Episode 34: “Rewiring the Subconscious” with Lee Banister

Welcome to Super Connections. I am your host, Jennifer K. Hill, helping you with the Golden Triangle of Connection, where you will super connect to yourself, others, and your purpose. Join me each week as I will share from some of my favorite tips and tools for super connecting, and I'll bring in some of my favorite friends and thought leaders to help support you on your journey to super connecting to the life of your dreams. Hello friends, and welcome back for episode 34 of the Super Connections Podcast. I'm sad to say, but also happy that we've been on this journey together for 34 episodes, that this will be our final episode. And in fact, I'd love to dedicate it to my longtime business partner and dear friend Julian Adler, who has been with me through thick and thin, helped me build my current company OptiMatch, and recently passed away as of the week of the recording of this episode. So it's in his honor that we will complete this show, and I'm so excited to bring you a very special final guest. I wouldn't have it any other way. And in Julian's honor, we'll be starting a new podcast next year on AI and consciousness. So tune back into the channel for more details on that. Without further ado, I'd love to introduce you to today's guest, Lee Bannister. He's a transformation and human potential expert who helps people rewire the subconscious patterns that hold them back and unlock the confidence, freedom, and success they were born for. With more than 20 years of experience and 10,000+ hours of coaching, as well as a science-backed system for rapid change, Lee helps entrepreneurs, Leaders and everyday people eliminate fear, dissolve self-doubt, and create results that feel as good on the inside as they look on the outside. Lee, I'm so grateful that we were introduced and that we get to share your wisdom on how we can all super connect to ourselves, others, and our purpose. Thank you for being here.

Thanks so much for that beautiful welcome and delight to be here.

Thank you, my friend. Let's talk about this. It's very apropos that this is our final episode and that my business partner just passed because he was the one who first set me on this journey about 13, 14 years ago of self-discovery. And for any of you out there who have never hired a business coach or a mentor, it is life-changing when you have somebody to mirror back to you, maybe the shadow parts, the parts of yourself you don't know. And that's really what a great coach does, is you listen deeply, Lee. And so begin to tell us a little bit about your journey. How did this become your life's work?

Yeah, that's really interesting how it became my life's work was I was, I was, I guess before I talk about that, I guess the question we're considering, I just want to share with the listeners right now is we're talking about success. Is success something that we get? Is it something we achieve or is it something that we feel like when we have that connection with ourselves? So I think I'd like to begin like just putting that out there while I answer your question, if that makes sense for the listeners. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So I was about 25 years ago and I was 25 years old. I'm 51 right now. I walked off stage having performed in front of 8,500 people and I was delighted. I was enthralled. I was happy. My ego was dancing and skipping around with happiness. And yet another part of me felt like empty. I was like, what is this whispering to me when that applause faded? or the endorphins, we have these happy chemicals, the endorphins that rush around our body and make us feel great. When they stop doing that, what happens to us? And for me, I just felt like there was a part of me that was just like, is this, is this really it? It didn't feel like success. It felt like I was achieving something on the outside, but some, somehow in the inside, I wasn't feeling whole enough. And I think that's what can happen to a lot of us where we go chasing things on the outside and we're doing the things that we want to achieve or we think we want to achieve on the outside. But there's something internal, there's something that's saying we're not good enough or you're not lovable or this is not enough, or we keep working so hard to try and achieve something. And actually there's something on the inside that we maybe need to pay attention to.

I think that's so beautiful. And I think this is why we come together for this show, is it's what I call the golden triangle of connection. When we connect deeply to ourselves, that allows for connection to others and allows for connection to purpose. And I know that's one of your gifts, Lee, is helping people more deeply come back to themselves. So we're not just chasing the external material, the fame, the fortune, the external likes and applause, but when we can applaud ourselves internally, from the inside out, love and cherish and accept ourselves and look at our limiting beliefs. I'll tell you, I've been doing this work this week since my business partner died 2 days ago. Yeah. When I really will sit there with my husband and go through a list of emotions, like Google list of emotions. It's like, yeah, you and I are both saying I'm feeling sad. We're like, actually, I'm feeling upset, I'm feeling scared. And sometimes, yeah, just by bringing your awareness to these things allow you to have more bandwidth to be with yourself and with other people when we explore the depths who we really are as humans.

Yeah. And what you just said there, I really think is key. Awareness is the essential step in anyone's transformation. For me, it always starts with awareness. Most people don't realize that we have the mind running all these programs and we are literally sleepwalking through life a lot of the time. And it's when we bring awareness to the patterns that we are experiencing, awareness to the language that we are saying to ourself, awareness of The problem that we're experiencing, because we can't fix a problem that we don't understand that we're having. And a lot of the time we're literally sleepwalking through life, having 30,000 to 100,000 thoughts every day, almost the same thoughts that we're not even aware of, just keeping us stuck, keeping us in the same place. And awareness isn't just an idea. It's a really important concept to help us understand what I like to call sometimes The invisible code that's literally running our life. And there's 2 parts of that code, the way I see it. The first part is literally like what you were just saying. You're talking about, what am I saying to myself? What is going on? What are my limiting beliefs? And we can hear this language. It's so clear. It's a red flag to where we need to do our work. Like stories like, I'm trying to change, or I should be further ahead, or this is just how I am right now. Or I'm not like that. We're literally blocking ourselves from our potentiality all the time with the words that we're using. My favorite one to notice as a red flag to discover within ourselves is to really highlight the words when we say, I'm trying to do this, I'm trying to do that. And sometimes people will say, oh, we just need to stop saying I'm trying and start saying I can. And for me, it's really not, doesn't work that way. We've got to get to the weed and underneath the root of that. Because if not, we're just playing with the surface stuff. And if you cut the top of the weed off, then it just keeps coming back. But if we get curious, really lean in, when I say I'm trying, wake up and listen. There's a real clue there. There's one part of you that wants to move forward, and then there's another part of you that's holding you back. And that's a real clue of awareness that this is where we need to work. If I said, I'm trying to undo this drawer right now. I'm trying to open the door. I'm not opening it. So we've got to wake up because it really gives us the clues to transform everything when we can actually start listening to our own language, our predicates, our linguistic clues, the voice in our head, the stories that we tell ourselves. They're just stories. They're not true. We're not the code. We're not the limiting beliefs. We're not the voice. We're not the, we're not even the, the thoughts, but we think we are. We are the thinker behind those thoughts. Like everything we're telling ourselves is a code, is a lie. It's almost like we went to The Matrix and we just went, oh, I'll have the red pill and don't tell me about the blue one. We have an opportunity to really change everything about ourselves. But like you said, I'm just picking up on awareness. For me, awareness is, is the essential start. It's where we start. We've got to, you can look at where you are these and where do you want to get to? Because the starting point and the destination So I'm

going to play devil's advocate with you on this, and I like to tap into what I hear the audience's concerns, thoughts, considerations might be, right?

Yeah.

Beautiful. What I hear is that awareness is a luxury, right? This is a conversation that comes up. Oh, that's nice. Yeah, you can pay your bills and you don't have 5 kids and you don't have a parent who's elderly to take care of. You have space for this conversation. awareness. I don't. I'm like, I have all of X, Y, and Z to do. How do we respond to that? That perhaps awareness is something we can luxuriate in when we have the time for reflection, etc.? I agree with you, and I've been on this journey myself, and I know it is the most important thing we can invest our times in. And I know so many of us are in survival. So many of us don't know how we're going to put food on the table for the kids tomorrow. And that survival story seems to supersede and squash the awareness capacity. So what's the first thing you do when somebody brings that concern to you?

I think the first thing is to recognize that what they're sharing is true for them. That is your truth. That is a lens or that is a filter that you're actually seeing the world through right now. And to notice that you're the thinker of those thoughts and what the thinker thinks, the thinker seeks to prove. What the thinker thinks, the thinker seeks to prove. So recognizing that, zooming out rather than identifying with, I am this problem, I am this thing, and it's all right for you. It's almost recognize that if you're looking to prove what you're thinking, you will prove it as opposed to inviting the possibility that what you're thinking could not be serving you. It's not about blaming yourself. It's about moving from being a victim to taking responsibility. For what you're saying, because the things that you're saying to yourself, they will evidently show up in your world. We become a reflection of our consciousness. So the awareness is to just to notice where we could be not supporting ourselves or not helping ourselves. And also recognize that what your thinker thinks, the thinker seeks to prove, and I put my teeth in, we're looking to prove ourselves. So it, I would invite the question is, is this way of seeing the world actually helping me right now? Is it really helping me right now? Now I've gone into this state of being. And from a perspective of when you're seeking to transform anything in your life, do anything you can to get yourself back into balance. If you are in fight or flight, it could be deep breathing through 5, 6 seconds into your nose and out through your mouth and get yourself back to center. It could be going for a long walk, turning off machinery and all this type of stuff that's not really helping us, doing anything that we can that makes ourselves feel good. Because literally, I know that some of Deepak Chopra's work, and you've worked with him, like literally talk, what was it? The first program I learned, Magical Mind, Magical Body, talking about how listening to music changes the way the cells react in the body. So we can actually use music to start to change ourselves to get out of fight or flight as well.

Yeah, it's funny you bring up Deepak. As you were sharing this, I was reflecting, as soon as my business partner died, I texted Deepak. I'm always curious. I'm like, Deepak, do you watch movies? Deepak, do you grieve? So I was asking him, I said, Deepak, my dear friend and business partner just recently died. What's your perspective on grief? And I was saying how sometimes, because I tend to see even grief as, you know, somebody passes, but it's a change of forms, but sometimes other friends might need you to cry with them and feel as sad as they are. And Deepak texted me something beautiful back. He said, I can understand your perspective. However, any feeling anyone has, including people needing you to feel sad, is from the conditioned mind and therefore normal for them. The awakened self realizes that birth and death are constructs, but may still feel sad. Emotions are based on conditioning, including happiness. Equanimity is a baseline. Up and down are like the weather. And then he goes on to share a little bit about his own experience of grief. But I think that it's just like you said, it's like we have these conditioned ways that our mind is taught. This is the right response. This is the wrong response. And the more that we begin to dance with the edges of what we know is possible, we think life is one way. We think life is hard and it's challenging and it's this. But the minute we ask ourselves, could it be something else? What if?

Yeah.

What if life could be different?

Yeah, exactly. I think that's the thing with what I was just sharing earlier about instead of saying, I try, start to say, I used to, but now I'm whatever, and invite a possibility of that becoming something else. You don't want to lie to yourself and say that you are not something that's working against the programs here, but inviting the possibility that this isn't stuck, this isn't fixed. There's potentiality, there's possibility. This isn't This moment in fixed time isn't me right now. And I think what a lot of us do when we're in that sort of shut down space is we can make a meaning on a feeling. And a feeling is a sensation in the body. And we can say, oh, this means that I'm this, or this means I'm weak, or this means I'm not good enough, or this means I can't do what other people do. And actually it doesn't mean anything. It doesn't mean anything other than there's a feeling, there's a sense, Those sensations are there and they may be a protection code or the body's way of simply saying that you are not safe. And what I've discovered, which is fascinating, even after learning 200, 300 different techniques to transform things, if we can just lean in to the feeling and not try and run away from it, a lot of the time it will actually dissolve or transmute or fix itself. Mm-hmm. It's this pressure we're putting ourselves To try and fix something or try and run away from it instead of thinking that it's just a feeling. And if we can just lean in and say, is there something that you're trying to teach me? Is there something I need to learn about? Is there something I need to let go of without trying to change it? That's the key here. When you're doing this work on your own, it's like just noticing it's that amygdala part or that survival part just trying to protect us. And like, another way to think of it is we must be, another frame is we must be kind to ourselves instead of chunking up to this level of, oh, I'm not good enough, or I'm not lovable, or I'm not worthy, or this means something else. It doesn't mean any of that. And the way I like to flip it for some of the listeners is it's like wearing a body armor that once kept you safe and now it's just too heavy to move in. So let's just be kind to ourselves. We don't— this would be ridiculous as an idea. We wouldn't go to a piece of armor, a piece of clothing, and say, what's wrong with you? You're useless. You're not good enough. You should sort yourself out. You've been doing this work and read those books. You should be sorted by now. We wouldn't do that to a piece of clothing, yet we're so unkind to ourselves. Hmm. Be kind to ourselves and say, that piece of clothing, you kept me safe when I needed you, or I love you. Thank you for that. Or I forgive you. Or you could say, I thank you for what you're doing, but I'm stronger now. I'm an adult. I can move forward now. We don't need to judge ourselves or judge the armor. We can just thank those parts of ourselves, those parts when we say trying, we can just thank those parts to realize and recognize that they're just trying to help us. They're just trying to protect us. And if we can recognize these parts of ourselves, and we can set them down, instead of resisting, we can start to feel more whole without even doing anything. Because when we lean into that feeling and recognize, okay, I'm having a sensation right now, okay, as opposed to judging it. Silently witnessing our feelings can really transmute and change them without actually doing anything. And it's amazing how that works.

I think I remember reading somewhere, hearing that it takes 90 seconds for the body to process an emotion. And yet so often we all repress or suppress emotions and then they wind up showing up as ailments or limiting beliefs or different things that show up in our world. And just as my husband and I were sitting here with this Emotions list. I was like, damn! I didn't know there were so many emotions to be had just sitting there and observing what's there. And is to your point, is there anything this emotion, this fear, this feeling is there just to show me? Even when people have body aches, years ago I had a couple friends who would put their left hand. Two different friends actually had tumors on their throat area and would put left hand and talk to it. One called her pain in the neck, a friend of mine Denise, and she talked to it. She was. stage 4 cancer would die in 6 months. I'm not here giving medical advice. This was just an interesting story of a friend, but she was told that she would die in 6 months, less than that maybe even. And she talked to her throat every day and said, pin, what are you here to teach me? And it's 20 years later and she's still alive. And I think that's the beauty is can we just hold gently with kid gloves, whatever the feeling, emotion, belief, fear is, and dance with it? And Lee, this is such beautiful wisdom and I want our listeners to be able to go deeper with you. If they do want to connect with you and learn more about your work and how they too can transmute their limiting beliefs and move from trying to reimagining how they linguistically express themselves and create their worlds, where would they go to do so?

Okay, I would like to give them a free opportunity to get one of my hypnosis audios. So all they need to do is head down to leebannister.org, email me, leebannister, lee@leebannister.org, and I will do I provide them with a free 8-minute transformational audio that aligns these parts of our minds together. The primal, the emotional, the logical brings them together and helps them align in such a way that when we're setting a goal or creating possibility, we're working with all of the mind instead of just a part of ourselves. So we feel like we're more in wholeness rather than in fragmentation. So they can head to my website or just email me, lee@leebannister.org. And I'll give them as a wonderful gift for just showing up on this wonderful last show of this section of your world.

Oh, thank you, Lee. What a gift. I love that we finished this series that we've been doing for almost a year now on limiting beliefs, because I've seen the greatest leaps and bounds starting with Julian, my dear friend and teacher who started teaching me about this years ago from EFT and all the wonderful tools he taught me. It helped me to become the woman I am today. So find your Julian. It might be Lee. It might be his work. work. And I invite you to go deep, find the person who can mirror to you the wholeness, the perfection of your soul, and be able to listen to you and help you see the blind spots that you might not have. So Lee, thank you for your genius. Thank you for helping so many people in the world. And I think it was Asia, our mutual friend, who connected us, right?

Yeah, that's right. That's right. I connected with Asia and that's how we ended up coming together. And I just want to say, having done the work that I've done and helped people with so many issues, so many of the patterns, So many of the rewritings, they, a lot of these patterns, even with my own work, have come down to understanding the faulty code, the things that we're telling ourselves, the stories. They are not true. They are not you. And I've recognized something, an important truth, which I invite anyone who's open to it to understand, is that if I can realize that I'm good enough and I can realize that I'm lovable and I can accomplish some of my dreams so far, This isn't my truth. This isn't unique to me. This is universal. It exists in the field for everyone. It's quantum. It's infinite. If I can access some of that code, then I know that you can too.

Beautifully. On that note, thank you for being on the Super Connections journey with us. Continue to super connect to yourself, others, and your purpose. I'm Jennifer Cahill, and it's been a pleasure to be on this journey with you.

Thank you.