How to Stop Reacting | Conversation #2

*This Conversation is a deeper dive on the Companion Meditation Episode!*

What if the peace you are seeking is hiding in the one-second pause between a trigger and your response?

If you’ve ever found yourself saying, “I don’t know why I keep doing this,” this conversation is for you.

Most of us don’t choose our reactions as much as we think we do.

Long before we’re aware of it, our brains create automatic patterns based on childhood experiences, painful moments, and the beliefs we’ve formed about ourselves and the world. Those unconscious patterns often take over before we’ve had a chance to think.

In this episode of the Greater Peace Podcast, Amy and Ryan explore the difference between reacting and responding—and why that small space between the two has the power to change your relationships, your healing, and your life.

Using stories from neuroscience, personal experience, Viktor Frankl’s timeless wisdom, and practical therapeutic tools, Amy explains how the conditioned mind develops, why change feels so difficult, and how mindfulness helps us interrupt old patterns before they take over.

You’ll learn:
• Why your brain is wired to react automatically.
• How childhood experiences continue to shape adult behavior.
• The difference between reacting from fear and responding with intention.
• A simple exercise you can use after difficult moments to understand your triggers, respond with greater compassion, and create lasting change.
• How practicing mindfulness in everyday moments strengthens your ability to stay true to who you want to be when life gets hard.

Healing doesn’t happen by becoming someone else. It happens by creating enough space to choose who you want to be instead of letting old programming choose for you by a younger version of your brain.

Because between the stimulus and the response is a space—and in that space is the possibility of greater peace.

*Subscribe to the Greater Peace Podcast for new episodes every Monday and Wednesday.*

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:06

Hello everyone. Welcome to the Greater Peace podcast, where an expert and an innocent bystander come together for a deep dive discussion on a thoughtfully selected topic each week in pursuit of greater peace.

SPEAKER_01 0:22

Love laughing at. That was good. That was good. I like it.

SPEAKER_02 0:27

I'm Ryan Lindstrom, your innocent bystander, and I'm here with your expert and clinical mental health counselor and my wife, Amy Lindstrom.

SPEAKER_00 0:38

Hello.

SPEAKER_02 0:39

Was that good too?

SPEAKER_00 0:40

That was good too. Good job.

SPEAKER_02 0:43

So here's how it works. Every Monday, a short episode is posted where Amy introduces the topic of the week and guides a brief meditation. On Wednesday, a longer episode, a conversation episode, is posted where Amy shows up prepared for a deep dive into the week's topic, and I show up with no clue as to what the topic actually is. And we cross our fingers and hope for the best. So, Amy, before we dive into this topic, which I am not aware of, any thoughts?

SPEAKER_00 1:20

Um no, just that uh having the first full week last week, having that done, I mean, it just one, it's a relief because it's something that I've been talking about for a really long time. But also, two, that I think actually watching back the second one, the conversation between us, was like the thing where I went, oh, yeah, this is what I was waiting for, for this, like it's like this is exactly how it was supposed to be all along. So, and the feedback coming back from it has been so positive, and we are so grateful for that. We really, I think the other night we were talking about it, and it is just like, you know, if if one person feels more self-compassion, if one person develops more patience, if one person does whatever, it this is all worth doing. So plus, or if if that one person is just you or I, it's fine.

SPEAKER_02 2:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:16

Definitely. Yep. So what is the topic? Okay. Dying to know.

SPEAKER_00 2:22

Yeah, yeah. Okay. So the topic this week actually kind of piggybacks on last week because last week I teach, you know, that we were talking about the conditioned mind. Yep. And we were talking about how um sometimes we have these negative beliefs that we view through the world, and that creates all of our reactions.

SPEAKER_02 2:42

Negative cognitions.

SPEAKER_00 2:43

Sorry, negative cognitions, negative beliefs, right? Right. That we might have about ourselves or ways that we view the world is scary. I heard a um thing from Peter Crohn where he was he was talking to somebody and he said, uh, it's a very low-case study that when you're a child, you experience two people, your parents or you know, your family members, or maybe some kids at recess, and you your brain formulates an entire decision about how the rest of the world will go, how all the rest of the seven, eight billion people on this planet are going to treat you. And so you're protecting yourself from it all along based on a case study of two people with a very underformed brain.

SPEAKER_02 3:28

Yeah, you make a decision about how eight billion people view you when you're not even aware of more than probably 50 people.

SPEAKER_00 3:34

Yeah, your world is so small, but you've decided it and it's I when I say you've decided, I mean like um your brain is run by if you've heard the animal brain or like your lizard brain, whatever. It's like it's kind of like um the survival instincts, right? It's like a a snake, a lizard, or whatever. It's like they are just, you know, eat and survive, you know, and they're driven by the impulse or the instinct to that.

SPEAKER_02 4:00

Yeah, every decision they make is is either to keep them alive or to keep them alive. Yes. That's it. That is the critical deciding factor in every decision they make is above all.

SPEAKER_00 4:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:13

They have no Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:14

Yes. I just had a weird side thought when you said that, though, that I'm like, is that why creatures eat their young? Like, oh man. Yeah, I know. That is not what this podcast is. No, no, no. But it just made me think that it's like, it's truly like it overrides any kind of emotion or whatever because they are absolutely about survival, hardwired for it. But our brains function very similar to that for most of our development, right? So then as we get older though, we start to develop our frontal lobe is in the process of developing. We have this thing where we need belonging. There's other species that have that, like orcas and things like that, right? But not to the degree that we have because the frontal lobe gets developed. And the frontal lobe is like we think about how we're thinking. Now there's morals involved, and and all of those kind of things. It isn't just a hierarchy of survival.

SPEAKER_02 5:14

It's a little more complex.

SPEAKER_00 5:15

Yeah, it gets more complex. So I think that what is helpful in that is to understand that it's like our brain is forming based on forming ideas about the world and that become like concrete. They are the pathways that are connecting in our brains. And then our brain is then shedding. I think, you know, there's a couple of times in our lives where we shed neurons that are unused, brain cells, right? Or connections that are not made. So, like if you've heard of um, if you have an infant and they hear other language languages before a certain age, those neurons stay intact, therefore they are better able to learn language.

SPEAKER_01 5:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:59

And and it doesn't mean that it's impossible to learn language if you weren't exposed to it. It's just a little bit more difficult because we're rebuilding or we're building connections.

SPEAKER_02 6:09

So when you're born, your your brain is a lot more pliable. Um, a lot more, it's like an empty sponge to some degree. So you hear it soaks in and and Yeah. Yeah. So it it it reinforces itself more than things that you hear when you're 50 and your brain's like, I was done 30 years ago. Quit throwing new stuff at me.

SPEAKER_00 6:34

Well, yeah, but it makes me I mean, okay, even a real-time example of that that is meaningful for us is that we had twins that were born at 26 weeks, and they both had grade four bleeds in their brains, um, which is like a massive stroke for an adult.

SPEAKER_02 6:55

On a scale of four.

SPEAKER_00 6:56

Yeah, yeah, grade four on a scale of four, right? Um, where it's like uh massive brain damage. Dawson's is in his movement area and therefore cerebral palsy, and then his body rejected his shunts, and and uh he had 27 attempts to uh replace that before he passed. Mallory, though, is on the autism spectrum, right? But we've been told by psychologists that it's it's a developmental. Now, that what that actually means is exactly what we're talking about. Because when she had bleeding in her brain, it damaged parts of her brain that would perform certain functions, especially in the social area. But instead, from the time she was three and younger, we've been doing therapy and teaching skills. So she has the ability to rewire, and certain parts of her brain will learn what the other parts of her brain were not able to do. And so that's why I mean, so that she can continue to progress to an extent.

SPEAKER_02 8:03

Right. So so bleeding in the brain, when you say that, blood is toxic to the brain, right? It pretty much just does. Yeah, it just does damage. So she's starting out with a little bit less.

SPEAKER_00 8:12

Yeah, so it's like when you're looking at her CT scan, there's a dark area. Uh her right eye doesn't function super well if you're looking at her, which Mallory, Mallory is an epic human being. She, when she goes in close to a mirror, one eye goes off to the side, and she is so bummed that they don't both go. She is always trying to figure out how she can make it so both of her eyes will do that when she gets in close. And she just because she just views herself as the most magical being, which she she really is. Yeah, she's she is a great teacher to both of us, I think, on just living with full embracing of your own original self, like unapologetically unique. And I think we've learned a lot from that. But all of this is to say that she is a prime example of when you lose brain matter, actual brain matter, in the beginning, we can actually teach skills that other parts of the brain will then learn how to do it. So our brains are constantly in the process of learning. Now, why that is super helpful is because there's a quote, I think it comes from Richard Rohr, where he says that um, what is it? It's uh miracles mean that at any moment we can begin again, that we can choose a different way. So today I want to um continue to talk on the, but I want to talk about how it's like the conditioned mind affects our behaviors and then give a real life skill that is a very powerful skill for changing behavior.

SPEAKER_01 9:52

Perfect.

SPEAKER_00 9:52

In the meditation, I talked a lot about mindfulness because a lot of the time, you know, we're driving, um, we're driving and and we're not even aware of where we're at.

SPEAKER_01 10:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:04

Right. Um, we're driving to work, and we've done that drive so many times that our brain is also always trying to be very, very um efficient. And so our brain is constantly writing programs for how to keep us safe and then run an automatic program so it can use its energy elsewhere.

SPEAKER_02 10:24

Right.

SPEAKER_00 10:25

Right? That's the drive to work. Yes. So you're driving to work, and so your brain goes, Oh, we know everything. Now, if there's a little, you know, balloon man over there waving, your brain will kind of clue in for a moment because that's new.

SPEAKER_01 10:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:39

Right? It every once in a while it will clue in, uh, like check for risk, and then and then it will um go back. Yeah. Yes. So I want to give you an analogy, which maybe like I think you have heard me say before, but I think that it is a really helpful analogy that is also going to become irrelevant because of strider bikes. So what? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:05

All right. So so so we haven't stated in less than 10 words the topic yet, correct? But you're getting I get it.

SPEAKER_00 11:13

No, I mean, I think I don't know. Let's let's just see how it goes. Like it what the title of it would be, I mean, it's really like it's all about changing our reactions, like reacting to the negative beliefs in our conditioned mind and learning how to act in line with who we want to be, which is a response. Which is why sometimes I'll use reaction, but what I mean is response, so I'll correct it. And it's always like, why do you do that? It's like because there's a difference between the two energetically, and I'm gonna teach you that.

SPEAKER_02 11:48

So the topic is forming an alliance with the conditioned mind.

SPEAKER_00 11:51

No, it's deforming.

unknown 11:54

Well, come on.

SPEAKER_02 11:54

You want you're like, hey, guess what? Conditioned mind. I know you're not doing me a whole lot of favors, but you're actually doing me all the favors because you're giving me so much material to help fix myself. We're on the same team now. Yes. So this is how to assimilate the lessons that could be learned through the conditioned mind state.

SPEAKER_00 12:15

Not exactly. Yes, it's fine. Yeah, we'll get to it. Um I think that um so if we're talking about riding a bike, I remember, I think it was Jake when we were teaching our Jake how to ride a bike. Um, or it might have been Mallory and she was it might have been Mallory because with Mallory, she's absolutely not okay with imbalance. Oh, yeah. And so when I wanted her to ride a bike and we put the training wheels on, I was like these janky little things, like trying to crank them down because I wanted them to be more stable.

SPEAKER_02 12:51

Yeah, they don't go all the way to the ground.

SPEAKER_00 12:53

Yes, it's like, what's wrong are they? Or what's wrong with these things? Um, they're super cheap or something. But now I understand that they're actually by design to work with your brain to learn how to ride a bike. So the way that that works is you've got your brain that is programmed and hardwired instinctually to survive, to reduce risk, to not be hurt.

SPEAKER_02 13:17

So that that is a portion of your brain that is a lizard brain.

SPEAKER_00 13:20

Yes, your amygdala, limbic system, it's like all in there. That is, it's like as a child, you're working to survive. Babies cry not because they have thought behind it, but because they have need. They just have something that, you know, the instinct is to cry and it gets them what they need.

SPEAKER_02 13:37

Okay, so we've all got that same thing, the flight or flight or fight or flight. Fight instinct. It's just that that's only a part of it. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 13:44

Yeah. And so as your brain continues to develop and which is through experiences that you have in the world, then neurons start to connect in other ways as well. So with riding a bike, when you're riding a bike and you're going downright, uh, you're have the training wheels. Well, if the training wheels made it so you would fall over all the time, you would absolutely never get on that bike, you would develop a phobia, and you'd be like, No way, not doing it. Which was Mallory. Because in any way, if it was Tippy at all, no. Yeah. She's not doing it. Plus, she lacked coordination on her on one of the sides of her body, you know, and so it was just like it was just like, no.

SPEAKER_02 14:29

Your eyes doesn't work so well, your depth perception. Yeah. I remember when she was a little a little baby and she was just learning to crawl, and she would be out on the driveway, crawling down the driveway, and she would turn around backwards when she came to a crack in the driveway, and she would back over the crack like she's going down. Like a cliff. Or a cliff. Yeah. Scary.

SPEAKER_00 14:49

Yes. So anyway. Yeah, so that's exactly so so um, and that's her learned behavior to deal with something that was a threat. Yeah. Or seemed to be a threat because her depth perception is off, because the image that comes through this eye has to travel through the damaged portion of her brain. Yeah. So when they when they dilate her pupils, they can actually see that. So, okay, so you're riding a bike. If you as you start to tip, your body will contract muscles to pull you back up, right? So it contracts all the muscles on this side of the body, but it will overcorrect. So now you're tipping this way, so it will do it again. And little by little, as you're going, your body, your brain is learning the the perfect synchrony of contract and release in all of those muscles to keep you vertical on two wheels, which is really something crazy to think about. Yeah. If you do it, it's like, how do we even do that?

SPEAKER_02 15:49

It's all in the background. None of that's intense.

SPEAKER_00 15:51

Yes. And it's like scary in the beginning, but maybe there's a motivation because your friends are doing it or whatever. And so you're willing to face the fear to learn how to do it, but there's still the threat. But in time, your brain, you're not just learning how to keep yourself upright, your brain is learning, contract and release. There's a ton going on while you are balancing on two wheels that you are completely unconscious of.

SPEAKER_01 16:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:17

And it's all in the name of keeping you safe. Now, let's talk triggers for a second. Because now, if I have run this program, because like my brain has recorded this program, this is how I ride a bike, right? Now I don't touch a bike for like 20 years. Then I see a bike and I am like, hey, I used to be able to ride a bike, and I walk over and I pick up the bike. That's the trigger. That's the stimulus. The stimulus sends a message to the brain, which program do we run to keep ourselves safe, right? So then our brain goes, Oh, this is riding a bike, this is the program we run, and then we pick up the bike and we can ride it again. It's not something we have to relearn over and over and over, and everybody talks about that. It's like once you learn how to ride a bike, you always know, yes, because your brain is constantly in the process of writing programs that it can run unconsciously without you thinking about it, because thinking takes a lot of energy.

SPEAKER_01 17:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:16

Learning new things is very uncomfortable and scary, even cognitive things. Now, why does this matter? The thing that makes this so applicable is that our brain does the exact same thing with emotions. You may notice when you're in new situations and you walk up to somebody new, or let's say you're going to a job interview, or you're going out and meeting new people, or whatever, there is a different energy and tension in your body. Your body is maybe teaches you to be reserved a little bit. And that's all based on who it believes you are in the world and fears, right? But also certain people may like if you notice that you act different around certain people. You are a very like, I think, you know, my sister Kayla sent a message after our last post saying, in 29 years of your guys' marriage, I've never heard him say that many words, you know? And mission accomplished. I think it's just so funny because everybody knows I'm like, you know, and I used to be a little bit more like life of the party, but I think that that was a role that I had to play, you know. I just was the wild and crazy one, and now I'm way more introverted and just whatever.

SPEAKER_02 18:34

And still wild and crazy.

SPEAKER_00 18:36

Yes, and still a little crazy. But but the thing is, is that it was like everybody would see me be like that, and you are always just quiet and chill. And they're like, I don't like maybe how does he put up with her or whatever it is, you know? But then it's like, but you, when you're around people who you are very comfortable around, are hilarious and like crazy, you know?

SPEAKER_02 19:03

And uh well, I save all the funny stuff when I talk.

unknown 19:07

I know.

SPEAKER_00 19:09

But it's like it's an example of that. Like we just learn different things, and and all of that is normal. It's just there's certain people that I remember when I was young that I was scared of, that I was scared when I was around them. And so, my job, what I had to do is I had to be small, to be less, to not ask for anything, because it would scare me that I would get in trouble or I would get yelled at.

SPEAKER_01 19:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:37

Right. Um, and so that's a learned behavior because that's not even my normal self. But I learned by being my normal self that being that version of me is not okay.

SPEAKER_02 19:50

Oh, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:51

Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_02 19:52

Yeah. I mean, you let down your guard and you just be who you are, and then people reacted differently, and you were like, oh, what is that not okay then? Or am I not cool?

SPEAKER_00 20:02

Or sometimes when overt lessons or uh things were taught, you know. I mean, I for an example that is different is my third grade teacher, my second grade teacher, and my third grade teacher would tell me that I was dumb. Right. And so, like my third grade teacher, especially, just had no tolerance for me whatsoever. And he was pretty mean. And there was something about that age because when you were about that age, about third grade, seven, eight years old, you're now in the place where you, who you are in the world is determined by interaction with peers. And he would do those things in front of the other kids. Like he would line up all the kids, this would be totally frowned upon, and hug them as they go out, and he would skip me. Oh, well, that's just Yeah, but then pair that with my mom was just getting remarried, and you know, I it just there was so much going on in my own little life that it was just like that was absolutely a defining time in my life. Now, the other defining time then was when it's up here somewhere on my bookshelf. Back to the book. Oh, yeah, it's over here. When I was at UVU and Chris Lee, my uh professor, asked me to participate in writing a book, co-authoring a book of students that were writing a book about why students resist learning to faculty. And I got to write the story. I got to write the story in that book of my experience with my third grade teacher. And it was something interesting. But when I see when I read that, when I read that story in that book was A full like release moment for me.

SPEAKER_01 22:03

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 22:04

I think that's also why, you know, it's like when I went back to school, you know, when I went back to school as an adult, I had written into my brain that I was not good at school, that I was not smart, that I could not do it. Yeah. And so I I remember it was actually Chris Lee that had assigned a writing paper. And I was supposed to write this paper, and I just called you from the library at UVU bawling. Yeah. Saying, I can't do it. I don't know how to do this. And that like I'm not capable of it. And um, and I think that it was like having a class at the time that was a learning strategies class teaching you how to learn and study and whatever maturity life experience, but continually putting one foot in front of the other. But the funny thing is, is that when I had to go do my master's degree, I had a 4.0 in my master's degree. And still in the last semester, I was sure that that was going to be the point when the other shoe dropped and I learned that I couldn't do it. And then I graduated. And it was like something went, okay, I'm done with that. And now I can't get enough. Like I literally can't. I it is the most enjoyable thing in the whole world to just learn about other people and stuff like that. But that is a full circle. Here is a negative belief that I had about myself. I absolutely never needed to challenge it. I could have lived the rest of my life believing that. When I had the thought to go back to school, I could have said no. And then I would miss all of this. And that makes me want to puke and cry. So, because I I love where I'm at, right? And so it's all of that. It's like, was it scary to change it or challenge it? Yes. Years. Every day, every assignment, every syllabus, every everything I would sit down to do. It was like, this is it. This is the point. But I just kept moving forward. So that's the whole point of all of this is I want to give skills to help people to start to override and notice those things because it's like um the small case study of just your parents, just your home life, just the few people that you interacted with as a kid that created this idea of who the billions of people in the world were and who you were in it. But it was you had limited information.

SPEAKER_02 24:38

Yeah, extremely limited.

SPEAKER_00 24:40

Yeah. So um, do you have any thoughts about all of it?

SPEAKER_02 24:51

Yeah, I mean, it's just it's interesting. I'm just thinking about I mean, that's like having a hundred numbers, a list of a hundred different grades in a class, and you average, you come up with the average by only taking four of those numbers and averaging those four numbers and say, this is the average number of these hundred numbers. You know what I mean? You're applying this dinky little single or double or triple case of something happening to the rest of your life.

SPEAKER_00 25:20

I mean, that's yeah, and the but the reason why you're not doing it consciously.

SPEAKER_01 25:24

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_00 25:25

Your brain is in the process of connecting neurons, of going, how do we act in this world? How do we record, you know, and whatever. The thing is that is so important to understand, and I think that is mind-blowing. And this is why in the meditation today, I talked a lot about mindfulness, about doing things intentionally and being present while you're doing them is a new muscle to start to build because it's like all of the I'm totally like losing thought. Hold on, it's coming back. My brain does this all the time. It's like thinking 16. Oh, got it. Okay, this is what happens. But I think that it's like because 95% of our day is our brain running unconscious programs.

SPEAKER_01 26:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:17

95%. So, and then we are sure that that's who we really are. But it's all running based on programming from our younger selves.

SPEAKER_02 26:29

Well, yeah, it's a lot of work, man. To engage a hundred percent new in every experience you have. But you are things like we don't got the bandwidth for that.

SPEAKER_00 26:38

But I don't even think that I think that that's exactly right. I don't think that it's possible. That's why the peeling back the layers is the way. Because it's impossible to just go, okay, I'm gonna do it all new and whatever else. It's like, no, these when we're doing parts work with somebody, um, it's like parts work is understanding that you are a accumulation of every version of yourself that you've ever been. The little boy that once was crying and devastated and didn't know what to do and was lost is still there.

SPEAKER_01 27:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:13

The little girl that wanted her dad that was scared that she wasn't good enough because she screwed up because she couldn't be good enough, is still here. You know, it's like if we understand that, that it's like every version of ourselves that we've ever been, every hurt moment where it's profound hurt, which means it connects the neurons. Oh my gosh, this is who we are. Oh my gosh, we got to stay safe from this because it's so deep.

SPEAKER_02 27:39

Yeah, there's a lot more meaning applied to it in your head.

SPEAKER_00 27:43

But the great work of our lives is that it's like, you know, I've I was in a situation recently where it was like uh my nervous system used to take over. So that's what we're going. The skill that I'm teaching is how to keep that from taking over, right? Or like slowing down enough so that it doesn't. But when I was younger, it was like uh, or uh what I experienced was I used to have this part take over and I would run away in fear or do whatever it is that I needed to cope. And instead, it's like Bailey, our daughter-in-law, I had sent me um like a meme or something that said, I am becoming the woman my younger self would have gone to for help.

SPEAKER_01 28:30

Oh, yeah, I remember.

SPEAKER_00 28:31

And that it's like she sent that to me, but I had the real life of experience experience of it just before, where I felt my internal self in full panic, but she came to me instead of overtaking. And that's because of the work of compassion and whatever. It's like I could feel it rise up, but it didn't take over.

SPEAKER_01 28:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:54

And I'm like, I'm always like, it's okay, I got you. It's okay. You know, and then just being mindful and also very present and mind, like, you know, like knowing I still have choice in full agency in this moment, you know.

SPEAKER_02 29:12

So we're talking about how to put yourself in the driver's seat alone.

SPEAKER_00 29:16

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Because that card totally says it's like being possessed by an entity of your past self. One of my favorites was like working with somebody a while ago um who is like, I don't know, it's like people who are like, they're learning to drive and or they're doing something or whatever, but but it's almost like they feel like their 16-year-old self is trying to manage their emotional situation or um learning how to fly an airplane, but every time they got behind the wheel, they were panicking and then realizing that the part that was taking over was a young version of themselves. It's like, yeah, you know, your 16-year-old self, your 14, 15, 8-year-old self does not know how to fly a plane. Of course they would panic.

SPEAKER_02 30:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:06

Like, what are we doing? You know?

SPEAKER_02 30:07

I like what when you when you when you use that, it when you say uh somebody will tell you an experience and you'll do and you'll ask the question, how old do you feel?

SPEAKER_00 30:16

Yes, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 30:18

And they're it might be like, well, that's weird, but if they think about it, it's like, well, gee, I I 15?

SPEAKER_00 30:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:24

I don't feel 40 anymore, you know.

SPEAKER_00 30:26

Yeah, totally. Totally. I think, I mean, yeah, I mean, it's like I love, love using that with relapse. Like if I'm working with addiction or unwanted like sexual behavior or anything like that, I love because it when they come in, it's like relapse feels like a shame spiral and an absolute failure. It is not. If you know how to use it, it is the way when we repeat a pattern. I mean, this can be addiction, this can be unwanted sexual behavior, this can be overeating, this can be gossiping, this is can be like losing our patience with our kids. It can be as little or big, it's the same muscle of um like something like takes over, right? And so if you did it again, it's like we can shame spiral, but that's not gonna help anybody. It keeps you stuck 100%. And so instead, it's like this becomes a tool. It's like, why would you do that again when that's not who you want to be? Why would you? What was happening in that moment?

SPEAKER_02 31:33

Yeah, it's like just realize that that is your 14-year-old self who is doing everything he can to try to do what he knew was best to do at that time when he would when you were 14. Yeah. And he's just trying to push himself to the surface, and so that's where you have to realize that that's what's happening. Yeah. And then go, okay, I'm not 14 anymore. Yeah. Things are different. And so, hey, 14-year-old self, it's good. I I got this. Things are changed, things are different. Let me give this a shot, you know?

SPEAKER_00 32:07

Yeah, I think that that's where I work a little bit differently than some, probably not than everybody for sure. But it's like my perspective is if you are gonna do behavioral work with people with addiction, right? It's just behavioral and there's consequences and whatever for the behavior and whatever, it's it's keeping in the same rut, the same spiral. But if instead it's like you teach to have compassion in the moment and to better understand it, it's like there is a reason why. It's like I've worked with so many people who have worked so long and tried so hard to overcome something that they didn't want to do, unwanted sexual behavior, addiction, anything like that. But when you go at it from this direction and use compassion, it's like they are like years without it's it's not even, you know, we can be nine months down the road, 10 months down the road, and they're dealing with something incredibly stressful. And then I'll say, Well, why haven't you used this old coping mechanism, whatever it is, pornography or blah, blah, blah, whatever it is. And they will go, I haven't even thought about it. And it's stunning to them because it's like the change that has happened in their brain. But it's like, well, yeah, but it's not anything other than just meeting yourself with compassion, understanding why you do what you do, and making a different choice over time, being true to yourself creates change. Now it's not as simple as that. Sometimes it takes many years and there's many layers to it, but it is effective, right?

SPEAKER_02 33:49

So um, so that's what you so then today you're gonna show us a skill that um you have seen many people utilize successfully to rewrite the program and make choices more in the present than to let other older versions of themselves kind of run the show.

SPEAKER_00 34:17

Yeah, it's the beginning of the end of it. One, you've got awareness. There's this thing that I keep doing, and I don't know why I'm doing it.

SPEAKER_01 34:24

Right.

SPEAKER_00 34:24

But I don't want to do it anymore. Great. That's the beginning of the end. Now you work this process with it over and over and over. And I'll show you how to work it forward and backwards so that it really helps with it. But once you start to do it in one area, you'll naturally start to do it in other areas. So let's do that. So, first, um, I think, you know, uh, if you've heard of Victor Frankel, Victor Frankel is um, he's like the father of logotherapy, he's a psychologist. He also um wrote a man's search for meaning. He was in the concentration camp at Auschwitz, right, in the Holocaust. And so I think it's one of the most influential books, and definitely recommend reading it. One of the things that, and now because I've studied psychology, I've read a lot about Victor Frankel. So I think I kind of like take something that he said from the book, but like from a bunch of different places, I've read the same story. So, you know, it's one of the variations or whatever, but that there was a moment in the concentration camp where he was talking about how, you know, they're animalistic essentially, that they're starved, that they are not sleeping because they are laying in these bunks where there's vermin everywhere. They haven't showered. Their family has probably been killed the day before, or before that. They don't know where their family is. Every day they're lined up and they're walked off in these different directions. And these ones, we don't know, they're probably going to die. They're watching their friends die around them. It's the most dire of descriptions that I think a human can be in, really, when he explains it all. And so he's talking about all of that. Well, he talked about how they would starve and they would get one ration of bread in the day, and they're all starving. So they got their piece of bread, and he said that he noticed that some of the men would come into the room and they would look around for the person who seemed to be most in need, and they would go to them and minister to them and give them their bread. And he said, I don't want to butcher it. So um he said, Hold, that he learned from that experience that everything can be taken from a man but one thing, the last of the human freedoms, to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way. And so it's like it's just impressive because he is in a situation where he is surrounded by all of that. It's I I just, you know, humans experience some pretty heinous things. Yeah. But it's like Auschwitz was like a combination of all possible. And he still is seeing people choose to be kind to one another because that's all they had left. Right? They didn't even have clothes, they didn't have their hair, they didn't have their family, they didn't have anything. And so, and that's what they chose to do. So that had a lot of impression on uh a big impression on me. And then um there is a quote also that he said that is uh between the stimulus and the response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose, our response. In uh our response lies growth and freedom. So I kind of like took this model, and you know, I think that there's variations of it in different ways, but this is that was primarily the thing and and a tool that I use. So I'm going to use this. The light may not make it very visible. I think it will.

SPEAKER_02 38:15

That's great.

SPEAKER_00 38:16

Okay. I'm gonna do this. If you are in a place where you are listening and not watching, I will tell you what to write on a piece of paper or to visualize if you are not in a place where you can do that, right? It sometimes people need it visually and other people don't, and that's okay. Okay. So in the top, you remember we were talking about when you pick up the uh I can't see the diagram on the floor, and it looks very simple.

SPEAKER_02 38:46

So don't hesitate to grab the diagram and draw this.

SPEAKER_00 38:50

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 38:51

I think it is over there.

SPEAKER_00 38:52

No.

SPEAKER_02 38:52

All right, never mind. You shouldn't try to draw this at home. Just kidding. You shouldn't be able to do it. You should.

SPEAKER_00 39:00

Okay. So at the top, we are writing stimulus, right? Now remember, what is the stimulus with the bike?

SPEAKER_02 39:07

It's the trigger.

SPEAKER_00 39:08

Yes. And it's just picking up the bike. Stimulates your brain to run an automatic program. It needs to save energy for all the other threats that it could possibly perceive. And right, right. So there's so it's like, okay, the stimulus is anything. The stimulus can be hearing a song that you used to listen to with a friend who's passed away. The stimulus can be kids crying. The stimulus can be somebody coming home late. The stimulus, it literally can be anything. The stimulus can be your hormones are off. Hello, perimenopause. But it's like the stimulus can be like literally anything. So it's like whatever the stimulus is, then will automatically trigger. We're gonna call this, it's it's like a cycle of thoughts and emotions, but you're not even aware of it. So we're going to say it triggers the conditioned mind, which is an automatic response that has been written, right? Can you see it? Okay. Then, but you're not even really aware of this happening because remember, the conditioned mind runs so subsurface. So we go up here, and now there is a reaction. Whatever reaction. Okay. So what is happening? There's a stimulus this way, stimulus, and then this way, a reaction. Okay. So think about it like one of your kids did something, you're tired. Okay, let's go back to your example of the six-year-old. He's at home, his dad comes home from work. His dad's just cranky, right? So let's just say, like the dad, we're focusing on the dad. So the dad was at work and he's super stressed, so he's kind of vulnerable to stress in the moment. But he comes home and let's say he walks in the back door and there are toys all over the place, or the house is a mess or something, and he just kind of snaps at his six-year-old who had been playing with them. Okay, so that's the reaction. The reaction is whatever it is that is triggered by the conditioned mind, whatever. Like maybe, maybe for him, let's figure out. It's it's easier with a real life example. But if you think of maybe it was he's exhausted, he had a long work, a long day at work, and he just wants to come home and relax. And he comes home and sees the toys all over and the kids are being loud, immediately, probably maybe in this hypothetical situation, it is um the triggered thought of I can't relax, I, you know, I don't have what I need.

SPEAKER_02 42:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 42:03

That kind of stuff, right? So he reacts by snapping at the kid because he's upset.

SPEAKER_02 42:08

So the trigger equals the stimulus. There's the when you pick up the bike, that's the trigger, and then the trigger plays the program. Yeah. So the stimulus is uh he comes home from work and sees toys on the floor and he's worn out, and those conditions are a trigger for a specific reaction, which is his response.

SPEAKER_00 42:28

Yes, and then but the conditions probably it's like we can guess at what they are, but really it could be literally anything. Yeah. That it it's it's personal, it's something that's within each individual person. So a way of thinking about it is this, okay? So when, okay, so this is your brain stem. This runs all of your automatic nervous system stuff. This is your limbic system. It's your old brain, it's your fear center that lives down in the middle, deep in the center of your brain.

SPEAKER_02 43:03

If you're listening, she's holding up her hand and saying the hand, the wrist is the brain stem. Is that what you're saying?

SPEAKER_00 43:09

Yeah, the bottom of the palm and the wrist.

SPEAKER_02 43:10

And then your thumb.

SPEAKER_00 43:12

Thumb is the limbic system.

SPEAKER_02 43:13

Limbic system.

SPEAKER_00 43:14

Then if I close my hand over the top of the thumb and make a fist with my thumb tucked in, then this is like the cortex, the frontal cortex, the higher thinking, moral reasoning, in um impulse control that all gets developed is when we're about 25, is when um that's more fully developed, right? So the reason why I show you this is because what actually happens when there is a trigger, when you're triggered by something, is you flip your lid. Have you heard of that? This is I'm just opening my hand up, right? It's not like your head flies off. It's not it's not that. It is really that there is a chemical disconnect that happens between your frontal lungs. And your limbic system. So all of the mitochondria and ATP, which is the energy in the brain, now is directing, running straight towards the limbic system because the limbic system is causing, calling for panic action, adrenaline, cortisol. Let's get this system going because it has a fear response based on a conditioned experience. Does that make sense? So the energy is actually running from your area where you have moral reasoning, the ability to slow down, mindfulness, all of that. It's running from that straight to the limbic system. We want to stop that process. It's a chemical disconnect. So the way that we want to stop that is you get curious. We can ask questions.

SPEAKER_02 44:51

So then you're talking about right now, there's a stimulus and then a response, and it seems automatic, but there's a there's a space between the stimulus and this response. Yes, I was going to have power to do something about it.

SPEAKER_00 45:03

And that's what you're doing. That's what we're getting to here. So, okay. So in the thing, so you've got the stimulus, right below that you've written condition mind, an arrow down condition mind. Then an arrow going off to the side which has reaction, right? There's this process that is happening that a stimulus goes straight to the reaction. We want to slow that down. You don't even have to have the diagram to get it. Just if you're a visual learner, that might be helpful. But what we want to do is we want to ask questions. The reason why is because your limbic system is not interested in questions. Your limbic system is ask questions later, solve the problem immediately, uh, all hands on deck, emergency, right? So what we're what you're doing by asking a question or getting curious is even just as simply as what am I feeling right now? If we could all be just before reaction, learn how to, with mindfulness, slow down just a little bit so that when the stimulus happens and we feel the tension in our body, whatever it is, if we could take a breath and go, what am I feeling right now? So maybe the dad does that, right? He comes in and he's just gonna start asking questions. Now, it takes a long time to say them out loud, you can do this in a matter of seconds. If you are so escalated in that moment, the best thing to do is to just say, Hey, can I just have five minutes, 10 minutes, where you're doing this process? But you can't do that. So, what you do is you then are like the reaction is on the verge, on deck, ready to go. You say, What am I feeling right now? I'm just so frustrated. I'm so tired. This has been a long day. Why is my son acting like this? Why is his toys all over? Oh, he's been playing all day. Why is he pulling on me? Well, he just has missed me all day long.

SPEAKER_02 47:01

Such a cool guy.

SPEAKER_00 47:02

Yeah, he just wants to see his dad. Do you feel how even just being able to ask those questions a little bit, ask questions and slow down, how it can change the direction of where your thoughts and emotions are going. Now, all of a sudden, we go from a very self-focused reaction to which is going to do harm, to a reaction or to a we're moving toward a response that is more focused on the wellness of all involved and more in line with who you want to be. Right? So you're asking a series of questions, and then you end up, it's triggering different emotions, but then you know how to respond. This is why reaction and response are different, right? So now you look at the quote between the stimulus and the response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and freedom. So it's just becoming more conscious. It's a tool to help with mindful consciousness, to stop reacting to the ways that we like feel like we need to protect ourselves that are built on old patterns. Um, like when I'm working with somebody in relapse and they come in and they're like, ah, I just had this bad day and blah, blah, blah. It's like, you know, they relapse and they think we're going to focus solely on the relapse. And it's like, okay, what were you feeling just before the relapse? How was your day going before that? You know, because it's like, I know that this isn't who you wanted to be. Where did you lose your ability to, you know, like have control over the situation or, you know, manage yourself?

SPEAKER_02 48:56

Yeah. So there's a difference between reacting and acting. Yeah. Right. So react is like there's no space. There's a stimulus and there's an immediate reaction.

SPEAKER_01 49:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 49:08

Whereas a response is more of there's a stimulus, there's a bisecond for contemplation and questioning, and then there's an action that is a response rather than a reaction, which has you're not injecting any logic into the decision. All you're doing is just running straight from trigger to program without questioning it.

SPEAKER_00 49:29

Yeah. Yeah. And the way that you get a little bit of space in there between the stimulus and your reaction is mindfulness. The practice of mindfulness every day. That is simply just whatever you're doing when you're driving, drive a different direction. You know, people say that all the time. It's like to get more conscious. It's like, yeah, you're trying to break your brain up with always needing to go into automatic.

SPEAKER_02 49:55

Okay. So if I'm thinking, if if I haven't, if I don't even haven't really even looked into mindfulness at all, and I'm wondering how I can apply that, I mean, what are like three things that I should say to myself when I say, okay, um I want to be mindful right now, what does that look like? You know what I mean? What are a couple things that it's like, well, do this or do that?

SPEAKER_00 50:19

Okay. When, okay, let me give you an example. So when we were at um okay, uh an example that I gave when I was doing the meditation is fly fishing. Okay. So first, it's easier if you can connect it to something you already you already experience mindfulness in some way. So I can give you the concept and define it, but if I can connect it to something where you already experience it, then you'll know. You're just gonna apply it to other things.

SPEAKER_02 50:48

I don't know what you're gonna say, but I know I would catch less trees if I were more mindful in my fly fishing.

SPEAKER_00 50:53

Not necessarily. Oh this is what I this is why I say that it's like you're not you're not catching, you're fishing. And sometimes you're gonna get trees. Part of part of fly fishing is getting trees. Maybe you would catch less trees, but whatever. Probably not. Okay. When like fly fishing is an example, because it's when you you fling the fly up the river, right? How big is the fly?

SPEAKER_02 51:20

Oh, tiny. Some, I mean, they're like like some of them are extremely tiny. Yes. Like uh I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 51:28

Tiny.

SPEAKER_02 51:29

Yeah, tiny.

SPEAKER_00 51:30

Okay, and you have to watch it on the surface of water that is moving and rippling, and sometimes there's rocks, right? So you're casting it up, and then you're intensely focused on that little tiny fly. Because not that I've caught a fish on this river, I did with the fly guides or the fly fishing guys, but but because all it takes is just a little whoop like that, just that much. So you are so focused, and then it gets down to the bottom and then you flick it up, right? Okay. While you are doing that, what happens when you start thinking about the stress that you had at work or something else that you've got to get done that day and whatever else?

SPEAKER_02 52:18

Well, fly fishing, I mean uh you have like less than a second to to act when a fish hits your fly or it it's gone. And so yeah, you obviously I think um catch less fish.

SPEAKER_00 52:31

Yeah, and more trees, maybe.

SPEAKER_02 52:33

Yeah, absolutely. That comes right along with it.

SPEAKER_00 52:36

Okay. So the whole that is an example for people who have ever experienced that, or something that we can even just visualize that that is like would take a lot of focus. The interesting thing is that people who fly fly fish love fly fishing. And it is a thrill to catch a fish, but it is a thrill to be standing in the river fly fishing.

SPEAKER_02 52:58

Why well, I mean, I probably have my own reasons.

SPEAKER_00 53:04

Yeah, but ultimately, whatever it is, you're standing in the river, and it is all there is in the entire world.

SPEAKER_02 53:11

Well, yeah. There's exactly that's mindfulness. That's all you're doing. I mean, you're like simple as well that fly, and you don't even care about or think about it or want to think about anything else. You're just you're in it.

SPEAKER_00 53:24

And every time you come back, you're just happy. It was fun, unless you caught too many trees.

SPEAKER_02 53:32

Well, that doesn't rare that doesn't happen that often.

SPEAKER_00 53:36

No, every time. But it's so everybody can think of something that when they do, maybe they play a sport, maybe they go rock climbing, maybe they do whatever it is, that when you are doing that thing, you're so present in it. And the easiest way to think of is think of something you absolutely love to do. You love it, right? You feel like you are more you while you are doing it. And um, like you hiking all over the mountains looking for ruins and things like that, right?

SPEAKER_01 54:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 54:13

But the reason why is because the thing that you love about it is the way that you feel when you're there. And the way that you feel is presence.

SPEAKER_02 54:25

And so Yeah, I feel 100% straight line connected to what I'm doing. There's no detours I'm not thinking about. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 54:32

Okay. Now, if you are out there and you're thinking about all the things that you need to produce or the things that you've done that you regret or whatever, what happens to that experience?

SPEAKER_02 54:43

Oh, it goes downhill. It's like that's why it's like, stop, shut that down, we're not doing that. Yeah. Don't worry about that later. We're we're busy like doing this.

SPEAKER_00 54:52

That's mindfulness. Exactly that.

SPEAKER_02 54:54

Okay, so it sounds like it's it's possible at least to be mindful when you're doing something you enjoy and love. What about when you're doing stuff you don't really care to be doing?

SPEAKER_00 55:02

That's the muscle work we're growing. Because you may find that the things that you don't care to be doing aren't so bad when you're mindful.

SPEAKER_02 55:11

Yeah, but you want to find that they're bad so that you won't want to do them anything.

SPEAKER_00 55:15

I know, but you gotta do them. So I think it for an example for me is that when I get home from work, it's like I've been doing our meal prepping for four years, right? Um, when I get home from work, I don't want to cook. I don't want to make dinner, whatever. But uh, I think after I came back from Fort Worth, um, I just I don't know what it was. It was just like that week after work, I just wanted to come home and I would make fresh mango salsa, make my salmon, do all the things, right? And I just while I was cutting the mango, I was only cutting the mango. While I was cutting the onion, I was only cutting the onion. While I was, you know, everything that I was doing, I was practicing only doing the thing. And it was so rewarding. And I never say that about that kind of stuff. Yeah. But it just was. It used to be a task. And then so you can you can practice doing that in different situations. This is the skill that helps to strengthen the muscle for the harder time to do it, to stay mindful, is when you are with somebody where there are high emotional stakes. Maybe somebody's confronting you about something that you do that is difficult for them. And that's hard to stay present. All of a sudden, every little past version of yourself that was told that they are bad or wrong is suddenly at attention and fighting to take over.

SPEAKER_01 56:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 56:44

And then all of a sudden, you are dealing with a spouse as your 13-year-old self.

SPEAKER_02 56:51

That is a really good way to put it.

SPEAKER_00 56:52

It that's exactly what it is, though. I mean, it's like when you so often when I'm doing couples work, it's like, you know, it's like you like somebody's whining or throwing a temper tantrum. It's like adults don't throw temper tantrums. You throw temper tantrums when you're possessed by an entity of your past self, or therefore being driven around by your young self. Or, in a better way to see it is when a hurt part of yourself is suddenly trying to solve the problem, a run run the program. This is how we deal with that. You know, it's like when when adults get whiny, probably because when they were younger and they didn't get what they need, they got whiny and then they got what they needed.

SPEAKER_01 57:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 57:38

But we just have to go back and address that. It's just different things like that.

SPEAKER_02 57:42

It's such a good way to understand why you do stuff a little a little better.

SPEAKER_00 57:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 57:46

It's like, oh, almost almost to the extent of like manipulating the language, it's not, why am I doing this? It's like, why is my 15-year-old self coming back to try to do this?

SPEAKER_00 57:58

Even when just saying that, that is the thing when I know that people are in the right space when I'm working with them with addiction or whatever. Is because it's like I was sitting out there and and I noticed this thing, and I felt so like I wanted to do this thing that I have not done for a long time, that I felt like I was doing so good. And so what I did in that moment is like, hey, to my little 14-year-old, what do you need? What's going on? What is it about this situation? You know?

SPEAKER_02 58:29

Well, yeah, and that 14-year-old version of yourself might see the solution to the situation as something completely different.

SPEAKER_00 58:34

Well, oh, yeah, absolutely would.

SPEAKER_02 58:38

The solution is completely different from what the actual solution is. Yeah. So they go down that road to try to do it. And then yeah, it doesn't fit your your your 14-year-old self dealing with a marriage. It's like, well, this is a very good thing.

SPEAKER_00 58:50

Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 58:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 58:52

Yeah. It's like, well, even my 22-year-old self, when you know, we were married, my 22-year-old self was was just beginning the process of dealing with being a 14-year-old, you know? Yeah. It's like nothing was more dysregulating, nothing was more dysregulating than being in a situation where I felt safe all the time and loved all the time.

SPEAKER_02 59:20

But I you've said that so much of our marriage. It's like the most dysregulating thing that I've experienced in our marriage is that it's so safe and happy. Okay, but it's like, okay, what?

SPEAKER_00 59:30

No, but that I mean, that was in that first year, is because it was the realization that my nervous system was on high alert and had been for a really long time.

SPEAKER_02 59:38

And all it's just regular because it's not regular to you throughout the case.

SPEAKER_00 59:42

Well, yeah, because I know how to deal with rejection. And I'm not saying that I experience that all the time. It's just saying all of us always feel like all of us have situations like that in different scenarios, you know, but uh like negative cognitions or whatever. But I would say that um it was so dysregulating because my conditioned mind knows how to deal with react or with rejection. And comfortable with that. It almost confirms the thing that I already know, which felt safe because I knew how to get the love that I needed because I was proving it and earning it.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:22

To be given it freely was like that is so messed up though, because it makes the safe space seem like the unsafe space.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:30

Yeah, it does. No, but if anybody if if anybody has experienced it, they know exactly what I'm talking about right now.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:38

This is maybe this is not something you bring up, but domestic violence type situations. And people question, well, why don't you just leave? Why do you keep going back? How come you've had four marriages and you've it's been that situation in all of them? I'm sure that's part of it. It's like the safe space is does not appear safe because they don't they've never dealt with that. And so Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:04

And it's I love that you brought that up because I just want to say that it's like it's so easy if you've never been in a situation like that for any one of us to have judgment for. Why didn't why wouldn't you just get out? If you have never experienced coercive control, if you have never experienced love bombing and the power cycle, if you've never experienced it, just have compassion. Because it's beyond your you just you can't understand what it does to the psyche. Yeah. You can't understand what it does to the psyche. But the other thing, there's two sides that I would say to patterns repeating. Our conditioned mind wants us to go all like it's it's the um the trouble we know. We will repeat the program for that situation.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:54

Yes. It already has a program, it's just waiting for the trigger. And therefore we are safe. But if you send it a trigger and there's no program there, it freaks out probably.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:03

This is exactly why change is so hard. This is why it is so hard to say to somebody, you have absolute worth and value, and have them not push back or not flinch somewhere internally if they're not there yet. You know, but what about this thing that I did or what about whatever? And it's like because it is easier for the brain and parts and all of the things to stay in a place where it feels like it's got it figured out now. It knows who you are and knows where you are a problem, and it knows how to keep that from being a problem, kind of, you know.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:43

It's got a whole list of programs it can run.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:46

As long as the triggers are the same.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:48

Well, and you if you think about it, all the conditioned mind is created with a feeling of fear and then created the solution to that fear. I think that's why I have an aversion to that now. It's like healing over time. I'm like, I just have no interest in anything where you first have to sell me what I should be afraid of, and then you sell me the solution to that fear.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:12

Because I just am like, no, I don't, I don't want to live a life in fear because it's reactive. It diminishes, it uses a lesser part of my brain. I'm capable of more. All of us are capable of more when we can disconnect from fear, but it's a process, and that's why it takes grace and compassion. And there's areas that I have overcome, and there are other areas that I am sure will reveal themselves in time and that I will face them too. But it's just building the skills and the knowing that you can get there. It's just, it's so hard to change because you are working against a brain. The oldest part of your brain is run by fear.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:56

With years of programs that it thinks are working just fine.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:00

Yeah. And all of these programs are written in a way like if there is an ultimate tag on all conditioned mind, it's this is how you stay safe in this world.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:12

And you gotta push against that. That's hard.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:16

So, so then if I'm if I'm taking one thing away from this discussion so far, it's that your opportunity to have a life that you might want to have more than the one you have now, the opportunity for change is probably one second every time a stimulus hits your brain, for you to put the brakes on and say, Stop. What am I feeling? Yeah, but if you have that gap between the stimulus and that response, to not react but to act, which to me means it's a little more intelligent, it's a little more considered, intentional.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:55

If you understand the conditioned mind as a thing first, then it gives you the ability to take the second. Self-awareness gives you the ability to take a second, you're gonna fail. Sometimes you're still gonna react, right? I'll I'll show you what to do with that to continue to learn. But that one second eventually becomes two, eventually becomes three. This becomes such a conscious process that you are really working against. You are, if you think about it, you've got to like unwire how many years, how many experiences with a brain going, no, no, no, no, you know, because if we do this, then then we won't be safe in this world. But it's like, but in time, you get more and more examples of when you slow it down, when you choose not to react, and you respond in a way that's in line with you, you see a different outcome. You know, the dad who comes in and blows up at his kids has kids crying more.

unknown 1:05:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:58

Now his wife is mad. Yeah. Now there's no peace for sure. And and maybe his wife is saying, they just wanted to see you today. They've been talking all day about how bad they want to see you, whatever, you know. There's no peace. But if he walks in the back door, or even if he learns, I've had a really stressful day, and he learns a meditation practice that on the way home is time to shift. Take deep breaths, leave work behind. Uh, do a container exercise with somebody, close your eyes and envision taking the whole day and everything that stressed you out, shrink it down, put it in a container because it doesn't belong at home. Put the lid on it, visualize yourself, putting it on the lid and putting it on a shelf. That's that fits with like the zygarnic effect. The zygarnic effect is the idea that any project that remains open in your brain requires 98% of your brain's energy, which lowers your ability to deal with the stressors at home. But if you put it in a container, visualize putting it in a container, it's giving your brain permission to shut it down, and you're saying, We will pick this back up again tomorrow when we're at work and we can deal with it.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:12

Sit in the car in the driveway for five minutes if you need to. Yeah. And just be and just think, okay, I'm going in the house. I probably know what I'm going to see, what a situation is. Who do I want to be?

SPEAKER_00 1:07:24

Yeah. And then you can you can actually sit in the car, take a minute, and go, there's probably going to be toys all over. It's like, man, what a gift that I've been able to provide toys for my kids. That's that's flipping it. Yeah. All that is, is is changing the frequency of the energy. So in psychology, all energy has a frequency or energy. All energy or all emotion is energy and motion. It's just atoms slamming against each other at a higher or lower frequency. So if you are authenticity when you are your truest self and you're authentic, that's the highest frequency. Gratitude is right up there with it. So if you can flip anything to that, the atoms are beating so fast up against each other. Have you ever been around anybody who just being around them makes you feel like you want to be a better person? It raises your energy.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:19

Yeah, like every day, baby.

unknown 1:08:22

Thanks.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:23

You're so funny.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:25

That's awesome. Okay. Then the bottom is like shame, uh, regret. There's more, right? So there's there's the vortex that is higher and then the lower energy.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:37

It just feels heavy.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:38

Yeah. And those the atoms are going so slow against each other in the energy of that, that they actually require energy from your body to fuel the movement. So they pull energy out. Have you ever been around anybody that after being around them for a while, you're just like, ugh, like I need to just go.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:58

You know what I mean? The energy out.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:00

They literally are that's crazy.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:02

I've never, I mean, you probably said this to me, I don't really don't know, but that's the first time I've ever heard that or even thought of it that way. They're at such a low frequency with thought process that it requires them to draw energy from around them.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:19

That is crazy.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:20

It's like thought process, but it's emotion. It's energy in motion. That's all emotion is. Like you can think of emotion.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:26

Energy in motion. Yeah. I just made that up. That's good, huh? Good job. You want you want me to draw it on the whiteboard? No. I'll put some arrows on there.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:34

No, but I will teach you a flip side because I think that that is super important. Well, I was gonna erase it, but I won't. Okay. Here's the thing: you're going to react. You just are. Okay. So when you react, as soon as you come back to yourself and you realize that you have reacted or acted in a way that is not consistent with who you want to be, because Ryan drinks his pink cup.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:59

Yeah, I'm zooming in on you right now that you can't see me drinking. Oh god, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:03

Okay. So if you so this so anytime you react, what you're going react, what you're going to do after you after the reaction, after you come to the awareness that you did. You're gonna sit down, you're gonna draw this, stimulus on the top, right? So you can even just write the word stimulus. Write the word stimulus. What was the stimulus? What was the thing that set you off? Right? So then once you write that, so let's say the dad in our situation, maybe his stimulus wasn't even the kids' toys on the floor, he starts to realize that the actual stimulus was um his stress at work, right? He was already sent over, which is like the pre-trigger. But let's say that what he's actually reacting to is the kids' toys on the floor. So he writes down stimulus, the kids' toys, and the kids being loud, or whatever it was. Then his conditioned thought. What was he feeling at that moment? And maybe he has an idea and maybe he doesn't. Uh, it's like it's okay. Like sometimes you'll know what it is, sometimes you won't. That's okay. So you write down whatever it is if you know. If you don't, I'll show you how to use that. So then reaction. You write down what is the reaction. I yelled at the kids. Then you write down, ask. If I had slowed down, what would I have asked myself? One, what was I feeling? I was feeling stress from work at or stress at work, whatever. So you're just actually going through the process, but in very real time, slow, just kind of okay. And what was why were the kids screaming? Because they were excited to see me when I got home. You know, why I gotta say something.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:52

If you're writing all of this down instead of just running through it in your head, that's gotta have way more impact on the shame and what you get out of this.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:01

This is why when you get it wrong, you do this exercise. Instead of going into shame, you just start working it through for understanding.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:11

Right? Then you would go, okay, then respond. How would I like to respond? You write that down. How would I have liked to have responded? Then you write it down. Now here comes the hard part, especially in marriage. You go out and you say, Hey, first, let's say we're talking to the kid. Hey, when I got home from work, I yelled at you. And I am so sorry that I did that. I did that because I had had a stressful day at work and because of other things that you know I have going on in my mind, right? What I wish I would have done, and maybe the six-year-old isn't gonna get this, right? So let's do it as far as like a six-year-old. It's like, I know you were excited when I got home from work, and I didn't see that because I was so busy in my adult brain, and you just tell them that you're so sorry. I wish I would have come in excited and played with you or whatever. Do you want to play? Right? That's true repair. Now let's do it in marriage because it's difficult. Stimulus is um, let's say anything. What's a stimulus?

SPEAKER_02 1:13:20

I don't have any difficult marriage stimulus things in my head, baby. Don't even know what you're talking about.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:30

That's so funny. Okay. Well, true. Um, I know. Okay. Um, let's say that your wants to go golfing.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:39

All right, that's stupid. I don't go, I have no idea what that would be.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:42

Okay, how about I've been home with the kids all day, and my husband came in the door and told me that he's going out to go golfing. And I totally freaked out and said, no, you can't go, and blah, blah, blah. Yep. That's one way, right? So, in that, it would be like this stimulus was I was, you know, when you said, I would write down when you said that you wanted to go golfing, was the stimulus that set everything off. Now, there's a bunch of other things underneath that which would be very helpful with for levels of escalation and windows of window of tolerance stuff, which I can teach later.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:19

Are you kidding me? Are you serious, right? Yes, it's whatever that is.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:22

It's the thing that knocked you out into, okay. So then if I write down conditioned mind, what is that? It's like I'm just exhausted and feel like I don't ever get a break, and I was spiraling down into that. What was my reaction? I yelled and I freaked out, right? Okay, what were you feeling? Um, I was feeling like, okay, what am I feeling? I was feeling uh just exhausted, overlooked, unvalued, whatever it is, write down all the things. Um and just kind of work through it. And then maybe the response still ends up going, my my reaction might have been, I actually really need you tonight. I have, I'm so tired. Is there any way you can reschedule it to tomorrow? Right? And then that would be a discussion, that's a different thing. So, but what you do in that then is you go and say, Hey, earlier when you got home and told me that you were about to leave to go with your friends, I completely freaked out. And I reacted very poorly. I yelled at you, I told you you need to stay home, I totally spiraled, I went into victim mode big time, all of that. And that's my business. Like the reason why I felt that is my business. That's something that I have to fix because triggers are your responsibility, they are not anybody else's responsibility. Then you get down and it's like, I wish that I would have been able to slow down in that moment and just kind of run through like what I was actually feeling, why you might be asking to go, what might not you understand about how my day has gone, blah, blah, blah. Then I would have explained those things to you. And honestly, in the end, I probably still would have needed you to stay home, but I would have done it with loving and compassion. Or we could have talked about, like, if you really needed to go, if there was some important reason why you needed to go, then we could have worked through together how to also, you know, can we have a babysitter come over? Can you drop the kids off at your mom's on the way, or something like that? And which is more loving, more friendly, more compassionate. People tell me all the time in marriage that they are best friends, but then I ask them if they're friendly to each other, and they are most often not. And so that's the important thing is to remember that we're bringing our best to the people who we love most, not our leftovers. And that's a difficult thing to do. But if there is a prolonged, you know, taking advantage of each other, whatever, you have to change the pattern, and you might need a therapist to help you with doing that. But anytime you want to change a pattern, you just have to change your participation in it. So using the model as a way to slow down and think through things is super effective. You're not always gonna get it because perfection isn't real. So instead, what you're going to do is when you don't get it, you're gonna break the model down and then you're gonna own it. At no point in owning it should you say, Well, I did it because you were this way, because that's not what it's about. Collaborative alliance, as Jennifer Vinlayson taught Fife teaches it, which I think is one of the most powerful concepts, is a collaborative alliance is two people who have committed between them and God, their higher power, whatever, or to themselves, that they want will be true to themselves and have integrity in their relationship, no matter what the other person is doing. So if the other person is spiraling down and reacting, then I'm going to put up a boundary, which we'll talk about later, but it's like at a different time. But I'm going to not not put up a boundary, I hate that term, but I'm just going to say, hey, I can see that you're having a hard time today, and that right now is probably not the best time for this conversation. Like I totally want to hear what you're saying, but I don't think that this is beneficial for us to be talking to each other this way. So let's just, you know, take 10 minutes or let's just talk about it later when we've calmed down. That's a good boundary saying what you do or do not want to participate in. But that is being friendly. It's seeing the other, making room and space for the other person. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_02 1:18:49

Definitely. Okay. So the tool then is well, first thing you gotta do to use the tool is you gotta break something to use a tool to fix it. So the first thing is there's a stimulus and you have a reaction rather than a response or an action. Second step, sit down, pen and pen and pencil, write down those steps that you went through to analyze the situation, which were real quick, what? Stimulus. What was the stimulus? You write it down.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:23

Yeah, you write down the stimulus. You can investigate or consider for your own personal awareness what the conditioned response might be connected to. And if you don't know, just put a question mark. That's okay. That's for you to explain.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:36

So what was the stimulus? Two, what was the reaction?

SPEAKER_00 1:19:39

The way that you reacted.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:40

How did I react? And then three, what was the result?

SPEAKER_00 1:19:45

No, three is asking like what questions would I have liked to have been able to ask if I could have slowed down? Or what would have what questions would have been effective?

SPEAKER_02 1:19:57

What could I could have done to process this differently?

SPEAKER_00 1:20:02

And then is there a uh how how would I want to and then I would have responded in this way?

SPEAKER_02 1:20:10

Yeah, and I would have responded this way. So there's here step one, this is the stimulus. Step two, this was my reaction. Step three was what could have I asked myself or what could I have done to slow this down and make it different? And step four is uh how would I have loved to respond to this?

SPEAKER_00 1:20:29

If I had taken the time to do the asking.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:32

If I had taken the time to do the asking.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:34

And remember, the asking is all about now reversing mitochondria and ATP energy to reverse from going straight to the limbic system and dumping cortisol, stress hormone, and adrenaline and whatever for the fight-flight response, and it's reversing it back to your frontal lobe to connect the pathways between the two so you can make a decision that's more in line with who you want to be.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:57

You're intercepting it before it gets to the lizard brain.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:02

Okay. And then the next step is you gotta physically go to the person and say, This is what happened, this is where I was, this is why I did what I did, this is what I did, and I'm sorry. And let's do something to fix it.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:21

So so there there's two things here that are key. I think one is don't do that if you're not sorry and you don't wish there was a response.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:31

And then don't do it if you're gonna go back and say, Bull, I did this because you were doing this. It's not about that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:41

You gotta be willing, you can't stand on that hill or it there's not really a display.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:46

The fight just continues. Now you've got another one to do. Yeah. Because it it will just, you know. It's like you can ask somebody to see you, but you first, it's like the you first have to remove the beam from your eye before you can address the moat in theirs.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:02

You have to sacrifice being right in the name of growing the relationship.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:07

Yeah, but it's not even, it's not even like it's uh, I mean, it's like I totally get what you're saying in that, but it really isn't like I'm gonna die on the hill of rightness even if I'm not right and not justified, but I really want to find ways that I'm justified in acting the way. It's not that. It's I can tolerate the fact that I was wrong, even if my partner or whoever else is acting in a way that I don't think is great or they wouldn't normally whatever it isn't about that. It's collaborative alliances. I'm going to do what is right. The fact of the matter is, two wrongs don't make a right, and I was acting poorly. And so I'm just gonna own how I'm acting poorly.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:55

If it ended poorly, you're both wrong to some degree, I guess. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:58

Yeah, totally. I mean, uh marriage in marriages where you are keeping score, yeah, but you did this, and yeah, but you did this. It just means you're on the opposite team. Yeah. You don't keep score if you're on the same team. And you're on the same team because you have a family, you're, you know, or whatever. It's like you chose each other for a reason. Yeah. You know. So anyway, that is a skill that is super helpful. Practice that. Remember also practicing mindfulness in little things, start easy and then try it in more difficult situations, something that you don't enjoy doing, like cooking, or you know, I mean, a lot of people really enjoy that too. But it's like, do it in a situation where it's like if you are going outside and you've got to do the yard work and you're like, I got to do the work, yard work. It's like, okay, then right now is my job to practice just doing it mindfully. I don't have to sit here and think about how I don't like to mow the lawn. It's like just mow the lawn. Just be present in it with every single step. Feel your feet move and blah, blah, blah. And it's like just focus on exactly what you're doing. And you might.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:09

Just uh divert, uh distract and listen to a podcast like this one.

unknown 1:24:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:16

All right. Well, hopefully all of that is helpful. It's a lot of information to process. So I'm listening to it a time or two. The other thing is I was gonna say, with any of the meditations, if you need like somebody to guide you in meditations if you're having a hard time, just go back to the first or to the meditation for that week, rewind it 10 minutes on this last one. It's like rewind it 10 minutes or rewind it 15 minutes, and just sit and do the, like just do the last 15 minutes of the episode if you need somebody to guide you in the meantime. But building mindfulness um and being more true to who you are, this is this is the way to peace.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:01

Yep. And if you find yourself getting caught up in how frustrating it can be to work on stuff and do things, just remember the goal of all this is peace. It's you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 1:25:12

And it's little out of time. It's okay. It's so easy to get caught up in the idea that we've got to change everything at once. Nope. Just do one thing that you normally do consciously, even if shower. Just be in the shower. Don't think about anything else. It's like just be in the shower, just see what happens. You know, it's like feel the water. It's uh whatever, you know. Just see, just start experiencing that and see. That is, I think, the biggest thing is that when you teach people mindfulness and meditation, these things start to come more naturally. There may be skills and stuff that you need to help, but but it comes more naturally.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:53

All right.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:54

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:55

Thanks everybody.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:57

Yes, I hope that you are all happy and well and peaceful. And then you're gonna do your tagline. Yeah. It made me laugh so hard. I'm not gonna say it.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:07

You're gonna say it.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:09

Get some get some peace and then oh, go get some peace. And and that's your part. Oh, and go get some greater peace.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:19

Oh, that was corny. We'll fix that. Yeah. Thanks for listening, and we will talk to you next week.