030: Breaking the Habit of Excessive Thinking

Mike Chang and Stephen Yeh dive into the pervasive issue of excessive thinking—a condition many of us face without realizing its profound impact on our mental health and daily functioning. Through personal anecdotes and in-depth discussion, Stephen and Mike explore the journey from being consumed by the endless chatter in our minds to achieving a state of mental clarity and presence.

Discover strategies for directing attention to the present moment and techniques for bodily relaxation to counteract the mental and physical agitation that fuels obsessive thinking. Learn about the importance of taking action to break free from paralyzing over-analysis and the role of energy frequency in shaping our thoughts and perspectives.

This episode is not just a conversation; it's a guide to understanding the intricate relationship between our thoughts, feelings, and actions, and how shifting our internal energy can lead to profound changes in how we perceive and interact with the world. Whether you're struggling with decision-making, seeking relief from constant mental noise, or curious about enhancing your mindfulness practice, "Breaking the Habit of Excessive Thinking" offers insights and practical advice for navigating the complexities of the mind and embracing a more centered, peaceful life.

Tune in to learn how to balance thinking with being, and action with introspection, to cultivate a life of greater calm, clarity, and purpose.

Connect with Mike Chang:
- Instagram: @mikechangofficial
-Youtube: Mike Chang
- Website: www.flow60.com

Connect with Stephen Yeh:
-Instagram: @iamstephenyeh
-Twitter: @iamstephenyeh

Transcript

Stephen: [00:00:00] Welcome to another episode of Body Over Mind. This is your host Stephen Yeh with your co host Mike Chang. Today we're going to go over how we break the habit of excessive thinking. Seems like it's just so prevalent. It's just the norm nowadays that Essentially, this is how people operate, but I think what people are finding out is that it can be quite mentally draining, even starting to cause mental health issues.

So, how do we Change that habit from excessive thinking to using our minds when we need to, but also learning how to relax it when we don't need it so often. So let's dive in, Mike, I'm sure this is something that you have explored within yourself. What have you [00:01:00] noticed? 

Mike: Obsessive thinking was something that I've done for a good part of my life.

I remember before realizing that I'm not this voice in my head, I remember realizing it was happening, but didn't really see a problem. I thought I was just having a conversation with myself. I'm just talking out loud. I'm just figuring it out that there wasn't any issues.

Of course, back then, my awareness wasn't very developed. I didn't really see the effects of. This constant thinking over time, once I got to the point, I remember where I was thinking so much in my head that it was very difficult to pay attention to regular conversations in the present moment anymore, because I have my own conversations in my mind.

[00:02:00] And I remember not being able to understand people, not being able to connect the dots when somebody would speak about anything. Remotely complicated, or just required a lot of attention. And I remember thinking or realizing that this was happening. And I was thinking to myself, what's happening?

What's going on? What's wrong with my mind? Like something happened. I don't remember when it happened, but somehow I just suddenly aren't able to understand anymore. I was becoming ignorant. I was becoming dumb as I was labeling myself before, and the reason why this is happening is because thinking is like a pattern in our head.

If we think about something, then it increases the chances of us thinking about that something again. And then the more that we do it, the more it becomes easier to do it. Over time, it becomes [00:03:00] automatic, it becomes a habit. We do it without any effort. We do it as a unconscious reaction, uh, to situations.

There can be triggers that unconsciously get us to, think about certain things. So then what happens is now our mind is constantly being triggered to think when we first start off, it may only happen with special things, special occasions where there's a big deal that we have to think about it over time, when we get really used to constantly thinking.

It would actually become to where we would just have a conversation constantly in our mind about just things in general. It's either about what's happening in front of us at the moment, or about something in the past that happened that we're just wanting to have more understanding on, so we would just constantly think about it.

And a lot of things that we do, [00:04:00] sometimes it doesn't require a lot of attention. So therefore we're able to have these full blown conversations in our head and still perform these tasks, which then also prevents us from performing high level tasks because they require us to pay more attention, but we can't.

Our attention's in our mind thinking. So the name of the game is to be able to do two things in our mind is to direct our attention to the present moment. So this way it slows down the thinking. The second is to get the body to relax. Because when the energy in the body is uncomfortable, when there is nervousness, when there is a lot of feelings of agitation in the body, it stimulates unconscious thinking.

So if we both look at it from these two ends, body, relax, and at ease, mind, we take the attention, bring it here to the body, [00:05:00] to the present moment, then these two things would slow down the thinking. ... That's the first thing that anybody can do. This has nothing to do with solving the issue that a person is having in their mind or in real life.

That will be the next to look at. But this first thing is regardless of whatever's happening in their mind, whatever's happening in their life, everybody can do these two things. And automatically their thinking will start to reduce. 

Stephen: What I'm feeling right now is in general, I guess most people don't even see it as a problem.

Until it really starts to bother them, like in your case, I think it was just a norm until it got to a point where you've realized that couldn't even sit across a person with someone even hear what they were saying, because you had a whole conversation going on in your own head. And it's not until you start to realize that, that you wanted to make that shift [00:06:00] and change.

And sometimes when I sit down with people and have them go through just sitting down and just, observing what's going on, , that's sometimes the initial beginnings of them realizing just how much stuff is going on in their minds. And I think that's another reason why a lot of people don't like meditation as well, because it brings all the thoughts .

And the conversations in your head to the forefront, while, like you were saying before, if you're unconscious of it, it just happens, but you're not even really paying any attention to that so much. And you're not even paying attention to the present moment of what's going on as well.

And so I think that's also a big reason why it is very important , to Learn the skill, and I do believe it's a skill because I think it's also a skill that was developed in our Western world to be able to [00:07:00] think so much, right? Because there's even people in other countries, if they have not gone to school or if they don't have a certain culture, it's hard for them to think very quickly as well.

Mike: Yeah, that's a good point. I think bringing up the fact that. It's not that thinking is bad. It's that when we're not able to stop the thinking, when it's excessive, that means we're thinking when it's not needed. Thinking, the ability to think, to articulate things, to, analyze, to compare, to, to figure things out.

That's a great skill to have, like you mentioned. So nothing is wrong with that. I think a person needs to have the ability to, have critical thinking, right? To analyze things from different angles, ask different questions, look at things from different perspectives. However, when the thinking becomes excessive, when it's not necessary and they're still analyzing things from different perspectives [00:08:00] constantly, when it's not needed, that's when it becomes an issue for somebody's life.

Going back into like, how do we overcome this? We talked about relaxing in the body when we talk about doing practice, you need to do practice every morning and every evening so your body learns how to relax. Now your body can become more calm. The mind can start to slow down because the energy in the body determines the speed of how much content is being generated in our head.

If I feel agitated, I'm going to think about things that agitates me. I'm going to think about things that bothers me. And therefore At this moment, if nothing is bothering me, I'm going to look around in the room and I'm gonna look for something that bothers me. This is the foundation. We need to relax the body and get that energy to be more clear.

And we want to take the attention to the present moment. I think the next thing though, to look at when it comes to obsessive thinking is there's a high chance that there's something that we need to do. There's a decision that we need to make. [00:09:00] And if we are constantly thinking, it's because. We may not have decided on it yet, and we don't know what to decide on.

Or sometimes we're just afraid to decide because once we decide, it's like the thing that we decided on is going to happen. It's real now. Up until then, I know I need to do this thing, but I haven't decided, I haven't committed myself to doing it. So there's this chance that. I may not do it even though deep inside I know that it's what's needed.

It's the right thing to do, but because I haven't decided technically, I can back myself out, however, because I know it's what's needed. It's an important thing. I am in this place where I know it's the right thing, but I am afraid or maybe, I don't know, it's the right thing. Maybe I'm just confused. But either way, this could also just encourage a [00:10:00] lot of assessive thinking.

We end up analyzing everything. In a situation like this, what I would recommend is Move forward, decide on anything and just move forward, decide about something about a temporary decision and move forward. Because when we don't know, the best thing we can do is go find out. And when we have thought about something for a little while and we didn't find a solution, that's There's no end, there's no result, no outcome, then we need to go into another situation.

We need to go with another outlet. So we need to take action. Let's find out what's going to happen. And so I think a lot of people, if they don't do the action part, then they'll just get stuck in this habit of overthinking about something. And they become really confused because all the thinking it's all hypothetical situations.

There's no real data to back up what they're thinking. So it could be this, or it could be that. And then it could be even more things based on [00:11:00] so many moving variables that a person ends up being confused. The more data there is, the more thinking is needed for me to analyze all of this information and make sense of it.

But if a person was to just move forward with whatever action they can do at this moment, then it would reduce a lot of the options. And now there's less things to think about. It's easier to decide when there's less options. I think that's another thing that can get someone to obsessively think.

Stephen: Hmm. Yeah. As you're talking about this, I'm thinking just the phrase of analysis by paralysis. And I run into a lot of this on my calls when I have, with people and they want to start a business. And they've been thinking about starting a business for many years and going on YouTube and watching hundreds of different people's about it, but they hear about this type of e commerce and dropshipping and Amazon and selling in stores and [00:12:00] whatever it is, and they haven't moved.

They constantly think about it, right? And they can justify 

Mike: thinking about it too, because they're like, I need to move forward. , but I don't know what to do. So I need to think about it. To them, it makes total sense that I need to think about this because I got to figure it out.

So it almost reinforces that it's okay to keep thinking. And they're not realizing that they're not getting anywhere. It's actually making it worse. 

Stephen: Common theme that I'm hearing right now is there needs to be that middle way, just like the Buddha says and. Essentially, one of the main examples that we're just talking about right now is if you don't think at all, maybe that's not the best thing.

If you think too much, that's also not the best thing, right? You have to find something right there. It's the same with planning, taking action, whatever it is, because I think it's still a good idea to at least get [00:13:00] a general ballpark of what you're going to get yourself into. But if you try and figure it all out.

That's too much, that's excessive. And so there is that aspect of analysis by paralysis and really just going forward, taking action when you have enough information. I want to go back to the first point that you talked about where you were saying that if your body is not calm, that's how you can also overthink and have excessive thinking.

I just want to clarify on that some more. And how is. Your body not being calm linked to having lots of thoughts in your head. 

Mike: So when our body's not calm, that means there's a sense of agitation, discomfort, nervousness, fear. The energy in the body is a lower frequency [00:14:00] because when the frequency in the body is high, we not only feel very calm, we feel very centered and connected.

And therefore vice versa, when the body is not calm, the frequency is really low. When the energy frequency is low in the body, the way that our mind perceives reality, everything that we look through, that we see things in is with a lower emotional baseline. So if I have a low frequency of energy, I might see through the lens of guilt.

I might see through the lens of worry and fear. I might see a lens of shame. Depression and so forth. If I see through a low lens, because my body is energy is low, then it becomes really difficult to move forward and find a good solution to the thing that I'm [00:15:00] thinking about, because I'm seeing it in that perspective, if I need to make a decision and I'm trying to see what's the best outcome that could come from it, and all I can see is negative outcomes, because that's my perspective right now in my mind.

Because that's the energy that's circulating in the body. Then it's going to be really difficult to even think that this thing is a good idea. Because I can't seem to see a good outcome from it. But somewhere inside I know that I should do it anyways and that somehow it feels right. But when I try to think about it, it doesn't look right.

So therefore I'm stuck in this place. Everybody's telling me I should do it inside. I know I should, but when I try to think about it, it just comes out bad. I can't seem to convince myself that this is something I should move forward on. Now I'm in this place of confusion and I'm constantly thinking about it.

This is happening often times. 

Stephen: So if you're in a [00:16:00] lower state, in a lower frequency, you're going to have excessive thinking of things that are quote unquote, bad things are happening in life. So what happens though, is let's say that you're chill, your body's chill, your body's calm, which is basically saying that , you're starting to be in a higher frequency, so you're feeling good.

Now in that state, I'm also assuming you can still have excessive thinking though. But is that an issue? 

Mike: You won't have excessive thinking when the energy frequency is very high. When we feel very light in the body, we don't have excessive thinking. That's the thing. It disappears. 

Stephen: I'm just imagining a person who's almost like a chihuahua and they're just like super hyper and like, Active and I'm like, Oh my God, I want to go to this.

I know I want to go to that. What would you say about this person's energy then? Because you can see that their mind is firing like crazy, [00:17:00] but supposedly they're also having a good time. What would you say in that case? 

Mike: So there's a sense of personality within each person. So that determines how somebody acts.

However, what we're talking about is the energy inside a person's body, what's circulating and therefore what determines how they see their life. If a person has this very frantic type of, energy and their energy frequency changes, the way they feel in their body is more light, there's a sense of ease in their body.

Their body feels comfortable, not like pleasure. Pleasure is if you really like ice cream and you eat ice cream, wow, it's so good. Or you go have sex and oh great, it feels really good. That's pleasure, but ease, comfort, peace feels different. There's this sense that everything feels fine, that everything at this moment right now is perfectly [00:18:00] fine.

Whatever's happening or not happening, everything is fine. That feeling in the body, that feeling of ease and comfort and that perspective of mind, it's happening simultaneously. This is important to understand. It happens simultaneously. It's not separate. If I feel at ease, I'm going to see right now as everything is fine.

I accept what's happening right now. There's a sense of acceptance with what's happening. Now vice versa. If I feel very agitated and uncomfortable in my body, the sensation of it is that. What I see right now in front of me is agitation. Everything right now is not fine. Now I might be in a room where there's nobody there.

Nobody's bothering me, but I'm looking around and I'm trying to make myself feel better. I'm looking around to see what's bothering me. [00:19:00] I'm trying to change something that's out here, unless I understand that this is happening because of what's happening on the inside, not because what's on the outside, when people are, when they don't realize that their energy determines the way they see.

Their life, when their energy determines how fast their mind is moving, how much things they're thinking about. If they don't realize this, then they're going to look around them and try to change something on the outside. The outside influences us, but it doesn't influence us as much as the way we are feeling on the inside.

It doesn't influence us as much as where we direct our attention on the inside. In this case, a person would want to feel into their body. They want to relax. They want to come to their breathing. And as they do, if this person was seen through agitation and their mind was racing, [00:20:00] their mind will start to relax.

Their body will start to feel more light and they'll start to feel more comfortable. And then the obsessive thinking will slow down. If a person has been obsessively thinking for a while, it'll take a little bit to slow down. It'll slow down a little bit, but it won't just stop. A person will need to really put in effort every day, many times throughout the day until finally their mind starts to slow down to a pace where there is enough gaps of silence, enough gaps of calmness, and this takes a little bit of time, but when a person gets there.

Now when they do need to think about something, they can think about things, but it doesn't keep the mind running. The moment when they're done, they can stop. They got to get their mind to get to that point, which means they need to take their body and to be able to relax and become more calm. And when that happens, [00:21:00] their mind will follow as well.

Like I mentioned though, this can happen , in two different types of scenarios. The first thing is they need to go and. Get their body to be relaxed and take their attention out of their mind. Bring it to the present moment, bring it into their body. The second thing is to take action and to stop thinking about this thing that you've been trying to figure out because you haven't been able to figure it out.

That's why you keep thinking about it. It's important that a person does both of these things because if they only do the one and not the other, it doesn't work out really well. If a person is not addressing the scenario in their life and they're just trying to relax and stay calm, it's And they'll feel more centered, but the moment that they can't fully let go that there's a thing that they need to do, there is a situation that needs to be addressed.

They're not doing it. So they can't let it go. They can't just go, okay, I'm going to pretend like everything is fine. No, this needs your attention. So they have to do something there. So that is going to get their mind to start [00:22:00] thinking again. And then if they try to stop the thinking, it doesn't work.

Because in the back of their mind, they know they need to figure it out. So that's why the second thing is also needed. They need to either decide and commit. And most of the time for people, they're just lacking the action. They know what they need to do. They just don't want to do it. In this case, we need to do it.

We need to move forward and do it. Now we don't need it. We don't have things to constantly think about because we're taking action. And now we get whatever feedback, whatever result comes from it. And instead of trying to figure out what we need to do, we can look and see what's actually happening. And this it narrows it down.

Up until then, there are so many possibilities of what could happen. But the moment we take action, what has happened is there. And now there's like less data to analyze. And this makes thinking a lot more easier because it's not like all these possibilities anymore. We did something and we got the results.

Now we [00:23:00] have less possibilities to think about, to analyze. And this can now support not having to think so much because there's less data to think about. 

Stephen: There's something that's been running in my mind. It's correlates to what we've been talking about. And in the self improvement world, I see this being circulated and.

I have a little bit of trouble seeing this as the main model and what it is that they say your thoughts lead to your feelings, lead to your actions, lead to your results. And I can see that happening, but they're saying that's the exact order that it goes in. It always starts with your thoughts. That's what they say.

But for me, I have a hard time accepting that. And it doesn't always ring true for me. What are your thoughts on that? 

Mike: There's a lot of truth to that, but it doesn't mean that our actions follow that same sequence, [00:24:00] technically thoughts do lead to the feelings and lead to the actions and habits.

I agree with that. It does because thought is technically it's consciousness. Yes. If we look at what thought is and his idea, it's an awareness of something. Level one thoughts is a conscious mind. Level two thoughts is an awareness without sound. Level three is just a knowingness. It's a consciousness of something.

We can technically still call it thought. That's why there's a play in words here. When someone says thought, what do you mean thought? You know, There we go. Because 

Stephen: whenever I think of thoughts, I'm thinking of words in your mind. But if you're going to go to the depths of thought that you just talked about, okay, that's something I can more so accept.

Mike: Yeah. It's consciousness is what we are conscious of our awareness. Therefore determines the feeling is the effect of energy, the effect of the vibration. [00:25:00] So we experienced it as feeling. 

Stephen: That's very different though, because I think how most people understand this right now is similar to how I was thinking of it.

Which is thoughts are the words. So what they say is you have to change your thoughts. You have to change your thought pattern and say, no, I'm not depressed I am happy, or I am confident, and then it's going to change your feelings inside, which will start to change your actions, et cetera. 

Mike: Do you think it's dependent on the level on the stage and the stage of consciousness that they're at?

Because if somebody is in a level one, a stage one consciousness, then it is very true. They do need to go. I am a good person. I am smart. I am capable. I am abundant. They would need to do that, but if they're in a stage two, it's not necessary. And if they're in a stage three, it actually will just hold them back.

It will cause them [00:26:00] to move back a stage. They would actually decrease their frequency, decrease their level of consciousness. If somebody is in a stage one consciousness where their frequency is low, , their emotional state .. Is usually somewhere around worry, guilt, shame, fear, somewhere around there.

Then what they need to do is create a stronger sense of self. And their sense of self, their ego, right? Who they think they are right now. They think they're not good person. I'm weak. I'm powerless. I can't make things happen. I'm a victim of society. I'm a victim of this and that every it's everybody's fault.

It's hard for me to do anything. I wish I could do more, but it's so hard for me. I can't. So now this person sees themself as this incapable person. So now we need to go and change the way they see themselves. So then we tell them, okay, so no, you're not [00:27:00] that, you have these thoughts in your head and these thoughts in your head is reinforcing the way you see yourself.

So now you need to see yourself differently. So here are the words that you need to say. Stop saying those words and start saying these words. And now the words that we will teach this person is ones that are what we will call positive affirmations, right? Now, once a person starts to practice these and they go, okay.

And then they are conditioning their mind to start to think in this way. Now they feel like they have more control of life. They're starting to feel stronger now from there. , this person, if they continue to go and reinforce the, I am this, I am that this doesn't help them. With the next stage, because this first stage, this person is in a sense of victimhood.

We call this the victimhood stage because they feel like they are powerless and that they're constantly blaming or complaining. They are a [00:28:00] victim of circumstances, a victim of people, a victim of the family that they're born in, the neighborhood, the ethnicity, the gender. And so forth, they're a victim of all of that.

So now once they move out of that, they move into the next stage and the next stage, they have more energy. They have more power. And they're moving forward in life, but this next stage, we call it the control and force stage, because they're constantly controlling everything in their life, or at least they're wanting.

They can't of course, and they're not, but they attempt to, and they're attempting to also force things to happen. So the way that they're moving forward in life is that, so now in this stage, there's a different application that needs to take place for a person to ultimately Move forward towards being more centered, calm, confident, and all of that.

So it depends on the stage. So now when we go back into originally talking about with thoughts, create [00:29:00] the feelings and yes, , it does. It does in a sense that the loud thoughts is creating those feelings in stage one, it does. Now in stage two, we can still technically say it does. Because we have to define thought as either loud thoughts in the mind, conscious thoughts, level one, or subconscious thoughts, right?

Level two thoughts, the knowingness, the intuition, being aware of this and that. That's still considered thoughts. And therefore those then determine the way we feel and so forth. Or we can go all the way into that level three, the unconscious thoughts, right? This sense of self, my sense of self is a thought.

Right? I see myself as this and that, my consciousness of myself, that is a thought, and then that determines the way I feel, if I see myself, if I'm conscious of myself as a strong person, then I feel strong, if I'm conscious of myself being a weak [00:30:00] person, I feel weak. So technically this is still true, yeah, but what we need to do is first, the person needs to understand like what stage they're in and from there, what they need to do, even if a person recognizes I'm in stage one or I'm in stage two and then they look at this, this sequence of thoughts, creates feelings, creates actions and habits.

Yes, but now that you know that, the way that we change things is not directly in that sequence. You don't go into thoughts and go, I'm going to change the thought. That, the reason why we don't do that is if we tried to change the thought, the problem is that there are thoughts that are going to, Resist.

There are thoughts that are going to resist you changing those thoughts. So what happens is you have this inner battle on the inside. There's just constant arguing and debate. [00:31:00] There's one part of you that goes, you need to be more positive. You need to go and overcome this and just get things together.

And there's another part that goes, yeah, what about this? And what about that? Is it fair? And then now you got this debate going on in your head. And that's what a lot of people are doing. That's a big part of obssesive thinking. So therefore that approach doesn't work out well. A person's going to be sitting there debating all day long and it's so exhausting.

So then what is more effective is let's bypass this debate because you can't win. Okay. If one part of your thoughts is really good at arguing, so is the other. 

Stephen: It's like different family members inside of your mind, just talking. Right. back and forth etc. 

Mike: It's a never ending battle. So then what you do is you go around the corner here.

You realize that my perception, my, perspective of this situation is a hundred [00:32:00] percent dependent on the energy that I'm feeling, the amount of energy and the quality of the energy, the frequency of it. So instead of trying to. debate about why this should be this. Instead, I'm going to just change the energy because there's less resistance.

You see, when I'm trying to change a belief, I have to go against the last belief. There has to be a whole big argument with all of these points and data and information and proof and convincing and all this. But when I change the energy, what do I got to do? I need to do some practice. I need to move my body.

I need to stretch my body. I got to relax. I got to breathe. There's not a lot of debate yet. There will be. It feels uncomfortable. My body's out of shape. I'm stiff. It hurts, but it's easier to actually deal with those things than it is to deal with the mind. That's the thing about it. It's easier to go, I feel low in energy.

So what do you do? Then just do less. [00:33:00] So this way you can just do whatever your energy allows you to do. And over time, your energy increases. I feel tight and blocked here. So do this exercise and you can start to open up that area of the body. There's less resistance, less debates. The debate and the resistance happening actually in a mind on the level of the mind.

So when we go into the body and we change the energy, we open things up. Automatically, the mind shifts automatic. It's not something it's not like now that my energy is open now, and then we start to, to look at things differently, you will automatically look at it differently. Now from there, it doesn't mean that you have all of the information.

That you need to maybe decide, but you're able to see it in a different perspective. Now, now, when a person goes, Hey, look at it in this new perspective, you go, huh? Okay. Yeah, I can see that before when the energy was very low, you're attached to the [00:34:00] old perspective. So when someone comes and go, Hey, look at it in this new perspective, you go, uh, no, what about this?

What about this? What about that? You can't see it. You see, that's the difference. So we still would need, some support there once our energy changes, but we have the capacity to see it differently now. And this is the thing that people need to understand. Our perspective is based on the energy that's flowing in the body.

So if we ever want to get out of the limited belief, we have to change the energy, if not, we can't see a different belief. Our beliefs is completely rooted, supported by the current flow of energy that's in the body. And if we don't change it, we can't see it differently. It doesn't matter how many great teachers and listeners and things that we listen to or read.

It doesn't register. It's, it literally goes through one year and out the other. That's the reason why. It's not because it's [00:35:00] purposely we're trying to do it because we can't register that perspective. Perspective is based on energy. That was one of the most important, most profound things that I've discovered.

How do we discover this? Because if I tell this to somebody, at that moment, their energy is still the same. Their energy didn't change. So therefore, if they are holding an energy of guilt, And I tell them, don't be guilty, man. You're not responsible for that person. You need to just move on with your life.

You need to go and focus on what you need to do, man. Let it go. They hear what I'm saying. They can't see it that way. Even though they may tell me, yeah, man, you're right. But I just can't. That's what happens. They'll go, I know, man. I know, man. I've been, people have been telling me that for years, but how do you do it?

That's what they'll say. How do you do it? I can't do it. I know I need to do it, but I can't. How often do we hear that? I need to do it, but I can't. All they have to do [00:36:00] is change the energy inside and the way that they do it is simply release the tension, increase the circulation, increase your cardiovascular health, increase your flexibility, bring your attention inwards and feel your body.

That's why we do practice every morning and evening so a person can do that. Now their energy changes. Now someone goes, Hey man, you don't need to feel guilty. Let it go, man. They go, yeah, you know what? You're right. I can see that. I'm doing it. Yeah, you're, you're right, man. It's done. It's gone. Yeah, I got it.

It clicks for them because they can now see it. That's the key. And they don't have to argue with the mind. When someone's doing practice every morning and evening, and they're shaking their body and they're moving things around, there's not a lot of argument there. The only little argument there is, Oh, I don't feel like doing it.

That's a much easier conversation than he said. She said, how about this? And how about, and it's just too [00:37:00] complex. You just spend time obsessively thinking. But when we're dealing with our body, we're going to deal with, I don't feel like doing it. I'm tired. This hurts, right? It's a much simpler thing to deal with.

What's the solution? Do less, make it easier. See, that's the key. 

Stephen: Awesome. All right. I'm going to wrap up today's episode. Thank you guys again for listening in to another episode of Body Over Mind. Again, we have these once a week. We'll see you guys on the next episode.