You’re listening to the Transform Your Life from the Inside Out podcast. This is a throwback episode to episode number 306 titled, Set Yourself Free from Life.
In this episode, plain and simple, what I want to explore is all the illusions that bind us. We live in so many illusions about what life is and what it is not, and most of it’s all 3D anyway and social learning. We live in these illusions and they keep most of us trapped for a lifetime. In this episode, what I want to look at is the traps of defining ourselves by our possessions, our jobs, our relationships, and even our human identities and how these attachments can lead to a life constrained by the very things we thought would set us free. Enjoy the episode.
Hi, I’m Jim Fortin and you’re about to start transforming your life from the inside out with this podcast. I’m widely considered the leader in subconscious transformation and I’ve coached super achievers all around the world for over 25 years. Here you’re going to find no rah rah motivation and no hype because this podcast is a combination of brain science, transformational psychology, and ancient wisdom all rolled into one to take your life to levels you’ve never thought possible. If you’re wanting a lot more in life to feel better, to heal, to have peace of mind, to feel powerful and alive, and to bring more abundance and prosperity into your life, then this podcast is for you because you’re going to start learning how to master your mind and evolve your consciousness. And when you do that, anything you want then becomes possible for you. I’m glad you’re here.

Okay, so setting yourself free from life. I want to read you a letter that someone wrote me. Her name is Virginia Cook, and Virginia is in her 80s now and, other than my brother-in-law Don Javier, she’s been the biggest mentor in my life. She’s definitely been the biggest 3D mentor in my life, meaning somebody that’s just living their life in the 3D physical world, human identity, etc. And no one has had more impact in my life than her.

She created a real estate company that she started when she was 70. Prior to that, this is in Texas. Prior to that, she was president of another very, very large real estate company in Texas. The company she started when she was 70 went on to become the second largest private real estate company in North Texas. And the company did billions of dollars per year in real estate sales. We became very, very good friends. As a matter of fact, she would often refer to me as her best friend. Very, very wise woman, a Dallas business icon. And she wrote me a letter at Christmas back around, I guess, the year 2010 or so. I want to read that letter to you and then explain a little bit about where we’re going in this episode. Now, again, this woman is very successful by 3D standards. I mean, if you know who this is, many of you do, many of you will not. She was Roger Staubach’s mentor. He was the famous Dallas Cowboy quarterback in the 70s and into the early 80s. She was his mentor. She was good friends with people like Ross Perot, etc. I mean, this woman was a Dallas powerhouse in terms of business.

And she wrote me this letter, and she said, “Ever wonder, Jim, how you will change the world? Here is a question I ask myself frequently, and I always come up with these same answers: love, caring, energy, time, talent, respect, etc. I thrive on trying to be successful.” Now, she’s talking about Peter Drucker, the author. “Drucker wrote, ‘You will enjoy the greatest results in business and career if you drop the word achievement and you replace it with contribution.’ Success for me is not how high I have been, but at the end of the day, how many people I have brought with me.” Think about that. I’ve always kept this. It’s one of the most powerful letters and powerful things anyone’s ever sent me or done for me or shared with me.

So many people chase success. I mean, for crying out loud, I don’t even go on a lot of the apps anymore. You look at things like Instagram. Every second post on Instagram is about being a seven-figure earner, being this, being that. It’s just everywhere you look, it’s success, success, success. And what I want to share with you is I have coached many well-known people. I used to live in New York City. I have coached movie stars, etc. I mean, very well-known people. And I’m going to tell you right now, success does not make you happy. Yet, we think we know that, but yet we chase it. We crave it. It’s like a drug to us to be successful. Why? Because for many of us, that satiates our human identity. It satiates our ego. And then the problem with that is when we are not a success, what happens is then we feel bad and we feel like a failure.

So many of us chase success because we want to, and we define ourself by this. We want to own things. We want to have things. You know, right now I’m doing this podcast from my home. And, you know, many of us this day and age work from home. And I’ve achieved literally, and I mean this humbly, what many people consider to be success. And I’m going to tell you, I don’t care how many millions you have in the bank or even like the home that I live in is a several million dollar home, which is paid for, and it’s nothing more than brick and mortar. It doesn’t make me any more successful. But we chase that. We crave it like a drug, I said earlier, because what we do, and where I want to go in this episode, I’ll hop around a little bit, but what we do, many of us, and when I say we, I can’t speak for everyone listening, but I’ve coached so many hundreds of thousands of people over the years, is that once we create these physical 3D things, the homes, the cars, whatever it might be, the titles, many people chase social status, and that’s actually hardwired in the brain. Just because it’s hardwired in the brain doesn’t mean you have to let it control you. But we chase these things to define ourself. And we want to define ourself because we want to prove ourself a particular identity to other people many times.

And I see more of this, I’m generalizing, more from men than I do women. But a lot of young guys want to prove themselves to their fathers. And they’ll spend decades trying to earn their father’s approval by proving themselves, proving they are a good earner, a good business builder, whatever it might be. But the truth is, all these things, whether it be a man, a woman, or somebody that identifies as neither, it just doesn’t matter, anyone on the planet, none of these things define us, meaning us, who we are at our essence. They simply define us in a 3D reality, which is all an illusion.

You know, for many years, I chased things. I chased, admittedly, I chased success. And when I think back to my 20s, I had achieved that. I had acquired success in my early 20s. And you know what? I lost it all. And I achieved significant success compared to, air quote, most people. But you know what? I lost it all. And then I was devastated by the illusion of me thinking that I had achieved success. And for whatever your reasons might be, you know, maybe it’s because you want to prove yourself, or you want to make people proud of you, or you want to prove to yourself that you think you can do something. Make no mistake, it’s all 3D because many of us want to define ourself by what we think our level of success is. And for many of us, that is owning things.

And what I want to share with you is, and I can’t go into it in this episode, but I probably will in another one, is you own nothing, nothing on this planet. If you owned anything, you would take it with you when you left the planet. Ponder that for a moment. If we own nothing, and we do own nothing because we don’t take it with us, if we own nothing, how come we fight so hard as an individual, collectively, as a species, as a nation, whatever it might be, how come we fight so hard to own things? For countries, it might be real estate or territories or boundaries. And there’s been bigger answers here like control issues, and these are all driven by fear, by the way. But look at this. And look at your own life about things that you want to own. And in particular, these things that you want to own, how, I’m going to slow down here, these things that you want to own, like success or prestige or homes or cars or whatever it might be, think about this: How do these things define your perceptions and your interpretations of yourself? How do they craft the illusionary false identity of your 3D physical self?

I do want to point out that I talk a lot about identity. And the reason why is because we’re dualistic. And I may talk about that a little more in a bit, but we’re dualistic and you live on the planet. So living on this planet, we have many things on this planet that we have to adhere to. Meaning, I don’t know about you, and a lot of really smart people listen to this podcast, you know, maybe you found a way to live without having to, and I’m just making this up as an example, without having to eat food or buy food or live at a shelter or whatever it might be. So we have all these 3D things that are pretty much necessary for shelter and survival on the planet. But again, what we do as culturalization is we let them define who we are. And most of us think that we are who we are and what we are based upon what we own in the external world, meaning your world of 3D physical being. And the problem, and I’ve been there, and let me share this with you, and I’m sure many of you can relate to this. The problem with letting the external world define us and us identifying who and what we are based upon the external world, when the external world changes, so does our illusionary 3D human identity because it’s all based on ego. And when that changes, we change.

I mean, how many of you have seen people that have been thrown into chaos and lethargy and even malaise and different just emotions like that because they base their entire reality on their job or their money, or they pride themselves on their money, and then they declare bankruptcy? Now they’re too ashamed to face the world or too embarrassed or whatever. And what I’m sharing here, I’m sure you probably have had some example in your life of maybe you or seeing other people. But we define ourselves, many of us, on the externals, which are an illusion because you own nothing. And when the externals change, our world collapses. And for a lot of us, it sends us into a tailspin because we’ve been clinging. We’ve been clinging to the external world because it defines who and what we think we are to ourself and who and what we want other people to think that we are.
You know, let me look at this. Your job. Just simple questions: What does your job say about you? Now, again, I have been where I’m talking about, you know, I’m talking to you about in this episode. So I remember that this was like 25 years ago, I got my first job in New York City. I moved there. A Fortune 100 company hired me. I hated the job, by the way. And I was hired by the president of the company, and I hated the job. I quit in 30 days, just to be candid with you. I just did not like working corporate in New York City. But you know what? When I got the job, I defined myself as a 100. I used to think, wow, I’m a person, and again, this was 25 years ago, so it’s even more money now because of inflation, but I used to think, wow, I’m a person who makes $140,000 per year. And by the way, in New York City, that ain’t jack squat. I mean, it’s pricey to live there. And this was, again, 25 years ago. I think even a one-bedroom apartment now in New York, and this was a nice apartment back when I lived there, is like $4,000 a month.

Anyway, your job: What identity, what labels do you give yourself about your job? Many of us, the higher up the social ladder we climb, meaning, “Okay, I have a PhD from Harvard and I got a job that only hires, you know, Harvard graduates,” or “I got a job that only hires college graduates,” or “I got a job making $200,000 per year,” and then look what that creates in you. It’s all an illusion. Because you lose a job, there goes that house of cards. And look at your own life. Look at people around you. You see it all the time.

What about, and I’m telling you right now, I have been there. I grew up poor, and then I went to the opposite end of the spectrum, being very, very wealthy. So basically, according to like financial planners or statistics, I was a V, let’s see, how do you say it? A very high net worth individual, whatever the acronym is. I don’t know. VHNW. Anyway, you’ll figure it out. Very high net worth individual. Didn’t keep me from having a stroke. Didn’t keep me from having heart failure, I tell you that. And it’s easier that you have money. I did have health, I do have health insurance. But you know what? Life is life despite the job, despite the money, despite the relationships.

I mean, do you define yourself by your relationship, either positively or negatively? “I’m the kind of person that attracts X, Y, Z kind of people. I’m the kind of person that X, Y, Z kind of people don’t like.” It doesn’t matter. It’s external. But notice how we place our own, and then we feel good or bad about that, on something external.

What about your health? Here’s a big one for a lot of you, because I would guesstimate, and I see this every day in TCP, the Transformational Coaching Program, I don’t know what the number is, but I would say a certain portion of you, I would say probably 50 to 60% of you are, if you’re an American, probably overweight by at least 30 to 40 pounds. If that’s the case and it applies to you, then how do you define yourself by that? And an example might be, “I’m so fat, I’m so fat, I’m so fat,” or “I’m so lazy, I’m so lazy, I’m so undisciplined, I’m so this, I’m so that, I’m so not this, I’m so not that.” Or even healing: We will say things like, “You know what, I’m sick and I can’t heal.” And when we live by the external world, we’re not going to heal a lot of times because we’re living by the limitations of the external world.

Jobs, money, relationships, health. You, listen very carefully. Jobs, money, relationships, health—you are none of that. You are none of that identity. It is simply, are you ready? Pretty simple. It’s simply the human experience that you are having right now.

In truth, you’re above, and I don’t mean better than, I just mean as if you’re looking down from a meta position, meaning a higher position. Like, you know, one of my favorite power animals, an animal totem, is eagle. And the reason why, if you’re using animal totem cards, the reason why is that eagle has eagle eye. Eagle can see from way up in the sky, see a little bitty rabbit running. You know, something like, I don’t know the distance anymore, I used to know, but some great distance away, an eagle way up in the sky has eagle eye and can see that rabbit running to swoop down on it to pick it up. We need to have an eagle eye, an eagle eye and look at ourselves in life. Take a meta position, which means stepping back, so to speak, stepping out of your body as a metaphor and looking at your life. Because many of you, many of us, I’ve been there, our lives are trapped in the illusion of the human 3D identity and the ego. Again, these are important because they supplement the 3D, they assist, they help the 3D experience. But that identity is only one of two identities. I’ll mention that in just a moment.

Now, I don’t know about you, but I would… I’m making an educated guess that a lot of you can actually identify with what I’m saying in this episode. Now, when I say I don’t know about you, I’ve been there where I’m identifying with all these things in the world. And I want to tell you right now, for me, speaking for me, it was freaking exhausting. Why? Because I’m always, back then, always worried, always fearful, always waiting for this to happen, that to happen. It was kind of like my brain was on overdrive, looking to protect and defend myself from the world, yet the illusion of the world that I insisted upon was what was causing that overdrive, that worry.

And what I want to share is I’m seriously requesting, just think about what I’m sharing with you in this episode. Because so many of us are like, and I’ve been there, “Oh, yeah, yeah, Jim. I hear it all the time.” I get comments all the time about the podcast. People will message me on Instagram or whatever. And I do see a lot, even though my team answers it all, I see a lot of it. And people will say, “Wow, that episode was really good last week.” And then they forget it all and go right back to their old behaviors again. And I’m no one to toss stones because, you know, even my mentor, my brother-in-law, the shaman that I work with, has said that to me and those of us who worked with him before is, “Hey, guys, I tell you X, Y, Z, and then you know what? You’re like, ‘Yep, yep, yep, I get it, I get it, I get it.’ I turn around, you turn around, and before you know it, you go in the kitchen, you come back, and you’re right back to your old behaviors again.”

If you want to create the quality of life that you want, and there’s only a couple of things that create quality of life, so let me put it this way, I’ll simplify it: If you want one hell of a lot more peace of mind in your life, it’s vital to put your toe in the water. And I’ll talk about that later in the episode. Meaning start living your life from what I’m talking about and not identifying and defining yourself by only the 3D ego. Because see, when you have peace, when you have peace of mind, you stop what I call leaking your power. When the external world controls you, you are like, as a metaphor, a sieve. And you pour water in it, and all the water runs through all the holes in the sieve. You’re leaking your power. You’re leaking your energy.

It’s kind of like, you know, a metaphor here would be: Let’s say that you live in a big old house. Let’s pick a regular size American home, 2,000 to 2,500 square feet. And what happens is you go through the house and you turn on every light, plug in every plug, run every appliance that’s tied into every plug, and you have your house running with every single thing running in your house, every single electrical appliance and light. You leave that on for 30 days. Guess what? You get your electric bill and you’re like, “Holy shit, what happened?” Well, that’s what happens when you leak your energy is you’re creating bills that you cannot afford. So we have to stop leaking our energy. And the way we leak our energy is the exact topic of this episode, is giving our power to the illusionary 3D ego. Now, again, second or third time, the 3D ego is important because we need it to navigate the 3D physical world. So, you know what? I’m not trying to destroy the ego. You never will. It’s a part of who you are. We have to recognize that if we’re living only in the 3D world, we’re living in the illusions of what we think the world is, created by our mind.

Now, I don’t know that I’ll ever go into it because it’s a complex subject. I’m not a physicist, but yet I do know enough about it. There’s an experiment—it’s a famous real physics experiment, not metaphysics, it’s not woo-woo, even though it sounds like woo-woo—called the double-slit experiment. And according to the double-slit experiment, what you experience in your 3D physical world, which is also a reflection of your identity at the 3D level, doesn’t even exist until you observe that it exists. Meaning, whatever you’re expecting to see in the world exists for you, but maybe not for other people, because you’re expecting to see that.

I remember reading many years ago… I’ve worked with a shaman for 27 years. And in the early years, I started reading books to understand more about shamanism. And I remember reading a book, again, about 25 years ago… well, not again, because I haven’t said it yet… but I read a book about 25 years ago, and the book said… and I’ve read before that shamans are credited with saving humanity because they knew where to hunt for the food, they knew where to find the water, basically, they knew where, because they were shamans and seers, they knew where to look for things that would sustain life. I remember reading a story in a book that I was reading, you know, again, years ago, and the story was about… it was some distant shore in a more primitive world, maybe a thousand years ago. I don’t remember. But basically, this civilization had a shaman and shamans, but no awareness of any of the modern world. So I guess the 1500s, 1400s, thereabouts, maybe even the 12s, 13s, I don’t know. But the story was, is that the people living in that world had no experience of a ship. So when they had ships in their harbor, they could not see the ships because they had no experience of the ships. Again, that corresponds to the double-slit experiment, is they had no perception or awareness to see it, therefore that didn’t exist.

Pretty crazy, I know. But these ships were seen by the shamans, and not the shamans could see the ships, but they could see the wave patterns changing. And because they could see the wave patterns changing, they knew that there was something in the harbor that couldn’t be seen. And they went deeper in the vision journeys to find out, “Okay, what is in the harbor?” And what they found in the harbor was, once they advanced their seeing ability and their voyage, their inner journeys, they could see the ships. And then what they did is they explained the ships to other people. And then once they explained the ships to other people, those other people could see the ships as well.

So what I’m asking you in this episode is, where are you living from? Are you living from the totality of your soul, which I will and have been talking about quite a bit recently, and I’ll be talking about a lot more? Or are you living from the illusion and limitations of your 3D identity? And when you live from the illusions of your 3D identity, your 3D identity becomes your prison and becomes your hell for you. It becomes your prison and hell in particular when things aren’t going well: divorce, bankruptcy, illness, whatever it might be. These things happen. That’s the reality you live in, and that’s when the reality becomes hell.

You know, I was looking at something a couple of days ago. I do watch a lot of documentaries, and basically for me, it’s just background noise. If I’m creating a program or thinking about what I want to create for a podcast or whatever, I’ll watch something in the background. And I was watching something a couple of days ago about the coal miners strike in England in 1982. I’m sorry, I think it was 84 and 85. Yeah, I think that’s it. It was on Showtime. And there was this British guy complaining. Now, again, I have the, what, 35 years, 38 years to look back at this, meaning this happened 38 years ago, thereabouts. So I’m looking at it from my point in space and air quote time right now. And I’m watching this Netflix show, and this coal miner is complaining about Margaret Thatcher. I’m watching this, and his whole reality, his whole life is wrapped up, and it’s not a happy life—it’s almost a poverty-stricken life—is wrapped up in Margaret Thatcher, and he was a British prime minister, and he was hating on Margaret Thatcher.

And I thought, interesting. This guy’s entire existence as a soul on the planet is wrapped up in British economics and Margaret Thatcher policies. Now, let me flip that. So Margaret Thatcher, her whole reality was wrapped up in British politics and economics in Britain. She was the prime minister, which obviously she was, but that’s how she defined herself and that’s how she identified. So the haves and the have-nots. Thatcher was living in her illusion, the miners were living in their illusion. And look at the pain. Look at the pain in the 3D illusion. Look at the pain the miners had. Look at the pain that Thatcher had. Both had pain. Why? Because they’re all, and they’re both, and all, I guess everyone, most, they’re living from the illusion of the politics and economics and the haves and the have-nots, and the haves were controlling the have-nots.

So what’s important is that you wake up from your illusion. By the way, I should have titled the podcast that episode. I didn’t, and I’m already recording, so I ain’t going back to do it. But wake up from the illusion. Question: What is your illusion? That’s an easy one. Look at your life. Look at the fears that you have right now. Look at the things that are causing you to worry. Look at the things that are causing you to stay up at night. These are all the illusion, the illusion of the 3D when you’re the power that’s experiencing the 3D. And when we live in the illusion of the 3D, as I just mentioned, we give all of our power to the illusion of the 3D, but the illusion of the 3D is not real, but it controls us. So question: What things do you give up your power to?

Now, I mentioned social status earlier. Humans clamor. They want social status. They want people to think certain things about them, which in a small way, it’s preserving and it’s safety and security by preserving the 3D human identity. But people get caught up in social status. This is why you see people driving $70,000 Escalades living in front of $50,000 mobile homes. Because people aren’t going to their homes, but they want the status of having the Escalades. This is why people buy, you know, a million dollar home, and no one wants, for the most part, no, I guess I should say no one wants—I don’t think most people want… I’ve had it before, several at a time, but I was able to manage it. But years ago, I was like, I was craving it, the million dollar mortgage. I mean, most people don’t want a million dollar mortgage, but you know what they really want? They want the status and the social acceptance of living in X, Y, Z neighborhood. People fight, they beg, they cry, they want the acceptance of other people.

Money: If I took a survey of the hundreds of thousands of people who listen to this podcast every month—I mean, I think we’re at 4.3 million downloads or something, I don’t know what it is, I don’t ever check it because it’s not my main concern, my main concern is to do what I do—but if I took a survey, 70% of people would actually have money challenges. They worry about it. I offer them opportunities, but yet they do nothing about it. Meaning going into coaching with me, I’m just being candid. Why? Because they want to live in the illusion. And even when I’m coaching people, many times people won’t let go of the illusion because they want to hang on to the illusion, and it’s all 3D identity.

So how do we bring your power, how do we bring your power back to you? I can say this in a simple way, and I will, and then I’ll dig into this a little bit. But the general answer is knowing yourself. You might have heard me on two or three episodes ago when I used the phrase, know yourself as soul. Think about that: Know yourself as soul. Do you know yourself as soul? Now, I’m not saying, “Oh, do you know yourself as soul? Because I do.” No, I’m not saying that at all. It’s a journey. It’s an exploration. It’s an awareness. But are you actually on that journey?

And you might think, because I have a lot of people who listen to the podcast that are spiritualists, saying, “Yep, Jim, I’m on that journey.” But they’re really not, because they’re trying to understand themselves through the identity of being a spiritualist. The definition of religion is believing something strongly, whether it be Mormonism, Catholicism, even spirituality. And many people that are spiritual define themselves by being a spiritual person, and then many people get great ego advantage from that because they can tend to be a little cocky, a little arrogant, which is spiritual ego, and kind of looking down on people that are religious. And the truth is, whether someone is religious or spiritual, we are all metaphorically on the train ride home back to divine energy and essence and being that. But what I’m saying here is not: Do you know yourself as someone on a spiritual path? But: Do you know yourself as soul? And that’s what you want to think about.

So, you know, a little more here. Another way to gauge this or to look at this or approach this is if you’re getting into fears and worries and even your habits—but I won’t go there in this episode because that’s brain-based, but still applies—but if you’re getting into any kind of fear and worry, you do not know yourself as soul. I’ll say it again: If you’re getting into any kind of fear or worry, you do not know yourself as soul. Because fear and worry are not soulful. Fear and worry are not divine essence. See, we live in a divine universe, divine energy, which is extraordinarily abundant. And if we don’t have it, it is us who we’ve cut ourselves off from the source. So we can’t say, “Oh, yes, I know myself as mind, I know myself as divine energy, but holy shit, I’m afraid because I can’t pay my Visa bill. But you know what? I’m spiritual.” No, it’s a person thinking spiritual thoughts. When we know ourself as divine mind, we know ourself as that, then that’s when we start rebuilding and start regaining our power and working from that power.

If you look at humanity, the majority of humanity lives from the illusion of the 3D ego defining themselves. You know, it’s a perfect time to mention this. It’s, you know, unfortunately, for crying out loud, this thing called American politics is rolling around, an American presidential election. And it really doesn’t matter. But see, I can’t defend you because if I say something that’s offensive to you, I’m not offending you, I’m defending the belief system you’re wanting to hang on to. Doesn’t matter whether you’re a Democrat, Republican, it just doesn’t freaking matter. It’s all the same thing anyway, just different colors, so to speak. And this America, “Make America Great Again” movement—this whole movement is simply being led by somebody who was deeply immersed, engrossed, and ingrained in 3D lower ego. Nothing spiritual about it. Now, of course, it is spiritual because it’s human energy, okay? And that is divine. But look at the misuse of energy.

Okay, so I’ve said a couple of things here about identity. I do talk a lot about identity in the earlier episodes. It’s vital, but we want to create the 3D. So identity, what I tell people is this, and this is what I teach in TCP, is that there’s kind of two of us. We are dualistic. There’s two of us, dual. And we have the 3D, and we have the physical, and we have the non-physical. And they both, if we’re going to work from the 3D, the 3D is, “Okay, I am the identity,” but why not have the highest possible identity that serves your experience while you’re on the planet? The identity would be, and there is no identity because to speak the identity refutes it, so it’s kind of a conundrum, but the identity would be: Know yourself as soul. But again, most of us don’t know ourselves that way. We know ourselves simply as the 3D physical experience that we’re having.

So here’s what I want to do. It’s a little bit longer, but it’s a transformational takeaway from this particular episode is: Okay, so where do we go from here, Jim? All the things in my life that cause me to stay up at night and to pace the floor and all this worry, all these 3D illusions, how do we stop? Well, this is going to be really easy and it’s going to be really challenging for some people based upon how they actually even approach it or experience it. You ready?

Let go. Just let go.

You know, when I was in the hospital, I’ve said this before, with the heart failure, can you imagine the amount of worry somebody might get into if they’re in the hospital and they’re experiencing heart failure? And when I had heart failure and the doctor told me, I literally, I really wish I could have documented this with an EEG showing an EEG spike or an emotional spike or something to validate it. The doctor came in to the emergency room, and I mentioned this in the podcast before, and he put his hands on the railing of the bed and leaned in and just said, matter-of-factly, “You’re in heart failure.” And my comment was, “Okay.” And he goes, “We’re going to check you in.” And I’m like, “Okay, fine.”

I didn’t go into any kind of worry. I worried none, none, none. Because I know, I know at a soulful level, I’m not this body. Whatever happens to this body, it makes it easier when the body is functioning well, but I am not this body. Same thing when I had the stroke. When I came back to awareness and consciousness in the ICU, the doctor came in and said, “You had a stroke.” I said, “I know. Okay.” And that was the end of it. And they go, “Okay, we’ll come back later and we’ll check on you, etc.” They were probably a little alarmed because I wasn’t alarmed. Why does it matter? I mean, of course, and I want all of us to have the easiest possible experience that we can have on this planet, but you want the easiest possible experience? It’s not living from 3D ego because there is a shit ton of pain there. Where we want to live from is soul, okay? And that means we have to stop hanging on to things: marriages that we’ve outgrown, relationships we’ve outgrown, attachment to money, attachment to possessions, all these physical things, and even our bodies. We have to let go of these things because most of us, we’re like a pit bull. We’re like a 3D pit bull, and we have our teeth just sunk into what we think our identity is and what we think our model of reality is. And it’s actually none of that.

So a little homework for you here. Until the next episode, give this a try for one week. Make some notes, put up some stickies around the house, maybe in the car. And it’s really simple, okay? And I’ve mentioned this before, but not in this context on the podcast. All right. No matter what happens in your life for the next seven days, it doesn’t matter what it is. You could be in court and lose everything. You could experience a health challenge. You can be in a car accident. Whatever it might be, you pick. But no matter what happens—and it can be banal things, think about the things in your life that you bitch about. Maybe it’s a flat tire. Maybe it’s that somebody’s late, like, you know, 15 minutes for an appointment. Maybe something that you were expecting to happen—and I accentuate the word expecting, because that’s also a great source of frustration—didn’t happen. Maybe something fell through. Maybe a date fell through. Maybe a business contract fell through. But what I request you do is, here we go, just say, “Okay, that’s it. Okay. Now, I accept that.” It doesn’t mean that you agree and it doesn’t mean that’s what it’s going to be later.

So start small. Maybe somebody cut you off in traffic. Maybe something that you wanted to happen, an important dinner or whatever, didn’t happen. Maybe you thought you wanted to be on a flight and you missed a flight or the flight got canceled. Notice how many times you, I’m going to say you, you throw a tantrum about it and you get bent out of shape about it. How about this: Stop. Take a deep breath. Center yourself for like 15 seconds and just simply say, “Okay, these things that are happening, I am not these things. I am experiencing these things through my creation.” And recognize, because everything in your life is your creation, and recognize what you created, you created through your consciousness. We all are consciousness. And what consciousness creates, consciousness can also uncreate and recreate.
So again, we look at, “Okay, this is what it is.” And we might even think, “I don’t like this,” and that’s okay. But stay out of the emotions. You know, we’re not going to say, “Oh, okay, I just got my foot ran over and I love…” No, you know, “I don’t like this, but it is what it is. Okay.” And then what I do is I look at myself and I’m like, “Okay, Jim, you created this through your own consciousness. What did you do to create this?” And then I ask, “What are ways that you need to be to create something else?” And I ask myself this question: “Would my soul be bent out of shape about this? Would my soul be unaccepting? Would my soul…” and this is knowing yourself as soul, “…would my soul be angry about all of this?” Well, the answer is no. But a little hint: Your soul already knows all of this and maybe, probably, possibly orchestrated it in some way for you to learn these lessons.

But remember, politics, the economy, relationships, whatever it is, simply say, “Okay, I’m the one, my consciousness created this. Now, because my consciousness created it, how do I uncreate it?” You know, this reminds me of a podcast episode which, for me, is one of my favorites of all the episodes I’ve done. Maybe a hundred episodes ago, I saw the guy on YouTube and his name is Bob Cafaro. And Bob even said in the podcast interview, Bob had debilitating and deadly multiple sclerosis. I don’t recall what he said. I literally, I don’t recall. What did he say? Like he had a hundred lesions in his brain. A doctor wanted to write him a prescription for disability. And he said, “No, I’m going back to work again.” I don’t recall if he said he’s going back to work in six weeks or six months, but the doctor asked him how he was going to do it. And he did it. This guy was diagnosed, diagnosed with a deadly disease. People are telling him around him, it’s going to kill him. Doctors want to put him on disability. They tell him about these brain lesions. And Bob said something profoundly, at least to me, profoundly wise. He said, “Accept the diagnosis…” and it doesn’t mean the diagnosis are always correct, but here’s where I’m going: “…accept the diagnosis, but not the prognosis.”

Same thing with your life. Accept—and this is surrender—accept what is, but it doesn’t mean you have to own it and keep living it. Because see, when you work from soul, and this is a way to start knowing yourself as soul, when you work from soul, your soul, air quote, “knows” that you have the divine power and consciousness to create no matter what you want. You can create it in your life.

So, when you know yourself as soul, you set yourself free from life. Meaning, and when I said life, now I’ll go back all the way to the beginning, you set yourself free from the control of the 3D identity over your life. And you do this more and more, okay? And you accept it. You obviously accept the diagnosis, but not the prognosis. When you start doing that with practice, your 3D ego and identity starts getting in the habit and the practice of releasing you from the things that control you in a 3D way, and you can start opening up now more to the soulful essence in you and learning yourself and about yourself as soul.

Thanks for listening, and I’ll catch you over on another episode. Bye-bye.