For Jake

To navigate through this course, you will have to come to terms with these 4 undeniable TRUTHS:

Your thoughts are not objective truth and are often not even your own. We must be able to acknowledge that there is a subconscious voice whose directives perpetuate behavior that is NOT in alignment with our conscious goals and desires.
Your brain was patterned during early childhood to label its environment and assess risk. The only thing that’s truly changed is the age of your body - not your brain.
We repeat the same cycles, not because we choose to, but because we have allowed our internal thought processes, labeling and perception to be hijacked by our emotional addiction cycle. This cycle has years of practice with creating seemingly viable excuses, rationalizations and misleading conclusions to keep you stuck in your cycle.
We must learn to observe our thoughts, motivations and suggested decision directives rather than experience them. This shift to observation allows us to see the pattern for what it is, disrupt the emotional response and choose a new option that our brain has never made available to us.

I realize that for many, the previously stated truths don’t sit well with you. Of course they don’t. That’s the initial stirring of cognitive dissonance; a feeling of mental discomfort that arises when conflicting beliefs, behaviors and attitudes get presented. As you move deeper into this work, you will learn to embrace this feeling because it signals that a major breakthrough is rounding the corner. This uneasiness is both predictable and expected. I’m asking you to acknowledge that your brain has been hijacked and, at the moment, you don’t know who it is, where they are or how to stop them. This is the first act of relinquishing control, an act that will be triggering for many embarking on this journey. However, as with the experience of cognitive dissonance, you will learn to enjoy this voluntary act of surrender and trust because it too signals another layer of freedom is approaching.

Let’s dig into this concept of freedom. Most people idealize the word in the their mind’s eye and immediately picture running in the wilderness or playing on a white sandy beach with no commitment. This is one of the primary traps created by society today. Freedom is not a destination that you have to travel to with an empty schedule and it’s also not a white sandy beach and a tan. Freedom is a state of mind in which you have the power to act, speak or think as you wish without hindrance or restraint. It is also the state of not being imprisoned or enslaved. If your thoughts and perceptions of the world around you are hijacked by the unresolved childhood version of YOURSELF - are you truly free?

For Jake

THE LECTURES

Source Belief Timeline Process

Refining Emotional Addiction Cycles

The Ultimate Guide to Red + Green Cones

Obstacle or Opportunity