Episode 97: Your Brain is Your Only Problem

Your brain is the only problem you have.

When you came to earth and got put in a physical body, your brain became an automatic filter between you and your earth life experience. This means that everything outside of you has to go through this filter to be experienced by you. And everything inside of you has to overcome this filter to be manifest in the world. 

This filter (your brain!) is what is creating all of your problems. The way your brain interprets everything that happens and the resistance it produces when we try to do things we really want to do, creates every problem you have. 

But this also means that the solution to every problem in your life is simple. You don’t have a million problems that all require a different solution. You just have one problem and you just need one solution. And it’s already inside of you!

I have been thinking about how hard it is to be a human and how much harder we make it when we tell ourselves we are unacceptable, wrong, bad, unlovable and that we should be doing better, that we shouldn't be making such a mess of it. 

It is 100% oaky that you mess up. It’s 100% okay that you get it wrong and you hurt other people, and you think you know best when you don't know anything. You came to mess it all up. That is the point of all of it. There isn’t a way to learn it without messing it up. I promise you. It’s totally okay. And the faster you allow yourself the space to mess up, the faster you can drop the shame and try it again.

As a , I’m trying to help you understand your power to live the life you want and love your life no matter what. And what is always in the way of that, always, what is always in the way of you living the life you want to live and doing what you came to do is your brain.

It’s always your brain. Your brain is the only problem you have. Therefore, managing your brain is the only solution. 

We tend to think we have a lot of problems. I want you to think about the problems you think you have. And I think our problems fall into two main categories: 

1. The problem associated with being a human that lives in a fallen world and 
2. The problem of not doing or inaction or what I heard Steven Pressfield call this week…. resistance 

Category One Problems 

These are all the things that happen in life because we are humans living on this planet having a human experience that has been designed to have contrast. It’s all the things that can happen to us as humans that cause us pain—these are problems like hunger and fatigue and disappointment and illness and betrayal and war and conflict and disease and aggravation and laundry and taxes. These are the big problems and little problems created by other people's actions that are unkind or rude or cruel or just misinformed or by things that happen in the world like natural disasters or viruses. This first category of problems is all the negative emotions we feel because we are humans that have physical needs, and we live with other humans who do things in the physical world that we share with them.

Category Two Problems 

And the second category of problems is all the things that we don’t do, all the action that we don’t take, all the ways we sort of betray our highest self in favor of our natural man. This category of problems is all the disappointment and pain that we feel when we don’t live up to our potential, the pain we create when we don’t push ourselves outside our comfort zones, and we just settle for what’s easy or comfortable, but which creates its own kind of pain for what could have been. It’s a pain that Thoreau talked about when he talked about living lives of quiet desperation. It’s a pain we feel when we ignore the part of us that wants more….when we ignore the voice, the spirit inside us…and limit what we do while we’re here on earth. 

But here is the key. It's not you, it's not the world, it's not other people. It's your brain that is the problem. 

So how does it do this? How does our brain create the problem? It creates the problem by being biologically programmed to look for what's dangerous and always choose what’s easiest and safest.

So this week, I heard an interview with Steven Pressfield who said, “Most of us have two lives. The life we live, and the unlived life within us. Between the two stands Resistance.”

So I think it’s just good for you to see the real problem here. The problem isn’t what happens in our lives. And the problem isn’t all the things we aren’t doing that we wish we were. The problem is your brain. Between you and the life you want is your brain. 

And when you really understand that, you can find a solution that actually works to get the life you want.

Mentioned on the podcast:

My group coaching program: Made for More

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The Rich Roll Podcast: Episode #584: Conquering Resistance with Steven Pressfield

Russell Brunson - The Marketing Secrets Show

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