

Insights On Mindfulness, Peaceful Living, Values and Vision, & Real Love and Relationships From The Experts (Breather Episode with Brad)
(Breather)In this breather show, I focus on the advice from experts that truly have changed my life, as well as my relationships. All of the advice is centered around what is most important to all of us: love and relationships, and living a happy, peaceful life aligned with our values.
Highlighting the most integral messages and beliefs from visionaries like Dr. Wendy Walsh, Deepak Chopra, Dave Rossi, Dr. Robert Lustig, and more, this episode will show what you should be doing more of, as well as what you should be doing less of, to be truly happy in your life and relationships.
I always come back to Deepak Chopra’s 4 Daily Intentions. These four intentions are simple but powerful. Every morning in meditation, he reminds himself that this is how he wants to live his life:
- Joyful Energetic Body: No toxic people, job, substances. He’s also become a plant-based and has little or no meat.
- Loving Compassionate Heart: People want Attention and Acceptance as they are. (Even Trump! See how he was able to speak to people’s hearts (crazy thought, right?) in his specific way, making them feel seen, sparking and emphasizing the collective insanity among his followers - how else would he have gotten elected? By giving a huge amount of people attention and acceptance as they were).
- Reflective Quiet, Alert Mind: This is how you access Intuition, Creativity, Vision, and Imagination, and are able to live life in a state of flow and have peak experiences.
- Lightness of Being: No resistance, no anticipation, and no regrets. Operate by the standing conclusion that there is no explanation for anything.
And a little note about #3: Do not force positive thoughts. Dr. Chopra says that being exasperatingly positive is another form of stress. and can actually cause a turbulent mind. This was a big revelation for me — you can lose touch with your emotions, and fail to examine your present situation, weaknesses, and best possible future direction, all because you’re trying too hard to stay positive in a situation that is clearly causing some negative feelings or reactions in you. Instead, learn to listen to your intuition in those moments, because there is value in negative emotion, which is that it allows you to make adjustments based on what and how you are feeling. Without this contrast, how would you ever be able to consciously direct your life to go where you want to go?
Two time Get Over Yourself guest Dave Rossi says that when you experience stress, fear, or pressure, redirect your thoughts to your values and your vision. Fake it till you make it, if necessary. Just do something about it! Since the subconscious mind is trained through repetition, winning behaviors no longer require a ton of discipline or commitment.
And how about this great quote from Get Over Yourself guest, Seth Godin, who said, “The decline of our personal momentum might be the great untold story of our time. That electronic media, incoming, ‘breaking’, please reply, didn’t you see that, react right now, click here… this has a cost. And the cost is our internal drive to initiate, instead of to just react.”
Let’s talk about the great work of writer Kris Gage, who writes for Medium.com, and wrote Good Love Is Boring, in which she argues that “boring is beautiful” and that good love is, “like honoring one another as our own people. Like a relaxed connection. Like respect, and lightheartedness, and calmness. Like eye to eye, and shared rapport. Like going on loving even when we’re at our most hurt, or most angry, or most anything. Like never playing the victim — or thinking in terms of how we hurt or what we don’t get. Good love is like mutual self esteem, and self-love, and self-care; like taking responsibility for own emotional wellbeing, owning what’s ours, and coming to each other with fairness. Good love is like an abundance mentality, and good love is like unconditional warmth.”
Speaking of a healthy mentality, I talked about Dr. Robert Lustig’s mind-blowing book, The Hacking Of The American Mind, on a previous show, because it will make you completely rethink the way you think about your mind and how you operate on a basic, instinctual and biological level. When pursuing instant gratification, dopamine hits, and you flood the brain’s dopamine receptors. This suppresses serotonin pathways where you achieve happiness and contentment, and you are left with a high possibility of spiraling into addiction. Once you start to trigger dopamine pathways, you’ll find yourself needing more and more of the same in order to get that pleasurable hit. Powerful corporate interests are highly incentivized to hack our dopamine pathways, and do this through a variety of ways, although the following are the most popular:
- Sugar
- Digital technology/hyper-connectivity - especially social media
- Caffeine
- Marijuana and street drugs
- Antidepressant and painkiller Rx drugs
- Chronic/extreme exercise high
- Video games
- Porn addiction
Another great person to consult on these matters is our past guest, Dr. Wendy Walsh, who has outlined the top 3 attributes that males and females look for in a mate….And if you’re thinking, hmm, I don’t know about some things on this list, well just remember that, as Dr. Wendy has emphasized, these are subconscious hard-wired genetic drives. Sure, you can put “sense of humor” on your dating profile as the #1 thing you’re looking for, but really, sense of humor is just proxy for #2 on the list, which is intelligence, right? If you’re funny, you’ve got to be smart, so those two things are really just two different ways of expressing the same desire. Dr. Wendy also points out how strong these hard-wired genetic drives are because even a female with ample resources of her own cannot escape her genetic drive to seek out resources and security.
For Males
Youth and beauty
Loyalty
Kindness
For Females
Resources
Intelligence
Kindness
Next up is advice from Mark Manson, and I focus on his thoughts on the concept of ‘changing’ and how it’s an arbitrary definition. Here’s an excerpt from a recent email he sent titled, Stop Trying To Change Yourself:
“Here’s the problem with using the word ‘change:’ it gets your identity involved. And when you get your identity involved, you become really emotionally attached to imaginary things. You throw fits and beat yourself up and blame others and decide that you are, in fact, a worthless piece of shit who has no hope in this world.
It’s one thing to say, ‘I want to start going to the gym every week.’ It’s another to say, ‘It’s time I finally change and become the type of person who goes to the gym each week.’
The first statement is simple. You want to go to the gym. So, you go (or not).
The second statement implies that to go to the gym, you must completely reinvent yourself. And that raises the emotional stakes massively. If you succeed (spoiler: you won’t), you’ll gain this blissful feeling of being a ‘new person,’ which will last until the next time you feel crappy and want to ‘change’ again. If you fail, you’ll chastise yourself for your irredeemable sloth.”
This falls in line perfectly with the title of this show - just get over yourself!
We wrap up this show with a focus on mindfulness, citing writer Whitney Stewart’s article, 10 Steps to Mindful Conflict Resolution:
“We appear to be devolving into our reactive emotions a lot these days: venting on social media, choosing to pay attention to media outlets that regurgitate our positions back to us, all of which further attaches us to our own views in a dangerous configuration that can fuel the flames of outrage, violence, and hate.
Mindfulness, which has been shown to help mental, behavioral, and physical outcomes in both youth and adults, is a powerful tool that can help us respond to conflict in a non-reactive way.
According to Jon Kabat-Zinn, founder of Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), “Mindfulness is awareness that arises from paying attention, on purpose, to the present moment, non-judgmentally. With present-moment awareness, we learn to identify our thoughts, emotions, and physical sensations without defining ourselves by them. When we can patiently witness our own fears and hurts, we give ourselves the chance to release them, which in turn helps us develop understanding and compassion for others.”
TIMESTAMPS:
Tips from Dr. Deepak Chopra are these insights: Joyful energetic body; Loving compassionate heart; Reflective quiet alert mind; Lightness of being. [02:26]
Dave Rossi says whenever you experience stress, fear, and pressure, redirect your thoughts back to your values and vision. [04:49]
Godin quote: the decline of our personal momentum might be the great untold story of our time. [07:07]
Take responsibility for your own emotional wellbeing. [08:30]
When you eat sugar or use digital technology, the dopamine hits you and floods the brain’s receptors, spiraling into addiction. [09:29]
What males look for in a partner and what females look for in a partner are mentioned by Dr. Wendy Walsh. [12:20]
Stop trying to change yourself. If you fail the change, you’ll chastise yourself. [15:37]
Praise the effort, not the outcome. [17:56]
Mindfulness is awareness that arises from paying attention on purpose to the present moment non-judgmentally. [18:52]
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