Have we been trained to ignore nature or universal energy?

I have called this video – Is there a powerful and intrinsic knowledge hidden beneath the incessant thoughts our egoic brains offer us?

I guess another way of saying that is – how might we become brave enough to stop listening to our thoughts and take actions (that will be good for our life) and accept what happens from those actions – knowing they were in our best interest, regardless of what outcome occurs?

Because – what if the anxious stories our brain offers us that are self-limiting, self- abusive and fearful? – What if they are not true?

Or we might say, what if they are not the whole truth – because who knows what you are capable of – until you try?

So, in this video, I will attempt to explain something that I know to be true (because I have experienced it), as have many people I know (and respect), but I can’t prove it to you – because it was only my subjective experience.

However, I can show you the process I went through that facilitated this subjective experience, so if you wish to explore if this will work for you, you’ll have some guidance.

Might it be that nature, the Godliverse, Divinity or some other intelligent energy – guides (or influences us) from beneath our conditioned human thinking brain?

It’s like the map of consciousness that I have been referring to in recent videos. As you move up through nature’s energy levels by changing how you interact with life and become less fearful, nature can now provide you with more powerful opportunities (as you can now handle them).

It’s as if there is a wonderfully symbiotic relationship between the animal, its environment and consciousness, which seems to be the invisible field of energy that links everything together.

I have grown to learn that, inherently, we have far more access to knowledge, competencies and unfulfilled potential – than we were ever taught – or that our egoic mind could even believe to be possible.

Something happened to me as I moved up through the levels – it’s like suddenly, new parts of my brain were just switched on, and things that used to be a problem just became recontextualised and could be seen from a new, less stressful perspective.

For example, as the content of my behaviour changed by learning to self-validate and be kind to myself, the context of that situation adjusted, whereby I intrinsically reduced worrying about what other people thought of me, and I stopped taking things personally.

It was as if my old five-sense perception of the world had expanded to include surprising new subtle, nuanced senses concerning energy, love, care and common sense actions which would (often) fly in the face of what was considered logical and normal – but made sense in more practical ways.

Perhaps the point I am trying to make is…

When I was (unknowingly) trapped in the lower energy levels of depression, anxiety, anger and pride – somehow, my mind became overwhelmed with thinking, worrying, blaming others or belittling myself.

And that worrying cycle was NOT broken by thinking more or believing those thoughts – it was escaped by altering my perspectives, not listening to my thoughts and taking new, more positive and life-affirming actions.

Because as I have said from day one of this course, – “You can’t think your way out of anxiety, as it is a condition of overthinking, a fear of emotions and the trap of believing the brain’s negative stories.”

So, the basic concept of this video is. Are logic, reason (and our egoic intellect) taking us further away from common sense and our connection with nature, which we experience through its energetic field we naturally inhabit?

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So, let me share with you what happened as I stopped identifying with my mind and all its thinking-ness through meditation, experimentation and trusting what my mentors had told me about their experiences.

Slowly a profound new realisation arose – that I (hardly) needed to think to make decisions – I just needed to know in which direction I wanted to proceed – which of course, were my intentions for life, and they would silently guide my decisions.

Babies don’t think but still make decisions; insects and animals don’t think but still make decisions; they seem to follow their healthy senses, instinct, energy fields and intuition – which naturally take them towards what is good for them and away from what is not.

Now, in the beginning, I struggled hugely with this concept of stopping being addicted to my brain’s thoughts or my ego’s desperate need to analyse and control everything.

I remember being on a meditation retreat – and five minutes before the leader was due to give a lecture, I asked him what the talk would be about, and he said, “how would I know until I start speaking?”

I said, “don’t play games with me; what’s the topic?” And he just smiled and said, “I don’t know yet; I don’t need to think about it; something will come to me.” He continued, “John, when will you realise that speaking just happens by itself when you need it?”

Then, just as the lecture was about to begin, a group of playful children walked past the window, all laughing and light-hearted.

And the lecture he gave explored how we (as adults) might have lost that carefree, playful innocence or (as children) may have had it programmed out of us by being too serious before we had even the chance to master our easygoing playfulness.

Now, at that time, I was really into reading a lot about Buddhism, and the Buddha talked of a condition called Mushin or no-mind, which refers to a state of mind that is absent from thoughts or attachments – which leads to a natural and powerful condition called the Flow-State.

As I have said before, most people have had at least one glimpse of a flow state where (the mind is silent) we can’t do anything wrong. Creativity flows, our work is incredible, time stands still, knowledge comes to us or acts through us, and ideas arise onto our blank mind-screen seemingly from some ‘other’ source.

And, what I am trying to tell you is – that behind your ego mind – is that silent flow state. It’s true, I have been there, and I attempt to live there. Most of my work comes from that state – and it’s incredible, but at the same time, it sounds crazy unless you have experienced it.

But if you talk to authors, artists, engineers and creative people, they’ll be the first to confirm that once you stop listening to your mind – beneath it is where the best knowledge and creativity reside.

They say things like, “the book just wrote itself,” or “the idea came to me while I was on a train,” or, “it was just obvious, really; I don’t know why I hadn’t seen it before” – whilst others awake from dreams with all the answers they need.

It’s so ironic – when you finally realise the intellectual ego is fighting to keep itself alive. It tries to scare you into believing that you can’t live without it (or that it is you). When all the time, who you truly are, is the silent Observer of what THE mind is proposing to you.

That silent Observer is part of the field where nature connects with us and where we no longer feel separated or isolated.

We reconnect to the source of infinite consciousness – which is our ego’s greatest fear because it thinks it is individually running the show, but it’s behind the mind that the main event is happening!

I believe that science is (only now) waking up to the realisation that how they perform many of their experiments may be accurate at one level but missing an essential element which makes all the difference.

Most experiments are done discretely rather than examining that isolated event within the larger environment in which it resides.

For example, there is a big push here in England for doctors to prescribe Statins to lower cholesterol to reduce cardiovascular disease. However, they are not discussing diet, exercise, the role of stress on the heart, or the many other contributing factors.

Or a scientist experimenting on a cell in a test tube rather than monitoring that cell within the environment of a human being and in association with all its varied thoughts, emotions and chemical releases.

Would a cell behave differently if that person was happy or sad, stressed or calm, lonely or loved?

That’s why I introduced you to epigenetics in video seven – where cell development and gene expression are shown to be influenced (and regulated) by the environment in which the cells reside and the energy of the field they develop within.

Cells and gene expression within calm people may differ significantly from that of stressed people – and I would certainly encourage you to explore this topic, especially if you have health anxiety.

The whole influences each part; the Moon’s gravity affects Earth’s tides and human cycles; perhaps, the other planets in our solar system affect us too.

Because everything visible and invisible (to our clumsy senses) is made of energy – and they sit within other oceans of energy. Everything is, therefore, intelligently and energetically interconnected- each vibrating at their unique frequency and quantumly communicating and responding to influence what happens next in nature – it can’t really be any other way!

But our minds were taught to see everything solid as a separate and individual unit – and everything (invisible to our senses) to be ignored. Now that seems such an outdated form of scientific observation.

Another concept that has always fascinated me is brain scans on people with OCD – now, some doctors say people with OCD have overdeveloped parts of the brain; well, were they born like that? Is it genetic? Or did stress regulate the expression of those genes? Or did those areas just become overdeveloped through years of worry?

Now, I don’t have all the answers. But I think these are important questions to explore. And, even if our issues are genetic, should we feel victimised by that, or can we influence our biology to regulate (or deregulate) them in some new way, or can we move to a radical acceptance of what is and find new ways to handle life?

I have read many scientific studies that discuss how adaptable the brain is; they call it brain plasticity. Like if a person becomes blind, those (now unused) brain regions may be adopted by other local senses like hearing, sensing, spatial awareness or memory.

Therefore, are you considering how to de-sensitise any over-developed (or hyper- sensitised) parts of your anxious brain?

And, how might you consider developing any underused regions of your brain by thinking (or not thinking) and behaving in new ways?

I’d urge you to consider that your brain (and body) are far more adaptable than you might imagine – and how might you consider yourself within the context of your environment and not just as a discrete, isolated unit?

How can you jump to the grander perspective that we humans are part of nature, and nature connects everything? We breathe in what the trees breathe out and vice-versa – even our lungs look like trees.

Therefore, the people around us do energetically affect us – and our thoughts will energetically expand or limit us. Can you begin to think in this more connected manner?

Because, this means – where we live, who we hang out with, what we eat, how much sleep we get, our work, our play, our relationships, our attitudes to life, and the stories we have about ourselves are affecting our well-being.

So, as I progressed out of anxiety, fear and control, I spent a lot of time researching everything I could about the mind, and much of what I read (back then) seemed so unbelievable, or too out of reach, or just so cryptic that I found it hard to get my head around.

Let me give you an example; (back then) the term ‘just let go’ made no sense to my brain; it would say, “Well, how do you let go? Why should I let go? What am I actually

letting go of? What will happen if I do let go? How will I be able to function if I am not in control?” and similar thoughts.

Looking back, it’s pretty funny because once you do let go – you’ll see that you never really had much control anyway, and I think that’s life’s grand illusion – which the Buddhists call Maya.

Things will still work out one way or another, whether you worry or not; surely you can only ‘influence’ life rather than control it – how could it really be any other way?

But – know this, if you keep putting your intentions into nature by talking yourself into doing what you want for life (assuming you make those decisions), your chances of influencing life in your favour increase exponentially!

Now, at that time, my process was to keep an open mind, I would consciously suspend my doubts, and I’d persistently apply everything I’d learned to keep myself trying new things – even if my mind was telling me it was stupid or wouldn’t work.

I had decided to favour experientially testing if a concept was true rather than just blindly believing my egoic mind, which seemed to be both a ‘blinkered know it all’ and an ‘anxious scaredy cat!’

And what I found was the more I became obsessed with becoming a new person and finding calmness, the more my old anxiety would kick, scream and unconsciously try to sabotage me – trying to pull me back into those old learned behaviours which ‘it’

considered to be safe – but which I could now see, only imprisoned and limited my true Self!

I remember coming to a decision – where I decided – there was no going back, my anxiety could hijack me as much as it wanted, and I would learn to ignore it and still get on with the new life I desired, even if my anxiety wasn’t ready for change, I was, and I was the new captain of the ship.

As I have said before, the fastest form of ERP is to decide how you wish to be and just start being that person immediately – regardless of how your brain and body are functioning!

This is why videos 32, parts 1 and 2, are so critical within this process. Have you done them yet? Have you decided which story you wish to run in your head about what happens when you die? And have you written down your decision-making hierarchy, values and intentions?

I know these things aren’t easy to do, but equally, living with anxiety isn’t easy either – it’s just easier because you know that your anxiety will increase during the process of change.

Now, one mindset that helped me enormously – was the absolute recognition that a large percentage of the population weren’t troubled by anxiety!

They did not take their thoughts very seriously and actively searched for new experiences – they even liked the thrill of not knowing what might happen or the adventure of doing something dangerous.

These people really fascinated me, and I would often ask them how their minds worked and what motivated them – they always replied in similar ways by saying things like, “Oh, I don’t really listen to my mind,” or “what does my mind know about what will happen in the future?” Or, “I stopped listening to my mind years ago!”

They went on to say things like, “It’s what you do that matters, not how you think,” and things like, “life is for living, try everything, it doesn’t matter if you fail or look stupid,” and “life is too short to worry or procrastinate, just get on with it!”

Back then, I would respond, “Yeah, but what if you get hurt or lose your job, or all your stuff gets stolen?” And they’d just laugh and say things like, “it’s only stuff – and, there are loads of jobs out there, you just need to put yourself out there and learn new things – and ask for what you want, why are you so scared? Why are you turning everything into a complex, fearful, negative drama?”

It didn’t take long for me to realise these people were happier and healthier and often led far more fulfilling lives than those who worried about everything!

So, I decided that this was the way of thinking and acting I would attempt to transition towards. Though it would be new and scary, it was obviously possible because that was how these individuals were living right in front of me!

Another lesson I learned (early on) which helped me immensely, was to stop identifying myself as an introvert.

Because by associating my behaviour with that label, it assumed that it was OK to be quiet, shy, and reserved and (it inferred) that it was just unfortunate that I hadn’t been born with the natural skills of an extrovert, like sociability, self-assurance, courage and verbal self-confidence.

Whereas the truth was, I hadn’t yet developed those skills! For whatever reason, in my childhood, I had not learned how to be more outgoing and playful, to ask for what I wanted, or learn how to stand up for myself.

So, I decided that I would consciously learn how to be as extroverted as I could, knowing full well it would take me out of my comfort zone and involve a lot of ignoring my conditioned introverted mind, which would (of course) do all it could, to talk me out of changing!

Quickly I recognised that my mind was wrong more of the time than it was right; I clearly remember my first experience of this when I saw a job advertised in a newspaper and really liked the sound of it.

It was as a technical support engineer, installing engineering-based computer systems, then training and supporting those who would be using systems.

I did have experience using those systems but not of installing, training or supporting them, but some small part inside me liked the idea of it, and the money was 50% higher than I was being paid at that time, plus they would give me a car.

But within two days, my mind (or my ego) had talked me out of applying for the job because it kept reminding me I didn’t have the right skills and that I was too shy to be a good teacher.

My ego told me – they wouldn’t employ me as I didn’t have the proper technical knowledge and experience to be of value to them from day one without a massive investment from their side in training me.

However, just by chance, I mentioned this to an extroverted friend who talked me into rewriting my CV and applying for the job. For every excuse my mind gave me why I shouldn’t apply, he would smile and give me a (more common sense) reason to take action.

It is so funny looking back on those times, almost embarrassing that my behaviours were so fearful, limiting and self-critical – and came from a perspective of such low self-worth.

I remember saying, “The salary they are offering is way above the value I could offer them,” and my friend just laughed and said, “that is just their starting offer; I am sure you could get more than that if you ask! Why do you undervalue yourself so much?”

Our inner subjective views of the (same objective world) were so different!

My conditioned mind was pessimistically looking for all the things that could go wrong – and his conditioned mind was optimistically looking for all the things that could go right!

I could see that my life would change significantly even if I could only learn to be half as optimistic and self-believing as he was.

His mind had been trained to see the world very differently from how mine had been conditioned, and it was apparent I could learn much from him.

As we rewrote my resume, he kept telling me to sell myself more and to exaggerate my capabilities in line with the needs of the job, even if that meant I was fibbing a little.

And when I told him I was uncomfortable with that, he said, “listen, John, your CV gets you the interview; once you are in front of your potential employers, you can be more honest about your skills.

That’s when you can tell them that you are a rapid learner and that your honesty will be of value to them as you support their customers. You’ll be demonstrating resourcefulness and integrity, which surely be of value to them in that role?”

I could see his point of view, but it was still terrifying, as even the thought of being interviewed scared me. Anyway, because I thought there was no way I would get the job, I posted my CV – and (of course) they invited me in for an interview!

I told my friend there was no way I could through with the interview as my mind was telling me I would freeze up and have nothing to say, and I’d just look stupid when they asked me about my technical skills and experience to do the job.

He just smiled and said, “let’s do some practice interviews.” We did, and I was terrible. He kept saying to me, “what’s wrong with you? Don’t you want this job? Why are you not selling yourself? It’s only a job, why are you so worried? If you can do it – great, and if you can’t – then you can just get a different job! Why are you so worried about what they might think of you?”

He said, “It’s only a job, John; it’s not about them; it’s about you having the chance to be in an environment where you can learn to be all you can be!” – He said, it’s not about winning or losing, it’s just about furthering your experiences – once again, he was right.

I had the interview, it was horrific and yet, still, I was offered the job! Everything my mind had told me (all through the process) had been wrong! It was a great life lesson in wanting more for myself and taking action – despite the fearful and negative stories my ego was telling me.

As it turns out, I was a fast learner, and they did like my honesty and the fact that I was nervous but was still taking action towards bettering myself. And I did grow rapidly in that environment of having to think on my feet and trust myself more.

Now, I’m just telling you this because if it weren’t for my friend believing in me and pushing me, I probably wouldn’t be here today making this course. And through these videos, I hope to be a friend who says to you, “come on, I believe in you!”

I think a time will come when you’ll say, “I am not going to listen to my thoughts anymore. I will engage with life – to just see what happens!”

As I have mentioned before, it is my guess that about 75% of people with anxiety are introverts who need to expand their ability to act a little more like extroverts.

And the other 25% are more natural extroverts who have been trained during childhood to see themselves as introverts, therefore, feel guilty when they selfishly do what is actually quite natural for them.

This 25% group of repressed nomadic types usually have the Pure O type of OCD or experience complex health anxiety or contamination worries.

It’s my guess; this is because those extreme mental fears are the only way their ego mind can be strong enough to keep them trapped in fear and exhaustion – from their innate (but repressed) need to be more naturally dominant and extrovert.

So, my advice for you is this… Stop labelling yourself as shy, nervous, introverted, scared, flawed, anxious, paranoid, or whatever story your mind tells you.

Then, ask yourself, “how can I practice and develop the right skills that will allow me to become more self-assured, social, playful, loud, dominant, and rebellious? This

will enable you to become more competent at asking for what you want and speaking your mind – you might say, to finally find your voice and align with more self-worth.

I’m told that people with low self-worth – allow others to be horrible to them to the degree that they are horrible to themselves. This realisation can be an excellent starting point for change – simply learning how to be nicer to yourself by stopping being horrible to yourself.

I promise you; these ARE skills you can learn (to some degree) and (to be blunt) foolish you if you don’t try!

Might I suggest that you look to those around you who have the skills you lack and ask them what goes on inside their heads and how they see life? What stories do their minds run?

You’ll be surprised by what they’ll tell you – and quickly, it’ll become apparent that you probably have a very unhealthy addiction to believing your brain’s thoughts!

And I am here to tell you that the real you resides beneath all those fearful stories and social conditioning.

You are not your mind; you are the silent Observer of it. You are a single point of conscious awareness; you are the awareness that observes THE thoughts of THE brain, and you can watch THE mind, OR you can place your awareness elsewhere.

You can worry about what’s happening around you, or you can place your awareness on what you want to do. You can get caught up in the stories of the mind, or you can ignore them – this is the process you are learning to master.

Now, for those of you who are relating well to the Dr Hawkins map of consciousness – you’ll see that the energy level of anxiety is beneath the level of courage at 200 – and approximately 50% of the population of the developed world resides here.

The amount of nature’s energy available to them is limited, and their brains don’t naturally interact with those higher-level energy attractor fields which would automatically lift them out of anxiety and up into neutrality, willingness and acceptance.

However, just knowing this is transformational. Because if we understand where we currently are – and what we must do to rise to the level of courage- by reconceptualising how we see life, moving to more optimistic mindsets, releasing trapped trauma, reconditioning our bodies to accept fear through ERP and taking action though we feel exhausted – then we will be generating positive movement in our lives.

And, if you aren’t yet able to embrace these types of energetic perspectives – or just don’t believe them to be true – which is absolutely fine – because twenty years ago, I didn’t believe they were true until I began to experience them, and so they became my subjective knowledge.

So, if this is you, perhaps we might use a different representation to explain ERP – It’s like (metaphorically) replacing the fuse in your central nervous system with one of a higher amperage – like moving from a 3-amp fuse to a 13-amp fuse – so your nervous system can handle more energy and stronger emotions, without becoming overwhelmed and tripping into anxiety overload.

I remember when I was growing up, my brother had a bodybuilding book written by Arnold Schwarzenegger, and in it, he wrote something like; the human body is incredible; if you run a one horsepower electric motor at one and a half horsepower, it burns itself out, but if you run a one horsepower human at 1.5 horsepower it becomes 1.5 horsepower, it’s incredible what the human body can do and how adaptable it is!

Well, my experience of leaning into fear, accepting emotional release and aligning with higher energy fields certainly supports his statement.

The more you can relax (and surrender) into a fearful body, the more you orientate your awareness to the formless still energy of the Observer – and control the body to breathe slowly and deeply as you stay out of the mind’s stories and allow emotions to come up (and out) unimpeded – then you’ll see that you don’t need to fear fear as I showed you in video 38.

This is ERP in action, and the more you do it, the more you’ll be upgrading your fuse and the amperage your nervous system can handle – which means you can get out and do much more!

As such, you’ll become of more value to nature; therefore, nature will send more opportunities (of a higher energy level) your way, as I discussed in video 37.

Now, for those of you interested in quantum physics, what I just said, is probably making sense.

Classically, it states that everything is connected through energy – and the most miniature forms of energy can be held unmanifest in a wavelike sea of (non-form) potentiality, just waiting to pop into existence.

Meaning waiting to manifest as particles which form our next moment of reality in conjunction with all the other environmental and cosmic conditions that affect that moment and are influenced by the thoughts (or, we might say, the intentions) of an observer.

Well, that is what our leading scientists tell us happens. But from the ego mind’s perspective (for many people), that seems (too ‘out there’) to be fully considered, but from nature’s perspective, it makes complete sense!

These days, I am more pulled towards the pilot wave theory.

So, rather than the waves collapsing to make particles, theory. It proposes that the particles create waves as they shoot through the medium of space; therefore, it is the sum of the particle and its waves that create the next moment’s reality.

Either way, of course, our environment affects us! – But I was never taught this in school; I had to go out and learn from others – and all the while, my programmed brain was doubting that which I was intuiting to be true!

From this environmental perspective, perhaps we can glimpse how nature, the Godliverse, consciousness or source – (whatever label you like) might act through us.

And even if that is not true, what a beautiful and loving story to tell ourselves – and program our unconscious brain into believing, so it may begin to trust rather than fear life!

Perhaps we are all part of a field of conscious awareness energy, all-knowing and connected to the source; and we are the immortal Observer, the rider, our Self with the big S – hidden from ourselves beneath our mortal horse’s ego, who thinks it knows everything but (in truth) is restricting us from all we could be.

Somebody (in their early forties told me yesterday), “I know I should learn to drive so I won’t be dependent on others – but the thought of it is so terrifying; I just can’t do it!”

However, if we break that statement down, it is really saying, “I am prepared to remain a victim, I will continue to force others to drive me around, I will remain

imprisoned at home, I have no faith in myself, it is all hopeless and terrifying, and there is nothing I can do!”

Whereas a more helpful perspective might be, “Out of love for myself (and to pay back all those who have helped me), no thoughts or feelings are going to stop me from regaining my freedom by learning to drive, and I’ll book my first lesson before the end of this month!”

Can you see that our egoic minds can be so cruel and self-limiting?

As I mentioned earlier, one of my mentors taught me that speaking just happens. The body just does it somehow, and the more you try to consciously control what it says, the more you’ll worry (and it could be) that you’ll be missing out on the surprising things it might say if you were to just let it.

Once again, I know this might sound wild and is certainly not how we were taught to understand ourselves.

However, as I experimented with this concept of just starting to talk (without overthinking), I was really surprised to experience that whatever I needed to say would just come up as I needed it!

And often, other cool stuff would just come out as I spoke, which made me smile because my ego would then try to take credit for those clever words which had arisen from beneath it.

These days if I do any public speaking, or even within my therapy sessions, I don’t need to plan too much; as the right words, information or stories just seem to come to me which are appropriate for that particular environmental moment.

It’s as if nature is evaluating each situation, considering all the surrounding energy fields, assessing what is required from an environmental point of view, and then giving me the appropriate words – so I may be of value (in that moment) to nature, which includes myself and those around me.

I just needed to learn how to trust it and how to have an empty mind screen by letting go of thoughts so I could receive that information.

I would urge you to play around with this concept of trusting that speaking is far more automatic than you might imagine – and that it just happens if you let it.

Now, I know for some of you (especially those stuck within deep OCD thought loops), this way of operating might sound outlandish, but surely it is no absurder than believing the OCD stories your mind is currently presenting you with.

And finally, I’d like to share with you some thoughts regarding the question…

“Do we have free will”, – which is typically described as the capacity for us to choose between different possible courses of action in any moment unimpeded.

Now, this is an absolutely massive topic and one that I am certainly not academic or clever enough even to begin to understand fully; however, I think it’s a powerful perspective to explore as we relinquish the control anxiety tries to impose upon us.

What inspired my interest in the concept of free will – was a documentary I saw many years ago where a test subject was placed in an fMRI scanner – so their brain activity could be observed and measured.

They were then asked various questions by the scientist running the experiment from the control room, and the subject had a switch in each hand – so could reply to any question by consciously deciding to press button ‘A’ or button ‘B.’

And they were asked to push the appropriate button as soon as they consciously knew the answer to questions proposed by the scientist.

But what fascinated me was…. The scientist knew (by observing the subject’s unconscious brain’s reaction on his screen) – which button the subject would choose before the subject himself consciously knew, and with 100% accuracy.

This meant the subject’s unconscious brain was making the decision, and that choice was clearly displayed on the scientist’s screen as brain activity.

That unconscious choice was then being passed to the conscious mind, or you might say, that decision appeared on the subject’s mind screen (as I talked about in video 35), where suddenly he became consciously aware of that decision and so could consciously act upon it – thinking it was his conscious mind that had made the decision (but it wasn’t)!

Can you see how easily our conscious mind can be deceived?

I have to say that when I saw that in action, I was totally stunned – but at the same time – so many questions I had about anxiety and OCD instantly made more sense.

Therefore, the amount of conscious free will we have is relatively minimal and the sooner we accept this, the better if we want a calmer life.

I recommend that you really take the time to explore these concepts of free will – and I’ll put some links in the notes section below.

Just imagine that it was you in that scanner – and a scientist in a different room knew with 100% accuracy what choice your unconscious brain would make in every situation – up to 2 seconds before you consciously knew yourself!

Such is the power of our unconscious mind and whatever other source it is tapped into. It IS running the show, from all the programs it was programmed by – and for most of your life, you thought it was your conscious mind calling all the shots! – but it mostly wasn’t!

This is obviously why we can’t consciously stop our addictions – because they are held unconsciously and just run automatically!

That’s why from day one of this course, I’ve said we need to consciously reprogram our unconscious mindwith new programs in inline with how we wish to consciously live our lives.

And these new programs will come from us thinking and behaving in new ways until those awkward new ways become our new unconscious standard – which is ERP in action!

Following on from many years of studying these concepts and retraining my brain – it’s my conclusion that (at best) the only free will we have is to define and state our intentions consciously and then to attempt to consciously think and act in line with those freely-chosen attitudes – knowing that even our own unconscious mind and body may have other agendas for us, let alone the environments we live in.

Of course, you must find out for yourself what works for you – but I’d like you to consider that you might have a lot less free will than you might expect – but this can be OK, it is possible live in this manner, in fact, it can be quite liberating!

Do you remember when I asked you to consider if you predominantly had an External Locus of Control, meaning you believed that what happens to you is primarily driven by the people and world around you, therefore, out of your control?

Or whether you considered yourself to have an Internal Locus of Control, whereby you believed that you could influence the people and the world around you; therefore, you had a much less victim perspective.

Once I had that knowledge, I spent many years reprogramming my unconscious mind into adopting a more Internal Locus of Control by taking much moreresponsibility(and accountability) for what happened in my life and by influencing people and life towards my chosen conscious intentions as much as possible, but accepting whatever outcomes emerged.

Another model that helped me enormously – was based on how the Greek philosophic Stoics metaphorically described free will.

They equated it to a dog on a long leash – tied to a moving horse and cart. The dog would have enough leash for it to go wherever it desired (as it decided in that moment via its free will, be that conscious or unconscious).

However, the horse and cart would be influenced by the whole of nature – actions of the road, other people, the weather, and other unpredictable universal conditions. It might speed up, slow down, come to an abrupt halt or swerve off in a new direction to avoid something.

Therefore, as the cart was influenced in new directions, the dog might be suddenly yanked away from his current intention into the new circumstances controlled by the cart and influenced by the cart’s environment.

Can you see that we (like that hound) might have some localised free will? However, (whether we like it or not), we are part of a bigger-picture environmental model of life that is primarily out of our control.

I guess the dog would be surprised when he was yanked in a new direction. Still, because he wouldn’t have any egoic stories in his mind about right or wrong, fairness and the like, he would quickly readapt to the new course.

And quickly re-engage with his new now and those new presenting conditions – happy to just be – and to move towards that which was good for him and away from that which was harmful to the degree the leash would allow – and with no story about it.

I like that metaphor and think that we humans are in a similar predicament, except due to our expanded awareness, intelligence and reasoning mind, we may second guess which way the cart might be going and therefore adjust our intentions, learn some new skillsets or try to jump ahead of the cart by moving our location, our job or our belief systems?

However, people with anxiety and OCD seem to have more rigid rules about what is right and wrong; they don’t like change, and they don’t like things being out of control – they tug back on that leash as it tries to pull them forward, or they hide away in their homes and seek reassurance in denial of the change happening around them.

My experience of becoming calmer has primarily been down to connecting with a more internal locus of control, letting go of my need to be in control, and expanding my skillsets to be more extroverted, dominant and playful.

This was aided by my disassociation from my thinking mind and trusting that beneath it; there is the knowledge and power of nature (or Divinity), which can act through me, and it increases its ability to act through me as I keep upgrading the fuse in my nervous system by feeling vulnerable but still taking action each day inline with the life I wish to live.

Once again lots to think about! This will be the last of my conceptual videos for a while, and in the upcoming videos, I’ll be returning to teaching more practical techniques you can use in the now that may guide you towards these new ways of being.

Thanks for all your continued support, and good luck exploring what may be beneath your thinking mind!