The Fix 02 - How Do You Think About Trauma?

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The Fix 02 - How Do You Think About Trauma?
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[00:00:01.980] Speaker 1: I can't take another blow. I'm not strong enough. Well, you're wrong, and I'm going to tell you why. This is The Fix. [claps] Today's topic is how to handle trauma, specifically trauma that just keeps coming. It's

[00:00:36.820] Speaker 1: how to withstand and grow stronger from the hits that just keep coming in your life. When you feel like you can't take anymore, when you feel like one more thing cannot go wrong because I have nothing left, I'm tapped out. I have no idea how you expect me to continue to improve and to work on my life problems when crap just keeps going wrong, and I don't... I can't even get up

[00:01:11.440] Speaker 1: anymore. I don't know how to handle this. That is today's topic. But before we dive into today's topic, The Fixes stack. So we're going to review. So last time we talked about... Yeah, here, let's just make this a quiz. That's way more fun. Do we make excuses? Do you blame other people? Do you deflect from uncomfortable truths? No. Why?

[00:01:47.600] Speaker 1: Why? Why don't we make excuses? Why don't we blame other people? Why don't we deflect uncomfortable truths? Who is it for? Is it for them? Nope. It's for you. That's why. You give away your power, you give away your control when you do that. All right? Remember, that's an internal locus of control. Next, remember to have a growth mindset. What is a growth mindset? [humming] It's just the

[00:02:22.600] Speaker 1: belief that you and other people can change. You can improve, okay? It's just that belief. Hold that belief in your head. And then two more concepts to review. Take less information in. Our last episode was about how to get control in your life. Are you taking in less information? Are you making quiet time? Here's something I do to get quiet time. I call it thinking time. When I have a specific problem I want to work on, I will pull up some journaling software, I'll close everything,

[00:02:57.520] Speaker 1: and I will put on some non-vocal music, and I will journal on a specific question as the prompt. Sometimes this will take the form of a question-answer back and forth, like a conversation with myself. I will literally type out exactly what I'm thinking. "How am I going to be able to build this prototype?" Answer: "Well, you don't have any of the skills, so you're probably gonna have to find somebody to help you with this part." Question: "Where will I find them? I don't know anybody who can do that." Answer:

[00:03:32.240] Speaker 1: "No, but you know where you could potentially find them. They might be over here, and you know how to meet people, so go just make a forum post or something." Question: "Okay, but what forums would I ask, and how could I incentivize these people to help me?" Answer... You get the point. It's a back and forth. I have lots of different kinds of thinking time, but that one is one of the easiest. Okay. But most importantly, you need dead air. You need time where you're not doing anything with your brain.

[00:04:07.280] Speaker 1: It's just quiet. Doesn't have to actually be quiet, but no information should be coming in. Default mode network. Let your mind wander because that's when you start sorting through all the clutter in your head. It's a decluttering. And finally, close the door behind you. This is the last important concept. When you engage in a dopamine-seeking activity, instead of fighting with willpower to stop doing it before you do it, that's called impulse control, just do it. As long as it's not like dis... super destructive or, [chuckles] you know, unethical,

[00:04:42.680] Speaker 1: like, fine, scroll through social media. Fine, check your email. Fine, eat this candy bar. But make sure you create a wager with yourself. "I will eat this candy bar, but I am going to do struc- something structurally different in my life." Be specific. It has to be specific, not, "I'll do better." That doesn't work. You have to say something like, "After I eat this candy bar, I promise to call two friends or send a text message saying, 'I am not going to eat another one of these candy bars ever, and if

[00:05:17.880] Speaker 1: I do, I will give you $500.'" Right? Maybe that's a little extreme, but you get the concept, right? Figure out whatever it means for you. Find a way to close the door behind you on habits and dopamine-seeking activities you don't want anymore. Now, you choose what you want to stop doing, okay? It has to come from you. All right. So that was last episode. Now let's get to the topic at hand. You're reeling. You've taken so many hits you can't take anymore. It's unbelievable

[00:05:53.080] Speaker 1: the crap that life has served you up. How could you possibly keep going when you're not even sure how to take another step? Okay. I will give you the punchline now, and then we're gonna dive into, you know, the individual tactics for how I have figured out how to deal with trauma that just keeps coming. Without going into the details, it's not hard to imagine that every single human being alive has

[00:06:27.864] Speaker 1: suffered profoundly. Even the rich and powerful cannot avoid death, sickness, and dismay. It's not possible. When you look at another person, just remember they have suffered something in their life almost unspeakable, okay? You are not alone in this pain. And here's the punchline, you have everything you need already to not only bear it but grow stronger from it. That may not feel true, but if you just have the strength to keep listening, the fixes

[00:07:03.304] Speaker 1: are here if you're willing to apply them. Are you ready to feel? Remember the first lie of the podcast. There's nothing to fix. You have it all already. All right? So you should have known that would be the punchline in the first place. I'm going to show you what worked for me, but you have to apply it. I cannot do it for you. You can listen, and that is enough for now. Are you tired of not only

[00:07:38.004] Speaker 1: living in pain but living underneath it like a mountain to the point where you have no idea how to continue living, much less how to solve your problems because the burden of what has happened to you and keeps happening to you is just far, far too great to bear. I can give you the fixes for how to get out from under all that pain and, if you can believe it, be stronger

[00:08:13.004] Speaker 1: than you've ever been, maybe stronger than you ever thought you could be. All of that is possible for you if you choose to take action on all the fixes we have to talk about today. But before we get into the tactics and the strategy stuff, I wanted to give you maybe something a little out of left field, the kind of advice you're not used to hearing when you feel like trash, um, and you feel almost numb

[00:08:48.424] Speaker 1: at this point. Let's give you a little Darwinian confidence. Maybe you've lost a loved one. Maybe you've been betrayed by a loved one. Maybe your professional sports team's airplane has crashed somewhere in the Arctic, and you have to start eating your friends to survive. That's a fun story that happened. Maybe your super genius military contractor ex-husband has gone crazy and is using the invisibility suit he invented to

[00:09:23.384] Speaker 1: terrorize you and eventually kill you after faking his own death, and nobody believes you. That's Hollow Man. That didn't happen, but that story is awesome. The new movie's great. You should go watch it. Whatever your deal is, I know you have the strength to tap for it, and here's how I know. Did you know that there have been multiple times in human, early human history where our species was almost entirely wiped out? Like we

[00:09:58.204] Speaker 1: almost went extinct multiple times. There was one time where our population may have... We can look at this through, um, genetic bottlenecking, um, basically what genes we all share. You can work backwards and figure out that there may have been a time in human history where there were as few as tens of thousands of humans left on the entire planet. If I recall correctly, there was a super volcano explosion that put an enormous amount of ash in the atmosphere and sort of created, you know, something like a nuclear winter, right? It's just, it's cloudy all the time to the point

[00:10:33.124] Speaker 1: where nothing can grow. There's no food. You're frigid or it's hot. The climate is completely unstable. Um, imagine how that must have felt as an early human. They got down to tens of thousands of people left. That's insane. That would be like your little tribe, and you're not even aware that there's another tribe left anywhere on the planet. How must they have felt? But they did survive. We as a species survived. So that makes you, not only that,

[00:11:08.124] Speaker 1: but a million other challenges throughout human history. So that makes you the latest, greatest model in an unbroken chain competing over a billion years of the bloodiest, most competitive [chuckles] game in the universe, Darwinian evolution, survival by natural selection, okay? Survival of the fittest. You are the

[00:11:43.044] Speaker 1: best creature nature has ever produced. You are the most capable. Not only are you the most capable, but you are the descendants of every single winner over a billion years back to a single cellular life form. Without even knowing who you are, I can tell you that because I know you're listening to this, which means you are standing atop a mile-high mountain of bodies of losers who could not handle Being alive in the same way your

[00:12:17.614] Speaker 1: ancestors did. You are a champion of champions across a billion years. So yeah, I think you can handle whatever life has to throw at you. You can handle just about anything if you choose to find the answers, find the fixes, and use them. You have the power. And in fact, all inner strength comes from suffering overcome.

[00:12:52.634] Speaker 1: That's it. That's where all inner strength in life comes from. Think about what gives you confidence and makes you feel powerful today. I guarantee you it is because you struggled to overcome something difficult and painful. All right? So that means, and this is going to be a running theme throughout the entire episode today, trauma is either tragedy that mortally wounds you and which you never recover from, or it is an opportunity to become stronger than you

[00:13:27.634] Speaker 1: have ever been. And here's the beautiful part. You get to choose the outcome as long as you are alive. It works backwards in history too. Any trauma you have not yet recovered from can be a source of strength if you can reframe it properly. We'll get into that, but this part is a choice, okay? We've all known people who 20 years ago had something happen to them, and they've either never forgiven somebody, never forgiven themselves, never moved on,

[00:14:02.714] Speaker 1: and it became the excuse that they hung their entire life on. And sometimes they die that way, and it is the saddest waste of a life possible. So here is the first important fix today. Trauma is either opportunity or tragedy, and you get to choose which it is. The worst thing that ever happened to you can be the best thing that ever happened to you because it makes you powerful. You cannot

[00:14:37.634] Speaker 1: be hurt in the same way again. You cannot fall in the same way again because it made you stronger. This is a concept called anti-fragility. Okay. I'll give you a moment to speak, past Stephen. I have no idea how you expect me to turn anything bad that has happened to me into something good. Like, I get, like, what you're trying to say, but I feel

[00:15:12.574] Speaker 1: like you're just trying to make y- me feel better. I can't... How am I, how am I supposed to get stronger when I'm continually going down? Like, I'm not sure how to keep going another week. Like, it takes all of my effort to keep going another day. How in the world do I get the will, the strength to, like, actually do any of this? Like, it just sounds like words. I have no idea. It seems kind

[00:15:47.534] Speaker 1: of inconceivable, kind of unbelievable that it could make me stronger. But I'm listening. Okay, so we will get into trauma as opportunity or tragedy, but not yet. First, you're right. We gotta get you feeling better first. It's so hard to do anything when you just keep taking hits. So we're gonna get you back into a position where you can start taking some more hits, okay? And then you'll be in a place to start doing the sort of hard emotional

[00:16:22.854] Speaker 1: self-reflection and introspection work that is necessary to actually grow stronger permanently, okay? So let's get you some quick fixes to start feeling better as fast as is reasonable. Okay, here's something that I've learned. Man, I don't know how to not go down, okay? If you're looking for answers on how to, like, make bad things stop happening to you, yo, I got nothing. I don't know how to do that. If you, somebody else knows how to do that, please tell me because you should go listen to their podcast instead. But short of that,

[00:16:58.594] Speaker 1: it is my assumption that life is gonna continue serving u- serving you up an endless stream of problems non-stop. Doesn't care how strong you are, how weak you are. They're just gonna keep coming, and that is just a fundamental aspect of being alive, okay? So let's start from the premise of you can't stop big, bad problems from coming. You can't stop little problems from coming. You can foresee some of them. You can strategize around some of them. But really, even if you do everything right, you're still gonna get smacked across the face when you least expect it, pretty much on a regular basis.

[00:17:34.014] Speaker 1: So what I've done, rather than optimize for the ability to just keep taking hits, "Come at me. I'm invincible. I can handle anything," a lot of people take that approach, and I think maybe that's the intuitive approach. I don't really focus on that. Yes, I have tools to be able to handle new problems coming in, and we'll talk about that in a second, but what I've chosen to optimize for instead is emotional recovery. Rather than getting good at not going down, I have gotten good at getting back up quickly.

[00:18:09.314] Speaker 1: This has made me far more resilient, and it's more than just a perspective, okay? I have tools to do that, and we're gonna get into it. In just a second here. Um, but the gist is that's where I think it makes more sense to focus. Stop trying to be invincible. Stop trying to bear every burden. Stop trying to not have feelings and to be able to withstand any pain and bottle it all up, because eventually you're going to shatter. And when that happens, everyone sees it. It's a mental breakdown. It's a, I don't know,

[00:18:44.358] Speaker 1: it's a divorce, and you, you've run away, or you, you cheat on a spouse. Like, it's basically you cave in 'cause you can take no more and you've just fallen apart. But if those people had instead... Instead of optimizing for taking every possible hit without going down, they optimized for getting back up quickly to normal and healthy, you can withstand anything. It makes you so resilient and flexible and is way, way less stressful because now I

[00:19:19.318] Speaker 1: don't have to worry about the what if. You know? I'm a dad, I'm a husband, I'm a lot of things. I'm a coworker, I'm an employee, um, I'm a friend. I have so many different roles, and there's a lot of people who count on me, and if I use the strategy where I can't, I can't let them down. I guess it's the easiest way to say it. And there are people in your life who probably rely on you, and if there aren't, that's another episode that I have planned about how to bring people

[00:19:54.218] Speaker 1: into the li-- into your life that you want in your life, but that's not today. You don't need anyone else. I don't optimize for not going down. I optimize for getting back up quickly, and I have mindset and emotional tools in order to do that. All right. So let's talk about how to do this. Let's just pretend something terrible has just happened to me, okay? And it's the fourth such major event in two years, okay? I got nothing left.

[00:20:29.198] Speaker 1: Well, we'll use the you framing 'cause I'm talking to you, past me. You got nothing left. You're tapped out. What do you do to get back up again? Okay. Well, the first thing you do is you stop pride. Stop wrapping up your pride, your self-worth in not going down and not being able... It is not shameful to fall, to fail. It is shameful to stay down. Okay? That is the first thing you're going to begin repeating

[00:21:04.238] Speaker 1: to yourself when you feel this way. "I can't take another blow. I'm not strong enough." No. Pattern interrupt. Now, if you recall the morning routine sheet that we talked about last time, this is a good one to add potentially. You say to yourself, "Pattern interrupt." Okay? You're going to say, "No, it's okay to go down. It's not okay to stay down. I don't give up. I

[00:21:39.178] Speaker 1: don't quit. I have to get back up." This is a fundamental rule. There is no scenario in which you don't get back up. This is a new belief, and you must repeat it to yourself over and over and over again. It's okay to go down. I'm not less of a, I'm not less of a person for that. It's fine. Everyone goes down. I don't blame myself. I release myself of all guilt from going down in the first place, for not being the

[00:22:14.078] Speaker 1: dad or the husband or the friend or the employee that I should have been, for falling this far. It's okay. No problem. But it's only okay because it's not okay to stay down. It's okay because I am getting back up. Guess what? You're gonna get knocked on your butt again. Maybe tomorrow, maybe in five minutes from now. After making your resolve, "All right, let's get back up and try again," you get a horrible phone call. You get an angry email

[00:22:49.138] Speaker 1: because guess what? Problems compound. The more problems you have, the less you're able to deal with them, the more problems you get because you're not dealing with your problems. So understand there is way more pain coming your way, but you can handle it because is it okay to go down? Is it okay if you crash today? You feel terrible, you engage in horrible habits. Now, I'm not giving you license to do that, but I am saying, is it okay? Can you live with yourself? Can you still love yourself? Can you still be okay? Yes. Why?

[00:23:24.418] Speaker 1: Because you don't stay down. That is intolerable. That is the one thing you will not accept of yourself any longer. Do you stay down? No, you don't. And that is now a fundamental rule that you will never break. And the beautiful part about this new rule is it doesn't matter how long you've been down. You've been down for twenty years. You can now live by this

[00:23:59.098] Speaker 1: rule simply by getting up and trying again. Okay? That's the first rule. All right. Second of all, here's something I use to help me prevent spiraling in the first place, but it also helps me get out of rock bottom, okay? When you bounce off rock bottom, it happens because you cannot take any more, and you are given the motivation and the will to change something. All right? It is a gift. Here's how you make sure you actually get back up, right? It's an actual or emotional recovery.

[00:24:34.548] Speaker 1: You can start feeling better by doing a pattern interrupt on your negative thought loops. Okay? This is on my sheet, and you might consider adding it to yours, but use your own words in a way that feels right. When I hit a negative feedback loop, I stop and think the positive inverse. Okay? This is a fancy way of codifying optimism, okay? Everyone will tell you to be optimistic. This is how I've turned optimism into something actionable and useful instead of a constant delusion.

[00:25:09.628] Speaker 1: Okay? Optimism is a very powerful force, but you gotta apply it in a way that doesn't make you feel cynical and becomes delusional. Problems suck, and sometimes trying to reframe them as something incredible is just, it's a delusion too far. But you can apply it in this one small way, okay? When you feel bad, you are repeating negative thoughts in your head. It's a phenomenon called rumination. Okay? It's a little echo chamber in there, and as the thoughts bounce around, they amplify, getting

[00:25:44.688] Speaker 1: louder and louder and louder. Your anxiety gets crazier. Your depression gets worse. It seems like that everything is terrible. The world is ending. Your life is ending. It's all over. How could I possibly take another blow? I'm not strong enough. Okay? You need a release valve. Pssh. Let those thoughts out. Okay? You're gonna do that in two ways. One is this pattern interrupt. You need to repeat to yourself over and over and over again. Catch yourself the moment you start thinking a negative thought pattern.

[00:26:19.148] Speaker 1: "I'm gonna get fired. I don't deserve this job. I haven't done crap in two weeks. They should fire me. Honestly, I don't know how I'm gonna get another job anyway. I don't know why they would hire me. What am I even good at?" That, you stop when you experience that. It will take practice. By the way, I've done it so often it's reflexive, but it will take conscious practice, which is why you remind yourself of it every morning so that you can continually bake it into your subconscious until... Oh, we'll get to this in a second. Then you think the positive inverse. "No,

[00:26:55.568] Speaker 1: I can do good work. I have done good work in the past. Yeah, I kinda sucked lately, but I've been in a lot of pain. I can do better, and I will try again. And honestly, I probably should have taken some time off. Like, I can do better. I am a good employee. I have helped people in the past, and I can do it again somehow. I'm not as good as I used to be, but, you know, I can do better." That is a positive thought. Muster the most positive thought you can. Specifically, it must be the positive reflection,

[00:27:30.588] Speaker 1: the inverse of your negative thought. Okay? So when you start to ruminate, s- thought spiral, negative, negative, negative, getting worse, spiraling down, spiraling down. Stop. Stop spiraling down. Switch it and think the exact positive inverse, even if it feels fake. Even if it feels kinda forced, do it anyway. The human brain bakes into its head whatever it is you do repeatedly. If you are feeling terrible, chances are you have a habit of negative rumination, especially after this much trauma.

[00:28:06.028] Speaker 1: Okay? You're going to break that habit. It is just a habit of thought. That is most of the reason you feel like trash. Yes, there are real-life problems, but your inability to deal with those real-life problems is the real problem. Okay? You can solve nothing, and you can never truly feel better as long as you are basically in a nosedive of negative thought spirals. Start building the habit of noticing first, this is the first skill, noticing the negative thought pattern. "I don't spiral. No. I don't do this."

[00:28:40.968] Speaker 1: Interrupt is the second part. Positive inverse. "I can, I will, I am capable of..." Find whatever feels true, the most true you can manage. If you can find nothing that feels true in a positive inverse, just make it up. I'm telling you, even if it feels fake, you will begin to build a habit so strong it's reflexive. I have had moments where I'm in a negative thought pattern, way in it, like consciously in it, not even like thinking about, "I should be thinking positive. I know this will make me feel bad."

[00:29:17.328] Speaker 1: And it's like a voice. [chuckles] It's, it's crazy. It's almost like somebody called me on the phone, but it's in my own head and said, "Stop. If you act like that, you're gonna feel like trash." And that is exactly how it works. Your mood follows your thoughts. Your thoughts create your mood. This is the fundamental premise of cognitive behavioral therapy, which we'll go into a little bit more when we talk about anxiety and depression specifically in another episode. But this is the basic premise. Your thoughts create your mood. If you have a

[00:29:51.668] Speaker 1: habitual negative thought pattern, you are going to habitually, constantly feel like trash. This will make you feel better, guaranteed. Guaranteed. There has been no nosedive I've ever been able to not pull out of because of this. But it's going to take practice, and you need to be reminded to do this somehow. Put sticky notes everywhere. When I hit a negative feedback loop, I stop and think the positive inverse. Okay. That will make you start feeling better. The other thing you can

[00:30:26.608] Speaker 1: do, and this is gonna sound dumb Go to all the people you're failing because you're down and you can't take any more hits, whoever it is. And if you're not really failing anybody, and this is a personal struggle, you need to find somebody to talk to. Tell them straight up everything that is wrong and everything that you feel. Open up to another human being. This is the best way to release pressure, because what it does is it takes you out of your echo chamber. I have this theory that humans need to ground themself in what is sane or insane, and I have

[00:31:01.508] Speaker 1: no problem using the word insane. I, I don't know why this got a stigma. Insane is literally... It's just the inability for you to act the way you want to act. It is unhelpful thoughts and behavior that is, quite frankly, crazy. I have no problem using the word crazy either. Uh, I mean, I don't use it as an insult, but when applied to oneself, there are times we feel crazy. And the way you have to get better is you have to calibrate against other humans. If you stay in your

[00:31:36.408] Speaker 1: own head with your big problems, you will go crazy, okay? Thought pattern interrupting will pull you out of these nosedives and start making you feel better. But you need to still calibrate against other people, because you will begin to form, especially if you've gone through a lot of trauma and you have not recovered for a long time, you have distorted beliefs in your head. You can think of this just like m- terrible wiring in a machine. The wires are all tangled, and they're all connected to the wrong places, and there's sparks shooting out.

[00:32:11.708] Speaker 1: You need to rewire everything back to a, a ri- [chuckles] like a healthy way by calibrating yourself against another person that you respect. Now, it's very important that you pick somebody who's a good listener. You tell them that primarily what you want is for them to listen and not to provide advice, okay? Especially if you're somebody who is feeling very vulnerable and insecure about your problems. I don't know what, it could be a drug addiction. Who knows, right? You could have any number of problems, right? And it's probably very hard for you to share this with another person, especially if you never have, or

[00:32:46.708] Speaker 1: you rarely do, or you're ashamed of it. What you d... When you share, open up to another person that you respect, somebody you believe who won't retaliate, they won't start getting nosy. Specifically, they won't judge you. That will make everything worse. Find somebody you know who will listen, a good friend. And if you can't find somebody, da, da, da, da, da, da, this is what therapy is for. Go pay somebody who is pay, being paid to be a good listener, okay? You can do online therapy pretty cheaply. When you open up to another person, you are calibrating against them.

[00:33:22.508] Speaker 1: You're basically asking, "Am I crazy?" So what they will reply with is probably... And then, uh, you know, when you're done basically monologuing, just get their take. Just say, "What do you think?" Okay? This is when you cede the floor to them, after you feel you've expressed everything you wanted to say. And it's very important that you say everything you want to say. You're not forced to open up. Don't share anything that feels like you're being forced to share it. Share... It should feel cathartic. As, uh, well, it feels terrible at first, but as you open up, as you express

[00:33:57.368] Speaker 1: yourself, you'll begin to feel a great relief flood through you. That's a good sign. Keep going. When you're done with that, get their take, okay? "What do you think? Am I crazy?" Tell them your worst fears. Tell them everything you're terrified of. They will almost certainly reply, at least in my experience, in every single one of these conversations, whether receiving or sending this, they will say, "Basically, 10% of your problems are real problems. The other 90% is just stuff you made up." And

[00:34:32.368] Speaker 1: while you may have known this in your head, the human brain mostly discounts its own advice like this. 'Cause remember, you've been ruminating in an echo chamber in your head. These thoughts have been bouncing around so long that it's not enough just to release the negative thoughts and start turning them positive and create a new habit there. You also have to start rewiring all those terrible beliefs that you've started to believe. You might actually believe that you're not worthy of a good spouse. You're not worthy to keep working at your job. You really do suck, right? You

[00:35:07.348] Speaker 1: will begin to believe these things, and when you open up to another person, they will calibrate for you which of your problems are real problems and which are not. Something along the lines of, "Well, I mean, it sounds like you used to be pretty good at your job, or you used to enjoy it. And, you know, there's probably some simple things you could do to get better, and I don't know, you've gone through a lot. Kind of makes sense. And I don't think that they would fire you. Why don't you just go talk to them and tell them you go, you're going through a hard time?" Uh, they will basically calibrate for you. Most decent human beings, I'm

[00:35:42.348] Speaker 1: sorry if you, if you happen to run across a, a sociopath who is unwilling to help you. [chuckles] They happen. Um, but for the most part, everyone is understanding, and they know something is wrong with you. We always know when somebody else is in deep pain, and they'll probably just be relieved that you finally opened up to them about it because now they feel like they can help, all right? And they feel like you're on the same team again, and you will feel great realizing that 90% of the things that you imagined, "Everyone hates me. I suck," they will be like,

[00:36:16.988] Speaker 1: "What? No way. I mean, I haven't even noticed that you haven't been doing a good job at work," or, "Wow, this is a shock to me," or, "No," like, "We really appreciate you." Um, or even if some of it is true, you'll find out what's true and what isn't, and that's why this is a very useful exercise. So there's your tool tool, your two tools for emotional recovery. One, you don't spiral into negative thought patterns because you stop, you do that interrupt, and you think the positive inverse. Make it habitual. Remind yourself to

[00:36:51.968] Speaker 1: keep doing it. It will take practice. Then eventually, you will have a habit of thinking positive thoughts, and you'll have the habit of interrupting the negative thoughts so you don't go down nearly as often, and you can start recovering. You have to undo basically false beliefs, incorrect views of reality by speaking with another person who is a good listener, who can help you calibrate and become less crazy. You can ditch all the beliefs that you've started miswiring because you've been stuck in your own head for too

[00:37:26.828] Speaker 1: long, and you can figure out which of your problems are real and which ones are fake. And the most beautiful part about that is about 80 to 90% of your problems will evaporate because you begin to realize they weren't real. I just made them up because I was going insane in my own head. Okay, so that's how you do that. Now, we are going to move on to the last three concepts here. All right. Remember when we talked about trauma being an opportunity or a tragedy? It's a tragedy, and

[00:38:01.868] Speaker 1: this, this and another concept comes from, uh, Benjamin Hardy, um, and his books Personality Isn't Permanent and Gap and Gain. So here's how it works. He's a psychologist. When you... something horrible happens to you, let's say, um, here, we'll just say something like when you were a kid, and let's make it something old rather than something new, okay? Because I think that's a more challenging problem. But it'll, it's even easier for things that are fresh. Let's go with an

[00:38:36.848] Speaker 1: old trauma. When you were a kid, you were playing with your sister, and you pushed her down and, I don't know, she cut her face, and now she has a scar on her face, and that shaped who you were in a negative way. You believe you are now a violent person. You believe yourself to be essentially untrustworthy. You believe that you are dangerous when you're angry, and now you need to be basically afraid to be w- close to people because you're worried you'll hurt

[00:39:11.908] Speaker 1: them. And every time you see the scar on your sister's face, you feel like a monster. Okay? I'm just imagining what that scenario would make somebody feel like 20 years later. Okay, you with me? Let's take that as our trauma. You've never recovered from it. In fact, it shaped you in a profoundly negative way, in a way you've never recovered from. Okay. That's our starting point. That is a tragedy. And just like choosing to get back up, you can

[00:39:46.768] Speaker 1: fix this at any time if you know what to do. All right. Here's the gist of how it works, and we're gonna use a little bit of, um, neuroscience. Consider that your brain is an organ like any of the others. Liver, stomach, it's just living tissue. Mm, okay? It's not magic. There's nothing special going on there. It's just, it's just an organ with living cells. Every single one of your memories and beliefs and ideas, dreams, and greatest fears and

[00:40:21.888] Speaker 1: worst belie-- you know, worst self-perceptions are stored in living tissue. Okay? That means the past isn't real. It's fictional. It's gone. There is no past. There is no future. There is only r- literally what exists right now. It's the only thing that's real. Anything that has happened in the past is not real. The only place it exists is inside the living cells in the organ inside of your skull,

[00:40:56.848] Speaker 1: and, well, therefore, it can be changed. Your memories are literally just little, tiny physical pieces inside of an organ inside of your head. And if you could go in there with a microscopic scalpel and edit them, you could become a totally different person who remembers something totally different. Okay? You could change anything about the past. Well, your perception of the past anyway, right? So first, know that it is possible to change anything about yourself.

[00:41:31.968] Speaker 1: Now, that doesn't mean you know how. That doesn't mean that, you know, it's physically something you could do. All right? But just remember that that fundamentally means that you can change, you can rewrite anything about the past and specifically any belief or personality trait you have developed because of the past at any time, right? There's no physical law that prevents this. All right? So you can literally get better, all right? But the trick is how. Well, dun, dun-dun-dun, dun, dun. Turns out it's not that hard. I don't mean

[00:42:07.008] Speaker 1: to make you feel bad or belittle your 20-year-old, uh, trauma from injuring your sister and thinking you're a violent monster. Sorry, I'm not belittling your, your suffering. That is a tragedy. But I am telling you it can end the moment you decide that it's time for it to end, and it's no longer serving you, okay? You would be surprised. There are people who hold onto their past traumas, their tragedies Because it gives them an excuse to not have to do the work to get better, to become a better person, to admit their faults, to move on, right? It's an

[00:42:41.444] Speaker 1: alluring thing to hold onto because they don't want to get better, because they don't want to face the consequences of who they've become. But do we make excuses? Do we blame other people? Do we deflect from uncomfortable truths? Do we have a growth mindset that says we believe we can change? Now you see why these things stack and why it's important to work on all of them and why I started where I started. Those things are fundamental, okay?

[00:43:17.184] Speaker 1: We're gonna revisit that trauma, and if you have like PTSD or something that like revisiting traumas is not like a safe thing for you to do alone, like by all means, like trust yourself, right? This is, again, this is not any kind of medical or, you know, legal a- financial advice. Like, I'm not giving that kind of advice. I'm talking to my past self, okay? Go get real help, all right? And certainly don't blame me for anything. Like, this is not advice for you, listener. This is advice for past Steven. Okay. You need to reframe it,

[00:43:52.624] Speaker 1: okay? This is a lot like the interrupting negative thought spirals and thinking the positive inverse. You need to rewrite the story. Every time something traumatic happens, we have the opportunity to write the story. Sadly, most of us write the story subconsciously. We just, however it plays out is how it plays out. And often, because we feel bad, we write a very negative story. You

[00:44:27.664] Speaker 1: pushed your sister down 20 years ago when you were playing. You were angry. She fell and cut her face, and she has a scar now, okay? That is what actually happened. All of those things are true. Every single one of those things actually happened. Remove all of the fiction, all of your beliefs about what happened, all of your ideas, all of the personality changes that's happened since then. All of those things are a fabrication. The only thing that actually happened is you pushed her down, you were angry, she cut her face. That is the truth.

[00:45:03.264] Speaker 1: Everything else is a story that you wrote about those events. Now, the beautiful part about the human brain is that we can rewrite these stories. That story is stored in your head, in the little cells inside of your brain. Because of the way memories work, every time you access them, think of them like putting them off a shelf, taking them off a shelf. You rewrite them when you put them back, essentially. You know, neuroscientists forgive me, the inaccuracies, but this

[00:45:38.284] Speaker 1: is a useful metaphor, and it amounts to the same outcome. Every time you take it off the shelf to recall what happened, you put it back a little bit different. The way you feel when you access these memories and the story you write about these memories when you are reliving them becomes baked into the long-term memory itself. Think about that. It's like a word processor, not written in stone. You are opening an old Word document, and you have the

[00:46:13.284] Speaker 1: ability to go in and make some edits, and when you save it, it goes back different than it way, was before, okay? That means you can deliberately, selectively edit your memories to tell a new story. Okay, now this is the hard part. All of this is painful, by the way, especially it was doing with an old one. Um, but the next time you experience a fresh trauma, remember, the most important thing you can do when something traumatic happens to you is cho- choose what it means. And please write a positive story

[00:46:48.043] Speaker 1: because if you write a positive, empowering story, this w- terrible thing becomes a wonderful thing in time. Now, the event itself was terrible. At no point in time am I saying that getting angry and pushing somebody and having them become injured and physically scarred is a good thing. It's not a good thing. Of course it's not. I'm not trying to make you delude yourself into thinking it's not a big deal or write it off. But what I am saying is that write a story that empowers you. Here's a couple ways that I have done

[00:47:22.924] Speaker 1: this, okay? But let's continue with this example. Here are some things you might say, okay? And these stories are also true. So this is the trick. You're going to recall the memory, you're going to live through it again, but this time when you put it back, you are going to write it with a new story. Before, the story was, "When I am violent, I'm angry. I am a monster. I can't be close to people because I can't be trusted. I'm a terrible person."

[00:47:58.124] Speaker 1: Okay? That was the story you wrote. Not a good one. [chuckles] Let's write a different one, okay? Now, it's important that this story feels true because if it feels fake, it's going to be less effective. If you can't find a true story, just like if you couldn't find a positive inverse for a thought, make it up. It's better than your current one, okay? Even if it feels fake, just keep making it up until it starts to feel true. I'm not gonna get into the process, but basically the human brain repeat, believes absolutely anything it repeats to itself over and over again, or that you hear over and over

[00:48:32.984] Speaker 1: again. It's quite the phenomenon. It's kind of how propaganda works. Uh, you can't stop it. The more and more you hear something, the more true it feels. Uh, and that works inside your own head too. So make it up if you can't find a good one. So here are some stories you might choose to tell yourself instead when you put this memory back after reliving it. The fact that I am afraid of hurting people when I get angry means that I genuinely love people, and I fear for them, and that I know that when I'm angry, I can hurt them. This

[00:49:08.032] Speaker 1: is what taught me that controlling my anger is important, and it allowed me to see that the consequences of my actions can have permanent long-term results. It... This is the moment in my life when I learned that if I'm not careful, I could cause real harm to others, and that what seems like a small thing in the moment could be a life-changing event. And this is when I learned to be careful about what

[00:49:43.052] Speaker 1: I do. This is when I learned that my actions have serious consequences, uh, in the world and on the people I love, and that if I am lackadaisical about the weight of what I do, I could make a terrible choice and harm somebody in a very serious way. This is when I learned to be a considerate person. It was a horrible thing that happened, but every time I see the scar on my sister's face, I am reminded that that is the last scar I'll

[00:50:18.072] Speaker 1: ever put on another person because I finally learned the lesson that my actions can harm others, and I must be careful and considerate so that it doesn't happen anymore. That's a great thought. It's a great story. Super empowering. Now, when you think back on this moment, you're thinking, "I grew from this." And I think that's usually the easiest way to reframe, reframe your trauma. Instead of being a tragedy, it became the thing that made you strong,

[00:50:53.112] Speaker 1: okay? I like that framing the best because it gives you some very serious inner strength. But find whatever feels right to you, okay? Tell whatever story it is you can that's positive, and do it over and over and over again. It's gonna take a lot of repetition, and it's quite painful, so make sure you're in a good place, like you're safe and healthy, and you feel like, "Let's do this." This was the point of trying to get you to feel a little bit better with the other two strategies, uh, opening up to another person about your, you know, fears and anxieties and all that, and all your problems. And the first one, the pattern

[00:51:27.892] Speaker 1: interrupt. That will start to get you feeling a little better, but they're not permanent fixes. They're temporary fixes that get you back on your feet. But the way you get stronger, permanently stronger, is by revisiting these traumas and telling a better story over and over and over again. Okay? Now, for fresh traumas, this is a lot easier. So the next time something terrible happens to you, remind yourself, maybe write this one in your morn- little morning routine if it's a useful

[00:52:02.712] Speaker 1: reminder, "This is my opportunity. If I write a bad story here, if I write a disempowering, terrifying story, I will believe it, and it will shape who I am in a very negative, toxic way." Okay? Trauma can either make you weaker permanently or stronger permanently. All right? And the nice part is you can always go back and rewrite the story. Now, it's harder the older it is 'cause it gets really baked into everything about you, but it can be rewritten. It's a simple process.

[00:52:37.592] Speaker 1: Relive, tell a new story, ideally it feels as true as possible, and keep doing that over and over again. And eventually, it will be the worst thing that ever happened to you and the best thing that ever happened to you. You will know that you are recovered when you are grateful for this trauma, when you would not undo it, because to undo it would be to make you a weaker, less capable, less resilient

[00:53:12.212] Speaker 1: person. Why would you undo that? Sure, you might undo some of the damage if you could. You would love to take the scar off your sister's face. You wish you hadn't hurt her. Of course, that's normal. But you wouldn't change the consequences of that event because it made you better, and you're grateful for it. Truly grateful. It's not forced. You really mean it when you say you're grateful. That's when you know you finally made it, and it has finally become an opportunity, and you are stronger. All right, let's move on. Here's another

[00:53:46.632] Speaker 1: tool that will help you if you're struggling with the will to face these problems, maybe to relive your memories, to do anything. Here's a trick I like to use. Well, technically, I have three more tricks. I can't believe how long this episode is, man. Are we pushing an hour? I don't care. I'm gonna do it. We're gonna power through. I, l- I am excited to power through. Bring it on. Because the next topic [chuckles] is challenge versus threat framing. If you feel

[00:54:22.412] Speaker 1: like you can't handle this, like you can't take another hit, you have to run away and hide somewhere, that's because you're using threat framing. The problems that are being afflict- inflicted upon you are terrifying. They're a huge burden. They're inescapable. And this is because of the part of the brain that you're using. You're in fight or flight mode, okay? Well, you're mostly in flight mode. [chuckles] But yeah. Or freeze, I guess is technically the other one. But basically, I think that your amygdala is receiving more blood flow and

[00:54:57.352] Speaker 1: the pre or, yeah, prefrontal cortex, I don't know, the, the smart higher mind, the long-term decision maker, the rational thought part of your brain is literally having blood drained out of it. Like, it's literally You know, it's like operating at lower RPMs. Like, it's not working very much, and the lizard brain, the sort of scared, terrified, uh, here and now fight or flight mode part of your brain, which is very short-sighted, um, is, has most of the power, okay? Threat framing makes you weaker. Now,

[00:55:32.322] Speaker 1: it's very useful. Remember, our brains are sort of set up for, like, immediate physical threats because those are the... Or immediate social threats, 'cause those are the only kinds of threats that we, you know, evolved to deal with. We n- never really evolved to deal with being able to hear about mass shootings on a global scale on a daily basis. We never, we weren't evolved to hear about problems 2,000 miles away, most of which don't affect us, and our brain treats all of those problems as if they were right in front of us, okay? So we're in threat frame

[00:56:07.782] Speaker 1: mode a lot. But here is the one cool trick you can do to immediately feel powerful, okay? If you are leaning away from pain, here's the paradox. Lean in instead. "Oh, crap, I have to work overtime tonight 'cause I, there's $40,000 worth of consumer debt to pay off or my girlfriend will leave me. I don't know, whatever, right? I can't take it. Uh, I don't wanna go. I should call out." No. That's threat framing. Reframe as

[00:56:42.722] Speaker 1: challenge framing. It is, in the words of Tom Bilyeu, "Stop thinking in terms of how little can I do and start thinking in terms in, of how much can I take?" Okay? This will immediately change which parts of your brain you're using because instead of pain avoidance, you are now in sort of problem resolution, like ambition, long-term planning mode. And most importantly, it makes you... It gives you energy. It gives you the will to

[00:57:17.402] Speaker 1: tackle a problem. You're not just trying to survive and hide. You are trying to conquer and control. All right? A lot of this is just about telling better stories. That's it. You're not broken. You're just telling yourselves very unhelpful thories, stories yourself, very unhelpful stories, very unhelpful thoughts. And when you begin to rewrite them, they become habitually positive, habitually empowering, and you are a strong person now who can recover from anything and can take of a heck of a lot of hits too before you

[00:57:52.402] Speaker 1: go down. But when you do inevitably go down, you have the ability to get back up again really quickly. So you become a very reliable, powerful person. Just use ch- challenge framing. So challenge framing of the same thing is, "No, I can do overtime. I can do more than overtime," okay? Bring it on. I am not only, not only gonna pay this debt off in a year and a half, I'm gonna pay this debt off in a year. I'm gonna call my boss and I'm gonna say, "Can I have overtime tomorrow too?"

[00:58:27.422] Speaker 1: Bring it on. I can take it. I can take this and more. Same set of circumstances, different perspective. One is, "Oh, please don't hurt me anymore. I can't take it." The other is, "I can take anything. Bring it on." When you think of your problems as not something to be avoided and run from and merely tolerated to the extent that you have to tolerate them, but think about, "How can I absolutely destroy this? How can I go on the

[00:59:02.182] Speaker 1: offense instead of the defense?" And because one gives you a sense of control and power, and it literally allows you to endure more pain. When you lean into the pain, um, you actually feel less pain. It's a paradox. I think there is a study that showed when people are put in an ice bath, which as you can probably imagine, it's just, um, water with a bunch of ice cubes in it. It's quite painful. Uh, the people who are allowed to scream and basically act aggressively, hit their chest, like, uh, grit their teeth and

[00:59:37.222] Speaker 1: like sort of, you know, do m- they are actually able to withstand more pain, significantly more pain than the people who were not allowed to do any of that, who basically had to sit there and take it. So you literally will feel less pain and have more control when you reframe your problems as challenges, something that you are eager to bear, something you are going to conquer, something that is not going to come anywhere close to beating you. In fact, you're thinking about piling on more. Then you can handle anything.

[01:00:12.222] Speaker 1: It's the same problem. If you're going to have to solve it either way, you may as well use challenge framing because that one makes you feel strong. And threat framing, leaning away from the pain, will actually increase the pain. It actually makes it hurt more. Um, this is, you know, if you... Just in a microcosm, when you rip a Band-Aid off, if you give somebody, you tell them, "Hey, this is gonna hurt. You ready?" And you have a moment to brace, it actually hurts less. If it is just ripped off of you, the pain is worse and it feels

[01:00:46.962] Speaker 1: worse. This is exactly the same concept, okay? So lean in. Use challenge framing, not threat framing. All right, two more concepts. This one's also from Benjamin Hardy. It's called The Gap and The Gain. You got a lot to write down. Whatever. [chuckles] You're gonna feel better by the end of this episode. You got all my tools. This is everything I've learned, um, that you haven't learned yet, uh, past Steven. All right, next is the gap in the game. Okay, if you find yourself feeling bad, chances are, or you start feeling

[01:01:23.958] Speaker 1: incapable and weak, depressed, basically everything negative and hopeless and helpless, chances are you are in gap thinking, okay, rather than gain thinking. And this is a very simple concept. The concept is you feel bad when you are focused on things you can't have, don't have, will never have, are in the distant future or feel unattainable or in the distant past that you can't fix. Basically, if something is out of reach and you are focused

[01:01:59.278] Speaker 1: on the fact that it is out of reach, you are disempowered, meaning you feel helpless, and you will feel depressed, anxious, sad, every negative emotion, right? Spiteful, whatever it is, right? If you focus on the things you can't have, don't have, are in the far future, distant past, if it feels unattainable and that's what you're staring at, you know, mentally speaking, you're gonna feel bad every single time. This is how billionaires are able to be upset. You know, like

[01:02:34.178] Speaker 1: this is how they're able to feel like they don't have enough. Even though logically they know they do, this is how they, rich people or people who have it all or people who have succeeded in anything or you have succeeded in anything you've succeeded, this is how you devalue everything good you've ever done and it can still feel like trash compared to what you actually want now, okay? This is where this phenomenon comes from. This is being in the gap, so, uh, Dr. Benjamin Hardy says. But gain thinking is the opposite. Gain thinking is

[01:03:09.138] Speaker 1: choosing to focus on what you do have. This is why gratitude works, by the way. Everyone always says like, "Be grateful. Do a gratitude journal." Not that those are bad practices. That's a good idea. But gratitude is actually just a narrow... It's a single tool in this broader tool set, which is gain thinking. Be appreciative of what you do have, but don't just be appreciative. That's like saying, "Feel happy. Why don't, just feel happy. Why are you feeling sad? You should feel happy." You can't, you can't start at the outcome. We talked about this last time. You have to do the things that get you the outcome. I'm going to tell you what to do to get the outcome that

[01:03:44.138] Speaker 1: makes you feel happy and gra- g- you know, have gratitude. Yes, you have to go find things you're grateful for, but here's how you feel grateful. Here's how you feel good. Stop focusing on the things you don't have, can't have, that feel unattainable or in the distant future. Stop focusing on the gap between, this is where the word comes, the term comes from. Stop focusing on the gap between where you are and where you want to be, okay? That makes you feel like trash every single time. If you feel like trash, that's almost certainly why, right? It is a kind of negative thinking, I'm sure.

[01:04:20.138] Speaker 1: It makes you feel bad. It makes you feel like, get, puts you in a scarcity mindset. It makes you feel like you don't have enough, will never have enough, are not enough. Instead, focus on the gain. All right, so he has a concept called always measure backwards, meaning stop measuring success, yes, by looking at other people, which by the way is a kind of gap thinking. "Oh, these people have what I want." Gap thinking. You're looking at the difference between you and them. You're looking at the gap between you and them. You're gonna feel like trash every single time. It's a very simple equation. Gap thinking equals feeling like trash,

[01:04:55.438] Speaker 1: okay? Gain thinking equals feeling great, feeling whole, feeling happy, feeling satisfied, feeling great, uh, grateful, you know? Feeling like you're enough. Do you wanna feel like that again? All you have to do is think about the things you do have. Think about the things you have accomplished. Think about the thi- the problems that you used to have that you wished you had solved and wanted so badly to solve, and now they are solved, and you have those things. Think about the traumas you have recovered from and now are stronger. That's a kind of gain thinking.

[01:05:30.558] Speaker 1: You're focused most of the time on the things that have gone right, the things that you do have, the things you are proud of, okay? The things that are beautiful about you and your life. You can do this at any time. You can do this and if you're in the middle of a war-torn country, okay? If you want to feel good, do mostly gain thinking. Fi- When people say, "Find the silver lining," a lot of people roll their eyes like, "Yeah, yeah, this is like toxic positivity," like blah, blah, blah. This is why it works,

[01:06:05.818] Speaker 1: okay? If you find something true to be grateful for, to be appreciative, to be proud of, you're gonna always find something. You'll feel good again. It's like flipping a switch. It's the craziest thing in the world. Go practice it right now. Well, I guess after this last concept, go practice it. So if you find yourself in the gap foc- focusing on the difference between you and where you want to be, between you and another person, that's, you're in the gap, and it will make you feel bad. I mean, it's that simple. You need to think to yourself, "Ah,

[01:06:41.398] Speaker 1: I'm in the gap. If I keep thinking like this, I'm gonna feel bad. Do I want to feel bad?" I literally talk to my kids about this. "Hey, man, seems like you're in the gap. Like, you're thinking about things you can't have or that aren't going right. And I'm not going to tell you to stop. You can do that if you want to. But remember, it makes you feel bad, like really bad. Do you wanna feel bad today? Is that what you want? Do you wanna feel bad right now? If you want to feel bad right now, like go, go ahead. By all means, you can keep measuring yourself against this ideal.

[01:07:16.578] Speaker 1: Keep measuring yourself against that other person." Go ahead if you want to feel bad, but just checking, do you want to feel bad right now? The answer is almost always, "No, I don't want to feel bad." But what about, "Hey, no excuses, no blame, no deflection." Simple question: Do you want to feel bad? Do you want to feel good? "I wanna feel good." Okay. In that case, start thinking about when you were bad at this, but now you're much better, okay? Stop thinking

[01:07:51.206] Speaker 1: about you wish you could be world-class. Well, that's great. Think about how you're actually quite good compared to everybody else. That's still gain thinking, okay? Think about anything that makes you feel like what you've already accomplished, what you have already attained, what is close, okay? We'll talk about that in a goal-setting episode at some point, but typically you want your goals to feel attainable. Um, and the moment they stop feeling attainable, if you've ever noticed that a goal starts to make you feel like trash, um, it's

[01:08:26.246] Speaker 1: because it is now gap thinking. You had the motivation because you thought you could do something and, you know, something has changed or you're not doing what you thought you would be able to do repeatedly to get those results, and now it feels unattainable, so every time you think about it, you're in the gap. And what once was beautiful and you were excited about, now you feel bad about because potentially it feels unattainable, which means you're in the gap. So the trick is to make it something that feels attainable. If you do need to think about something that is in the future or that you don't have, make it fee...

[01:09:02.506] Speaker 1: reconceptualize or restructure the goal or what it is you're thinking about to think about something at hand. So in this case, if you want to be better at knitting, [chuckles] I'm making knitting as an example, and you're so upset that you don't know how to knit a sweater, okay, 'cause it's too hard. All right? That was your goal. Well, every time you think about how the fact you, you can't knit a sweater is gonna make you feel bad. So instead, change the goal, change the framing. Think about how much better at knitting you are now. Oh, wow, you can do socks. You can do hats. You know, two weeks ago, you couldn't even

[01:09:37.506] Speaker 1: get the stitches to stay together at all, or the, you know, the knitting. But, and if you need to think about a new goal, think about a goal that feels attainable. "Okay, I can't do a sweater, but maybe... I bet I could do a sleeve. That would be cool." And if it feels attainable, you will start to feel better again, okay? Gap in the gain. Write that one down, too. And now for the last topic, which I think will probably get a little less airtime than probably deserves, stoicism. And these are all interrelated.

[01:10:12.566] Speaker 1: Ah. Just go learn about stoicism. Stoicism is a lot like some Eastern philosophies like Buddhism. It is a philosophy about basically how to be happy and satisfied and live a meaningful life right now, no matter what is happening. Literally, no matter what is happening. You could be being tortured, and if you are an incredible stoic, you might be able to, like, at least, like, find some neutral. It's in... It's just an incredible set of tools, mindset and emotional tools, and they have come to my rescue

[01:10:47.386] Speaker 1: so, so, so much. Uh, gap in the gain is a kind of stoic tool, okay? Challenge and threat framing were a kind of stoic tool. Reframing past traumas, anti-fragility, all sources of inner strength, all of these things are stoic tools. Um, so I won't spend an enormous amount of time on them, but here's the crux of the issue. Happiness is essentially a choice. It's a choice in the sense that there is a set of things that you can do that will make you feel better if you're feeling bad at any point in time. The choice is not whether to feel happy or not.

[01:11:22.166] Speaker 1: Remember, you don't pick the outcome. That's dumb. "Why don't you just feel happy instead of feeling sad?" It's not how it works. The choice is, am I going to do the things that now I know make me feel good, or am I going to do the things that now I know are making me feel bad? That is the choice, okay? That's sort of the crux of stoicism. It is a decision to be happy by thinking and acting in a way that makes you feel good despite whatever

[01:11:57.066] Speaker 1: else is happening to you. It is a willingness to be happy agnostic suffering. It doesn't matter what level of suffering you're experiencing. In fact, trying to avoid suffering entirely is not only pointless, uh, but a waste of a life and may actually hurt, hurt you more. Far better to be happy and okay no matter what problems are thrown at you than to try to prevent all problems from being thrown at you. All right? This is sort of where this entire approach comes from.

[01:12:32.886] Speaker 1: It is a willingness to suffer well and meaningfully, to lean in to the pain where it's necessary, and to accept that pain is never going to stop coming, and to find a way to be happy anyway. More than happy, to be empowered, to be satisfied, to be exuberant. It is a way to enjoy everything that life has to offer and to be able

[01:13:07.946] Speaker 1: to withstand all of the terrible things that it has to offer as well in a way that doesn't derail you from enjoying the beautiful things. That's what stoicism's all about. Uh, there's an enormous amount of things to learn about it. There are hundreds of, like, little tactics, kind of like what we've talked about today, that are all wrapped up in the philosophy that you can go learn about. I've given you some of my favorite today, and I'll leave you with just one more before I go. And this one comes from a modern philosopher. I can't remember his name, but the

[01:13:42.822] Speaker 1: concept is creating fictional gods, okay? This is actually... I think this is part of the, um, Satanism religion, actually. It's the belief that, uh, the, the angel, like Satan in Christian mythology, was not evil so much as he serves a useful purpose of, you know, the tests or, like, the temptations that, uh, he tempts mortals with, like trying to get them to do bad things, is not actually evil. He's trying to tempt you and hurt you and tease you into doing bad things

[01:14:18.462] Speaker 1: in the hopes that you will choose not to, and it will make you stronger, okay? I think that's the rough premise. Forgive me if I got it wrong or I offended you, but the gist is create a fictional deity which has way less baggage, uh, you know, especially if you're a religious person. Create your own fictional deity, okay? And this is a concept... Oh, was it William B something? I don't know. Create some stoic gods, okay? Every time something bad happens to you in your life, it wasn't just something that

[01:14:53.342] Speaker 1: happened randomly. This is pretend. This is a deliberate fiction. Keep in mind it's a deliberate fiction. It was actually the stoic gods who did this. Every obstacle in your path, every injury you've ever faced, every indignity that has ever happened to you, every little bad, every bad thing from small to great in your life has been caused by the stoic gods. They have done it deliberately to you, okay? Just get in that mindset, all right? So the next

[01:15:28.362] Speaker 1: time something bad happens to you, there is a set of stoic gods, like a pantheon, like the Greek gods, and they all are trying to mess you up. They're all trying to trip you up. They're all trying to knock you off your game. They're trying to knock you down. But not because they hate you, but because they love you. Because they know what you need most is to get stronger. So they will find the thing you cannot handle. They will hit you with another blow because you think you're not strong enough. They will pummel you ceaselessly in every unexpected,

[01:16:03.222] Speaker 1: intolerable way you couldn't imagine. But they're doing it 'cause they love you, because they know that every time they hit you, if you are wise enough to choose a positive story, if you are wise enough to see these tests for what they are, you will come out the other side stronger than before. The stoic gods are trying to make you stronger, and they do that by causing ceaseless problems, by making your life harder to make you stronger, okay? So, and this is similar

[01:16:38.142] Speaker 1: to challenge framing versus threat framing. Okay, so this is like challenge framing. The stoic gods are issuing a challenge. Every time something bad happens to you, they're waiting to see. It's a test. They want to see how you'll react. Are you going to react positively? Are you going to interrupt your negative thought patterns and make them positive? Are you going to optimize for recovery? Are you going to start using these emotional tools, mindset tools to start getting better? Are you going to be able

[01:17:13.502] Speaker 1: to handle this? Can you reframe your trauma, or is this one going to take you down? And they hope that you will choose to get stronger. They hope you will choose to take this hit and get back up again because they know it will make you stronger. Every problem in your life is a test. Every problem in your life is an opportunity, a challenge for you to conquer and permanently grow

[01:17:48.382] Speaker 1: stronger in a way that the same problem cannot hurt you in the same way again. You get stronger every single time you are hit with a problem if you make these choices to get stronger. Or every blow you take could make you weaker. It's your choice. Now you have the tools to do these things. Now you have the tools to make every problem in your life an opportunity, to make the

[01:18:23.202] Speaker 1: worst things that have ever happened to you the best things that ever happened to you, to become somebody so capable, so powerful, so resilient and capable of getting back up again that nothing can take you down again. You can get there. I know it's possible. I feel like I'm getting there, but I'm never done. The stoic gods are not done testing me either. There's a fresh heaping plate of problems for me every day, and they don't stop coming. I'm gonna demolish them

[01:18:58.142] Speaker 1: because I use challenge framing. When I feel like trash, I realize I'm probably in the gap and I'm comparing myself to some unrealistic ideal that feels unattainable, something I can't fix about the past, something I can't fix about the future, something that another person has that I don't. Ah, I'm in the gap. Whoops. Gotta get back in the game. Gotta switch. Actually, I am very capable, and just 'cause I couldn't change that doesn't mean I can't change something. Actually, in here is something I could change. Yeah, that person has something that I don't have, but that's okay because I have all of

[01:19:33.202] Speaker 1: these incredible things, X, Y, and Z. And look how far I've come already. Dang, I'm pretty impressive. When I feel threatened, I switch. I frame it as a challenge. What is the least I can take? F that. What is the most I can take? This is, this is not the one that's gonna take me down, stoic gods. That's all you've got? The next time you get slapped across the face with a problem, just smile. That's all you've got? Are you serious? This is not even a problem. But when I do

[01:20:08.002] Speaker 1: spiral, and I have these negative thought patterns, I know, whoop, gotta interrupt. Nope. Gotta think the positive inverse. Not only that, but I need to go talk to somebody. Am I going crazy? I feel like I've been in a funk for a long time. I need to just, like, get this off my chest with somebody who's a great listener because I know I'll be able to recalibrate and figure out which of my problems are real and which ones are kinda stuff I've made up in my head. That is how you can handle

[01:20:42.962] Speaker 1: anything. Optimize for being able to get back up. It's okay to go down. It's not okay to stay down. This has been The Fix.