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Could the burdens we carry about our choices simply vanish if we embraced the possibility that free will is an illusion? Join me, David, your guide through the profound implications of this concept, as I share experiences and philosophical musings that challenge the traditional notion of autonomy in our decisions. In this episode, we dissect the idea that our belief in free will could be at the root of unnecessary stress and self-criticism. Drawing from personal anecdotes and the constancy of a film's unchanging plot, I offer a perspective that may just unlock a new path to peace and acceptance.

Venture into a realm of thought where self-judgment is obsolete and every choice is an essential fragment of your narrative, free from blame or regret. We'll traverse my own recovery story, blending it with insights from the realms of behavioral psychology and neuroscience, to shed light on the predictability of human behavior. The invitation is open: experiment with a day lived under the assumption that different choices were never in the cards, and observe the tranquility that may follow. This isn't just a conversation; it's a chance to redefine your approach to life's unpredictable journey, fostering a mindset that's unshackled and confident.

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Available on Amazon: A Changed Mind: Go Beyond Self Awareness, Rewire Your Brain & Reengineer Your Reality

Download the Audiobook: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DCKF721M

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What We Explored This Episode

(00:00) Exploring the Concept of Free Will

(14:16) Removing Self-Judgment and Embracing Acceptance

Memorable Quotes

"If you knew that you were gonna make whatever decision you made, no matter what you did, that you had no free will and it was predetermined, wouldn't you enjoy being that character a hell of a lot more?"

"What if you actually have no choice? What if, on a moment by moment basis, you have to make the decision that you make, whether it's a decision that's aligned with the direction that you feel you should be moving in your life, or the decisions you should be taking, or whether it's a decision that you believe doesn't serve you well?"

"So if I can provide you a perspective that would allow you to actually liberate yourself from this inner dialogue and the self-judgment and self-criticism... I think that would be a useful exploration, and so we're doing it around this topic of free will."



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Now Available: A Changed Mind Book

Hey, it's David. Welcome back to A Changed Mind, A Sanctuary for Your Human Spirit, a place where each and every episode, I will remind you of the certainty of the goodness of the future. I'm your friend, your host, your guide. Man, it is so good to be here with you today, and I am so excited to share with you something that I think is going to really profoundly help you relax in your life, whether or not it is actually true, okay? So I'm going to go against the grain here in today's episode, and we're going to spend some time diving a little bit deeper into this idea of free will. And what I am suggesting is that you do not actually have any. That is correct. I'm saying that you cannot but make the choice that you're making in your life. And the fact that you actually think you have free will is creating a tremendous amount of unnecessary stress, anxiety, and overwhelm for you, and it is lessening your experience of life in really, really profound ways. So I'm going to get into that with you here. By the way, if this is your first time listening, welcome. If you are a repeat listener and you're listening on Spotify or iTunes and you love this episode, do me a favor. Take some time after this episode to leave me a rating or a review. It's the way we're able to get this work out to as many people as possible, and great feedback for me. And by the way, if you're watching on YouTube, we do have the full episodes. Comment, ask me a question, try to read all of them, subscribe to the channel so that you get the latest uploads to the platform, and so that I can keep you informed. So we're going to be talking about free will today. And one of the things that had triggered this thought process was an awareness that everybody more or less assumes we have free will. You hear people often saying like, well, we have free will, right? We have choice. And I'm not so sure that that is actually true. So why does this matter? Well, I don't know about you, but I find so often in my own day-to-day experiences, I'm questioning what I did or did not do, right? It might be that I promise that I'm going to wake up in the morning at 6am, and I don't. I hit the snooze until 7 o'clock. Or maybe it's I know I need to do some things to grow my business, perhaps work on a webinar or a presentation or a review copy, and I really don't feel like doing it. And so, yes, I too find some ways to distract myself or put it off, and then I judge myself for not doing the things that I should have done in my business. Perhaps you look back on a past relationship, and you feel like you're responsible through the decisions that you made in terminating the relationship, right? Somebody broke up with you because of the way that you were showing up, and you look at it, and you're like, ah, yeah, I could have been a better person, but I wasn't. And so days, weeks, months, years, maybe decades now later, you're still living in some form of regret over the decisions that you make. I could easily look at that in terms of my drug, my alcohol, my pornography addiction, you know, looking at how much time I spent in my addiction since I was 13 years old, right, through my teens, through my 20s, into my 30s, until I got into my recovery program. And in the present moment, I find that most of us spend a tremendous amount of time judging ourselves, judging other people, in our heads debating about what we should actually do, feeling like we're not as disciplined as we should be, and that it's a tremendous waste of energy and time and effort. And so if I can provide you a perspective that would allow you to actually liberate yourself from this inner dialogue and the self-judgment and self-criticism, I think that would be a useful exploration. And so we're doing it around this topic of free will. Now, if you watch a movie, right, and I don't know why, but I used the example when I was running this by my wife of Mission Impossible 6. I think Mission Impossible 6 was right before it got into Mission Impossible Bad. I think it was the last movie before some writer decided, hey, AI is hot, so let's create some killer AI that's going to wipe out Tom Cruise and Fred. But if you think about any movie that you watch, in this case, I'm using Mission Impossible 6, although it's not relevant to conversation, I probably spent way too much time on it already. If you watch the movie the first time, does anything change from the first time you watch the movie to the second time you watch the movie? Do the actors or the characters, do they make different decisions based on what time you watch the movie or how many times you watch the movie? No, of course not, right? Every single time, the actors or characters make the same decision, no matter when or how many times you watch the movie. And the beautiful things about almost all movies is that the ending ends up being something victorious or triumphant anyway. No matter what circumstance or situation they're in, somehow the plotline evolves so that they're able to get through some harrowing situation and get to the victory at the end, which kind of feels like our own lives to some extent, doesn't it? It's like you're here now watching or listening to this episode. I'm sure there were times in your life that you didn't think you were going to be able to get through those. Somehow you navigated through them, either through some perception that you were able to do it through your own will, or there was some miracle in your life, or your higher power, or a god of your understanding, or the universe worked something out, and here you are, you made it through, right? Well, what if we were going to make it through every situation and circumstance regardless? And what if all of your choices were predetermined? In other words, what if your life was just some version of a movie and you were the character, and you got to experience being the character rather than watching the movie, but you had no choice but to make the decisions that the great screenwriter of life had already predetermined that you would make? If this were true, wouldn't you relax a little bit more about the decisions that you're making? In other words, if you knew that you were going to make whatever decision you made, no matter what you did, that you had no free will, and it was predetermined, wouldn't you enjoy being that character a hell of a lot more? And let's take a look at this practically speak, because you may be saying, hey, Dave, this doesn't make any sense. I know I have choices at any moment. Oh, do you really? I just got off of a podcast interview, and the interviewer was sharing with me a story about how her mother would try to get her to speak to relatives she didn't want to speak to over the holidays. And she said, you know, my mom has a choice whether or not she pushes me to reach out to my relatives, who I do not want to contact over the holidays, but she's choosing to push me, and so that is causing me distress. I feel like my mom is not respecting my boundaries. But does her mom really have a choice? In other words, for who her mom has become, based on the early childhood program, the beliefs that she has, which determine the way she thinks now in the present moment, and the personality that she's developed, and the emotions that she's feeling, and the actions that she has habitually tied to those emotions, isn't it predetermined that her mother is going to push her to reach out to her relatives, regardless of the way the interviewer of this podcast felt? In other words, every single decision you make on a moment-by-moment basis, isn't it predetermined by your history leading up until that point? I often look back on the times where I struggled in my addiction, and the times that I decided to pick up a drink, or pick up a joint, or look at pornography, and I would judge myself. But as I started to do recovery work, I realized I had actually no choice at that moment. I had a perceived choice, but again, based on the pain I was in that day, based on the amount of recovery that I had, based on the circumstances and situations that I found myself in, mathematically speaking, it was 100% predictable and calculable that I would pick up the drink, smoke the joint, or look at porn. And then you could say, but Dave, at some point in time, you had a different choice, right? You actually chose to not drink, or you chose to not use drugs, or you chose to not doubt. I'd say yes, but that too was 100% predictable, because of the experiences that I had in my life leading up until that point in time, because of the scenes that preceded it in the movie, right? I had developed a capacity to make a different choice, and that capacity played out in that single moment where it seemed like I had a choice, but I didn't. In fact, it was 100% predictable that I wouldn't drink. It was 100% predictable that I wouldn't smoke, and it was 100% predictable that I wouldn't get online and look at pornography. So what I'm suggesting is the way that the human being operating system works, in every present moment, whatever you're doing, you had to do that thing. You had to get upset at your partner based on the set of data that came in, your partner, for example, the way he or she looked at you, the things he or she said, how that matched up with the triggers that you had in the early life traumas that are still embedded within your nervous system and the way that you react. You had no choice but to be able to react the way that you did. Now, that reaction may have been yelling back at your partner, or that reaction may have been allowing the emotions inside of you to process without expressing yourself internally. But what happens in any given moment is 100% predictable. It can change over time, but it cannot change in the individual moment. So when you wake up in the morning and you decide to hit the snooze button, you had to hit the snooze button. And when you wake up in the morning and you get up right when your alarm goes off, you had to get up right when your alarm goes off. And you could even argue that you, thinking that you had free will, started starting to judge yourself and beat yourself up for actually not taking the other action. That had to happen too. But at each stage of our experience, we do have the opportunity to step out and relax a little bit, knowing that we could not have made a decision in any other way, given all of the information that led up to that single moment in time and the choice that you made. So I find this to be comforting at a really meaningful level, because if I can just accept myself and the decisions that I make on a moment-by-moment basis, it alleviates so much of the stress, the anxiety, the self-pressure, the self-judgment, and the overwhelm. And ultimately, I want to experience life in a more calm and peaceful way. And really, the greatest disruption to my calm are all of those things. All of the amount of time that I spend judging myself for not making a different choice than the choice that I made. But if I know that I actually have no choice, I can relax into every decision. Now, a lot of people believe that this pressure of self-judgment or this pressure of self-criticism actually motivates you to operate at a higher level in your life. Some people believe that if you weren't pressured at all, that you actually wouldn't do anything. And I don't actually find that to be true based on my own experience. What I have found is that, for example, when I'm coaching entrepreneurs, and they're not actually doing the things that they tell me they believe they should be doing in order to grow their businesses, the pressure itself cripples them into a continued pattern of inaction. And so, one of the techniques that I use in addition to helping them identify the resistance or limiting beliefs that are preventing them from taking more consistent, joyful-inspired action, perhaps it's a belief like, I'm not good enough, or it's not going to work out anyway, we take a look at the beliefs. But there's also an opportunity to say, hey, you know what? Don't do the work and be okay with it. And what's interesting, every time I've prescribed that as a solution, is that within a very short period of time, the person who I prescribed that to actually finds themselves doing the work that they had been resistant to for days, weeks, and sometimes months, sometimes years. In other words, there's a paradox that as soon as we're okay, and we no longer put pressure on ourselves not doing the thing we believe we should do, the removal of that pressure actually frees us to take the action that we've been wanting to take. So, the resistance itself is in great degree the only problem. And if we could just give ourselves permission to actually be okay with whatever decision or choice we make, whether that's taking the action we believe we should take or not taking the action, whether that's going to the gym or not going to the gym, whether that's waking up early or not waking up early, there's a natural reorganization that takes place within the freedom of that no stress zone that we actually start to adhere to the types of behaviors that are authentically the best behaviors that we could be engaged. You know, if you think about it for a moment, right, we start out the new year with all of these resolutions and it creates a tremendous amount of pressure, right? It's great to have a structure and to set some goals and some new habits, but so much pressure comes out of missing one day of workout. You miss one day of working out and now all of a sudden you beat yourself up for not working out and you increase the likelihood that the next day you're not going to work out. Why? Well, because you're in a low energetic state, because you've been judging yourself, because you're not feeling vibrant, because you're not inspired, you're not in self-love, right? All as a result of the self-judgment and criticism. So how do we remove the self-judgment and criticism? We make whatever behavior we're engaged in okay. Now if you go back to the addiction metaphor, that would be like saying, well, I'm aware that I'm an alcoholic and so I'm going to make it okay that I don't drink. No, what I'm suggesting is that you strive for not drinking, but just like I experienced in my own recovery when I did have a slip, the worst thing that I could do was actually judge myself and shame myself for the slip. That would all but guarantee that I would go on a bin, right? I'd start drinking or smoking or acting out for weeks on end because it would become a perpetual cycle of self-shame and self-judgment and self-criticism. So if the solution to getting back on track is to actually remove the self-judgment and self-criticism, that must mean that we must be okay with doing those things that we actually believe we shouldn't be doing or not doing those things that we actually believe we should be doing. To be okay with whatever it is. So again, going back to this conversation around free will and taking it really to the highest level of integration in our lives, what if you actually have no choice? What if on a moment-by-moment basis, you have to make the decision that you make? Whether it's a decision that's aligned with the direction that you feel you should be moving in your life or the decisions you should be taking, or whether it's a decision that you believe doesn't serve you well, right? What if you had no choice? Would you then be able to relax into accepting what is without the self-judgment, without the shame, without the self-pressure? And is it possible that without all of that, you would naturally evolve into making greater and better choices for your life? So I've been experimenting with this, being okay with whatever decision I make by actually putting it within a frame or a container of I don't actually have any free will. And I can tell you as a self-experimentation, I'm starting to experience far less stress and anxiety in my life. I'm spending way less time in my head thinking about the choices that I'm making and judging myself for the choices that I did make that didn't serve me or that I didn't make that I believe I could have made. And I get all of that time back to actually just be present with what is. And so in that, I'm more energized, feeling more inspired. I'm feeling more motivated. And the byproduct of that is paradoxically taking more action in alignment with the types of action and choices and decisions that I'd like to be making. And so I offer that for you today, right? Just really entertain for one day. What if you couldn't make any decision different than the decision that you made? What if you actually had no free will? Again, I think it's backed up in some great degree by understanding behavioral psychology and neuroscience, all of the little experiences, the data from your childhood, the situation and the dynamics in that given instance, right? You're 100% predictable to be able to make that decision. We can actually see this, right? When we do experiments with mice, we can put them in a contained environment and actually create an environment that predicts circumstances and outcomes, and I actually believe your life is built this way. But whether you believe it or not, entertain it for one day, right? Be in this space of, I had to do what I had to do today. I had no choice, and see what your experience of that day is, right? And if you're experiencing a lot more relaxation, peace, self-confidence, enjoying the scene of the movie that you're in that day as the character, knowing that there was no different way that it could have gone because that's not the way that it was written, but actually enjoying the experience of the movie of your life. So I know a different kind of episode today, right? Talking about free will and offering this idea that you actually don't have any, but I think it's a really important experiment or exercise for you to engage in and see if it improves your life. Because ultimately, whether it's true or not, even if it's a placebo effect, if you can just relax a little bit more around choices and decisions that you're making as a result of this idea that you couldn't have chosen anything otherwise, well, it's going to have a real practical effect in your life. So again, if you love this episode, do me a favor, leave me a rating and review, and you might love any of the other episodes on the podcast in particular if you love this episode. You can go back and listen to the episode on identifying and removing resistance in your own life, episode three, where I talk about desire plus non-resistance equals desired result. Again, you can listen on the podcast or you can check it out on YouTube. And or if you haven't heard my story yet, check out the episode with Carol and I, episode four, where we talk about our journey and actually how we got to where we are today and why we teach the things that we teach. I love being here with you on this episode. Hope to see you on the next one. Until then, have a powerful living experience.Hey, it's David. Welcome back to A Changed Mind, a sanctuary for your human spirit, a place where each and every episode I will remind you of the certainty of the goodness of the future. I'm your friend, your host, your guide. Man, it is so good to be here with you today and I am so excited to share with you something that I think is going to really profoundly help you relax in your life, whether or not it is actually true, okay? So I'm going to go against the grain here in today's episode and we're going to spend some time diving a little bit deeper into this idea of free will. And what I am suggesting is that you do not actually have any. That is correct. I'm saying that you cannot but make the choices that you're making in your life and the fact that you actually think you have free will is creating a tremendous amount of unnecessary stress, anxiety, and overwhelm for you and it is lessening your experience of life in really, really profound ways. So I'm going to get into that with you here. By the way, if this is your first time listening, welcome. If you are a repeat listener and you're listening on Spotify or iTunes and you love this episode, do me a favor, take some time after this episode to leave me a rating or a review. It's the way we're able to get this work out to as many people as possible and it's great feedback for me. And by the way, if you're watching on YouTube, we do have the full episodes, comment, ask me a question. I try to read all of them, subscribe to the channel so that you get the latest uploads to the platform and so that I can keep you informed. So we're going to be talking about free will today and one of the things that had triggered this thought process for me was an awareness that everybody more or less assumes we have free will. You hear people often saying like, well, we have free will, right? We have choice. And I'm not so sure that that is actually true. So why does this matter? Well, I don't know about you, but I find so often in my own day to day experiences, I'm questioning what I did or did not do, right? It might be that I promise that I'm going to wake up in the morning at 6am and I don't. I hit the snooze until 7 o'clock or maybe it's, I know I need to do some things to grow my business. Perhaps it's work on a webinar or a presentation or review some copy and I really don't feel like doing it. And so yes, I too find some ways to distract myself or put it off and then I judge myself for not doing the things that I think I should have done in my business. Perhaps you look back on a past relationship and you feel like you're responsible through the decisions that you made in terminating the relationship, right? Somebody broke up with you because of the way that you were showing up and you look at it and you're like, ah, yeah, I could have been a better person, but I wasn't. And so days, weeks, months, years, maybe decades now later, you're still living in some form of regret over the decisions that you make. I could easily look at that in terms of my drug, my alcohol, my pornography addiction, you know, looking at how much time I spent in my addiction since I was 13 years old, right? Through my teens, through my 20s, into my 30s, until I got into my recovery program. And in the present moment, I find that most of us spend a tremendous amount of time judging ourselves, judging other people, in our heads debating about what we should actually do, feeling like we're not as disciplined as we should be, and that it's a tremendous waste of energy and time and effort. And so if I can provide you a perspective that would allow you to actually liberate yourself from this inner dialogue and the self-judgment and self-criticism, I think that would be a useful exploration. And so we're doing it around this topic of free will. Now, if you watch a movie, right? And I don't know why, but I used the example when I was running this by my wife of Mission Impossible 6. I think Mission Impossible 6 was right before it got into Mission Impossible Bad. I think it was the last movie before some writer decided, hey, AI is hot, so let's create some killer AI that's going to wipe out Tom Cruise and friends. But if you think about any movie that you watch, in this case, I'm using Mission Impossible 6, although it's not relevant to the conversation. I probably spent way too much time on it already. If you watch the movie the first time, does anything change from the first time you watched the movie to the second time you watched the movie? Do the actors or the characters, do they make different decisions based on what time you watch the movie or how many times you watch the movie? No, of course not, right? Every single time, the actors or characters make the same decision, no matter when or how many times you watch the movie. And the beautiful things about almost all movies that we watch is that the ending ends up being something victorious or triumphant anyway, no matter what circumstance or situation they're in, somehow the plot line evolves so that they're able to get through some harrowing situation and get to the victory at the end, which kind of feels like our own lives to some extent, doesn't it? It's like you're here now watching or listening to this episode. I'm sure there were times in your life that you didn't think you were going to be able to get through those. Somehow you navigated through them, either through some perception that you were able to do it through your own will or there was some miracle in your life or your higher power or a god of your understanding or the universe worked something out and here you are, you made it through, right? What if we were going to make it through every situation and circumstance regardless? And what if all of your choices were predetermined? In other words, what if your life was just some version of a movie and you were the character and you got to experience being the character rather than watching the movie, but you had no choice but to make the decisions that the great screenwriter of life had already predetermined that you would make? Now, if this were true, wouldn't you relax a little bit more about the decisions that you're making? In other words, if you knew that you were going to make whatever decision you made, no matter what you did, that you had no free will and it was predetermined, wouldn't you enjoy being that character a hell of a lot more? And let's take a look at this practically speaking because you may be saying, hey, Dave, this doesn't make any sense. I know I have choices at any moment. Oh, do you really? I just got off of a podcast interview and the interviewer was sharing with me a story about how her mother would try to get her to speak to relatives she didn't want to speak to over the holidays. And she said, you know, my mom has a choice whether or not she pushes me to reach out to my relatives who I do not want to contact over the holidays, but she's choosing to push me and so that is causing me distress. I feel like my mom is not respecting my boundaries. But does her mom really have a choice? In other words, for who her mom has become based on the early childhood programming, the beliefs that she has, which determine the way she thinks now in the present moment and the personality that she's developed and the emotions that she's feeling and the actions that she has habitually tied to those emotions, isn't it predetermined that her mother is going to push her to reach out to her relatives regardless of the way the interviewer of this podcast felt? In other words, every single decision you make on a moment by moment basis, isn't it predetermined by your history leading up into that point? I often look back on the times where I struggled in my addiction and the times that I decided to pick up a drink or pick up a joint or look at pornography. And I would judge myself for that. But as I started to do recovery work, I realized I had actually no choice at that moment. I had a perceived choice. But again, based on the pain I was in that day, based on the amount of recovery that I had, based on the circumstances and situations that I found myself in, mathematically speaking, it was 100% predictable and calculable that I would pick up the drink, smoke the joint or look at porn. And then you could say, but Dave, at some point in time, you had a different choice, right? You actually chose to not drink or you chose to not use drugs or you chose to not act out. I'd say yes, but that too was 100% predictable. Because of the experiences that I had in my life leading up until that point in time, because of the scenes that preceded it in the movie, right? I had developed a capacity to make a different choice. And that capacity played out in that single moment where it seemed like I had a choice, but I didn't. In fact, it was 100% predictable that I wouldn't drink. It was 100% predictable that I wouldn't smoke. And it was 100% predictable that I wouldn't get online and look at pornography. So what I'm suggesting is the way that the human being operating system works in every present moment, whatever you're doing, you had to do that thing. You had to get upset at your partner based on the set of data that came in your partner. For example, the way he or she looked at you, the things he or she said, how that matched up with the triggers that you had in the early life traumas that are still embedded within your nervous system and the way that you react. You had no choice but to be able to react the way that you did. Now that reaction may have been yelling back at your partner or that reaction may have been allowing the emotions inside of you to process without expressing yourself internally. But what happens in any given moment is 100% predictable. It can change over time, but it cannot change in the individual moment. So when you wake up in the morning and you decide to hit the snooze button, you had to hit the snooze button. And when you wake up in the morning and you get up right when your alarm goes off, you had to get up right when your alarm goes off. And you could even argue that you thinking that you had free will started starting to judge yourself and beat yourself up for actually not taking the other action that had to happen too. But at each stage of our experience, we do have the opportunity to step out and relax a little bit, knowing that we could not have made a decision in any other way, given all of the information that led up to that single moment in time and the choice that you made. So I find this to be comforting at a really meaningful level because if I can just accept myself and the decisions that I make on a moment by moment basis, it alleviates so much of the stress, the anxiety, the self-pressure, the self-judgment and the overwhelm. And ultimately, I want to experience life in a more calm and peaceful way. And really the greatest disruption to my calm are all of those things, all of the amount of time that I spend judging myself for not making a different choice than the choice that I made. But if I know that I actually have no choice, I can relax into every decision. Now a lot of people believe that this pressure of self-judgment or this pressure of self-criticism actually motivates you to operate at a higher level in your life. Some people believe that if you weren't pressured at all, that you actually wouldn't do anything. And I don't actually find that to be true based on my own experience. What I have found is that, for example, when I'm coaching entrepreneurs and they're not actually doing the things that they tell me they believe they should be doing in order to grow their businesses, the pressure itself cripples them into a continued pattern of inaction. And so one of the techniques that I use in addition to helping them identify the resistance or limiting beliefs that are preventing them from taking more consistent, joyful, inspired action, perhaps it's a belief like I'm not good enough or it's not going to work out anyway, we take a look at the beliefs. But there's also an opportunity to say, hey, you know what? Don't do the work and be okay with it. And what's interesting, every time I've prescribed that as a solution, is that within a very short period of time, the person who I prescribed that to actually finds themselves doing the work that they had been resistant to for days, weeks, and sometimes months, sometimes years. In other words, there's a paradox that as soon as we're okay and we no longer put pressure on ourselves, not doing the thing we believe we should do, the removal of that pressure actually frees us to take the action that we've been wanting to take. So the resistance itself is in great degree the only problem. And if we could just give ourselves permission to actually be okay with whatever decision or choice we make, whether that's taking the action we believe we should take or not taking the action, whether that's going to the gym or not going to the gym, whether that's waking up early or not waking up early, there's a natural reorganization that takes place within the freedom of that no-stress zone that we actually start to adhere to the types of behaviors that are authentically the best behaviors that we could be engaged in. You know, if you think about it for a moment, right, we start out the new year with all of these resolutions and it creates a tremendous amount of pressure, right? It's great to have a structure and to set some goals and some new habits, but so much pressure comes out of missing one day of workout. You miss one day of working out and now all of a sudden you beat yourself up for not working out and you increase the likelihood that the next day you're not going to work out. Why? Well, because you're in a low energetic state, because you've been judging yourself, because you're not feeling vibrant, because you're not inspired, you're not in self-love, right? All as a result of the self-judgment and criticism. So how do we remove the self-judgment and criticism? We make whatever behavior we're engaged in okay. Now if you go back to the addiction metaphor, that would be like saying, well, I'm aware that I'm an alcoholic, so I'm going to make it okay that I don't drink. No, what I'm suggesting is that you strive for not drinking, but just like I experienced in my own recovery when I did have a slip, the worst thing that I could do was actually judge myself and shame myself for the slip. That would all but guarantee that I would go on a binge, right? I'd start drinking or smoking or acting out for weeks on end because it would become a perpetual cycle of self-shame and self-judgment and self-criticism. So if the solution to getting back on track is to actually remove the self-judgment and self-criticism, that must mean that we must be okay with doing those things that we actually believe we shouldn't be doing or not doing those things that we actually believe we should be doing, to be okay with whatever is. So again, going back to this conversation around free will and taking it really to the highest level of integration in our lives, what if you actually have no choice? What if on a moment-by-moment basis, you have to make the decision that you make? Whether it's a decision that's aligned with the direction that you feel you should be moving in your life or the decisions you should be taking, or whether it's a decision that you believe doesn't serve you well, right? What if you had no choice? Would you then be able to relax into accepting what is without the self-judgment, without the shame, without the self-pressure? And is it possible that without all of that, you would naturally evolve into making greater and better choices for your life? So I've been experimenting with this, being okay with whatever decision I make by actually putting it within a frame or a container of I don't actually have any free will. And I can tell you as a self-experimentation, I'm starting to experience far less stress and anxiety in my life. I'm spending way less time in my head thinking about the choices that I'm making and judging myself for the choices that I did make that didn't serve me or that I didn't make that I believe I could have made. And I get all of that time back to actually just be present with what is. And so in that, I'm more energized, I'm feeling more inspired, I'm feeling more motivated. And the byproduct of that is paradoxically taking more action in alignment with the types of action and choices and decisions that I'd like to be making. And so I offer that for you today, right? Just really entertain for one day what if you couldn't make any decision different than the decision that you made? What if you actually had no free will? Again, I think it's backed up in some great degree by understanding behavioral psychology and neuroscience. All of the little experiences, the data from your childhood, the situation and the dynamics in that given instance, right? You're 100% predictable to be able to make that decision. We can actually see this, right? When we do experiments with mice, we can put them in a contained environment and actually create an environment that predicts circumstances and outcomes and I actually believe your life is built this way. But whether you believe it or not, entertain it for one day, right? Be in this space of I had to do what I had to do today, I had no choice. And see what your experience of that day is, right? And if you're experiencing a lot more relaxation, peace, self-confidence, enjoying the scene of the movie that you're in that day as the character, knowing that there was no different way that it could have gone because that's not the way that it was written, but actually enjoying the experience of the movie of your life. So I know a different kind of episode today, right? Talking about free will and offering this idea that you actually don't have any, but I think it's a really important experiment or exercise for you to engage in and see if it improves your life because ultimately whether it's true or not, even if it's a placebo effect, if you can just relax a little bit more around the choices and decisions that you're making as a result of this idea that you couldn't have chosen anything otherwise, well, it's going to have a real practical effect in your life. So again, if you love this episode, do me a favor, leave me a rating and review, and you might love any of the other episodes on the podcast. In particular, if you love this episode, go back and listen to the episode on identifying and removing resistance in your own life, episode three, where I talk about desire plus non-resistance equals desired result. Again, you can listen on the podcast or you can check it out on YouTube. And or if you haven't heard my story yet, check out the episode with Carol and I, episode four, where we talk about our journey and actually how we got to where we are today and why we teach the things that we teach. I love being here with you on this episode. Hope to see you on the next one. Until then, have a powerful living experience.