Playing Injured
Playing Injured is the podcast for men who want to grow stronger in every area of life. Men everywhere face challenges, setbacks, and unseen battles, and how we respond defines the kind of men we become.
Hosted by Josh Dillingham and Mason Eddy, entrepreneurs and former collegiate athletes, Playing Injured ranks in the top 2% of podcasts globally with over 140 episodes.
Built on five pillars of growth: Faith, Family, Fitness, Finances, and Fun, the show delivers raw solo episodes, expert guests, and honest conversations. Josh and Mason equip men with the mindset, tools, and stories to build resilience, lead with strength, and thrive…even when life feels like they’re playing injured.
Playing Injured
Hypnotherapist on Rewiring The Subconscious & Ending Self-Sabotage | Matt Johnson (EP 145)
What if your biggest breakthroughs aren’t blocked by willpower, but by old code running in the background? We sit down with hypnotherapist and NLP coach Matt Johnson to map the invisible forces that shape behavior—childhood imprints, nervous system alarms, and identity “thermostats”—and then we show how to change them.
Matt recounts the hiking accident that led to years of light and sound sensitivity, the SPECT scan that revealed PTSD, and the turning point where traditional treatments gave way to targeted work with hypnosis, neurolinguistic programming, and somatic tools. You’ll hear how the subconscious computes rather than reasons, why ages zero to seven are so pivotal, and how “parts” formed in childhood keep trying to protect you as an adult. We walk through parts integration to resolve inner conflict, reframe people pleasing and imposter syndrome, and align self-worth with assertiveness.
If you’ve ever hit a goal and mysteriously stalled, Matt’s identity thermostat concept and pain-versus-pleasure strategy will make sense of self-sabotage. We get tactical with habit design—1% daily gains, stacking joy so “fun gets done,” and the Navy SEAL-style 10-second focus to push through discomfort. Matt also demonstrates quick, portable NLP exercises: a power-scaling visualization to shrink intimidation and a “spin” technique to unwind body tension in minutes. Along the way, we compare hypnosis, NLP, EMDR, and somatic release so you can choose the right tool for your nervous system.
You’ll leave with a practical toolkit and a hopeful frame: if an imprint can be installed, it can be updated. Explore Matt’s weekly hypnosis program, Limitless by Design, and grab his free NLP Mind Magic course for step-by-step exercises on perfectionism, procrastination, rejection, and more. If this conversation sparked a shift, follow, share with a friend, and leave a quick review—what pattern are you ready to rewrite next?
Want to be a guest on Playing Injured? Send Joshua Dillingham a message on PodMatch, here: https://www.podmatch.com/hostdetailpreview/playinginjured
Today's episode is all about helping you heal mental and emotional baggage and take control of your subconscious programming. Today's guest is Matt Johnson, who is a hypnotherapist and a neurolinguistic programming coach, who's turned his recovery of a brain injury into powerful methods to help others transform their lives. In this episode, we dive deeper into Matt's brain injury and the years of pain that that caused and how the recovery of it actually got him into the work that he's in today. We also go through the imprints that we get in childhood and how they actually cause patterns in us later. And then we actually went through some real examples of how to reframe some of these patterns like people pleasing, imposter syndrome, feeling worthy. And then we also go through certain things like self-sabotage, identity. We also talked a little bit about how the subconscious actually runs our life and the science behind that. And I just thought it was a really valuable episode about the programming that we all have. And so I hope you guys enjoy the show. I love it. I love it. So I usually start the show with who is Matt and uh happy time today.
SPEAKER_00:Matt is a nerd at heart. I got started on this journey in 2016. I got a severe brain injury. I was hiking with my kids at a place called Point Lombard Tide Pools here in San Diego. And I slipped and landed the back of my head on a slab of solid rock. I hit so hard my brain actually rebounded, hit the top of my skull. I twisted the part here above my eyes. Brutal pain. If you've ever been zapped by electricity, felt like that intense pins and needles type feeling. That's what was going on in my head. For years after that, I was so sensitive to light and sound, I couldn't even be in a room with the lights on. It was too painful. And so you know, spent a lot of time alone in the dark. I had you know room in my house, had black hefty bags taped over to windows and all that. And I spent my first several years going through the medical system and you know, didn't you know did get a lot from it? I I had four different neurologists. The first one told me that there's nothing I can do for you, then tries to schedule me for a uh follow-up visit. I'm like, why am I coming back if there's nothing you do for me? So you know, on to neuro number two, who gave me a pill, you know, that made me worse. Uh, I called him, he gave me another one, made me made me better. And then I uh the next time I saw him, I asked him, you know, is there something you can give me to help me sleep? Uh, because I was going through these brutal cycles, you know, the pain helped me, uh the pain made it really hard to sleep, which made the pain worse. And I was just going down these brutal downward spirals. And he said, No, nothing I can give you. And so on to neural number three right away. She's like, Oh, let me give you amitryptaline. And uh it worked. And, you know, I'm beyond grateful to my doctors. I, you know, I wouldn't be where I am without them. But the only reason I tell that story is how many people would have stopped with that first one. You know what I mean? But spent the first few years, you know, going, you know, reading every medical study I could find, geeking out on that stuff. I I created a three-page document on you know all the you know brain injury resources that could help people. I give that off for free. If anybody would like it, just you know, shoot me a message. But I really got to a point where I realized medical science was not going to save me. And so I, you know, started looking for what else is out there. And lucky for me, I live in California, so I had a lot to choose from. I got into energy medicine and all that kind of stuff. And I, you know, I'd been a lifelong skeptic. I, you know, got into it because I I was desperate. I had no nowhere else to turn and found out some of that stuff does work. I one of the first things I tried was called Reiki. And I told you I had that pins and needles feeling in my head, right? The best description I can give for it is she took those pins and needles and kind of made them fly in formation. And I'm like, whoa, I have no idea what you're doing, but please don't stop. You know, at the end of the treatment, I'm like, you know, can you teach me how to do that? And so I spent several days with her, learned Reiki, I got into pronic healing, Qigong, all this stuff. And anything that helped me, I just tried to dive in and master it and did a huge amount of healing over the next couple of years, but just could not get rid of that brain, you know, that light and sound sensitivity, and just couldn't go out and live my life. And so at this point, I'm thinking, do I have permanent damage? So I found a special type of brain scan done by uh Dr. Daniel Eamon. An MRI will look at the tissue, which doesn't really tell you a lot if you have a brain injury unless you got something really wrong. And a spec scan will actually map the electrical activity in the brain. And I go and get my scan, and long story short, I my brain was okay, but areas that were supposed to be dark were lit up like fireworks. I was diagnosed with PTSD that day. And so right away I knew what the uh what was going on. My PTSD was keeping me in fight or flight. The name of the game with a brain injury is bringing the brain waves down so that you can give the brain a chance to rest and repair itself. My PTSD was doing the opposite and sabotaging the healing process. And so, you know, at that point, I'd already known that I'd had anxiety issues. I'd seen several therapists, you know, get the meds and all that. And I just I knew that wasn't the path for me.
SPEAKER_01:This is before this is before the injury that you knew you had.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah. The therapy route. I I'd known that I'd had the anxiety, and but I never gave it that label PTSD. My my thinking at the time was that's something the soldiers get, you know what I mean? But as soon as I heard those letters, it's like, oh, that's what's going on. I'd never even you know put two and two together. But I I knew traditional therapy, you know, wasn't wasn't gonna cut it for me. Lucky for me, at that point, I was familiar with Tony Robbins and NLP or neurolinguistic programming and hypnosis. I'd seen my dad get hypnotized and I knew the power both of them. So I dove in, I got quadruple certified and you know, hypnotherapy, NLP coaching, all that, and I peppered every single instructor I had with the same exact question how do you heal PTSD? They all tried to help me, but nobody knew how to do it. It just that info wasn't out there. So I went on another geek out journey for you know about two and a half years, just learning from the greats in both disciplines and took a little from this guy, a little from this guy, and finally put together a protocol that healed me. And about six months later, I finally healed the brain injury and I can see the light again. So long-winded answer to that question. I apologize for that, but that's that's my story. That's what brought me here.
SPEAKER_01:No, it's it's a lot in there. And so we're thinking, you know, before we hit record, remember we say, hey, you know, we have a lot of things, maybe patterns that we have, anxiety, depression, you know, a lot of different things that's going on, right? And until we have some type of pain is when we kind of start to try to figure out what the what the issue is and how we can deal with it, right? Yeah. And so with your injury, it sounds like you had PTSD before the actual injury.
SPEAKER_00:I was a little guy when I got mine, yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Wow. And so how do you think you you because you mentioned anxiety, right? How else would you do you think that was kind of affecting your day-to-day before the injury?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah. I had severe anxiety, I had depression, I was you know, suicidal several times, you know, growing up. I also noticed, you know, once I got my diagnosis looking back, I realized all the way I shut myself down. When you've got you know something severe going on like that, just going to the grocery store is exhausting. So you don't want to do it unless you have to, you know what I mean? And so it I really was, you know, living a fraction of the life that I could have, you know what I mean? I was a shell of a person, to be honest. But yeah, it's once I got my diagnosis, though, it all just it made sense. And you know, the the brain injury, I definitely don't want another one, but it, you know, it wound up being a huge gift because I never would have put two and two together and realized that I had PTSD unless I had gotten that brain scan.
SPEAKER_01:100%, yeah. You know, I'm sitting here thinking about it, like so you probably knew you knew something was going on with you, right? Before you couldn't put a name to it, right?
SPEAKER_00:Right, yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_01:And obviously, okay, you don't want to fall and hit your head on on rock.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I don't recommend it, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:But then being the best thing for you, obviously, and you you went through all these different things to try to heal the pain and different things. What was that experience like healing yourself? Right? I think it's a lot of folks out there who probably first of all, they don't even have the awareness, right? They have something or or they have certain patterns that they need to heal, right?
SPEAKER_00:Right.
SPEAKER_01:What did that process look like for you? You mentioned six months, right? I would love to hear what that looked like.
SPEAKER_00:Healing those patterns. If you think about the first time you drove a car, you your hands were tan and two, you were like hyper-focused on not hitting anything, right? Fast forward a few years, you got a cell phone in one hand, coffee in the other, you know what I mean? It's I'm kidding, please don't do that. But it that shows the process, you know, it became so automatic for you, you didn't even have to think about it. Most of us have had the experience of driving and realizing we haven't even been paying attention, right? How are you able to not crash when you're off in Lila Land? It's because your subconscious learned how to drive, just learns through repetition, right? Awesome process for driving, but problems can happen when you hand it things like you know negative beliefs or negative emotions, limiting beliefs, things like that. It, you know, when once those are down in into that programming, then you got a problem. That's why, you know, talk therapy didn't uh work for me. My trauma was subconscious. And to get it, is like my dad, you know, when he got hypnotized, it was to stop smoking. I he smoked a pack a day for over 30 years, and I saw him trying pills, patches, gums, you name it, failing every single time. Then he got hypnotized. He told me after one hypnosis session, he never even craved cigarettes again. Now, why would one session be so you know impactful when everything else failed? It's because it targeted that programming where it lives, which is in the subconscious mind. By the time you hit 30 years old, up to 95% of all your day-to-day behaviors are driven by the subconscious. And it's like the driving example. You learn how to do everything on autopilot, it's what your mind is designed to do. But you know, again, when you hand it stuff that you don't want, and usually this will happen in childhood, not always. Human beings zero to seven will go through what's called the imprinting phase, which is your brain takes in a huge amount of uh knowledge, but we haven't developed what's called a critical faculty yet, which means we can't judge the info that's coming in. So we just accept that this is the way the world is, people are, all that. Whatever programming you got during those years is still running, you know, the vast majority of those habits. I don't I don't know if that answers your question.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, no, it does actually. And I think it's kind of taking us, it's gonna take us to kind of the next thing, right? Okay. I even thought about it. You know, I I've been reading this book called uh No Bad Parts.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, oh yeah. Uh Richard Schwartz, right?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, by Richard Schwartz. Yeah, yeah. And he mentioned how obviously these parts, right, that you mentioned that that zero seven, you know, lifespan, right? When we are taking in all this information and we are trying to find ways to survive, right? We get these patterns or these parts that help us survive, right? And they're in it's genius, right? Yeah. Help us, you know, receive love or help us to protect ourselves, whatever the case may be. But we don't grow out of those patterns. They keep going, they keep leading us, right? And become subconscious, like you mentioned, right? It runs our life pretty much until we actually go back and kind of heal those parts, right?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, absolutely. If you think of, if you've ever seen that movie Ghostbusters, where they put that trap out to to trap the ghost in, that's very much like a part. It's it's self-contained, it is whole within that uh within that uh that trap, but it, you know, it's still, if it happened to you at five years old, it's still a five-year-old kid inside that part. It's a very noble thing to do. It's protecting the rest of your psyche from having to deal with whatever that was. But that part, when it sees that you know, we're entering a similar situation or something that thinks it's dangerous because of whatever happened, it it takes charge. And stuff can, you know, you know, you can do some crazy stuff in that in that situation. IFS, the internal family systems, what it was talking about with the the parts and all that really fascinating stuff. Um yeah, yeah. It's it explains so much of our behavior. NLP, we actually have a process we call parts integration. It's one of my favorite ones where we do we you know can get rid of bad habits and things like that.
SPEAKER_01:Walk us through that. I would love to hear. But what is that?
SPEAKER_00:Okay, okay. Um, it's basically a part is something you by definition do part of the time. And so if you've got like a habit or something like that, it would take me about 10 minutes to really go through it. But what we do, now your subconscious mind works very powerfully on symbols. And so we have that part come out and stand on your hand, as silly as that sounds. And then we have its opposite, the the opposite number, whatever the the opposite of, you know, if it's if it's a weakling or if it's afraid, you know, you have your most powerful part come out on the other hand. You have them look at each other, say, hey, you know, what attributes would you like to have about the other? You know, and you look at what's called your highest intent. And every every action, every reaction you have has a positive intent in some level that could be to protect you from you know further danger or you know, protect your reputation and things like that. But once you realize that, you know, those those two parts will actually have the same intent for you. They just go about it very different ways. And you take your hands and physically touch them together, you feel it in your brain. It is a very strange experience, but those those neurons literally physically rewire themselves. It's really fascinating stuff.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I I love that because so I mean, for instance, and I and I can give you a part of myself is like the people pleasing, yes, uh over-accommodating type of person. Nice, nice guy, nice, you know, which you know, in some cases it can help. And I used to I used to get so hard on myself about that, like, man, like what's wrong with me, right? And then obviously realizing after you know reading Richard Short's book, No Bad Parts, ended up acknowledging that, okay, this was this was a a good thing, right? I I needed to do this, right? Growing up. And then like you mentioned, what would be the opposite, right? To to be more assertive, right? To to to be, you know, a little bit more direct, right? And integrating those parts together and and integrating those things. I I love that. I love that.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah. That particular situation, there could be like some self-worth programs going on there. And what happens is, you know, kids when they're when they're young, they they take responsibility for everything. And really common thing is like a mom and dad are fighting. I must have done something wrong. You know what I mean? When it has nothing to do with them. The ironic thing is as adults, we have all the power, but we take none of the responsibility. You know what I mean? But what can happen with that is you know, you wind up putting other people's needs ahead of your own. I that one I can actually do in about you know, probably 20 seconds, if you want. I have a really cool NFT exercise. This works really well for imposter syndrome, too. You know, imagine yourself that person that you would you know normally subjugate yourself to or whatnot. Imagine they're standing in front of you and imagine you start to grow taller and taller, growing up, so you're as tall as King Kong, and then put that person in your hand, and you can point at them and laugh. If you that usually intensifies the experience, but what happens is your first few years on on Earth, you're looking up at everyone and everything, right? And that is a very submissive place to be. You and it's reality, you have no power, but that has a huge impact on us subconsciously. Hollywood knows this really well. If you know you see the the action hero or whatnot, a lot of times the camera's looking up at them, they're they're looking down at as a very domineering position. We all started life the opposite way, and so what that exercise does is it just teaches your subconscious, hey, I'm not inferior to anyone. I'm not, you know, I don't have to subjugate myself to this person. Works really well on asking a girl out on a date, too. It just relieves that pressure, you know what I mean?
SPEAKER_01:You know, I love that actually, that that that to visualize that. And you mentioned not only just in maybe people pleasing or overaccommodating, but also too with imposter syndrome as well. Just visualize yourself growing taller, growing into, like you said, King Kong, lifting them up, putting them in your hand, laughing at them, right? To help your self-conscious. Yeah, I think another thing I think people can struggle with is consistency. Right. Okay. Uh threshold of it, right? It's like, man, for two weeks, two weeks I've been doing really good. And then it's like as soon as I'm about to finally hit that breakthrough, maybe that's going to the gym, maybe that's some type of business activity, budgeting, right? Okay, on a weekly basis basis, I budget it. I've scheduled my calendar, any habit you have, right?
SPEAKER_00:Right.
SPEAKER_01:People get to a point where as soon as they're about to have that break, that full breakthrough, they sabotage it, right? Talk to me about that.
SPEAKER_00:Uh there, that is a really fascinating topic. There could be some identity issues with that. I think I'm a level eight person. I'm about to hit that level 10 goal, so I'll I'll kind of sabotage myself. We all have like an internal thermostat. If I think of myself as a you know,$100,000 a year person and I hit that$100,000 in October, what am I gonna be doing the next two months? I'm gonna be slacking off, right? But if I think I'm a$200,000 a year person, this is all subconscious, by the way, and I'm only at$100,000 in October, what am I gonna be doing those months? I'm gonna be busting my butt, right? We all have that thermostat that's regulates us in different areas, but we also have to look at there's everything we do is done for one of two things, either avoid pain or gain pleasure. That's, you know, that is the basis of all your behaviors. About 80% of us are gonna have what's called an away from pain strategy. And that does not mean you're a negative person. Our cult our culture wants us to be positive and all that, which I agree with, but these are two different things we're talking about. An away from pain uh uh person is only gonna be motivated by pain. You talk to them about that big goal or you know, sunshine and rainbows and all that, it's just gonna go in one ear and not the other. You really got to get them, you know, up and moving with the pain. But there's an issue with that. Once you get far enough from that pain, all of a sudden it starts to dissipate and you start to, you know, chill out and say, okay, I'm all right now. What you want to do is incorporate both. You start with, you know, get that pain, visualize, you know. I I take people through uh Tony Robbins calls it the Dickens process. You look at what you're doing and what the outcome is going to be, you fast forward 10 years and then 20 years, and look at you know, all the most horrific things you can imagine happening to you because of that, get that pain, you know, to light that fire under you, and then you switch to the pleasure. So you're not beating yourself up, you know, but you can stay in a positive state, but you go back to the pain just when you need it, just long enough to get you to the pleasure, and that that will keep you propelled forward.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. I um when you explain that, I realize that I am more of a person that is motivated by pain, right?
SPEAKER_00:That's about 80% of us. There's nothing wrong with it. I'm one, two, it's it's kind of like being right-handed or left-handed. There's there's just yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and and the reason why I even I even just realized that is because you mentioned, okay, once you get far away from that pain, you start to relax a little bit, right? You know, once you hit the goal away, now you start eating pizza and donuts and all this stuff, you know, right? But once you, you know, you hit you hit that that finance goal, it's like, okay, I'm gonna go on a vacation, you know, gonna make this crazy purchase, right? And so definitely, I I I think incorporating both because I know once I get close enough to the pain, it's like I just explode. It's like a different level of of and then also too, right? I I think incorporating both, like you said, where you aren't beating yourself up because I think I have been a habit of kind of feeling some shame, some shame and some guilt, especially when I get to that point, right? Yeah, so being able to handle that, I know a lot of folks can get into that trap of shaming themselves to reach a goal or guilting themselves to reach a goal.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, that's really common, especially look at like New Year's resolutions. What's everybody's approach? Yeah, I'm gonna work out six hours and starve myself, right? And how often does that work, or how long does that work? Me, I would quit by like day two. You know what I mean? The way you want to go about it, you know, use the pain and pleasure, but you want to just start where you are and make those just tiny little shifts. If you can just make a two millimeter shift every day, uh if you improve one percent per day, that is not 365 in a year. That one percent will compound on each other, and it winds up being 3,700. That's 37 times improvement in one year just for doing one percent more a day. So, like I I had a point when you know my kids were young and all that. I the only time I could get could go to the gym was to by getting up at four o'clock in the morning, which is not easy to do. But yeah, it was but using that and just you know, starting where I was. If you're somebody who's intimidated by the gym, maybe just go swipe your card the first day. Day two, maybe check out a machine, you know what I mean? But just baby steps. And if you leave with a little bit left in the tank, it will not take long. You'll be you know itching to go back in versus you know wearing yourself out and you know being in pain for a week and saying, Ah, I'm never gonna do that again. But that and for me, and well, for everyone, fun gets done. If you can find a way to make it fun, like for me, I like listening to Tony and I love basketball. You know, we we have that in common. I, you know, I was a big time basketball player when I was younger. I so I always ended my workouts with 10 minutes of shooting hoops. And when that alarm went off at four o'clock in the morning, I needed an image that I could flash on that that would drag me out of bed, and that was it. I I had enough pleasure, you know, built around that habit that I was able to do it. I can count on one hand the number of days that I missed in about six years, getting up at four o'clock in the morning and you know, just with those two approaches, two millimeters and fun gets done.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, having fun. I think a lot of folks don't realize that that could be a choice to have fun, right?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:I mean, most most adults now, if you talk to them, hey, what do you do for fun? It's a tough question for them to answer, right? It usually drinking, right?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah, right.
SPEAKER_01:You know, whatever the case may be, right? And so we I think we need to think about what is almost like kidlike. You know, it I'm pretty sure that takes you back to kind of your childhood to some degree.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Right. I know when I go to the gym, right? I'm not shy about uh really getting into the music and dancing to some degree, right? While I'm in early in the morning so that I can get excited during the workout, right?
SPEAKER_00:That's how I work. Yeah, I I can work for, you know, I usually work about 12 hours a day now. I'm I'm dancing for probably half of you know you gotta have fun.
SPEAKER_01:You have and I think I didn't realize that, you know, and you can probably relate to it, those practices where you just did not feel like being there, and you know the coach is in a bad mood, and you know it's like it's it's super cold outside. You know, you from you from Detroit, I'm here in Chicago, so cold and it's it's it's been dark all day. You just don't have the energy to do it, but you just decide like let's just have fun with this, let's dance, let's let's laugh, uh, let's let's focus. You you can do it all at once, right? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it makes things it just changes your perspective, you know.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, absolutely. There there's another trick, the the Navy SEALs, they realized years ago that they the people who are above a certain IQ level never finished the program. And they they started looking into why. And people with super high IQs are usually they they use it kind of like a crutch, you know what I mean? They use it to get through life. And when they when they were faced with that much pain, they weren't used to it. And so they came up with an approach just focused on the next 10 seconds at a time, just 10 seconds at a time, and that that got them through it. Yeah, it's people the the ultimate example of this is a book called Man's Search for Meaning by Victor Frankel. This guy, he was a Jewish psychiatrist. He was in Auschwitz during the Holocaust and watched his family get burned up. I mean, it was horrible stuff. But he noticed a pattern that people who the people who made it who actually got out of it were the ones who created what he called a compelling future. It's I'm gonna get out of this just so I can tell the story, you know what I mean, versus the people who got in here and you know said, all right, that's it, I'm done for. They they did not last long. But it's it's all about that mental movie where you know what are you playing in your head and you know what what's your outcome? What's your why?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, well, I and I think when going through pain, that is, I think, one of the main minds you you need to have. Compelling future. That that's the first time I've actually, and I've heard a lot of quotes from the Victor Frankel book, Man, Search for Meaning. And just sitting here talking about it, I feel like I need to actually pick it up and read it. But it's a compelling future, right? I think a lot of times that is what carries you through. You go through some type of hard time. It's it's okay, I'm gonna learn something on the back half of this. I am going to grow from the back half of this, right? I'm gonna be right. And so I love that. A compelling future. I like that.
SPEAKER_00:I'll tell you, in my case, when I was sitting in that dark room and I couldn't even, you know, I couldn't look at my phone. It was it was too painful. Mine was I I'm gonna get out of here. I I'd seen my dad go through his own dark night of the soul. He got in a bad accident, you know, wasn't able to work anymore. But I'd watched him kind of go downhill, you know, kind of spiral downwards. And I wanted to be an example to my kids of, you know, I I hope not, but they're, you know, they will probably have their own dark night of the soul at some point. I wanted to be an example to them of how to get out of it. And so I just, you know, stayed relentlessly positive. I I knew I couldn't allow a negative thought into my head. It was just that was the only chance I had to get out of there. But a lot of times, you know, my point is a lot of times you'll do more for other people, especially your kids, than you'll do for yourself. So if you need that for motivation, use it.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I think I think we talked about, and obviously it's different when you have kids, right? Yeah. Here's what I've been learning at 29 now, and I'm learning that we we talk about others' needs, putting others' needs, right? You know, when it comes to being accountable, having an accountability partner, somebody that can help you, or you just it just seems like you have more motivation to help somebody else yourself. And when you have kids, obviously it's different, it's a different level, right? It's just crazy that if we can meet somebody or have a stranger who would probably meet their needs before ours or partner or whatever the case may be. You're it can be something where you are neglecting yourself or not meeting yourself.
SPEAKER_00:Self-sacrifice, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Self-sacrifice is the word. A lot of self sabotaging going on there. What what do you think could help folks with that?
SPEAKER_00:Realize that, all right. First of all, it's our if you go back to like caveman, caveman days, if you got booted out of your tribe, it meant almost certain death for you and your offspring. Our tribe is, you know, life itself. And so anytime we're facing ostracism or, you know, anything, any type of loss of status in our tribe, that lights up the same fear circuits in the brain as a life or death situation, because to the brain, it is. And so most of us are really focused on, you know, maintaining our reputation in that tribe. And so that that's where it can be coming from. A lot of it, you know, can also be that self-worth issue. I have to put everybody else before myself. I've been guilty of that. You know what I mean? You can't pour from an empty cup. You know what I'm saying? And it really for me, it took my injury to, you know, really have to put myself first. And, you know, as a parent and, you know, husband and all that, it's yeah, I was, you know, constantly hustling and just, you know, trying to, you know, build a better life for my family and all that kind of stuff. But you know, it doesn't take a brain injury. You just you have to think about, you know, especially if you do have kids, would you want them doing what you're doing when when they grow up? You know what I mean? Do you want them to have that that same type of you know self-sacrifice? You know, if not, then don't model that. Model something better. I I remember Oprah Winfrey talked about she my mother and my wife both love Oprah. So I, you know, I got like 20 years straight from her. But that's the she had a lady on who talked about like, you know, if I'm looking in the mirror and saying, Oh, I'm so fat and that kind of thing, then the daughters will do that too. And so model what you want your kids to be, you know, and that's a big thing for me. So I always took the opposite. I, you know, I made jokes out of it, but you know, I'm so freaking awesome. You know what I mean? Because I want them to feel that way about themselves. So I I try to model that for them.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, 100%. And and even if you don't have kids, right? The people around you, right? Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Same.
SPEAKER_01:So we'll take on a lot of that stuff too. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And if you're willing to take care of somebody else's needs, they will usually let you. You know what I mean? So it's knowing where to draw that boundary. And if you're worried about where that relationship's gonna go, that means it's a condition of that relationship that you sacrifice yourself for them. So you, I mean, I I'm not one to answer that for you, but you have to ask yourself the question do I really want to keep that going? You know what I mean?
SPEAKER_01:And and why too? Why willing to self-sacrifice?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And you know, it's you know, even if that person drops off, that that just creates a vacuum for the right person to come in. I I've seen that over and over again.
SPEAKER_01:I love it. I love that. Subconscious mind, right? I don't know if we've quite gone into it, right? And it's a big topic. Yeah, we understand the subconscious mind and how it kind of and you mentioned it a little bit before how it runs about 95% of our life, pretty much.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it's the 95% behind the wheel, absolutely.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and so tell us a little bit about that, that the the subconscious mind, how it works, and then how can we start to reprogram it or or at least extend to stop to do that?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, absolutely. It's very much like the car example, those programs are down there, it's just like a computer. Your subconscious mind does not think, it only computes, it runs on whatever programs are already in there. W if you're looking to understand why we do the things we do, there I'm gonna go off on a little bit of a tangent here, but there are three main layers to your brain. You have the reptile brain, which is called your amygdala. It understands, you know, fight or flight, it's got to eat it, run from it, mate with it, whatever. But it only its only goal is to keep you alive for the next two seconds and to pass on your genes. That's all it cares about. Above that, you have what's called your mammal brain, which is, you know, think of your dog for this one. Understands love, family, you know, those kind of things. Whereas a lot of reptiles will eat their young. You know what I'm saying? That's the difference between the two brain layers. Above that, we have our neocortex, which handles all our higher order logic and things like that. Most people think the neocortex is what's in charge. In reality, it's usually the reptile. Anybody who's in sales knows that emotion decisions, buying decisions, are made with emotion and justified by logic. And that is the process. The reptile is looking at, all right, what's this going to do for me? Is it gonna increase my pleasure? Is it gonna increase my status, which the reptile is very big on? And when it, you know, when your wife comes home with the fur coat or the jewelry or something like that, and you know, you, you know, why did you spend this much money and you get a crazy answer that doesn't make sense? That's what's going on. The reptile made the decision and it got justified with logic on the way out. Again, it's your subconscious mind, it it controls everything in your body you don't have to think about. Your breathing, heartbeat, body temperature, how much insulin you occur after a meal. It also creates that pit in your stomach when you think about you know something that makes you nervous or you know, tightness in your chest or whatnot. Again, it it is thousands of times more powerful than the conscious. It's it's so much of our lives is is run by it. It's you know, we could be here all day uh talking about what's going on with it, but it's it's as far as you know, when you go in to change it. I I think I told you, you know, I I tried the talk therapists and all that kind of stuff. The reason they didn't work, you know, in my case, is you know, they were targeting my conscious mind. And that's not where my trauma was. My trauma was subconscious, and so I had to find the right tools to go in and rewrite those programs. That was hypnosis and NLP. And that's that's how you basically how you do it. If you want to, if you've got something going on that's you know automatic, you know, bad habits or something like that, or something that you know you haven't, you know, traditional methods haven't been able to touch. I would, you know, encourage you know checking out you know, hypnosis NLP and you know get down where where those programs lie. And you when you address them when they're where they live, a small change made really deep can have a huge ripple effect on the surface to the point where it seems like miracles. It there's really no miracles, it's just uh you're finally getting it where it where it lives. And you know.
SPEAKER_01:Because it's like, you know, a lot of people can well, I I don't know if a lot of people can, but it's folks out there who are they especially with talk therapy, they are aware of the trauma, right? Yeah, yeah. But embodying it is also a difference, right?
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And talk therapy is a wonderful thing for a lot of people. I I'm not bagging on it. It's you know, I have nothing but you know, utmost respect. If if that works for you, then you know, please do it. If it doesn't work for you, I I would encourage you, if not, you know, my path, then you know, find what does that's all I'm saying. And you know, for me, you know, I if yeah, and again, I'm not a doctor, I'm not diagnosing anything here, but you know, I think a trauma is when something leaves an imprint on your nervous system and your subconscious mind, you know, that can be a car crash, war zone, childhood for a lot of us. And if you're getting, you know, your automatic reactions are excessive for the situation, you know what I mean? Overreacting, hypervigilance, things like that. That is, you know, that's a clue. And again, I'm not diagnosing, but that that's a clue that it's something subconscious.
SPEAKER_01:I agree. I agree with you. Uh wait, you say so say that one more time. Trauma leaves an imprint on on your nervous system.
SPEAKER_00:So someone who I take a classic example, like a soldier who's been to war, hears fireworks, and all of a sudden he's you know freaking out. You know what I mean? It's just that sound, it just triggered something in here, in him. You know, a lot of times, you know, if somebody gets attacked, they can smell the same cologne 30 years later and you know, go right back into it. You know, that's that's the reptile, that's the subconscious that's you know, oh hey, the smell means danger, you know what I mean? It doesn't make any sense, you know, when you look at it logically, but to the subconscious, it makes perfect sense.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah. And as you mentioned before, you know, that that talk therapy piece, right? First of all, it it what it really does really help you become aware. And it does help you become more emotionally intelligent.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, absolutely.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. The whys of why am I, why is my chest tightened up because of it? Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And a lot of times just that that awareness can help you clear it. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And then you have these other types of therapy, EDMR, that somatic experience therapy, like nervous system, right? And then we talk about NLP and hypnotherapy, right? Walk us through what is the hip, what is hypnotherapy and then hypnosis, right? I I think a lot of folks think about what they've seen on TV, right?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And yeah, what is that?
SPEAKER_00:I I will start by saying you can never lose the ability to accept or reject any suggestion given. That that ability that is there with you no matter how deep you go. You're always, you always have your wits about you, you're always in line with your values and all that. I would argue more so because we've gotten all your crap out of the way. But hypnosis is just where we set the conscious mind aside and let the subconscious become active. Once that happens, we can go in and rewrite those programs we've been talking about. You know, you get rid of behaviors you don't want, bad habits, install new ones, overcome fears, phobias, you know, stress, pain, you name it. In the same breath, NLP is similar. It's kind of like an owner's manual for your mind. It's a set of tools to help you understand how you do those subconscious processes and also how to change them. So, for example, I deal with a lot of people who have like memories, you know, intrusive thoughts or ruminating, things like that. What we'll do is tune into how do you do that process? How do you do that memory? Do you get a picture? Do you get a feeling? Do you get a sound? Those are called or visual auditory kinesthetic modalities, you know, in geek speak, but it's how do you do it? All right, for probably 80% of people, it's a picture. All right, where is that picture? To the right or to the left? How big is it? Is it in color, black and white, flat or 3D? You know what I mean? Once you tune into that picture, I'll you know, I'll have them take it and shrink it in half. And you know, that will usually lessen the impact. I'll have them dump a bucket of white paint on it, they'll they'll feel a release. I'll have them send it way out on the horizon. And it sounds ridiculous, but what we're doing is communicating to the subconscious that this is not a threat anymore. We've taken this big giant thing and made it into something tiny and uh just played with it. I don't know if that answers your uh your question or not.
SPEAKER_01:It does. And you know, pretty much going to tapping into the subconscious.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah. Yeah, you mentioned like you know, EMDR and all that. EMDR can I've seen it work and I've seen it not work. Some people swear by it. It's it's basically there's uh you activate different parts of your brain based on where you point your eyes. You have a visual cortex and an auditory and a kinesthetic. EMDR will have you reprocess it, run those memories while you flip your eyes back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. Sounds ridiculous, but for a lot of people it actually does work. And you know, if you're listening and you know thinking that might work for you, insurance does cover it. So that's a blessing. But you know, you mentioned somatic. Like I mentioned before, with the the pit in your stomach and all that, your subconscious controls everything in your body, and stress actually gets stored in your body. There's a ton of studies uh on this, and you know, it causes all kinds of things, you know, inflammation, autoimmune. There's a great book called Answer Cancer, where he talks about cancer and you know, a lot of you know the autoimmune stuff and other diseases are also often found in clusters on the same person. And he, you know, says it's because of a what's he calls a sensitizing event, in other words, trauma. But you're when you think about like the placebo effect, right? A lot of times people who, you know, they get in these clinical clinical trials, a lot of times people who are getting nothing but a sugar pill will have better results than the people who are actually taking the drug, right? The subconscious mind is that powerful, has that much control over the body. So when you've got stress stored down in there, you can do somatic releasing, all that stuff works very well. Uh, you can also hypnotize it out. I've got you know several hypnosis to deal with that kind of stuff. But again, it's it's getting that awareness like you were talking about of all right, what am I doing? How am I doing this? Where do I hold my stress? You know, for me, it's my stomach and my back, you know what I mean? Tuning into your body, tuning into your mind, how am I doing these processes and then picking the right tool to go after them?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, 100%. I, you know, I know a few things for myself is I feel constricted, you know, nervous system, right?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:That's that's one telling of me of like, okay, I feel constricted here. Like I can, I'm not necessarily myself here. What's going on? Right. Whether that's me, me speaking or whatever the case, we we've all felt that constricted piece of like weight.
SPEAKER_00:Would you like a cool tool to unwind that?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, 100%.
SPEAKER_00:All right, cool. This is one of my favorite LP exercises. All right. Imagine you're in that uh position or that situation that makes you feel constricted. Now, notice where do you feel that in your body? Point to it.
SPEAKER_01:Yes.
SPEAKER_00:All right, perfect. Now, everyone following along, if you can do so safely, if you're not driving, you can close your eyes. Now, in your mind's eye, if that feeling had a color, what color would it be? First impression.
SPEAKER_01:Yellow.
SPEAKER_00:Perfect. Is there more than one color?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, red, yellow.
SPEAKER_00:Okay, awesome. That red-yellow feeling. If it had a shape, what shape would it be? Perfect. That red yellow circle, if it were moving, what direction would it be turning in? If it's hard to tell, try turning it one way than the other. See what feels natural. Okay, perfect. Try turning the opposite way and see what that does to the feeling.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I feel uh a release.
SPEAKER_00:Okay, good, good. Now, if you'd like to, you can spin it up, make it go faster and faster in either direction. Just find the direction that works best for you. It's it it could be in the same same one, just whatever's best, and spin it up if you'd like while you drain all that color right out. Just make it totally transparent in there. And then fill it back up with whatever color you want. Some people like gold or pink, green or blue, whatever feels most peaceful for you. And then once you fill it up, still spinning it, add a sparkle to it. Once it starts to swirl throughout like a can of cane, one of those poles in front of a barbershop. How does that feel? It makes a change, right? It's simple visualizations. Like I said, your your subconscious mind works very powerfully with symbols. And so what we did is we took that body process, which your subconscious was doing to you, and we give it a visual component. Once we do that, we can then change it. You know, we can play with it and make it what we want to. That that's the gist of what I do.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah. I I that's I was gonna ask, I was gonna ask what what what was the why behind that?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:I mean, that's that's it right there. Yeah, I think hopefully a lot of folks will start to realize. And and if you don't realize, when you know, understand when you are going through your day-to-day life when you start to feel maybe constricted, pain in your stomach, tightness. Maybe it's when you talk to a stranger, stranger says something. I mean, we all have our own things that we all have our own kind of uh blockages, right? Uh that we have in our day-to-day. What blocks me might not necessarily block you. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. It's like a fingerprint, different for everybody.
SPEAKER_01:Different imprint, right? And we have we all have these imprints, and yeah, I think that's the awareness piece of it right there.
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely. And that that's a big, big part of it is tuning in, because a lot of this stuff, by definition, is outside your conscious awareness. So once we, you know, we've made you aware of that pit in your stomach, and you know, you know, noticing it is the first part. Then you know, going in after it with the right tools is you know, becomes much easier once you know how to do it.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, 100%. I love it. So I know before we hit record, right? You and I, we talked about a subscription service that you have, right?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Limitless by design, hypno, hypnotherapy, right? Uh or it's a it's a hypnotherapist or hypno uh what do we call it?
SPEAKER_00:Uh it is a weekly hypnosis exercise. Uh it's basically, you know, we talked a little bit about, you know, when I when I got diagnosed with PTSD, I looked back and realized all the ways I'd shut myself down. I I think I mentioned, you know, just like going to the grocery store was exhausting, you know what I mean? Because you're, you know, I was so hyper-vigilant. And limitless by design is basically it, it is designed to do that, make you limitless. And we want to take every uh every part of your life, health, wealth, relationships, and turn them into what you want them to be. You know, we have a different theme every month. January's hitting your New Year's resolutions, making them real. February is relationships. October, we're going uh into finding your tribe and becoming magnetic to people. So you can, you know, that's where real fulfillment is. If you lack purpose or fulfillment in your life, go help somebody else. That that is where it really the juice of life is. It's with other people. And a lot of us with COVID, especially, we are we shrunk our comfort zone basically. We got into our house. So it's like, hey, I got Netflix. I'm, you know, I can have my food delivered, you know, all right. This, you know, but you know, getting back out, a lot of people are are really struggling with that. And so it it's it's expanding those comfort zones uh subconsciously. It's you know, taking that programming, you know, that 95% behind the wheel and changing that to enable you to make your life into what you want it.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and so how can folks get a hold of that subscription?
SPEAKER_00:Or you can check me out at uh Matt Johnson NLP for neurolinguistic programming. That's M-A-T-T J-O-H-N-S-O-N and then letters n L P dot com. And that's got links to all my programs, uh Limitless by Design, if you want a you know, one-on-one session with me and whatnot.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, 100%. Yeah, I know you got a few other courses, programs, different things like that, one-on-one sessions. We got a small snapshot of what that could potentially look like. I I mean, I was we probably had a session here to some of the things that I mentioned, right? And and so I I think it it'd be great for people to take a look at and kind of understand their own imprints, right? Their own Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Uh I have a a link to uh uh my free NLP course, NLP Mind Magic on there. And it's got the unspinning fear that we just did, it's got the imposter syndrome on it. Uh I think it's 13 NLP exercises dealing with you know those things, uh perfectionism, procrastination, rejection, thing all all my most requested stuff is is on there. So it's it's really a cool resource.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it's all universal, right?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah. We all have you know the same nervous system. It's imprinted in different ways, but like you know, the the exercises will work the same way.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I love it. I love it. Well, Matt, this was this was really good. This is really cool. A lot of folks can get a lot of value. Might have to listen to it a few times. You might have to listen to it a few times to uh to to really follow it. I know when I go back and listen to it, I I'm I'm gonna kick myself with questions I could have asked in a moment. But uh I thought it was a lot of gold that we got out of this. Thank you. Appreciate you uh coming on the show.
SPEAKER_00:I really appreciate you having me, man. It's a pleasure to be here. I really like what you're doing with the podcast. Please keep it up.
