couple of days ago.

It was amazing how fast that changed.

And that's just one example,

But one has to become very aware then of these correlations.

And I think money is a really good one because you can see results suddenly.

For no apparent reason,

I got some weird check a couple of days ago for $164.

I'm like,

What the hell?

Like,

Thank you.

It's just odd,

The things that can happen.

I have a friend that got a card in the mail from some anonymous,

Someone who thinks her art's beautiful with a $100 bill in there.

I don't know what she's thinking,

But it must be pretty good.

And it's that easy.

Right.

It really is.

That's what we were talking about.

That's what we were talking about this before we started.

It really is that easy.

In fact,

Just like you're saying,

When we live in that moment and clear the thought and live in true present moment,

It doesn't have thought,

Really.

We're not thinking,

We're just in this space.

Things just start showing up.

People show up.

I keep having that experience.

It's blowing my mind.

I'm putting forth no effort and everyone's landing right here in front of you.

You're like,

Wow,

That was easy.

Just step in the moment.

So when you talk about that you had to go in,

And I'm so sorry for all your losses,

By the way,

I'm very sorry,

But it sounds like your thoughts were preventing you from feeling the emotions that were in the body.

Would you say it like that?

I don't know.

I'd have to really think back on that.

I was feeling the grief so strong,

I just don't think I could have taken more.

Sometimes the body does things like that so that I don't go and distract myself,

So I don't go into the house.

I'm like,

Just stay here and deal with it.

I'm not really sure.

Yeah,

Because I'm thinking,

Wow,

Those thoughts that were .

.

.

Anyway,

Whatever,

Let's just move on from there.

But I want to ask you about the delooping method.

Can you walk us through?

Yes,

Yes.

Yes,

Because who the heck .

.

.

Now,

Let me ask you this.

Does everyone loop?

As far as I'm concerned- Or is it just you and me,

Barbara?

Maybe it's just you and me.

I think it's the human condition.

I'm sitting here like,

Gosh,

I don't think I'm the only one,

And you're the only one,

So let's tell people how to do it.

Clearly,

You're selling books,

So let's hear about the delooping method.

All over the world,

Sister.

It's not just a US thing.

Well,

I freaking love the title.

I'm excited to get this book,

Because who doesn't need to learn how to deloop?

Yes,

Yes.

Take us through a process,

If you could,

For those that are listening.

They want to learn how to do it,

Too,

So obviously,

I don't want to give away the whole book,

But take us through a practice of what that looks like.

Okay.

First of all,

The delooping method has three phases,

And the book covers the first phase,

Because it would be a giant textbook if I had put everything in,

And it would have taken me a lot longer,

But the first phase,

If you don't do anything else,

It's incredible how it changes your life.

There's four steps in the first phase.

The first one is detect.

You could spend a long time on that one and get amazing information about yourself,

Because Carl Jung had this great quote.

Let me see if I can get it right.

Until we make our unconscious thoughts conscious,

They will direct our life,

And we will call it fate.

Yes.

Great quote.

I love that quote.

Yes.

Yes,

Yes,

And yes.

Great quote.

So when I was on stage singing,

And all those thoughts came in,

And that night I said,

Am I thinking all these all the time,

And I'm not conscious of it?

Yes.

I was thinking all the time,

And I was not conscious of it.

How rotten I was,

Basically.

They were just self-comments.

So the first thing is start making those thoughts conscious,

And if we don't know what's happening,

We can't do anything about them.

And so a few different ways that really helped me,

That I mention in the book,

Too,

Are having a little note by your bed that says,

When you wake up,

You look over,

And it says,

What's my first thought?

It's like,

Oh,

How am I starting my day today?

I hate my job.

Oh,

God.

Or who's this creep laying next to me?

It's like,

Oh,

My God,

I can't eat,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah,

Because I'm 20 pounds over.

People,

They're dating with this stuff.

Okay,

That's the first one.

Another one is like when you're,

Oh,

When you have a emotion.

You may not even know what the emotion is,

But you just feel kind of uncomfortable or wheezy in your stomach.

That's a key that a thought is happening,

And it triggered an emotion,

Or it triggered a physical symptom.

So instantly ask yourself,

What am I thinking about right now?

Those are just two different ways.

You'll start noticing all sorts of stuff.

The second step is detach from that thought,

So you don't hang onto it and start looping.

And there's a couple different ways that I talk about in the book,

But one is UCLA,

Was it UCLA?

Yeah,

Did a study on this.

So it's going to,

I say that because it's going to sound so dumb.

People go,

I don't want to do that.

But UCLA did a study and showed a crazy result from this.

So they hooked people up with things on their brain,

And then they had them put them through a test where they were thinking a negative thought,

They were depressed,

I think.

And then they had them name the fact that it's a negative thought.

So it could be,

I'm,

Oh,

I have that jealous thought again,

Or this is jealousy,

Or this is a mind loop,

Or,

Oh,

That's a negative thought.

That's all you have to do.

I call it Creepy John.

That's my Creepy John part of my side,

Whatever you want to do,

Just give it a name.

And just naming this thing puts it outside of you,

So you are not it anymore.

You are not,

I am jealous.

It's like,

I am having a thought that is jealousy.

And it's a bizarre separation that instantly lifts your mood and your energy.

It puts it at a distance.

Exactly.

I am not jealous.

I'm having a thought that I am jealous.

Is that what I'm saying?

Oh,

That's beautiful.

It puts you pretty much in a little bit more into a witness standpoint of you having a thought.

Yeah.

That's powerful.

And then the third step is detouring.

So you come up with a different thing to occupy your mind.

There's a lot of different things you could do there.

And then the fourth one is de-story,

Which is pulling the story out of this whole crazy scenario you have going on in your head.

Now,

Someone wronged you,

Or how you said something so stupid yesterday,

Or,

I mean,

These crazy things that we say.

And like the other day,

I'm starting a decluttering,

Delooping group,

By the way.

It'll be on my website pretty soon because there is such a relationship with clutter in the mind and clutter out here and everything.

But as I was thinking about decluttering,

I had this memory where my brother and his wife were decluttering and I happened to come over.

This was literally like 25 years ago.

And I walked in and I saw some things I give in my brother and I'm like,

Oh,

You're giving those away?

And he's like,

Oh,

Yeah,

You know,

And he felt bad.

I have felt so embarrassed about that for 25 freaking years.

I'm like,

That's none of my business if he gives these something away.

And so I finally was like,

I just got to clear this up.

So I texted him and his now ex-wife and I said,

Oh my gosh,

I'm so sorry I said that.

And they were laughing and they both wrote back and said,

Isn't it funny how we remember things that no one else remembers?

They don't remember that at all.

But that was a loop stuck in my head from 25 years ago.

So I needed to go into that scenario and pull out this story that I had said something really stupid in that moment.

You know,

I could look at that like,

Oh,

That woke me up to the fact that when I give a gift to someone,

That's theirs now,

They can do whatever they want with it.

And I don't know why it was that moment.

It's like it woke me up.

So I actually gained a lot from that moment of saying that now seemingly stupid thing.

I'm pulling the story out of me being embarrassed about it.

I'm grateful to it.

It's just,

It's like reframing something,

Finding the benefits from something.

Why did this happen for me or find the gifts?

Because everything is about us,

Isn't it?

We've got to be willing to look.

Yes.

Everything.

Everything.

Every time I think somebody has hurt me,

I'm like,

Wait a minute.

Hold on.

Let me look inside of myself.

What's going on within me?

How did that happen?

Why?

What's in this for me?

There's something that's in this for me.

So beautiful.

I love these steps you just gave.

Powerful.

All of them.

So who is having the thoughts?

Because when we say we're witnessing,

Right?

Who's witnessing,

Barbara?

That's such a good question.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I don't know how this whole thing is set up,

Honestly.

It's so,

So complex and so beautiful and so strange that we're even here.

I feel like,

Though,

There's a part of me watching me go through this whole experience of life and who can comment on this and be very calm and unbiased,

Just observing.

And then there's the part of me that gets all embroiled,

The ego part,

The Barbara part.

Yeah.

That's what I was thinking,

Too.

Yeah.

Woo.

This was so good.

Is there anything that you want to add that we might have missed?

This was such great stuff.

Yeah,

I do.

I just want to real briefly just express the last two phases,

Just so people know where they're going.

Yeah,

Please.

Let's go.

So the second phase is about removing the negative emotions that are stuck in the body.

Yeah.

That's beautiful.

So these things get stuck and they trigger us throughout the day.

And I won't go into all that.

And there's brain chemistry that keeps them there because we become addicted to things.

If we're having a breakup,

For instance,

You may really be grateful to be away from that person,

But you still might crave hearing their voice.

That's the brain chemistry going,

I still want some of that.

So you start releasing those things that are left in the body.

And then the last phase is the manifestation phase,

You could call it,

Or the conscious creating phase,

Because once you've cleaned your thoughts,

Once you've cleaned your emotions and you don't have to wait till it's all gone,

But once that process is,

You're being unblocked,

They're going to start creating from a conscious level.

And that's when you just have so much freaking fun.

So that's what that's all about.

Talk just for a minute about when you say release from the body,

That the next step prior to the creation,

Let's give us one way we can do that.

What's a simple way to do that?

Well,

EFT tapping is one way that works.

The way I do it is what I call dissolving emotions.

And so if you think of a moment that there was some moment that happened and you were really upset about something,

And you either didn't have time to process it in the moment,

But probably you just didn't want to,

And you're like,

Yeah,

That was horrible,

And you just shut it down and you don't revisit that,

That doesn't just go away.

It gets lodged into this beautiful,

Beautiful darling body of ours.

And so I don't know if anyone in your audience has ever had a massage,

But sometimes they start pushing on something and you're like,

Oh my God,

It opened up one of these little packets of grief or something.

And so these need to move.

And how I dissolve things,

It's a very simple process of just getting quiet enough to feel where they are in the body.

And sometimes they're lodged in the stomach or a head or heart a lot of the times,

And you can feel them and you can even get the shape of them.

And once you start tuning in,

You're not trying to do anything.

You're not trying to dissolve it.

You're not trying to get rid of it.

You just let it exist,

Just let it be,

You just let it speak or not speak,

Just honor it for a second.

And it may or may not move,

But every time I've done that,

It's moved because I'm not trying to force it to do anything.

And it just starts going,

Oh,

Thank you for giving me some room.

And it starts moving.

Sometimes it ends up in tears,

But usually I'm yawning or I can feel it literally going through my body.

I'm sure you felt that,

These like weird tingles and rushes.

This morning I woke up with a dream.

I can't remember it,

But it had a bad residue this morning.

I felt this tight stomach.

I kept trying to get the dream back so I could release it.

And I'm like,

Wait a minute,

I don't need the dream.

So I focused on that feeling and it's just like,

I don't know what it was,

But it left.

It's so true.

And we put our attention on that physical response,

That emotion.

It's an energy.

And then it opens it.

Why?

It just opens it up.

So it can,

I mean,

Energy is always emotion.

When we give it attention,

It really moves.

I love this.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

This was so good.

We appreciate you being here today with us.

This was amazing.

You are such a bright light.

I'm so grateful to be here and meet you,

Michelle.

Reviews

I very much enjoyed listening to this. It definitely resonated and I recognize I need some new tools, and this provided some. Thank you 🙏🏼

Wow! What a fascinating talk. Looking forward to reading Ms Ireland’s book. Thank you! ✨💕

I really enjoyed this session! Somehow it was playing at a faster than usual speed for me, but I just adjusted my mind and stayed with it. Well worth it.