Mindset Experts Reveal How to Stop Self-Sabotage (It Has A Pattern)
In this panel‑style YouTube conversation hosted by Josh Trent, mindset experts John Demartini, Shelley Lefkoe, Bryan Reeves and others dissect the phenomenon of self‑sabotage. The discussion reframes self‑sabotage not as a flaw but as feedback that signals a mis‑alignment between one’s actions and their highest intrinsic values. Central to the conversation is the BTFA loop (Belief → Thought → Feeling → Action) which the guests argue drives most self‑defeating patterns. They explore how beliefs are formed early (often before age 7) and how meaning is assigned in the moment, turning neutral events into emotional reactions. The panel introduces several diagnostic concepts – atelophobia (fear of not being good enough), victim mentality, and the role of protective neural mechanisms (e.g., vagal tone, NR3C1/FKBP5 methylation) – and shows how language, breath, and body awareness can be used to surface and rewrite limiting beliefs. Practical tools include identifying repeating life patterns, tracing the underlying belief, locating its somatic “home,” and dialoguing with that belief to release it. The experts also discuss the importance of curiosity, humility, and a balanced vagal tone for sustainable change, and they weave philosophical references (Heraclitus, Hegel, Jung, Alan Watts) to illustrate the synthesis of opposites as a path to love and authentic living.
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It's not really sabotage, it's feedback to let you know you're pursuing something that's not really the very highest priority.
We're not broken, we're not unmotivated. We just get trapped in a loop that your neural system thinks is keeping you safe.
Beliefs get formed in the past. Meaning gets formed in the moment. The meaning that you give events comes from your beliefs.
It's silently destroying relationships with self and other and loudly destroying relationships with self and other.
These protective mechanisms were put in place likely for good reason when we were young. They, they served us to a point and at some point they reduce our freedom and agency in life.
If self-sabotage is a myth and we don't really sabotage ourselves, what is self-sabotage in your own vernacular?
Each individual lives by a set of priorities, a set of values, things that are most to least important to them. Whenever they set goals and objectives that are aligned and congruent with what they value most, which is their most intrinsic value, they spontaneously act. The blood glucose and oxygen goes into the medial prefrontal cortex, and there's spontaneous action potentials that spontaneously act. They don't require external motivation there. But as they progressively go down the list of values to lower and lower priorities, they require more extrinsic motivation to get them to do things. So as they go really low, they go, I procrastinate, I hesitate, I keep frustrating, I'm not doing this, 'cause there's no spontaneity. They have to have an external carrot in front of 'em. So if they stick to the very highest priority, They do extraordinary things. They're very effective and efficient at getting massive things accomplished. But many times people meet people that they admire, look up to, and because the way value structures are in society, whoever you look up to, you tend to minimize yourself to when you look up to them and exaggerate them. You tend to inject some of their values into your life and cloud the clarity of your own. And attempt to be doing things that aren't really your highest priorities. And you think, I ought to, I should, I'm supposed to, I got to, I have to, I need to do this, but I'm not spontaneously doing it. I keep procrastinating, hesitating, and frustrating. So you think you're sabotaging because you're trying to be somebody other than yourself. Your very highest value is what your ontological identity revolves around. And your teleological purpose revolves around, and your area of expertise epistemologically. So you're going to master that area and self-actualize in that highest value. But anytime you get lower ones, you're gonna get symptoms of what you think is sabotage to guide you back to what is priority. And so it's not really sabotage, it's feedback to let you know you're pursuing something that's not really the very highest priority in your life. In your dynamic. I see this in business individuals. They say that their highest value is business, but it's not all the business. It's only certain portions of the business. For instance, in my case, I've been internationally speaking for a long time. My highest value is teaching and researching and writing and traveling. If I'm doing those things, I'm inspired daily. Yeah. But if I had to do the administration and marketing and sales and financials and things like that, I would not be inspired. Those are not the areas of business. So sometimes we think our highest value is business, and then we are drained doing the lower priority things, and we keep not doing those things because they're not the highest priorities in that, that we really are dedicated to. So I hire people. If you're not delegating to lower priority activities, to people who have it high on their values, you're not going to be free to do what is highest on your values where you'll excel. So sabotage is a feedback mechanism guiding you back to authenticity, your highest value, so you can stick to the thing that's most important intrinsically instead of trying to be somebody you're not, trying to be second at being somebody else. It's wiser to be first at being you.
The authentic map to find what we really love I enjoy so much this quote that, that my teammate sent me. You said, love is the synchronicity and synthesis of all complementary opposites, the unity of opposites that, uh, here— is it Heraclitus described?
Heraclitus.
Yes. So this, this complementary balancing of opposites, this seems to be a very fundamental, basic human understanding, but yet it's been hidden for a very long time. This law?
Well, in the almost 6th century BC, Heraclitus, Heraclitus, however you wanna say it.
Yeah.
He came up with the idea that there was a logos, a hidden order in the apparent chaos in our perceptions. So let's put information theory, Claude Shannon's work, on top of him. By the way, Heraclitus impacted Schrödinger and the Schrödinger equation in quantum mechanics.
Ooh.
He impacted Einstein, he impacted Newton, he impacted Max Planck. I mean, the list goes on and on and on. Hegel, the dialectic. He has a massive influence on many, many great thinkers. Jung's teachings. But information theory was also impacted by it. Claude Shannon says that entropy, the tendency to go to disorder, is missing information. And the tendency to go to the hidden order, hidden because it's not in our awareness initially, is reclaiming that information. So if you, let's say you meet somebody, you're a guy and you meet this pretty girl, and at first you're a little infatuated. And you're conscious of the upsides of the attraction, and you have an amygdala response with an impulse to seek it out. You want to consume it like prey. And you're conscious of the upsides, but you're unconscious of the downsides. The unconsciousness is missing information. So now you have an impulse to seek this person out. But as the days and weeks and months go on in that relationship, you start to discover some of the downsides that you were blind to initially. And eventually you come to realize that there's things you like and dislike, the positives and the negatives. In any relationship, you eventually discover there's both. When you're able to see both and not be infatuated with one and blind to the downsides, when you're able to, you start to love the individual as the whole. So that's when you're able to see both sides of them simultaneously. Which is the synthesis and synchronicity of complementary opposites. So the same thing if we meet people that we resent, we are conscious of the downside and unconscious of the upside. But sometimes the people we resent are the catalyst for us to grow. They're the challengers that made us innovate and come up with new ideas and become independent. And so we eventually discover the upsides to what we thought was the downsides only. When we finally see both sides simultaneously, where you're able to see both sides, you get to love somebody. And what's interesting is our epistemological area of mastery occurs where we have that awareness. When we're blind to one side, we're distracted. Anything we infatuate occupies space and time in our mind and runs us. Anything we resent occupies space and time and runs us. We have intrusive thoughts that distract us. It makes insomnia, us trying to sleep at night. Fantasies, nightmares. But the second we see both sides and center ourselves and are not distracted by the polarizations of perception, we're present. In that state, we feel love for somebody. We're not putting them on pedestals, we're not putting them in pits, we're putting them in our heart. And so I define love as the synthesis and synchronicity, the unity of opposites that Heraclitus was describing. Because when we see both sides, there's no missing information. We understand them and know them. We have gnosis, awareness, full awareness. Before that, we have ignorance. We're unaware of half of it. So ignorance or unconsciousness or blindness or sleepiness or unawareness or unawakeness or in the dark are many ways of describing that missing information.
It seems to me that this whole game, this whole life game, is a game of perception, a game where we're either seeing things as they actually are or seeing things through a shattered glass, if you will, based on our own amalgamation of what has occurred for us in childhood, in utero, even if you look at ancestral trauma. So there's many converging forces that come together to make Josh or to make John or to make any of us. Yet the only way that I've seen it, and I'm curious how you, you, you feel about this, the only way I've seen life really produce beautiful fruit is when I can get clear on the way in which I project my wounds onto the people that I love. And from that clarity, I get peace, I get freedom, I get the zest of life itself. But it can be so challenging for me at times to get clear on, A, what is my projection that I'm seeing things through? B, how does one go through the inventory process, emotional and mental inventory process, to be clear on what those are? And then C, how do I live from a place of freedom. It seems to me, John, that the game here is perception.
Well, that's the cornerstone of everything I do. So if we perceive somebody the way our amygdala functions, it assigns valency to stimuli, and it basically labels something a prey or predator. If it supports our values, it's prey. If it challenges our values and our perception, it's predator. So it causes an impulse to seek or an instinct to avoid. And therefore, we're externally driven. We're externally run by these perceptions. We call that reality, the phenomenological reality based on our stimuli that we have from this outer world. If we ask different questions when we meet this person we dislike or resent or admire and infatuate with, If we ask the question, what specific trait, action, or inaction do I perceive this individual displaying or demonstrating that I dislike, despise, or resent, or hate, or want to avoid the most? And narrow it down. What exactly is it that they're doing, the actions that they're doing or inactions that they're doing that you're judging? If you identify that, the next question that's wise to ask is, Go to a moment, John, where and when you perceive yourself displaying or demonstrating the same specific trait, action, or inaction that you despise most. At first, you're going to be too proud to admit what you see in them inside you, and you're going to have deflective awareness, and you're going to disown parts, and you're going to have dismemberment. You're not owning that part of yourself. And disempowerment, because you're gonna wanna change them relative to your pride and project your values onto 'em, try to make them to live in your values, which will be non-sustainable futility. But the moment you actually go and identify where and when you do it, who'd you do it to, who perceives you that way, and be accountable to look again and again and again until you own that trait 100% quantitatively and qualitatively, as it says in Romans 2:1 in the, New Testament, beware of judging others, for you do the same thing. But if you look carefully, you only react to people on the outside that represent a part of you on the inside that you haven't owned. And you only resent them because they're reminding you of something you feel ashamed about that you're hiding from yourself, and they're coming into your life to help you see it. So when you actually go and reflect and see it, you realize that they're your teacher, not your enemy. They're not somebody to avoid, they're somebody to appreciate. Instead of putting them in the pit, you're now putting them in your heart. Now, if you go and do another step, go to a moment where and when you perceive that individual displaying the trait you despised and disliked. And in that moment, how did it benefit you? What were the upsides that you were blind to, that you're unconscious of? What are the upsides to it? If you find that and don't stop, and there is, there's benefits spiritually, there's benefits intellectually, there's benefits in business, there's benefits in finance, there's benefits in relationship. Socially, physically, there's benefits in all areas. Whatever's most meaningful, there's actually a catalyst for what it's offering you to help you fulfill what's most meaningful. If you make yourself accountable to see not just the one side, but see both sides and come up with the upsides, which your intuition is attempting to guide you to do on a daily basis, you become fully conscious. You're not missing information, and you realize that there are they're not your enemy whatsoever. They're actually the guide for you to uncover the part of you that you haven't loved yet, that you're still judging inside yourself because of some moral hypocrisy that you've subordinated to. If you go in there and do that and you don't stop until you see the advantages equaling the disadvantage, the positives equaling the negatives, and balance the equation where it's neither positive nor negative, it's just a synthesis and synchronicity of opposites, you'll feel love for somebody you didn't know you could love. And you'll get to have love for yourself in that moment. And that's just 2 of the questions you could ask yourself. I have about 80 questions that I ask. And when they're done, there's nothing there except thank you.
35 years ago, Josh, when we started, I would say my husband, my late husband, was on a plane and he was looking at why do people know what to do and don't do it? We all know we should exercise and eat well. And we'll live longer. And we don't. We know going into relationships that they're not right. We stay in jobs that we hate. And we're not stupid. We know. Why? So he was on what— and you'll love this given who you are— he was on a spiritual intellectual journey to discover why people know what to do and don't do it, or know what not to do and don't do it.
Mm.
Right? Or do it.
Mm.
And he's on a plane and he downloads this process and he comes home and he says, I want you to see, I came up with the idea that all behavior and emotions are consistent with our beliefs. Now, a belief is a statement about reality that we hold as the truth. Okay? People mix up patterns and beliefs. I hear them say it all the time. A pattern is observable. So I can see behavioral, I can see you procrastinate. I can see you not speak up for yourself. Emotional, I can see you be anxious or depressed. So patterns are what we wanna change. Beliefs underlie the patterns, right? They cause the patterns. So when you get rid of beliefs, you get rid of the patterns. So he comes home and he tells me this, and I would say to people, oh, and I watch him do it. He does it on a friend of ours who wanted to be in a relationship and she wasn't meeting the right men. And, you know, so he said, well, what do you believe about men? And she goes, well, men are selfish assholes. They, you know, and she starts spouting all these beliefs. He says, what about marriage? And she said, well, marriage is suffocating. You have to give up your independence. And I was sitting there watching. He does the process, which he did when he got off the plane and got hired by the state of California. They were so impressed. But he does the process, and spirit whacked me in the head. And I heard this voice, I swear to God, say, "This is what you're here to do." This is why you're on this planet. And I've been doing it for 35 years now. When I used to say to people, I'm in the belief business, you know, help people get rid of beliefs, they'd say, beliefs? Like you mean religious beliefs? Now everybody's talking about beliefs. Okay, we all know that beliefs— if you believe water is boiling hot, you're not going to put your hand in it, right?
Mm-hmm.
So I want to make another distinction: beliefs versus meaning. Beliefs get formed in the past. Meaning gets formed in the moment. The meaning that you give events generally comes from your beliefs. So if If you believe, simply, dogs are dangerous and a dog comes into the room, you're going to give it the meaning that dog's going to bite me.
Yeah.
And that causes your fear. So all of your emotions come from the meaning you give events. Okay. Meaning is in your mind. Right. If everybody listening thinks for a second, somebody comes into a room. And doesn't speak to you, they don't say hello. What do you automatically think?
They don't like me.
Perfect.
My hair isn't good.
Perfect.
Should I have worn a different shirt?
Perfect.
Do my feet stink?
Those are meanings.
Yeah.
So where did all of those meanings come from?
The hard drive.
Your mind.
Yeah, of course.
So if meaning is inside your head, events don't have inherent meaning.
Oh, this is so good. Okay, let me pause you right there.
And I never start with this. I always end with this.
This is great.
No, I love that we're starting with this because let's just get right to it. I love that you said that the meaning is in the moment.
Yes.
It's the moment that creates the meaning. So if I or anyone has struggled with a caregiver who was essentially broken in some way or learning how to be more whole.
Yeah.
However you wanna put it.
Yeah.
My mom struggled with manic bipolar my entire life. My dad left super early. He had his own demons.
I'm sorry.
But in a beautiful way. Well, actually, I'm not even— you don't even have to say you're sorry. It's more just like, what a beautiful gift that I could be here doing what I'm doing because of the vacuum that was created by me getting undernourished in ways that now I know how to nourish myself through.
Yeah.
And it's not just a mental gymnastics either. And this is the core of the work that I want to get into with you.
Okay. Yeah.
When people hear that events are neutral.
Yes.
And we place that meaning in the moment, like you say.
Yes.
The ego can rise and there can be a huge checklist of, well, Shelley doesn't understand. I suffered for 20 decades, or I suffered for 20 years. And when I suffered for 20 years, I had my life fall apart. I gained weight. They have this huge list that's connected to their belief.
Yeah.
Of the event that was inherently neutral, the meaning that they made in the moment.
Yes.
How do you start to lovingly approach that conversation with a client, whether they're an executive or a media mogul or just a person?
Yeah.
So that you can both hold their pain and acknowledge their pain and not spiritually bypass their pain, but also teach them that inherently the meaning was in the moment and the event was neutral.
That's not how I approach clients. So we're going to back up a little. I'm going to make another distinction just to close this for a second.
Yeah.
Events have consequences. They don't have meaning. I never minimize the consequences of somebody's suffering. So I had a client who was sexually abused by his mother. She used to beat him, incest him, lock him in a closet, and go to church. He was a psychiatrist. He had never had a successful relationship in his life. Now, we had to get rid of the beliefs that he formed. I'm damaged goods. I'm worthless. I'm powerless. Women have all the power. Women are mean. So we work together getting rid of those beliefs so that meanings don't come. So it's The meaning thing is a trick that you do in the moment. So I'm sitting here with you and you say something and I get plugged in, right? And I say to myself, what just happened? Josh said something. What meaning did I give it? He's out to get me, or he doesn't understand me. What else could it mean? He's trying to make the podcast interesting. But what does it inherently mean? What do I know for sure? Meanings in your mind. It's never in the events. So that's a way to get rid of an emotion in the moment. It's not a way to get rid of the beliefs that are causing you to give that, that meaning.
Mm-hmm. Okay. So if I'm hearing you clearly, a stimulus comes in, a phrase comes in, an event happens. We get some in our mechanism of awareness. We get something that happens. You could say it's for us or to us. And then we create in that split second a meaning, which then creates a belief.
A feeling. No, a feeling.
A feeling.
Let me tell you how beliefs get formed. Okay? We come into this world, we don't know if we're good enough or not, important or not. We don't know if life is hard or easy. We don't know if money is scarce and hard to get. Or flows with abundance, right? And you come into this little world and I, now you have little kids, perfect. When you come in and they haven't seen you, what do they do when they see you?
Daddy.
Daddy. And they run to you, right?
Yeah, oh yeah.
And what do they want?
A hug, a kiss. A hug. Love. Love. Love.
What else do they want?
Presence, awareness, affection.
Exactly.
Yeah.
So I'm gonna alliterate it because it's alliterated.
Yeah.
Affection, attention, and acknowledgement.
Yeah.
Every child. That's why I ask rather than me say it, because everybody in every country— I have clients in, I used to say Uganda, now I say Saudi Arabia, which blows my mind. They all have the same beliefs and they all answer that question the same way. Now, what is the one-word question your children ask all day long when they were a little younger than they are. One word question.
I bet you they do it now. It's typically, "Why, Dad?" Why? Why? Why?
So again, I'm not making that up. Yeah, we didn't rehearse this, right? So if you get criticized as a child, you say, "Why can't I live up to Mommy and Daddy's expectations?" Oh, I guess I'm not good enough. Why are Mommy and Daddy struggling about money? Well, I guess money is scarce and hard to get. Why, why am I failing in school? Well, I guess I'm stupid, right? Why are Mommy and Daddy fighting all the time? Well, I guess relationships don't work.
Yeah.
So that's how the beliefs are formed. I'm gonna say something I don't always say, but I'm gonna tell you the secret sauce. Okay, here's why beliefs don't go away with most things people do. Okay, so I'm gonna make another— I love my— I'm a distinction girl. So I want you to imagine you have a fist in front of you, and the fist is, I'm not good enough. And somebody tells you to do affirmations. And you stand in front of the mirror going, I'm good enough, I'm good enough, I'm good enough, I'm good enough. You have to get rid of this before you can feel good enough. You can't put something where something already exists. Number one. Number two, the only person who stands in front of the mirror going, I'm good enough, I'm good enough, I'm good enough, is somebody who believes what? That they're not. Or they wouldn't be— you and I are not in front of the mirror doing that, right?
Yeah.
So it's like reinforcing the belief. Here's why beliefs stay with us. We think we saw our beliefs in the world. And you can't— it is impossible to not believe something you think you saw. I worked with 5 Harvard PhDs who had the belief, I'm stupid. Evidence doesn't get rid of beliefs because when I said to one of them, you have a PhD from Harvard. This was 30 years ago. I was— we were working at a corp— we were doing corporate work. And I was working with the staff psychologist. And I said, "You have a PhD from Harvard?" And he said, "Oh, I conned my way through Harvard." Ah, that's how we— That's how, exactly. That's how powerful beliefs are.
Yeah, yeah.
Because, so I said to him, I went through the process and when I got to the step, "Doesn't it feel like you saw, 'I'm stupid'?" He said, every day of my life.
Yeah.
What he saw was his father— every time he got something wrong, Josh Trent, his father used to slap him on the back of the head and say, genius. That's what he saw. But anything you could see has a color, shape, and location. You cannot see I'm stupid. I'm not good enough. I'm worthless. And so the secret to doing this work is you have to find out what are the beliefs that underlie the pattern or the problem that I have.
Yeah.
And then we eliminate those beliefs.
So most of us, including yourself, are not lazy. We're not broken. We're not unmotivated. We just get trapped in a loop that your neural system thinks is keeping you safe. Most people try to change their lives at the level of action or discipline or habits or performance, but the real loop that I'm going to share with you today has the power to change your life forever. I know that sounds like I'm being very straightforward and very reductionistic, but here's the real truth. I have lived what we're going to talk about today. Today we're going to talk about the BTFA loop. It's on the screen right now, belief, thought, feeling, and action. This is exactly the way that I've learned how to change my behaviors from the inside out instead of always relying on these external frameworks for change. I know you feel this. There's a part of you, whether it's the mental, physical, emotional, spiritual, or financial nourishment of self, the Pentagon that you see on the screen right now. All of these deserve the most beautiful way for you to nourish them through the earned life experience and wisdom so they actually get fed. You're gonna go to nourish these 5 sides of yourself, and here's what's gonna happen. Your beliefs are going to pop up, which inform your thoughts, your feelings, and inherently your actions, AKA behaviors. But like I just said, most people try to change their lives only at the level of action with their discipline, their habits, their performance. But the real loop for behavior change and the identity transformation that you so deserve So whenever you're watching this, it's perfect timing because all things start with belief. And what if I told you that belief was rooted in either survival or trauma, and no amount of willpower can override it? This is why I believe that the BTFA loop explains 99+% of self-sabotage. I say 99, but it's probably more like 100. And once you understand this, you can then interrupt it, you can rewire it, and you can live from truth instead of from trauma, aka stuck energy, or emotion, energy in motion. This episode is gonna show you the exact steps, and I'm not gonna hold anything back. I'm giving you a beautiful gift today from 10+ years of my life experience. The steps that you're gonna get out of this podcast today are going to identify a loop that has been running your life in the background, probably multigenerationally. I'm gonna show you how to break it. I'm gonna show you how to identify it from the inside out. So share your insights with the tribe over at liberatedlife.com or drop a comment below as to what are you truly committed to creating this year? What is the life that you know you deserve deep down in your guts? And how can you use this framework of BTFA to shift into it? All right, let's start with the B, the belief. The belief is essentially, call it a hidden code below your choices. Everything that you do, be, do, have, that's on the screen right now. We be first, we do next, and we have third. Most people start with the last one. They get it backwards. But look, whether it's be or do or have, everything Everything is related to your beliefs, and so everything you do is downstream of what you believe first about yourself, about the world, and about what's possible, and essentially what was conditioned for you to believe way before your dad and mom hooked up. Yes, they hooked up. Speaking of hooking up, a core belief is like a hook. This hook gets formed way before we're 7. If you look at the neurology of what happens to the brain hemispheres from conception to 7, Little kids, we're essentially on drugs. And this is really beautiful because the mind is like a rose. The mind is very malleable. It's also very dangerous because whatever that child is told, whatever that child sees, and whatever that child experiences are going to shape the fabric that makes the tapestry of the entire reality of this child that eventually becomes an adult, just like you and I. Newsflash, I'm sure you know this on some level, we are a child. We have an inner child. We have a soul, we have a body, we have a mind, and we have a connection to the etheric field, as well as many other ways in which we connect to our reality. But those are the core that I really want you to think about today. And I want you to feel into this issue that many of us have. If your belief system says, I'm not safe unless I'm perfect, or love has to be earned, then every decision you make is playing out that story over and over and over again. Here's how you do it. Here's how you shift a belief. Write down 3 repeating patterns in your life and then ask yourself— these are 3 patterns that you don't want anymore, that you're ready to let go of— and then ask yourself, what would somebody have to believe to keep repeating this? When that belief activates, where do you feel it in your body? Is it throat? Is it heart? Is it solar plexus? Is it gut? Is it sacral? Is it your sex organs? Where exactly does this live? A great practice to do is to take 10 deep breaths Put both hands on your heart, be out in nature or just quiet, turn off your phone and take 10 circular breaths. As you breathe in through your nose, your belly's gonna rise. As you breathe out through your mouth, your belly's gonna fall. And after those 10 deep breaths, just ask the question in your mind, what do I believe about myself that I keep repeating these beliefs, these stories? What exactly is it? And then find where the belief is in your body. Then do this, talk to where it lives in your body. Now, if you've never done this before, it might feel a little weird and that's okay. A lot of this deeper inner work is weird, and a lot of this deeper work feels counterintuitive. But as many great masters have taught us for millennia, all change when first received feels counterintuitive. So touch your body, close your eyes, and feel in yourself, where does this belief live? And then say this: this belief kept me safe for my whole life, or this belief kept me safe up until now, but I don't need it anymore. What are you here to teach me, belief? What are you here to teach me about the survival in which you facilitated for me up till now? And then talk to that belief and ask that belief, are you willing to be let go of? Because I am the arbiter of my beliefs. You, belief, are not the arbiter of me. I, the self, am the arbiter of you. Your beliefs are not facts.
There's a name for this thing, y'all. Atelophobia is the fear of not being good enough. And when I learned about that, we were talking about it in the driveway. I can't remember where I came across that. It was probably— well, I mean, we talk about it in the TEDx talk, which was '17. Yeah, maybe '15. So maybe let's just say 10 years. It was like somebody smacked me in the face. There's a name for this thing. It was a similar feeling and experience when I learned about the definition of the victim mentality, because people talk about Oh, they're playing the victim, or they've got a victim mentality. Yeah, I can recite that shit verbatim and have been for a while. And I find that that adds a very practical aspect to the conversation about mindset because one, it goes— people are like, oh, there's a name for this thing. And that's why people get into the— into mindset work, personal development work, trying to get a little bit better. Don't— people don't buy a book on mindset when the sun's out and everything's going well and they quote unquote got this. No, they're struggling, they got a problem. And then when they scratch the surface of that, it's stories worded in a victim-centric nature. And then under that umbrella, a large part of that real estate is atelophobia, the fear of not being good enough.
Mm.
It's a stinger.
I can only imagine how people are hearing this for the first time because you were the person that introduced this term to me. And I thought I had personal development somewhat on lock, although obviously, like, the beginner's mind, the beginner's heart—
it—
of course I attracted you, and I learned this from you. Because back in the Paleo FX days, I want to bring presence to this, I was sitting with you and Mike Bledsoe, and we were doing just an audio-only podcast in like a little area next to a water machine in the, in the place down there downtown. And it was such a great conversation because I just noticed that you, you spoke a different way than most people speak. Like, you have embodied the language of not soft talk, which we'll get into, but actually empowering language. So as a jumping point, let's go into atelophobia and how you think it wreaks havoc unconsciously, because this is the big piece, unconsciously what's going on, what is being felt but not said, is still being felt, yet it's coming out in very disempowering phrases. Can you talk about and expand how atelophobia informs language that people may not even know that they don't know they're saying?
It's got to be a feedback loop. So the language is creating the feeling of not being good enough, the fear of not being good enough, and the fear of not being good enough is reinforcing the language. Which came first, the chicken or the egg? When you get into epigenetics, I don't know. What I do know is that I can take somebody's story about something and get it out of their head and point out what words are forcing them to create the victim-villain dynamic, what, what words are forcing them to take things personally, and what words are, are, are forcing them Well, to create that feeling of not being good enough and then in a variety of different ways use other people to try to make them feel good enough about themselves. So that's, that's what happens a lot. So I got this innate fear of not being good enough. I've struggled with this my whole life. I'm going to find somebody and do whatever I can, mental gymnastic backflips with my words to try to get them to like me in the way that I don't like me yet, but want to.
And how would one know? How would one know that they viscerally don't like themselves or that they hate themselves? That would be a perfect candidate for somebody wrapped up in a telephobia.
Breath trapped in the chest. That's the marker. That's the ultimate marker. We're known as the language people. That's cool. Um, and push comes to shove, it's about unlocking the breath. So how about this? I'll, I'll recite the definition of the victim mentality twice, and then we'll pull it back to a— to some specific examples of sentences that, that create that feeling of not being good enough and forcing people to take it personally. Okay, so most people have never heard the definition of victim mentality, much less written it down. Okay, so for our audience, thanks for watching this and listening. I suggest you get a pen and a piece of paper. There's something called a learning pyramid, and it goes like this: 30, 50, 80. We remember 30% of what we hear, 50% of what we write, 80% of what we turn around, teach, share, or explain. So if you put pen to paper, write out the definition of victim mentality, you're in a very, very exclusive club. 'Cause most people, again, have never heard it. I'm gonna do it twice. First time slow and second time with some context. And then I'm gonna give some examples of specific sentences, spells that create that victim-villain dynamic.
You said spells? What do you mean spells?
So Webster's definition of a spell is a word or a combination of words of great influence.
Ooh.
And if my father had loved us more, everything would've been different is a combination of words that greatly influenced this woman. That I was working with, and I'll come back to that.
Okay, so words are spells in what you're about to—
by definition, yeah, no bubbling cauldrons, no puppy dog tails, no like weird freaky clothes there. It's the words that we put together. We're, we're spelling all the time. Um, yeah, so victim mentality. The victim mentality is an acquired personality trait. Where a person tends to regard himself or herself as the victim of the negative actions of others, even in the absence of clear evidence. The victim mentality depends on a habitual thought process and attributions. That's the verbatim definition of the victim mentality. Here it is a little bit faster with some polish. The victim mentality is an acquired personality trait where a person tends— it's a tendency, everybody, sometimes it's up, sometimes it's down— person tends to regard himself or herself as the victim of the negative actions of others, even in the absence of clear evidence. The victim mentality depends on a habitual thought process and attributions. That second sentence is right between the eyes, right where it belongs. The victim mentality depends— circle that word because it has to, has to have A habitual— underline that word, habitual— accurately implies duration and addiction. Thought process. What's a thought process? We all have one. It's how you put your words together. And then attributions. What's an attribution? It's a characteristic. And after the words, like I said, we're known as the language people. Thanks. It's the breath. When people are creating that victim-villain dynamic, that victim mentality— and there's more flavors in of the victim mentality than Baskin-Robbins. Their breath is trapped in their chest. So if someone notices when they start to become more aware of where and where they're breathing, how they're breathing, and then you start connecting dots between your breath and the words you're using, you're on to one of the greatest explorations into self that there is. I mean, yes, you can— and I've, I've drank the bubbling medicine, plant medicines from different places, and it is, it's a second opinion on reality. And what a wild ride is to think about my thinking. Think about my thinking. Alan Watts said that. He's the greatest Zen teacher the West has ever had.
Dude, dude, if there was one guy I could interview who's passed, it would be him right next to you at the table.
So you mentioned higher power before we got started on this, and I said, yes, I believe. I like to keep it simple. And whenever I want to zoom out, because life can zoom you in, whenever I want to zoom out, I put on Alan Watts Chillstep on YouTube. So it's just this lo-fi cool chillstep in the background.
Yeah.
And then they'll drop Alan Watts bombs in the middle of it. And it's just— I, I zoom out and, and softness arrives.
It's the best.
It's the best.
Yeah.
An attachment.
I listen to the same. Really?
Yeah, that makes sense.
Yeah, we'll have to trade some codes on that, dude.
I'm, I'm all about it. I'm all about it. And so, you know, that last word, attributions, it's characteristic. Breath. We like to help people breathe better because when they breathe better— and this, you know, this can get into a conversation about how about, how about effective coaching versus ineffective coaching? How about Luke Skywalker coaching versus Obi-Wan Kenobi coaching. We can talk about that. We're not here— we don't— at Lifted, we don't, we don't have answers for people, okay? That to me is the original sin of coaching, is thinking that I have to have all the right answers for somebody. Now, we got good questions. We got good questions, and we have a way to help people get those scary stories out of their head and written down and aired out to unlock the breath, to create that space and clarity. We're there to create space and clarity. And that's partly experienced with the breath. The breath unlocks. When the breath unlocks, the picture zooms out and you go from the participant to the observer. And when you know how to do that, you don't have to have Instagram quotes, you don't have to motivate your clients, you don't have to be a smarty pants coach, 1-800-I-GOT-ALL-THE-RIGHT-ANSWERS-FOR-YOUR-LIFE hotline coach. That's coaching hell. That sucks. I tried it. Um, and so, so there are language patterns, there are there are certain words that, that, that are in people's language. And when I mean language, I mean internal dialogue and external dialogue— what we think, what we say, what we write. And people aren't aware of them. And it's not a— it's not a— it's not a deservance issue. It's not— definitely not an intelligence issue. It's simply an education issue. We didn't learn this stuff in high school English class. I didn't learn how to use my words. Did you? To use your words to stay focused on what's important and keep the drama low and build yourself up in your imagination and create feelings of confidence and competence. And oh, while you're at it, unlock your breath, get you out of those upregulated stress states so you're breathing low and slow, which turns you into a good listener, which is half of all foundations for relationships— listening.
Yeah.
So if good listening equals good relationships and good breathing equals good listening, then good breathing equals good relationships.
I've had experiences myself where the emotions that have been coming through, and I don't know how to explain this besides saying they feel— they felt connected to my ancestors as opposed to myself.
Yeah.
So I've had a felt sense experience of that, but I haven't gone deep into the epigenetic side. But I do think that there's almost certainly something there, and, and I know you've been going deep into it recently.
Yeah, but I'm at the beginning of my journey. I'm just like a year in, really. And the more that I find, the the more that I realize there's more caves to enter. Yeah, it's like Joseph Campbell says, the cave that you fear to enter holds the treasure that you seek. I don't want that to be a platitude. Like, that's a real big part of your work and my work is like, well, what's actually really so scary in the cave? It's there whether we want to look at it or not. The grief process is there whether we want to move through it or not. The process of being embodied and joyful is there whether we want to look at it or not. What do you think stops us as a human being from going into the cave itself? Because all the magic, all the treasure is there. The life we want's in the cave, but we're so scared of going in there. Why do we fear the cave so much?
Yeah, I mean, that's beautifully said. And I think if I could, if I could communicate one message, it is like, walk lovingly and curiously into the cave.
Yeah. Don't sprint into the cave with like a blindfold on.
Yeah, yeah, like walk with trepidation.
Yeah, yeah.
I would say a few things come to mind. One, one is actually lack of education and like lack of, um, just nervous system literacy. And I think there is like, these things aren't talked about in schools when we're growing up. I only discovered it in my like late 20s. I wish someone had told me more about this kind of stuff when I was younger. Yeah, so I think just like education is one piece, um, but more than that, it's, it's fear, but it's also that we have these identities that we cling to and these beliefs that are related to who we think we are. And actually what happens in these processes is that these beliefs or these identities that we grasp onto kind of get stripped away. And so it, it feels like a part of us is dying because a part of us is dying. It's the part of us that isn't us. And then on the other side, we feel more ourselves, we feel more whole. But the resistance is there because these protective mechanisms were put in place, likely for good reason, when we were young. They, they served us to a point. They're not bad. They were useful protective parts that served their purpose. And at some point they reduce our freedom and agency in life. And so I think for me it's, it's actually not about, um, it's not about shunning them. It's much more about like loving, welcoming, and like turning towards— again, curiosity being like the key, the key here.
In your work, you go very deep into vagal tone, which I love. And this is another part of the education, like people just don't know that they don't know. Be so cool in college if there was like Ego Death 101 on a door.
I take that.
That'd be like at a spiritual university. But on the screen right now is, um, a strong and weak vagal tone. So the hypomethylation of the NR3C1 gene, this is when you're strong in your vagal tone, so it's allowing cortisol regulation and reduced HPA axis hyperactivity. But then on the other side, the weak vagal tone is the hypermethylation. And that's NR3C1, and specifically this one, FKBP5, creating heightened emotional reactivity, anxiety, and trauma loop activation. I, I mention that because it's almost like vagal tone could be the tension of a guitar string. If it's too tight, the moment you play it, it's going to break. But if it's just right, you know, the Goldilocks zone— what is the Goldilocks zone of vagal tone?
Yeah, so firstly, I want to learn more about that myself. That's fascinating.
And It's just a scientific explanation of spiritually what you already know.
Yeah, but it's— but I think it's important that we understand the mechanisms too, because there's a lot to be learned from that as well.
Yes.
So going back to the window of tolerance, there are two modes of reactivity. When we are, um, in our kind of sympathetic, like, fight-flight state, but we don't have the, the vagal tone or grounding to match it, that creates anxiety, it creates overwhelm, it creates um, sometimes frustration outbursts. That's hyperarousal. And then at the other end, when we're kind of in the parasympathetic side, again, it's like a protection mechanism. It's a sense of maybe collapse, withdrawal, um, in extreme cases depression. Numbness is a big one as well. And they're basically, um, maybe I can send you the visual to put on the screen as well, but it's essentially like this there's two bands which are outside of the window of tolerance. And in either case, what is missing is just a sense of, like, grounded safety. And so in those states, there are certain practices you can do to either up or downregulate your nervous system to come back into that window. So if you're in the hypoarousal, which is like a— maybe like a functional freeze state, you can do some kind of gentle breathing practice, some stretching, coming back into the body. Some people kind of do, like, self-havening. Um, or humming is actually a really good practice as well. And that's— that will kind of thaw that hyperarousal state. And then sometimes what happens is people ping back up into the hyperarousal. So whatever the emotion that this, this state was protecting from, well, then they'll start to feel it. So maybe it's anger, maybe it's whatever the thing is. And then feeling that, and then you kind of come back into this, this band of like, okay, I feel like myself again. I'm kind of kind of back. So it's actually quite a, um, there's almost like various protocols that you can do depending on where your— what your kind of tendency for reactivity is, which is again why it's so important to learn this stuff. And, and over time, that window of tolerance can expand. So as you improve your vagal tone, your ability to stay grounded in stressful situations without collapsing in one way or the other, that increases. And, and that I think is, um, so I think of the 3 core skills of nervous system mastery as being interoception, which we just talked about, and then nervous system capacity, which is this increasing the size of your window of tolerance, increasing the vagal tone. Your HRV is highly correlated to vagal tone. And then emotional fluidity, which is welcoming and not resisting or tensing against the underlying emotions. So Like, to what degree can you welcome the full spectrum of your human experience?
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