How Brainwashing Keeps You in a Life You Don’t Want

19 snips

Jun 12, 2025

Harvard professor Rebecca Lemov, author of 'The Instability of Truth', dives deep into the insidious nature of brainwashing. She reveals how our thoughts may not truly be our own, particularly when we stop questioning our beliefs. The discussion touches on alarming examples, like a Facebook study that manipulated user moods without their knowledge. Rebecca emphasizes the impact of trauma on self-perception and urges listeners to confront limiting beliefs, reclaim their individuality, and critically evaluate the influences shaping their identities.

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ANECDOTE

POW Morris Wills' Brainwashing

Morris Wills, a young POW in the Korean War, was gradually influenced to adopt Chinese ideology.
He married a Chinese woman, eventually returning to the US but forever changed by his experience.

INSIGHT

Emotional Contagion via Social Media

Facebook conducted a large-scale experiment on 700,000 users to manipulate moods by altering news feed emotions.
Emotional contagion can happen at a distance through social media without physical presence or personal connection.

INSIGHT

Trauma Enables Brainwashing

Trauma creates openings for brainwashing by ungrounding individuals through disorientation and shocks.
Ungrounding precedes classic brainwashing conditions and makes people more vulnerable to manipulation.

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Are You Thinking Your Own Thoughts… Or Someone Else’s?

Let me ask you something—have you ever stopped to wonder if the thoughts you’re thinking are actually yours? In this conversation, I sat down with Rebecca Lemov, a Harvard professor and author of The Instability of Truth, and what unfolded was a real eye-opener. We didn’t just scratch the surface—we went into the guts of how we get conditioned to believe things about the world… and about ourselves… without even realizing it.

Rebecca laid out something that really hit me: brainwashing doesn’t start with someone else taking control of your mind—it begins when you stop asking questions. That moment when you stop challenging your beliefs, when you’re scrolling, liking, agreeing without even knowing why—that’s where it starts. She walked me through a chilling example: a Facebook study where they manipulated nearly 700,000 users' moods without their knowledge. That’s real. That happened. And if that doesn’t wake you up, I don’t know what will.

We also got personal. I shared how trauma—whether from rejection, heartbreak, or failure—can create space for a mind virus to take root. That voice in your head saying, “You’re not good enough,” “You’ll never succeed,”—that’s not truth. That’s programming. And unless you confront it, question it, and replace it, it’ll trap you in a version of your life that’s far smaller than what you were made for. Rebecca made it clear: being educated or intelligent doesn’t make you immune—it might even make you more vulnerable.

This episode isn’t about conspiracy theories or pointing fingers—it’s about ownership. About reclaiming your identity, your voice, your individuality. Don’t go through life unknowingly living in someone else’s version of who you’re supposed to be. Don’t meet God at the end and realize you lived someone else's life because you never questioned your own thoughts. You want to change your life? Start by challenging what you assume to be true. Start asking better questions.

Key Takeaways:

Brainwashing often starts from within—when you stop questioning your own thoughts.
Trauma can open the door for limiting beliefs to become your internal truth.
Social media algorithms are designed to manipulate your mood and feed confirmation bias.
There are 8 classic signs of brainwashing, but the key one? Control over your environment.
Intelligence doesn’t protect you from mind control—it can deepen the illusion.
Challenge your assumptions, and you can change your entire life trajectory.

Let this be your wake-up call. You don’t have to be part of a group to have value. You’re not your past. You’re not your trauma. You're an individual—and your thoughts matter.

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