Jason Prall┃The Hidden Beliefs That Are Secretly Aging You

And this was the early days of the internet. We had like Yahoo and WebCrawler and there was no social media, right? So I was in chat rooms and really just trying to figure out what was going on. I didn't have the wherewithal to really seek out more natural methods, you know, naturopaths and, you know, functional chiropractors and some of the things that did exist that weren't as prevalent as today.

What if the key to a longer, healthier life has less to do with biohacking and more to do with your beliefs? Today I sit down with health educator, filmmaker, and Human Longevity Project creator Jason Prahl to explore how our perceptions shape our health, why connection and meaning may matter more than supplements and technology, and how ancient wisdom traditions can help us rewire beliefs that keep us stuck in suffering and disease.

For this session, I'm very happy to be here today with Jason Prahl. Welcome, Jason.

Thanks for having me. Good to see you, Fleet Maull.

Well, we're thrilled to have you. I've been looking forward to this conversation. Your work is fascinating and I'm gonna share your bio and then we'll jump right into the conversation. Sound good?

Perfect.

Good. So Jason Prahl is a health optimization practitioner, entrepreneur, filmmaker, and author. He's the creator of the Human Longevity Project, a 9-part film series that explores the underlying causes of chronic disease in the modern world. With over 2 decades of experience, Jason has worked with individuals worldwide providing solutions to complex health issues through holistic and lifestyle-based approaches. His current work focuses on uncovering ancient healing methods to promote optimal health and longevity. Jason holds a degree in mechanical engineering, which has informed his analytical and systematic approach to health and wellness. His personal journey overcoming 20 years of health challenges inspired him to transition from engineering to the field of health optimization where he applies evidence-based strategies to improve overall wellbeing. He's the author of the bestselling book, "Beyond Longevity: A Proven Plan for Healing Faster, Feeling Better, and Thriving at Any Age." That's an inspiring title just in itself.

Yeah. I'm glad.

What we're all looking for, right? Jason continues to advance his mission through upcoming film projects and educational programs, sharing valuable insights into effective health practices, And we'll talk about your website later at the end. We'll orient people to where they can find you. So, you know, a little bit before we get started, in your bio that I just read, it's alluded to your own personal health challenges. And so many people that we have on our summits, their work often has an origin story that they were dealing with some kind of challenges, they went out to find the solutions, and then they become someone who's bringing those solutions to the world. I suspect that's your case. And I wonder if you could just briefly tell us a little bit about that origin story of how you found your way from mechanical engineering into health and life optimization and longevity work.

Yeah, it's funny. It's, I guess, the classic human story, right? It's, it's the hero's journey that we're all on. And so for me, it started at 13. I had chronic knee pain that began then and lasted for decades. I had skin issues in my early 20s. And these were the health, chronic health challenges that the modern medical system really is not set up to diagnose properly as to what the real problem is and, and nor provide solutions. So that sent me on this journey to figure out what was really causing this, right? And this was the early days of the internet. We had like Yahoo and Webcrawler and there was no social media, right? So I was in chat rooms and really just trying to figure out what was going on. I didn't have the wherewithal to really seek out more natural methods, you know, naturopaths and, you know, functional chiropractors and some of the things that did exist but weren't as prevalent as today. And so through that, that winding exploration of figuring out what was really the cause of these things I was suffering from led me to just a wider awareness around what health is, where it comes from, and how to initiate it. And so through that journey, I realized that my true calling was in the health world, helping people to sort of free themselves of these burdens that they're dealing with that are really suffocating many parts of their lives. Right. So I left engineering world. Wandered into this sort of health practitioner world. I, I'm not a doctor. I never trained in that, in that world, but I, I trained in integrative health, functional medicine, you know, functional neurology. I had amazing mentors along the way and then began working with people one-on-one. And that's really where I cut my teeth, right? So I could figure out my own health challenges to a degree. And then as I'm working with others with different health challenges, different lifestyles, different beliefs, right? I, I started to get an understanding of what was causing cancer and what was causing autoimmune conditions and you know, chronic GI issues and all these things that people were coming to me for help with. And, and I was able to, to help a lot of people. And then there was this subset of people that I just couldn't get over the hump. I couldn't get them to the finish line. I'd get them most of the way there and I got stuck. And that really prompted me to this. At some point, there was recognition that there was beyond lifestyle, beyond the, the physical health side of the equation. There is what at that time I just loosely classified as trauma., right? So these, these trauma pieces. And, and then once I started digging into that, I said, okay, well, I don't, I don't have the, the skill set to navigate this world or understand it or to help people. So I dove in myself and to explore my own traumas at that time. And so diving into that led me to the recognition that there's not only these capital T traumas that we might experience, you know, the abuse and the neglect and these, these events and these, these things that are happening, especially when we're, we're children, we don't have the, the resource to be able to metabolize it, to process these things. So yes, we're carrying those into the— into our adulthood, no question. Every single one of us has these, what we say, capital T traumas that we can identify, or maybe even not identify. Some are worse than others, no question. But then there's other things too, right? There's conditioning, right? And that kind of gets into the subject matter we're talking about today, which is what are the things in our lifestyles that are creating the perception of our reality and the beliefs and the mindset and, and all the little things from schooling to parents to, you know, all of your peers to, to, to work, to your dance recitals, whatever the case might be. There's all these little things that are informing our reality and we're creating our internal working model, as a psychologist might say, the view of the world as it, as it, as we perceive it to be, but not necessarily how it is. And so once I started diving into that and, and really that for me, that was. It was, it was plant medicines with indigenous healers from around the world. It was Ayurveda. It was kind of some of the Buddhist and bone cultures that I studied with. So I, I wanted to explore this from a very, I wanna cast a wide net. In other words, what are the different viewpoints that all these ancient cultures and, and religions and, and these healers that are outside of the physical health world that I was in, what's their perspective? What are modern psychologists saying? Right? So how can I understand this domain, which I, I later and now, um, have come to believe that it is really guiding everything else. Our beliefs, our mindset, our conditioning are really the crux of what's keeping us stuck and setting us free. So yes, there are physical realities that we are dealing with, unquestionable, and underneath that are our habits, our behaviors. So what's, but what's guiding our habits and behaviors? What's the way we think about the world, right? And this can be consciously or unconscious or subconsciously as well.

Yeah. All the beliefs we have about ourselves and about the world. And a lot of those beliefs are about how to get it. We're all trying to get our needs met, right? We all wanna feel safe, secure, and happy and so forth. So we have beliefs about how that happens. And some of those beliefs are less optimal than others and how they show up in our lives. So your Human Longevity Project, I mean, first of all, I mean, I think people understand why we're excited to have you be part of this summit. This is all about rewiring our beliefs to optimize different areas of our life. And today we're focused on longevity and healthy aging. And so we're really in the sweet spot of this with your work and with your Human Longevity Project. You initially did research among some of the longest living populations all around the world. And I suppose that probably touched into some of these blue zone areas and so forth. So what did you learn? Tell us what you learned about people who, because of where they're living or their lifestyle conditions, that they're living longer than the rest of us.

Yeah, I mean, there's, there's so much there that we uncovered, right? So when we were in Ikaria, Greece, in Sardinia, Italy, in Okinawa, in the Guanacaste region of Costa Rica, this is where you tend to find a lot of people living a long time. And so in these regions, you know, investigating kind of some of their stories. I mean, first things first, we have to recognize that if, if I'm interviewing somebody that's 100 years old today, that means they were born in 1924 or '23, right? So that means that they grew up most of their life in a completely different environment than we recognize today. So in 1958, Ikaria, Greece, in small villages, they didn't have electricity, right? So I just want to sort of lay that there to help people realize it's more or less glorified camping. You know, like, this is a totally different reality. And so because of some of the constraints that they were under, they really relied on a lot of other people, right? So there was a very tight-knit kind of group or community. And within that community, which is not in and of itself important, it's actually about what community provides that is important. So what does community provide to, to me? Is it connection? And is it safety? If so, then that's a valuable community for me to be a part of. If it's community that I don't feel connected to and I don't feel safe in, then that's actually not doing anything good for me, right? So there's— it's really about the environment that was set up. They struggled with other things, right? Poor harvest, right? Because of weather or sometimes war. There was famine, there was, there was restriction. So there was a lot going on in their physical health reality. But some of the biggest differences were in how they walked through the world, right? And so they were more in touch with nature. They were more in touch with the seasons, with the rhythms of the day, with the life cycle of a human. And so they, they held different beliefs, different perceptions about the day-to-day world than we hold, right? We are very autonomous here in the West. We, we, we are isolated in, in so many ways. We don't live with our nuclear families as much, right? And then in the extended family and, and the local community, right? Most of us in the West, don't know our neighbors or we know them in passing, right? We don't have tight-knit communities. So, so that was a big part of it. The things that we are having to navigate here in the West are very different than they had to navigate there. They have struggles that we don't have to face. They also had, let's say, well, let's just say we are now struggling with things they didn't have to face. When I walk into a grocery store, I got to figure out, is this organic? Is it local food? You know, where did this come from? And then even when I'm in the most optimal grocery store, I gotta say no to all this processed stuff and yes to all the healthy stuff. And then beyond that, I gotta figure out, is this optimal for me, right? Is, is an organic, is organic arugula good for me versus some other food, right? So we're making different choices that are because of our abundance of choice. We have to navigate a different world that is, that is that they never had to, to deal with, right? So there's a lot of things going on there. But a, a core difference I would say is, is in their level of safety and connection at the nervous system level. So they inherently had, uh, a more embodied, more grounded, more connected sense in their bodies, right? And if we talk about beliefs, I think, I think it's first important to recognize where the word belief comes from, right? The etymology of belief, you know, it comes from a few different languages, but Germanic is definitely in there. And it essentially means I wish to be true, or I desire something to be true. So this is not— belief is not logical. It is not involved really with too much with reason. It actually has something to do with our desire for something to be true. So, and, and so underneath that whole framework of like, there's, there's two components. There is an objective reality. 2 2 4. I believe that to be true. Evidence points to that being true my entire life. That makes sense. So I still hold that belief. Now, that's an obvious one. But if we extend that out through the rest of mathematics or the rest of science, what we can, what we eventually get to is this point where it's a little fuzzy. And we hold certain beliefs. The world is flat, you know, the Earth revolves around the sun. We can point to these throughout history of beliefs that seem to be objectively true that were actually false. So people were holding incorrect beliefs based on empirical data that was misread, right? So there's a, there's a, there's a, let's say, an objective reality, right? That is tied to belief. But then there's more importantly, I'd say there's the bulk of it is the subjective reality, right? We hold beliefs based on our own experiences. So that experience that we are drawing upon for beliefs about, about the present, or perhaps that we're projecting into the future, are guided by the objective reality we experience as well as the subjective reality. So this is a huge part of what I'm kind of talking about when it, when it comes to safety and connection in the system, in the body. So when we hold certain beliefs, we're informing our biology. And the, the opposite is true. The feeling that we have in our body, the, the, the actual subjective experience that I'm experiencing, the emotions, the— if you, if you're in touch with your body, you can feel certain things in your body. These things are coming from a perception that then inform my beliefs, right? And this is primarily what happens when we're infants, right? When we're infants, we don't have a lot of the cognition on board, right? A 6-month-old isn't, isn't logically thinking about, oh, well, yeah, mom's just— I'm hungry, but mom's on a phone call, so, you know, I can wait, right? The, the infant is just feeling, I'm hungry. Oh no, there's a threat level. On some level. And so there's a perception in the body-mind that is creating a reality of danger and threat. Now, once that gets soothed, then that's more information for the system. System goes, okay, this is the pattern. This is— so this is always happening as we're, as we're developing. And then at some point, our cognitive mind starts to come on board more and more and more as we get into our, you know, teens and 20s. And it's all continuing to inform. But this internal working model, what I'm pointing to, is, is primarily starts in the body. It starts with a feeling, with a perception of what's happening in the body. It's why you can see two teenagers, two adults experience the same thing and they respond very differently, because there's a, there's a different experience in the body-mind and a different reality that they're drawing from that creates this perception of the present moment. And again, if I, we humans don't, we're not that good at living totally in the present. We're always living partially in the past and projecting into the, into the future. So we're projecting our beliefs into the future, and this is where we gotta kind of be careful. So that was kind of a long sort of way of saying that, that the people that I interviewed, that, that I, that I spoke with, that, that I was around the, the, the small villages, there was an inherent sense of safety, relaxation, and connection. And that, that created a pattern in the nervous system that was able to kind of rest there more often. So even when a stressful event would come up, they wouldn't get so triggered, they wouldn't get so activated, they would, they would, they would, that was tempered, and they were able to come back into rest, relaxation on the nervous system level.

It's really fascinating. I've been leading a meditative practice for many, many years that I originally adapted from my friend Rick Hanson's work. And I call it Safe, Resourced, and Connected. And it's a contemplative exercise to actually invoke the experience of the felt sense of being safe. At least in this moment, I'm safe. And taking that and letting your nervous system feel safe and then letting yourself feel resourced. The fact that at least for now you are resourced, which allows you to relax, and then bring into mind your connectedness with others. And this is really at the heart of how we experience well-being.

And what you're pointing to there too is the conditioning, right? And you know this, but just to kind of expand upon it, you're reconditioning these pathways, right, on the nervous system level and on the mind level, right? So there's different elements that we can bring in, but the nervous system in the body is core to how our body expresses health.

So it's interesting that, you know, modernity, the Industrial Revolution and now the Information Age and so on, we're moving further and further away from those more natural organic surroundings that has been proven to be healthy for human beings and other life forms, right? And we're leading more disembodied lives, more alienated, more isolated, more disconnected lives, right? And so that's all going on. And at the same time, we're developing all these technologies and deeper and deeper science. Now the whole world of biohacking, we understand more about health and wellbeing than we've understood before. So this is kind of, which is sort of like, which one's gonna win out here? The forces that are driving us towards disease or, or the knowledge that could help us recover and, and possibly develop wellbeing and longevity even sort of at higher capacities or something like that. So it's very, very interesting. Interesting time to be alive, to say the least.

It is. It is. And, and this was part of the reason that I wanted to create the Human Longevity Project. Because my, what I'm seeing in, let's say, let's say the longevity world is we're seeing this viewpoint that, and again, this is a belief that I can live to 200, that I can live to 500, that, that aging is a disease, right? These are very interesting beliefs and views to hold considering the fact that We have no evidence that any of that is true. Not a single shred of evidence from the human world or the animal world to think that we can extend life to such a degree. Now, I'm not saying it's impossible, but I'm saying these are very interesting beliefs that we're bringing in. And I think part of it is, is related to the sort of regenerative medicine movement that we're seeing. And, and I think we just need to be careful as we tiptoe going forward. Because what I'm seeing is the, the Bryan Johnsons of the world, right? And if you're not familiar with him, this is a guy that literally is measuring— he is a billionaire, I think. He's measuring every biomarker. He's trying to, in other words, he's trying to biohack his body and his lifestyle to such a degree to create this unbelievable longevity. Now he's expending numbers of, like, so many resources to make this happen in terms of dollars and time and expertise and all this stuff. And while I think there's a value in what he's doing, it inform us to some degree. Nobody in their right mind's ever gonna live that way. I don't, other than a handful of people who might want to go that path, but most of us don't wanna live that way. And yet the other side, I have these people that I met around the world, like Giulio in, in Sardinia that was 105 riding a bicycle and he didn't do any biohacking. He lived a completely different way. So what I'm pointing to is that we actually have evidence to suggest, and I know a 110-year-old shaman, you could say he was, he was an ayahuasquero and he served ayahuasca until he died at 110, right? He literally drank ayahuasca numbers of times per week for 60, 70 years, right? So that's an interesting case study to look at. So we have these, we have evidence to suggest that there, that living in harmony with nature, with nature's template is conducive to health. We don't have a ton of evidence to suggest that if we biohack ourselves to death, that that's gonna lead to this extraordinarily long and yet we have biohacking techniques, we have regenerative medicine, we have stem cells, we have these things that I believe are actually going to serve a huge value, valuable purpose in our future. I want to take advantage of these things. I have taken advantage of some of these things. So I think for me it's not a one or the other, you know, it's, it's, it's a both and, and so when we, when we go into the, the regenerative medicine world or regenerative health world, it's, it's finding things that are conducive to life-affirming principles. So stem cells is a good example. If I take stem cells from, um, a younger life form, right? And we can get these from umbilical cord and there's other ways that we don't have to harm life in the process, but we, we, we know that that will be beneficial. In other words, we're using life to improve life, right? When we start to get into the tech world, we gotta be very careful because we're, we're, you have to really know what you're doing. There's usually a hormetic effect. In other words, a dose of something that's good. And then if you keep going, red light's a perfect example of this. Too much red light therapy is actually harmful. We know this to be true, right? But just the right amount is actually good. Sunlight's another good example. And this is following nature's template. A certain amount of sunlight is actually very healthy for us to get on our, in our, on our skin and in our eyes. Not enough, harmful. Too much, harmful, right? So there's these hormetic effects. Same thing with exercise. So there are these principles. And so with, with tech, that's just magnified. We just have to be very precise with how we're using it. So I don't hold the belief that we can live forever, that, or that aging is a disease. I don't, I'm not too certain that we can make it past 120 very healthfully. I'm hopeful that's the case. I'm going to live as such. I'm going to live that way, but I'm not totally certain that we can get there. So I think we just have to be careful with how we're bringing in this sort of new tech and not forgetting the true wisdom that is we are nature. We are from it. We will go back to it. There is no escaping it. Right? So in other words, we can't pollute our environments with all the things that we're polluting it with and destroy our food sources and think we can biohack our way out of it. It's just not gonna work, right? So, so we must first, the baseline is get the environment right, get our mindset right, get our conditioning and our beliefs, get that in tune with life-affirming principles. And once we do that, or simultaneously perhaps, but not leaving that part out, we can incorporate some of these other things in the appropriate way.

Yeah, I like that you brought up that hormetic effect because it's true with most things in life, you know, there's a sweet spot. Too little is not good, too much is not good. That age-old wisdom of moderation, right?

This is the middle, middle path, as they say.

Yeah, the middle path in Buddhism and the idea of moderation, it's been around for a long time. So I wanna just, explore a couple things with you here. This whole notion of longevity altogether. Now we hear a lot of talk today also about healthspan as well as lifespan. And I think that's really what's most important. People would like to be healthy for most of their life. Who wants to be stuck with another 10 years where you're, you know, in a really debilitated condition and not able to have any quality of life and totally dependent on others and so forth, right? So it's, I think, healthspan that most of us are concerned about and how can we, enlarge on that. And then, you know, I know you did some study in the Buddhist and Bon traditions in Tibet and other different things. But so some people, when you hear about longevity, they might go, they might think, well, you know, that's the wrong goal. The goal should be spiritual liberation or enlightenment or something like that. And being attached to one body and attached to this life could be counterproductive to that, right? And You know, I actually think there's, again, there's a middle way here because if we're able to live longer and with good health, then we have longer to be on this project. And if one believes in the idea of multiple lifetimes and so forth, well, if we have the conditions to continue our spiritual journey on this, you know, in this life, extending that makes sense. And we don't know exactly what our next opportunity is going to be. We hope good work here leads to good future opportunity. That's kind of what the philosophies say. But you know, it's— you don't really know what's going to happen. So extending your life, and in fact, in some yogic traditions, there's actually a kind of a vow or a commitment to extend one's life for as long as one can in order to actually attain enlightenment. And that's usually within more of the Mahayana context of attaining enlightenment for the benefit of all beings. In other words, to be able to enlighten all. So it's not just a selfish personal liberation, um, thing. So, you know, this whole, and you know, and then just in a more conventional sense outside of these spiritual ideas, a lot of people, well, I wouldn't wanna live that, why would I wanna live that long? Or, you know, you know, and, and then we have all the social conditions, you know, if everybody starts living much longer, we're not set up economically and socially and culturally to handle that. What are we gonna do with all these folks, right? So, so there's a lot of issues around longevity. It's attractive to people, And I think there's part of the, there's the kind of egoic longevity desire, you know, I just, me, myself, I want to hang on to me, my reality and extend it out there as long as I can. But I think there can be some very reasonable reasons that I've alluded to, to, you know, wanna live a longer life and a healthier life and to be able to enjoy things. I mean, another factor in there just to throw something else in a pot, you know, we might wanna, you know, have a nice long, healthy life to enjoy our children's lives and our grandchildren's lives. But do we wanna outlive our children or our grandchildren, you know, or our friends, right? We're out, you know, so anyway, there's a lot of things, beliefs, there's a lot of cultural beliefs and backgrounds and sort of the, into this whole notion of longevity to begin with. And so I wonder if you could talk about that a little bit. And then kind of also with the idea of healthspan, the importance of not just longevity, healthspan, but also in terms of what we think of as health because there's health, most of us think of health is I'm, I'm not sick at the moment. I don't have a cold, I don't have the flu, I'm walking, I'm above ground, I'm functioning, I'm okay. I'm, I don't have any major complaints. That's healthy. But then there's what we might call vitality and really health optimization and really having a lot of energy and, and so forth, right? And especially as we age, that becomes more important or, or anyway, maybe it takes more work to create. So I wonder if we could just talk a little bit about what we're talking about here and why it's important and why we might be interested in these things.

Yeah, I feel like I could go for about an hour.

Sorry for the very long question.

No, it's, it's great. You, you put me into the right sphere. And so what, what comes to mind, you know, as you say those things is, you know, when I talk to people about longevity or when I hear people talk about longevity, I, you're right. I get, I basically get two, two answers. One is, is this idea that I, you know, especially from the younger, like if we're, if we're sub 70, let's say, you know, we're still kind of in that, before-death part process. And what I hear is, yes, I want to live a long time. So I hear that. And then it's a glorification of longevity. And then on the other side, I often hear, oh God, I don't want to live that long, right? Because there's a perception of what it looks like to be 85, 95, 100, right? So to me, you're dead on, which is that If we're glorifying longevity, I mean, first of all, when I go around, when I met people that were 101, 102, 105, these weren't super vibrant, perfectly upright, amazing skin, 100-year-olds. They were, they were old. They were old. Julio rode a bike at 105. Now he was very wobbly. He was very slow. He couldn't get on it very well. So there's a natural degradation to aging. Like this is a thing that I think we need to accept. It's beneficial for us to accept that that's a, that's a part of the path. In other words, I will, in essence, I will never be as young as I am today. Now I can redo reverse damage and I can get healthier, no question, but I will never be as young as I am today. It's, it's important to hold this view because it helps you appreciate what we are now. Right now I don't have back pain right now. I don't have foggy thinking and a lack of memory, right? So it brings us into the present to appreciate what, where I'm at now. Now, on the other side, holding this view that, that it's going to be miserable and full of suffering, right? We're going to create that reality for ourselves and we're going to act according to those beliefs. So I think it's a, it's very harmful to hold that belief. I think it's also really important to meditate, to contemplate death. Death, right? And if we can do this fairly often, then we develop a relationship with death. And in some of my studies in the indigenous world, I frequently asked and confronted these things, especially in the plant medicine world. You confront death, right? This idea of death. And so I was asking some questions to one of my sort of mentors and teachers, and he said, look, death is a part of life. You cannot— there's no disconnecting these two things. So If you want to have a vibrant life, you need to be intimate with death, with the idea of death, the idea of dying, what that really means. So I think it's really important to meditate, to contemplate, to consider that you will one day die. Now, it doesn't mean that we want to draw that near. I don't want it to happen anytime soon, but that's the reality. It can literally happen tomorrow. Again, these are all tools and ways of framing our worldview to help us bring it— bring us back into the present. Grateful for the small little pains that I have now, or the little bit of health issues, or whatever, you know, sufferings that we're dealing with, we can actually view those from a different perspective. So I think that's really important.

Just to follow up on that for a moment, what you said about the indigenous world and your experience there, this is also true in the Vedic traditions, uh, on both that and the Buddhist traditions, which came out of the Vedic traditions, of really holding death close at hand and really continually contemplating death on a daily basis, as well as having that commitment to extend one's life in order to attain liberation for the benefit of all beings and create as much benefit as one can in one's lifetime, but while contemplating death as a daily reality, right? So it's kind of, it's really interesting bringing the two of those together, which of course allows us to really appreciate our life much more. You know, where we're doing the things to grow spiritually and extend our lives and add value to our communities, and while at the same time we're living with the reality of the fragility of life and the permanence of life. That seems to be the sweet spot, really, even for just having a sense of meaning in life and even joy. I mean, it's, you know, the joy that we experience when we really appreciate the ephemeral nature of something or a beautiful flower blooming or something. So it seems like you need to bring those two things together to hit that sweet spot.

Yeah. And what I was gonna kind of get to is like kind of like the meaning piece, right? So this is a big part of, of growing older. You know, you mentioned something about, you know, outgrowing or outliving your children, right? And I actually met a gal that was 94 years old, and I asked her, I said, look, you know, your husband's passed, you know, your kids, some of them have passed, a lot of your friends have passed. What keeps you going? You know? And she said, well, I have to learn this song for the violin class on Wednesday. Right? And so she just picked up the violin at 91. And I, I used to play violin. She was horrible, but she was doing it. She learned a new skill at 91 and she could actually play and she had meaning derived, she derived meaning from that, right? So, so this to me gets to the crux of, of what you were saying earlier, that what is the reason that we want to live a long time? Is this so that I can be named the, the human that's, that's lived the longest in the, in the record books? You know, what is that? What's the point, right? And, and, and when you hang around enough old people that are in their 90s and beyond, what I recognized is that there seemed to be this acceptance of like, I lived a full life, I'm kind of good. So I think this is what naturally happens as we get older, as we get closer to the end, we start to recognize of like, I can't hang on forever. I don't really want to, right? The body is starting to let go. I can still have my mind. I can still have relative health. And yet I'm kind of— I'm tired. Without complaining, without drawing any negativity around that, of just like, I've done it. This is good. I'm good. Whenever I go, I'm good, right? So that's what I recognized in a lot of the people that I was around, was that there was an acceptance of death. There was an acceptance of reaching the end, of whenever I go, I go. It's all good. It's okay. So So, you know, I think if, but the other side of that, as you, as you alluded to, the meaning that we hold as we grow older right now, what I see in the West is a severe lack of elders of that role, that archetype of elders. Now, sure, we've got some older people, no question. We have decent lifespan in the West, even though it's declining over the last 5 years. We still have a decent lifespan, but it's the wisdom. And the archetype of the elder that is so valuable to society, right? And so, I mean, we gotta know we have too many in government, I guess, right now. But, but at the end of the day, the real leaders of a, of a community, of a society, of a culture, right, is gonna come from those elders. And so this is a two-part opportunity that we have going forward is to, for people as they get older, as they retire from their jobs, what is their What is their perspective on their life at this point? Is it, okay, I'm, I'm done, I'm over, I can't really contribute to society? Or is it now I get to step into this elder role and I get to guide the people around me? And whatever that might look like, it might be on a wide scale or a small scale. But if we have more of that transition happening, that's gonna benefit all of us, right? But then the other side of that is the younger people. There's a total, there's a lack of value in viewing older people that way. So we're not even willing to look up and say, guide me, right? So there's two pieces to this puzzle, and we're kind of lacking in both. So we really need elders to step into that role. And it would be really helpful if the younger people can start to appreciate the value of elders. Now, I'm not sure it's a chicken and the egg type of problem. My assumption is that as we get more elders, then the young people will find confidence in the elders that they, that they come across, right? So they, they kind of need to lead the way. Now, this is, this is the very valuable purpose of somebody growing older. It's not to live a long time necessarily, but the longer that they can maintain that role of elder. So if you step into that at 50 or 70 or whatever that role looks like for you, if we can maintain that for as long as possible, that's going to really benefit society because, because of the experience and the wisdom that was gained, right? The scars that picked up don't need to be passed on to the degree that you pick them up, right? So this is, to me, it's the meaning that we hold. What is the meaning? And, and so for me, when I look at living a long time, the way I view that is that I get to step into that elder role, and I look forward to really being that for younger generations. And also, it gives me more time to come into myself, to know myself, myself, right? Not necessarily to, to produce the widget, right? Um, or to do more work. If that, if that, if I derive value from that and it's meaningful to me, great. But the deeper work really is getting to know myself. And so from here going forward, my work personally is to become more present in the moment, in the now, become more embodied. So not just theorizing about all these things, but truly giving them into my body to walk, to walk with enlightenment day to day. Right. And so that to me, I want to be healthy so that I can focus my energy, attention, and awareness on these types of growth versus trying to deal with all the chaos that the chronic issues and health issues come with. Right. So when we induce this sort of healthspan, it gives us— it frees up more resource, mental, physical, emotional. Life force to apply to these, these things that are outside of myself, right? And even with coming into my body and becoming more aware, the personal work that, that is done for the intent of all, all beings, all life, right? So the work that I'm doing selfishly is actually an unselfish act in that way. Living a long time just to live a long time. Being healthy just to be healthy and to produce, to make more money, to produce the widget. These are, these are conditions that our society, that our culture, that we've picked up along the way that are not really in alignment with, I, I think the, the highest value that we can bring.

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I love that your work is grounded in this, you know, looking for this alignment between health and wellbeing and life optimization and meaning of life and wisdom and being able to contribute to add value and And especially that you brought up wisdom. Sometimes, you know, I think one of the reasons I would aspire to have a relatively long life and long health span is to be becoming wiser just with life. I mean, I do a lot of things to hopefully accelerate my wisdom, but also just, you know, the longer you're around, the more you learn about life, right? Naturally. And unfortunately, it seems the role of the elder almost has to happen at the local level. And you know, we've moved away from extended families and even nuclear families. So how do, you know, the elders are off, you know, there's no contact. And when young people look out at the older people at scale in society, they see, oh, they're creating climate change or they're screwing everything up. Why should we trust them, right? If they're more likely, I think people are more likely to connect with that wisdom of the elder locally in their own families, in their own neighborhood. So somehow, We have to rediscover that possibly. But you know, there's that old saying, you know, youth is wasted on the young, right? And it seems like there's a lot of truth to that. But if you can have more vitality as you're older, then maybe that can be reversed. I mean, to, to, to still have good vitality, good health, be able to do things and also have the wisdom of 60, 70, 80, 90 years could, could really be a sweet spot of, of creating quality of life and meaning of life and so forth, as well as having a lot to to offer to others.

By the way, real quick, I think those are connected. In other words, I don't know, let me phrase it this way. It's really, it's not as easy to live a long life, a long healthy life, if you don't have true wisdom. So true wisdom, very much connected.

Yes.

Right. From direct experience in alignment with life's principles. Right. So that is sort of a prerequisite to live a long time. Now, so we can sort of skirt around that. Some people are constitutionally born stronger, right, in their body. So in other words, health doesn't start with me. It helps. It starts with my parents and their parents and their parents and their parents. So this is, this is proven with modern science. We've seen the effects of these epigenetic effects that, that, that go through the lineage. So some people literally come into this world born stronger than the rest of us. And that is in part due to their lineage and the things that they've gone through. Now that, now we can say that's wisdom. Transmitted through the generations, right? That's life. I mean, this is, this is the essence of Ayurveda, really. It's, it's transmitting wisdom through the, into the body, through the generation. So it's, it's actually affecting our genetic expression, but it's also picked up in one's personal life as well. And we can argue even beyond this life, there's, there's wisdom that it carries through, it gets carried through. So this wisdom piece is, is so central. To being healthy. And, and some of the things that we have yet to learn in this life, um, we might call these karmic, but there's things that we haven't figured out yet, right? That is all part of our wisdom history, you could say. So wisdom and direct experience is so central to our experience in this life and what that looks like. And so to speed through this wisdom piece, you know, there's— we can go through it with a pace, I used to think that wisdom that I learned through basically failure and struggle and all this stuff. And then at some point I recognized, oh wait, I can actually pick up wisdom without the struggle, without the pain, without the, the toughness, right? We, we can, we get to learn through ease, through grace, right? Through others. There's direct transmission from, uh, valuable people. Um, we can call them in our family as well as wisdom holders and wisdom keepers and other people in the sort of spiritual world. But we can actually pick that up directly. That's what's cool about our system is that we actually don't have to go through the struggles that they had to necessarily to, to, for them to impart the wisdom. And I, and I, I'm using wisdom here, not knowledge, not information.

Mm-hmm.

That somebody can tell you something 1,000 times and you still may not have the direct wisdom embodied, you know, in your system. So, so this wisdom piece really, really is critical. And so I agree with you, like my, my goal is to pick up wisdom come through ease and through grace when possible, and through struggle and challenge when necessary. And, and so if I can do that, now part of that is, is my willingness, my curiosity, right? Curiosity is a very big piece in this sort of spiritual development world, and even in the human development world, right? A child that's curious will learn faster. So some of this curiosity and willingness to engage with life itself is a part of it. Now that's a choice that I get make. So this is where the personal choice, right, this autonomy that we actually have— we can choose to engage with things or not engage. And the more we engage with them, and this can be a direct physical engagement or it can be meditative engagement, but there's a, there's a, there's a, there has to be a willingness in order to engage with life in order to get some of this wisdom.

So let's start talking a bit about, um, How we can, and along with what you're saying, we have more access to the world's wisdom traditions than we've ever had before. It's kind of, and again, it's an amazing time to be alive. Let's start talking about how we can begin to change beliefs, transform beliefs that are not in support of longevity and healthspan and begin to develop beliefs that would be in more support of that. Because there's, you know, in question of health and vitality, there's many people in their 30s, 40s, and 50s who are not living optimal lives, who are dealing with a lot of health struggles, who are really, you know, aging way too early because of their diets and all the processed food and all the things in our culture. There's a lot of fear around Alzheimer's and dementia. You know, some of these diseases and diabetes and Alzheimer's and dementia, all of which are kind of interrelated, are really on their ascendancy. And even though we know what their root causes are, so, You know, for our audience, what are— how do we begin to understand, you know, what have I inherited in terms of my belief structures from my family lineage, from my culture? How do I learn about what are the beliefs that are driving my behaviors that are not so supportive to health and longevity? And then how do I begin to change that? And so that I can really develop the beliefs that are gonna motivate the behaviors that'll allow me to live a longer and healthier life?

Yeah, I think you, you hit it on the head, which is first asking the question, right? So, you know, I've come to the conclusion that I have to be really careful with my beliefs. These are very, very powerful things that we hold, and I would argue that most of them are, are at least partially incorrect or mostly incorrect, right? So if we just start there, and if we start with this idea that I'm actually ignorant, that I don't know, that my beliefs are probably at least a little bit wrong or very wrong or wrong some of the time or most of the time, right? Then we can start from a, a humble place and we can examine and we can hold very lightly what our beliefs are. Doesn't mean we have to throw them away, but we, but it helps to hold them very lightly so that if, if new evidence comes, if new experience shows me that something things that it's not quite correct, that I don't have it quite correct, then we're able to pivot. We're able to actually create a new belief. So I think that's step one, is just to get curious about your beliefs that you hold. And many of our beliefs are going to be hidden from us. They're going to be so— we're going to be so blinded by them that we don't actually see them until something happens, and then that can shift our belief. So, so I think that's the starting point, is to recognize I have all these beliefs Many of them I don't see, I don't know. And yet the ones that I can identify are probably wrong, right? So that's, that's a good starting point. That means we have tons of growth opportunity. We have tons of, of ability to shift these. So if we start there, then engaging with the world in a, in a variety of ways. So bringing in variety into your— if you're doing the same thing over and over again every single day, it can be very difficult to encounter anything that's going to create an opportunity for a shift in belief, right? So this is just kind of blanket statement. Go experience more things. Go, go vary the, the experiences that you have. That's, that's the, that's the kind of shotgun approach. Just like wing it and go try stuff right now. We can, we can refine this a little bit. And I would say that experience being around people that are emulating or embodying what you want to embody, right? Um, in, in business, I've done this in business where I'm around. I, if you just hang around and open and pay attention to people that are doing well in business, you are going to pick up different things, right? You can start to understand why they're good at business, and it's not because they're more skillful or inherently better or what have you. They've just navigated that world in a different way than you have. So we can pick up that, that type of thing. So I'd say start with surrounding yourself with the people that are embodying things that, that you don't yet quite embody. That's a really, really good place to start. The other thing is, I would say you can, you can examine your own beliefs that you can find, that you can identify, and you can meditate on those. You can and contemplate them, right? So the self-reflective work, I think, can be very, very powerful. It may not get you to the end goal, but you can start to identify these certain beliefs that are a little wobbly that you inherently know, right? And as we become more embodied in touch with ourselves, this is a very good light, guiding light, right? So you often hear people say, oh, follow your heart, follow your gut. Well, those are great sayings, but if you don't really know what that means, We don't really know how to do that. And I would say most of us have at least some struggle with that. Like we're not perfect with that, but we can get better so we can recondition this, this tuning system. We can get this more highly focused so that I can start to actually follow my body signals, the truth of what is really happening, right? The body holds a lot and we have very intricate systems to be able to follow this. So becoming more in tune with that. Now, how do we do that? Well, a lot of times it requires processing old traumas and things that are, that are creating the belief structures and that are keeping us stuck. So, you know, working with some kind of therapist, and there's many kinds of different therapists out there that do amazing type of work, right? Including the plant medicine world, right? Working with some people there to help dismantle and process some of those things. I've had, I've had a number of experiences personally and worked with clients in this realm too, where once we process this stuck piece, you can imagine, imagine something that, that just hasn't been processed from when you were 6. So there's this belief, there's a whole condition around it. There's, it's holding in the body, it's holding in the mind and the mindset. There's a belief around it. And as we process that, generally it requires another nervous system to do this or a special modality to help our own nervous system do this. But once we process this through our system, The new belief comes. This is what's wild, is that by processing some of this old gunk that's, that's stuck in our body-mind, the new belief arises, um, to become a good person, to be able to become compassionate. Compassionate— compassion is not something that you have to work for, generally speaking. And we can practice it and we can cultivate it, no question, but But when you process some of this stuff, compassion arises. It's like it's the piece left over after you've chipped away all the coal. You know, you see a diamond right inside, and it's— they've been there all along. It's just been mucked over by this stuff. So when we process some of these traumas and these conditionings, the natural gem will arise. So that's part of it. There's another part which is conscious, and we can practice new beliefs, right? This is a gratitude practice, right? This is, uh, objectively, objectively viewing reality. So I suffered with chronic pain. Well, as it turns out, that chronic pain can be caused by something in the physical world, no question. Mold, heavy metals, you know, various other things can cause this chronic pain, not to mention physical abnormalities and, and that kind of thing that can arise. What's interesting though, in, in that world, in the chronic pain world, is that our nervous system becomes conditioned to a So now our nervous— so in other words, chronic pain can be exacerbated or literally frozen in our nervous system because that pain signal is so conditioned, it becomes so sensitized. So now we can actually get rid of the original cause of the chronic pain and the body's still remembering chronic pain. It's remembering the circuit of pain, pain, pain, pain. And we've created beliefs around that. Oh, I can't move that, that way, because if I do, then it's going to be painful. So we can literally reinforce this cycle. And dig it in deeper, right? So this chronic pain piece, there's two ways kind of out of that. One is whenever I'm not in pain— this is kind of alludes to the work you were doing earlier— is you start to recognize, oh, I'm sitting here and my knee is fine. I can rewire the safety signal into that chronic pain loop. So now I'm rewiring that. And then that on the flip side of that, when I am feeling pain, hopefully I can get into a position that is unbearable, but I can feel the pain. And this happened to me in a Vipassana meditation retreat that I did, 10 days, no talking, meditating 16 hours a day, 17 hours a day. And what I recognized that I had pain at the beginning. And as this 10-day experience went on, the pain reduced because I was doing a sort of body scanning, um, of this part of the practice. And when you get, when I got to the pain point, I didn't have an emotion around it anymore. I didn't have a— I was rewiring. Even though I was feeling the pain, I was able to objectively view it. Oh, it's hot, it's sharp, it's pulsing. So I can just look at it as for what it is without the danger and threat. So now I'm rewiring the— on the pain side, everything's okay. And when it's not, when there's no pain, I'm rewiring everything's okay. So now I'm rewiring this safe And that's just on the pain side. This can be any chronic health condition that you can name, or mental condition, depression, anxiety, whatever the case might be. We can actually rewire these things. So there's a conscious rewiring, um, of the, the condition itself. So there's, there's, there's actually so much we can do to change our beliefs. Now, once I start rewiring that chronic pain condition, my beliefs start to change. Because my evidence and my reality is shifting. So that one Vipassana meditation retreat that I did was enough to crack me open and look at my pain differently. I saw, wow, 10 days, my pain reduced while sitting in a kneeling position meditating. Okay, that means that it's not just physical. Sure, there may be some physical abnormalities that are creating a heightened pain response, but what it taught me was that there was a nervous system component, there was a brain component, component, that I was exacerbating the signal. There was something involved with me and my view of the pain. So that was enough to, to crack it open. And then I did more work and found the science behind it and, and other things that, that are, um, that have shown that this is, this is in large part the case with all chronic pain. There's probably 90 to 95% is at least partially driven by the brain and nervous system conditioning. So So sometimes you just need that little bit. But if I'd never gone to that Vipassana, I didn't go there to try to solve chronic pain. I went there for a totally different reason that were spiritually related and just experientially. What is this going to be like? I've never not talked for 10 days. So in that experience, just putting myself into that experience, I was able to get this other outcome that, that was able to change a belief even so slightly. It didn't fully change it so that, so the, the process of unwinding that chronic pain is the practicing of changing my beliefs around it. So generally with beliefs, there's a piece of the body that's involved. And this can be political beliefs. This can be any kind of belief you can imagine. There's a piece in the body that is triggered whenever you have an experience. And a perfect example of this is if you go up on stage to give a speech in front of 5,000 people, most of us are going to be a little bit nervous in that experience, you know, unless you're very, very experienced. We're going to have a little bit of nerves. What are those nerves? They're nothing but a projection of what might happen if I screw up, if I'm not viewed, uh, in— if I'm viewed in such a way that I'm not accepted, or that I'm whatever the case is. These are beliefs that are being projected into the future that are creating a body sensation, and the body sensation starts to reinforce these things, right? So, um, that whole belief and conditioning of me speaking on stage came from a prior experience of of not being accepted, of not being loved, or whatever the case might be, the fear signals from the past that is informing me that this is actually not so safe. You could be outed here. You could be kicked out of the tribe, you know, these type of things. So there's a piece with the body that is— it cannot be disconnected from beliefs. So if we're trying to rewire beliefs, any kind of somatic piece to this will be beneficial. And so oftentimes we can actually go just to the body itself and beliefs will shift.

Well, you've shared a, a, a lot, incredibly helpful. I wanna, I wanna summarize here a little bit and then kind of we're nearing the end of our time and I wanna ask you about a very specific belief before we finish. One belief that you might think might most be in, in our way in terms of health and longevity. So you can think about that, but we'll come back to that. But, You know, I love what you pointed to about, you know, wisdom and really foundational to wisdom is curiosity, open-mindedness, humility. You know, if we just take, and so much what you've been talking about today is mindset. And you know, I think a lot of people, longevity, okay, well tell me what to eat, which diet should I be in? Keto or should I be in paleo or should I be this? Do I need to be vegan? Can I eat red meat, grass-fed meat? Can I do, you know, all this, you know, tell me what to do. They might want all that information or, you know, we know we're surrounded, you know, the things you were talking about, we know a lot of it is diseases caused by some kind of systemic inflammation, which not only can happen as a direct result of our diet or pollutants in the air or other things, but then it can get conditioned as these patterns into the body that could perpetuate chronic pain past the cause of the chronic pain as you're discussing. So the mindset and really understanding how all this works seems to be so essential Yes, we can try to do things to eat, to figure out whatever the best diet is for us to lessen our exposure to pollutants, although we can't completely live in a bubble. But the mindset part of it is so powerful that you're pointing to. And just to generalize that a bit, it seems like most of the beliefs that are not helpful in the long run in terms of our health and wellbeing and meaning in life and spiritual wellbeing, the whole thing had to do with sort of fear-based beliefs about herself that I'm not enough, or feelings of unworthiness, not enoughness, and scarcity beliefs about the world that there's not enough resources to go around, which puts me in basically a fear-based posture. This is a human condition. It's nobody's fault. But we have the ability as conscious beings to transcend that and to create the sense of safety and resource and connect us that can help us not live in that state of fight or flight. But absent that we tend to evolve these belief structures that are fear-based, and that may be a lower or higher level of functionality, but it's still essentially fear-based. And then with the very experiences, it gets conditioned into these patterns, right? And so we could talk about very specific beliefs, but in general, that seems to be some, I mean, in talking to Stephen Porteous during the pandemic, he felt, you know, as the phenomenon of long COVID became, you know, an issue and still is an issue for people, he felt like that was, the original virus was probably not operational anymore, but the system got locked into a patterning, right? A patterning of reactivity that was now perpetuating the system. Very much exactly what you're talking about, right? So I love that you're talking so much about the mindset stuff and how do we change that by becoming reflective human beings who are curious, open-minded, humble, and studying ourselves and studying the world and just curious and being willing to kind of to figure it out. I think we've all been kind of acculturated to just say, "Somebody gimme the answer, gimme a rule book to follow," right? Instead of, you know, kind of embracing the responsibility that each of us has to become a reflective human being who's, it's up to me to grow and educate myself and increase my knowledge, my wisdom and so forth. And of course there's lots of sources, but that simplistic view of, and you know, and then when we follow the culture and we find ourselves with all kinds of disease 'cause we've just been eating what they advertise on TV and then we feel victimized by it, right? Because we're not taking responsibility for this. So I love that you're in general pointing to this area and I wonder if you could, and that you're really bringing this into the rewiring because this is, you know, this is about rewiring our beliefs, right? And to optimize our lives. And we understand the phenomenon of neuroplasticity that we can rewire our nervous system, we can rewire the brain. And you know, our beliefs are reflected in neural networks that are more robust or less robust. So we can literally, we can think of changing our beliefs psychologically. We can also think of it neurobiologically and the two are completely connected obviously. And this summit originally came out of our Rewriting the Brain World Summit. So that's the place we're in. So I love that you're, you know, speaking about it in that way and how we've all accumulated a certain level of this fear-based fight or flight patterning that leads to chronic inflammation and disease and shortens our lives and all kinds of health problems. And we can begin to reverse that. And probably developing a self-understanding to do that and questioning our beliefs and developing the kind of mindset you've been talking about may even be more impactful than the specific food we eat or the specific exercise regimen we take on. Not that those things aren't important.

Well, I'll give you an example of that, Fleet, because, You know, we've probably all heard the phrase that chronic stress kills, right? Or chronic stress is bad for your health. Well, is that true? Right? What we're finding is that chronic stress, it's not the chronic stress, it's not the stress that, that's harmful to our body. It's the belief that it's harmful to our body that does the most harm. And the reason we know this is because we can have these, let's say, stressful experiences. If I go to to, to a, a theme park, and I go on a roller coaster, this virtually the same mechanisms biologically, physiologically are happening in a, on a thrill ride. And yet I'm having fun and I can't wait to do it. And oh my gosh, that is a different euphoric stress, right? A eustress versus this fear-based stress. So it, I'm not so sure that it's the actual stress It's the, it's the belief about the stress that is creating more harm. And same thing with, with McDonald's hamburger, which we can all agree is not the best food. If I, if I ingest that in a, in a, in a state where my, my biology is, is suboptimal, in other words, I'm not in this rest and digest parasympathetic state and I'm eating this thing and oh my God, there's processed seed oils and everything is, there's glyphosate and there's all this. If I'm eating that burger in that state, day, then that has a, we digest it differently than if I were to eat it almost ignorant of the ill health effects. And I'm on a beach and I'm, and I'm restful. Now, not to say don't eat these things. Like, so there's, this is why we gotta hold our beliefs very lightly because it's not what I'm saying. Chronic stress can be harmful, but, but what, what's the belief around it? McDonald's hamburgers are not healthy, but we can make it worse. We can compound that, right, with the beliefs that we hold, right? So these are the things that, again, when I, when I stated that like most of the beliefs that we have are at least partially incorrect, I'm, I'm very serious with that because we just don't know where these, these threats are hiding in our belief, so to speak. But it is the, the mindset, it is the belief. Another one that has to do that I learned very, um, uh, strongly growing up was that hard work. In order to be successful, you must work hard. And so I held that belief in my system. It wasn't a conscious thought I had all the time, but that was embedded in all the motivational videos that I watched as an athlete. All the things was like, work hard, you must work hard. It, if you wanna be successful, you gotta work hard. You can go onto YouTube and find tons of motivational speeches that essentially give you that message. Now, if we parse that out a little bit. I'm not saying hard work is bad. Hard work is a very good thing. Like, sure, absolutely. But if, if you're tying these two together, success and hard work are intimately linked, then you will never find success without hard work. Everything will be hard for you. And that's what I created in my reality. And I locked that in. It was frozen in my reality. So anytime I had success, I had to work hard. So that proved to me, that reinforced the belief, well, success Success, hard work, okay. But there was other times where I'd work hard and I wouldn't have success. And then what I later learned was, oh, I can actually have success, I can have abundance, I can do all these things without working so hard. And, and that may sound obvious as I stated, but to have that embodied in my system and to behave and to believe as such, that's a totally different reality that I can create with, with saying that yes, hard work is valuable and when necessary necessary. It can be a very good tool, and I can also have success without working so hard, right?

So the—

there's so much nuance in our beliefs. So that's what I mean, like, there's, there's very— there's so much nuance, and it really comes down to the, the linking of some of these things. If we're yoking them together, if they are so intimately linked, then they will— then we're going to operate that way, and our reality is going to reflect that back to us. So sometimes they need to be unhooked looked. Chronic pain, yes. Deformities can increase chronic pain, no. Every deformity is not linked with chronic pain. So we can, we gotta unlink those. And John Sarno was one of the first chiropractors that looked at this. He was looking at back images and one guy was running marathons and the other guy couldn't get outta bed and looked almost exactly the same on, on the imaging that he was doing. And that was his point of saying, well, what's going on here? You know, I was taught that this is how, you know, if this, if I see this in a back, back, then there's going to be, there's going to be unbelievable pain. But his evidence showed him not the case. So we've got to unhook some of these things. Our beliefs are often intricate, intricately linked, and so unhooking those can, can provide a new level of reality.

Yeah, and there's actual studies that show that it's our beliefs about stress that are determinant of the negative impacts of stress. Stress in particular. I'm not sure about chronic stuff. If you stay in a state of actual chronic stress, that's probably going to be unhealthy in the long run.

I think you're locked the fear in that case.

Yeah, it could be exacerbated still. The mind, the mind is so powerful. So Jason, if there, you've talked about some already, but if you had to pick one in your work with people, one belief that you feel people hold that may be fairly prevalent in society or in the world that most undermines their health and wellbeing and their prospects for living a longer, healthier life, what would that be? What stands out to you?

I would say on the physical health side, it's the belief that, um, there's something wrong with my body, whether it's the genes, whether it's my gut, whatever, whatever it is, is not working correctly. My thyroid, my liver, my brain, there's something going on there. My skin, it's not working correctly. So there's something inherently wrong with the way my body is. Um, that is completely wrong. We have an optimal expression of our biology. We're just out of alignment alignment with something, our behaviors, our thoughts, our ideas, how we're acting. It's just out of alignment with, with the full expression of that, of your genetic code, so to speak. So that's a big one. Another, another one is kind of what you said earlier. It's this belief that we are not safe. It's the belief that we are just, that we are not all connected, right? And that we don't have the power. So these are kind of the first 3 chakras, right? The safety mechanism, right? The root, the sacral, which is connection, right? And the third chakra is essentially the I am, right? So those are kind of key pieces. And then we can work at the heart in there as well, which is that we are all love, we are all connected in that, in that way. And there's a divine union of masculine and feminine, and all the, the dualities come together at the heart, right? So when we, when we perceive that we are disconnected— I'm alone, I am, I don't have support, right? These are deeply embedded. These are beyond the conscious mind most of the time. So those are, those those things that are beliefs that are, that are more, I would say, body-based or system-based beyond the mind even, um, are holding us back. And this is part of the reason why meditative practice, why the spiritual pursuits are so critical, and the processing of traumas. Because as we do those, that work, that interpersonal work, these things start to recognize on their own without any efforting, ah, I am actually always connected. I'm connected to myself. I'm connected to the earth. I'm connected to, to all that is, right? When you have that embodied in your system, then these little tugs of loneliness, of disconnection, aren't quite as strong. And that helps provide that safety, that connection, and the power that I am here, I am, I can do this, right? So these are the mother-father principles. There's so many deeply, uh, deep aspects to this wisdom. But doing that work will really help ignite the truth about these things, who you are, what's really true. And when you have the direct experience, and you may only have it once. But that's all it takes is to have a direct experience of connection to all by just sitting here. Then you start to recognize, okay, well, that's always there. I'm just not accessing it all the time. So just that little bit of like, peek into the window of the truth of who you are and what you are, will start to dismantle those beliefs, perhaps slowly, perhaps very quickly. But when we, when we do that, then our health improves, our finances improve, our relationships improve. Everything about our reality starts to almost as if magic shift. And so that's keeping us stuck, is those, those, those incorrect beliefs about what's really happening in my reality.

Wow, so powerful, incredibly illuminating and empowering. Thank you so much for the work you're doing.

Likewise, thanks Fleet.

Be well.

Thank you for joining me on the Radical Responsibility Podcast. Remember, real change happens when we commit to our growth, face our challenges with compassion, and stay open to transformation. If you found this episode helpful, I encourage you to subscribe and help us spread the message of healing and personal empowerment. Until next time, stay grounded, stay present, and stay true to yourself. Take care.