Unraveling the Ego: Zac Russell's Path to Present Moment Awareness

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In this transformative episode of Living the Dream with Curveball, we welcome Zac Russell, a dedicated transformational guide who helps individuals break free from limiting beliefs and connect with their true selves. Zac shares his insights on how to quiet the mental noise that often clouds our perception and prevents us from living authentically. Through powerful conversations centered on present moment awareness, he empowers listeners to move beyond fear, self-doubt, and the narratives that hold them back.
Zac discusses the impact of childhood experiences on our current mental states, explaining how the ego forms as a protective mechanism and often perpetuates feelings of inadequacy and unworthiness. He emphasizes the importance of awareness, acceptance, and surrender as key components in the journey toward personal transformation.
Listeners will gain valuable tools for practicing present moment awareness, even amidst stress and anxiety, and learn how a single conversation can ignite profound change. Zac's approach encourages self-reflection and the release of emotional burdens, allowing for a more expansive and fulfilling life.
What You’ll Learn in This Episode:
- The role of childhood experiences in shaping our beliefs and narratives
- How to identify and quiet limiting beliefs
- The significance of present moment awareness in daily life
- The process of transformation through awareness and acceptance
- Insights into Zac's upcoming projects and resources for listeners
For more information on Zac Russell and to access his audio course, visit his Linktree for all his offerings and updates.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to the Living the Dream podcast with Curveball. If you believe, you can achieve. Welcome to the Living the Dream with Curveball Podcast, a show where I interview guests that teach, motivate, and inspire. Today's guest is Zach Russell, a transformational guy dedicated on helping people quiet limiting beliefs, quiet the mental noise, and truly connect with their true selves through a powerful conversation. Awareness that helps individuals move beyond fear, self-doubt, and old narratives to discover discover greater peace, purpose, and fulfillment. We're excited to explore this approach to transformation and hear how a single conversation can create lasting change. Welcome to the show, Zach.

SPEAKER_01 1:16

Thank you for having me, Curtis. It's a pleasure to be here with you.

SPEAKER_00 1:19

Why don't you start off by telling everybody a little bit about yourself?

SPEAKER_01 1:23

Well, a little bit about me. I'm the one that they call Zach Russell. That was the label given to me as a child. It's not actually who I am, but you know, we can get into that if you want. It's useful as an identifier, and uh, much like you and the folks listening to this show, I'm an incarnate human being having this human experience and this beautiful thing we call life.

SPEAKER_00 1:47

Yeah, you can definitely jump into it and anything else you want to jump into and also explain to people what inspired you to, you know, help want to dedicate your life to helping people quiet, quiet, limiting beliefs and false narratives.

SPEAKER_01 2:03

A lot of suffering, Curtis. A lot of suffering. Years and years of uh rumination of an egocentric mind, of opinions and righteousness, and all of the things that disconnect us from the present moment experience, which is objectively all we have in this world.

SPEAKER_00 2:24

Well, you you talk about the uh prisons of the mind. What what most common mental prisons do you see people trapped in today?

SPEAKER_01 2:34

Well, I would say most people aren't present today. You know, most people are living the succession of events that they call a past, that they identify with as a past, and projecting those largely unconsciously, into the illusion of a future, into the fantasy of a future. I mean, the thing is the past doesn't exist, nor does the future. The only thing we actually have is right now, but the majority of people don't live in that present moment experience for many reasons that start in childhood, which depending on how deep you want to go, we can definitely get into.

SPEAKER_00 3:12

Yeah, uh take a deep dive into it and take it where you want to take it.

SPEAKER_01 3:17

Well, I mean, uh, we have something called the ego, right? The ego is just a mechanism of language, it's a pathology of the mind, it's an identification of the self. So the different beliefs and narratives that we have, the structures that we have that we've built around the frameworks from early childhood. When a child is two to five years old, there's a split that happens, usually as language comes on, and the one becomes identified with the self. Since we're sentient and we can think, unlike other mammalians and vertebrates, we have the ability to make things about us. And that's where life becomes a problem. When the child feels unsafe and it can't go to the mother, which is the natural course of life. A mother bear, for example, takes care of the cubs. She doesn't traumatize them, she doesn't yell at them. What she does is she nurtures them until they neurologically develop, and then they wander off and they live their own life. But human mothers, human fathers, they don't do that. They don't nurture and coddle and protect the child as it develops, usually no conscious of their own, no sled on them, they wind up traumatizing the child. They wind up making the child feel unsafe, unloved, and abandoned. And when that happens, that's when the ego comes online. And when a child feels unsafe, the disconnect between the natural course of going to a mother for safety, but feeling unsafe by being able to go to the mother because she's yelling with the father in the kitchen, as an example. That's what creates the split of the ego, the disassociation. And that's what creates the confusion and then the trying to be safe, trying to be okay no matter what. And that's uh a nuanced conversation. We can get into it if you want. That has to do with behaviors in order to feel that way. And then as we grow and we develop, we continue to perpetuate those narratives in order to feel okay, feel loved, feel unabandoned. And that's really where the pathology of the ego comes into play and why so many people in our modern-day society suffer exponentially.

SPEAKER_00 5:31

Or why do you feel so many people suffer with feelings of inadequacy and feeling like they're not enough?

SPEAKER_01 5:38

Yeah. Well, that has to do with the split in childhood, right? So the fear of not being enough, the fear of abandonment, the fear of being unloved has to do with that split. It has to do with the inability for the child to go to the mother when it feels scared, when it feels unsafe, because the safety and the fear are present and are experienced with the mother. For example, when the mother is angry and yelling, when the mother's scolding the child, when the mother's yelling at the father or with the father. Even when an arbitrary experience happens, you know, perhaps you break a figurine or a doll that was a family heirloom that was priceless to the mother, and she gets triggered because she has the same beliefs and emotional frameworks from her childhood that she hasn't dealt with. So then that gets projected onto the child. The cycle continues, and that's a bunch of adults that we have still acting as children. I mean, we don't teach these things, Curtis. We don't teach children to be free, to be loved. And uh, we certainly don't experience that in our parenting models.

SPEAKER_00 6:42

Well, I know that uh present moment awareness is a central theme to your message. So how can someone begin practicing present moment awareness, you know, uh when they're overwhelmed with so much stress and anxiety?

SPEAKER_01 6:58

Yeah, so I mean, you can't really practice present moment consciousness because present moment consciousness is its own being-ness, right? Um, when we're overwhelmed, when we're triggered, when we're in fight or flight, there's really not much you can do about it. The analogy I use often is if you were to drink some tequila, do five shots of tequila, there would be a physiological effect, right? You would be intoxicated or drunk, as he would say. And then there would be a certain amount of time that it would take in order for the effects of that tequila to wear off from the human organism. During that time, no matter what you do, you're not going to reduce those effects. You're not going to alleviate those effects. And that's the same thing with being triggered. That's the same thing with the hyper-vigilant, maladaptive emotions getting triggered on. There's really not much you can do in that. When you're experiencing stress, when you're experiencing those emotions, they have to usually just run their course. Unfortunately, we don't let go of those emotions. We're not aware even that those are emotions. Most people think that the reality that they live, the subjective reality, is actually the way it is, not realizing that subjectivity is nothing more than a narrative and a story.

SPEAKER_00 8:12

Well, you you talk a lot about how transformation can happen in a single conversation. So can you share an example of what that process looks like?

SPEAKER_01 8:21

Yeah, so that's the methodology that I use that I help people with. Um basically it comes down to awareness, acceptance, and surrender. You know, if you don't know, then you don't know, right? So you can't be aware of something for which you're unaware of. And that's where the conversation begins with awareness. So essentially what we do is we bring about the awareness of the 40 or so irrational emotions that you've been living by your entire life. Uh, we use a couple of examples, and what that does is that opens the mind up, and now you can see. And once you can see, there's an expansiveness within you. Within that expansiveness, the mind is much more pliable, much more able to change and to adapt. And so we let go of all of the things that you've been carrying on, that you've been holding on to for the majority of your life. And once we let those go, they're gone. And the result from that is no more rumination, no more egocentric storytelling, no more self-identification, just the ability to observe and to experience the beingness of the moment.

SPEAKER_00 9:35

What are some signs that that a person is living a false narrative instead of living their authentic self?

SPEAKER_01 9:44

Well, I mean, subjectively interpreting the way things happen, right? Um, a relationship ends and somebody says, He broke my heart, or she broke my heart, right? So, I mean, they didn't actually break your heart. They didn't actually like remove it from your torso and smash it into a million pieces and put it back in broken, right? But that narrative of he, she broke my heart is very real. People feel that. And the irrationality of that is what causes the not good enough to perpetuate further. That's what causes the disassociation, the suffering, the depression, the anxieties, all these noises we make with our mouth for these structures that we have, that to the individual are very real, but are objectively nothing more than what happened. I mean, the relationship ended. Two people who were having physical intimate activity with each other, who were living together, who were meeting each other daily, weekly, whatever the case may be with that specific relationship, that has been a succession. And that's the end of that. That's the objectivity of it. But the story is uh of the heartbreak is where we get into the ego and we get into the self and we get into the suffering.

SPEAKER_00 11:02

Well, I know many people are searching for purpose but don't know where to start. So, what advice would you give someone who is searching for deeper meaning in their life?

SPEAKER_01 11:12

Yeah, so um, great question. I mean, I I don't actually give advice, right? Because advice is useless. Advice is back to the ego, right? So, like, Zach, what am I gonna do? I need some advice on this. And the reason that you need the advice is because your mind's not working properly, because you're confused, because you're stuck in these irrational emotions. You're stuck in this fight or flight mechanism, as we started this conversation with from childhood, and the beliefs and irrational emotions that you've been living by your entirety of your life. And so you're looking for advice, you're looking for purpose, right? That's you know, what's the purpose of my life? Well, it's only when you're looking for purpose because you feel purposeful, purpose-less, I should say. And the thing is, the irony is that there's no purpose to life. The only purpose to life is the story that we tell ourselves about it. And again, that takes us out of the moment. That takes us out of the objectivity and into the illusion of life. So I don't, I don't actually give advice to people. It's not necessary once they do the work. Because once you do the work, you're free. Your mind is working properly, your creativity is online instead of being shunted, instead of your resources going to a fight or flight mechanism within the organism, you're expansive. And so you know what to do. You don't need advice, you don't need validation.

SPEAKER_00 12:33

In your experience, what is the biggest obstacle people face when trying to create lasting personal change? themselves.

SPEAKER_01 12:48

Right? I mean, when we're trying to create lasting change, there's a story behind it, right? I need to do this because I need to do that, I should do, I have to, I've got to, right? These are all scarcity mindsets, these are all projections, future fake projections of the ego. When you basically are just trying to feel better. I mean, at the end of the day, human beings are just trying to feel better. And that's why we have addiction, and that's why we have narratives, and that's why we have goals, and that's why we have all of this idea of a someday future. You know, I'll be okay when I'll be okay when I get this, when that happens, when I get the girl, when I graduate, when I get the house, oh, I'll get that new job, then I'll be okay. Oh, once I finally lose all that weight, then he'll love me, then she'll love me, then I'll be accepted, then I'll be enough. And all of that says that in this moment, you're not enough. And you are always enough in the moment.

SPEAKER_00 13:50

Tell us about any upcoming projects that you're working on that listeners need to be aware of.

SPEAKER_01 13:55

Well, I uh actually just I'm hoping to be putting some webinars together in the future. And I just recently finished my audio course, which is available. It's essentially a one-on-one session mirrored and downloaded in audio format. So it can be really valuable for a lot of people who don't actually need the mirror of a live interaction with a human. Um, you can just sort of run through the process that I do one-on-one in uh conversations, and you can do it from the comfort of your home with your earbuds.

SPEAKER_00 14:30

Oh, at your contact info so people can keep up with everything that you're up to.

SPEAKER_01 14:35

Easiest way to get way to get a hold of me is just my Linktree. That's uh got all the things relating to Zach Russell there. My uh some of my free offerings and podcasts I've been on, and as a way to get a hold of me if you want to have a conversation and download the audio course, and that's just my name, uh Linktree slash Zach Russell.

SPEAKER_00 14:55

All right, we'll close us out with some final thoughts, maybe if there was something I forgot to talk about that you would like to touch on, or any final thoughts you have for the listeners.

SPEAKER_01 15:04

Yeah, I mean, uh my final thought would be just let it go. Just let it go, let it all go. Bring awareness, you know. Like uh awareness is the key. You uh you can't see what you can't see. So pay attention to the things that you're saying. Pay attention to the way that you're behaving. You know, do a little audit on that and see, and then and then let go of it, you know. As things come up, as you get triggered, as you get upset, let it go. Just let it all go.

SPEAKER_00 15:35

Let it all go, ladies and gentlemen. Also, go check out Zach Russell's link tree and get that audio course. Check out everything that he's up to and gonna be up to. One thing I don't want you to let go is this website, www.curveball337.com. I want you to visit that site if you hadn't. Keep up with all things living the dream, and I want you to share that to everybody that you know, and also tell everybody that you know about this show. If you can, try to tell at least one person a day. Uh, thank you for listening and supporting the show. And Zach, thank you for all that you're doing to try to help people uh in a single conversation transform. And thank you for joining me.

SPEAKER_01 16:21

Curtis, thank you. It's been a pleasure to be with you.

SPEAKER_00 16:23

For more information on the Living the Dream with Curveball Podcast, visit www.curveball337.com. Until next time, keep living the dream.