The Labels That Control Your Life. (And How To Break Them)

Charlie Weyer dives deep into the stories we tell ourselves, and how they quietly shape the direction of our lives.

Most people aren’t stuck because of their circumstances… they’re stuck because of the labels they’ve accepted as truth. In this episode, we unpack how identity is formed, why the mind clings to limiting beliefs, and how your perception can either trap you or set you free.

From breaking mental patterns to using breathwork as a tool to reset in real time, this conversation is about taking control of your mind, and ultimately, your life.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

We're back on South Africa's number one health and wellness podcast, Endure Edge. It's Charlie Vegas with us today, and we're gonna talk about breaking labels and rewiring the mind. Charlie, welcome.

SPEAKER_00 0:13

Thanks, Jock. Good to be here.

SPEAKER_02 0:15

I'm so excited. We were on another radio show together the other day, and I thought we gotta get a proper episode in with no music interference. So we can take our time and chat and make some amazing magic today.

SPEAKER_00 0:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 0:28

I wanted to get into um who you were before all of this and the mindset mindset coaching things and everything.

SPEAKER_00 0:44

Sure, Jacques, yeah. I mean it the mindset thing kind of started when I was seven years old. Um when I first stepped into the boxing gym. Uh a school teacher, primary school principal, actually. I was trying out for the under eight rugby team or something like that. And uh our principal ran the local boxing club, our school principal, and um he said, No, we're all unfit, we gotta come to the boxing to get fit. And uh, I guess mindset has been part of my life ever since, you know, really learning to push myself. Um have that competitive edge, you know. That was where it came from, that was where it started. Um became a competitive boxer at nine years old. Young. Yeah, that was my first.

SPEAKER_02 1:31

Your poor mom.

SPEAKER_00 1:33

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh she she enjoyed it, she embraced it. Like, I mean, yeah. I had a lot of support from her, and uh it was part of my life forever. I didn't do much other sports in school. Um, tried out rugby and uh for a bit in high school, uh, played cricket for a bit, but boxing always took up all the time. You know, I'm in love with it, uh got really good at it at a young age, started winning championships when I was 12, and um, yeah, it kind of never left uh Jacques. So that was kind of the the mindset thing that drove me into coaching eventually because I saw a lot of people lack that because not everyone grew up um in competitive sports. Um so there was a lot of balancing afterward, learning that life isn't a competition and a whole lot of stuff after that. But yeah, that was when it started. It started when I was seven years old, and and I just learned to term it and frame it and um learn the neuroscience and the psychology behind all of the stuff that I've been living since I was really, really young.

SPEAKER_02 2:32

That is awesome. Do you think people discover who they are or create it?

SPEAKER_00 2:39

Yeah, I think I think both, and I think there's a third um there's a third choice as well, or not a choice, just a third fundamental thing that happens is you know, people get conditioned, you know, in into who they become. Not necessarily. Yeah, absolutely. Not necessarily choosing who they're gonna be. You know, I ended up, like I said, I ended up in boxing because my school principal was an authority figure in my life. He said, come box because you guys are unfit. And I got into that. Um, so I think, yeah, I think there's uh early stage conditioning when we're children up until the age of seven. I've learned obviously through study that our brain waves are actually quite low. So we are very susceptible to information. Um and the reason for that is when we are born, we need to absorb information so that we can make sense of the world. So we take on a lot of the patterns from our parents, um, our teachers, our school principals, um, even TV. So that first seven years of our is our developmental stage, and we take a lot of programming from other people, you know. So basically, by the age we are seven years old, we are programmed by other people.

SPEAKER_02 3:46

So that sounds very dangerous to me. I know it happens, but it's it's very dangerous because we're basically wiring ourselves to what other people are around us. If it's our parents, teachers, whatever it is. Of course.

SPEAKER_00 4:00

Can that be rewired? Absolutely, yeah. So, I mean, you've heard the term the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, you know. Uh depends. Some child might not grow up with a dad, you know, so he gets different influences and he'll develop a certain personality later in life as a result of having an absent father, just as an example. And there's a million different examples. We all grew up differently. Um, our parents always do their best. I believe, you know, whether whether um it's not good for us, whether we feel unhappy about our parents could have done better. I think they always do our best, especially as a parent, you kind of realize you do your best, and sometimes your best isn't good enough in the child, in the eyes of your child. So um, up until the age of seven, there's a natural wiring that takes place based on our surroundings. Then as we grow older, as we move through cycles, um, in seven-year cycles, really, seven years old, that's when a child is typically ready to be educated. 14 years old, puberty, they become more in their body. 21 years old, they start to develop an adult mindset. And then at 28, that's when people really start to ask questions. Who am I? Who am I at my core? Right? I I I've got all of these habits. A lot of people develop addictions and negative patterns, and that's when the questioning actually really starts, because now life starts coming at you, and it might not be the most desirable thing, you know, and that's when people start typically questioning, who am I? Um doesn't always happen like clockwork on 28 years old, some a bit earlier, some a bit later, because like I said, we all live in a different world. But when we start asking that question, then we can start recognizing like, oh, I don't actually like this habit or this type of thinking. And where does it come from? Oh my goodness. You know, this came from when I was six years old and I was scolded, and I developed this insecurity about myself. So, yes, we can rewire it by asking the question, and then the moment we don't like something, we can change it.

SPEAKER_02 6:00

You're a parent. Yeah. And what you're talking now, I'm just thinking, like, should we should we maybe have that discussion in the early 20s with our with our kids and tell them start looking at rewiring yourself in any way?

SPEAKER_00 6:17

Yeah, Jacques, I think uh it's as a parent, it's a it's a great conversation to have. And you know, just maybe from a father's perspective, I can't speak from a mother's perspective, but letting their child know that, listen, I did my best, um, but I also am an imperfect human being. So I might have made some mistakes as a parent that might have um led to characteristics inside of you. So when there is anything inside of you or part of your life that you know you don't like that is limiting you in any way, it's not necessary that that's part of your core identity, it might be a programmed identity and you can change it. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 7:00

So, based on all this discussion, we live by labels. We tell ourselves a lot of stories that we live by. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 7:07

Why do humans feel the need to label everything? I think it's part of language, Jacques. I think we get we find security when we label something. You know, when we don't identify and we label something, you know, people have a have a fear of what they don't know and understand. And even if they don't know and understand something, it's very easy to label it. And that's where judgment comes from. You know, you might see someone doing something that you don't agree with, and you immediately judge it because you don't understand this person's upbringing, their life. You've you've got a different experience and a different value system, maybe. So I think it's it's there's an element of fear, fear of the unknown. So we tend to label every single thing so that we can feel secure within ourselves.

SPEAKER_02 7:53

How early do you think would we start doing that? Labeling ourselves. I'm shy, I'm not smart, I'm not this kind of person. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:01

So um, if you look at early, early childhood, when a child starts to speak like the one words, you know, when they're one eight one year old, 18 months, um, you'll notice uh you've got three kids, right? Or you've got a few. Three. Um I've also got three. So I remember from my last conversation. Not more than three. Hopefully not. Thank goodness I got it right. Um you will typically see at a there's a certain stage where a child will call their own name. For example, my youngest son is Tiago. He'll say this is Tiago's toy, right? Or that is daddy's cup, it is mommy's bag. But you'll notice there's a flip, there's a time when it flips from Tiago's to mine, right? Then there it's it's that aid of individuation, it's usually at around two years old where they start developing a sense of separation. Because up until that point, they're still so at one with everyone and everything. But then they start to see daddy say, No, this is mine, mommy said this is mine. So then they start to learn that I'm separate. I'm not dad, I'm not mom. I am actually me, and this is mine, this belongs to me. So there's a it's a very early thing when those labelings start, you know, and then as we progress, those labels can become more and more limiting, you know, because ownership is one thing, that's not necessarily a hugely limiting thing, but um as we grow older, then the labels can start to become more limiting, especially in language. If you look at how we teach our children to always say please.

SPEAKER_02 9:40

Do labels simplify life or do they trap us?

SPEAKER_00 9:44

Um they can do both, you know, they can trap us, and it depends on the label. It depends on how we choose to frame the scenario or the thing or the thought. Um, so yeah, it's it's there's it's like a knife, it's uh it's a double-edged sword, and it depends on how we use labels.

SPEAKER_02 10:02

So, how do we use labels?

SPEAKER_00 10:04

Yeah, Jacques, um, I mean, I had a I had an interesting morning. Um I I spoiled a bit of tea on my lap on the drive here. Um so I immediately had that thought, uh, oh shikes, you know. Um, and then I immediately looked at it as like, well, we're doing a podcast. Maybe this can be a topic to speak on. So I immediately took something that, you know, a lot of people will like, oh my gosh, I gotta go change my pants or do whatever. Um, but I just said, oh, this can be a topic of conversation. So I immediately took something that happened, it was a fact. I spilled the tea on my pants. I mean, you can see it there. And um, I was like, Oh, what are these people gonna think of me? Shall I just go chat? And I was like, no, it could be a good topic of conversation. And here we are speaking about labels, how we frame the fact, how we label a scenario. Um, so double-edged sword, if we frame it in a negative way, it's gonna have a negative experience on whoever does the labeling and vice versa.

SPEAKER_02 11:03

Okay, so if something bad happens, but you don't label it as bad.

SPEAKER_00 11:07

Yeah, then it's not something bad.

SPEAKER_02 11:08

What is it then?

SPEAKER_00 11:09

The well well, all s all circumstances are actually neutral until we frame it. Until we frame it.

SPEAKER_02 11:16

So even if we say it's good, you miss tea on your pants, you turn that into a positive, but it's actually a neutral circumstance. Is that what you're saying?

SPEAKER_00 11:23

Spilling the tea is neutral. Okay, there's nothing bad about it, but there's so many scenarios that we've heard. Oh my goodness, I've spilled on myself. And people create this unpleasant, unnecessarily unpleasant experience for themselves because now the pants are wet, they stained. But like I said, it could turn into a cool topic of conversation. So it's not a bad circumstance. The circumstance was neutral, it's the way that it was framed that determines the actual experience from it. Like I said, the let's let's talk about the economy. You know, there's a lot of stuff happening internationally like now, um, wars, bombings, etc. etc. So economically, some prices are going up. Diesel in South Africa, petrol fuel, which means potentially food prices are going up, and and and so a lot of people can see that as bad. Yeah. But if you understand that that is, once again, it's a neutral circumstance and you understand how to invest and you invest in the right places, you can find opportunities in whatever is happening and have a very positive experience from it. So, so you can take it on a micro level or on a very big global scale and choose how you label things and have a great experience from your life.

SPEAKER_02 12:34

Why are we so quick to just complain? Like, and I talk for myself. Yeah, um, you just said it now, the fuel prices. We're just so quick to go and complain. Yeah, like I said to my wife this morning, actually, I'm like, should I go buy like three or four jerry cans and we fill them up? She's like, for what? Like, why? I'm like, Well, that's getting enough. She's like, No, like whatever. But like a mind is programmed just to go to the bad, the negative the whole time.

SPEAKER_00 13:04

Once again, you meant you said that word jog programmed, you know, it's a conditioning, it's something that we've been practicing for a long time, you know. So when you can recognize it, the moment you recognize, geez, I complain a lot and I speak negatively about scenarios quite often, the moment you've got awareness, you can change. The moment you've got awareness, you can say to yourself, okay, whoa, how can I reframe this? Right? I'm not saying be responsible and neglect practical thinking. So maybe filling up a couple of jerry cans might be useful in the short term. But maybe you can say, oh, this is an opportunity for me to look at expanding my business so that I don't have to worry about fuel prices. You know, so that can turn into an extremely positive, motivating experience to maybe start something that changes other lives and changes your life. So that once again, neutral scenario that was bad because you labeled it and framed it badly and you complained. If you can look at it, take a step back, take a deep breath in, say, Well, how can I frame this in a way that's going to serve me, that's going to serve my family and gonna serve the people around me? And then you and then you just wait and see what happens. Because now you're opening yourself up for new thoughts to come in and new patterns to emerge.

SPEAKER_02 14:15

How much of people's suffering comes from the story they attach to things?

SPEAKER_00 14:20

Jock, I mean to quantify it, you know, I can't give you an accurate number, but I'm gonna um put myself on the block and say all of it. I think all suffering is um comes from the mind and how we interpret things. How we interpret it.

SPEAKER_02 14:38

How we interpret it.

SPEAKER_00 14:39

Exactly. Exactly. 100%. It can it can be something painful and we can choose to cling on to that pain and and and carry on and on about it, or we can use it as a learning experience and grow from it and become better as a result.

SPEAKER_02 14:53

So, how do we even start to break out of these labels that we've known for so many years in our lives since childhood?

SPEAKER_00 14:58

Yeah, first step is awareness. First step is awareness, and that awareness can offer come, can often come through life scenarios that are difficult, uncomfortable, painful, and even suffering. When we find ourselves suffering, that can all sometimes be a catalyst to ask questions and say, why? Why am I in this scenario? And when we start to get really honest with ourselves and say, listen, I actually chose this, I created this. And we can dive into why we choose things that are negative. And then once we are aware of it and we ask that question why we can look at it and then we can change. So the first step is always awareness, and awareness can all sometimes come from suffering, suffering in difficult scenarios, but awareness can also come just from paying attention and living really present, being in the moment, exactly, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 15:50

And it sounds like all this takes practice. It's not gonna, you're not gonna wake up tomorrow and be aware and go, oh, this is a neutral situation, and just all of a sudden life's just different. Exactly. You know, should there be books that we're reading, or like Jacques, there are there are many books um that we can read. Mindset coaches, like what is the practice for this? Jacques, that's what I'm trying to get.

SPEAKER_00 16:14

As a coach, as a coach, there's there's great value in finding a coach. There can be great value in reading a book, but ultimately there's no greater teacher than life. And if you really start paying attention to yourself and what is happening, you will automatically start to change. But having that level of awareness takes practice. And this is where self-awareness through practices like meditation makes you more self-aware so that you can start to see those thoughts before they spin out of control. You can start to notice that emotion before it turns into a burst of anger, right? So that takes practice. And um, there's a lot of stuff that influences that that inhibits us to become really self-aware, like toxins in our environment. So if you are polluting yourself, it's very difficult to become a self-aware individual and create change in your life because that requires awareness and energy.

SPEAKER_02 17:10

Let's look at smoking booze. Is that what you mean when you say polluting ourselves?

SPEAKER_00 17:14

You know what? On uh the people we hang around with? Yes, a lot of people think smoking booze, yes, but also people, people who complain a lot, right? If you're listening to that complaint, you're exposing yourself to a neurological pattern. And as humans, we learn to adapt to our environment to survive. So if you surround yourself with people who complain, you're gonna tend to complain a lot. So there's the environment. And if we look at um our home environment, how many toxic chemicals is in your house? You know, things that you shouldn't be breathing in, things that shouldn't go in your skin. People neglect these smaller things. They think it's it's just drugs and alcohol and bad friends. No, it's not even that. You know, you can you can come away with a lot more if you look at all the other stuff in your environment. So if you if you look at um financial investment, you know, there's such a thing, they call it the eighth wonder of the world, compound interest. You know, so it's not necessarily the big things, you know, making$10 billion or whatever it might be, you know, compound interest. If you put money away over time in a compounding space where it starts to multiply exponentially, same with our energy. If you start to remove things that are easy to remove, that steal away your life force, your energy, all of a sudden you take 10 things away that take 5% of your energy. Now you've got 50% more energy and more self-awareness and a greater ability to make changes in your life, to recognize those thoughts and to say, oh, I'm gonna move in a different direction. I'm gonna complain less and I'm gonna be more grateful and I'm gonna create more positive scenarios in my life. So it goes really deep, but it's really, really simple.

SPEAKER_02 18:52

And this can happen at any age. You can make this change at any age. People mustn't think, oh, I'm 70 years old or I'm 60 years old. You know, it's too late for me. I'm just gonna carry on, go to my retirement home and just go complain. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 19:07

It all stems from a desire, Jacques. Like I I've got a guy, I think he's 73 years old, and he's a client of mine, and he's so interested in just expanding his awareness, expanding his own.

SPEAKER_02 19:18

That is awesome. That's so cool to hear.

SPEAKER_00 19:20

72 years old. Yeah, he does martial arts, um, and he's he just wants to expand it, he wants to be better. I'm like, this is a prime example that it's never too late. And the thing is, the the more you remove little things that actually take away your energy and take away your life, the more you extend your life and the quality of your life. So it only makes sense. You know, what what is the root of all our desires? You know, you want a better car, better relationship, more money. You ultimately want that because it's going to give you more life, a better quality life. So why not just remove all the things that steal your life or steal the quality, steal your energy, and then by default your life gets better.

SPEAKER_02 19:58

It's amazing how that works, actually. The moment you're not looking for that better car, it will come.

SPEAKER_00 20:04

Exactly. Exactly. Because now you're not in a state of lack and wanting, you know, just remove the stuff that is blocking you, and very often everything else happens by default.

SPEAKER_02 20:12

Okay, so with all these labels and everything we've spoken about, there comes fear, there comes overthinking and mental loops. What actually is overthinking? Is it thinking too much or is it just thinking in circles?

SPEAKER_00 20:26

Jacques said, the term overthinking, it's a limiting term because the moment you say over or under, it means there's there's a wrongness attached to it, right? Okay. But you might think a lot, but if you think a lot about what could go wrong, right, then I might say that what people call overthinking or thinking a lot could have a negative impact. But you could overthink on how much you enjoy your life. Then there's nothing wrong with that. If you're constantly focusing on about how good life is, how much value you can add to the world, keep thinking in that direction, keep overthinking it, you know. So, but but the term itself is a limiting term, right? So it's actually a misdirection of thought that should be looked at. So, what am I thinking about? You know, if you're thinking about the tea that I spilt this morning for the rest of the day, you know, like I can beat myself up over it and I can miss so many joyful moments, so many opportunities, because my thoughts are directed in a scenario that is not serving anyone. So it's it's I would say it's misdirected thought, um, not the quantity of thinking, because we're always thinking, Jacques. We we're thinking machines. You know it's okay to maybe go quiet and just switch off your thoughts. But um, yeah, I think you teach me how to do that.

SPEAKER_02 21:50

It's ADHD brain of mine.

SPEAKER_00 21:52

Yeah, even even that term, even ADHD, it's another label.

SPEAKER_01 21:56

It's another label for someone who thinks a lot, someone who gets excited, someone Who doesn't like to sit still? Children have a lot of energy. Now you force them to sit down. And if they don't want to sit down, you've got ADHD.

SPEAKER_00 22:07

Come on, man. Come on. Let children be children. Let them play. Let them express themselves. Let them go outdoors. You know, that's it's a new term. It didn't exist 40 years ago.

SPEAKER_02 22:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:16

So where did it come from?

SPEAKER_02 22:18

Well, I'm sitting here self-diagnosed. Definitely got it, but yeah, self-diagnosed because it didn't the diagnose, no one was diagnosing you when I was seven years old or 12 years old or whatever it was.

SPEAKER_00 22:29

Exactly. So so terms, um, labels, diagnosis can be very limiting and very detrimental because now someone with a lot of energy, a lot of curiosity, a lot of excitement, a lot of passion, you've got ADHD. Now now there's a belief in their mind, but perhaps, especially in a child, that there's something wrong with me. This is not normal. Where that can be a superpower. If you can express that much energy and and focus that energy into something, you can build a lot of things. You can build a great success. There's a lot of people who might be labeled ADHD who are billionaires, who are geniuses, who change the world.

SPEAKER_02 23:03

Oh no, he's dyslexic, sorry. Yeah. One second thing.

SPEAKER_00 23:08

Once again, he interprets things differently. Now they have to call it dyslexia, and there's something wrong. But this man is a philanthropist, he's done so much good in the world, you know, and and people look up to him and people study him. But if there's something wrong with him, typically, why would he be such a great human being? Everyone knows that name.

SPEAKER_02 23:28

But in a world where we live in where there's a let's call it a handful of people that think like you. Okay. And the more you talk about it, I start thinking about you, etc. And it does grow. But when you go into the educational system or the schooling system, whatever you want to call it, yeah, like they then put those labels back there. Correct. And they then the teachers are going to put so how do you stop that?

SPEAKER_00 23:52

I mean, like that's a great question, Jacques. I mean, if you look at systems, right? Systems work until a certain point, and then those systems become obsolete. And I believe that we're living in a time now where the old education system is becoming obsolete. We can see it. Children are battling with mental health because they're in a system that doesn't serve them anymore. Because children are now living in a world of technology, right? They're living in a totally different environment than what we lived 40 years ago, where the education system perhaps served us to a certain degree. Now, on a practical level, I actually started a program called Future Fit where I work with students and teachers and I teach them these principles. Because you can't just teach them to the kids, and the the teachers are still trying to implement these limiting scenarios in their minds. So I do these uh team building group sessions with the teachers, I teach them all about mind setting and reframing scenarios, etc. And I teach the same thing to the kids. Um, and that is a solution that I hope will start to spread through at least through South Africa, hopefully Africa and the world. But it is something that is essential because for an old system that is obsolete to collapse, there's still there first needs to be a new system to replace it because otherwise we're going to sit without a system and that creates chaos. For sure.

SPEAKER_02 25:09

And I think that goes for the corporate world too, not even just the schooling system.

SPEAKER_00 25:14

No, 100%. You know, corporates, you know, there's a there's a big alcohol culture, especially in South Africa in the corporate world, because I work in corporate as well, um, in terms of the coaching and the events, and it's the same thing, you know, like these people are so rooted in old ways of doing things, and um, it's a culture, right? If you listen to the word culture, it's a cult, it can be a limiting thing. Cult culture can be extremely limiting, but people are attached to it because it's familiar, you know, and and and and this is why people self-sabotage, you know, so why people choose negative experiences, because something might have happened as a child, right? That could have been traumatizing and hurtful, but that leads into a limiting or an addictive behavior or a whatever because it's familiar. But the moment you can recognize that and have the courage to change it and have the courage to explore something different that is maybe uncomfortable in the beginning, that's when change happens.

SPEAKER_02 26:09

Okay, you said the word courage. So let's speak about fear. Do you think fear is real or just imagine?

SPEAKER_00 26:15

So fear in itself is absolutely real and it's absolutely necessary. Like I said, if we're in a situation that is dangerous, if we are in a park and a tiger gets over a fence, I'm using a weird example now.

SPEAKER_02 26:27

But then not actually I saw uh Instagram reel from the reptile zoo when the alligator got over the fence.

SPEAKER_00 26:34

So exactly that. So so number one, fear is useful, right? It is part of our physiology. Like we are not designed with anything inside of us that is unuseful, including guilt, including shame, including fear. Fear is very useful because it activates a greater sense of awareness, it releases cortisol, um, it releases adrenaline so that your muscles have got that ability to fight, flight, freeze, whatever it needs to do. So fear in itself is important and it's useful, but then there's anxiety, which is a result of an imagined experience, something we create in our mind. We create so many problems in our imagination that causes us to be in a state of fear, but there's no real or present danger. And a lot of these things people are anxious about never even happen. You know, so so fear is very useful and it is the um expression of a real and present danger. Anxiety is a feeling that we get when the expectation we create in our mind is not desirable to us.

SPEAKER_02 27:42

We actually mistake it for fear.

SPEAKER_00 27:44

It's not actually fear. Exactly. People mistake anxiety for fear. If I'm afraid that something or I say that I'm afraid that she will leave me, or he's gonna think badly of me, or whatever. I'm creating a scenario in my mind that doesn't even exist. Right? It's an expectation that I create, and the expectation that we create in our mind determines the feeling in our body, and that affects our performance. It affects our function, it affects how we show up in our lives. So people who are anxious typically show up in a way that is weak. Um, they show up in a way that sabotages themselves. But people who live life with anticipation, who always have the best expectations, like Richard Branson, that only expects the best for himself, of himself, and of the world. And he creates that because he lives with anticipation. He even said once, um, money follows fun. So he has a lot of fun, and you can't have fun when you're in a state of anxiety. So anxiety in itself is a result of something that is created in the imagination. So um, anxiety, the cause of anxiety is not real. So if you want to cure anxiety, it's not um going to be cured here externally. It has to be cured in the imagination where it's 100%.

SPEAKER_02 28:59

No one's gonna help you.

SPEAKER_00 29:01

Exactly. Well, a lot of people can help you, they can direct you to the root of the problem, but only you can start making different decisions and start creating better pictures in your mind of the future.

SPEAKER_02 29:13

So it's happened to me, it happens often. I wake up at 12 o'clock at night or two o'clock, 2 a.m. in the morning, can't sleep, the mind is busy.

SPEAKER_00 29:23

How do we shut off from that? Yeah, you've got to practice. You've got to practice the chakra. Like I said, meditation is a a lot of people think meditation is you're gonna sit in a mountain.

SPEAKER_02 29:33

What is meditation? Yeah, it's not sitting in a mountain like you just said with the Buddha monks.

SPEAKER_00 29:39

Yeah, it's it's what is the purpose of meditation? A lot of people think uh meditation is for enlightenment. So let's take that out of the picture. If you look at uh Shaolin monks, right? These are Buddhist meditating people who understand why we meditate. It is to sharpen the mind, it is to recognize the busyness of the mind. And if you train that muscle and you learn to recognize the thoughts before they grow bigger, before they wake you up at night, right? So if the only thoughts that wake you up at night is thoughts that you haven't processed during the day. Okay. It is subconscious patterns that are in a loop, it is something that has not been dealt with. Oh, it's always yeah, 100%. So when you meditate, when you sit there, you're not sitting in silence and trying to quiet your mind. Your mind is not meant to be quiet. Our mind is meant to interpret, process, utilize information so that we can live. That is the purpose of it. So when you understand the purpose of meditation, now all of a sudden it's not this um cultural thing, it's actually a practicing or a training of a muscle. The most important muscle that we have is the muscle of our mind. Because if your mind is sharp, and this I learned at a very, very young age through through boxing and then eventually through mixed martial arts, you're a weak mind, you're not gonna have a strong body. Um, so train that mind, and then you can train the body, and then you can literally have way more control over your life. Not just um never controlling situations that's beyond your control, but controlling how you respond to it and controlling like how well you sleep at night.

SPEAKER_02 31:14

Yeah, that is extremely. Okay, so let's just quickly look into this. So before I go to bed, I should sit there and process my whole day. By myself, process my whole day to try and process all those thoughts that I haven't processed yet that are waking me up at 2 a.m.

SPEAKER_00 31:33

So you want to get to a point where you don't have to wait till the end of the day to process your thinking. Okay, so it's a whole process. So when that muscle of your mind, when your awareness is expanded enough, you start to interpret things very quickly. Like I said, reality is always communicating to us like billions of bits of data per second, right? And if there is something that we resist, right, the moment we resist something that happens, right? The mind stores it in the subconscious as a trauma or as an experience or something to be dealt with later. So we need to learn to get into a place of non-resistance to what is happening. And that happens with learning to reframe stuff so that we don't resist the tea that I just spoke, you know, the guy that just pushed me off of the road or whatever that might be. So that the moment we can process that in the moment through becoming non-resistant to what happened, mindful and non-resistant, then we don't have to go and sit before sleep and say, okay, cool, I'm gonna forgive this guy, I'm gonna, I'm gonna let go of that. Okay, cool, what's gonna happen with that? Okay, she peed me off, you know, like um uh let me take her to the boxing, whatever, whatever, whatever, whatever that. So so you want to get to a point where that muscle is so trained that you don't have to now have a ritual before bed to process information. But that awareness happens with how you start your day. So if you start your day, like I said before in our in a radio interview, there is a there is many different ways you can practice. You can stare at an object and not every time you your attention goes away, you bring it back. Because now you are training yourself to direct what? Your attention. Right. Okay. So when something in your day happens and it distracts you, right, from your purpose, from what it is you are doing, it is preventing you from processing information. So if you have a practice throughout your day, being mindful of the breath, being mindful of when am I shallow breathing, because when I'm shallow breathing, I can't process information because my brain doesn't have enough oxygen. So if I practice in the morning, breathe the breathing deeply, and I move through my day, constantly being aware of how much oxygen am I giving my brain? All right, and now because the brain is oxygenated, because it's a physical thing as well. We live in these bodies, we can't escape that, right? So if we treat these bodies badly and we do things that's gonna suck oxygen from our brain, we're not gonna have that level of awareness. So we're gonna then not sleep well at night. We're going to have anxiety, we're gonna wake up in the morning and today's this, this, this, and that's gonna happen. So it starts with self-awareness. What am I putting into my body? What am I giving my senses to? And how aware am I of what this body is trying to tell me? Because your body will tell you when something is off. And when we can pay attention to that, we can process it. But if we don't, it accumulates, it accumulates, it accumulates, and then you wake up at night or you need medication from a doctor and all sorts of things that just creates a downward spiral.

SPEAKER_02 34:40

Let's talk breath work and resetting that mind with breath work. How important is breath work in controlling your mental state?

SPEAKER_00 34:48

Okay, so let me start with this. It's a great question, Jock. So thank you for asking it. The term breath work in itself is limiting, right? Because it only breath work has only been around. The term breath work has only been around since 2022 or somewhere during lockdown. You know, breath work. Breath work, I'd say, when you listen to anything that says work, it's like, oh, now I have to do something to get something, and it's it's difficult. Like we've been breathing since the day moment we were born. It's the first thing we did, and it's the last thing we do when we die, right? So it is not something that we have to work at, it is just something we have to pay attention to. Because if you breathe in just a nice, comfortable, deep breath right now, like just a was that hard and did it feel bad, or was it easy and did it feel good? It was easy and felt good. So there's no work there, right? So it's something that's really effortless. So when we just breathe consciously and joyfully with awareness, without needing to get somewhere and just being present, like this is what my body wants right now. And trust me, when I breathe, I can pay attention to you while I'm breathing. Because breathing happens consciously and subconsciously, right? You can, I mean, when you run, you're breathing deeply and you're breathing consciously, because if you're not breathing consciously, you're not gonna have a uh a good stride, right? So I'm relating to like with martial arts. You've probably watched the Kung Fu movie. When these guys are like Bruce Lee, like that's an exhale.

SPEAKER_02 36:28

That's a breath.

SPEAKER_00 36:28

That's a mindful breath, right? So breathing is part of everything we do, so there's no work at it. And if you can remove the term breath work and speak about breathing more mindfully and consciously and more consistently, then you don't need breath work. If you just make breathing consciously a part of who you are, right, that's going to change your life immensely. And what I teach my clients and I teach people is set a reminder on your phone every hour, take three deep breaths, and you do that for 12, 16, 18 hours a day. That's going to retrain you to breathe more naturally. Because breathing shallow isn't natural, right? We live in a world that is so distracting and can be so overwhelming that causes us to forget to breathe. And then that becomes a habit, that becomes a pattern. And then that pattern leads to anxiety, lack of awareness, and and and and and so breathing with awareness are absolutely essential if you want to live with more peace, more awareness, more flow, more anything. Because uh there's a term in kung fu. Everything is kung fu. It's not just the hour you do in the dojo, it's not just the tournament. Everything is kung fu. What is your posture like? What are you thinking about? Are you in integrity? Are you breathing? Are you aware of your breath? So forget the breath work and just remember to breathe the way your body wants you to breathe, which is deeply, slowly, comfortably, in a way that feels good.

SPEAKER_02 38:03

What are we actually missing? Because we all breathe without thinking. Well, not most people out there. I'm one of them.

SPEAKER_00 38:09

Even I even I get caught up in moments where the breath is shallow. But I've trained myself to breathe way more mindfully than what I used to. Um, and it and it's been years and years of martial arts, and only when I started studying and really expanding my awareness do I realize like, look at a child. If you look at a two-year-old child, I look at my boy, that guy's breathing deep belly breaths. They don't breathe up here into the chest, shallow breath. Look at a little baby. They're sitting, they're breathing into the belly, and they're like breathing so perfectly, like a little enlightened soul, until the world gets hold of us, and then we start breathing shallow and we forget to breathe. So it's something that I'd say gets conditioned out of us. But the moment we become aware of it, we can start reconditioning ourselves back to our natural state, back to our natural state, which is flow state. You know, people talk about flow state as if it's as if it's something to be achieved through micro-dosing and breath work. No, no, no. That's our natural state. When we let go of all the things that pull us out of that state, we enter it automatically by default because that's who we really are. Okay, so let's do this.

SPEAKER_02 39:17

Bad day. Yeah. Bad day of work, horrible day. My star, the the the my the people I work with all our souls. It's a bad day. Yeah. I'm on my way home, I need to reset. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:29

What do we do in the car? Okay, so so recognize that I labeled this day bad. Okay. Awareness. Always the first step. I I labeled this day bad. And according to the world standard or the collective standard, it looks like a bad day. But who's the who is creating that bad day in your reality? Only you, not the circumstances. Each of those circumstances were neutral, but they accumulated because I wasn't breathing through it. I was shallow breathing, I was judging, I wasn't aware of myself, my votions got better of me. So it is recognizing firstly, like, okay, somewhere I lost my balance and I never got back on. I never got back into flow state, into my natural state. Now you're in the car. Now you've already lost so much momentum. You like want to go drink or take your meds or get whatever floats your boat, right? But you're let's let's say you're in the car, you had a bad day, right? Now you're in your car, there's nothing to distract you. What makes you feel good? Maybe it's a good piece of music. Maybe there's a particular piece of music like put that on. Do what makes you feel good. Breathe deeply. It's always gonna come back. If you think of yourself, Jacques, what's your favorite holiday destination? Mauritius. You're in Mauritius, you're on the beach. Are you sitting on that beach in anxiety and shallow breathing, or are you breathing deeply? Right? When you're relaxed, you're typically breathing very softly, nice and deeply. So you want to learn that. And this and this is important, maybe the audience can take a lot from this. That we are not in control of what happens outside in the world, but we are in control of how we interpret it, how we frame it, and we're in control of our state, our emotional state. Now, there's three things that you can do instantly to change your state. Okay. The first one is your breathing, right? Notice, okay, I had a bad day. Change your breathing, your posture, and your facial expression. Now, if you sit with your shoulders hunched, which is the way I'm sitting. Yeah, yeah, yeah, 100%, and you're shallow breathing, and maybe you dip your chin a bit forward, and you try and access a state of joy or gratitude or bliss, it's gonna be very difficult. You're almost like a yeah. And I do this experiment with the kids that I teach in schools and with the teachers. Now I say to them, open up your shoulders, right? Smile, right? Take a deep breath in and try and feel bad. I want you to try and feel bad, Jacques. Try and think of the worst scenario you can without changing your posture, your breathing and your facial expression. And I want to let you know, let me know what happens instead. And I'd like your audience to try this as well. Open your shoulders, smile, breathe deeply, and then try and feel anxious or nervous or negative and tell me what happens instead.

SPEAKER_02 42:16

No, you can't. The smile's growing.

SPEAKER_00 42:18

It's impossible because here's something that I learned from a teacher in California, David Schneider. He said to me that your physiology overrides your psychology. So if you can take control of what your body position is, our bodies are like antennas. We are attracting signals from the environment, even thought, because our thoughts aren't in our head. Our thoughts, it's been proven through these electric, electromagnetic devices, Jodis Spenza. There's a lot of people who do these things that is not proven. Thoughts don't exist in our head. And how you carry your body determines the quality of thoughts you attract. So if you carry your body open, I mean, if you're in a victory pose like this, Jock, try and feel bad. I mean, you put your hands up in the air, your fists are pumping, you're smiling, you're breathing deeply. It's impossible. Yet people are walking around slouched, like the world is knocking them to their knees. But you can change that in a moment, in three seconds. Deep breath, big smile, open up your shoulders, and once again, that's like lifting weights. If you practice, like I said, put reminders on your phone, posture. Just posture. Posture, breath, smile. Eventually, you are training yourself into a different physiology. When you've trained yourself into a different physiology, the way you carry yourself, you've trained yourself into a different psychology because your physiology overrides your psychology. And all of a sudden, the world doesn't affect your mood anymore. All of a sudden, people start looking at you and like, dude, why are you always happy? Why are you always so energetic? Why isn't that bothering you? Because I've chosen, I've recognized that I'm in control of my state, and it doesn't make sense to be in a negative state of mind. So why do it? I love myself. Too much to carry negative emotions inside of this body. So that's all that's my motivation. Whenever I feel myself about to go into a negative, judgmental, uh, stressful state, I always remind myself that I'm worthy of all of God, of all of the universe's love. But for me to demonstrate that worth, I have to love myself enough to not carry these negative frequencies in the body. So it's a practice.

SPEAKER_02 44:27

Very interesting. I'm definitely going to practice that. Thank you. Amazing.

SPEAKER_00 44:30

So just tell us those three things again. So the physiology that overrides the psychology that you can do in any moment to change your state of being mentally and emotionally is your breath, your posture, and your facial expression. So what is the most empowering, joyful facial expression that you can have? It's always a smile. That's right. A nice deep breath, along with that, and a nice open posture, chest out, shoulders open and relaxed, and try that and try and feel bad and tell me what happens instead. And once again, it's just practice, practice, practice.

SPEAKER_02 45:05

And eventually it becomes an everyday part of your everyday life.

SPEAKER_00 45:08

100%. You do it for long enough. Eventually, it's not a practice anymore. It's just I'm now operating in my natural divine state, the way that the creation designed us to be. You look at a child, the child isn't anxious. A child isn't born anxious. A two-year-old isn't walking out with his head slouched unless you know you don't feed him. But in our natural state, we are meant to be dynamic, energetic, and joyful. But the world conditioned us to be otherwise.

SPEAKER_02 45:37

I feel like I shouldn't be going into my next couple of questions because I feel like I'm transgressing after this positivity. But there are people out there that are suffering. Of course. Um do you think suffering is necessary for growth? No.

SPEAKER_00 45:54

I'm going to say no.

unknown 45:55

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 45:56

Because growth is our natural state. If you look at a child, that child doesn't have to suffer to grow. But somewhere along the line, somewhere, someone wanted to sell something. No pain, no gain, right? We've all heard of it. So now you have to suffer to grow. Guess what you're going to attract throughout your life? If you want to be growing until the day you let out your last breath, do you think it's necessary to suffer for the rest of your life just so you can grow? It's madness. It's madness. But suffering can be a great catalyst for growth. It can be a great catalyst to open up your awareness and say, whoa, I don't want to suffer anymore. What can I do differently? Oh wow, I can breathe differently. I can carry myself differently. I can smile more. I can be more grateful. I can stop interpreting things the way the world told me to interpret it. And all of a sudden, suffering is no longer. If you look at the universe, you know, if you look at the whoever controls a telescope or even a microscope, the universe is always expanding. If you look at like the apparent, they're just discovering more and more stars. The universe is constantly expanding. If you look at a microscope and now into the quantum physics, they can just look deeper and deeper and deeper and they just discover more, and it's endless and it's infinite. That is our true nature. We are endless, we are infinite, we are always naturally expanding, and no, we do not need to suffer to grow. Is resilience built or are we born with it? I think both. I think some of us, you know, like genetically, because we do have our mom and our dad's DNA. So we can be born with a certain level of resilience, and this comes down to nature or nurture, but both play a part. We can uh be born with a certain level of resilience, and we can grow up very, very comfortably, very comfortably in our younger years. And then when we're faced with a difficult scenario, we might not be that resilient because we haven't had opportunities to practice it. Whereas a child might be born, you know, maybe not genetically too resilient, but they have lots of challenges, a lot of difficult scenarios that they face. Maybe they're going to sports, so they build that resilience. So resilience is something that um can be a natural part of you, but it can also be trained and conditioned, like anything else.

SPEAKER_02 48:16

You think we're us as human beings avoid discomfort in this modern life?

SPEAKER_00 48:20

Uh uh, I'm gonna speak for myself and for people I know and for people I see all over. Um, yes, people do tend um to avoid discomfort. Um, but I think discomfort is important. I s I think um discomfort is a natural part of growth. You know, like I said, a lot of people will cling to self-sabotage because it is what's comfortable and it's what they know, right? And it's that fear of discomfort, it's the fear of the unknown that can prevent people from changing in a positive way. So I think there is uh an inherent fear or or um resistance. Let me let me not use the word fear, it might not be fear, it might be a resistance to discomfort. Um, so yeah, I think there's a natural resistance to discomfort if you look at people. Um no one wants to typically um just start their day by jumping an ice bath. But if you understand that a little bit of discomfort can get your brain focused, it can wake you up, it can do some cool stuff to your nervous system. Um, yeah, I think once you once you condition yourself to understand that um discomfort can be a very positive thing. Because if you look at what is comfortable, it's comfortable to sit on a couch the whole day and watch movies. So that's not necessarily healthy. You know, it's I think it's not in our nature to be comfortable for long. You've made me think of my posture, yeah, the whole time. Very good. That's what it's about, Jock. And hopefully the listeners or someone watching, you know, can can literally just look at this podcast. And I promise you, that in itself will change your life. If you can stay aware of your posture, your breathing, and your facial expression throughout the day, send me a message tomorrow if you've practiced that and let me know how different that was from the day before.

SPEAKER_02 50:03

My wife's gonna be very happy. She always fights with me about my posture. Correct, and there's a reason for that. So you've dealt with many people. Okay?

SPEAKER_00 50:11

My fair share.

SPEAKER_02 50:12

What's one belief people hold that's actually holding them back?

SPEAKER_00 50:18

You're when we talk about beliefs, there can be so many. Um, but I think one of the big uh limiting uh beliefs that I see is a belief of unworthiness. I see uh a lot of people that I have worked with in the past uh at a very deep core level um believe somehow that they are unworthy, so they have to prove themselves, you know, in in certain ways, you know, so I they have to look a certain way, and some people do that in a very unhealthy way. Plastic surgery, you know, substances exactly, and I'm I'm and I'm not speaking against anything. Um, I'm just saying that a lot of that comes from a space of insecurity because of a belief that I am not worthy of the partner, the money, the life, the joy, the abundance, and everything. So I need to look or be or speak or um achieve in a certain way so that I can be worthy of all the love and abundance that uh creation has in store for me. So I think that's one of the biggest limitations, is a belief in unworthiness that I've seen.

SPEAKER_02 51:29

Back to the way we've labeled ourselves. Correct, correct. If someone feels stuck right now, what's the first thing they should do to change?

SPEAKER_00 51:39

Is become very aware of where you are and what you interpret as stuck because stuckness doesn't really exist in in the sense of reality. Labeling again it can be a feeling of not knowing what to do next that can create a feeling and a scenario of stuckness, but that that's not a reality because you can always think differently. But like I said, the first step is becoming hyper-aware. Because the moment you become hyper-aware of where you actually are and really look inside and outside, then you will realize that there's always resources, there's always people, there's always new ways of thinking. So stuckness isn't a reality, it's just an experience based on an interpretation. Like, oh, I'm so stuck. No, you're not. You you I felt stuck in the past, right? So, so which is why I can speak on this, and I've helped a lot of people through this. I felt stuck in the past, and then and then a friend or a partner or a girlfriend like would say, like, but have you thought of this? Oh, boom. No, I haven't. No, I'm not stuck anymore. Because I was just in a limiting mindset, I was just in this dark cloud of self-pity and unworthiness. So I felt stuck. So the stuckness doesn't really exist. And the first step is out of stuckness is awareness. Be really aware of where you are, because if you're not aware of where you are, you can never be or never get to where you want to go. So even if you know where you want to go, first be aware of where am I exactly? What am I feeling? How am I interpreting reality? Because that will tell you that I'm interpreting it in a way that makes me feel stuck, and it's not the truth, it's not the it's not the core of what's really happening.

SPEAKER_02 53:31

Last question. We strip all the labels away.

SPEAKER_00 53:35

Who are we really? Jacques, I think that's uh something that I'm discovering more and more of every day. Um I can't put a word to it, I can't give you an answer because that would in itself would be a limitation because I believe that we are limitless beings, we are infinite beings. I mean, there there are scriptures and sacred texts that allude to our limitlessness, to our eternal nature. Um, so to say that I am this um would be a limitation. So I don't want to limit the audience, I don't want to even limit you or myself by answering that question with a fact or a statement. I would say that I believe that we are limitless and what that looks like, I'm discovering in every moment, more and more, in every day, more and more, as I just become self-aware, because it's self-awareness that leads to knowledge of self.

SPEAKER_02 54:27

Do you believe someone, I know I said that was the last question, but you've brought another one to my mind. Do you believe someone can change their life in a few hours?

SPEAKER_00 54:37

Correct. 100%. 100%. If the desire is strong enough, right? So that desire might come from suffering and not wanting to suffer anymore, or that desire can come from a place of inspiration, seeing someone who's limit, who's living very freely, very limitlessly, very abundantly. So the inspiration and the desire must be strong enough. Because only when the desire is strong enough will the intention lead to follow through and consistency. So if you have that desire that I want to be there, I want to change my life so radically. And if you can get very clear on what that life will look like, and if you have the energy and the motivation to do what it needs, what needs to be done consistently in terms of self-awareness, in terms of training your mind to interpret reality in a way that is going to give you the change you want, 100%. So if you've got the desire, if it's strong enough and the willingness to follow through, you can do anything.

SPEAKER_02 55:34

And all of that you create yourself. Absolutely. Absolutely. No one, you don't have to wait for anyone to do it for you.

SPEAKER_00 55:40

Absolutely not. You can be inspired by those around you because we're not in this world alone. You can be supported by the people around you if you're willing and you believe you are worthy enough to ask, because that's again when people believe they are unworthy, they don't ask for help. And we live in a world full of amazing people with all the resources we could ever need to do whatever we want. Imagine Elon Musk trying to do it all alone. No, he just had a vision and he was able to articulate the vision and get people to believe in that vision. And now you've got SpaceX and Tesla and all of these things. So all you need is believe that I am worthy of all the support to bring this vision to life and have the desire to follow through. Charlie.

SPEAKER_02 56:20

Thank you. Where can people get hold of you if they want your services? Yeah. Tell us about all of that.

SPEAKER_00 56:26

Okay. Jacques, I'm all over social media. So find me, Charles Veyer. I'm on Facebook, I'm on Instagram, I'm quite active there. Not so active on LinkedIn, but I've got a website, um, www.charlesveer.co.za, where anyone can send me an email, um, connect with me if they feel that they they want some support or if they want me to come to a school or they want to come talk at your your business and and work with your team. Um, that's what I do.

SPEAKER_02 56:51

So anything to do with mental state, mind, mindset coaching, having a coach, etc., one-on-one coaching?

SPEAKER_00 56:57

Yeah. So I limit my I limit my one-on-one coaching um quite a bit these days because it's time consuming, it's energy consuming. So I work with a very select few individuals who are seriously committed about getting new results in their life. Um, and then yeah, I do keynote talks um at companies, at corporates, at schools, um, to inspire uh the masses.

SPEAKER_02 57:18

Cool. Guys, we can also connect you to Charlie. So reach out, DM us if you try to DM Charlie. Charlie, thank you for your time. This was amazing. We're out.