Chapter 27, -We are living inside a MATRIX - and I can prove it!

We are living inside a MATRIX - and I can prove it!

What if everything you believe is “real” is actually filtered, interpreted, and shaped by forces you’ve never questioned?

In this episode of Burn It Down and Begin Again, Erica takes you deep into one of the most thought-provoking conversations yet—challenging the very nature of reality, perception, and control. 

From neuroscience and physics to media, religion, and cultural systems, this episode explores a powerful idea: that we may be living inside a “matrix”—not in the sci-fi sense, but in a world shaped by programming, conditioning, and perception.

Erica breaks down:

•  How your brain constructs reality (and why it’s not as fixed as you think) 
•  The hidden systems influencing your thoughts, beliefs, and emotions 
•  Why perception—not reality itself—drives your experience of life 
•  How meaning, attention, and interpretation shape your past, present, and future 
•  The difference between living reactively vs. becoming a conscious creator 
•  How to step outside of fear, labels, and conditioning to reclaim your power 

This episode is also deeply personal, honoring a friend lost too soon, and serves as a reminder of how important it is to question what we’ve been handed—and choose how we live moving forward.

If you’ve ever felt like something about life doesn’t quite add up…
 If you’ve questioned the systems, the noise, or the pressure…
 If you’re ready to stop reacting and start seeing clearly…

This conversation will change the way you look at everything.

Because once you see it… you can’t unsee it.

And that’s where your power begins.

🌸 About Chickology™
Chickology™ is more than a podcast brand — it’s a collective of strong, real women telling real stories. Together, we’re reclaiming our narratives, breaking cycles, and lifting one another up through truth, laughter, and raw conversations. Every show under the Chickology™ umbrella is created by women, for women, with love.

✨ Join the Movement
We’re always looking for bold voices and powerful stories. If you’re a woman ready to share your truth or host your own podcast with us, reach out! One honest truth at a time, we’re helping one isolated woman at a time feel less alone.

📍 Find Us

• Explore all Chickology™ podcasts at [Buzzsprout Podcast Directory link or Chickology website]
• Email us at: ChickologyPodcasts@gmail.com
  
  

💫 Because when women rise together, we change the world.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

What if I told you that the world you think you're living in is not actually the world itself, but a version of it rendered by your brain? What if I told you that color is not real the way you think it is? Matter is mostly empty space, your body is both a receiver and a transmitter, your thoughts change your biology, and the meaning that you assign to your life literally changes the way you experience your past, present, and your future? What if I told you that you are part of a far bigger picture than you can possibly imagine, and you're far more important individually than you've been taught to believe? What if I told you that the choices that you make not only matter for just you, but for humanity as a whole, and how you fit into a collective consciousness that is actively evolving? The longer I live, the more convinced I am that we are living inside of a matrix, literally, socially, politically, biologically, perceptually, and spiritually. And if you don't understand that, then you're going to spend your entire life reacting to programming that was handed to you by fear, trauma, the media, religion, guilt, politics, and other people's limitations. If you begin to understand the part you play and how it works, then everything changes because then you stop being a victim of reality and you start becoming a conscious creator inside of it. Today on Burn It Down and Begin Again, we are going to tackle the age-old question: what does it all mean? What's my part in it? And I'm going to prove to you that you are living inside a matrix. We all are. Welcome to Burn It Down and Begin Again, because sometimes the only way out is through the fire. I'm Erica, and this is my story told one chapter at a time. Not to relive the pain, but to reclaim the power that was buried beneath it. I share it boldly because I know I'm not the only one. Too many of us carry stories like mine of trauma, silence, survival, and shame alone. But healing isn't just about surviving what hurt us. It's about becoming the people we were meant to be, how we can transform pain into purpose and rebuild life on our own terms to show what is possible when we rise to the strongest version of ourselves. If you hear yourself in my words, know this. You're not crazy, you're not broken, and you're definitely not alone. This podcast is part of Chicology. Real women, real stories, and real transformation. We're here to break cycles, rise higher, and create lives that radiate power, purpose, and passion. So if you've walked through hell and you're ready to grow, evolve, and rebuild, then stay with me. There's hope here, there's healing here, and there's an army of us rising with you. Now, let's begin. Hi guys, welcome to Burn It Down and Begin Again. Most people are not living their lives. They are reacting to programming. They are reacting to headlines, to politics, to fear, old wounds, to guilt and to trauma, to whatever noise is loud enough to hijack their nervous system for the day. And if you stay in that state long enough, you start to believe that that is reality. You begin to believe that the world is actually happening to you, and you start to see that you're a victim of circumstances, or at least you believe that. You start to believe that your thoughts are facts, you start to believe that feelings are prophecy, and you start to believe that the past is fixed, the future is scary, and the present is something that we just have to survive. But I do not believe that anymore. I really don't. I believe that we are literally living inside a matrix. And today I'm going to open up a big can of worms, and I hope it's still with me because I am going to challenge some ideas that you may have and give you some pretty big things to think about. But first, I'd like to thank you genuinely for being here with me today and being a part of this growing community of people. But we are here to learn to live lives that exceed any expectations that we ever thought what our lives could be. We understand that things don't happen overnight, but they do come through a series of conversations with our inner selves and like-minded people that will help us to grow and shape new inner dialogues that allow us to transcend what we thought we were capable of, where we can become better human beings, better parents, better members of society, that matrix, and the lives that we were born into. And most importantly, heroes to ourselves, recreating a life that matters, that impacts those around us, a life that is full of joy and hope and fulfillment. And it is my goal to be a voice to anybody that is struggling out there, doesn't even know what any of those things could possibly look like in their lives. You are not alone. And recreation of a beautiful life is possible if you take the stapes to get there. So let's do it together. So rather than do my usual, before I get into this huge topic, I want to dedicate this episode to a very dear friend of mine who would have been 56 today. And her name was March Malilly, and she passed away at the age of 50 in October of 2020 at the height of COVID. She died alone and she died afraid. She died believing that life wasn't worth living anymore. And she took her own life. She had struggled with addiction, she had struggled with depression. But sadly, she had been handed a life that was full of a lot of trauma. And she did her best to deal with that. She was such a beautiful person. And I met March. It was, I think it was in seventh grade, actually, it was. And she was the new girl that showed up. And I was already established in this middle school, even though I moved around a lot. And I saw this beautiful girl walking into the lunch area. We all sat out in this covered area outdoors, and she was literally wearing a pillowcase. Now, you gotta understand this was back in the 80s, and you know, we did some crazy things, but she was wearing a pillowcase, like with a head hole cut out for her head and her arms, and it wasn't even fashioned particularly well. And she had a like a rope tied around her or middle, kind of a nice sparkly rope. And I thought, wow, first of all, that's crazy, and that's really brave. And I remember all the kids around me snickering, and you know, she was looking for that, you know, that look for a place to sit. And I stood up and I'm like, hey, you know, come over. Why don't you come here and sit with us? And we were best friends from that day on. We were thickest thieves, and we, gosh, had so many incredible adventures together. And when I moved to Lake Arrowhead, she ended up moving to Big Bear and she wasn't that far away, and we hung out all the way through high school. And after high school, I spent a lot of time with her in her home in Hollywood. And March was a musician. She played the guitar and the piano, and she loved to sing, and she loved to write things, and she was very, very deep. She talked a lot about not feeling a part of the world, and she was different. She really marched to the beat of a different drum in a good way. She was so unique, so much her own person, such a light. She had such an amazing laugh. March ended up having in her 40s a little girl and loved that little girl. And that little girl was her life. Due to a series of events that had to do with her struggling with prescription drugs, she ended up losing custody of her little girl. And I it would not have been forever, but she didn't see it that way. And she died alone in an apartment where she thought that the government was coming to get her. She had kind of lost her mind because of the drugs and everything else. And she died wrapped up in grief, believing that she wasn't worth anything. And she and I had sadly lost contact. And how that happened was uh I had been struggling the last time I saw her, had been about two years before her death. And she was struggling with her addiction, and I was struggling with mine. And I made a decision that I had to break contact with her until she got her drugs under control and I got my alcohol under control because together we were going nowhere good. And we we did, we kind of lost contact. I did try and reach out to her, not that long after we lost contact, but her Facebook had gone silent, she wasn't on there anymore, and the last things that had been posted just didn't make any sense. And I you tried her number and it wasn't available anymore. And I just lost contact with her. And I never thought for a million in a million years that she was gone. And it was last year that I was at work, and it was this happens to me all the time, very random. And I was uh vacuuming the floor at work, and I had this thought pop into my head very, very strongly, and I always listened to my intuition. She popped into my head and it said, check the California obituaries. And I don't know if that was her or what that was talking to me, but I immediately did it. And man, there she was right there on Google, and she she had died five years previously in the height of COVID. And I was shocked, needless to say. But, you know, I did go on to talk to some people that knew a little bit more about it, although she wasn't in contact with anybody when she finally passed away and took her own life. She had gone into, you know, a really deep dark place. So I want to dedicate this episode to her today because she really thought outside the box. She was that girl. She thought all of these things that we're going to talk about today from a very early age, actually. But I want to mostly remember her as somebody that was full of light and love and laughter. And I am sorry that I failed you, my friend, that I wasn't able to be there for you due to circumstance and everything that happened. I believe everything happens for a reason, but I think of you every day. I really do. And I am always wishing that you're with my mom and that she's looking out for you. And I love you. So this is dedicated to March. But at any rate, let's get on to today's episode. I want to talk about this huge, complex topic of why I truly believe literally the world that we are experiencing is a matrix, a controlled simulation, much like a video game, you being the avatar and what that actually means. So stay with me because it is my goal today to not make it some abstract concept that you see on social media. But when you walk away listening to this kind of big, kind of heavy episode, you are going to understand exactly what I'm talking about. And I got to tell you, this whole podcast, of course, is dedicated to becoming, getting out of the mire of our former lives and recreation. And part of that really is what I'm sharing today, because I don't think we can do those things, guys, unless we are willing to step up and question everything around us. Because if we don't question what's around us, we are living in fear. We are being cowards, right? We have to question everything that we've been handed and examine it and examine our role in that and examine things as a whole. If we don't do that, then we're going to live our entire lives enslaved by a system that is designed to enslave us. The deeper that I go into biology and neuroscience and memory, emotion, physics, all of these different things that I study, the more obvious it becomes to me that what we call reality is not solid or straightforward as we're taught. And the more that I see that we can choose to focus on things, and what we choose to focus on changes everything. And once we begin to understand that, life starts to look different because you realize the battle is not out there. It is within. It is a battle over your attention, over your interpretation, over your inner state of being, the meaning that you assign to your life. And once we really grasp that, that is where our power lies, right? I have always been a very big thinker. I am one of those people that I do think about everything a lot. And I question everything. I have always been that guy that questions absolutely everything. And when my kids were growing up, my ex-husband used to get angry with me because I would explain to them, why can't I spend the night at Susie's? And I would say, Well, you know, the truth is I don't know Susie's mother very well. And she seems a little strange to me. And I don't feel comfortable you being in a household with people that adults that are managing you for 12 hours. I don't know what's happening to you. So let's have Susie over here, you know, I'm gonna work with you kind of thing, or whatever. That's just an example. And he used to, I used to do that with everything when my kids would ask why. I thought that was a very natural question because I ask why all the time and always have. And I wanted my kids to have the answers, and I didn't want them to feel like because I said so, and that's why, you know, and that's what most parents do. And I think that's a mistake when we're raising our kids because that just makes them angry, right? As human beings, we do want to understand the reason for things. That's part of our nature, right? So, that being said, I question absolutely everything. And one of the big things that I have started to question in my journey through my life is everything that I have been taught. Okay. There are real forces in this world that benefit from us being distracted, overwhelmed, emotionally triggered, spiritually disconnected, and completely unaware of our own power. Most people are not living from truth. They are living straight out of programming. The reason that so many people feel depressed and hopeless and anxious and stuck is because they are seeing life through a filter that they did not choose. It was handed to them and they just blindly accepted it. You know, once upon a time in the little story of my life, there was a version of me that woke up every day believing that life was happening to me. My marriage had catastrophically fallen apart, and I was in a desperate battle with addiction and depression. And no matter how hard I fought, I just could not seem to dig my way out of it. And that's never been me. I'm a person that can do anything, right? But my my life literally felt over. And I did have a life-altering moment, and I've shared that in previous episodes. But somehow after that moment, I was given a gift and I was able to climb my way out of this place of total despair, and I made a shift. And I started reading books by people like Bruce Lipton and Joe Dispenza, I've mentioned them many times in my podcast, and a variety of other authors that suggested that we actually shape our reality and therefore shape what happens to us and that we can change our lives. And the more that I looked at what they were suggesting, and it made perfect sense, I began to believe this on a very, very deep level. And I began to notice patterns. And I began to see the patterns not only in myself, but in the world around me and society as a whole. And then I began to draw lines between events and outcomes outside of me and within me. I begin to understand that the world outside of me was always going to be noisy, but the real battle was over what I allowed into my inner world. I begin to understand that perception does shape emotion. Emotion shapes biology. Biology shapes behavior, and behavior shapes the life that we end up living, plain and simple. Science, memory, perception, biology, and spirituality all is pointing in a shared direction. Much of life consists of distraction and noise. What matters is how individuals filter and apply their attention. By stepping outside of systems that shape behavior and viewing life from a broader perspective, it you know, it really does become possible to examine consciousness, its role in physical reality, and how it's shaped intentionally in our everyday life. And it can be shaped. This shift allows for a renewed sense of perspective or one that embraces uncertainty while recognizing the individual's role in influencing the world and stepping into personal power as a conscious spiritual being. Now, this perspective also supports the idea that reality may function as a form of simulation. And I really do believe that. Just take a look at quantum physics and then look at quantum mechanics, right? It is pointing towards this very suggestion, right? Life is a form of simulation with systems that fall into place that limit the awareness of our true nature and our true potential, our true spiritual being. So the goal is to distill this complex concept into something that is practical, enabling individuals to apply it in their own lives and view the world beyond this conventional narrative that we have. Reality in this view is a blend of the simulation itself and our interpretation of living it, right? Learning to exist within both, engaging the world while remaining distinct from it, it is challenging, but it becomes more attainable over time, allowing both perspectives to coexist with clarity and balance within us. I want to start with what Hollywood has been trying to tell us. Across decades of film, there has been a consistent narrative of human beings confronting systems of control, often without realizing that they are inside of them when they start out on their journey. Let's take a look at some of these movies. And I actually want you to write this list down and after we have this conversation, go back and watch them again through a new lens. Okay, not just as entertainment, but as a form of instruction. Marble's Doctor Strange. Yes, Marvel. A neurosurgeon discovers that reality is not fixed and that untapped consciousness can reshape it. Power exists, but most are never able to access it. The Matrix, one of my favorites. Humanity is living inside the simulated reality and unaware that they are being controlled, believing what they see is real, and more than that, choosing that red pill over the blue pill. Or is it the other way around? I'm not sure. Because they don't want to see reality because it's just too jarring and impossible to believe that this has really happened to them, right? Star Wars, that's another great one. The whole series, a dominant empire grows, and there is a small resistance that fights to break free and does so. The Hunger Games, another great one, which is a divided, distracted, dystopian society that's controlled through fear and scarcity, and they're broke up into, you know, different districts, and they have to perform in this spectacle as punishment until the individuals finally realize they have the power to break free. And as a group of individuals, they are far more powerful than the government that's been instilled, right? These themes repeat again and again and again and again. I mean, I'm just naming a few, right? Because they resonate. Somewhere deep inside of us, we know that we're living in this very same thing, different storylines, same thing. And audiences consistently gravitord towards stories like this, control and awakening and resistance, but the narratives play out on screen and they're familiar patterns in real life, they just go unexamined. For most people, daily routines and constant distraction and the demands of life today, it leaves little energy to question the larger systems in place unless we consciously decide to do so. And the result is a paradox. People are drawn to stories without breaking free, remaining deeply embedded in their own structures and therefore getting lost in life. So I want to talk about one particular movie that I think really needs to be looked at again. And it wasn't as popular as the others, but it was still pretty popular. It came from a popular book series, and it was called Divergent. So to me, this is the most clear vision of what is happening right now. So let me set the stage, right? It's set in a post-apocalyptic society in Chicago, and the remaining population of Earth, okay, or whatever they think is left of Earth, lives inside the city and it's completely been walled. They believe that this is all that is remaining of civil civilization. And how they've organized themselves, the structure that they've set up, is society is divided into five factions, each representing a single identity or a group of people that have a shared identity. So you have abnegation, who are the servers. They're selfless, they help people, that is what they do. Dauntless, they're the police section, they're brave and they, you know, they go out there, they're the ones that take the chances and do the hard things. You've got Ariodite, they are the intelligence and the leadership and therefore the government. You've got Candor, who assists the Ariadite, but they are the law and the truth. That's what they represent. And then you have Amnity, who are the agriculture guys. They're peace and love, think hippies, they're growing the food and they everybody loves each other, right? So as they get to adulthood at 18, individuals in this society undergo a simulation-based test to determine where they belong. They can choose the faction of origin, or if a different faction is suggested, they can choose that. But once chosen, family ties are permanently severed if they leave their faction and identity becomes fixed within the faction that they choose. So the system defines both role and belonging. So you leave your family and you say goodbye to them if you leave your faction forever. You might see them, you know, somewhere, but the these groups are really kept separate. And you become a new member of this new family, which is your faction. So the central figure, Triss, she does not align. Oh, and I forgot to tell you, there's a sixth group, which is important, who are the factionless. These are the guys that don't fit anywhere. So think homeless people. That's how they're portrayed in the movie, right? They're just floating out there in horrible clothes, no place to go, living on the fringe, you know, living on charity, that kind of thing, right? So back to Triss. She does not align with a sin-the-goal category. She goes in for the test, she grows up in abnegation, and she takes this test. And the woman that gives her the test says, Look, I got to tell you, this test didn't work on you. You are a multiple factioned person, and they call this divergent. And this is a very dangerous thing to be because it means that you can't be categorized and you can't be controlled. And if they find out, they're gonna kill you. So I'm just gonna put down that you, you know, are the faction of origin, abnegation. Don't tell anybody, don't tell anybody about this. And poor Triss is left thinking, what the heck, right? So as the story progresses, uh, she ends up choosing a faction, and she does not choose her faction of origin. She chooses to be dauntless. And through this journey in this, you know, play. Society, she begins to realize that there is a system in place and it reveals its true nature, right? Leadership factions manipulate society through fear and division, most importantly, and keeping everybody separate and biological chemical control. And there's a serum that's introduced that overrides free will, turning entire groups into obedient instruments. That's the whole governing power. That's what they want to do. So those who believe that they are acting freely are in reality executing a controlled agenda set forth by the powers that be. So when the boundary is finally crossed and, you know, they they have the big thing and they fight and they win and you know everybody is great, then they move beyond the city walls. And beyond the city walls, by the way, because inside is like all nice and green, right? Is just this wasteland of nuclear destruction. And they think that's all there is, but they discover that once they move past the boundary of the wasteland, which is a few miles, and they get through that, that the world has gone on. And they understand that that enclosed society is not the last remnant of humanity, but they were just a controlled experiment. So the powers that be outside fed them a story and said, this is reality. They believed it, and the population has actually been observed and studied and manipulated by these outside forces to see what they would do, how humans would react under division, labeling, and restricted perception. This is the story. Does any of that sound familiar? The most significant barrier was never physical, it was belief, you guys, the assumption that the constructed world around them was the only reality. So this framework mirrors recognizable elements of modern life: identity, labels, social divisions, algorithm-driven information, and constant emotional stimulation that basically divide us left, right, black, white, republican, democrat. I could go on and on, Catholic, Christian, Buddhist. These are all divisional things that were created by man. The central implication is direct. Control does not require visible restraint. It can operate through identity, information, and perception itself. That's the matrix we're living in. Those who break free from the system share common traits. They question assumptions, they resist rigid categorization, they step outside of prescribed narratives, and in the film, they're called divergent. And I like to think of myself very much as a divergent. The concept extends beyond fiction. It's the ability to question and observe independently, to define oneself outside of external frameworks that represents a form of autonomy. And without that awareness, individuals remain shaped by systems that they never see. So the first crack in the matrix is perception. Science is starting to point in one clear direction. You are not just observing reality, you are constructing your experience of it. Your brain takes in sensory inputs and turns it into something meaningful. Your body runs on electromagnetic signals, and your heart generates a measurable field. Matter itself is mostly empty space. Memory shifts over time. Observation can influence outcomes. It can. It can change outcomes. Meaning shapes perception, and perception shapes your life. So reality is not just what's out there, it's what your system, your internal compass, builds in it. So let's make this simple. Let's just look at your lawn, okay? The grass is green, you say, and that feels like a fact. It feels fixed. But what's actually happening is this light hits the grass, certain wavelengths are reflected. This is scientifically, right? Your eyes convert that light into electrical signals, and your brain creates the experience and you call it green. Where did that word even come from? But that's what we call it. We call it green. Now let's bring a dog into it. Dogs don't see color in the same spectrum. Humans have three types of color receptors in their eyes. Dogs have fewer. So what you experience is green, the dog actually experiences is something closer to yellow or beige. So which is true? Is the grass green or is it beige? It depends on the observer. That's really important. That matters a lot because if something as basic as color is interpretation, then what else in your life are you actually treating as absolute reality? And is that a filtered experience? And the answer is yes, it is a filtered experience. Of course it is. Let's take it further. Everything you've been taught, beliefs, identity, politics, religion, it all runs on that same perceptual filter. What feels true often feels that way because it's familiar, repeated, learned, and reinforced. Not necessarily because it's objective. It's not objective. It never is. Perception shapes preference. Preference shapes reaction. Reaction shapes behavior, and behavior just simply shapes your life. On a larger scale, it shapes society. There's a concept in neuroscience called predictive processing, which means your brain is constantly making its best guess about what's happening around you and then adjusting that guess with incoming information. So, in plain terms, your brain is trying to finish the sentence before the world finishes speaking. It happens with everything that we do. What you expect to see changes depending on what you notice. And what you notice reinforces what you would expect, and that is a very powerful loop. And it's not just happening individually, like I said, it's system-based. The world around us, media, algorithms, social environments, even cultural narratives feed into the same loop. They influence what people focus on, what they fear, what they believe is true or normal, or what they are told that they should believe. And there are powers at B that are manipulating us through these systems consciously, and we are unconsciously falling victim to it. And the result is a population that is overwhelmed, reactive, and divided. And that's the way they want us. Whoever they are, I'm not so sure who they are. Illuminati, the big seven, I don't know who's running the world, not sure. But it is not necessarily because people are incapable of clarity. It's because their perception is constantly being shaped for them. And that sits on top of real life jobs, families, responsibilities, stress, right? So we've got all of those things with all of these other factors coming in. We are too exhausted to really decipher what is the truth most of the time. So people are not just navigating reality, they're navigating a version of reality that's constantly being filtered for them, influenced, and constantly updated. And it's no wonder, guys, that we are so tired. Once you see that perception is not neutral, you gain leverage within yourself. You can question what you're taking in and you can adjust what you focus on, right? You can decide what meaning you assign to things because you get to decide. You get to decide, just you. That doesn't remove you from the world, but it does give you a clearer way to move through it. And that's where things can start to change. So let's bring this back to science and let's talk about what it means to you because sometimes when we hear about conceptual stuff, we can't draw the line between what it means in a lab versus what it means to us. So here's a famous one: the double slit experiment. Here's the idea simplified. Scientists fired photons, little particles of light, through a barrier, into two slits. If they behaved like particles, you'd expect two clean lines on the wall behind it, right? But that's not what happened. When the experiment was not being observed or not being recorded, these photons acted like waves. The scientists couldn't understand this. They spread out and created this ripple pattern as if they were moving through both slits at once and creating this wave pattern on the wall behind. But the moment that the science went through so they could measure it or measure this wave behavior, the behavior changed. All of a sudden the photons started acting like particles. They chose a single path and the wave pattern disappeared. Same setup, same photons. The only variable they determined was the observation. So, you guys, that is such a huge thing. Here's the key idea. Before observation, the photon exists in multiple possibilities. And after observation, it resolves into one outcome. Now let's apply that to life. In your life, most situations start as a possibility. So as an event happens, before you define it, it is open. It could mean growth or loss or redirection or happiness or sadness, opportunity, you don't know. Multiple interpretations can exist at once. The moment that you label it, this is bad, this ruined me, this is unfair, whatever, you collapse those possibilities into a single outcome. Just like the photon crossing that path, observation in physics determines behavior. Interpretation in life determines experience, right? You are constantly doing this. You observe something, you assign it meaning, right? And then that meaning shapes your emotional response. That emotional response shapes your actions, and your actions shape your results. So the collapse isn't happening to particles in your life, it's actually happening to the meaning. And most of it just happens automatically. So let's look at atoms and molecules. At a molecular level, nothing is actually solid. If you scaled an atom to the size of a football field, say you blew it up, the nucleus would be like a marble in the center. The rest is mostly empty space. And the little things flying around the outside, like the little uh Harry Potter patronuses, they would be in the stadium, okay? But everything else, guys, is empty space. But your brain interprets everything that we see as solid, stable, real, but it's not. We are mostly atoms are 99.9% empty space. That's a real number. So again, what you experience is not the raw data, not the raw structure. It is your brain's interpretation of it. Now let's bring in time and memory into this. There's a theory, I think it's called the block theory, that time is not fixed, that past, present, and future all exist at once and we're simply moving through them. Memory is not fixed. So each time you remember something, you're updating it. You're not pulling back a perfect record. You are rewriting it based on who you are now. Your interpretation. Do you see the pattern here? So your past is not just something that happened to you once and you remember it the same every single time. It is constantly reshaped based on who you are now. And as experience happened at the time, it feels painful, defining, and permanent. But maybe later, with distance or a shift a shift in perspective, that same experience can take on a different meaning. Maybe it becomes a lesson or a turning point or a catalyst for growth. The event did not change, your interpretation did. And that changes how it lives inside of you. So when you connect all of this, let's connect it. The double sled experiment shows that outcomes are not fixed until observed. Your life shows that meaning is not fixed until interpreted. Atomic structure shows that what feels and looks solid is mostly empty space, but it's not. Memory shows us that the past is not static, it's updated constantly. So that pattern is consistent. You are not interacting with reality in a purely objective way. You're interacting with your interpretation of it. That's where your influence is. You do not control every event, but you do play a direct role in what that event becomes for you. You can leave things open longer. You can question your first interpretation. You get to choose, guys. You choose a meaning that strengthens you instead of limits you if that is your choice, or you can do it the other way around. That is not abstract, that is functional because the systems around you are still shaping perception at scale, right? Think about it media, algorithms, social structures, cultural narratives. They influence what people see and what they focus on and what they believe is true, or whatever is the hot topic of the moment, and we all start paying attention to that, which means that the real shift is not everything that feels like reality is fixed. Some of this is simply the result of where your attention went and the meaning that you assigned to it. And once you see that, you start to move differently through the world. That means that we can control what filters into us and the meaning we assign to it, and that is powerful. Now, I couldn't do this without talking about some biggies, and I'm gonna start with God and religion and control. I don't want to alienate anybody, but I'm gonna speak frankly. You can't separate this conversation without talking about God and religion. So let's first of all say I do 100% believe in a higher power, if you will. I believe in a higher entity, I believe in a higher consciousness. That's how I describe it. I believe that we are connected to it, that we are part of it, and we are actively interacting with it, whether we understand it or not. I pray, I meditate, I reflect, I try to align with something greater than myself because I know that it's there and I know that it's in me, and I can communicate and be a part of that system if I choose to. What I do not follow is organized religion. And I'm even gonna say I outgrew it just for me, right? I know that's not gonna sit well with everyone. So let me be clear. I am not trying to change anybody's beliefs. If your faith brings you comfort, structure, and meaning, there is value in that. Everything we're talking about here ultimately comes down to the meaning that we assign to things, guys, right? So if your religion brings you comfort and you believe in it, that's great. But it is also a fact that religion has been a major driver of division and conflict throughout history, often used as a tool to control and manipulate people. Not because the idea of God is flawed, but because people, right? People take hold of systems and do what they will and start controlling other people. Religion has followed a very consistent pattern over time. It begins as a way to connect with other people and to something higher than ourselves, to something beyond us, right? And then it becomes structured because of people. Then it becomes hierarchical and eventually it becomes a system that can control behavior at scale. That pattern is not unique to religion, it is human nature. Human beings are wired to be in groups. That's survival, that's how we survived. Early humans lived and survived in tribes or groups where they hunted together and slept together, all of this for protection because belonging meant protection, food, and safety. That instinct is still embedded in our DNA. But the thing is, once we form groups, something else happens. We create subgroups, we divide, and we assign moles. That just happens. And eventually we try and control. A really great model of this is the book that we probably all read in middle school, but I've read several times because it is so deeply profound about human nature, which is I highly recommend reading it. It is The Lord of the Flies by William Golding, an amazing book. A group of boys essentially are shipwrecked and stranded on an isolated island, and there's no adult authority at all. It's just them. And at first they just attempt to survive, to organize and create some kind of order, but then factions form and then fear escalates, power concentrates, control replaces cooperation, and it becomes so extreme that the boys turn on each other and killing those who don't fit into the structure that they've created, right? That is not exaggeration, guys. That is the story of the human race. That is, human nature is stripped down. We organize, we categorize, we ostracize, and we condemn. And at the same time, we're also capable of this deep, wonderful connection and compassion and love and emotion. And that's the paradox, because both exist in us simultaneously. And without awareness, the destructive side of human nature very quickly takes over. That's why, guys, what we pay attention to is what becomes focal, right? And what we can change. That is why it is important we look at these things. But you can see how it scales. Small groups of people coming together in faith, supporting each other, sharing values. That's one thing. These small churches where people get together in small communities, you know, on Sundays and they have potluck and whatever, and they just get together to pray and to sing and to be together. That is positive and grounding, right? But is when systems expand, that's when power concentrates. And what do they say? Absolute power corrupts absolutely, right? That is when human nature shifts towards control. No external force is required, it just emerges naturally. So, religion in many cases has followed that exact arc, unfortunately. What began as good became something that controlled and killed a lot of people. What started as a way to understand and connect to the creator and the universe became this structured thing with rules and authority and compliance. And over time, it introduces fear-based frameworks. Follow this or be punished. Do this, or you're going to go to hell. Believe this or be excluded, live this way or suffer. And, you know, I got to bring in a personal story here. At one point in my life when I was struggling with addiction and depression, as we often do as human beings, we go back to our religion of origin because that's a powerful thing. The constructs were taught as kids. And my parents were Christian, and I grew up in the church, and I decided that I was going to join this church. And I went to the church and I really liked it. They had great music and I liked the pastor. He was kind of flashy and cool. And it felt kind of like a show. And you know, you there's a lot of these big churches. Does that sound familiar that are popping up? And I felt, even though it was huge and so many people went, I decided that I was going to join this church. And uh it wasn't small, it didn't feel super connected. They had small groups you could join and all that, but I was gonna join and I was gonna throw myself in and I was going to change my life, right, with religion. And so I really, really tried, guys, to throw myself into that. But the whole time I was there, I couldn't help but looking around me and I would see these people, and it reminded me of my childhood, right? These people with their hands thrown in the air, wrapped up, you know, rapturously communicating with God while the music was on, eyes closed, swaying back and forth like this mass hypnosis, right? And I was taken back to my childhood where I would remember that my parents were gospel singers, okay? So I grew up in the business of church, not just in church, right? And I saw behind the scenes, and I got to tell you guys, as is the story with so many of these corrupt pastors that you see, you know, on the big television screens and stuff like that. It's small scale too. I saw these pastors that would get power hungry, and you know, I'd hear the dialogue with my parents who were involved with these churches because they would sing and they'd get involved with these churches, and I would see them cheating on their wives, and you'd hear stories, and I this was all being filtered to me as a kid. And I realized when I was a kid, wow, this is a bunch of bullshit. You know, these guys that are getting up pretending that they're perfect, they're not perfect. Now, again, this is not a statement about believing in God because that again, we're we gotta separate people from God, but it's something that I recognized at any rate when I went to the church, and I thought, God, this feels like that all over again. But no, no, I stayed and I tried. And I went to go join the church. And I think I was the third class in, and they did this after church on Sunday, you'd go to this class, so you could become an official member of the church, and the classes were like an hour long, and they would people that went to the church would pastors, they had a lot of pastors, would give the classes. So on the third class, the guy, and I'm kind of paraphrasing, but it essentially went like this. Now I'm sorry, he said to us, if you have friends that are Buddhist or Mormon, or if you have friends that are gay, I'm sorry, you guys, but they're going to go to hell. That this is just a fact you have to accept because they do not follow the one true God. And at that moment, I literally stood up and I walked out of the class and I never went back to church. And I was just like, oh my God, that that I this is wrong. This doesn't feel right. This is not right. This is not right. This is not right. Only later, going through all of these different things, was I able to connect the dots and come up with what I believe in. Okay, so that's my little personal story, but I'm sure you can understand that, right? So that brings us to one of the biggest points of all with religion, which is the concept of heaven and hell as it's often presented. And it does not make sense to me. The idea that your entire existence comes down to following a specific set of rules written and interpreted by human beings with the consequence of eternal punishment if you don't comply. That doesn't align. That sounds like everything that we're being told today by the government and everything else, right? It doesn't mean that there's no consequences for behavior, because there are, but I see that differently. Not like it's a punishment from an external authority that's sitting up in the sky throwing lightning bolts down at us, but it's a natural outcome of cause and effect. If you do something, there's a result. If you live a certain way, it produces a pattern, right? I guess that's closer to what people call karma. And I guess I do kind of believe in karma, not in the Buddhist sense necessarily, but I have seen repeatedly throughout my life the pattern that what you reap, you shall sow. And that is out of the Bible. And I think that's a the shame, is because a lot of great, great stuff has come out of the Bible. There's so many things that I align with, but I think unfortunately, and that's a whole other subject, that the Bible has been manipulated and rewritten and restructured by man as a divisive form of control, right? So we we all know this. So if you consistently act in destructive ways, guys, it's going to catch up with you. But if you live with integrity, you tend to create a better outcome for your life over time. We do not need to be beholden to a giant power, unseen entity in the sky with the possibility of damnation to have the incentive to live a good life, you guys. That is. Ridiculous, okay. I mean, really, it I'm sorry, in my opinion, it is. There are a lot of ideas that show up in ancient teachings, including the Kabalium. And that's one of the things that I read that truly opened my eyes. Again, you have to read about the Hermetic principles. So this book was not only enlightening, but it really, you know, when something speaks to you on a level that you understand it in your soul, and you're like, this is it, right? Everything that I didn't get from religion, I I found in this book. And it is based on Hermetic philosophy, and it's often attributed to uh Hermes, and I think his name was Trimeg Trimegetus, something like that. But it outlines seven core principles that describe how reality operates, and it makes sense. There's mentalism, everything begins in the mind, correspondence, as above, so below, so within, so without, vibration, everything in motion, polarity, everything has dual aspects, rhythm, everything flows in cycles, think nature. Cause and effect, every action has a result. Creation exists through a balance of forces, as above, so below, so within, so without. So basically, your inner world reflects outward. Your actions create consequences, your patterns produce outcomes, not because something is punishing you, because that's how the world works. That's how the system works. And another important piece in this is that human beings need stories, guys. So all of these things that we're talking about, a lot of this is based in the need for stories. We are wired to understand the world through a narrative. That's why religious texts, including the Bible, are written as stories, because we align with that as human beings. It's information that becomes meaningful. It's something we can remember these stories and they have a lesson in them. It's also why we connect so strongly to movies, guys. Stories organize complexity into something that we can follow, a story that we can understand. We disguise it as entertainment, but really they're giving us messages. But over time, stories become systems. And when those systems stop being questioned, they become tools for control and they get changed little by little over time to be used by certain forces for control. And that's where belief turns into programming. And religion, historically, has been one of the most powerful ways to shape belief at scale because they put the fear of God into you, as they say, and tell you you're gonna burn in a pit of hell if you don't align. It doesn't mean there's no truth in these stories. Like I said, the stories as parables themselves are incredible. I mean, you can go back to some of these parables, and if you just break it down, you don't have to be overly smart to figure out what they're trying to tell you in these stories. There is truth in it. There are consistent themes of connection, responsibility. Uh, there is a higher power, a moral compass. Layered on top of these systems, they they get shaped with human behavior, our interpretation, the authority complex that's running it, and it boils down to control. And that's the part that I just don't follow. I don't believe in a distant, omnipotent, judgmental figure in the sky deciding who is worthy and who is not. I don't believe that. I believe that we are connected to something greater. My God is greater than that. Okay. I do believe in good and evil, and I do believe that there are forces out there, and I can't describe that. And again, that would be a whole nether podcast. That's really philosophical, right? What is good and what is evil? And those forces exist and they pull us in polarity. And I believe that those forces influence human behavior and direction. And I'm not even suggesting, guys, that there isn't a spiritual battle taking place. I'm not saying that. I think there is. I think that there is a spiritual battle taking place between good and evil on a level that we cannot understand. And as human beings, we have the choice, just like the Bible tells us, to choose. That's what I'm asking you to do today, to choose. You can see everything I'm telling you by just looking at the world, you know, but I don't believe that the framework that we've been given fully explains it. I think it's been filtered. I don't think that answers to the problems that we face are found in rigid systems created by man that limit how people are allowed to understand the connection to God, which is our personal connection to the force that exists that made us, that we are a part of, guys. You know, what makes more sense to me is that we're a part of something bigger. We're not separate from it. We are a part of it. Our choices matter within the system of the one force that is we we don't even know how to describe, but we know inside of ourselves, we know we're part of something greater, not in a reward and punishment model system, because that's all humanly created. It is when you step back and look at things in this way that at least my focus began to really shift. It no longer became about following a prescribed set of rules out of fear. I refuse to live my life out of fear. And let's go back to the Bible because you know I don't discount the Bible. There's a lot of stuff in there. I mean, I don't know how many times in the Bible it's it's more than anything else, and I can't give the exact number, some of you may know, but it how many times is it telling us do not be afraid? That is repeated more in the Bible than anything else. And the Bible actually teaches us about our spiritual nature, but again, it was manipulated by man, and you can look into that historically, right? It happened in Rome, Rome did it. Where's the Catholic Church, guys? I'm not knocking Catholics, but it's in Rome. Again, these are all people-based systems. So everything for me comes down to awareness and alignment and responsibility for how I show up. Because at the end of the day, my belief is going to shape my perception and my behavior. Most people never stop to question where the beliefs that we've been handed come from. But once you do, you start to see that structure is behind them and the structure is man-made. And you realize you're part of a system, but you don't have to be confined for you know confined to it, right? You can think for yourself, you can choose what to believe, and you can define your relationship to something greater on your own terms, right? That's the shift. So I want to bring everything together. We've covered science, observation, outcomes, perception, reality. We've covered movies, we've covered religion, belief. So one thing we have not covered is politics. And this is something that is a very big player in how we are controlled. It divides and it labels and it reduces complexity into sides, and they do that on purpose. And people attach those sides strongly enough to lose relationships. I mean, you see how angry people get with politics. Politics, it's crazy. People just go wild, right? I watched the fallout on social media. I'm like, my God, these people are like, you know, they're rabbit. So I've lived that personally. So I lost a friend, which was very sad. Uh I knew her over 30 years. Her and her husband, we had been friends ever since I was in my teens, my late teens, over my voting decision. Okay. A decision that millions of people made for the same person for their own reasons, but I chose for my reasons. Those are my reasons. I get to choose, guys, right? And when she found out how I voted, she told me that literally, she told me, I am just so shocked. Her exact words were, I think if I saw you at parties, I'd be able to converse with you, but I just don't think I can have you in my house with my children anymore. Literally. Now, this is also the same woman who told me to get a COVID shot. And if I didn't get a COVID shot, I couldn't come down and visit. So again, I at that point, guys, I I had had enough. I let the friendship go. I wasn't angry. I let her, she's still on my Facebook feed. I I don't like her stuff or anything, but I see that her and our family are doing well and I wish her well, but I let that relationship go with love because to me, I felt like I have outgrown that system of thinking, and you are involved in a system of thinking that does not align with me at all. And I felt like if you are going to be that judgmental and assign such importance and such a label on me, I just don't think that you and I are on the same page. So I walked away. No resentment, calmly with love. That was my decision to do that because I choose to surround myself with people that, you know, the people in my personal sphere are people that think on a very, very big level. So that's what systems do, guys, when they're not questioned, a narrow perspective and identity is assigned, judgment is passed, and they tell you what to think, what to reject. You don't fit in with my social structure because you don't think the way that I think. That's basically what she was telling me, right? And most people don't even realize it's happening. So let's widen the lens. There are other systems that deserve the same scrutiny. Let's look at education. You're told follow the path, go to college, get a degree, and your life is gonna be great. For some that works great, but for many it doesn't. Society's changing. But the assumption is worth examining. Money. Oh, here's a big one: the system of money. You are told earn, get a good job, buy more, get this, get that. You're gonna be successful if you have a car that looks like that, a life that looks like that, you know, clothes that look like that, money, right? Car, status, home. Then you're gonna feel secure and fulfilled. But money is also an organizational manipulative tool. It organizes your time, your energy, your attention, and it keeps people working within limits, often way too exhausted to question the system itself because they're so busy trying to make money and pay for their credit card debt, right? Social validation. This is a big one. You are told what a good life looks like and what a good person looks like. And if you match it, you're successful. But if you don't, if you don't fit in, think of my friend with a pillowcase, right, that I dedicated this episode to. Most people sniggered at her. Now, I'm not like a fabulous person, but that was not my reaction. Again, I'm different. I looked at her and I thought, how brave. Wow, it takes balls to walk into school wearing a fucking pillowcase, right? So you got to keep in mind that everything is constructed and nothing is absolute unless we choose it to be. None of these things should go unquestioned because together this creates the version of reality that most people accept without ever even examining. And here's the pattern: humans go from being groups, the groups create rules, rules become systems, systems become structure, and then true, some of that is going to be necessary, but when structure goes unexamined, it becomes control. And when people stop questioning, they stop choosing, they just start becoming bots. Most people are living inside that loop, right? Work, consume, repeat, react, repeat. They're exhausted, they're distracted, they're rarely stepping back far enough to see it. You guys, I am so passionate about this. And so here's the thing: I live in the system. I get up every day, I go pay my bills, I go to job, you know, I follow the rules of my job, my boss wants me to do something a certain way, I do it. Okay, that's it, that way, whatever. But that is not me. You know, I try to take care of my body, I go to the gym, but that is not my life. I do all of these things. I have hobbies, I have interests, I have emotions, I'm just like every other person. But the big part of me every day is questioning every single thing that comes into my world because I understand that that is what is going to shape my life, my feelings, my future, right? So let's ask this why are so many people so miserable if this system actually works? Because we are in the matrix. People, I see them all the time that got the education, they did everything right, they built the career of the house, every box is checked, but they're miserable. They feel like something's missing, they're still searching. That is not random because what they're actually looking for isn't more success inside the system. They are looking to break free from it. Look at the movies that we love, guys. Let's go back to that. You just don't have a language for it. Once you start to see this, really see it, you cannot unsee it. And that's what happened to me. Something shifted. Life stopped feeling like something that I had to survive, and it started looking more like something that I was moving through. I am a human being having an experience. And after this life, I will go to what is next. I absolutely believe we go on. I just don't know what that's going to look like, right? This is not a meaningly, uh meaningless rather empty space. And it's life isn't like as heavy as we think that it is. It is just an experience. Sometimes it's hard and sometimes it's painful, but it is also full of connection and growth and love and moments that matter. And the thing is, we can't get caught up in the systems that have been put in place to keep us in check. You have to step back far enough. I've used this analogy several times in the podcast, but it bears repeating. It goes like this if you're sitting on the ground looking at a tree, the tree is you see the trunk in front of you, and above you is the leaves. You have a perspective, right? But let's say that you become a bird and you fly about 50 feet above the tree. You're gonna see not only the tree, but the landscape around it. And if you become a plane, what do you see? Way more. You see everything. And if you become a satellite, you see the whole thing. So it is the very same thing, guys. We live in a system, we still got to work, participate, right? But we are not having to be defined by that system if we choose not to be defined. You are playing a game, but you're not the game. You get to be the avatar of the game. You have to step into that. That separation changes everything. You control what you believe, you control your outcomes. You can literally change the outcome. Let me give you another example briefly, personally, of what I'm talking about. How can we change the past? Well, I'll tell you what, I've changed the past. You want me to tell you how? Let me tell you. In a very real way. I had an ugly divorce. I mean, it it we we got along okay during the divorce. You know, we ended up using the same attorney, but it was ugly inside of myself. There was betrayal and alcoholism for me. I was drinking, he was cheating, it was terrible. I was broken by this. This was the love of my life. I, for a long time, I walked away feeling like this man broke me. I'll never love again. I don't, you know, trust anybody. How can I ever, you know, blah, blah, blah. This was the story I was telling myself. It was my reality. It was part of the reason that I was depressed. But I made a very important decision. I made a decision to forgive him and to try and do family gatherings for the kids so the kids wouldn't have to choose. And in making that decision, I didn't mean to do it at the time, but everything changed because from that, over time, and as I began to evolve spiritually, I began to assign a different meaning. I began to see that yes, he was the love of my life. We built a family. I am so grateful for everything we had, but I am equally as grateful for the divorce because had that not happened, had I not been broken, literally broken by what happened, I would not have gotten to where I am now, which is honestly, guys, the happiest I've ever been. And I would never dream of getting married again. I'll just say it ever. I am so happy alone. I have found my peace. I love my life. And I'm great friends with my ex-husband. And as a result, the kids don't look back on the divorce as some horrible dark moment in their life. I'm sure it was unpleasant, but they actually love to be with us both. We get together as a family. They don't have to see that divorce as some big, dark, marring event in their life because myself, myself and my ex-husband, without meaning to, we changed the outcome by deciding to suck it up and be there for the kids and have a good relationship, even if it was hard. And then hard became easy, and then easy became enjoyable. We are actually going on a vacation as a family together in April. That's right, you heard me with my ex-husband. Guys, no romantic interest there whatsoever on either part, right? We are friends. He dates, he does his thing. I don't date, but that's my personal thing. I wish him well. He wishes me well. He was the love of my life, my former life. That's an episode I did, but that is true. But I now have a new love of my life, and that love of my life is me. And I am living this wonderful, amazing, exciting existence where I travel, I get to be free, I get to think, I get to do whatever I want. I don't have to raise kids anymore. I love that part of my life, but that's gone. And now I get to focus on myself. So again, I rewrote with my ex-husband what happened to us. So instead of this dark, deep, horrible divorce that resulted in cheating and alcoholism, those things don't fucking matter because what matters is what I'm living today. And what I'm living today is an amazing relationship with my ex-husband. And that, guys, was not an accident. I mean, I may not have meant to do that at the time that I was broken and making the decision for my kids, but that is what ended up happening. So, guys, that's a very real world thing that you can look at. So stop over-identifying people and situations with labels, you know. Stop taking every single input as truth. Question the truth. Stop letting every system define who you are. You get to decide. And that's where something like peace and happiness and joy starts to show up. Not because everything is perfect, nothing is ever going to be perfect, but because you are no longer fully inside this illusion, guys. It's an illusion. We are moving through an illusion called life in a matrix. And the shift ultimately is simple. It boils down to awareness. Look at your life directly. What drives you? What shapes your decisions? What beliefs are you operating from, right? Where do they come from? Question that because a lot of what you think is you is not you. It's conditioning. It is the voice telling you that you're not enough, that you're not capable, that you're not worthy. That is learned. Your baseline is not dysfunction. Your baseline is connection and clarity, right? Call it consciousness, call it awareness, but it is there and it gets buried under layers of input and bullshit. So the move has to be deliberate. You have to be deliberately aware of what you are consuming, what you're thinking, how it shows up in your thought processes, right? But that is where your influence is. And once you get in this habit, it becomes easy because your belief is going to shape your perception. Your perception is going to shape your behavior, and your behavior is going to shape your outcome. I cannot tell you anymore how important that is. So let's get back to the point. When you look at all these things together, the way that perception works and how belief is formed, we understand this, the way that systems shape behavior, all that good stuff, how people move through life without questioning, you begin to see clearly that we are living in a matrix. Not machines, not science fiction, a system of inputs, belief, and structures that shape how you think, how you see, how you live without your awareness. So you don't see reality as it is. Think of the dog and the colors and how we see colors, right? You are going to see it through the lens of what you've been taught to believe about it. That's the mechanism. And once you see it, you understand why you have so much tension inside of yourself. Because, guys, you're listening to me, and I know that you know a part of you already knows this. You've always known, I always knew you are not meant to be controlled. You are not meant to be controlled. You are meant to think, to expand, to evolve, to love, to be a part of. That is why the stories in the movies resonate, because it's touching something that we innately know deep inside of us. That's why the idea of breaking free hits so deeply for people. Because on some level, you recognize it. So no, the exit isn't leaving your life behind, guys. It is seeing clearly, clearly enough that Sue you are no longer unconsciously controlled by the Matrix. And once that happens, you don't live inside the matrix anymore. You understand it. Thank you for being here and holding this part of my story with me. If today's episode resonated with you, please don't say in silence. Share it with someone who might need to hear it. And if you're walking through your own fire right now, know this you are not too broken, you are not too late, and you are never, ever alone. This is Burn It Down and Begin Again. I'm Erica, and I'll see you in the next chat.