Intro

You're listening to episode number 133 of the Transform your Life from the inside out podcast. In this episode, I'm going to talk about something that I think most people might find interesting. And I know has been very helpful to me over the years, and the concept is knowing yourself. So if you'd like to look deeper into yourself, then whatever you do, keep listening.

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, for 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.

Know Yourself Better Today Than You Did Yesterday

You know, the age old question. And I know many of us have asked herself the question, a very simple question. But the question is, Who am I? Before we dig into the question of Who am I? I want to ask you another question or a question. And the question is, what is courage? And what does courage mean to you? Now I'll come back to that at the end of the episode, but for right now, I want to plant the question to get you to start thinking about what is courage? Okay, let's put that on the back burner for now.

Okay, so the answer to knowing yourself, you know, Who am I and knowing yourself? You know, Shakespeare said something like, what was it to thee to thy own self be true. And working with a shaman for a lot of years, every year, at New Year, my brother in law, the Shaman hugs me, and he always says, and he said this for 20 years, and he always says the same, and only thing that he says every year. And that is, I hope, you know yourself better this year, than you did last year. So consider that you go through your years thinking, you know, what a New Year is upon me. And I want to know myself better this year, and going through the year that I, you know, I knew myself last year.

Now the answer to knowing yourself is really, really simple, at least in what I call the 3D level of self meaning your ego, your personality, the, the the body and the skin and the bones you walk around in on this planet, it's very easy to know yourself, it's shockingly easy to know yourself, at least at that level. And then we could go to a higher level, which we're not going to do here is what does it even mean to be a cosmic being? I mean, you travel from lifetime to lifetime to lifetime because according to Einstein, the law of the Conservation of Energy and the law of the Conservation of Matter, you can never die. We're not going to go into that at you know, in this episode, because right now, what I think would be amazing, is if you started looking at yourself, at least in the context of being on this planet, and looking at yourself and learning to even know who you are on this planet? You know the answer? The answer is so simple. And let me show you how simple it is. And we miss it.

You know, the example here the metaphor would be have you ever you know you're here looking for your car keys, and you're looking and you're looking and you're looking for your car keys and you're kind of you know, frantic, you might be late for a meeting and you're looking all over. And then you check. You know, many places you check your code, you check your you know, your little station where you might put things down in the house, a little bowl or something. And, you know, where did I have my keys last and you're running around, and you check your pockets, and they're not there, and you're frantic. And then you check your pocket again, and you're patting yourself down. And you recognize that your keys have really been in your pocket the entire time. But you've missed it. You haven't you know, you haven't recognized your keys are in your pocket. And I know that every one of us have had an experience like that.

Well, knowing yourself as you're about to discover is right in front of you. It's right in front of you every single day that you're on this planet. And like the keys in the pocket, the keys are on you. Well, knowing yourself is right in front of you. But you're missing missing the awareness because it's so close to you. Okay, let's use a little imagination here for a second. So what I want you to do is I want you to observe your last 24 hours. Now just sit quietly and go over all of this in your mind.

Okay, so here we go. Very simple. How many times and I want you to ask yourself, how many times was I fearful in the last 24 hours? How many times was I angry in the last 24 hours? How many times that I judge someone, or castigate or hate on someone? How many times that I show love to someone yesterday? How many times was I kind yesterday? How many tantrums that I throw yesterday? How many times was I disappointed? How many times that I complain?

Now let's let's look at some positives. As I said a little earlier, how many times did you hug someone yesterday? How many times did you think of someone else before yourself yesterday? How many times did you finally feel like you're good enough in life? How many times did you feel like you know what I can put myself out in the world? How many times did you give thanks to your body? I mean, something people rarely do is thank their heart thank their kidney and their livers in their stomach and their eyes and their brain. And I know that sounds so alien to a lot of people. But many people are grateful, but they're grateful for things outside of them. Not things inside of them are not even thankful for themself. So think about that. And another question is, how much did you do to help other people before yourself yesterday?

Okay. I want you to look at all this, just take a little bit of self inventory in some of the questions that I you know, asked you. And here's what I want you to recognize, please, is everything that you did, or didn't do is a 100% reflection of you. So it's obvious. If you want to know yourself. If you want to know yourself, it's very easy. You simply observe yourself. Because most of us don't do that we actually have no awareness. Most people, no awareness of things that we even do, or how we show up in the world. And if you want to know who you are, it's very easy. Just watch yourself.

Now this episode, I should have created this a long time ago, and I mentioned shamanism earlier, my brother in law's a Shaman. And if you've listened for any amount of time, you already know that shamans are healers, seers, etc. But he's such a powerful Shaman that he can influence your dream state. And he's also what's known as a black mirror. Now, that's nothing having to do with black magic or any of that. It's simply that when you're around him, he reflects back to you who you are when you're actually engaged in talking to him. Now, let me give you a short example here because there are many examples that I can give you about my own awareness and about myself that I've learned from him.

Many years ago, we were on a trip together. And we were in Oracle, Arizona. And we were doing ceremony, their spiritual ceremony and remembering dream time, which is where shamans teach and the dream time in the ethers and other dimensions. And he and I were chatting, when we weren't chatting, we were actually he was standing in front of me. And I don't think I've ever shared this story before publicly, but I'm sharing so you can learn. So as I said, he's a black mirror and he reflects back to you who you are. And so we're in the dream time. And I'm screaming at him and I'm not a screamer, I'm not a yeller. I've never screamed at anyone, as not my way. That's not how I communicate with people. But in the dream time, he was standing in front of me and I was screaming at him. And what I was saying was, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you. And in the dream time, what happened is like the old TV show in the 60s, Dream of Jeannie, there was a smoke that came up in front of us. And the smoke dissipated. When the smoke dissipated, he was gone. But what was in front of me was, I was looking in the mirror.

And what I was really saying the metaphor was is that I was hating on myself. And he was the one who reflected to me that I had these levels of self hate and self worth or lack of self worth and self acceptance. And he was reflecting that back to me. Now, had I looked at my external world around me, I would have found a great deal of evidence of me not approving for myself , not accepting myself, hating on myself, etc. But I never saw it because I never had the observation to look at myself from a different level and a different place. So we have to observe ourselves. So we have to look at it this way. We have to look at that everything that you did or didn't do. Let's go to the external right now, what you did or you didn't do is a 100% reflection of you. That's why I said earlier, like the car keys in the pocket. I mean, they're there the whole time. It's so obvious. I mean, we're with us wherever we go. It's so obvious. However many of us, we don't really want to observe ourselves, we really don't want to see ourself. And that pertains to me, it pertains to you, and it pertains to all of us, is.

Let's go back here to the word Black Mirror. Let's just call it a mirror, for example. What I want you to imagine here, and again, I reiterate again, when I say the word Black Mirror, in Wicca, and I'm not Wiccan, but they use what's called a black mirror to scry, descry S C R Y is to see, to see into the future at the sea into the ethers. So actually, I've never asked him why he's called also a black mirror. But again, the metaphor is when you're with him, and honestly, this whole episode came about because of that years ago, but I was just with him for a week. And I remember, when I was with him a couple of days ago, there was some ways that I was feeling and thinking and remembered, yes, yes. He said, he's a black mirror. And I'm not thinking these things relative to him. I'm thinking them relative to me, because they're coming out of my consciousness. So it's just some generic things, and nothing major. And I don't even know how I could qualify major. But I recognize being in his presence again, he was reflecting me back to me.

So the realization here is that I want you to imagine that the entire world around you is a mirror. Now do you remember when we were kids, and we go to the carnival, and maybe you know, even as an adult, you're a parent, and you take your kids to the carnivals, and you remember the house of mirrors. What I want you to actually get here is that you know, what the house of mirrors, generally, the story to this. I mean, it made us you know, overweight and tall and skinny and wavy and everything else. But I want you to imagine for a moment that you enter into a house of mirrors, and the house of mirrors reflects back to you, who you are, you see yourself in the mirror. Now back to what I was saying is imagine the entire world around you is a mirror and reflects back to you, every aspect of you. And that's why it started earlier. how angry Have you been? How complacent? Have you been? How, how loving? Have you been? How this Have you been? How jealous Have you been? That's you, that's the world reflecting you back to you because without the world reflecting back to you at all, you wouldn't be able to see it at all.

So what I want you to do is imagine that you're you're waking up, and you open your eyes, and you have awareness now that everything that you see, you think or your experience today, and again, we're imagining here is you, it's a reflection of you? Well, it is you because it's life mirroring you, back to you. So please recognize this is that every bit of your life is a reflection of you. Whether you attract hateful people in your life, or con people or wealthy people or victimhood, you know, people or whatever, whatever you have in your life is a reflection of you. And now this whole podcast is about living from the inside out the name of the podcast. But if you look at everything in your external environment, that's a reflection of everything in your internal environment. And that's why you know, this is the first episode I've created like this. But the phrase know that well, what I want to say is Know thyself, through observation of self, again, Know thyself through observation of self.

What we tend to do is we tend to avoid observation, because many of us don't like what we see, many of us don't like ourselves. I'm not in that category anymore, but many of us just don't like ourselves. And when you observe yourself without thinking about yourself, because what we do when we think about ourselves, we tend to attribute many times many positive characteristics to ourself, I believe the phrase or the old, not the phrase, but the old. Well, it is a phrase or a comment or whatever. It's called the Lake Wobegon effect. And it came from some, I believe, radio, you know, host or something years ago, but the Lake Wobegon effect is that we tend to actually put ourselves in a higher position in terms of our evaluation of ourselves compared to our colleagues or friends or people around us.

To give you a quick example there, some research was done. In college professors were told to rank themselves in regard relative to their colleagues, other college professors, and 90% of professors taking the survey said they were better professors and their colleagues. Well, that's not possible. It's not possible that you're that every person says they're 90% better than everyone else. That's a colleague. And this is why for example, in very simple terms, is that people over estimate over value, what their physical appearance is against, you know, the masses or whatever.

Generally speaking, we always tend many of us to evaluate ourselves against our colleagues and put ourselves in a higher position. And then this is all thought related. Now, if we actually could take those blinders off, and we had a social, like, marker point for what, you know, social beauty was, and we were honest with ourselves, we would say, Yep, he's taller, she's thinner, they're this, they're that etc, etc, etc. Yep, no, I can accurately put myself on the scale. But we don't do that. You know, this is, I'm just joking here. But this is why so many I saw this on a TV show or something one years ago, this is why so many sixes, meaning you know, the old thing where people give them a pair, other people are, he's a six, she's a seven, he's a nine, she's an whatever. This is why so many of us are sixes we rank ourself as eight when we're just actually ended a Lake Wobegon effect.

But the way to actually create more awareness about this, and this not about your physical looks, or any of that, that's that's far from it, it's just for an example, is to observe yourself. And the easiest way to observe is again, was I angry today? Was I loving was I kind was I jealous? Was I envious? All these kind of things, are you. And what I also want to point out, is that life shows you, life shows you who you are, at least in this 3D reality. Life shows you who you are. And it shows you that when you have the courage, and the awareness, and the acceptance of Yes, that is accurately what I'm seeing. And a simple example of a metaphor that might be again, just to give you a simple example for a second time, is if you go look at your bank account, and you have no money. That's a reflection of what you hold in your mind about money. Now consider that.

So you can say all day long, whoo, I know myself, I know myself, I know myself. But yet, you're on your third or fourth marriage, or you've got an empty bank account, or you're 100 pounds overweight, or whatever it might be. And we tend to ignore that because we filter it out. So and that's called cognitive dissonance is we don't want to hear it. We don't want to see it. So it's dissonance for us. But the reality is, just get quiet with this for a moment. Life shows you who you are, when you actually observe your life. I mean, for example, if somebody could videotape you, a tunnel phraseideo tape, someone could video you. And they actually videoed you for a day. I guarantee you, there's a lot of you that are going to say no, I don't do X, I don't do Y, i don't do Z. And then you watch a video and you're like, Oh my gosh, yes, I didn't think I did X, Y or Z. And that's a lack of self awareness, awareness.

So life will show you exactly who you are. And if you're not getting what you want in life, then a heavy dose of self observation would actually help you know yourself better, which would show you why you're not getting what you want to create in life. I've noticed also over the years, is that most people don't want self awareness. And what I've observed about this is we don't want self awareness. Because if we have self awareness, then what we do is we externalize it. And we say, Oh, I'm not as handsome as Bob is, or I'm not as pretty as Susan is. And then what we do is, then we get into our ego and say, Okay, I'm less than Bob, or a woman saying, I'm not as pretty as Susan. And then what we do is we actually, we have that awareness. And then for many times, we feel bad about that. And that affects our level of self worth. So so that we don't have to engage with our self worth. What we do is we actually, we, we ignore the levels of self awareness.

You know, let me give you an example from many years ago, I've never considered myself an angry person meaning and now my criteria for that. As I said earlier, I've never been one to shout and yell and scream at people. And to me, my very, my very myopic thinking, My very blind thinking and awareness. This was a lot of years ago, led me to believe about myself, Oh, I'm not an angry person. Why? Because I wasn't having external, you know, validation or external circumstances that would lead me to believe I'm an angry person because I used to believe that angry people yell and they scream. Now remember, many years ago, I was flying. And I had my actually, I don't fly coach anymore. I only fly first class. The reason I tell you that that's about prosperity. You want to have a much better flight experience. Always start booking your flights first class, and some of you will immediately say well, I can't afford that. Well, that's why you can never afford first classes because you operate from the money paradigm which is internal because you don't know yourself that you can't fly first class.

Okay, back to the podcast. So I was sitting in the middle seat, and this flight attendants rolling her cart down the you know, the aisle asking everyone what they want. And the guy to my right, I was in the middle the guy to my rights, and I will I want some water. So I'm working on my MacBook Pro, which is, I don't know, back then probably a 2,000 MacBook $2,000 MacBook Pro. And the flight attendant actually takes the water passes it over me right over my MacBook Pro, we had a little turbulence in her waters jiggling in her cup. And my thought was, I'm just going to share with you my thought was, What is she nuts. I mean, she didn't make 3,000 bucks a month, or whatever it is, she couldn't even afford a computer like this. And then I went more into my story. And my story was, it was like, Is she crazy? Is she not aware? Does she not care? And then I went into anger. Now I went into my anger thinking, and this is when I recognize this. And this was many, probably 20 years ago, I went into my anger, not even recognizing that I thought I wasn't an angry person. Why? Because the world reflected that back to me when I stepped back. And I watched it and watched how I respond to her. And as you asked me prior, are you an angry person? I'd say Hell no, I'm not an angry person. And then she does that. And then what am I doing? I'm responding in anger, not even recognizing that I'm an angry person.

You know more of my stories, because our anger comes from our stories. And then we put that out in the world. That's a reflection of us. But we don't recognize the reflection. Part of my story was is that you know, what, because I grew up this way is if it's not yours, don't take it. And you have to if you borrow somebody, whatever it is, loan more or whatever, then you take it back better than what you found it, meaning respect other people's property. And in my story, my story was and I don't know what was going on with her. But my story was, is she's potentially not respecting my property. And had she dropped that glass of water in my computer and fried the motherboard. Guess what, she's not paying for it. I'm going to be stuck here because of what I was calling her carelessness. But again, I didn't think I was an angry person. And then the anger, the anger came out. I'm like, whoa, whoa, I'm an angry person. Not even recognizing that I was an angry person. Because I lacked self awareness and looking at myself and my behavior, which I'm asking you to do, which I started this episode with. Watch yourself. If you want to know yourself, like I mentioned the video for a day, watch yourself for a day. And notice what comes out of you because that's going to create more awareness. And that's knowing yourself even better.

You know, I know I've mentioned this on the podcast before is that the Buddha said you cannot be angry, if there is no anger in you. But that applies to everything. My brother in law, the Shaman Don Javier. He's always poke at me. He would push my when I had them that he stopped over the years. And I'm not saying I'm not triggered anymore, but very rarely Am I ever triggered. And that's a blessing. And he used to poke at me like kind of metaphorically poking me in the ribs, poke, poke and poke. And I don't know, when maybe 15 years ago, I said Why? Why do you poke at me all the time. And he said, you know, if you squeeze an orange, what comes out? And I said, well, orange juice. And he goes, if you squeeze a lemon, what comes out? And I said well, obviously lemon juice. And he says I poke you, because when I poke you what is in you comes out of you. And that just knocked me over. I was like, Wow.

So what was coming out of me again, when I thought even five years part of that or however many years that I had like literally air quote, beaten anger, it was still in me. And we when he poked me I'd get angry. And because I just poked you to see what's going to come out of you. And when all this stuff's coming out of you that I'm going to stop poking you. And he stopped poking me many years ago. What a relief. But he goes now you're recognizing what's coming out of you. So look at the world, let's imagine that you're a ball. And the world is squeezing you and poking at you and throwing you what's coming out of you. And when you stop and you recognize that that's when you begin to know yourself better.

Now, what I was saying earlier, let me expand upon that a little bit is so many people are terrified of who they are and seeing themselves because then they will compare themselves to other people. And then what people get into which is that disease is comparisonitis. I'm not good enough or people are going to judge me or people are going to abandon me. And actually the two biggest fears that we have is the fear of abandonment, meaning people are going to push me away or the fear of inadequacy. And if we look at ourselves and then we start comparison, not comparison comparing. So if we look at ourselves want to get noticed And then we start comparing, then what we start doing is we start ranking ourself on the ladder. And then what happens, then what comes along is itself a lack of self worth. Why? Because I'm not as good. I'm not as good as XYZ person.

And what I want to share with you is if you compare, you will never be good enough. Because in this lifetime, no matter what you can do, or having the 3D world, there will always be someone behind you. And there will always be someone ahead of you. What I want to share with you completely ancillary and off topic is, if you're listening to this podcast, I would have to guess minus money even though I've done episode an episode and money episodes over and over and over, many of you still struggle with money, because you don't take the time to watch your behavior and have the awareness about what you think about money. But the reality is, is if you're listening to this podcast, I guarantee you, you're ahead of the masses, at least in terms of developing yourself, because the masses in the US, the majority of Americans read at a seventh grade level. And I know that this podcast isn't for everyone. As a matter of fact, the masses probably don't even understand me, or ridicule me, especially when I go into the deeper episodes, that I'm okay with that. But you know what, if you're here, and you're listening, I'm telling you, I've done this for a lot of years, if you're listening to my podcast, you are in the upper echelon of, I'm not going to say critical thinkers. But I'm going to say, I don't know what I want to say, you're in the upper echelon of curious, evolving, seeking thinkers. And I just I know, because I know who I attract, and who I've attracted over the years, and who's attracted to what I have to say.

So what I want to wrap up with here is that so many people are afraid to look at who they truly are. And candidly, this is not woowoo. But I do believe and guys, I have my lessons too, I promise you. But when I look at, for example, a story that was taught to me one time as this guy, and the way was told to me is this verbatim, so I'm going to just you use these words, it was posed to me. So this executive in a Mercedes Benz as posed by another Shaman, and these are the words he used. So he gets an executive in a Mercedes Benz, who drives up to a stoplight. And it looks over at the homeless guy who's dirty and dingy and filthy. And he snarls at the homeless guy on the corner. And then the homeless guy looks at the guy in the Mercedes Benz executive and there was in Mercedes Benz and snarls at him. They're both snarling at each other, because they're a completely different stations in the world.

And then he said, which is better. Think about that, which is better. Neither are better. They're both living out their karma. They're both living by 3D Earth choices by circumstances. And guys, let's not nitpick here unless not going to. Maybe the guy on the corner has mental No, we're not going to all that stuff. I'm just giving you a simple example here. But the reality is, which is better, which is better, you know, Queen Elizabeth, or somebody eating out of a dumpster. A story that my brother in law told me also to maybe drive this home is when he started apprenticing with a Shaman when he was six. And he saw some other kids. This was in Mexico, South Mexico, he saw some boys eating out of a dumpster. And he lamented is like how you know what a shame that they have to eat out of a dumpster. And the Shaman that he was apprenticing with said stop it. He goes that is arrogance, what you just said. He said those boys are learning lessons that you will never have the opportunity to learn this lifetime.

And I've always thought about that is what lessons Do I have to learn this lifetime. And remembering that back to you is that you have your lessons, I have my lessons. But this is what I know is if I don't look into myself, and I don't accept myself for who I am, and I don't love myself. And guess what? I'm not looking, I'm not looking at who I truly am. And the same thing for you, you're not looking at who you truly are. Because I'm going to tell you unless you're out hacking up people. That's also karma related. But unless you're out hurting people in a very significant way, and even people who do that are living out their karma. But most of us are very kind, very gentle, very loving people, but also very wounded because of the world that we live in, which is quite literally a very harsh world and many, many kind of ways.

So all that I want to give you this episode is just set. Watch yourself for a day and watch your emotions. Because when you observe those emotions like squeezing a lemon or lime, those things come out of you. And when you observe what comes out of you. Now you're learning to know yourself. So your transformational takeaway this week is observe yourself. And when you observe yourself now you're also being true to yourself because you're discovering your truer self, at least here in 3D on the planet. So have the courage to do that. I mean, what's your alternative? Never discover who you are and live your entire life in fear and blindness, and ignorance about self, or observing yourself and appreciating yourself and accepting yourself for who you are right now. Okay, thanks for listening and do what you can to make it a great day to day. And I'll catch you over on another episode. Bye bye.

Conclusion

Thank you for listening to this entire podcast. If you're the kind of person who likes to help others, then share this with your friends and family. You know, if you found value, they will too. So please share via your social media channels. Also, if you have questions, I'm here to assist. You can email me questions to support@jimfortin.com. And I may even use your question for a future podcast episode. Also, if you want transformational content like this daily, connect with me on Instagram, my Instagram name is @iamjimfortin. Finally I do have a personal request. I believe that we're all here to help others and to grow and evolve ourselves. Together you and I, let's help more people. If you would, please leave a review on iTunes and a good one by the way. I'd be grateful and through your assistance together, we can transform more lives. Thanks for listening.