What happens when you confront your worst enemy, your own mind, in complete silence, for 10 days? Just ask Mike, who recently emerged from a transformative 10-day meditation retreat. We journey with him as he grapples with his ego, negative thoughts, and the overwhelming need to relax and rejuvenate in the face of an increasingly distracted world. Discover how such mindful practices can help maintain focus and commitment towards personal and professional goals, and how our attention spans have evolved with the advent of social media.
Our conversation takes a turn when we move beyond the realm of focus and distraction, and explore the emotional landscapes mined during such retreats. Mike bares his soul about his internal battles which played a vital role in reshaping his understanding of mental relaxation. I chime in with my own stories from day five of my retreat, where confronting difficult emotions provided a fresh perspective on relationships and love. The crux here is not about overcoming these struggles, but embracing them as catalysts for personal growth.
As we wrap up our chat, we can't help but marvel at the life-changing power of visualization and the concept of mind over matter. How often do we become our own worst enemies in times of self-doubt and stress? How can we harness emotions for personal growth instead of letting them rule us? And how can we cultivate gratitude and positive thinking to stay grounded in the here-and-now? Tune in, as we tease out these questions and more. And remember, we'd love to hear your thoughts and experiences too!
What happens when you confront your worst enemy, your own mind, in complete silence, for 10 days? Just ask Mike, who recently emerged from a transformative 10-day meditation retreat. We journey with him as he grapples with his ego, negative thoughts, and the overwhelming need to relax and rejuvenate in the face of an increasingly distracted world. Discover how such mindful practices can help maintain focus and commitment towards personal and professional goals, and how our attention spans have evolved with the advent of social media.
Our conversation takes a turn when we move beyond the realm of focus and distraction, and explore the emotional landscapes mined during such retreats. Mike bares his soul about his internal battles which played a vital role in reshaping his understanding of mental relaxation. I chime in with my own stories from day five of my retreat, where confronting difficult emotions provided a fresh perspective on relationships and love. The crux here is not about overcoming these struggles, but embracing them as catalysts for personal growth.
As we wrap up our chat, we can't help but marvel at the life-changing power of visualization and the concept of mind over matter. How often do we become our own worst enemies in times of self-doubt and stress? How can we harness emotions for personal growth instead of letting them rule us? And how can we cultivate gratitude and positive thinking to stay grounded in the here-and-now? Tune in, as we tease out these questions and more. And remember, we'd love to hear your thoughts and experiences too!
Hello, welcome to another episode of Life Changers, and this is Mike, and today we're going to continue talking about my 10 day meditation retreat we made at the day 3 on the last episode. So on this episode we'll continue and make it to day 4, but before we get started on that, just to, I don't know, I guess we'll just get started on that. Oh yeah, I turned off my bright lights in the studio. I got the ambiance going here, got some blue lights and it's really cool. Just makes it more like I don't know viable. But so day for the meditation. So where we left off on day 3, I believe, is, yeah, my mind started going a little more. You know nothing to do, because you gotta understand, like one thing I realized in this journey of this 10 day meditation retreat and by day 3, like I realized it after the fact, but like I'm realizing how much our minds are always just go, go, go, go, right, it's never relaxed out here in the real world as we say right, like sometimes I'm sitting there going.
Speaker 1:What did we do before cell phones? And we had all this stuff on our phones, like you know. Oh, on a side note, I just want to tell Mrs Henderson from high school. Yeah, I will have a calculator with me and a device that tells me anything all the time, because all the time in school I got pulled out calculator to do is work. We can't use the calculator or, you know, a book to help me with whatever we're trying to do. And she's like well, you know, always gonna have these books on hand or calculator on your pocket. Well, yeah, I got a calculator my pocket. I got a thing called Google that I could ask it anything and it will tell me anything. Might not be right sometimes, but it's up to us to determine if it's right or not, but at least I have things that tell me anything. It could even spell any word in any language. I wanted to, anyways, back to what I was talking about. But, yeah, like on our cell phones all the time and we're always like need to that stimulation, need to be busy, need to do some, and we're never just relaxed and taking time for ourselves, right, and, as you know, I really like Dr Joe Dispenza, michael a singer, books and stuff like that. But there's some videos I watch of Mike, of Dr Joe Dispenza, on a TV, not TV show, but wow, I'm losing my words today, but anyways, it's on Gaia, it's like a platform where and it's a subscription base and you can watch things and Dr Joe Spence is on there and he has a lot of cool meditations and stuff and watching him again and he talks a lot about how he's gonna.
Speaker 1:The one of the key things for meditation I might have mentioned this in the last episode, but one of the key meditation maybe I should start editing as I can take out all this stuff, but anyways, one of the key things for meditations and the main thing is, like I did mention this last time about, you got you're like a computer. You got to reboot the computer sometimes so it works properly and less sluggish, right, and has time to like get rid of the garbage when you reboot. It same thing with our bodies and our minds when you meditate. You got to just meditate and get to that place where there's your mind is relaxed, right, and, as Dr Joe Dispenza will tell you and as I would, I'm telling you like, as I'm trying to do meditations and stuff and trying to just like be disconnected and just be there for me and reboot my body, my mind and my system. How you mind, your mind just goes nuts, or your ego, like a lot of people call it ego mind the voice in your head, you know, just don't talk back to it, not joking, but and yeah, like it just goes crazy and your body is like I gotta move, I gotta do stuff, come on, come on. Come on, come on right and like that's good, like you're doing the meditation right, and just like calm it down, as long as you recognize that your body is doing this and your mind is doing this. You're doing the meditation right. And then you got to just bring it back right to concentrate on your breathing, focus on your breathing, nothing else, right, relax and just be nothing and be there. And you know, and when you get to that point where your body and mind can shut off because even when you're sleeping, like well, when I sleep, mike, my binded mind and body gets to reboot, blah, blah, blah. Okay, but your mind is actually working a lot more. And when you're sleeping, your body might get a little reboot, but your mind isn't stopped because you're dreaming, you're doing stuff in your mind and you're it's just going on as fire and so you need to just relax, turn everything off.
Speaker 1:And I noticed like it's hard, it's getting harder and harder for people just to sit there and be with themselves and by themselves and just be the present, because we're always like what's next on Facebook? Or I gotta scroll through tiktok or YouTube shorts or whatever. Because I'm telling you attention spans and you probably realize it. I realize it for me, you know even my wife. I'm like let's watch a movie. She's like I got bored pretty quick. My attention spans not there. I just can't be focused enough. So like I'm trying to less, you know, scrolling through tiktok or Facebook and stuff like that, and just you know, back to where I used to be. Like if I wanted to watch a movie or TV show, I watched the full episode and you know not just skip or I gotta go right because that's not helping you in any way to achieve your goals and to help you to, you know, be where you want to be. Like it's actually really distracting how many hours, okay, like if you have like any Apple products.
Speaker 1:I recently got like an iPad and a MacBook for the studio and I noticed it tells me my weekly goes hey, just letting you know. Here's how much time you spent on your device. This is what you're doing and these are the apps you're using and this is the time you've been using per week and I even tells you, sometimes daily, if you want to program at that, and it tells me what I've been doing and I'm just like cool, I'm not on here a lot, but I got a Google phone and that's where I spend most of my time and you know just. You know, getting away from the world or destressing as people. I'm just gonna sit here for like an hour to de-stress after a long day of work and like six hours later, like oh crap, I did nothing and I'm real. I see that more and more and more. So let's limit ourselves on our devices.
Speaker 1:Like you know, if you want to be successful and if you want to achieve all the stuff you want to achieve, well, you gotta be present and be willing to do the work. That's the main thing. You can sit here and will all. You want billions of dollars coming your way, or millions or whatever. Right, millions doesn't sound like anything anymore In Ontario, canada, like a million dollar home in Toronto is like a shack, but yet if you go to New Brunswick, canada, a million dollars is like mansions. Even Texas I hear Florida is really cheap for housing. You know stuff like that. Anyways, just crazy how a million dollars in Canada, in Ontario, canada anyways gets you a shack in Toronto. You get a decent house, maybe Outside Toronto, but anyhow. And yeah, like the whole point of my channel is to help you to be the best you can be and to learn about the law of attraction, as I'm learning about it in my experiences.
Speaker 1:But you know, the difference between sitting there meditating and wheeling all this stuff and creating your reality is, when it comes to you you got to be willing to do the work. And I notice I'm not willing to do the work. I'd rather be on my phone. Like look how long it's taken me to get back into these episodes. I took the summer off because we were really busy, to be honest, traveling and stuff. But you know it's October 31st today. Happy Halloween, everybody. Hope you had a good Halloween at this point by the time this airs, but today's, you know, in the morning for Halloween, so Trick or treat, but anyways, yeah, like I could have made a lot more episodes if I wasn't scrolling as much. Fun fact. But anyways, back to the meditation.
Speaker 1:So day four, morning of day four. Now it's four-third of the morning I wake up, I talk to my spider. That's still on my window. It moves around. You know different spots on the window, but I talk, I sit there, plays Mr Spider, don't come in and eat me. And for those who didn't know, it's oh man, I forgot the name it's a wolf spider, a female wolf spider. It's one of the bigger ones, it's pretty big. I didn't even know those existed in Canada. Man, you gotta understand. I grew up in Quebec. Spiders weren't that big.
Speaker 1:So day four rolls and I wake up, talk to the spider and I'm just, you know, like I explained in day three, I'm just going through the motions. My mind's going crazy, you know, trying to get me to quit. Pretty much, that's pretty much what it's trying to do. Okay, I realize this, but in the moment you don't realize it. But now I realize it there's, my mind and body is trying to get me back to what it's used to, right, sitting around, scrolling, have access to you know.
Speaker 1:If I want to know something, oh, I just pull up and I want to see the temperature Perfect. Want to see what time it is, want to see that, perfect, perfect, right, I got my phone. I could look it up or customers call me. You got to deal with this. You know God deal with that and whatnot, right, but none of that. I'm literally just there by myself. Well, not by myself. There's a lot of people, but you know, here and all that talking stuff for those who are just joining this episode, go back to the previous one, you'll learn a little bit about what I'm talking about. But, yeah, so, no talking, no, nothing for 10 days, and I'm only at day four.
Speaker 1:So my body is just like, uh, just want to go home, just bored, let's go back to bed. You know, let's do this. And my mind is just going crazy Like, oh, here we go, you know, you know your wife's back at home, maybe she's messing up the contracts for you, maybe the business isn't doing so well since you're not there. And my mind is just going crazy like this. I'm like shut up, back to breathing, back to breathing, right. And then, you know, go through the breakfast. And I see it. You know, there's a few people that look like they're getting depressed. I laugh now, but in the moment I wasn't laughing and I was just like okay, you know, we're going through the process and I'm just trying to convince myself like this is good, this is good and it is right.
Speaker 1:And then, um, we get to the morning meditation. I'm sitting there trying to meditate. My mind was just doing its negativity again, like, oh, you know, maybe your whole family just died in a car accident. Right now, there's no way to know. And I'm like, oh, there is no way to know, right? I'm like, stop, you know. But folks, I'm breathing, calm down mind. I want to do this for me. I want to, you know, learn how to meditate and do this retreat and do a reboot. It's kind of like the way my wife explained is like this 10 day retreat is like a reboot for your body and mind and soul. So it was going to be good, right, but I didn't realize how crazy it was going to be, where my mind and body was just trying to like come on, like just doesn't want to sit there meditate for hours on end every day. Yes, it was really hard.
Speaker 1:I like just thinking about it, just like I explained in the other episode, right, if you hadn't, um, we're in a car accident or had something crazy happen in your life, and when you talk about the story, how your body reacts and your mind is reacting as if it's happening again. Right, so it's the same thing with your mind when it's. If you entertain those thoughts of like, oh, all these bad things could be happening right now and oh, no right, it's the end of the world, oh, and then your mind like just keeps on playing with that, and then your body, you know, reacts to it as if it's really happening. And that's where, um, you got to like just slow down and live in reality and choose the reality.
Speaker 1:As I say that you live in, like I don't focus on all this negativity that's going on and stuff. Well, mike, you should read there's all this crazy stuff happening in the room, yeah, but I want to live in my moment puppies and rainbows and I don't want to bring negativity, energy, negative energy into my life and focus on that stuff, because I see people out there and people I know and love and cherish that are focused on negative, negative, negative, you know, and that the whole world's against them, everybody hates them. Oh, you know, and it's not a healthy way to live. I'm thinking everybody hates you and everybody's against you and blah, blah, blah. But it's not even true People you know, like even as a kid, like I remember when I was like a kid and I've seen teenagers, I'm like, oh, those teenagers. I look down and they're probably talking about me, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Right, they don't care who I am, they really don't. They're probably just like living their life, talking about, like, what cool things they did at school that day in high school. And I was like a little kid going, oh, these teenagers are going to beat me up, they hate me and I'm scared, thinking I'm going to get beat up. Hello, they don't really care about me. And yeah, you know, when I was younger, I got beat up a lot growing up in Quebec, but anyways, that's different stories.
Speaker 1:But yeah, so my mind's going crazy, and to the point where I just I needed to cry. So I got up out of the meditation hall because there's all these people in there and I went outside and I'm just crying. I couldn't hold it back, which apparently is a good thing, right, just to release, and just like man, why is my mind doing this? I'm like am I going crazy? Like what's going on? Blah, blah, blah. And then one of the teachers noticed me leave, like that. So they came to see me and they're like what's up, are you okay?
Speaker 1:You know I'm like I just and I explained to them what was happening with my mind and you know, ego, whatever and tell them like all these negative thoughts and like you know my brain's trying to like get me out of here. I just want to get up and run and leave. And you know my brain's telling me like how All these bad things could be happening back home and there's nothing I could do about it. No way anybody can get me blah, blah, blah and it's just hard and like it's neat to cry and it's like good, oh good, just like day three, I guess, right. And he's like yeah, you're progressing really good, like most people get to this point by day, like six, seven, maybe even eight.
Speaker 1:This is day four and you're already like realizing all this stuff. I was like well, you know I Read books about this and I study, listen to books. Already let's study a lot of this stuff where I'm interested in like the ego and all that and meditating and whatnot. And he's like this is good, because this is the whole point of you coming out to these, to this and they retreat is for you to help you to understand, recognize the ego and the negativity your ego has and how you can, you know, change it to positive and work with it and stuff like that. And I was just like this just seems crazy, like I never expected it to be like this. And yeah, it's just, it's crazy. I wasn't expecting to be like that crazy and I'm just, you know, really missing my family and my wife, my kids and stuff and just like, oh, it's, it's. It sounds like, oh, he might, I could have done this, you know, but it's just, you gotta understand.
Speaker 1:You're taking out everything, all stimulation, out of your world no cell phones. You're not getting the dd hey you got a thing, or hey, you got a messenger, or this or that. You're not talking to people there, unless, like you need to, like in my case, where I was talking to the guy, or there's certain times you can talk to the teachers and ask them questions, but you're not communicating with people every, all the time and just, you know, keeping yourself busy, it's just literally you in your mind and meditating. There's no TVs, there's no movies, there's no laptops, there's no cell phones, there's no iPads, there's no, none of this stuff. When you're doing these retreats and it's good, we need any, I know for me I need to do take out all that detox of it on all that crap and Go tour.
Speaker 1:You know where now is my I guess not most successful but most Working hard mentalities, when I didn't have all the crap and pushing me in my life. So I'm gonna be minimalist. But yeah, and I was just like this is hard and he's like, well, you got this. Like and I'm like, well, mike went crazy. He's like if you were going crazy, I Would kick you out of the out of this, like the meditation retreat. But you're not. You have a stable mind. This is normal. Everybody's going through the same thing. If you look around, you see how people are, you know getting harder and harder every day and this is part of the process. And then once you, you know work through all this with your ego and you know your mind or whatever, and Make it into a habit and stuff how much better and easier it gets and how you can change your negative ego to a positive ego and whatnot. Right, I was like, okay, I Will continue. Right, and you know I went back in, finished the morning Meditations and you leave for a couple hours, go to lunch and you go back to the afternoon meditation. They do separate and go back and you know those meditations are hard.
Speaker 1:I found myself my mind drifting, you know, like, hey, what's going on? Let go do something. Hey, what's that? You know, think about this, think about that. Hey, what's going? You know, I'm trying to like turn into like positive voice of my ego, or voice my head, and I was like, okay, I got this, you know, and it's just that the night meditation was really hard.
Speaker 1:So I talked to the teacher again. I'm like this is like I just need to go, I need to go home, I want to go home. And he's just like, no, you're doing so. Good, you know you can Go home if you want. Blah, blah, blah. But you know, I recommend you stay. Like try to sleep tonight, tomorrow morning, you know, stay five. And then after that you know You're over the five-day hump and then it starts going down and before you know it You're done and how much better you'd be. And blah, blah, blah, and I was like, okay, okay, I'll try.
Speaker 1:And all these emotions are just, you know, going create like bubbling up and stuff where I just feeling I sound like a crybaby. But I just needed more releasing, I guess, more crying to do? So I want to. I'll just sat there and outside Just like trying to relax my mind and stuff, and you know crying and whatnot. And then I was just like, oh, let's just go to bed, I want to go to bed and as I'm walking, like there was another person who I guess when I was in that cry, he left, he stormed out of the building, left, and you know, maybe he was like me, right, just going through a hard time. He needed to like just need to, you know, going through, maybe he's leaving, I don't know. And I was just like, okay, so when I finished, you know crying and stuff, and I was like I'm gonna walk back to my cabin in the woods and go to bed and relax and you know, make it to day five. It takes one day at a time. Right, it takes one day at a time. Like, let's do this. I got this the next time I'm walking through.
Speaker 1:The guy who was walking back, I guess he went to his cab, his room, and came back out and he looked like really angry or grumpy or upset about something and you know the meads want to be like, oh hey, buddy, how's it going? What's going on. But my ego's like, hey, man, you should don't talk. You're not allowed to talk to people, so don't talk to him. And he's probably really upset. He might be going over there and he's gonna start beating up people and you know he's going crazy. You should save yourself, right? And I was like what the hell's wrong with you? I was like no, the guy's going through a hard time, whatever. But I'm like you know sure I'm not supposed to talk and interrupt. So you know, maybe you need to talk to the teacher again. So I was just like whatever.
Speaker 1:So I left, went into my cabin and my mind's like, hey, maybe if the guy goes crazy and starts like flipping tables and like trying to beat up the teachers and stuff, then you get to go home tomorrow. I'm like that's sad, like stop, stop, stop. Thinking. Like just no, I'm just like no. And then my mind starts going back hey, man, did you see the spider this evening? Did you look for him? Maybe he's inside the room now, maybe he's gonna crawl in your face. And I'm just like, oh man, what the hell is going on. Like I need something to distract me. Where's my phone? Like I was, I don't have it Like I left mine with my wife. She had it because she needed it for her business and stuff. But a lot of people leave their phones locked up in a room with the at the place where we're doing the retreat and I'm just like man, what's going on? This is nuts, right.
Speaker 1:And then I started hearing like it sounded like screaming far in the woods somewhere and I'm like what the hell? Like it just sounded like screaming, like ah, ah, I'm like what the hell? I'm like what's going on, man? And my mind's like, hey, maybe that guy's beating up people. I'm like, okay, more likely, maybe he's frustrating using the wood, screaming, just like, ah, what's going on? Right, I realize now, but yeah, I'll finish the story and I'll tell you what the screaming was. It's pretty hilarious, but anyways, my mind's just like, trying not to be all negative about it. And then he started hearing owls going who, who. And I'm like who? Someone's screaming, maybe someone's getting hurt? I thought, maybe, like it was an animal, like you know, getting attacked by another animal. Like what's going on? And then he started hearing. I started hearing all these things in the woods. I'm like what? I'm like I'm just gonna sit in my room in my bed and just curl up and then the spider might get you. Look in your sheets, am I being here? And I'm just like freaking out.
Speaker 1:I didn't sleep well that night and then I eventually fell asleep but anyways, coming to find out what that screaming was in the woods was not people screaming or an animal screaming because it was getting murdered. If you want, you can Google what screaming fox sounds like. It just sounds like it's crazy and in the woods it's nuts. But anyways, some people that live in the cities listening to this podcast, like. I'm never going into the woods, so it's crazy out in the wilderness. Hey, the wilderness is a beautiful place. I love it. I just hate mosquitoes. It's very beautiful to hear screaming foxes at night and I was going hoo, hoo all over the woods.
Speaker 1:Very entertaining when you got nothing to distract you from it and your mind just goes nuts. It's kind of like when you hear something in the dark and your mind starts going oh, what is that? That ghost is there and I'm like, eh, like this is happening all day because I got nothing to distract me. The only time I'm really distracted is when I'm sleeping or eating and at supper time. Supper time is just like a coffee and a snack like a fruit. You're not eating big meals at supper time. The only big meals you get is like breakfast and lunch. So that's it, and breakfast is usually oatmeal, lunch is usually like I don't know some kind of pasta and salad and stuff like that. But yeah, it was a great experience.
Speaker 1:So now it's day morning of day five that I'm like, well, I guess everything's normal. It's the buzzers going like normal breakfast ding ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding for five o'clock or 5.30 for breakfast in the morning and I was just like, okay, I got this, I got this and I did the morning meditation and it was really difficult. I don't want to get into too much detail, but yeah, just it was really done. I was really done. I was mentally just tired and emotionally just not having it that morning. I skipped lunch and then I went back for the meditation at lunch and I just, I don't know, I was just shutting down.
Speaker 1:I didn't like the feelings I was having, I didn't like how I was, you know, for a guy that talks on a podcast and there's like puppies and rainbows and stuff like that. Like I know, I have a lot of things to work on. Just, I'm a normal person, just like everybody else, and I don't want this podcast to strictly be about like all the positive stuff all the time, because some people will be like whoa, mike from Life Changers living the life, and he's losing a lot of attraction. He's learning all this stuff and it's all positive and he's never negative in my. No, there's tough times. I'm only human. At least I think I'm human. Could be a robot with an I don't know, could be AI Anyways. But yeah, like I'm only human and it was really tough and I was really missing my family, missing my wife.
Speaker 1:Like you gotta understand my wife and my family. Like I really love my kids and I really love my wife. Like we're I don't know Like we have such a good relationship, like I don't hide nothing, you know how, like in the world, like TV and movies and all that. It's like, oh, your wife, you know your ball and chain right, are you spouse, ball and chain right? But I really have a good connection with my wife, or my you know my spouse, my partner in life, and we just tell each other everything and we're just open and we have such an amazing like I just, I don't know, that's like gonna be one of the topics we'll talk about is like love, my story, finding love. But yeah, like she's not only my best friend, like she really is, like I know I'm not being cliche or nothing, like, yeah, like she really is my best friend, cause I know, once we started, like the first, we were married for 17 years this year and this October actually about a week ago, 10 days ago was our anniversary.
Speaker 1:And 17 years we've been married. I'm married young, but and you know, you think you know what love is and how much I love. And then it just amazes me how I could love somebody more than I ever thought I could. And you know, once you, I guess, stop living this, the stigma of society, how like, oh, my wife's supposed to be my ball and chain and she puts me down and holds me back and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, like it's like, oh, we're gonna have a whole episode, maybe a few episodes on this, but and how like you're always prepared to be, like you know, with the argument, to try to win the argument, and stuff like that. But like the last, I would say five, six, five, maybe six years, seven, maybe.
Speaker 1:Just, we put everything out there and we talk about everything. There's nothing to hide from each other. There's no nothing. There's no reason to lie, there's no reason to hide, there's no reason to like fight. You know, when you like talk to somebody and try to give them constructive criticism, and then everybody takes defense to it, and then you start arguing and fighting. Yeah, like we went through all that. But like now, when we talk, it's just like okay, like tell me, you know, don't get upset. That's why I'm gonna tell you. And then you tell me you know whatever. But yeah, and then I shall.
Speaker 1:I just love my wife so fucking much and I was really missing her and just needed her to, you know, to give her a big hug and just for her to tell me everything's okay, like it was really hard and I know it's only been five, five days at this point, but it was, it was hard. And you know, I'm like they're not letting me my mind's, like they're not letting me leave here. They won't let you tell your wife and the teacher can see that I was having an external, internal crisis and he came over and says everything okay and I just I can't, just couldn't handle it. I was just like I don't know what's going on. You know all borderline, almost feel like I'm having a panic attack. I'm just like freaking out. And he's like, hey, I'm having a panic attack. He goes I've seen people with panic attacks, trust me. And I'm like, yeah, I'm not the type to get them, but no, maybe my mind's like now you need to get them, so we're gonna give it to you. When I'm like no, oh, but.
Speaker 1:And I was talking to the teacher for a bit and he's like look, do you want to Talk to your wife? If you were able to call her, she tells you everything is okay and it relaxes and calms your mind, would you be able to get back into that? Like, would you still? Would have stood, running your experience, the meditation. I says no, that might have been help it.
Speaker 1:And and my wife's done this twice and I'm thinking in my head my wife's crazy. She's done this twice. She's done two 10-day retreats like this and it was really good for her. But like, was it as hard for her? I Don't know. She says it was, but I Don't know. So I need to call her. So they let me call her. And I Call her.
Speaker 1:She doesn't answer the phone and like at this point it's just after supper and we're supposed to be getting ready for the next meditation. So I try calling and calling. I call like four times, no answer. And the guys like look, man, we got to go for the meditation. She's okay. I'm like my mind's like dude, she's not answering the phone. Man, maybe there's people in the house robbing the house right now. And then I call one more time and the guy looks like annoyed with me. I'm like I got a call her one more time, so I call her woman.
Speaker 1:She finally answered like Like, if your husband, mike, she's like man. She's like is everything okay? Like what's up? Because we said no news is good news, right? So now she's getting all these calls from this place and she's like oh, she saw that she missed the calls and then what she called back it was there's no one. Like it doesn't call back that phone. I'm on, right, he calls back to main office. No, it's the main office at this hour.
Speaker 1:Anyways, I just like Finally got her. She's like oh, is everything okay, what's up? I'm like, hey, you know, after talking to her about it, after she's like you sound so depressed, so blah. I'm like it's really hard, like how did you do this? And she's like you know, kind of comfort me like everything's gonna be okay, everything's fine here, everybody's fine, there's nothing. You know, tell your mind to calm down, and stuff like that, right, everything's good here, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Now it's like okay, she's like do you want me to come get you? Cuz I'll come get you if you need me to. I'm like no, no, I got this, I could do this. You know, I Got this, I can do this, right.
Speaker 1:And then she's like okay, okay, well, I gotta go, cuz the guys like we gotta go, I'm gonna go back and just hung up. Then we went for the meditation and I was like tell myself like okay, everything's good there, blah, blah, blah. And then my ego and more mine was like hey, you, uh, you know she's, she's like, and my mind is like oh, hey, you know, you just hung up on your wife like that, like maybe she thinks you're going crazy. And I'm like oh, here we go again, like you need to call her and do this. And yeah, I just wasn't having that my mind, I was just done. So, in the nutshell, they let me call her. She's like I'm coming to get you, but I wasn't allowed to leave Intel like every lights out because they don't want people to see me leaving and Then they go. Oh, I could leave right, cuz you know everybody wants to work on themselves. So if everybody sees you know the first person to leave the party, then everybody starts leaving and I'm like Call my wife, like these, you get me. And she's like I'll be there in two and a half hours. And I was like you know, you could come tomorrow morning. It's like early in the morning when everybody's in the meditation after breakfast and no one will know. And she's like, no, I'm coming now. So I want.
Speaker 1:I saw the teacher's like, hey, you know, like finish them. Like I finished all the meditations, I did all the rest of the day and I went to my room like everything was normal. I cleaned up the cabin, I was in, packed up all my stuff. And now my mind's like, oh, you're quitter, a, you're such a quitter bike. Hey, you're gonna tell everybody on life-changers bike that you're a quitter, huh. Yeah, I Felt like If I stayed it could have been beneficial. But I feel like I learned what I need to learn and I did learn a lot of stuff which, well, I'll get into for the second half of this podcast.
Speaker 1:But yeah, so anyways, I'm in the woods, just in my room in the dark, just sitting there waiting Because I'm not allowed to leave until at least lights out, which is about 10 o'clock. And then what about time? Everybody falls asleep. It's like you know, 10, 30 or so. So I'm just sitting there waiting and then I hear knock on the door and and I open the door and it was the teacher's. Like okay, you know, I can't let you leave alone. He's like let's go take up, like let's just go and sit in the breakfast hall and wait, and then you can call your wife to see you know how far away she is, and stuff like that. Then we can walk down to the gate because the gates probably locked. So we walked and we talked and I call my wife. She's a, yeah, you know, half an hour away.
Speaker 1:So I was talking to the guy and tell it. I'm like I'm sorry and I Think it's okay. Like, don't worry about it, he goes. A lot of people quit. It's already like apparently five people that quit. I didn't realize that and I was like, yeah, but I, I just need to, I need.
Speaker 1:He goes luck, man, you advanced faster than a lot of people. Most people you know get to this point later. And then you know, hopefully, like resolve it before the 10 day retreat. But you go, you're learning a lot about your ego and your mind and your body, like that's amazing. He goes like just continue working through it. And he explained to me that all the meditations are on YouTube and I could find them and just listen to them and do them and stuff like that and no deals, my crazy mind.
Speaker 1:But yeah, and then we started walking to the gate to where my wife was going to be, and he's like I need to meet this woman that you love so fucking much. He goes I never met a married man who's just that deeply in the love, like she's special and I'm like she is special and that's what gave me the idea of where I need to talk a little bit about like how we got to this point of our relationship and it's I probably don't even realize how much more I can fall in love with this person. But like, yeah, like she's my rock. And he's like I was kind of hoping after he talked to her, because she's done this 10 times that she would just tell you to pretty much stay and you would stay and finish it Because he goes. I want to see how you would have progressed through the 10 days because you're way ahead of the class. And I was like, yeah, but I feel like I got what I needed out of it. He's yeah, I feel that too, I feel the energy.
Speaker 1:And then my wife pulled up and he's like I want to see this person, you know. And he's like, hey, I need to meet the girl that this guy is so crazy for and stuff like that. And then I just ran and hugged my wife and it was, it was really different and just like my wife feels to love and feel so much I missed her and how hard it was. And then I still felt disconnected from the world. Like she's like do you want to drive? I was like, oh, yeah, I could drive, because I usually do a lot of the driving right, because I drive, drove truck and still drive trucks right If I need to for my business. She's like, no, I'll drive. We don't seem to be you Like you're still disconnected and still, like you know, coming back to the reality, I guess, and it must have had a hard time and I was like, yeah and yeah. So we, you know, hugged my wife. She said she'll drive, and I jumped in the car or my truck and we were driving home and like, even my wife was so happy to see me, she's all bubbly and stuff.
Speaker 1:I was like, oh, I like it's not, like I don't know, it's hard to explain, like, but anyways, we were just talking and you know, help me by talking and help me realize like a lot of things. And I explained to her, like I explained to you guys in the previous episode, maybe a little bit in this episode, how, you know, I'm a visual person, like I got photographic memory and when, you know, when I hear stories or when I, you know, experience thoughts in my head and stuff, it's more like a TV show or movie playing, because I'm visual and that's what makes it all more real. I guess, you know, somebody tells you a joke, I actually see the joke happening and that's what makes it so much more funnier. But yeah, I started realizing, as we were talking, like the visual thing and and you know, my ego and now my brain's telling me I'm such a failure for not finishing. I only made it to five days. I could have made it to 10.
Speaker 1:But the things I got out of it, I guess, are life changing in the sense I realized how real the ego or the voice in your head and how like negative it is and it's always trying to do the opposite. It's kind of like you know, I know, be everybody's who's listening experience did it one way or another. Right, like I explained earlier about the dark thing, right, how your mind starts going nuts and how you actually know what's in the dark and what you're hearing. Or if you're trying to reach, you know, your girlfriend or boyfriend or whatever, and you can't get a hold of them and this mind just starts going like, oh, maybe they want to break up with you, maybe they're cheating on you, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Or oh, maybe they're hurt, maybe the hospital, right, and I know everybody's experience. That's because people are telling all the timely stories and, like you know, I used to be very disconnected from like I had like thoughts and stuff, but like my emotions, like growing up really disconnected from my emotions, where I learned to just turn them off like whatever, right, but it's, yeah, it's good to have emotions and you know it's good to have a good cry and stuff like that.
Speaker 1:And I will say that because I did when I was in my retreat. When I was in my retreat, but I realized how powerful your mind really is and your thoughts really are and, if you entertain them, how really are and it just reinforces everything that I've been talking about. This is like it's. It's all about mind over matter. How you could change the world with one thought, like your whole entire world, with one thought. You could change anything with one thought it's.
Speaker 1:You know I can hear me saying some other episodes how well in you know young me would see everything I achieved, how I'm sitting here in a podcast studio in my own office with this nice desk and these nice leather chairs right, and it's my personal office for business and stuff and I also use it as a podcast studio. And how cool it is. And how I've like two warehouses and you know I'm running a business and I'm helping people and I got all these different brands and stuff. And how amazing life is right. And yet tell me that, show me my old self, that how, you know, crazy I'd go. This is awesome, I've made it. I've made it. Everything's happening the way I want right.
Speaker 1:But yet here in the moment I'm like I want more. I want more. I will never satisfy what we have and I need to be satisfied with what I have and grateful and show gratitude to the universe, to the world, to Mother Nature, to God, whatever you want to call it right. Show gratitude for everything you have, be grateful, just love life, love everything, be happy and just don't worry. And positive minds and positive attitudes work.
Speaker 1:And I do know, like mind over matter, how you know when I first started with testing a law of attraction all those years ago and I would do the hardest thing, which is go to the casino and try to profit, and how easy it became for me, and how you know when I used to go to the casino, I used to get excited, winning like a hundred bucks, you know, whatever. Now, if I'm not, if I go to the casino, like I'm jaded, I guess, or if I don't win like a thousand or more, a couple, five thousand, then I'm like man, whatever, okay, I made a few hundred bucks, right. As you get jaded, as you get older, as you get older, as you get more, I guess successful and stuff, but like how contracts in the old days where I was like, wow, I got a contract where they're paying us you know X amount of money for this big event that we're organizing for them and my profit will be decent. Like, wow, I'm doing great, I won't times that by 10. And I'm, you know. Now I'm like, oh, wow, that's amazing. But if I get the same contract I got where it's like, oh, wow, I do this.
Speaker 1:No, whatever business right, but your mind really does have a lot of power and control. Your mind and your body is what's controlling, I guess, your thoughts, your ego, on your body. As Dr Joe Spenzel will say, you got to control your body and your thoughts, not don't let your body control you. And how it controls you is, you know, cravings. Oh, I need this, I need this, I'll go do this. Oh, you're used to just sitting around doing nothing. Oh, why do you want to get active? Like you know, just stop. You don't need to go run 10 kilometers, you don't need to do push-ups, you don't need to do that, just be happy where you are. And sometimes my ego uses my own words against me and my body is like, yeah, let's just relax and do nothing. All this feels good. How hard it is when you're walking on the treadmill or how hard it is when I'm doing these push-ups. Oh, just relax, man, do it tomorrow. Do it tomorrow right. Your mind and body just gang up on you and you just got to learn to take control. So one of the bigger lessons I take from the 10-day meditation retreat is how much my body and my mind, or my ego, is running me and I need to take control. That's the lesson here.
Speaker 1:Folks, it's amazing how you can choose to be successful or how you can choose to let your ego go crazy and be depressed and your mind just takes over. It's kind of like if we're in the dark and you hear a weird noise, and the one in the woods in the night right, or in the cemetery at night oh yeah, you're walking through your and you hear some noise your mind starts going crazy. And if you entertain, you know some of those thoughts that your ego is throwing at. Yeah, you run out of ways, scared, but then you realize you know just the wind or this or that. Right, maybe this is a zombie, I don't know.
Speaker 1:But yeah, this episode is going to be cut short, but it's just love yourself, love who you are Live in the moment. I tell you that all the time, but we really truly got to live in the moment. Live in the now, don't live in the past, because our bodies live in the past and they try to recreate the past over and over and over and over and over and over. So you get into your routine and blah, blah, blah and then maybe you don't feel fulfilled or you don't feel like you did anything. Well, control your body, take control and love yourself. That's what matters. Mind over matter. Well, I do love everybody.
Speaker 1:Thank you very much for listening and the episodes will only get better. I do appreciate everybody that listened to this. Please share these podcasts with your friends, family or anybody you think will appreciate them. And, yeah, feel free to reach out in an email it's lifechangersmike at gmailcom. That's lifechangersmike at gmailcom and just tell us if there's any topics you want us to talk about or if you have any questions or any experiences you want to share, and we will share it for you on the podcast. So remember we are all a work in progress and it does really take one day at a time. But appreciate where you are. Live in the now, be happy, don't worry about tomorrow. Don't worry about what happened yesterday. It's in the past. Live now, be happy. I love you. And once again, this is Mike with LifeChangers.