PNTV - Trust Your Vibes by Sonia Choquette

You're listening to Optimize with Bryan Johnson. More wisdom in less time.

Hi, this is Brian. Welcome to Philosopher's Notes tv. Today we're going to profile one of my favorite books by one of my favorite teachers, Trust yout Vibes by Sonia Choquette. She is awesome. We've got the great book, My Philosopher's Notes. On it, we've got about six or eight or more of my favorite big ideas from this book, which is essentially one big idea after another, all about trusting our vibes. So the subtitle of the book is Secret Tools for Six Sensory Living. So the book is all about getting us to appreciate the fact that we have six senses we need to tend to. So most of us pay attention to our traditional five senses. We have the sense of sight, of touch, of smell, of taste, and of hearing, right? So those are our five senses that we all know about. She says we need to pay attention to and live with six senses. Our sixth sense is our sense of intuition or our emotional guidance system, or as she says, our vibes, kind of that inner knowing. And we've got to learn to trust our vibes. So that's what the book is all about. Again, packed with big ideas. And I'm excited to take a quick look at a few of my favorites. She's got some awesome ones. So first we need to get into the rhythms of nature. We need to align with the rhythms of nature, right? Wayne Dyer likes to say that before we can be spiritual beings, first we need to be good animals, right? We've got to honor nature's rhythms. And Sonya points out the fact that we've got to do simple things. If we want our sixth sense working. We've got to make sure we're doing things like getting enough sleep, exercising often enough, eating well, taking it easy, right? And allowing for our intuition to be present. But if we're always busy and we're always frenetic, we're never going to have the opportunity to really sit into and allow that intuition, our vibes, to really come forward and be present in our lives. So she has an extraordinary quote. She says that excessive adrenaline is to your intuition what Kryptonite is to Superman. It's lethal. I'm going to repeat that. Excessive adrenaline. So being frenetic and always going, going, going is to your intuition what Kryptonite is to Superman. Lethal. Isn't that cool? So we got to calm down, and I'm all about being intense and pushing edges and finding just how far we can go in life. But I'M also about oscillating. And I meditate. The first thing I do every morning is meditate for an hour, and then I meditate for 15 minutes. At the end of the day, I bookend my day with meditation and really plugging into the divine. I move for at least 30 minutes a day. I take breaks throughout the day. So it's all about finding the rhythm so we can really live from our deepest intuition. So check in and see if perhaps you have too much adrenaline in your life and you need to take the time to go for quiet hikes or take a bath or do whatever it is that renews your soul. You remember in 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. The seventh habit, sharpen your saw. That's what we're talking about here. We've got to sharpen our saw if we want to be deeply connected to the highest within us. Really big idea. Another really big idea is to get out and move. We've got to exercise. So she has a great idea that I cover in the note, talking about two things. One, if you ever find yourself kind of in a looping pattern of stress and you're just rethinking the same thought again and again and again, you've got to get out of that. You got to step out. And she says, go out for a walk, or better yet, go for a run. Just get in the flow. Get into your body so you're no longer ruminating on that stuff. And it's actually scientifically established by another Sonia named Sonia Liebermersky, who talks about it in her great book, the how of Happiness. She says that rumination, overthinking when you're in a bad mood, that's literally the perfect recipe for toxicity. And you will not be happy until you learn to quit ruminating when you're in a bad mood. When you're in a bad mood, that's the time to go, get into a better mood and go exercise and do whatever it is you do to replenish, to reflect, refill your emotional fuel tank, which we talk about when we did Abraham Hicks. So anyway, we want to get out of the looping thoughts and we want to move. Really big idea. If we want to tap into our sixth sense, we've got to move, we've got to exercise regularly. And I want to point out something else I talk about in the note, because it's a huge idea. Sonja Lieborsky, the positive psychologist, just awesome. Her book, how of Happiness, she says she talks about a research project where they tested people, they brought In a group of clinically depressed individuals, split them into three groups. One group exercise three days a week for 45 minutes of moderate to high intensity cycling or walking and jogging exercise. Another group took Zoloft and a third group did both exercise and Zoloft. Now, what was amazing was within how long was it? Four months. They all started clinically depressed. Within four months, all of them had reduced their symptoms. The exercise group, the Zoloft group and both. And that's amazing, right? Think about that. Exercise had the same effect as Zoloft. And not only that, but six months later, the group of people who exercised had a lower relapse rate into depression than either the group that took Zoloft or the group that did both exercise and Zoloft. So exercise is huge. It's a great way to get into nature's rhythms and to get into a place we can trust our vibes and feel good about ourselves and our lives. Really big idea. I'm going to come back to that again and again and again and again and again and again and then a few more times, because the idea is huge. So the next idea is very timely for me. Stay calm and breathe. I'm going to go ahead and breathe. So she talks about the fact that whenever we feel fear, we tend to collapse our breath. We contract and we stop breathing deeply. What we want to do is really open into the world and breathe deeply. And I mentioned here a big idea on breathing into our fear. And one of my friends and mentors, Gay Hendricks, in his great book, the Big Leap, he talks about the fact that fear is excitement without the breath. Isn't that amazing? That's from Fritz Perls, the founder of Gestalt Therapy. Fear is excitement without the breath. It's the same, same energy. One's just stopped right here. It has no breath. But if we breathe into it, we find that we can move through the fear and actually experience excitement. And Gay says, breathe into it like you're blowing out birthday candles and the fear will transform, transmute into excitement and into exhilaration. Really cool idea. So if you're feeling fear, check in. My hunch is you've gone like this, you've collapsed. Your breathing is about this deep. We got to bring it deep into our lungs and watch the fear turn into excitement. So that's all cool. I've got some other big ideas in here we might get to, but I want to take some time on another big idea that I just love. It's one of my favorite quotes, actually, in all 100 notes. It's just beautiful. She talks about the fact that the universe, God, whatever you want to call that higher force that's beating my heart right now. It's beating your heart right now, without us thinking about it. Keeping all the planets aligned somehow, how does that happen? There's something bigger than us at work, right? And she says it's kind of like there's a master gardener. And if we're going to garden, all we can do is we create the environment, we create the context. We do everything we can to make the garden open to the master gardener doing its work, to bring all of our vegetables and fruits or whatever to fruition. But we don't have control over that process. All we can do, we don't have control over the outcomes of the harvest. All we can do is our best to create the circumstances and the context and the structures to facilitate a healthy harvest. Right? It's unbelievably cool to imagine life that way, where our job is to align with the divine. Our job is to purify ourselves, to cleanse ourselves. Joseph Campbell I mentioned in the note, he said, am I the light or am I the light bulb? And I like to think of it as we are essentially both, but our job, we are essentially the light bulb, right? And now we can be a 10 watt bulb or a 20 watt bulb or a 50 watt bulb, or even a 5,000 watt bulb. And it's our job to really get that strength and that power so we can consistently allow God the divine to flow through us. Isn't that cool? So again, our work is to live the stuff we know to be true and allow the divine essence to come through us. Then we're not attached to results. We're committed to being what we need to be, who we need to be, to allow that essence to flow through us. I get excited about this and I'm excited to talk about that a lot more. So there's a few of my favorite big ideas. Check out the note for more. Check out the book for even more. And let's get our sixth sense on. Let's develop our intuition. Let's create the environment and circumstances to go out and rock it. Have fun. Look forward to sharing more with you soon. See you.

Hi, this is Brian. I hope you enjoyed that Philosopher's Notes TV episode. If so, I think you'll enjoy everything else we offer at BrianJohnson. Me two basic things. One one, our free newsletter. It's called the Optimizer. Over 50,000 people start their day with it and they tell us it's pretty awesome. And 2 our optimal living Membership program.

This is where I put all my best stuff.

10 bucks a month for a ton of wisdom. Two primary things in there philosopher's notes plus optimal living 101 classes when you sign up, you'll get instant access to 250 philosopher's notes, which are basically six page PDFs and 20 minute MP3s where I capture my favorite big ideas from great books. The PNTV episodes are kind of a mini version of all that goodness. You'll also get instant access to all my Optimal Living classes.

This is where I take all the.

Ideas we cover in the Philosopher's Notes and boil it down to the most practical stuff you can apply today. Classes include Confidence 101, Getting Stuff Done 101, Relationships 101, Habits 101, etc. You'll also get access to what we call micro classes that I think you'll love. We aim to astonish and we're blessed to have thousands of members telling us we're helping them change their lives and that this is the best 10 bucks they invest in themselves every month. Go to BrianJohnson ME membership to learn more. Thanks for your support and have an awesome day.