Reacting Vs. Responding: An Important Life Distinction

What does it take to find peace?
Knowing the difference between Reacting (acting without thinking) and Responding will help you experience life in a more peaceful and fulfilling way. Here Men Talking Mindfulness Podcast speak with Dr Seth Hickerson to help understand how and why this will enhance our lives.

Transcript

What happens when two dudes,

One a retired Navy Seal Commander in Colorado Springs,

And the other a hippie meditation teacher in New York City,

Get together to discuss living mindfully?

That's a great question because we don't know what will happen either.

Raw,

Uncut and unapologetic.

Welcome to Men Talking Mindfulness with co-hosts John McCaskill and Will Schneider.

Each week we take an authentic dive into how mindfulness continually impacts our lives,

Deepens our relationships and allows us to be emotionally alive.

We filter all of our conversations through the man box where we unpack how as men we are expected to act in society,

How fighting the authentic human experience is exhausting and damaging and how mindfulness can help.

Now,

Onto the show.

Hey,

Hello.

Welcome back to Men Talking Mindfulness.

We have a very special show for you today with Dr.

Seth Hickerson is back on Men Talking Mindfulness.

Sorry to those of you who are expecting to hear from USC firefighter Sarah Alpar.

Today she had a last minute scheduling conflict so she couldn't make it today as we promised to bring her back another time.

So we're going to be with Dr.

Seth today.

You might remember him from beginning of this season three where he talked about mental fitness.

And if you haven't listened yet,

It's a great one.

So go check it out.

Or maybe it's time to re-listen to some of Dr.

Seth's great practical wisdom on mindfulness.

This is why we love Dr.

Seth.

He makes mindfulness easily digestible.

So in this episode,

We are going to talk with Dr.

Seth about understanding the importance and the distinction between reacting versus responding to life circumstances.

Here's a quote,

The kind of onboard reacting versus responding.

Between stimulus and response,

There is a space.

In that space is our power to choose our response.

In our response lies our growth and our freedom.

That's from the great Viktor Frankl.

So open your mind and your ears and get ready to learn some new mindfulness tools that will help to enhance your life.

But before we begin this conversation about reacting versus responding,

We have some announcements.

What's going on in the men talking mindfulness world,

John?

Yeah.

Well,

First off,

We have been trying to respond all day.

We've been responding through the night instead of reacting.

We got Seth.

I see you there,

Seth.

We're going to bring you up on stage here in a second.

But we were flailing at the last second to change this from working with Sarah to working with Seth.

Hopefully,

You know,

Those who are here are still going to tune in because we've got a great message on responding versus reacting and how to train your mind to respond versus react.

But yeah,

We have some announcements.

First off,

Super excited about this one.

We've just recently partnered with See Good TV or Conscious Good TV and that their website is see as in Charlie see good.

Tv and see good TV strives to create a streaming experience that delivers inspiring and uplifting content to their members and partner with the world's top conscious filmmakers to deliver the beauty of visual stories.

And we're very excited about this.

And this month,

Funny enough,

Incidentally,

We didn't have anything to do with this,

But see good is actually going to be focusing on trauma and addiction.

So our very first episode that we're going to be pushing out on see good TV is with Dr.

Rob Kelly,

The one that we did about a month ago on that very subject on trauma and addiction.

And then moving on,

We have our MTM merch that is still that sale ends this Sunday.

And when I say sale,

I don't mean,

Hey,

It's a discount.

I mean,

The shop actually closes on Sunday,

The end of the day on November 7.

We have new holiday soft cotton color shirts in forest green and they look great.

I mean,

I personally ordered two for myself.

And got truck baseball hats,

Winter hats.

And of course,

We've got the standard shirts and hoodies.

And again,

That's that's a men talking mindfulness dot com forward slash merch.

And I'll put that here in the chat here soon.

And that does it helps to support our show.

And please spread the MTM love and and buy some of our merch.

But not only does it support our show,

But it supports small businesses,

Specifically Will's cousin,

Will's cousin Rob Schneider,

He runs this and it would be very helpful to support him.

It is available in the US and Canada only.

But we appreciate your going on there and checking out the merchant perhaps buying some.

Thanks so much for supporting men talking mindfulness.

So that said,

Let's get into the guest bio intro and I'll bring Seth up.

Oh,

Yeah.

Dr.

Seth,

Great to have you back.

Always good to be here.

I'm good.

I'm I'm cold,

Man.

It's like 70 degrees down here.

You know,

I got a jacket.

I mean,

Well,

Hey,

Man,

You know,

There's MTM hoodies available for those of you down in Florida.

For what it gets below 70 degrees down in Florida,

You've got some hoodies available.

Yeah,

I send them on down,

Ship it,

Let's go.

Yeah,

I have a little hard time.

Supatizing said it was the first time it broke below 40 in New York City.

Yeah,

It was 38 when I got up.

I was like,

Oh,

My God,

I expect no sympathy.

I expect no sign.

No,

None from over here.

None up north.

Okay,

Let me give a little here's here's a little this is our doctor.

Dr.

Seth Hekerson is a innovative educator,

Coach,

Entrepreneur and multi branch military veteran.

He has been training high performance individuals such as professional athletes.

He actually trains Sarah Arpar,

Who is supposed to be our guest today.

But again,

We'll have an arm some other time.

He also trains Navy SEALs and business executives for the last 15 years.

Dr.

Seth is an expert in implementing implementation of mindfulness,

Emotional intelligence,

Cognitive fitness and resiliency training.

Seth is dedicated providing access to practical tools,

Tips and techniques that enhance self and situational awareness,

Reduce stress and improve performance.

And this is why we have love having you here,

Dr.

Seth.

Thank you so much for coming on today.

We're going to be talking about reacting versus responding.

So good to have you.

How are you feeling today?

I'm good.

And it's funny,

Every time I hear the bio read,

I'm always like,

Oh,

Man,

That sounds good.

Now I want to tell everybody to lower your expectations.

Okay,

Let's get real,

Right?

Right.

Right.

But now I'm doing I'm doing good.

You know,

I'm just kind of down here and doing my thing in Florida and hanging out and glad able to get on here any chance I get to talk with you guys.

I'm always I'm always game,

Especially when we're talking about the the my steady mind.

Oh,

Gee,

Victor Frankel.

Yeah,

That's right.

Yeah.

That's,

That's the that's,

You know,

That's the guy that kind of really kicked all this off.

He's the the ultimate MSM coach,

In my opinion.

Any chance I get to talk about,

You know,

That gap and what he's about?

I'm all for so yeah,

Yeah,

Well,

It worked out,

You know,

In Sarah not being able to be here,

You stepped in to fill the gap here in men talking mindfulness in the last second.

And we'll get into,

You know,

A little bit more about you,

Because I know you were on the show a few months back.

But for those who may have missed it,

We'll just get a quick little bit more about you before we get into the questions and everything else.

But before we do that,

We're gonna do like we do on every show and kick it off with a grounding practice so that we can respond better,

Rather than reacting and live in a responsive mode rather than a reactionary mode.

So that said,

If you're watching,

If you're listening,

Get into a comfortable position,

Whatever that looks like for you and make sure it's safe.

Obviously,

I'm going to kick my flip flops off.

It is cooler here,

But I'm still rocking flip flops because that's what I do.

And I'm gonna put my feet firmly on the ground and put my hands on my lap and I'm gonna close my eyes but you assume that comfortable position,

Whatever that may look like for you.

And let's bring our attention to our breath.

Focusing exclusively on the physical sensations of breathing and nothing else.

And to really heighten that attention,

Let's begin by doing three focused breaths together focused and intentional deep belly breaths.

Begin by breathing out all your air,

Bringing your navel to your spine.

Breathing in deep into your nose if you're able.

Hold at the top and relax.

And as you breathe out,

Focus on that air leaving your body.

Focus on the contracting of the lungs and belly and at the bottom hold again.

Breathe in again in through your nose if you're able,

Paying attention to the air entering your body,

The expansion of your lungs,

Expansion of your belly.

Hold at the top and relax,

Letting it go nice and slow.

Slow,

Slow.

One more deep into your nose if you're able.

Hold at the top and let it go nice and slow.

Slow,

Slow.

Now just feel yourself in this space.

Feel your feet on the ground.

If you're sitting down,

Feel the chair against the back of your thighs,

Your hamstrings,

Your buttocks.

Feel your hands resting on your thighs.

And just be aware of the space you're in and how you feel in your mind,

How you feel in your body,

And how your nervous system feels.

If your mind has wandered off,

Just gently bring it back without any judgment.

Just notice that your mind has wandered off and bring it back to this practice,

This grounding practice.

Bring your attention back to the physical sensation of being in this space right here,

Right now.

And let's finish with one deep cleansing breath together.

Begin again by breathing out all your air,

Bringing your navel to your spine.

Breathe in deep into your nose.

And then just relax.

And then just relax.

And then just relax.

Breathe in deep into your nose.

And relax.

Breathing out nice and slow.

Slow,

Slow.

And when you're ready,

Bring some movement back in your body.

Maybe rotate your head around a little.

Blink your eyes open if they were closed.

And here we are,

Men talking mindfulness.

Let's get into this again.

Seth,

Great to have you,

Brother.

Great to be here.

Always great to do that.

I hadn't done my little morning meditation yet,

So it was good to get that little grounding.

There you go.

There you go,

Man.

Grounding.

Exactly.

Yeah,

It's good stuff for sure.

So at the very beginning there,

Will read a quote that many of us are familiar with from Viktor Frankl.

For those who don't know who he is,

He's an Austrian,

Or was an Austrian neurologist,

Psychiatrist,

Philosopher,

And author,

And a Holocaust survivor.

And arguably,

His most famous work is Man's Search for Meaning.

And the quote that we're using to focus today on reaction versus response is,

Between stimulus and response,

There is a space.

In that space is our power to choose our response.

In our response lies our growth and our freedom.

So we are here to talk about response instead of reaction.

And really want to get into what those mean,

What living in a responsive versus reactionary mode feels like,

Looks like,

And talk about all that.

But again,

Seth,

Let's give two or three minutes quick,

A little bit more than what we read in the bio,

Just for our listeners again to know who you are and why this particular topic is so near and dear to your heart.

Yeah,

I mean,

This is really what it all comes down to is understanding that.

You go about my background,

Right,

I've been into mindfulness for a long time,

Practitioner,

It's saved my life,

It's changed my life.

The C stream or whatever it was you were talking about,

That new channel is something I'd love to check out because I personally dealt with a lot of personal trauma,

Personal addiction.

I've been through it,

I've dealt with it,

Being a veteran,

All the stuff we go through,

And I've just been fortunate through my education and experiences to come up with some tools that help me stay sober and sane.

And if it works for me,

It can work for others.

And doing my studies in sports psych and studying neurology and the brain,

I really understand what it means and how important what Victor's talking about is that gap.

And so that's what a lot of our training is teaching people how to do.

And I say training a bunch,

Right,

Because that's what it takes.

You can't just go read Man's Search for Meaning and be a new person.

You have to do things,

Right?

And so that's what I like to talk about and help people understand it.

I like to take what complex things and make them simple and applicable.

And hopefully we can explain some of what Victor's talking about in this episode so that people can relate to it and then more importantly,

Have some tools to help them go and create that gap.

Yeah.

One thing for this conversation I'd like to bring in is to get situational in the sense of like,

What does it look like when we react in our families,

In our work life,

In our community?

It's really kind of make it relatable and then flip it and then come into like,

What does it mean to respond almost in those same circumstances?

So we can really begin to make that distinction.

So I guess our audience could really digest like,

Oh,

Wait,

OK,

This is something that I really need to pay attention to.

And then it's also then how do I begin to practice that after kind of getting these downloads from our show right now?

So why don't we,

John,

Should we bring up that graphic first?

Yeah,

Let's do it.

Incidentally,

Seth sent this out to a bunch of the coaches for My Steady Mind this week.

And I just thought it was so appropriate to bring it up.

So it's basically if if you're listening to the show and not watching it,

It has life without mindfulness at the very top and then life with mindfulness at the bottom.

And basically,

Without mindfulness is you have a stimulus and you immediately go into a reaction.

So that's that's what life is like without living mindfully.

And then at the bottom with mindfulness,

With mindfulness,

You have a stimulus and then you have all these different ways to basically assess that stimulus.

And then you have after you've assessed that stimulus and taken that pause that we're going to be talking about today and we've already been talking about,

You go into a skillful,

Skillful response.

Man,

I get tongue tied sometimes.

Easy for you to say.

Right.

So,

Yeah,

Let's,

Let's talk about this graphic.

Let's talk about living mindfully in these different spaces that Will talked about in our families.

I'll take the graphic down now just so we can have our pretty faces or at least yours,

Seth and Will.

So let's,

Let's talk about those spaces.

So,

I mean,

I'll kick it off now with in my life in the family space where if I react versus respond.

So again,

I get a stimulus of,

I don't know,

My little boy knocking something over.

Right.

And that can be a stimulus that is drives a quick thought.

One,

The thought is what the heck just dropped to the emotion is,

Why did he push that over?

And the action is to yell at my little boy about pushing something over.

Now my little boy is two.

Okay.

So the reaction there is not really appropriate to be yelling at my little boy who's two years old for knocking something over.

Whereas,

You know,

Flipping that,

If I was to see,

Okay,

The stimulus is he's knocked something over,

Take a second and take that breath.

Even if it's a split second,

Take a breath and be like,

Okay,

What happened?

Okay.

Knocked over a table,

Big freaking whoop.

No big deal.

Right.

Now my thought is,

Okay,

He's knocked over a table.

Is he okay?

Is everything in this room okay?

Now my emotion is okay.

Everyone is okay.

And now the action that is driven by taking that pause,

A new thought,

A new emotion,

The new action that is driven is like,

Hey,

Come here,

Son.

Are you okay?

Let's not push over tables.

Let's not do that kind of thing.

And obviously that's an anecdote,

But that applies in my family life all over the place,

Whether it's with my kids,

With my spouse,

Just with myself,

Even I can get seriously pissed off at myself and what does that do for me?

So yeah,

I'd love to kick over you guys for your examples of where living in a reactionary state can really be detrimental.

Well,

Maybe Seth,

It might be good to break down.

We talked about it in your mental fitness episode.

Just to add some context here,

Is that Steve,

You know,

And just kind of really break down some of the mechanics here and then maybe really begin to look at what is this gap,

Right?

What the fuck is this concept of the gap?

Yeah,

I love it.

Dr.

Seth.

Yeah,

I mean,

That's what I want to do.

I help people.

I want them to understand what this stuff is neurologically,

How it works,

What we're trying to protect,

Right?

And so essentially the gap is your free will.

No shit.

That's what it is,

Right?

If you do not have a gap and Victor,

This is what a lot about Victor was talking about that he witnessed being in the Holocaust.

People were dying,

Right?

I mean,

There's executions and stuff,

But plenty of people were dying just because they lost hope.

Their will was gone,

Right?

And so it's this,

All our brain,

All our brain wants to do is take action.

Our brain is a action achieving machine and every thought we have is an instruction,

Right?

For that action and the way our brain,

A person's mindset,

I help people understand this too,

Because there's a lot of mindset coaches out there that have no idea how a brain works,

Right?

And if you,

I'll ask them,

I'll say,

Hey,

What makes up a mindset?

And if they can't tell me anatomically,

Neurologically,

Physiologically,

How a brain is made up,

Your mindset is a result of billions of neural pathways that have formed.

Those neural pathways create neural bundles.

Those neural bundles make up neural networks.

And that series of neural networks is the anatomical structure of your brain.

That's your brain set.

And your mindset is a result of your brain set,

Right?

So if people say they're mindset coaches and they can't answer it like that,

They're really just a motivational speaker.

No offense.

No offense.

You don't have the ability to change it and update it,

Right?

And you have to understand all of it as a result of this neurological process called STIA,

Right?

Stimulus creates a thought.

Thought creates an emotion.

Emotion is energy in motion,

Emotion,

And that's what drives action.

So everything a human being does is driven by a feeling,

By an emotion.

We think our logical brain makes us make decisions.

It's our feeling brain.

We have a thinking and a feeling brain.

We make decisions with our thoughts.

We make decisions with emotions and we justify with logic,

Right?

So that's the way we work.

That's how we're wired.

So this STIA process,

The first letter in STIA is stimulus.

Yeah.

Can I ask Dr.

Seth,

So this STIA process,

This is the way that we're all kind of designed,

Like based on our mindsets,

Based on our brain set,

Right?

There's like,

So stimulus is some sort of out external something like a loud noise or you see your son knock over a table or,

You know,

And then we cascade into a thought,

Right?

Typically,

Right?

And then there's an emotional response based on that thought.

So we're kind of connecting the thinking and the emotion together.

And then,

You know,

Because we're,

What you said earlier,

We're action machines.

So we want to do something,

Right?

And this is that,

This is this natural progression that all human beings go through.

And then we'll talk about how mindfulness can help,

But is that correct in what I'm saying?

Yeah.

I mean,

The brain and body are very simple once you understand them.

If you have a brain,

This is how it works,

Barring any defects or anything,

Right?

I mean,

Some people's brains are different,

Right?

But I'm just talking about the general human being.

I mean,

How we live and evolve is very simple once you understand the basic functions of the mind and body.

And so,

You know,

What I want to,

I want to talk about a bunch of things because I love this topic.

It's very important for people to understand.

And so the first thing coming back to the gap and what I said about free will.

So if you imagine this,

All our brain is doing is the world,

It's every,

These neuro pathways are trying to form all the time based on stimulus.

And we as humans receive stimuli a couple of ways.

One way we receive it is through our senses.

So sight,

Taste,

Touch,

Feel,

Smell here,

Right?

So if I see something,

Hear something,

Taste something,

Feel something,

That's a stimulus,

Right?

And then,

But that has to go through the prefrontal cortex and make its way down into the limbic brain where the action lives.

So we receive it through our senses.

The way humans receive stimulus first and faster is through limbic resonance,

Through energy transfer,

Right?

When we feel the energy,

We feel something,

Right?

People put off energy,

Everything's energy,

Everything's vibrating.

And so we all know that,

Right?

We can talk about that,

Trust your gut,

Right?

We've got billions of bacteria that line our stomach and our gut,

And people can walk by you,

You can be in a room and you can feel the energy in that room,

Right?

Good or bad.

So that's,

That's always,

Humans,

We're processing stimuli.

And then every resulting stimulus is based on our perception of that stimulus,

Right?

And so if you are unaware of people,

People that don't have mindfulness,

Which is probably was certainly me for many,

Many years,

It's probably still a lot of people out there listening,

Right?

There's no gap between a stimulus and a thought.

So what that means is you are at the mercy of all stimulus,

Right?

You do not have free will.

If you do not have a space between a stimulus and a thought,

Like Victor said,

You do not have,

We say it kind of laughing,

Like,

Oh,

It's your ability to respond.

I mean,

This is what I'm talking about.

If you don't have that space,

You don't have free will,

You're,

You're,

You can be.

.

.

You're a slave to your emotions.

To everything,

To every stimulus out there,

Right?

And so then what that does to humans,

And this is why we have so much mental fatigue and exhaustion and depression and you name it,

Right?

Burnout.

Because people don't have that gap,

They don't have any awareness,

So they're at the mercy of all stimulus.

We live in a world designed to use negative stimulus to influence this process,

Right?

And so if I'm this person and I don't have a gap and I'm at the mercy of all the stimulus,

What that means is people just wake up and they're perceiving stuff as threats all the time.

That bad email,

My kid that knocked over a table,

That driver that cut me off,

The person that didn't like my,

That didn't like my Facebook post,

Whatever,

Right?

And so it just means they exist in sympathetic overdrive.

People are just in survival mode the time they get out of bed.

And so that's exhausting,

Right?

And that's how most people just try to live.

And it's,

And so you have to start to understand this neurological process.

You have to really get a new relationship with all stimulus,

And then you have to do something to create a space,

The pause,

The gap between a stimulus and a thought so that whatever the stimulus comes,

If it's a shitty negative stimulus,

I want to create space to then change my perception of it from good to bad so I can have a good thought and action.

And that's good.

No,

No.

So this perception too,

I mean,

So where these perceptions come from,

Is it something that,

You know,

That is learned or negativity bias?

So this is like,

So if I have,

You know,

If I come from a family,

You know,

With an abusive father or something like that,

Or I'm always being treated a certain way or,

Yeah.

So just talk about,

I think,

Perception because that perception is really like what we're trying to,

That's right,

Trying to change in order to,

Yeah.

So if you would,

Just to help us understand this idea or what perception is.

Everything we're trying to do,

I talk about this all the time,

Right?

When I train people or athletes,

Every human being,

There's two things that controls everything in our life.

Our thoughts,

Which control our mind and our breath,

Which controls our nervous system.

Most people live their whole life with no awareness or control over either,

Right?

And that sucks.

And so what we're doing through training is we're starting to learn how to control mindfulness,

Metacognition,

Thinking about our thinking,

Starting to be,

You know,

Starting to control awareness of our thoughts first,

Creating space so I can then change my perception of it so I can influence,

You know,

And then that,

The whole thing we're trying to do also is recalibrate our nervous system.

You know,

That's it,

You know,

And that's the simplicity of what it is.

And so what I- Creating a new perception then,

You know what I mean,

Of ourselves and ourselves in this world and ourselves relating to other,

You know,

Beings and people.

100%.

So totally,

You know,

Updating your mind like you update your phone and this is done,

This is what we talk about at My Steady Mind,

It's because of neuroplasticity that lets us literally change who we are and how we see the world through specific training like we do.

And so the example I give,

And this is,

There's a great book called Stop Doing That Shit by John Knycip,

I think,

Which you should all read,

Right?

There's two he wrote.

One is called Un-Fuck Yourself,

And one is called Stop Doing That Shit.

And what he talks about- We got these- These are the books I read.

There's other stuff out there- Stop Doing That Shit and Un-Fuck Yourself,

Just so we're very clear that these are books that you can buy anywhere.

I love it.

We're buying both,

Right?

It's an awesome guy.

He's big on,

You know,

I was supposed to actually hook up with him and meet him.

Jerry,

John Bishop,

John Gary Bishop,

I think is his name,

But anyway,

He's out of London.

But he's an OG like us.

He's a brain guy,

But he tells it as it is.

We don't try to beat people over the head with the academics of it.

We don't try to sound super smart,

Right?

It's like,

Here's the way it works,

And here's why you're fucked up.

And if you want to un-fuck yourself,

You have to know this.

So what he uses in this book,

Right?

So when human beings are born,

When all of us are thrown into this world,

The term he uses is called your throat in-ness.

I don't know if that's British or what,

But that's what he's called.

Your throat in-ness.

So when all of us on this and every one of your listeners,

When we were born,

We were thrown into this world.

Our brain and our body are thrown into this world.

And instantly,

Our brain is starting to develop.

And how our brain develops is 100% contingent on the stimulus around us,

Right?

And so that's your throat in-ness.

And you didn't have,

We didn't,

We couldn't decide to be male or female or black or white or come from a good home or a bad home or an alcoholic home or,

Right?

There's all these variables that we just got thrown into that we didn't have any control over,

Right?

And so as that human is progressing,

Right,

Our brain is developing,

These neural pathways are all forming based on that baby that kids experience and exposure to stimuli.

And it's forming who that person is.

It's forming the structure of their brain,

Right?

And these kids don't have awareness,

Right?

Right,

Right.

Right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Right.

So what happens is you get to a point where you're 15,

20,

25 or whatever.

And if you're fucked up or whatever you're struggling with,

Right,

It's not necessarily your fault.

It's the way your brain has been wired based on everything you've had exposure to with no awareness up until that point,

Right?

And then what we're saying is through what we do,

Which is proactive neuroplasticity training,

You can go in and start to identify that subconscious shit,

Right,

That self-sabotaging behaviors and through neural pruning,

Break those old neural pathways and then form new ones.

So you can totally transform who you are by doing this,

But you have to understand the steeda process,

Motion action.

You have to do something.

That's why self-help books don't work.

That's why motivational speaking doesn't work.

That's why none of that stuff,

That's not training.

You have to take action.

It's like reading a physical fitness book,

Right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

You have to read all day and get huge and get fast and get in so much better shape.

You got to take action.

Yeah.

I mean,

That's what people don't understand.

And people don't understand mental fitness training because my body,

If I'm deconditioned,

Right,

I can look and see that,

Man,

My ass is out of shape.

I look like shit,

Right?

I can see it.

And then I say,

Okay,

Well,

I'm going to go work out.

If you haven't worked out,

If you're deconditioned,

Again,

I can't read a book about working out.

I can't be on a show talking about how important working out is.

I got to get my ass up,

Go to the gym,

Pick up the dumbbell and do the curls.

And it sucks.

It sucks.

I hate it.

I'm making excuses not to do it because I'm deconditioned,

Right?

And then I don't see results instantly.

I'm just like,

Ugh.

So then I leave and then I got to come back the next day.

And it still sucks.

And I still hate it.

And I'm making excuses,

But I'm doing it,

Right?

And you do that for two months or whatever.

And then all of a sudden,

Oh my gosh,

I see a little muscle in there,

You know?

Now my perception changes to now I don't see that one as a threat.

I see it as an opportunity.

So now I'm not making excuses not to go.

I'm making reasons to go,

Right?

And so mental fitness training is the same way.

The problem is we can't see our brain getting stronger because it doesn't grow like a bicep.

It's got a skull around it.

If it grew like our bicep,

Everybody on this call would have a big ass head because we trained.

I wouldn't fit it on the screen,

Seth.

I wouldn't be here.

Cognitive fitness,

Mental skills training doesn't work that way.

It changes through new neural development and breaking old ones.

And so that's why a lot of people just don't believe it or don't think it works.

I can't see it,

Right?

But you feel it.

You feel it,

But you may not feel it at first,

Right?

You're not going to become a Jedi master the first time you sit down and try to meditate,

Right?

And that's what I help people in our country,

Especially who are like,

Seth,

I did a five minute guided meditation.

Why am I not the Dalai Lama?

Why am I not levitating?

Why am I not levitating?

And also even that person you're speaking to,

They're literally speaking and working and feeling and acting from that reactive mind,

From the perception of being like,

Oh,

I can't change.

Or I've tried it once to change and things don't change,

Right?

So there's a lot of things that we're kind of working against here.

I don't like to think about paddling,

But like,

Yeah.

Right.

It's the negativity bias.

And that's what our brain,

We talk about.

Like the reason this stuff's hard and the reason is because it's not because you're a bad person.

I mean,

It's not because you're,

It's just your brain.

You have to understand how your brain works.

You know,

And it's people's egos that make them think,

No,

Seth,

You don't know.

I'm different.

No,

You're not.

No,

You're not.

You know,

This is how your brain is designed.

And we have to learn how to outsmart our own psychology.

Right.

And you talked about neuroplasticity and for those who are not familiar with that term,

That's the ability of the brain to change,

To rewire.

There's a great video on it on YouTube where a guy learns how to ride a bike that is actually engineered backwards to where you hit the,

The,

The,

When you try to go left,

It goes right.

And vice versa and how impossible it is to learn to ride that bike.

But he takes months and months to learn it.

Rewires his brain of what the neural pathway for riding a bike is.

And then he gets on a regular bike and he can't do it because he's actually changed his brain through neuroplasticity and we can do that.

And,

And,

You know,

Something else I want to talk about,

Seth,

You brought up,

One,

You know,

We have these stimulus stimuli all over the world,

Right?

All through our,

Our day.

But we,

Not only can we inject a pause after the stimulus and in between the stimulus and the thought,

But we can also in some capacity change the stimuli that we're exposed to.

So,

You know,

The first thing so many of us do is so many of us sleep with our phone right next to our bed.

And we use our phone as our alarm clock.

That alarm clock goes over,

We roll over and what's the first thing we do.

I'd love to see people chat in the chat right here to see what the first thing people do is.

Most people,

They check social media,

They check email before they even get out of bed.

They're on their phone checking to see what came in.

So that's a stimulus that you may be able to control through your day.

So not only do you take a pause in between stimulus and thought,

But you can also control the stimuli that you're exposed,

Exposing yourselves to.

The other thing that you said,

Seth,

That I want to dig into is you said that so much of the world capitalizes off this wiring,

The way that we're wired,

That negativity bias.

Like news media,

Social media,

They capitalize off that because they know what stimulus is going to,

Yeah.

So that's why we see so much more bad news on the news is because,

Hey,

That's a stimulus.

We're going to,

What's the thought is,

Oh,

We want to see that.

So I'll turn it back over.

That's why it's called,

I should be called,

This is a new definition of capitalism.

Yeah.

Like capitalizing on our weaknesses.

Seriously.

That's why we buy stuff.

That's why we panic shop that,

You know what I mean?

Because it's like literally they're playing on this negativity bias,

But please roll with it,

Seth.

I mean,

That's why I do what I do.

Right.

And I got a lot I can dive in on there and explain.

I mean,

This is,

You know,

Why I'm so passionate about it,

You know,

And I say this,

Right,

Especially being a veteran,

Right?

Like I,

I,

I took an oath a couple of times,

Right.

To support and defend this country against all enemies,

Foreign and domestic.

And what I'm doing in my business is defending our country against domestic terrorism.

Right.

Wow.

That's what I'm doing.

I,

I didn't stop serving this country just cause I got out of the military,

Right?

This is my defense against domestic terrorism because our country,

I love it.

Love it to death,

Right?

I love capitalism,

But this country's hyper capitalism,

Which means it's designed to try to literally extract as much money out of our citizens from birth until death.

And we use systems to make sure that happens,

Right?

I mean,

That's what I talk about in my doctorate in educational leadership,

Right?

Our school systems do not,

There's no funding for things like music,

Art,

Dance,

PE,

Mental health.

There's no funding for that because that's what stimulates divergent thought.

Right.

In healthy,

Independent thinking people.

We say,

No,

It's all about IQ.

It's about standardized testing,

Right?

That's what's going to get you successful.

That's what's going to get you their career.

So you,

You suppress and eliminate divergent thinking.

And then all the person has is convergent thinking.

So the by-product is called learned helplessness.

So our kids and all of us,

We're graduating from high school.

We may have a 4.

0 and a full ride,

But we don't have to do shit ourselves.

We're dependent on the government.

We're dependent on a politician.

We're dependent on a pharmaceutical company to fix that.

Right.

And that's by design.

Right.

So,

And also,

And I'll continue living through that stimulus response or no stimulus reaction,

Stimulus reaction.

We're always like,

Boom,

Boom.

There's no,

Again,

That's that gap.

Like we're trying to find that gap and that's divergent thinking.

Right.

So nobody knows how,

And then,

So what happens is again,

Like,

What do we say all human being,

Every action is based on an emotion.

And so if we're not teaching people,

This kind of stuff in schools,

Which were not by design,

Right.

They do,

If you do not know how to,

And this is where shit got sideways with me and probably a lot of us,

Right.

If you're not taught how to manage an emotion,

The only thing you can do is suppress it.

That's it.

You can manage it or suppress it.

That's all you can do with emotions.

And if you do not,

My tool for all my emotions,

Cause I did not know how to manage them was alcohol.

I drank when I was happy.

I drank when I was sad.

I drank when I just drank.

Right.

And that became my tool.

And it was,

You know,

That was fun for a little while.

I don't remember the nineties,

But I also shot myself in the foot and screwed a lot of stuff up until I kind of learned.

And then I got sober and then I started practicing some of this stuff.

And so now my emotional toolkit,

I mean,

I say all the time,

It's psychological warfare out there and everybody's unarmed.

They're unarmed.

Right.

Well,

Unless you start practicing mindfulness,

Right.

That's exactly it.

So that's,

So coming back to what we're trying to help people understand is,

I mean,

Everything that you do is a result of this STIA process and everything you feel and what you believe.

And so talking about how our society capitalizes on it.

Right.

And,

You know,

If your viewers aren't familiar with it,

Or if you guys aren't like go Google the attention economy.

Right.

Like that's,

When I talk about this domestic terrorism,

All these tech companies and all these things out there,

They do not give a shit about you.

You know,

All they want,

You're clicking,

You're spending,

Whatever it is.

And so they know how to create stimuli that will influence your thoughts and emotions and actions.

Cause they know you don't have awareness of it and you don't have defense against it.

And so that's what sucks.

Right.

And they use sensationalism.

So what John was talking about and what I talk about in our training and helping people understand is the two most valuable resources,

Every human being on the planet has two most valuable things you possess is your time and your attention.

You can't go to Amazon and buy more time or attention.

Probably the only thing,

Two things Amazon doesn't sell.

And so we have to protect our time and attention like gold,

Because we live in a society that is designed to capture,

Capitalize,

And monetize both.

Right.

And so what they do,

For example,

It's all about influencing the steer process.

So where do most people spend a lot of their time and attention?

News,

Television,

Social media.

Right.

So if any of us,

And so what I help people understand is it's not necessarily the people on the news that are the bad people.

They're just reading prompts,

Right.

Scripts.

It's the content creators that know,

I mean,

They work with neurologists,

They work with human behavior specialists,

Everything down to the colors and things are designed to capture an influence,

To create a,

Use a stimulus to influence a thought.

Cause I know once I have your thoughts,

I've got your emotions and your actions,

Period.

There's two types of people in the world,

Conditioners or conditioned.

Right.

Right.

And so I think it's funny how these platforms you mentioned before in your resilience training,

How they there's only two entities out there that call their people users.

Right.

And that's the drug industry and the tech industry.

That's right.

You know,

I've never thought about that.

That's the only two that call their yeah.

And it's drug industry and tech industry.

And these are,

These are designed to be more there.

Does this stuff designed to be more addicting than drugs.

Right.

And they,

There's studies out there that show that,

Right.

I want to come back and talk about sensationalism,

But I'm a nerd,

Right.

So I geek out on research and stuff like that.

And there's studies that to prove this point,

Right.

There was one where they took a heroin addict,

A 20 year heroin addict and brought him in a room in a lab.

He didn't know what he was coming in there for.

And they hooked him up and probably told him he was going to do something right.

Get free heroin for a year.

I don't know,

But they brought him in and they had him hooked up.

And then they just walked in and said,

Hey,

We're going to take your heroin away for 24 hours to just see how his brain lit up the stress response,

The fear response in his brain by hearing that he was not going to have his heroin.

And you can imagine it lit up.

Yeah.

That guy was stressed out,

Stressed,

Scared,

Right.

Saying,

I'm not going to have my heroin.

Then they did the same thing with a 15 year old female where they walked in the room and said,

Hey,

You're not going to have your phone for 24 hours.

And the fear and stress response lit up more powerful than the heroin addict.

Wow.

That's how powerful this stuff has become.

Especially if we've got kids,

This shit's not a joke.

It's why our mental health,

Our discretion,

Suicide,

You name it,

It's skyrocketing.

Right.

And so how they do that is again,

They understand the steer process.

They know that most people have no awareness of stimulus.

And they know that most people have no gap between a stimulus and a thought.

So if I'm Jane Doe and I'm just sitting at home or whatever,

And I turn on the news,

Right.

The news uses fear.

Yeah.

There's nothing new about the news.

Nothing.

Nothing.

That is not what,

If you want to know what's going on in the world,

Walk out your fucking front door.

Yeah,

Exactly.

Talk to your neighbor.

Right.

Don't look up at a screen and see something that's happening 4,

000 miles away that they're sensationalizing.

And so that's what happens is the news uses,

It's called fear-based sensationalism.

And so what that means is if any of us right now,

Well,

First let me come back to this,

Right.

Stimulus.

So why they use sensationalism is they understand everything a person does in their life is based on a stimuli.

Right.

Because that's where thoughts come from,

The emotions and actions.

And they know that our human brains are still pretty primitive.

Our brains haven't evolved like technology has.

And human beings operate on two levels of awareness,

Conscious awareness and subconscious awareness.

And all human beings,

Every time we get out of bed and we wake up in the morning and we start our day and we walk out our front door,

We're scanning the environment for three stimuli.

We're on hyper lookout for three stimuli.

And those three stimuli are,

Can I eat it?

Can I fuck it?

Can it kill me?

That's what we're looking for.

Right.

Can I eat it for survival?

Right.

We're just scanning that,

You know,

And this made sense back in the day,

You know,

Where we came out and we had to go look and see if I could find stuff to eat for survival.

Can I sleep with it for reproduction?

You know,

I got to find a mate so we can reproduce.

Right.

And then can it kill me so I don't become extinct?

That's the stimulus that our brains are still constantly kind of looking for.

Just looking,

Just,

You know,

It takes priority,

Right,

Over all other stimulus.

And the one that of those three,

The one that gets the highest priority is,

Can it kill me?

Right.

So what news media does and is using fear-based sensationalism,

If any of us went and turned on again the news right now,

Any station,

I don't care what your leaning is,

I don't care about your politics,

I don't give a shit about any of that.

Go turn on the news.

And what you will see is a good-looking reporter,

Usually a female,

Talking about death,

Destruction and violence somewhere in the world,

Followed by cheeseburger commercials.

Right.

That's the holy trinity of stimulus that will stop a human in their tracks and make them look at the screen.

Right.

You could just be walking down the sidewalk,

Having a great day,

Feeling awesome.

And a department store has a screen on and breaking news,

25 dead and bang,

You know,

It's just all whatever's on there,

The reds,

The colors,

Right?

You'll stop and look at that.

It'll,

You'll,

You'll freeze.

And you're looking at the screen thinking you're watching the news.

But all they're doing is using stimulus to keep you on that screen for as long as possible.

So the ratings go up.

And now I know once I've got that person glued to my screen,

I've got their thoughts,

Their emotions and their actions.

Now I can influence their spending,

Their voting,

Whatever I want.

Right.

And so that's the tactic they use.

And then what that does to the person,

Right,

Is by watching the news,

Now I'm scared.

I'm worried.

I don't want to talk to strangers.

I don't want to travel.

I don't want to fly.

I don't want to,

I want to stay home.

You know,

I don't want to come out.

I don't want to challenge anybody.

So it's conditioning you,

Right,

To just stay in your box.

And then,

So I feel fearful.

Now the person's like,

Oh my God,

No more news.

I'm going to go just look at Facebook or Instagram,

Right.

Mindlessly.

We don't do anything mindlessly.

Right.

And so now I come over here.

And so I use Instagram as an example.

What was Instagram when it first started?

Just photos,

Right?

Of what?

Food.

Yeah.

Instagram was just photos of food.

Human beings cannot not look at pictures of food.

Yeah.

You're scrolling on Facebook or whatever.

And then all of a sudden you see a triple cheeseburger.

You stop.

Right.

You lock in on them.

And so I still do it.

Right.

We just have to have awareness that these are the stimuli that get our attention.

Right.

Well then Instagram turned into pictures of sex.

Yeah.

Right.

And so.

Yoga.

I'm just kidding.

Yeah.

They got this downward dog.

I'm like,

Okay.

Exactly.

Exactly.

So they use fantasy based sensationalism,

But how it helped,

How it affects us,

The person,

Right,

Is I'm scared because of what I see on TV and I'm less than because of what I see on social media.

Because I'm not as pretty.

I don't have the great recipes.

I'm not taking the vacation.

You play on your weaknesses.

Right.

So that's what makes,

That's why so many people out there have so much state anxiety,

State depression is because we're just,

That's what we're spending our time and attention on.

And now you can,

I tell people all the time,

Once you have,

Once you become a mindful practitioner,

You start to understand stimulus.

You start to have tactics to create that gap.

Like,

I want you to be able to use social media.

I don't want,

I'm not saying don't watch the news.

I tell people that are like,

Am I supposed to stop watching the news?

I'm like,

Read a newspaper.

If you want the news,

Go read a newspaper,

Cut out all that extra shit.

You know?

Just go read.

Well,

What are some other ways that we can like begin to flip?

Like we've kind of went down the rabbit hole of the gloom and doom and the negativity bias and like how we are wiring this to your process,

But you know,

How do we mindfully,

What are some like simple practical ways to begin to find that gap,

You know,

Like,

And ways that we can begin to rewire perception of the world?

Like,

Does everything really need to be a threat?

You know,

Is it like,

And one thing that's helped me in the past and it's through my yoga training,

It was,

I was asked to go,

And I've done this a few times now,

Like no news,

No media,

Nothing for a week.

And it's just like,

Whoa.

And it's like,

Who am I after like,

Even that first day,

It's like,

Whoa,

Like I,

What do I do with that time?

That time,

You know,

That usually would suck my attention away.

So,

So what are,

How do we begin to find that gap?

Like what are,

If no,

If it's the first time that someone's ever listened to this podcast or actually starts to think about mindfulness in action,

Like what are some simple things they can do in order to take those first steps?

Yeah,

There's a couple of them.

And we teach a bunch in the My Steady Mind training,

Right?

I mean,

That's all we're doing is trying to introduce people to tactics,

Bio hacks that we call,

You know,

Bio hacking techniques to create that space or redirect your thoughts.

And so the two that I use the most is the BAMO breath,

Right?

Breathe and move on.

And that's the first breath technique we teach.

Because again,

Remember,

We're just trying to control our nervous system.

And so if I get hit with a negative stimulus,

Whether it's an email or a screaming kid,

You know,

I like to use the example kind of like John.

I mean,

I'm a single dad with three boys.

I got an eight year old,

A six year old,

And a four year old.

I can be cruising in my car and they're behind me and everything's good.

And then all of a sudden they start fighting or screaming or whatever,

Right?

That's a stimulus.

And instantly it pisses me off,

Right?

Like that's a negative.

But if I was untrained and I still can do this,

This is never about perfection.

It's just about probability,

Increasing the probability that I do a better thing more than a bad thing.

So if I was unaware,

My kids are screaming and I've done this,

Right?

I turn out,

Would you shut the hell up?

My God,

What the hell you are?

Right?

Like that's,

You know,

Is that what you're doing there?

Oh yeah.

I will still do it.

I've done it right.

Instead,

Instead if they're screaming and if I'm,

That's a negative stimulus,

I hear the screams.

And if I can take one bammo breath,

Create that space.

Now I'm more likely to turn around and say,

Hey guys,

Can you just quiet down for a minute?

Right?

Just that simple thing.

But that's what life is.

It's a series of those things,

Right?

The small things become the big things.

So the bammo breath is one,

Which is a four second inhalation,

Breathe and move on.

I think we might've talked about it last episode,

But yeah,

We definitely did.

Yeah.

Bammo,

Breathe and move on.

So a negative stimulus,

Whether it's a bad email,

Somebody didn't like my Facebook post,

Whatever,

You know,

Take a breath and then reframe it.

Right.

And then the other thing,

So bammo breath is a good way.

The other thing I love and another tactic that I use that we introduce in the course in our emotional intelligence module,

And it's a tactic that Jocko,

The good technique,

You know,

So the good technique.

Yeah.

For those of you who are not familiar,

Jocko Willink,

Fellow Navy SEAL,

Just a straight bad-ass,

But also has a great way of thinking through things.

And that's,

That's what you're going to get into here.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So I don't even know if Jocko like knows what he's doing when he uses this good technique,

You know,

But what he's doing is,

So he says in his video,

And it's a great one on YouTube,

You can go,

Go to YouTube and just type in Jocko good,

And it'll come up and you can watch it.

But what he's doing is he's talking in the video.

He's like,

You know,

Hey,

Every time a subordinate or one of my people comes up to me and they want to give me bad news,

You know,

They always say,

They always say the same thing.

Like,

They know what you're going to say,

Jocko,

You're going to say good.

Right.

And so what he's doing is if somebody comes and brings you bad news,

Right?

Like somebody,

Hey,

The mission got canceled,

Right?

That's not good news,

But what he will say,

So that's a negative stimulus.

And instead of him,

So he creates space by saying good.

Right.

So good deflects it.

So it goes into a positive thought,

Positive emotion and action.

He's deflecting it.

So he's not perceiving it as a threat.

He's perceiving it as an opportunity.

Right.

So if somebody comes and says,

Hey,

Mission got canceled and he didn't have the,

You know,

He might,

What the hell?

That's bullshit.

I can't believe they canceled this.

You're the leader,

Right?

You're setting in.

So now he,

He said he knows it's not good.

He didn't want the mission to get canceled,

But they come and say,

Mission got canceled.

He says good.

And just that split second puts him in a position to see,

Well,

What's the opportunity in it.

Right.

What's the opportunity.

Exactly.

Gives us time to get better.

It gives us time to train more.

And that's,

That's what we're doing.

So the BAMO breath and the good technique,

You can thank,

You can thank it.

You can say it,

Whatever,

But it's just,

It's a mechanism for creating space and changing your perception of what would normally be a negative stimulus to a positive,

Right.

To,

Like a way of filtering the world.

Right.

And so it's like,

Instead of,

So what I love what Jaco does and I'm,

Thank you for bringing up that video and I watched it.

I really enjoyed it.

Like when,

If everything is good,

He just,

I,

He just kind of isolates it and puts it just instead of it being like,

Oh my God,

This is going to totally screw up my life or my situation,

Whatever.

It's just like,

Boom.

I just kind of isolate it into good.

Yeah.

And a sense of like good in the sense of like,

There's opportunity here.

Right.

Instead of going into the negativity bias,

We're like,

Oh my God,

Everything's ruined.

I did this.

And what about that?

And instead of being like,

Hey,

There's something here.

And if I take a moment,

Right.

With the BAMO breath,

Just slow myself down and get a chance to analyze,

You know,

The,

The opportunity and the good,

That's whatever that circumstances is.

Then I'm going to be more effective.

And here that's that whole in that gap then that good is the gap.

Well,

Literally,

Literally last night when Sarah told us that she wasn't gonna be able to do this,

Like Will and I texted one another and our first,

Our first text to one another was,

Um,

Will texted me and he said,

Shit.

And I texted him and said,

And I said,

Fuck.

And then I was like,

All right,

Let's take a second.

Let's think about this.

What can we do?

And we turned it into an opportunity,

But we did.

We,

Even though we know,

Yeah,

No,

Like you said,

None of us are perfect,

Right?

We still have,

But we realized that,

Hey,

We were reactionary in our,

In our,

Uh,

Reaction.

And,

And then we're like,

Okay,

Let's turn this into an opportunity.

We have Seth back on and here we are.

I mean,

And sharing great information.

Yeah.

And I also want to talk about Bama.

You talked about using it.

Okay.

Your kids are yelling or whatever,

Whatever stimulus is there,

A negative stimulus,

And you feel like you need to react,

But you inject a Bama breath of breathe and move on.

But you can't just do that without having done it before.

So you have to train to use that.

Right.

So like doing it,

Thank you,

John,

In a calm setting at home when there's no negative stimulus getting used to that.

So that does set up that new neural pathway to respond rather than react.

So you have to train in a place,

In an environment and a time that is going to set you up for success when that negative stimulus does come.

Cause it's going to come in some form or fashion.

And that's what I say,

Right?

About stimulus.

And this is kind of the big picture,

Right?

I mean,

So stimulus is everything in our perception of stimulus and we're training ourselves,

Right?

That's why at My Steady Mind,

We create an ECR,

An emotional control routine,

Right?

Routines get results,

Right?

And what we're doing is we're conditioning our body to automate this so that at the onset of stress,

I don't have to thank Bama anymore.

Like as soon as my body feels stressed,

It takes the breath,

Right?

It's automated.

And so,

And I'll kind of walk through like how,

What I've done for,

For example,

To just try to really,

Really get a handle on this,

Right?

And so I did five years of my life.

I went through a pretty significant stimulus audit,

Meaning I did everything that I can.

I know the only thing on the planet that I have 100% control over is me,

Right?

That's all I have control over.

And so I have to accept that fact,

Right?

I can't control other people.

I can't even control my kids.

I can do things to influence,

But I can't control them.

It's our egos that makes us think we can control our spouse,

Control our kids,

Control,

No,

You can't.

You can control.

So what I had to do is go through a five-year process of really starting to eliminate any and all negative stimulus from my life that I could.

Be it people,

You know,

Including a divorce.

I had to get rid of some negative family,

Negative friends.

I had to give myself space,

A gap,

Right?

And not let that negative stuff out there that I can't control into my life.

Right.

And I went,

I did this for like five years and got rid of as my don't watch news.

I don't,

You know,

I'm people are like,

Oh,

You're on Facebook all the time.

I'm like,

I'm on there.

I post something I'm off.

I don't know when the last time was I scrolled something,

Right?

Not because I'm better than anyone,

But just,

I have to protect my step.

Well,

Because you trained,

Because you,

Right.

You began to know,

You began to realize that it's like,

Look like this,

You know,

This is not working for me.

I need to do something different,

You know,

And you have to take that.

Yeah.

I think,

I don't know what it takes for people sometimes to get to that point where it just like,

Like,

You know what,

I need to begin to create distance from all of these negativity biases within myself as well as with my life.

And that goes for people,

That goes for stimulus,

News.

Go ahead.

Where does your time and attention go?

Right.

And so,

I mean,

And I went through this pretty extensive,

Painful five-year audit of really trying to,

To get control,

You know,

And really eliminate any and all negative stimulus from my life that I could.

And can I ask you something?

Why was it painful?

Can I ask you just so,

I'm sorry to cut you off.

Why is it painful?

Like,

You know,

So just for people to clear in.

I mean,

You know,

I mean,

When I got divorced,

I,

You know,

I had a lot of people that I knew close to me just kind of like,

You know,

I mean,

I'm not like eliminating them,

Right.

But I'm just,

They don't,

I don't respond anymore.

I don't reach out.

I don't talk to them.

I don't,

You know,

I don't watch news.

I don't watch shit that,

You know,

I mean,

And there's just,

You know,

I have a lot of stuff that,

You know,

I like to sit around with a bunch of guilty pleasures and get online.

So it was hard,

You know,

I mean,

It was hard to get through,

You know,

A lot of relationships,

Things that I just don't,

I don't associate with anymore.

Right.

And I don't care if they call me,

You know,

Selfish or bash.

I don't care.

Right.

That's not my,

But I had to do what I had to do.

But the big difference,

The thing to understand is I went through that five-year process of eliminating all this stimulus.

And I know today that that whole audit accounts for about 10% of the stimulus I'm going to be exposed to on a daily basis.

So the training is how do I defend myself against the 90% of stimulus I don't have control over.

Right.

Right.

Right.

So that's what the training is about.

So you can get rid of all the stuff you can control,

Which is good,

And I advise it,

But you have to train yourself because 90% of the stimulus you're going to get exposed to is shit you can't control.

And so that's what the routines and the training is so that we can go out into the world and be in control of our thoughts,

Emotions,

And actions regardless of what goes down.

Right.

Well,

It sounds like one perception we need to change is that perception,

That illusion that we can control the environment,

That we can control the world.

And as soon as we begin to change,

It's like everything is the only thing,

What you said earlier,

Instead of like going outward,

Outside and be like,

Oh,

I can control this,

That,

Everything.

And I know people like that that kind of control everything.

Whereas the only thing is the self that you can control.

Yeah.

And I think once you,

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's why I'm such a fan of Buddhism.

Right.

Like I tell everybody,

I'm not Buddhist,

But I'm Buddhist.

Right.

And literally the term emotional intelligence is the secular term for Buddhism.

Daniel Goldman was a Buddhist.

Right.

And so that's why I love Buddhism.

It's all about emotional intelligence.

Right.

It's a way of life.

It's not a religion.

You know,

Buddha was a guide,

Not a God.

But anyway,

He gets at the point,

Right.

All Buddha wants to do is to end suffering.

Right.

End suffering.

And where does,

What causes all human suffering?

Ego.

Ego is the root of all suffering.

Right.

And one of the analogies they use,

That they use in Buddhism is the two darts or the two arrows.

Right.

So how they explain that,

Right.

Is if I'm sitting here minding my own business and if somebody shot me with an arrow,

Right.

There's a physical pain,

The arrow penetrating the skin,

You know,

Breaking bones or whatever.

There's a physical pain with that arrow shooting me.

But that pain is short-lived.

Right.

That pain will eventually kind of subside and kind of go away.

But the pain that lasts forever is when my ego says,

Who the hell shot me?

Why would somebody shoot me?

The second arrow.

Boom.

I ruminate.

Why would somebody shoot me?

Am I going to die?

Am I going to,

You know,

My ego kicks in and that rumination is the second arrow that lasts.

That's where we suffer.

We suffer for months,

Years past the actual event.

Right.

Rick Hansen,

Author of Brazilian and Buddha's Mind.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's it.

Buddha's Brain.

He talks about those arrows and he,

You know,

He takes it down to every day where those arrows come into play.

Like something as trivial as getting up in the middle of the night and stubbing your toe on some piece of furniture.

First arrow is you stubbed your toe on that piece of furniture.

Second arrow is I'm so freaking stupid for stubbing my toe on that.

And then you start to think that those negative thoughts.

Right.

I told my wife to remove that dresser two weeks ago.

She said,

You know,

Like,

Yes.

You know,

Again,

Instead of it's like,

You know,

Hoping the world meets my needs and instead of taking responsibility,

Pushing responsibility to everybody else.

Right.

And like,

It's like,

Yeah.

Coming back to that control and is,

Because I just help people understand like,

Man,

Why are things hard?

Especially like relationships,

Right?

If you don't understand this stuff.

And so one of the biggest killers in some of your people out there might be experiencing this,

Right?

But like if you're married or in a relationship and I'm not a relationship expert,

Believe me,

But I've just been with what I do.

I've been fortunate to be a part of a lot of relationships and work with people on their mind during these things and understand what subconscious stuff sabotages it.

And because of the ego,

One of the biggest ones in a relationship is what I call the if this,

Then that mindset.

Right.

If this,

Then that mindset.

So what that means is if I'm married,

Right.

And I have this thought that if I do this,

She'll do that.

This thought of I can control it,

Right.

If I do this,

She'll do that.

If I take out the trash,

Mow the yard,

She'll come and,

You know,

We'll have sex tonight or whatever.

Right.

I do this.

And then I do this,

This,

And this.

And she doesn't do that.

And then all of a sudden I get resentful.

Right.

Right.

And that's where all relationships die.

Right.

Resentment is like me drinking poison,

But expecting the other person to die.

Nobody else feels it.

Nobody else feels it with me.

Right.

And so you just have to have awareness of these mindsets that are usually a result of trying to protect our ego that cause most of the negative shit in our life.

You know,

Like ego and negativity bias.

That's what we're up against.

Yep.

Yep.

Wow.

And so much of that drives reaction into what drives us into reactionary states,

Which we've already discussed can be harmful because that drives an action that is normally inappropriate.

Right.

So the only way we can defend ourselves against all that negativity bias,

Ego control is literally by having that gap.

There you go.

Right.

And then,

Well,

Then creating that gap.

Like,

I mean,

I know,

You know,

From my own experience,

Meditation has helped me to widen that gap,

To get gain more self-control,

To understand my perceptions of what I thought is reality when it's like,

It's not.

Also,

It allows me to just be more responsible for my actions,

For what I'm speaking,

What I'm doing,

How I'm feeling as well.

And,

You know,

What are some other,

You know,

Ways that people can begin to create this distance and begin to change the perception and kind of widen that gap or begin to create that gap?

Yeah.

I mean,

It's a lot of the stuff that you hear people talk about,

You know,

Journaling is a big way.

I mean,

What you're trying to do to create that space,

Right?

What we're talking about,

The thing that we're really helping people develop is what we call metacognition,

Which means thinking about your thinking.

Right.

And so in order for me in sports psychology and a lot of stuff like that we're trying to do is most people live their whole life and they keep everything in here.

Right.

Every thought,

Every worry,

Every goal,

Every dream,

Every is just in here.

And we got voices.

It's very loud if I keep things in here and it's very stressful.

Right.

So what we're trying to do is get a different perspective,

A different vantage point on what goes on in here.

Right.

And if I can write down my journaling,

If I can do gratitude journals,

I can,

There's one,

There's a cathartic release of literally taking something from here and writing it on a pencil and seeing it on a piece of paper.

Right.

And then I can see it from a different vantage point.

I can study it.

I can do something with it.

Right.

And so,

You know,

All this stuff that we practice in mindfulness,

Whether it's meditation,

Journaling,

Breathing,

Taking a walk like taking a walk.

Right.

It's just,

If we can slow down,

Do things with intention.

Right.

And,

And pause every now and again.

And again,

It's not perfection.

Believe me,

I can still get up and yell at my kids.

I can still get up and get pissed off.

I can still be depressed.

I'm human,

But it's all about having the tools and the awareness to make that happen less often.

Right.

Yeah.

That's the goal,

Right?

Progress and probability,

Progress and probability,

Never perfection.

Yeah.

And it's practice,

It's practice,

It's practice,

It's practice.

It's,

It's like every,

It's,

It's every day,

Just what I've learned and what we continually,

What we study,

What we talk about is just a little,

Even if just five minutes a day.

Micro habits.

Yeah.

Micro habits.

And that'll start to grow into more and more and more practices as well as widening that gap,

Which is,

Which is so incredibly important.

And I think you can really start a lot of these,

There's so many ways you can just by sitting down for a few minutes and just getting control of your breath,

Just getting in touch with your breath.

I mean,

How long,

How are you going to be able to do BAMO if you've never taken a deep breath before?

Right.

And it's amazing.

I mean,

You know,

There's studies and stuff.

I mean,

Like a lot of people out there,

Maybe some of your listeners,

I mean,

They may be 30,

40,

50 years old,

And they've never taken a deep breath.

They've never,

They truly have never breathed deep enough in to hit the diaphragm because we're trying to do it in the nervous system,

Right?

We're trying to activate and spend more time in parasympathetic,

Rest and digest.

And the only way I can do that is I've got to take a deep breath in deep enough to hit my diaphragm so it sends a signal to the vagus nerve to activate that.

And I mean,

There's people that are 50 years old that have had maybe good careers or whatever.

And the first time they go,

And they hit that,

They're like,

What the hell was that?

Yeah,

Yeah.

I've been in meetings with,

With teaching breath with people.

And like,

We're doing like a step breath.

So like,

Inhaling,

Like stepping up.

So inhaling two seconds on the bottom,

Inhale,

Like pause,

Take a middle,

Breathe in the middle,

Breathe the top,

And then letting that breath go all out.

And I just one guy in this,

I was working with a PR company,

And we're just doing this very simple breathing.

I mean,

I've,

You know,

We've been doing this for a long time.

So I think it's very simple,

But it's still very effective,

Regardless of how often I've done it.

But he like,

After just doing like five or six rounds of this breathing,

He's like,

Whoa,

He's like,

I don't know if I can get up.

Like he just really,

I mean,

He got completely disoriented.

And all we did was breathe.

And I was like,

Wow,

I mean,

That's how incredibly powerful those first few times that if you,

You know,

That's why we do some of the breathing and grounding practices here as well and get people in touch,

In touch with that instrument.

It's like,

It is one of the,

It's kind of the key in a lot of ways.

It opens up the door to all of all the mindfulness things we're talking about is just getting in touch with our breath.

Because we can get in touch with our breath.

I can get in touch with myself.

I can touch my breath.

I can find out where I am.

If I know where I am,

Then I can know what I'm,

What,

What the stimulus is.

And then what can I do about it?

Right.

And the reason we use our breath,

Right,

Because the reason most people,

And what,

You know,

I know we're coming up on time and I got to be done here in a few minutes,

But you know,

The reason a lot of this anxiety and stuff,

You know,

Is because people are just,

Again,

The two things that control everything,

Right?

Your thoughts,

Which control your mind,

Your breath,

Which controls your nervous system.

And so most people have no awareness or control over either.

So they're just thoughts are always ruminating,

Time traveling,

Right?

And every thought requires energy.

So they're exhausted because I'm just thinking and worrying and time traveling,

Right?

And my breathing is very shallow.

So I'm not getting oxygenated.

I'm just,

I'm in sympathetic overdrive.

Like that's how people live and exist today,

Right?

And you can teach them to pause,

Right?

And the reason all the meditation and everything focuses on the breath and bringing our attention back to the breath,

Because the breath is the only thing that's with us in the present moment.

Right.

And that's what most people,

Most people do not live.

They're not present,

Right?

They're always somewhere else.

And so,

You know,

Breath is powerful,

But we just practice it,

Right?

And it may suck at first.

You may not be able to take a deep breath.

You may not be able to breathe through your nose,

Right?

You got to practice,

You know,

And that's what I kind of tell like me,

You know,

Now,

You know,

I've done it long enough to where I've conditioned my body.

Like I'm,

I'm not a mouth breather.

I breathe through my nose about every breath I take.

It goes down into my stomach,

Right?

And,

And I can be driving,

Doing good,

Right?

And then all of a sudden I'll take a deep breath and it's almost like I have to figure out what was about to piss me off.

Like,

Oh yeah.

Yeah.

It's a song that reminded me,

You know,

Like my body's so conditioned to at the onset of stress.

It will take a breath.

It doesn't mean I'm never going to get stressed,

But little things that used to really throw me off,

They don't phase me anymore.

Yeah.

I remember a coach that I used to have,

He used to say,

Don't sweat the small stuff and it's all small stuff.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well,

Yeah,

We make a big stuff by piling more shit on top of it.

Yeah.

We do.

We do.

And getting emotional and taking wrong actions and feel guilty about those actions.

It's like,

There is an opportunity.

And one thing I'll end with this little quote that kind of is similar to what Victor Frankel says,

And this is Rumi.

He goes,

Beyond the ideas of right doing and wrongdoing,

There is a field.

I will meet you there.

That's the gap.

That's the gap in that field,

The field of all possibilities of the field of opportunity that like we talked about with Jack O'Wellough and being okay,

Good.

You know what good puts me in a place of like possibility.

That's where you want to be.

And that's why,

That's why I love talking to you,

Seth and John,

That's why we have this show because there is huge opportunities here with mindfulness.

If we just pause,

If we take a couple of breaths,

If we start to practice a few minutes every day,

Right.

Just to get to know ourselves on a deeper,

In a deeper way.

Right.

And lean into it and have fun with it and practice and go after it like it's training.

Yes,

Exactly.

That's what I want to marathon.

Yeah.

I mean,

It's like physical training.

Like,

You know,

That's what this is.

This mindfulness stuff,

The stuff you guys are teaching and preaching,

You know,

If people will do it,

Not just,

Oh,

I'm just going to go do it.

Like go into it.

You know,

I want,

Because this is a,

I'm a performance guy,

Right.

And that's what I want.

You know,

People understand if you want to be,

Whether you're a Navy SEAL or stay at home mom or whatever performance means to you,

Like,

You have to do this.

This is the edge,

Right.

And it's going to help you not just in,

You know,

On the job,

But at home.

And so it's,

It just takes training.

But the cool thing I sell to everybody is like,

If I wanted to train my bicep,

Right,

It may take three months of an hour at the gym,

Five days a week before I notice anything.

Mental training,

Mindfulness training,

You notice something in five minutes,

Right?

So our brain responds a lot faster thanks to neuroplasticity and just how bad-ass the brain is.

You just have to give it the right stuff and you have to be consistent.

Right on.

There's that right there,

Consistency.

Thanks,

John.

Always,

Always a pleasure having you here,

Brother.

I know you've got to,

You've got to bounce here in a second.

So I just want to give yourself,

Give you an opportunity to plug yourself in the work you're doing and for our audience,

And then we'll wrap it up with a grounding practice and call it done.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I love it.

Again,

I'm always grateful to be on here and spend time with you guys.

I love what you're doing at My Steady Mind and spreading the word.

So if people are interested in,

And what we're doing,

It's mysteadymind.

Com,

Www.

Mysteadymind.

Com.

Everything that we talk about here is in an online course that anybody can go purchase and move yourself through.

It's a nine-moderal course.

Great course.

I know both these guys have gone through it.

So if your viewers want to do it,

I give them the 25%.

It's only $299 for the course,

But I give you a 25% discount.

So if they go to mysteadymind.

Com,

Click to enroll in the course,

Put in the coupon code MSM25,

Like My Steady Mind,

MSM25.

They'll get 25% off of it.

It's going to give you everything you need to do what we just talked about in this episode,

Right?

But you have to go do it.

So anyway,

That's it.

If you like,

I'm on social media,

LinkedIn,

Seth Hickerson.

If anybody has questions,

Hit me up.

Thanks again for having me.

Seth at My Steady Mind,

If they want to email me,

Seth at My Steady Mind.

Well,

Would you like to close with a grounding practice for us,

Dr.

Seth?

Would that be cool?

Keep rolling.

Just do a couple of breathing,

Like one,

Two minutes.

Let's do a couple of bamo breaths,

Right?

Short and sweet.

So the bamo breath will get situated.

What I teach when I talk about the bamo breath,

Because again,

We're trying to control our nervous system.

So if I'm anxious or upset,

My sympathetic nervous system is engaged.

So the fastest way we can,

I call it flipping the switch.

We're trying to flip the switch from sympathetic to parasympathetic,

The parachute,

Which is going to calm us down,

Even if it's just for a half second.

The fastest way we can flip the switch is a four second inhalation through the nose,

Down into the belly,

And then four second exhalation,

Right?

We don't have to go do three minutes of box breathing,

Which is great,

But we can just do this quick hitting breathing and move on.

So I'll put your hand on your stomach,

Because I want people to feel the stomach,

Not the chest.

You can put your hand on a harder stomach,

But just on your stomach and you can shut your eyes if you want,

If you can.

And I'll count the first one.

I'll say go,

And I'll count to four.

Make sure you're filling up the stomach and then exhale.

You don't have to hold it.

Just exhale for four seconds.

So what I want people to do is feel how their body,

The sensations as they inhale when we're going into sympathetic.

And as you exhale,

Going into parasympathetic,

Just feel it.

You should feel a little cool wave rush through your body.

That's your parasympathetic activating.

All right.

So relax and inhale through the nose,

Breathing into the belly,

Two,

Three,

Four.

Open your mouth and push the air out.

Exhale.

One,

Two,

Three,

Four.

One more on your own.

Very nice.

Wow.

So hopefully you felt that,

Right?

That's what I want people to feel that parasympathetic,

That little cool wave.

You know,

Now imagine if you're really stressed out and you did that,

It would feel a thousand times better,

But bam,

Get out there,

Breathe and move on.

Yeah.

Wow.

Thank you so much,

Dr.

Seth.

Great.

I mean,

I always love having you on,

You know,

Lots of wisdom being spread through our,

Into our community today.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And thanks brother.

All right.

Take care everyone.

And until next time,

Hey,

Get your merch guys.

Merch sale ends November 7th.

Dr.

Seth,

If you haven't got your merch yet,

Check out men talking mindfulness,

Men talking mindfulness.

Com slash merch,

To get your holiday and all these items will be delivered in time for the holidays.

So maybe get some for your loved ones,

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I think that's it,

John.

That's it.

Thank you,

Dr.

Seth.

Really appreciate having you.

You're welcome.

See you.

Peace.

Thanks.

Thanks for joining Will and John on men talking mindfulness.

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