Opening

You're listening to the Transform your Life from the Inside Out podcast. This episode is titled, what are your best addictions? Now the reality is, is that all of us have addictions. I mean, they're brain based, we all have addictions. But the question for you is, and we'll dig into it in the episode, what are your best addictions? 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, 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.

What Are Your Best Addictions?

Okay, addictions, when we hear that, you know, we hear that word addictions or when you think about, well, you know, as I just said, what are your best addictions? When you hear that most of us think and I did for many years, that, oh, addictions are a very, very bad thing. And I do not want addictions. Because, you know, we grew up that way we hear about people, you know, we're kids, you know, Uncle Bob, and he's addicted to alcohol and Aunt Susan's is addicted to gambling, and, you know, all these things that people think they're addicted to. And we'll talk about it a little bit in this episode. But the reality is, is that your brain must create habits. It's a survival mechanism. And then these habits become for many of us addictions. And the reality is, I mean, look at your life, look at the world around you, that many of these addictions don't serve you. They don't serve us. I've been there before. And I know I mean, I've had, you know, I've not had, for example, you know, addiction to heroin or something like that. But there are things that I've been addicted to. And it can be everything from surfing the internet, it can be porn, for some people, they can be alcoholic, and be gambling.

And I want to talk about addictions of emotions in just a moment, because I really want to tie that to what are your best addictions, but you're full of addictions. And like I said, most of us think they're negative. But the reality is, it's that we need to choose, it's vital that we choose addictions that actually support us, and build us. Now, earlier in the episodes, I think it's probably Episode Three, four or five, I talk about habits. If you're new to the podcast, I tell everyone go back to the very beginning, and start there because everything kind of builds on, you know, on itself over time. And what a lot of us do is when we listen to podcasts, or different things, we only want the most recent episodes. And you know, the truth is, if you if you do that, you're going to get you know, great content and value. But you're really going to miss out if you don't go back to the beginning. But one of the earlier episodes is about, you know, habits, and how the brain forms habits and what habits are and what they're not, and all these kinds of things. So I'm not going to really go into it in this episode, go back and listen to that one.

But I got online a little bit earlier. And I just found this one little passage here. That basic lumens and read it to you. And it says neuroscientists have traced our habit making behaviors to a part of the brain called the Basal Ganglia, which also plays a key role in the development of emotions, memories and pattern ignition. Decisions, meanwhile, are made in a different part of the brain called the Prefrontal Cortex. Now that being said, I talked about that in many different audios here, different episodes podcast is that the prefrontal cortex is the thinking part of your brain. It's the part of your brain that's thinking right now about what you're hearing. But habits come from a different part of the brain. They come from the Reptilian part of the brain, which we'll get to in just a minute, the oldest part of the brain, something that I want to accentuate here and I talked about in my habit program, and I'm sure I mentioned in the podcast here is that your brain the reptilian part of the brain, the Basal Ganglia operate from operates from the premise That all habits that you have our survival mechanisms. Think about that for a moment address that is that all patterns that you have in your life, they're self serving behavioral patterns, because they're survival patterns, even though we analytically might not think they're survival patterns.

So let that soak in for a moment before I move on. Because when we listen to podcast or different things, we hear something, and we're like, oh, that's good. Boom, we're off to the next thought again, and we're not even paying attention to what we just, you know, learned a couple of minutes ago. So we have to work from that place, that every habit you have is a survival mechanism, habit based mechanism of some sort. And you could say, Well, Jim, that's just not true. Because for example, how is smoking something that kills you? How is that a survival mechanism? Well, that's your, that's your prefrontal cortex, the thinking part of your brain that says, No, that's bad. You know, they say on TV, that's bad, and all the ads and research, it's bad. But the reptilian part of the brain, all that it knows, it doesn't know good or bad. All the reptilian part of the brain knows is habits, which are things that we do with repetition, over and over and over again.

And the reptilian part of the brain, it cannot analyze, that is the job of the prefrontal cortex, the thinking part of the brain, and the reptilian part of the brain, the basal ganglia, it doesn't analyze it simply as literally, you know, this matter and these, you know, these, these synaptic responses in the brain and everything else and, and the, you know, the the biological, biological brain. But that part of the brain doesn't reason and doesn't analyze. And this is not just me making something up. I mean, go research it for yourself, and you'll, you'll discover that it's true. So, what happens is, the reptilian part of our brain creates habits that we deem as bad habits, but yet they become habits. And then what happens is, many of us fight our habits, and then wonder why we can break our habits. Anyway, go back and listen to the earlier episode on that, I think episode number five or so when I talk about habits, and I'll go into more detail there. I do tell people that we put our habits into a few categories that we call addictions.

And we put them into either chemical addictions, behavioral addictions, or mental addictions. That's what I want to talk about a little bit later on in this episode, is your mental addictions. So when you talk about chemical addictions, we're talking about alcohol, and we're talking about drugs, and things that literally, I'm careful how I say this, these things also cause chemical reactions in the brain. So what happens I'm not going to go into it here because it's, it's it's pretty long. It takes a lot you know, a while to explain it, is that when you create these synaptic responses in the brain and your neurons fire in the brain, what happens is these things buyer around things like drug or chemicals in the brain, which affect the brain, which heighten the addiction. And then we have behavioral addictions. And behavioral addictions would be things like nail biting, gambling, partially because it can be physical, and you know, behavioral, and psychological is sex. For example, this is why people become addicted to things like pornography.

And then we have mental addictions. And mental addictions are repetitive thoughts, over and over and over. Mental addictions are basically your habits of thinking. And all of these things, as I was just saying, I mean, it would take forever to come in and sort all this out. All these things become chemical as well, because things that you think affect the endocrine system, and they affect you know, the body and the communication of cells in the body. So we can have mental addictions, which can also become physical addictions. But again, let's keep this really simple and I want to talk about mental mental addictions in a minute, and mental addictions that keep you trapped. So I think we've already I have already laid the foundation that we're all addicted everyone is a addicted. But the next thing is is what are you addicted to? Okay, so mental addictions. And these are things that a lot of people don't recognize as addictions. They recognize they have the behavior and the thoughts and the feelings associated, but they don't recognize it as addictions.

And they can be things for example, are you a big time worrier. So addictions can be worry, anger, fear, shame, greed. There are people that are addicted to hate for chronic, you know, for crying out loud. There are different, you know, they're different psychological addictions. And I think the three biggest addictions that I see in people would be worry, and happiness and anger. I often mentioned my brother in law Don Xavier the shaman and somebody now I call him Don Javier, but somebody messaged me last week on Instagram, and said, Does he have a Facebook page or something? No, he's a real shaman shamans are shamans are literally not anywhere in the masses. And a real shaman. That is, I mean, you would never find the shaman, for example, the Amazon who's a shaman coming up and saying, you know, I want to move to New York because I want to, I want to create an Instagram following or no, it doesn't happen that way.

There's some guy on YouTube that calls himself Don Xavier, I've never looked, I don't know who it is, has nothing to do with me. But I want to point out that's not the Don Xavier that I'm talking about. It's my brother in law, his name is Xavier Don is a as a sign of respect. So he's called Don Xavier, as a Shaman, a Sorcerer a Babalau, a Nagual. I was on family vacation with him one time, an extended family, you know, was there and somebody was on that trip, who tended to be angry very often. And he would this is probably because he stays up late, Don Xavier didn't even really start talking air quote, until I mean, meaning talking meetings, and parting wisdom and guidance and all this kind of stuff to really the wee hours of the morning. I mean, it's very usual for me to be with him as I was last night, until, you know, 4 or 5 6 7 8 o'clock in the morning, starting from the night before. But he was sitting talking to somebody. And she was getting in there, her anger about certain things and the way people were being and her expectations and all of this. And he said to her, he goes, you are in your anger. And you get in your anger a lot.

And she said, and I like her. I mean, I've always liked her. She said in the very sweet voice. Now I'm not angry. And even in her tone of voice, there was a not a self denial, but it's a lack of self realization and, and an ability to see herself and that many of us would experience her as angry, quite often, often. But if you ask her, are you an angry person? She would say no, I'm not an angry person at all. And what Don Javier said to her was, is that yes, you are angry, and you're angry quite often. But yet the anger has become a habit for you. And because it's become a habit, you get into your anger, number one, not knowing that you're doing it. And secondly, not even recognizing when you are in anger, because you're in the habit of being in anger. So think about that.

So, that goes back to you again, what things because I want to my intention is to give you some guidance to pull you out of these things with this episode. What things do you get into in terms of thoughts? That are self destructive patterns? And mainly, let's go back to worry, and unhappiness and anger? And let's add one more Fear. So look at that for a moment. And do you spend your life in fear? Do you spend your life worrying? Do you spend your life in unhappiness? Do you spend your life in anger? One caveat, and there's kind of a loop here that I really don't want to take a lot of time going into this episode. I do want to, to separate here that some people can be unhappy because they have let's say, for example, what would be you know, called clinical depression, which is a chemical imbalance to some degree in the brain, or chemicals in the brain. But what I also want to point out is that many years and so Okay, so people will say Well, I can't be happy because I have, you know, I'm clinically depressed. I'm on medication. And the psychologist said, so.

I get that. I understand that. Yes, it is real. What I want to point out is I also understand that firsthand experience. After college, I had, I had what would be diagnosed, most likely as clinical depression, coupled with panic and anxiety attacks. Oh, boy, you want to talk about a mess. I mean, I was literally between, and I never really contemplated suicide. I mean, I would be too chicken to do that. And it's not why I came to the planet to leave the planet on my own volition, and that kind of way. But I can't say that I really enjoyed living life at all, it was that bad. And my days were humdrum. And I would drag through my days. And then on top of that, I had panic attacks on top of that, and I had anxiety attacks on top of that. And then I would have anxiety attacks, about having panic attacks. I mean, it was a meltdown. I wasn't the hot mess. I mean, I was a volcano. That hot. And when it comes to a hot mess, and this was 1988.

I lived on the beach, and sell on South Padre Island, Texas, which is pretty much where I grew up South Texas, near Mexico, I managed the T shirt shop, and I really didn't have a lot of money, I didn't make that much. And I had I was trapped in life because I had no money to get out of the cycle that I was in at that point, because I didn't know all the things that I'm sharing with you on this podcast. And it took me about a year to get out of that air, quote, depression. Now what I'm sharing with you is I had it bad. I mean, I really had bad, bad depression. Now tell you that because some of you might be experiencing that. And I didn't have drugs, I didn't have a psychologist, I didn't have a psychiatrist. I didn't go to a doctor, because I couldn't afford it. And I didn't have health insurance. And I came out of the depression and maybe 8 9 10 months, maybe a year, I don't remember. And what I've recognized in my maturing and in my age over the years, is that this is going to be controversial to some people.

But when we're experiencing something like that, and we can say, well, Jim there was chemical reaction in the brain, there is something creating that subconsciously, think about that. There's something creating that subconsciously. And when we come to explore ourselves, and know ourselves, which is where I'm going in this episode, when we come to explore ourselves and know ourselves, that's when we have power and influence over things that happen like addictions, which we don't know how to air quote, control, or stop and they go on, you know, for many people for years, let me shift gears there. Okay, so in shifting the gears, I want to postulate something to you a new way to think about something. And I want to share this phrase that Don Xavier said to me many years ago, and that phrase is that human beings are the highest technology on the planet, consider that you are the highest technology on the planet. Now my more analytical listeners will run and they will look up the definition of technology. And they will say, oh, Jim, you know, technology is, you know, the application of some scientific so and so to an outcome or whatever. And I understand that because we tend to think of technology in terms of artificial intelligence, and robots and computer, all these things in the hospitals. And that's what we think of as technology. But what if you thought of yourself as technology?

And let me share something here, think about this for a moment. Consider this. Do you know how to make your hair grow? Consider that, do you? Let me give you a good one here. Let's say that you have a really salty meal, and you're hungry, you eat the meal, but do you know how to separate I mean consciously Could you put down pen and paper and tell me how to separate the salt out of that food and your system so that you don't overload your system with too much salt or whatever? What about you know distilling alcohol or drinking alcohol your body your liver knows how to distill alcohol when you consume it. The question is, is do you? Meaning you listening right now analytically? Do you know how to make your hair grow? Do you know how to make your you know your heart, pump blood do You know how to breathe? Do you know how to you know, distill the chemicals in your food when you eat it and then send it where it needs to go in the body? All these things that I mentioned, well, guess what, there's a part of your brain that can do this. Okay?

There's a part of your brain that does this, directed also, by now, this is going to be a little, you know, for some people, but your higher mind, I mean, you have innate intelligence running through you. That's why, for example, you can plant a potato. And you don't need to plant an instruction manual when you plant you know, potatoes saying, Okay, Mr. Potato, here's how you grow into a potato, or carrots. There's an innate wisdom in the world we live in, and the universe, but these innate wisdom is also in your body. So what I want to point out, is that what we as humans do, is we let the oldest part of us meaning the reptilian part of the brain, the basal ganglia, we let the oldest part of us control the highest part of us, which is higher function of the mind. And this is exactly what keeps us into addictions is that we allow the addictions that hurt us, that kill us, that make us unhappy, and everything else is that we allow these addictions in our life, when they come from the lowest function of our being, to destroy and override the whole of our being.

Because our addictions, our addictions, control the wholeness of you, because the wholeness of you is contained within that physical bag that you walk around in calling you which is not you. So hopefully, you get that is that if you're in any kind of addiction, that's self destruct ever doesn't work for you. It is because it's because you are and you didn't know till now. But you have been allowing the lower part of you the lower function of you to control the higher function, the higher essence, the higher being of you, MIT in 2012 tons. And there's been tons of brain research, you know, research last couple of years. But there was something just one line, I looked at some research A while back, and that one line said, MIT can't talk today, MIT neuroscientists identify a brain region that can switch between new and old habits. Think about that, let that soak in, is because for many years, scientists thought oh, you know, a habit. I mean, you can't choose the habit. And then some more brain research coming back up several years ago, like 2012, at the Max Planck Institute in Leipzig, Germany, demonstrated that yes, your brain does go into habit mode and make your decisions for you unknown to your consciousness. What happens is a brain makes your decisions and then you think about your decisions. But here's what the brain right, here's what what research recognized is, even though we automatically go into habits, we have the power to consciously start or stop a habit a few seconds before we engage in the habit, which means you have free will, and you have choice.

People that actually have not done enough research on this will say all that science research shows we have no free will as human beings because the brain makes our decision decisions for us. And then they'll go into Well, if I have no free will, I can't choose my habits, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And what science demonstrates is that your brain does make the habit, but you have the free will to read assign a habit before you go into it a couple of seconds before you engage, and the loop of getting into a habit. What does all this mean to you? And why am I sharing all this with you is what we want to do is let's go back to the premise that I gave you or that what I said earlier, you're the highest technology on the planet. We me you all of us were the highest technology on the planet. That being said, You You have the power to choose what your brain does. You know before you go into the habit, you have the power to choose.

And what we want to choose is we want to choose habits that are our best possible habits, habits that can actually work for us habits that can actually serve us and build us and create a, you know, a happy, healthy life. So this is why, you know, I asked in the introduction, what are your best addictions? Because you know, from this episode and maybe listening to me before perhaps reading other things, your brain is going to create habits. And these habits become addictions, and you're going to have Make no mistake, every single person on the planet is going to have addictions. So ask yourself, what addictions would serve me well, at this point in time, and my life, you can also go back to the last episode on authority and listen to that, again, because that's kind of what I'm talking about here is you were born, it's so funny is that your body and your brains and your body is a finite being it's a finite structure, it's a finite shell, you were somewhere before you got to the planet, which means you were infinite. And so it's interesting that an infinite energy incarnates into a finite energy, and lets the finite energy control the infinite energy. And if you're stuck in habits that are self destructive, been there done that. That's exactly exactly exactly what you are allowing and choosing to do.

And now you can be thinking, Okay, Jim, I get it, I'm on board, what do I do? Well, what you do, what you do is you evolve is that you have to evolve into higher function of your mind. And yourself. And your body is not yourself, your body is the shell that you're walking around in and living in and existing in. You are that infinite being that travels from body to body to body. And what's important is that we focus and that's why without telling you guys, a while back, I did an episode on people making money, their master. When we attached to things in this 3D world, we literally are bound by that. And we actually shut off our higher awareness and higher function. There's a phrase that Don Xavier said to me many years ago, and that phrase is that the calm and meeting men or women or person, but I'm going to use men, because that's the way it was said to me.

He said, the common man is hooked to other men, the warrior is hooked to infinity. Think about that. Because I mean, the spiritual part of you that energy, that essence, that soul energy, that higher self, that luminous body, is, it's attached to infinity. So what we have to do, is we need to, I'm just, I'm just telling you, what we have to do speaking for myself, and then take what you want, is we have to let go of our attachments. It doesn't mean that we don't have them in our possession, or we enjoy them. But we have to let go of our attachments to the world that we live in. Because people literally in the world we live in by by media, and the product of that Company, and the Rolex company, and all these companies and Doritos and all these companies, they want you addicted to their products. Why? Because you buy their products. It's all money. It's all it's all superficial. It's all not soulful.

Now, of course, I want you to have these things. I want you to enjoy your life, I want you to be comfortable. But yet to live, your comfort at the expense of the growth of the soulful part of you is not very wise. Think about that. So what many people do is they give up their power to the well they give it up to the illusion. Many people think the almighty dollar dollar for an example, as an example, is going to give them safety and security. Nothing is going to give you safety and security on this particular planet. You can get smacked by a bus tomorrow your plane can crash you know you can get a disease, you can get an illness, you can fall off a ledge. There's no security in this lifetime. None. None, None. None. There's no security but people have this illusion of if I have money, oh, that I'm going to have security. But that were true then how can people that are very, very wealthy aren't secure from leaving the planet, there is no security. So people trade the higher function of their being and their self for the lower function which keeps them in the addictions and keeps them trapped for a lifetime.

They're trading their soul energy for their physical energy, which, again, is, is finite. So there's a couple of phrases that I love. And we'll wrap up here to give you guys some guidance here is, I love this phrase. And many of you have probably heard the phrase, it's that be in this world, but not of this world. And that's how I strive to seek my you know, that's how I strive to live my life is that I'm in this world just like you I'm in, I'm doing this podcast, I'm in this world. But many years ago, I used to tie in to this world because I thought people would see me as successful if I had the homes and the cars and the money and all that. You know what? I never had all that stuff many years ago. And I chased it. And I attached to it. And now that I have all that stuff, it means nothing other than a tool of convenience and a tool of joy or fun, or, you know, having a warm place to sleep or a warm a warm shower. But you know what, it doesn't define the essence of me. And some of you guys are wanting, I understand I've been there you've you're wanting practical steps.

Okay, Jim, well, how do I move to the higher part of me so I can actually now dominate and manage the addictions and lower part of me, maybe a great addiction to have is the addiction and to not self growth, because self growth, growth for many people is growing the 3d ego and our money and no, well, let me improve my personality, and you know, how to win friends and influence people and all this stuff. Yes, that all helps. But if you want to be addicted to anything, which I tell people, you want to know your purpose, because people always run around. Here's your purpose. What's my purpose? What's my purpose, relative to the 3d ego. If you want to live your purpose, what you do is your purpose is to evolve. Your purpose is to evolve on this planet. That's it. That's it, that is living your purpose. And a Rumi quote, that I wrote down a bit ago that Rumi quote is, and when you get this it's like whammo upside the head. The Rumi quote is the universe is not outside of you. Everything you want, you already have. Think about that. The universe is not outside of you. Everything that you want, you already have.

Why? Because it was inborn. You look, for example, a lot of baby That's born, no one has to teach a baby how to smile, and how to laugh, why nobody has to teach a baby, how to be happy when they're smiling and laughing before they even have the cognition or this reroll ability to even know what happy is why it's a factory setting, so to speak. When I say factory, you came to the planet with it. It's a factory setting. So living from your higher self and into that place, it's a factory setting. And most of us erase the setting when we get here. Because what happens is the world that our parents in socialization traps us in the world of money and identity and ego and power and greed and security and all these things. The By the way, as I said to be repetitive, it's great. You want four jets, that's fine, not great for the environment. But that's, that's fine. It's your deal. You want a Ferrari, that's fine, you want a Rolex, that's fine. Don't care. You want a $10 million home great enjoy it, you know, enjoy the house, but the reality do not attached to it. And let it you know, define you because it will distract you from knowing yourself.

Because most of us once we have those things, we define ourselves by those things, yet we are not those things because we're infinite. And those things are finite, every year at on New Year's Eve, my family with Don Javier gathers. And every year he says the same thing to me. One line, one line, he says, I hope you come to know yourself better this year than you did last year. Think about that. I hope you come to know yourself better this year than you did last year. So what's your transformational takeaway? And it's a journey. It's a path it's not like oh, you know, snap your fingers shazam here it is, you know, while opposing by saying you know, wave the magic wand right in front of you. And it can be for it's a path I'm in it's I've been on this path for a lot of years. And where we want to go is To Know yourself, when you know yourself, you can then go back to the very beginning of this podcast. You can consciously choose the best addictions for you. When you know yourself, you can consciously consciously choose the best addictions for you. And then make sure those addictions are addictions that serve you, and that build you and help you grow. So that you can maintain a state of well being, and you can be a leader and you can assist other people on the planet. Okay, that wraps up this episode. Thank you for listening. Like I said, if you're new here, I appreciate it very, very much. I'm grateful that you're here. Please share. If you find value in these episodes, please share on social media. And get back to the beginning and start listening again. Okay, I'll catch you over on another episode. Bye bye.

If you're serious about transforming your life, from the inside out, I have a free training that you're going to want to listen to. And it's helped 10's of 1000's of people all around the globe. The thing is, all of my students start here, because when you learn to change your thinking, you'll change your life. Because as you already know, life happens from the inside out. The training is called Discover how to Eliminate Fear and negativity and an instant. So go to jimfortin.com/eliminatefear and start learning how to transform your life at a deeper level from the inside out.

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.