Unlock Your Mind's Potential: The Mind-Body Connection and Personal Transformation

Ep 88. The forces that shape human behavior and identity are deeply rooted in our biological and psychological makeup. Our physical biology, mental capacity, and social environment all play pivotal roles in defining who we are. However, one of the most significant influences on our lives is how we perceive ourselves—our self-image and internal narrative. The power of the mind is not some abstract concept; it is a tangible force that shapes our thoughts, behaviors, and even how our body reacts to sensations like pain, pleasure, and the meaning we assign to everyday experiences. Understanding and harnessing this mental power can transform our lives, helping us grow, heal, and thrive in ways we never imagined.

Take care of your mind, and walk through life with purpose and clarity. Embrace the profound potential within your thoughts and how they shape your reality. The mind's ability to influence our biology is an incredible tool that we can use to manifest change in our lives, improving not only our physical health but our overall well-being. Take care and walk well. 

Transcript

armando (00:27.598)
Welcome back folks to episode 88 of the Running Man Self-Regulation Skills Project Podcast with me, your host Dr. Armando Dominguez, PhD in Health Psychology, licensed professional counselor and an adjunct professor at a local community college. And what we're to be talking about today spans a couple of disciplines that has to do very much with self-regulation, but also self-perception, how we see ourselves and experience ourselves and what our

Conception is how we think about ourselves that results from not only how our body is, state of body, possibly this sort of thing, but also state of arousal and also how we tend to perceive things based on beliefs that affect physical change in our body that we know not only affects how we grow, such as positive thinking when everything else is in order. And unicorns, crapping rainbows can, in this case, fix everything.

and also whenever we're considering immunological response and how our general state affects our ability to respond and adapt in an environment that could be noxious or somehow pernicious that we could get sick or stress to the point wherever we start developing traits of anxiety, depression, and this sort of thing. So to start off with, as far as this discussion goes, we're coming off the holiday, Thanksgiving holiday, which I hope all of y'all that do celebrate.

have had a good holiday past with family and friends and the beloved, but also those that do not. I hope that you all had some good time passing either way, wherever there's been minimal stress and lots of good productivity going on in your lives. Now, what I'm to point out today, once again, two disciplines I mentioned, one, the discipline of psychology, addiction science in particular, and how it plays into self-regulatory skills, and also

the biology side of the house, the physiology of our body, and how we tend to look at what we would call, and this isn't about addiction in particular, but addiction or what we now in a softer sense call a substance or even a behavioral disorder, which is kind of taking the edge off of the fact that when we talk about addiction, it can be a very pejorative moniker and very...

armando (02:48.527)
projection oriented in the sense that we may say something to somebody about them having trouble with the behavior or substance but on the underlying aspect of that I want to focus on the fact that we all have reward pathways and we all are potentially Addictable if you want to use that term and that also determines whether or not we have seeking behavior seeking behavior such that we

are seeking pleasure or seeking relief or respite from things that make us uncomfortable. And that just means hedonism, being hedonic by nature. We're biological creatures. And understanding these things help us develop skills in identifying those things that are stressful to us, that we have to adapt to in our environment and also stressful to us in the sense that maybe we need to eat because we haven't eaten, I need to find food, this sort of thing. And also where we may develop avoidant.

Behavior where we may not want to do things that are uncomfortable or difficult because not only are they physical? In the sense that they're beyond our my ability to physically manage but also there may be some value or meaning tied to it based in the words we speak that create the beliefs that May make us more apt to do or not to do something because I'm ashamed or feel embarrassed and we're doing ego saving or

preservation, whenever we have something that is perishable, such as food, we put it in the refrigerator. But what do we do with our ego? Well, the equivalence of that is feeding it by want attention and also caring for it or what we would call curating our self-image. And that impacts as well, not only our biology, how our body tends to adapt based on the stress in our environment, but also the stress we put on ourselves to adapt and overcome.

So even though this sounds like a complex set of subjects, it's really not. It's all very closely tied. And it's all rather human, mind you. So to start from one end of this discussion, to get to the end, we'll start at the end of the nuts and it'll be okay. And don't take that the wrong way. It's just an old term from the 1930s and 40s, not unlike when somebody would go to the restaurant, the first thing they start with is a suit.

armando (05:08.057)
And they end with nuts, yeah, the salty nuts at the end, but when you walk out after you've eaten the meal. So that's a really, an old reference once again from the 1940s, really old stuff, but we'll start at the beginning. So the soup, so to speak. we'll start with the body and the stressors that we experience in a day to day sense and, how our body adapts a lot of times if there is something frightening or scary or in anything along the lines painful.

or stressful, our heart rate will go up and our breathing changes such that we start breathing more rapidly or more dynamically to give us more oxygen to be able to accommodate the things that we're doing. And often our ability to conceive the action, let's say we're lifting a very big weight or a rock or a box or maybe pushing a cart uphill in an uphill ramp, so to speak, at a warehouse that requires effort, we have to kind of see very quickly

observe, then we decide and act the OODA loop that happens in how I do it after that, determined by my intention and my willingness to commit to the act, will determine whether not something becomes done. And I want to inject a term. This comes from an old, I remember when I was a child, it comes from an old child's book, whenever I was learning, at kindergarten level, first grade level, and it was called

Espanol and hecho y dicho. Spanish, Indeed and Speech or Action and Speech. Echo can mean something along the lines of a fact. In Spanish it can also mean something that's been done or made. And also it can mean doing something in an action sense. And it's also something that is pertinent to what we're talking about because often

When we think about the way we look at ourself, that is our belief, that is an action of sorts, that is an etro or a deed within my mind that I make such that I believe and then act upon that and then start maybe even to emulate if it's, let's say I want to be a business person or a doctor or I want to be well respected, then maybe I carry myself now to emulate those things.

armando (07:28.688)
I don't like using the term fake until you make it, close enough and it'll make the point for now. But when we're talking about how we see ourself, that is an action that we have come to realize that we have an idea as to how we want people to perceive us. And we want people to treat us like based on what we think we are, whom we think that we are. And often there's a difference between what people see.

of us and how they interpret us in our actions versus what I would want them to see and the actuality of what do they actually see. Three things right there. So this is very pertinent as well to how I believe and how it impacts my immune system. For instance, some of us don't get the interest or the adulation that we'd like to receive because people see us a different way and maybe they're treating us absolutely fairly based on what we've earned, so to speak.

And even common courtesy may not be enough for you if you're, let's say, very needy in the sense that your ego needs more support, more stroking, so to speak, to feel good. And it feels like it's perishing unless we get that kind of activity. And often we might see some dysregulation in behavior by people going over the top or acting out or being the clown or the

The person that's there for everybody, but yet when they go home, they're so alone and lonely that they have nobody they can reach out to and it tends to be a dichotomous thing. You know, the external outside person and the internal inside person internalize in your own privacy of your home, that sort of thing. And how we regulate ourselves. Part of it is how I choose to act, which means I have a great measure of control of how I do and how

people perceive me is only partially contingent upon that because how they are, their state, what they interpret in their experience has a lot to do whether or not they trust what they see. If they feel you're inauthentic and the best of your bestest ways of trying to be yourself, so to speak, they may not like it. They might bug you out based on their experience and you don't know what that is. So no matter how authentic you may be and well-meaning you may be, you may not be received well and that's just the reality of

armando (09:52.048)
interaction. Now, what I want to do is steer into more of the psychological aspect. And there's a book that I'm looking at right now reading. It's called The Captive Imagination by Elias Dagmar. And the subtitle is Addiction, Reality, and Our Search for Meaning. And it sounds really kind of lofty. And it's a profoundly deep book, but a great read so far. what it's talking about and things that I've covered on this podcast several times, having to

do with the imaginal or the imaginary realm in our daydreaming aspect, that part of us, that lucid dreams and that visual aspect of our memory that we can believe the pictures in our mind, kind of like the lemon that I use as an example, wherever you think about a lemon, biting a lemon or remembering the last lemon bitten could have been 10 years ago or someone else or maybe even being in the presence of someone else. Experiencing and witnessing is enough to cause us to salivate. I'm salivating right now.

because I've used this example much too often and I've hypnotized or will condition myself such that I start to get a little slobbery. So I apologize for that. Hopefully you don't hear it. But here's the thing. The imagined aspect of our life has to do with our conception, how I conceive. And our conception often can lead to belief and the beliefs that drive our lives, how we are, how we think that things should be, what we expect. And we tend to predict based on those expectations and experience.

And all of those have a component of visualization involved, even more recalling. But we're trying to make sense of, well, how am going to formulate this moving forward into the future, 10 minutes from now, 10 days from now? And we can plan from that point. So the important thing is I want to point out is that much of our self-regulatory qualities, whether they be really successful or we derail them, often are derailed by this small aspect. I say small, but it's very profound in effect.

is the visual aspect and how we believe what it is that we conceive in our minds. Now here's a short quote from this book that I'd like us to consider. Addiction, of course, is not simply about inhabiting an imagined though meaningful reality. It is more fundamentally a destructive insistence on that reality. Now, that speaks very deeply to the fact that often

armando (12:11.028)
We tend to come to our own conclusions and we tend to follow our own placebos, if you will, in a healthier sense, but also a self-confirming bias. And not unlike the internet and all the information and education that we get, especially whenever we are very warmed to a subject or particularly heated in a debate, we will find things by the way we type that we will get information that will support our bias.

There's so much information on the internet that you can find umpteen loads of information to support either the for or against or the in between or something totally 90 degrees from where it is you're coming from in an argument and it doesn't matter. It doesn't mean that you're incorrect. It just means it's too easy to support a bias. And whenever we consider the addiction aspect,

or we'll call the dependence on a very hedonic system, which we do have. We have a pleasure pathway that tells us to do things that provide us good feelings that tell us, you did that and it feels good. Do this and do it again, like eating some fatty meat that gives you that satiety or having sex or drinking something that tastes really sweet and tastes good or eating a piece of fruit that's incredibly ripe. And I'm going to do that again. And while there's more over there, I'm going to go back and do that again.

those are the signals that tell us to not only repeat, but to motivate. The dopamine motivates us to not only learn how to do that, but to do it again and remember it. And we have that desire to want to do it again, that motivation aspect once again. So this is really important to the fact that we as humans are not leading what I would call addictive lives. I think that would be a great leap into the direction of pejorative.

Interpretation of what human lives are but much of what drives us is quite that it is hedonic It is seeking not only pleasure but also avoiding pain and trying to encourage more of those good feelings if we can and in the modern sense we have grocery stores and places where we don't necessarily in the United States have to drive too far to get supplies whether it be water food clothing and things of this nature

armando (14:29.334)
We don't have at heart not the way it used to be but we're wired for a much simpler a much more dangerous time where we didn't live as long average age for the paleo person was Maybe if this is old would be about 15 to 18 years old 20 if you're lucky and you'd be considered an elder at that point those that live much further than that were very greatly revered for their knowledge and experience until they got hurt or sick and then whenever they became

a crutch or rather a load that they would have to bear, then they would be quickly jettisoned or illness or injury or hunting or being hunted for that matter would be one of the things that would take a person out and delete them for the most part. whenever we're talking about self-regulation, we're talking about in the immediate sense having to do with how we interact.

The severity and intensity of what we respond often is such intensity that a person would experience in paleo times, like a survival intensity whenever somebody's kicked out of a group or is rejected. One experience is very similar to what we would speculate a K person would experience whenever they were kicked out of the group because they no longer had numbers to protect them. Extra eyes to look around to cue to them, there's something out there, and get them to prepare in time to intercept versus being eaten.

and being the baloney sandwich so to speak to where they get hunted and then they no longer are. So some important things to consider. Now when we're talking about the biological aspect, we were just talking about some of the psychological, we're discussing structure. Structure such as standing upright as best you can, assuming there isn't any congenital defect such as coliosis, this sort of thing that can create problems with breathing.

or create greater strain on the body to where the body struggles just to live sometimes if one is contorted or injured and people that have injured their backs and have surgeries and have chronic pain, they struggle with resistance to that pain to be able to just simply live sometimes. And often those reward pathways, whenever we take medications to take the edge off the pain or stop the pain, can become a gateway into addiction. And it isn't started from the perspective of

armando (16:54.853)
Pleasuring oneself or being in any way Recreating or enjoying or trying to have a good time or get high but it's a way of stopping the pace so one can have release Respite and and an opportunity to just breathe and feel normal in Comparison to having pain having no pain and not feeling anything is wonderful Been in those shoes before not a good feeling but it also kind of shapes how we respond

And we tend to become, in many cases, a little pessimistic. It's hard to maintain a high mindset whenever your immediate survival has to do with alleviating pain, excruciating pain, or being injured, having something sticking out of your side because you fell on a stick or a rock or something like this. And that changes your mind to a more immediate concrete. How can I relieve this? Because it hurts since. And the Captive Imagination book,

back to this, I'm bouncing back and forth a little, was really eye-opening because this is an area of perception within psychology that I've paid attention to for many years and I teach martial arts students how to respond better, this sort of thing, but it also helps them get more in touch with their basic self in the truest sense. And tonight, I get so hung up on this egotistical way of doing things and thinking that's the end all be all. Whenever you get to a certain point, you see through the veneer and it

It seems a little irritating sometimes when people are going through the throes of what they're doing, but they have to grow. And it's not up to us to correct everybody because, mean, we don't have it all right. But what I am proposing is that by being a little more perceptually aware and less astute to the egotistical games in the sense that we're trying to get better at them, then we tend to have less stress because we're playing games of meaning.

games of perceived value, value that not unlike a fiat currency that we're struggling with now doesn't exist. It's more like digital currency. And even then it could get very easily erased and just by somebody's opinion. So paying attention to what actually is, is really important. Whenever we think about addiction, drug addiction, behavioral addictions, what are we doing? We're seeking pleasure to alleviate pain or discomfort, loneliness.

armando (19:15.926)
Or maybe just trying to change things because things get boring and I'm not feeling anything. And boredom is a very real motivator to do things that otherwise would not be so wholesome or good for us. And when we start doing that and realizing the ease of access to the route of pleasure, we can become very hooked, very addicted, not meaning to. But at the same time, we still have those feelings of lack and the lust for food or

bodily comfort, this sort of thing. And those things can become very overpowering, especially if we're trying to...

keep ourselves from participating in that from a moral, sense. In morals and ethics, they're all good and well. I have no problem with that. We're not discussing against those things that are necessary to live amongst people. They're necessary. But the biological wiring does not necessarily respond to an ethical or moral code, but more so one of balance and health. So if we are healthy and balanced, generally speaking, we're probably not.

I'm not talking about the extremities of anti-social personality type stuff or asocial things either, or one is predatory. What I am discussing is just general within the average realm of health. We usually don't go around trying to hurt each other. We are usually trying to get along with others and there's a natural ethic that rises from that.

And then we have the extended aspects that are more philosophical and those are important, but our biology was not made to respond to those things. Laws and guidelines are that our Johnny come lately, in a sense, when we look at it historically. We've been biological creatures before we've ever been legally bound or morally ethically bound creatures. But funny how even in the animal kingdom, creatures tend to get along to a degree. There is violence, yes, and that is without question.

armando (21:16.704)
But in the sense of being human and living together, much of what we addic to has to do with our sustenance and our security and our safety. And there are binds that we have that are social binds that have to do with, I've been here to be able to flex there. And sometimes it's a quid pro quo, the tit for tat, that if you give me this, I'll give you that sort of exchange. And we know that even the little chimpanzees in captivity

and especially in the wild, they will trade tokens for sexual favors with the females because it helps them. It's an economy. It's a token economy in a sense, but it's a higher primate economy that is not human and didn't require, I don't think that we're taxing that, but do they tax those monkeys? Well, they're not monkeys that are ape, but you understand. And it's a very deep thing, very profound.

But much of it has to do with adaption, security, safety and pleasure and those things that would make us feel better whenever we're hurting. Sometimes that's comfort of company, comfort of soothing, physical touch, this sort of thing. All very important that we're not so far from. But when we discuss addiction, often we don't take into consideration what the term addiction means. And at D'cerre, in Latin, means to speak toward and

Dicir means to speak or to talk in Spanish and these are important things but addiction is to speak toward and what are we speaking towards? Maybe those beliefs that we are so intensely trying to support or believe that have to do with the discomfort of not having or maybe even withdrawal but we want

to indicate to people that I live this certain way because this is how it is and my reality may be bent as result of that addiction. I'm speaking to it and that speaking to often is that meditation, the mental, emotional things that are going on inside of my mind that I come to believe as a result of the pain I've experienced or caused to myself or others and that's my reality. It doesn't mean that things are actually that way, that's a filter.

armando (23:42.936)
That is how it is seen and experienced and therefore they opine from that if they're addicted. And I know work in many years with people that are substance related addiction people struggling with that, that the way they speak about pain is very avoidant. The way they interact in the relationships is very avoidant. It tends to resemble what it is that they do that may have caused them to fall into use anyway. So...

It's really strange in the words and the beliefs that stem from not only the experience but from the addiction and the behaviors that they're trying to avoid that it tends to inform what it is that the belief is and also how the person lives their lives. And it's not one single thing but many things. It is biological. It is belief structure. It is also the thoughts that we have at the moment that we struggle and how we conceive things to be how I suddenly see myself.

and how people respond to me, it's a very complex thing altogether. But whenever we started the discussion, I said it was two disciplines, it still stems from the hedonic aspect of our biological nature and extends into the psychological field, the thoughts and the beliefs that we have that stem from our state of being and how those things impact our immune system and also how our body.

flourishes based on how well I feel or how bad I feel or believe myself to be and that impacts our structure that Impacts how we breathe and how well we breathe and if we feel survivable Can I make it does it feel like I'm always rustling just to breathe? So whatever perceived level of stress that we might be experiencing we have to keep in mind the things that play the biggest roles in influencing how we feel how we think how we act how we believe

have to do with how we think about things. It's very deeply seeding in how we imagine things to be, how we visualize things. It makes it sound all esoteric, it's really not. We must see things in the visual sense before we do. And that's something that neuroimaging has shown. And even those that are not able to visualize, and those are the folks that say that they cannot visualize enough.

armando (26:06.315)
picture sense, but rather it does light up those areas that have to do with visualization, but it happens so quickly or so weakly, but it does occur, but it's not consciously registering and they feel like they cannot of their own volition visualize, but yet their language tends to reflect it and when they identify objects out in the universe, so to speak, they're identifying it by visual recognition, but they just cannot get that conscious register of

of the visualization or pulling up the picture of the lemon, so to speak. But these are things that do affect how we respond to our body and also how our environment affects how our body responds to it and the beliefs we develop as a result of that. Now, what I would like us to consider moving forward in the future, I'm going be talking about things such as this, but the imagination is something that in a lot of research and within the last 10 to 15 years, more research has gone into.

the power of the mind, the power of visualization, imagination, and how we see things in that sense, actually physically changing things. And I did a podcast a while back that kind of discussed some studies, wherever they were using video to actually project on the screen, not like on a PowerPoint of somebody walking for somebody that had trouble walking or was trying to recover movement in their body and they were in therapy of sorts, and they were getting some effects.

But there's still kind of a distance and dissociation from that image, but yet there's still an effect. So there's a belief quality involved in how we heal and how we become. So for now, I'm going to capture your imagination. I want you to think about things that you want to do and be able to do. And keep those things in mind and frequent that thought because those thoughts, if they're healthy for you, are going to make a difference on how healthy you become.

and whether or not you think that you can do them and become those things in the future. Once again, we have a predictive mind. We also have an expectation based on the predictions we make based on our experiences. And if you're trying to experience something you've never experienced before, let it rip. This is where the unicorns, crapping rainbows do fix everything. Because if everything else is in order, the power of the mind is all yours, once again, to use and to become with.

armando (28:31.904)
So I encourage you to experiment with those things. They're very healthy and they are safe by the way. And whatever you do, take care of yourself. Thank you for your time. It's been a pleasure talking to you this Saturday evening post Thanksgiving here in the United States. Sending lots of love out there and thank you for those folks that have reached out and sent me feedback. Please keep it coming. I'd love to hear more from you. I am on YouTube, Amazon Music, Spotify, iTunes and other places that you get your podcasts. And uh...

Keep turning in and thank you