How To Free Yourself From Your Mind

0:07Welcome to today's episode of the Mindset Mentor podcast. I'm your host Rob Dial. If you're the type of person who's out there and you want to grow yourself so that you can improve your life, go ahead and hit that subscribe button. I put out episodes four times a week to help you understand who you are, how to grow yourself so that you can be improving your life. So if you're interested in that, sounds like something that you want, go ahead and hit that subscribe button so you never miss another episode. Today, we're going to be talking about how to free yourself from your mind. And I'm going to give you a story, a little small story that I gave in an episode a year or two ago.

0:41and I got a lot of messages from people that were saying like, oh my God, that story really helped me out. And I'll give you that example. And then I'll teach you a little bit how to free yourself from your mind, from your thoughts, to not identify with your mind, to not identify with your thoughts so that you can have more peace in your life. And so the story is this, okay? Imagine that there's a bird and he's flying around and he's free and he's soaring through the air. There's nothing in his way. It's amazing. And then one day he's like, I'm going to take a break. and he comes down. He finds a nice little lake to sit on.

1:12Lands on this nice calm lake and he's enjoying it. And he enjoys that it's calm. It's tranquil. And decides, you know what? This is a peaceful lake. I'm going to stay here. So he stays there for a little while and he ends up staying there for so long that he forgets that he can fly. And so what happens is he forgets that he can fly. He's been resting on the water for such a long time that he begins to start thinking that he can't leave the lake. And because of the fact that he can't leave the lake, he starts to identify with the lake. And he forgets that one time, you know, he used to fly. He forgets that he could literally fly away right now.

1:49And this bird that was, you know, is still capable of flight has become a creature of the water, right? It's now like a fish. It is a creature of the water. And it's fine when the water's calm, because when the water's calm, the bird enjoys it. it's nice, it's tranquil, it's peaceful, the sun's out, he can hang out. But when the water gets choppy, the bird struggles. You know, it gets really choppy, the waves go everywhere, it's too windy, gets water in its mouth, and then it fears that it might drown. And it ends up stressing the bird out, of course, because when it's calm, that's amazing. And it wants it to be calm all the time.

2:26But when it gets a little bit crazy, it stresses the bird out. It ends up making the bird want to control the state of the water, hoping and wanting to control to make sure that it is calm all the time. But it doesn't realize that any attempt that it has to manipulate the water, manipulate the air, manipulate the wind, the waves are completely impossible. And it's even counterproductive if you're being honest. And so a bird cannot control an entire body of water. And so to put effort in to try to control this thing is completely unnecessary. And so what happens is the bird has to remember that it can fly away again.

3:07It has to disidentify itself with that lake that it has been on for so long, years maybe. And so when you look at it, I'm going to dive deep in this story and talk a little bit more about it. The story behind the bird is basically a metaphor forth for our human condition and specifically our struggle to maintain a sense of control over our internal state and to try to control our mind. You know, as humans, we think that the things that we think are us. We tend to identify with our mind. We tend to identify with our thoughts until we get to a point. Hopefully you can get to this point or you already at this point where you realize you're not your thoughts.

3:49you're the observer of those thoughts. You're like the silent witness behind those thoughts. You are in other terms, you are the consciousness behind the mind. The mind is programmed. There's certain things, I don't know if you've ever done it before, where your mind will automatically say something in your head. And you're like, where the hell did that just come from? That's not who I want to be. That's not who I am. That was just a program. That was a conditioning that just came out. And I'll give you an example. If it's not connecting with you or you're like, hold on, How am I not my mind? Okay.

4:20Think about this for a second. How am I the consciousness behind my mind? That doesn't make any sense. That sounds too woo wooey, right? I don't want you to move your lips. I don't want you to say a word, but in your head, I want you to say the word happiness. Okay. Don't say it out loud. Just say it in your head. We're all going to say it together in our mind on the count of three. One, two, three. Did you say it? I'll give you one more chance. Ready? Say happiness without saying it outside of your mouth. In your head, I want you to say happiness. One, two, three. Did you do it? Okay. Now, my question is, who said that?

4:59Who said that? Because you said something without moving your lips. And then the crazier part about it is not only did you say it without moving your lips, you also heard it. You heard it without a sound. So who said it and who heard it? You said something without saying it and you heard something without hearing it. You are the consciousness behind all of it. That's who you are. You know, when you ask somebody, one of the things I love to ask people is, who are you? And I talk to people and they're like, oh, well, I'm a mother. I'm a wife. My name is Stacy. I'm 37 years old. I went to University of South Florida.

5:39I have a degree in science and this is my religion and this is my job. And they start naming off all of these things. She is not any of those things. Those are just accomplishments. That's an age. That's a name that she was given at birth. But like when you were born, were you a wife? Were you a mother? Did you have degrees? Any of those things? So those things don't make you who you are. They're just things that you've experienced, things that you've done, labels that you've picking up across the way. You know, just as the bird is not like a creature of the lake, you are more than all of your programmings.

6:18You're more than all of your personality. You're more than all of your circumstances that you find yourself in. And you're more than just your thoughts. But the thing is, we've been dwelling in our thoughts, in our constructs of what the world is or should be or conditionings of what the world is or should be for so long that we begin to identify them. And we think that our personality is something that is set in stone. And so we're like, no, this is just who I am. And we think we put ourselves in a box based off of everything that's ever happened to us. And we think that's just who I am. That's who I'm always going to be.

6:54And as a result, we put ourselves in a box. We don't think that we can get outside the box. We become a victim of our own minds rather than the consciousness and the power that's behind all of it. And so first thing I want you to understand today, as we start to dive into your thoughts is that you are not your thoughts. Just as the same as the bird is not the water. He can fly away at any time, but he's been on the water for so long, for years, for 10 years, for 20 years, that he thinks that he is the water and forgets he can fly away. You've been identifying with your mind and with your thoughts for so long that you forget that you are not them.

7:28It's just a piece of you. The same way that if I look at my hand, I'm like, I'm not like I am my hand. No, my hand is just a part of me. Same way that my mind is a part of me, but it is not all of me. So anytime you get caught up in your mind, you need to remind yourself, first off, that you're free from it. Just like the bird, you know, if you look at the bird and you start to deconstruct the whole story, the bird's flying in the air. It lands on a lake. It hangs out for a really long time. It forgets that it can fly. And so it starts to identify with the lake. The bird forgets it can fly. It's been programmed out of it the same way that we have all been programmed out of who we are.

8:02Now the water that this bird lands on is the same as your mind. You can rest on your mind like the water. And when the water is calm, just like the bird, we're like, this is awesome. I feel great. But when the water gets choppy, when your mind gets choppy, you start to get stressed. You start to get anxious. You start to freak out about something. You get angry. You get sad. You're like, oh my God, this is insane. I don't want to be this way. And you struggle. Same way that the bird starts to struggle and almost drowns. The bird wants to keep the water calm, tries to find every way it can keep the water calm, but it can't control the water.

8:35It thinks it can, but it can't. Same way that we want to have control over our mind. And so whenever our mind is anxious, we're like, no, don't be anxious. Don't be anxious. Don't, don't feel like that. Don't be angry. And so we actually start to battle with our mind. That doesn't make any sense. We have to let our mind do what it's going to do. It's like a storm coming in and the bird battles with the water. It's not going to stop the storm. What can the bird do? It can just kind of hunker down and wait for it to pass. So you forgot that you were the consciousness behind the mind. And maybe you've never even been told that you're the consciousness behind the mind.

9:10The same way that the bird forgot they could fly. You are the thing behind the thoughts, behind the programming, behind the personality, behind what your parents told you, behind society, behind all of the shit that we're giving across our life. Right? We're behind all of that thing. And when we fight, when we feel anxiety or stress or any of that, fighting it only makes it worse. What you resist persists. And life is up and down. It's all over. There's some days that are really good and it's calm. There's some days that are kind of a shit show, right? And when you're looking at that, when you're trying to make it not be a shit show, you're like, I really just want it to be calm again.

9:50And you get even more anxious because you're wanting it to be what it's not currently at this moment. Waves come in. You're like, oh, fuck, I hate this, right? What can I do about this? Why does this always happen to me? So I want you to understand that the whole metaphor behind this thing is for you to start to understand that you can distance yourself from the mind, from the thoughts, from the thing that you have identified and thought that you are. When you are extremely stressed and you're extremely anxious, those are just thoughts that are going on in your head. Can you take a step back and say, okay, I'm noticing my anxiety.

10:21I'm noticing. Can I let this pass? I was on a call yesterday and one of the ladies said, hey, when I noticed that I'm anxious, I just want it to go away. How do I make it go away? And I said, you don't make it go away. What you do is you let yourself process it. So the same way that the bird can't stop the storm, can't stop the waves coming in, it just has to let it pass. The problem is that when we have anxiety or stress, any of those things, and we fight it, it makes it harder. And it adds in another layer of another problem because now it's, I'm anxious. And on top of that, I don't want to be anxious.

10:59Now I have two things that I'm battling. And so when you start to think about it, you just have to sometimes take a step back and you have to say, okay, hold on. I'm just going to let this pass. Like there's a lot of times and it's not as much anymore, but a couple of years ago, I used to wake up and I used to feel anxious a lot. I would just wake up because, you know, there's a lot of stuff going on. There's this freaking big business that I'm running. I have employees. I have revenue that has to come in. I have all this stuff that goes out. I have to like, there was just so many things and I would feel anxious from like the moment I woke up and I would hate it and I would fight it and I would try to do rituals and I would try to do like everything that I possibly could to calm it down.

11:37Now I just go, okay, let me be aware. Let me be aware that the consciousness behind this thing, Rob is experiencing a little bit of anxiety right now. He just needs to take a break. He just needs to sit down and he needs to let this pass. And what I would do is I would give myself five minutes just to let myself feel it. And I would just give myself five minutes, just let Rob feel it for a little while. And I'd sit there and I would feel it. And then what I would do is I would then after a little while, it would, it would, because I wasn't fighting it, it would start to kind of go away. It was like my body needed to process it and then let it go.

12:12And it's like, it was just like a passing cloud. It was just a passing cloud that was just going by. It's just a little rainstorm that was going by on a sunny day. And so I was just, okay, let me just wait till this cloud passes. Now, when we resist and we fight the anxiety or the stress, it tends to make all of those things worse. But when we're like, okay, I'm going to give myself five minutes. I'm going to breathe intentionally. I'm going to sit there and I'm going to feel it. I'm going to say, okay, I'm just going to let it go. And instead of resisting, I'm letting it go. Instead of resisting, I'm letting it go.

12:41What happens is after a while, it starts to get a little bit better. And then I'm like, you know what? I'm just going to put down on a piece of paper what I'm anxious about and see if I can make a plan that will make me feel better. I'm anxious about this thing I have to do today. Okay. What would make me feel better? What else would make me feel better? What if I did some breathing? What if I just breathe for a little while and try to get my nervous system to calm back down? Cause my nervous system is at a heightened state. And what you start to realize after a while is that the same way that the natural state of the lake for the bird, when it's a sunny day is calm.

13:12The same thing is with the mind. the natural state of your mind is calm. Now you might be sitting there going, there's no freaking way because my mind is crazy. It's insane. It's all over the place. But I promise you this, the natural state of your mind is calm. You know, when you look at a baby, a newborn baby, even though they cry when they want milk and all that stuff, when their eyes are open and they're sitting there, then their natural state is calm. That is all of our natural states. But we've been programmed to think that we have to do this thing or we've got to go to the next thing or we need to succeed or we need to do this next.

13:44The secret to the mind is not trying to control it. It's to stop resisting it and to stop fighting it and to let it do what it's going to do. And eventually it will calm down. It might take five minutes, might take 10 minutes, but eventually it will start to calm down. The more that you fight it, the harder it gets and the longer it persists. You know, like Alan Watts has this quote that he says, he says, you can't force your mind to be silent. Right? Like think about that for a second. You can't force your mind to be silent. that would be like trying to smooth ripples in water with a flat iron water becomes clear and calms down only when it's left alone same as your brain it becomes clear and calms down only when it's left alone not when you're trying to fight it trying to make it better trying to make it be different and really what it comes down to and this is really really hard for a lot of people to grasp and it was hard for me to grasp for a long time as well is it comes down to surrendering It's not about controlling.

14:39It's about allowing. You know, we always think, okay, I need the next steps. I need to, okay, I feel anxious. What is my step-by-step-by-step process to not feel this way? I am pissed. What is my step-by-step-by-step process to not feel this way? Sometimes you just got to surrender to it. Not try to control it. It's about allowing. It's about not forcing it, not resisting it. Because when you resist, I keep saying it, you resist to persist. The less you try to control and fight the mind, the more it starts to calm itself down. It's kind of like a child throwing a temper tantrum sometimes. The natural state of your mind is calm.

15:15And so then you start to think about it, and maybe you understand this and that's great to hear. Now I start to think about what can I do to help my mind be in more of a state of calm, right? I can't control it when I'm in it, but is it possible for me to create more calm or have an environment that's more conducive for a calm mind? So if I'm the type of person who's never meditated and I notice that I'm really anxious throughout the day, maybe I'm going to try to start a meditation practice. Maybe I'm going to learn meditation. People always think that they're doing it wrong with meditating and they always think, I can't get to a point where I'm not thinking.

15:57Meditation is not no thoughts. Meditation is just watching your thoughts. It is, once again, distancing yourself from your thoughts, seeing that you are not your thoughts and not getting caught up with them. So it's not a state of no thought. It's a state of watching your thoughts and becoming aware and distancing yourself from them. The mind can get crazy. Life can get crazy. But can we distance ourselves from it? Just kind of get a little bit more awareness. So we could do some meditation and try to create more of a calm environment. we can do some breathing and breath work. I talk about all the time in this podcast and breath work can start to help you create a little bit more of a calm environment within you.

16:36Can I look at my external environment and say like, man, like some people get really stressed out unconsciously when their house is a mess. Some people don't care, but maybe you could say, can I create an environment that is a little bit more calm for myself instead of waking up and immediately listening to Slipknot, maybe what I could do is get up and I can listen to something that's more calming. The music that we listen to, the environment that we're in creates the feeling that we're going to have as well. Maybe there's other people in your environment that stress you out and make you anxious.

17:07Can you distance yourself from them? Maybe there's people who make you more calm, make you more grounded, make you more centered and not so flighty. Can you find more time around those people? And so we can't really control our mind, but we can try to assist our mind in being a little bit more calm. Because the mind can get crazy. Life can get crazy. It can be more waves. It can be hurricane-level waves sometimes. Can it? But what's the best thing to do if a hurricane is going over your house? What's the best thing? Well, you can leave before it gets there, of course. But if the hurricane is going over your house and you can't leave, what do you do?

17:44You hunker down. You stay inside. You don't go outside and try to calm the hurricane down. No, you just have to allow the hurricane to pass. It's the same thing with your emotions. It's about feeling them. It's about allowing them to express themselves. Because when you stop fighting them, when you stop resisting them, they don't stay as long. And when they don't stay as long, eventually you start to build up this muscle. And it's really odd. I've noticed it within myself. I've noticed it within a lot of people that I've coached. is they just, as you start to work with your mind and understand your mind and understand how it works and not identify with it, there's just another level of peace that starts to come in.

18:22And I have in no way mastered this thing. Please don't ever think, I don't know if I'll ever master this thing, but what I've noticed is as I start to distance myself from my thoughts, not identify with them, and when they do come up and I am stressed or anxious or mad or whatever, I say, okay, I'm stressed. Okay, I'm anxious. Okay, I'm mad. I'm gonna allow myself to feel this way for five minutes and then I'm gonna go and I'm just going to go about my day. When I don't resist them, usually they end up kind of working themselves out and I find myself naturally in a state of calm, which is the bird on the lake in peaceful, tranquil waters, which is ultimately what we're all trying to feel.

18:55But when the waves do come in, because the waves are always going to come in at some point in time, they just might not come in as much. Don't identify with them. Let them come through. Let them work through. Don't identify and think that you are those waves. You are those bad thoughts. I am a bad person. Don't identify with them. take a step back and just allow it to pass. So that's what I got for you for today's episode. If you love this episode, please share it on Instagram stories, tag me at Rob Dial Jr. R-O-B-D-I-A-L-J-R. And if you haven't heard in the past few episodes, I have something really special coming out called Mindset Mentor Plus.

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19:54There's also going to be exclusive Q &A sessions with me, and there's going to be a whole lot more other bonuses that you're definitely going to love. And the people who sign up first are going to be founding members and founding members get a discount. And so if that interests you and you want to learn more about it, you can join the waitlist at mindsetwaitlist.com. Once again, it's mindsetwaitlist.com. And we will email you first before we announce it on social media, before I announce it on podcasts, any of that stuff, so that you become a founding member. So with that, I'm going to leave you the same way I leave you every single episode.

20:22Make it your mission. Make someone else's day better. I appreciate you. And I hope that you have an amazing day.