Insight Talk: Are You Giving Away Your Power?

This talk is written as a "Note to Self", and asks "how are you giving away power unconsciously, and how can you regain it?" We will explore these questions, as well as ways to return to peace within our own being.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to this insight talk.

My name is Jonathan Adams.

You may know me here as Sonic Yogi.

In this talk,

We will explore some of the possible origins of stress and how to become more aware of this process and to consciously move towards peace and harmony.

Many years ago,

I had a very intense and jarring awakening.

In this awakening,

I came to see many of the fallacies of my own mind.

A fallacy is defined as a false idea,

A plausible or believable argument based on unsound reasoning,

A misinterpretation.

This awakening was both a mental adjustment as well as a physical transformation or recalibration.

It was from this experience that I realized that the mind and body are so intimately interconnected.

So if the mind experiences a transformation or a new realization,

The body is likely to shift.

And if the body experiences a transformation through diet,

Exercise,

Yoga,

The mind may also shift.

This is the basis for most of mind-body practice.

During this awakening,

I felt as if I was losing my mind,

But I also found my heart.

As I processed these mental changes,

I came to see that I was actually going sane.

I came to see that the consensus view that I had adopted was actually destructive and problematic.

So in this series,

I'd like to look at some insights.

With these insights,

We will challenge some of the assumptions of our mind.

I have found that it is in looking at some of our most basic assumptions about our perceptions where the real change can occur.

This is where real peace,

Real harmony can be grounded and experienced.

Insight basically means coming to an awareness of something that we were not previously aware of.

With each insight,

We will potentially free the mind from a cognitive dissonance,

A fallacy,

Or an untruth that colors our perception and creates ongoing stress.

With each insight,

We will allow the nervous system to recalibrate.

Our thoughts are essentially vibrations.

And so this sort of exploration goes hand in hand with sound therapy and sound frequency.

Entrainment with sound frequency is a way to experience these states of harmony,

At least temporarily.

And so we can experience the vibrational targets,

So to speak.

As we learn to work with our own minds,

We can come back to that space over and over.

In today's talk,

We will explore our innate sovereignty of our own nervous system.

One of the chief fallacies of the mind is that the solution to the mind's problem is outside of the mind.

And so we seek to change circumstances or people or situations.

However,

The truth is that the solution for the mind is within the mind.

So the insight here for consideration is twofold or double-edged.

The first insight from my own experience,

And I believe this applies in the vast majority of cases,

Is that I am the producer and experiencer of stress.

I am the producer and experiencer of stress.

Physiologically speaking,

Then,

Stress is generated within me.

My thoughts have the ability to produce a physiological reaction,

And then that reaction can manifest as stress in the body.

However,

The opposite is also true.

Physiologically speaking,

I am also both the producer and experiencer of joy and bliss and euphoria.

So that seems basic enough,

Right?

We create physical responses to mental states.

Of course,

None of us want to experience stress,

And yet every day,

Most people do.

So then,

It seems that if someone is suffering from stress,

There's a key element missing that they're not aware of.

That element seems to be in the awareness of first,

Producing their own stress,

And second,

Also the conscious awareness of whether or not a given situation warrants a heightened stress response.

Obviously,

No person in their right mind would purposefully choose to create and experience stress.

So then,

It seems that if people are experiencing stress as they react to their thoughts,

Then they're not aware of being the producer and experiencer of that stress.

In this case,

There's a separation or lack of awareness between these two states,

The producer state and the experiencer state.

There's a separation between these two aspects of themselves,

The producer self and the experiencer self.

There's a split or veil between these two.

This becomes a duality that is always at conflict,

Which creates ongoing stress.

So then,

In that state of being,

There's a general lack of awareness between that producer aspect and experiencer aspect of themselves.

The result of that split or lack of awareness is that the person then experiences stress,

Anxiety,

Depression,

Or suffering based on reacting unconsciously to their own thoughts.

This mind-body process happens inside of all of us,

And so the thoughts happen within us,

And also the reaction to the thought.

So there is a mental part and also a physical part.

So in my view,

The producer of the stress is the subconscious mind,

And the experiencer of the stress is the conscious mind.

So the key would seem to be in making the subconscious more conscious.

Doing so would help to unify the split in the awareness of self.

This would also relieve stress.

And so there's two aspects at play.

There's the teaching or intellectual aspect,

Which is to say that intellectually,

Anyone can understand these thoughts or ideas as they are explained and presented.

But there's also another aspect.

There's also the perceptual or experiential or energetic aspect,

Which is to say that's how these ideas and concepts interact and impact the physical being.

So in order to truly understand the teaching,

Quote unquote,

In my view,

There also has to be a perception shift or experiential shift.

In order for this perception shift to occur,

One must first access the subconscious mind from which these perceptions and resulting reactions arise nearly instantaneously.

In fact,

Many of our automatic responses are not conscious.

And why aren't they conscious?

Because these reactions are by necessity immediate and reflexive.

Many of these perceptions,

Reactions,

And sensations have become hardwired or programmed into the physiological system.

And much like learning a new language,

Real fluency is a process of the subconscious mind.

If you've learned a new language,

You know that in the beginning of that learning process,

It is all in the conscious mind.

And you're constantly having to think of things through very slowly and think about what does this word mean or what's the verb I need here and so on.

As you develop fluency with that language,

It becomes more programmed into the subconscious mind.

And those words and phrases and verbs become more and more fluent.

And so it's the same with recalibrating our minds towards harmony.

We have to become more and more fluent with this language of internal frequency.

As we develop fluency,

We become aware of the frequency and harmony that our thoughts are producing within our body.

And so the teachings are a way to prepare the conscious mind for the experience.

In other words,

The energetic shift within the physical body.

Ultimately,

I feel this shift is the experience of transcending the intellect,

Ego,

Left brain,

Or conscious mind.

This is also integrating the conscious and subconscious mind.

In order to unify the perceiver,

In other words,

The subconscious,

And the experiencer,

In other words,

The conscious mind,

My personal experience tells me that there has to be a perception shift.

This perception shift allows a person the ability to stay in the flow in real time.

My experience also tells me that the teachings are all contained in the energy of this flow or frequency.

The teachings are already within you.

This perception shift or flow enables the experiencing of the subconscious and conscious mind as a unified whole.

And so what is the perception shift?

And how does that occur?

In my opinion,

It's beyond the space of the conscious mind or intellect,

Which is always thinking,

Calculating,

Interpreting,

Judging,

And it's never in the now.

And instead,

Transcending that mind to pure awareness,

Which is always in the now,

Our senses and experiences then come in without that interpretation and critical mind,

Which is always being filtered through the lens of past experience.

I think all of our mind-body practices are moving towards this.

But I've experienced that in a few different areas in my personal experience.

So meditation,

Yoga,

And other mind-body practices are key,

As well as diet.

Many of these practices are designed to release stress,

Promote neurogenesis and neuroplasticity,

And transform our mind and perspective from a perspective that causes stress and perpetuates stress to a new perspective that can lead one to understand how the mind and body can work together in harmony,

Which will ultimately release stress and lead to peace.

So what we want to do ideally is to be aware of the teachings of various spiritual philosophies.

I like to call these psychological reminders.

These reminders also help to change our perceptions and corresponding energetic responses so that we can flow in harmony and peace.

This can encourage our body to produce chemicals and hormones that will help us to be more relaxed and experience peace and well-being.

Dr.

Bruce Lipton said,

The moment you change your perception is the moment you begin to rewrite the chemistry in your body.

We've covered that we have the conscious mind,

Which is the experiencer of stress,

And the subconscious mind,

Which is where our perceptions originate and is where we might produce stress.

So in order to recalibrate those perceptions and begin to change them,

We must access the subconscious mind.

So I think the teachings help to guide this process of the perception shift and perhaps the simplest teaching,

Which embodies all of the teachings in my opinion,

Is to simply choose love and not fear in this moment now.

So coming through the awakening that I mentioned before was very jarring and difficult.

And during that process,

My mind was reeling with all of this information and overloaded with thoughts.

And to simplify and to stay present and focused,

That simple phrase,

Choose love,

Not fear in this moment now,

Was one of the Rosetta stones that helped to guide me from moment to moment.

And so in that awakening,

There was also a rising of energy.

It's hard to explain in words really,

But it was also a rising of awareness.

So as that energy and awareness arises,

The awareness of the sort of dissonance or the natural tendency of the mind to perceive incorrectly and create incorrectly also arises.

And so reminding myself to choose love and not fear in this moment now helped me to stay focused and in the stream of peace and in the flow of harmony.

And so that phrase reminds me of a few things.

First of all,

Is that I have a choice.

Simply knowing that I have a choice is power.

And second of all,

It reminds me that it's always now.

And so I have a choice.

It's always now.

And I can choose between love and fear.

And so when I choose love,

It allows my nervous system to stay in that peaceful,

Calm and harmonious place.

Fear is fundamentally rooted in the future and past.

And so as I stay present in the moment and the now,

I'm naturally allowing that love to arise and to eliminate the space where any fear would arise.

So when I say split the mind,

I mean these particular types of thoughts,

Which I'm going to mention,

Encourage subconsciously wanting to be somewhere else while simultaneously being here.

And this creates a split in our consciousness.

And so for example,

If I desire,

Say a sports car or whatever it may be,

Then I'm here,

But I'm imagining that I need that thing that's over there.

And so as I'm thinking about that thing that I need to help fulfill my sense of self,

I'm also simultaneously experiencing dissatisfaction.

And so within the seed of that desire is also the seed of dissatisfaction and even self-loathing.

And so that's a deep subconscious energy that may be there that I may not fully notice in the moment.

That illustrates to some degree the split between the conscious mind and the subconscious mind.

And so subconsciously when we split the mind,

I realized that sometimes that equates to the feeling that I may not fully love and accept myself.

In which case I needed that something else out there to complete me.

And as I worked through different layers,

I kept coming back to this truth that I had to love,

Forgive and accept myself in order to become fully embodied in the present moment and allow my mind to heal that split between the producer self and the experiencer self,

Between the conscious mind and the subconscious mind.

So some other qualities or tendencies of the mind to split are things like the need to protect identity.

In other words,

We may imagine who we are and then defend that image.

In addition,

Non-acceptance of a situation or not wanting to be in a situation.

And so we put ourselves into a sort of escape mode mentally.

Again,

We're splitting ourselves between not wanting to be here and wanting to be there.

So there's often a split between here and there.

However,

Fundamentally,

We're always here and it's always now.

And so that splitting of the mind is a quality of aversion or desire or greed of unforgiveness and expectation and attachment.

And so all of these different qualities can be things that we subconsciously give power to and then they ultimately create stress.

So now I'm going to look at the opposite of this.

Conversely,

When I'm grateful and content with all that I have,

The mind is unified and whole because there's not a split there.

I'm fully here and present in the now and in full acceptance.

This is not to say that we should never affect change.

However,

Splitting the mind creates a state of craving for a future moment at the expense of avoiding the present moment.

This is not ultimately productive.

So when I seek change,

I realize it's also important to stay present with the moment.

Notice that these beneficial thought patterns from various moral teachings or spiritual traditions encourage presence,

Unity of mind and awareness of this now moment.

And so some of these qualities are things like honesty,

Authenticity,

Gratitude.

When we're grateful,

We're not here and then desiring to be somewhere else or wanting to avoid this moment.

When we're grateful,

We're fully here in this moment.

And so gratitude is like the doorway back to the present moment.

What are some other words or other qualities that encourage coming back to the present moment?

Things like humility,

Empathy,

Love,

Acceptance,

Curiosity,

Joy,

Forgiveness,

Feeling,

Non-resistance,

Patience,

Trust.

So notice that all of these words,

All of these qualities,

There's an energy behind them.

We know the words love,

Trust,

Gratitude,

But behind these words is an energy.

And as we become more and more in touch with that energy,

These cease to be just words,

But they become energies that we experience as we direct our own consciousness.

What I found is that meditation is like an amplifier that amplifies our awareness of the energy that we produce.

And so just like my amplifiers for my musical instruments,

They take a signal and they amplify it so that it's louder.

In many ways,

My meditation practice is also like that.

It amplifies the signal of my subconscious mind.

And with that amplification,

I begin to notice these energies more and more.

And I can simply begin to operate and make choices in a way where there's harmony and flow.

And so as my awareness increases,

I simply choose those patterns that are beneficial.

Simple example is that when we're small children,

We may not be aware that touching the stove is bad,

For example,

And that it's going to hurt.

But as soon as we feel that heat from the stove,

Our awareness quickly tells us that that's not what you want to touch.

And similarly,

As adults,

We can sort of lose the awareness within our own mind and body connection and simply begin to engage in thought patterns that are not beneficial.

So things like sound therapy,

Meditation,

Yoga,

All of these are allowing the body to relax and allowing the awareness to begin to arise again,

Which allows us to reconnect to the awareness of these energies in the subconscious.

And so these beneficial thought patterns that we mentioned point towards the energy of presence.

Also notice that these beneficial qualities that we mentioned,

Like love,

Trust,

Compassion,

All of these qualities are also byproducts of this presence of simply being in the now moment.

So just from being in the now moment,

These qualities naturally arise.

So these universally positive qualities flow from the energetic quality of being in the now.

And so that's part of what I mean when I say the teachings are already within you.

In neuroscience,

There's a saying that the neurons that fire together wire together,

Meaning that our brain creates well-worn habits and patterns.

It takes practice and consistency to change these.

Of course,

Meditation,

Which I sometimes call perceptual engineering,

Is the time-tested way of beginning to change these brain patterns.

In my experience,

I've found that meditation,

Yoga,

Sound therapy,

And other mind-body practices can begin to shift physiological energy,

Which also makes way for mental shifts.

This can also sometimes happen from the mental side,

Where a mental shift facilitates a physical release.

Our bodies are created for homeostasis as well,

Which means it's not designed to shift drastically.

Although rapid shifts occasionally occur,

Patience and consistency are also required as mind and body recalibrate both energetically and mentally.

So I hope this is resonating.

Now let's move on to a short exercise,

A sort of visualization.

So if you'd like,

Go ahead and close your eyes or feel free to keep them open a little bit if you prefer.

We're going to do a short visualization.

So take a moment to focus on your breath.

Notice the air as it comes in and out of your nostrils.

Notice the rising and falling of your chest and abdomen.

Simply notice each breath.

In this case,

We're going to use our memory.

Imagine a time in your life when you were most content.

Maybe it was the day a child was born.

Maybe it was a great vacation or just a random happy day that you remember taking a great walk,

Spending time in nature with your dog or whatever it was.

Simply allow your mind to move back and remember each detail of this moment.

Remember the sun.

Remember the air on your skin.

Remember the feeling of contentedness and joy and happiness.

As you go back to this time and remember each detail,

Notice this feeling of joy and contentedness,

Gratitude that you feel.

Take the next few moments just to remember these feelings and allow them to arise in your being.

And now as these feelings of contentment and joy from this memory have arisen,

Notice that as we were guided in this visualization,

That this feeling is also a choice that we produced.

Notice that we produced this feeling from the memory and are also experiencing this feeling.

And notice that each of these feelings are arising in the present moment.

Notice that the vast majority of the time,

Even when we're not fully conscious of this process,

The feeling that we might be producing is also a choice.

So we're both the producer and experiencer of either stress or bliss and joy and euphoria.

And so as we stay in the present moment,

Those qualities naturally begin to arise,

Qualities of love,

Joy,

Compassion,

Trust,

Contentment,

Peace,

Harmony,

And gratitude.

So that concludes the visualization.

Gently begin to bring your awareness back outwards.

And so to recap,

The takeaway is that we are sovereign within our own nervous system.

Within our mind-body system,

In the vast majority of cases,

We are both the producer and experiencer.

And as we learn to stay more present and connected and centered,

Those positive and beneficial qualities and feelings naturally begin to arise.

Our practices help us begin to make this shift and return to peaceful,

Centered awareness more and more consistently.

If you have comments or questions,

Please leave them here or in the Sonic Yogi Meditation Circle.

Your feedback and answers will also bring insight and consideration to the table.

Together we will explore and discover.

Thank you.

Reviews

What a wonderful, foundational meditation… In my own personal growth journey, I have found everything you have said to be true. Understanding these things has brought me, tremendous peace, lowered my anxiety levels, and open the door for further growth, hope, love, generosity, and a life without fear. Thank you… I really appreciate your offerings here on Insight Timer.

Wow. Thanks for sharing your dharma and life learned experiences with that dharma. Super informative and a healthy perspective to living life more aware of your spiritual wholeness and how you are portraying yourself in the world. Not sure what else to say, and share I think I have just taken in too much, I'm a lil over-zealous about getting outside, been sitting for hours and now I need to move. Will join group and comment when something comes to mind. Blessings brother.

I just listened to you after a stressful situation and your voice, your insights and information calmed my nervous system. My body and my mind feels calmer. Thank you.

A powerful discussion about sovereignty and personal power with many pearls of wisdom that deeply resonated with me. Recommended listening if you’re feeling like life is happening *to* you and you have a tendency to believe you’ll be happy “when X happens” or “when I have Y”. The only way to win is to realise there is no enemy. I will return to this often, thank you 🙏🏼💗

There couldn’t be a better time to listen to this than right now, in 2025. I plan to listen to this often. Thank you 🙏

Soooo true! I love that you mention it is not a thing we seek, it is a feeling. When I am practicing meditation in a peaceful, or not so peaceful place in Bali… when I have NO Thing(s) with me I feel the best. I learned years ago… “The Key to life is having no KEYS!” Of course I have only experienced living this way a few times. Now I Stress to pay rent, fix my broken car and injured body, work like a crazy person and give away my energy to technology at work and other stressors. Thanks for reminding me… I know that door on my Hampster cage is open… I just have to get off this wheel and make the step out of my cage. Mahalo for your insight 🙏💚. Much needed today🥲🫶

Some deeply profound teachings and truths here. I much appreciate your careful and insightful descriptions in delving into this crucial topic of our reality and circumstances which we face on a daily basis. Striving for a greater awareness of the thoughts and beliefs permeating our mind needs to be a constant goal as well as radical acceptance that letting go of unhelpful ideas and perceptions that cause us stress is paramount for our wellbeing, sovereignty and peace. We need to be aware who and what is making a claim on our time, energy and ultimately peace of mind and draw healthy boundaries. I will listen to this talk again and again. Thank you very much 🙏

Excellent material and presentation that offers a guide to conscious living. Thank you.

So helpful! Thank you for such insight and clarity. I will be taking these tools with me everyday

Thank you very much for your Insights. "The answers are all inside me every moment. In this moment now I choose Love and not fear". Wonderful daily practise from moment to moment. 💛🌈☀️

This is truly amazing! Thank you for this perspective that will change my life for the better. With gratitude 🙏

The concept of self sovereignty being the conscious affecting of the subconscious through training the conscious mind and embodiment is completely liberating and nothing like feeling sovereignty over others or Source which is the misunderstanding I was taught in the church. Thank you thank you thank you... Self sovereignty is a concept I have been working with (along with Surrender and Soften) and this helps so much.

Really interesting perspective of the relation between the sub conscious mind and our conscience reality. Thank you

Very much what I needed to hear this morning. I have a situation where I always fit in around someone else's plan. I know I don't want to follow that plan but can't offer up an alternative, so the other person says well we'll do what I suggest. I can feel the stress rising. I'm now going to do some yoga as then I do stop the overthinking and generally find a solution that works for both of us. Thank you. 😊

This explanation is the clearest most direct I have heard so far.
Thank you, I shared it with my children.

Wow. Amazing, insightful, empowerfil and hopeful. Excellent words of wisdom. Thank you! 🌻💫💜

This was very rich, and yet I would love to go deeper. Would you consider doing a live session on exactly this topic, and perhaps several lives over 1 month to go deeper and allow room for shares and questions. I suffer from a debilitating chronic illness. EVERY aspect of what you spoke about is-was unconsciously what brought my body here. I am ready to heal, but have been sick, homebound and bedbound for so many years, I need a lot of support. I’ve been isolated for years before COVID and in ways most people can’t understand without living it. Understanding is not the purpose…. Unless it is to help me move forward with compassion, clarity and a feeling of safety as I move back into life. It has been decades of a slow decline, but I am 51 and have my whole life - round 2 - ahead of me. I have a beautiful loving relationship. I want us to experience with reverence and gratitude Life’s simple, awe-inspiring beauty. I want to release him from the role of caretaker and my self from this new identity that has slowly crept into my psyche… that I am chronically ill. Please consider. Your work is incredibly powerful ESPECIALLY with your gift of music to calm the nervous system so that I-we can absorb this information and our disregulated nervous system can have an easier time to integrate it all. Does that make sense? I would LOVE TO hear from you… your thoughts on this, and I will not fish, but directly ask for words of compassion, understanding and support.
Blessings, love and all my gratitude for your beautiful work that has been with me for years now. Namaste. Amy Fortoul

This is a brilliant talk for our times: literally right now in this 2022 political season. It is insightful, concise, direct and soundly grounded across all major and wisdom treaditions.

I really enjoyed your words and insight, and could see areas in my self that I need to let go and come to peace with. Thank you!

Incredible! This will stay with me for some time. Revelatory. Thank you so much.