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You're listening to the Transform your Life from the Inside Out podcast. This episode is titled Your Choice: Happiness or Attachment. I'm not sure if you've ever really thought about it. But I know I've mentioned it before. The Buddhist said your greatest source of unhappiness is attachment ponder that, your greatest source of unhappiness is attachment. Here's what a lot of people don't recognize. And we're going to dig into this in this episode. Here's what many, most, a lot of people don't recognize. I see many people going through life unhappily. And all kinds of ways, for all kinds of reasons, for all kinds of excuses. Not enough money, not enough health, not enough relationships. Too much money. The, you know, your health, is this, that, or the other, or this and that about partners or relationships, or I'm never going to date again, or I can't wait, whatever it is. Here's the thing. Most people don't recognize all these things that they are attached to. Bring them to a state and emotional state of unhappiness. And we have to recognize that it's kind of like having your cake and wanting to eat it too. You can't have both. So, either you can have happiness in one hand metaphorically speaking or attachment and the other hand, but you can't have both simultaneously. 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 want 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. And 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 becomes possible for you. I'm glad you're here.

You know, I would guess the reason you're listening to this podcast is because you want more of something in life. Maybe you want better health? You know, more wealth. Better relationships. I don't know, but I do know those are the three biggest things that drive people. And many of you may be here because you're unhappy with your current life circumstances and situation. Even though you're the one who created the circumstances in your life the bigger thing we're going to talk about in this episode is that this unhappiness that people get into for not having the money, the health of relationships, whatever it is, is because we are often attached to an idea of what our life is supposed to be. And when our life is not that way. Then we are unhappy so many times what we do is we let our externals drive our internal happiness.

So, as I said in the introduction, The Buddhist said your greatest source of unhappiness is attachment. So, what really is attachment? Attachment is affection, fondness, or sympathy for someone or something. And it's also for many of us an attachment to an idea, an attachment to an outcome and the way that outcome is supposed to be. So many of us are attached to an outcome. And then when the outcome doesn't happen in the way that we expect it to be then we're unhappy. But notice, and we'll talk more about this. You were either happy or unhappy based upon your thinking and happiness and unhappiness or, or unhappiness. There were outside of you. Literally they are outside of you because I can take two people and put them in the very same place. One person will be completely blissful and completely happy. The other person might be unhappy in that very same place. Those are externals happiness is an internal job and if you're unhappy it's because you're doing something internally to make you unhappy. And what you're doing is you are attached to an outcome. In some way the way that things are supposed to be.

You know, the thing about attachment is it's tricky. We can't visually for the most part. We can't really see what we're attached to, unless we're physically doing something. But as I said earlier, many times, if not most, if not all times, we are attached to some thought process. And then, because the process doesn't happen in a particular way or an expectation, then we are unhappy about it. You know, let me use myself as an example. I'm very fortunate. I'm building a brand-new home in Sedona, Arizona. I've lived here for, I guess, four years now. I built bought a plot of land. I'm building a brand-new home. And candidly by pretty much anyone standards it's a pretty nice home. It's a luxury home. It sits on two and a half acres. I have an amazing view of most of, not most of Sedona and this contract or the contract said nine months to a year max to finish the home. We're going on for two years and he still hasn't finished a job. I have to step in and manage part of the job for him on top of living in a house that has many things that are unfinished, that we had to move in. We had nowhere to go, there's not anywhere, really to go in Sedona because we have so many visitors in this town. Something like 4 million a year.

We sold our other house. At a timeframe, the contractor told us a new house would be ready. It's not. So, we had to move in, and we have a lot of things that are undone. A lot of things that were not done well. And part of that's probably normal when you're building a house, you have a punch list of a lot of things that are not done properly. We have a lot of things that he really did in a way. That he did it because he was running so far behind. That's requiring work to clean it up now. But let me give you an example of attachment. So, this whole project number one, I am fortunate to live where I live, because even with all this going on, I'm still fortunate to live here. I’m very blessed. When we bought the property, we looked at all the plans. We had everything modified. We had a very high-end designer in Scottsdale design the entire house on the inside. The house now is noisy. There's no question about it, but it's not like what we put out in the, in the designs.

And one of the reasons why is the contractor agreed to everything before we started. And then he started saying, oh, well, I don't know if I can do that. You know, for example, to give you an example of what I mean here. Our kitchen island is 14 feet long. And we wanted to do something dramatic. Like quite literally, we wanted to have it hanging on a steel frame, hanging from the ceiling. Very unusual very unique. Right. Once we started the project. He's like, well, I don't know if I can do it because of this, that or the other. So, we gave up and we compromised, and we didn't do it. But that happened a lot in our house. And now we have a house that's a nice home. But it's not the home that we built with the designer that he agreed to. And I don't know that I was, I wasn't entirely pissed off at this point in my life. But I wasn't thrilled about it. And again, I'm very blessed and very fortunate to live where I live. My bigger point is even a couple of weeks ago when I had to step in and manage the project again, amongst everything else that I have with work and hiring three brand new employees and all the things that I have going on.

I was not pleased about it, and I said, whoa, Jim stops for a moment. Stop. You're not pleased. Because you're attached to something. What are you attached to? And based upon the story I just told you, but obviously that's my thinking. I was attached to this vision I had for the home. That didn't happen the way that I wanted and the way that I paid for. I was attached to, which is a big thing to me, values very important to me. I was attached to getting value and getting what I paid for and by anybody's standards, I paid in this house it's already paid for. I paid a lot of money for this house. And so, I'm attached to these ideas that I have. And I even said to myself, you know, Jim. These frustrations and I wasn't going into anger because I knew there wasn't a point in that, but the frustrations that I'm going into are happening. Because instead of being in the moment and saying, okay, this is what it is, which is where I am now. Emotionally with it that's where I am. It's hey it is what it is. It might not have been what we set out to do, and it might not have been as great a vision we had for the house. But we're kind of 70% in terms of the vision being completed. And it's a nice place to live. It's safe. It's nice, it's comfortable. And it is what it is.

And at that moment I had a big epiphany. And the epiphany was about how I was managing the project in my mind. We'll talk about that in a minute. And how you do that with things in your life. And the epiphany was, Hey. You know, is my peace of mind worth the brick and mortar? And it's not worth the brick and mortar. And I thought to myself. Okay. Again, Jim, what are you attached to? Let's go fishing here. Let's go on to the expedition and see what you're attached to. And let's start letting go of those attachments and candidly I'm in the process of that now working through. Okay. And I'll use my own language. What pissed me off about some of the things that he did on our project that were by anybody's ethical standards in my opinion, because ethics are a high value to me wasn't ethical. Where did misrepresentation happen? And these kinds of things, then I just kind of went through and then looked at the values that I had attached to those and the expectations. And then I looked at more than anything. The purpose of this episode is the podcast and when I say the podcast, I mean, I guess the purposes. What was I attached to? What was I attached to?

I do know this, and this is what actually helped me a great deal. Any time that I'm feeling bad. And I'm talking to you also. Anytime you're in a negative emotion. Or you were sad about something. And the moment without awareness, you are attached to that something. And, you know, what I'm not sure why we do this, and I've been there in my own life. We're often fond of the thoughts that make us feel bad because we want some kind of outcome. And then when we don't get it, we tend to think, well, you know, everyone listening, we're adults. While adults really don't have emotional maturity beyond about eight years old because who and what you are you've learned to become before the age of eight. And you look at the tantrums that kids throw. Now, look at your adult life. What kind of tantrums do you throw? And part of the attachment that I was getting into is expectation when people tell me they're going to do something. And I know we can't depend on everyone, and we can't have expectations because many people will let us down.

But at a deeper level, I'm like Jim. You know, you were told that X, Y, Z would be done. You obviously created an expectation. It wasn't done or wasn't done in the way that you said it would be done or to the quality and level you wanted to do. Now you're frustrated about that because you had expectations. What I just explained there in my own life. No question about it. I'm a betting man probably applies to every single one of you listening right now. Okay, where do we want to go from here? Because we want to start unraveling and start peeling. I was going to say kind of unraveling the whole thing or I'm peeling layers. But let's start looking at this deeper. Okay, so let's talk about attachment. And what it really is. Because I'm going to tell you in my own words, from my own experience attachment can be a real bitch. If you get attached to attachment. And I'm not tossing stones I have been there. I mean, I think back to my earlier years when I was in my twenties and thirties, holy mackerel that I love to metaphorically hook my wagon to something. And then I was along for the ride and I, you know, all these attachments by hooking my wagon to some person or a thought or idea or belief or concept or something physical. And holy crap in my earlier life that I create a whole lot of chaos and a whole lot of a lack of peace of mind.

So, what really is attachment? Attachment follows along here. Follow me, attachment is a lack of awareness. Now I went into everything that I talked about through this episode so far. And you might be thinking, or you might've been thinking, Jim, where the hell are you going with all this? You know, why are you talking to, you know, why, why are you telling me these stories about your house and what you're going through and everything else? Number one, we're no different for the most part we're on the planet. We're learning lessons. However, until I really sat down and dug into this. I knew that it was getting agitated because again, honestly, I'm, I'm beyond the point really of getting, I mean, I've never yelled at the contractor. Never express anger. Maybe I should have, I don't know. It's just not my nature. But I never expressed you know, anger or anything. And I'll give you an example of recently, he said that something in the house for the third time, in the row, third time in a row, we're having some custom metal work. And one of the bathrooms sinks is a 400-pound granite sink that sits on heavy steel reinforcement. For the third time in a row and a row, the person doing it has done it wrong. They've ordered the wrong metals or whatever. And I said, and I was out of line, but I said it's like everything else in this house, it's a fricking joke. And the contractor said to me, he goes, well, you should be nicer. I told a friend of mine about that. My friends, like he better be glad you're not suing him. So, you are really nice to him.

But overall, I mean, I'm really nice to the guy and that's probably the meanest thing I've ever said to him. And it's not an exaggeration but I sat down, and I looked at okay if I'm agitated, I'm irritated. And part of it is because my living environment is very important to me. A lot of you guys will understand this. Especially listening to my podcasts because I know the kind of people that you are. I'm very much to serenity in your home. Peace in your home. When we had this home design, the designer literally was to design it. So, it would be a very peaceful home on the inside. Every day I've got subcontractors. He even here in Sedona, I've had subcontractors show up at four o'clock in the morning. I'm not exaggerating, wanting to do things. So, my, my existence, my habitat is in chaos and it's very challenging energetically. But I looked at okay, Jim, what do you what's really, you know, what's triggering you here. What's upsetting here and I dug into it, and it was digging deeper into the awareness of the values I was attaching to how things were happening or not happening.

And by the way, I'm thinking through this episode with a cadence of flea, it's okay. When I'm talking to you, because I'm literally thinking through this episode as I'm doing it, because generally I don't have extensive word for word notes. So, I'm thinking through this as I'm going prong to put this story together for you to make it as accurate as a, as I possibly can. But so, you can also see yourself in this story, because whether it's a home, it could be a person, a job, a relationship. It can be whatever in your life, but the whole key is having awareness. Having awareness of what is causing us the pain. Having awareness of what's causing us frustration or what's causing us anger. Now I'll give you an example. So, part of my, and earlier anger was I paid the contractor a lot of money. His profit because he made 19% on the home and his 19% was almost right at seven figures. That's a, that's a good chunk of money. And here's the thing, for that investment I expected very high-quality work in the home.

Because this guy's a custom home builder and there were a lot of things that were done sloppy. So, then I looked at, okay, what's triggering you, is that one of your highest values is quality and you're having to go over and over and over again, you were having to do a job for somebody that you've already paid to do a job, to clean up the quality and to get him to clean up the quality. And this is what's triggering you. And this is what you want to do as you want to look at. Okay where am I triggered? What am I attached to. Now? What's the awareness that I'm getting that's causing the attachment. What's the awareness that showing me the attachment. Here's where I want to go next in the episode. You want to see yourself? You want to actually a better choice of words if you want to observe yourself with awareness. Just like you might stand in a corner and I'm a people watcher. I watch people because that tells me everything, I need to know about them. And especially when I'm coaching. But I watched people and so I had to step back and watch myself. And watch what things that I was air quote, getting into.

Now yourself what you must do is, you must observe yourself. And observe the feelings that you get into when you're all bent out of shape. And you know what these feelings come from, the illusion of yourself. Because see you make all these things up in your mind. Therefore, they all are an illusion of your mind. You know, I think back many years ago to where Don Juan Matuse and Don Juan were the, what's called the benefactor in shamanism. The benefactor, meaning the, the mentor to Don Xavier. And many years ago, I mentioned it maybe 200 episodes ago in the podcast. He said, we must see the world not look at the world. And most of us are so conditioned to look at the world, meaning what's right in front of our 3d eyes, as opposed to seeing the world. Seeing his observation, seeing his awareness and what we want to do is take a step back. Like I just did, and I explained that I went into this long explanation about, we want to step back and observe ourselves and the crap that we get into and then look at okay. Now I'm observing the behavior. What's causing that behavior in me. What are my expectations? What are my fears? What is my anger? What are all these things that are causing the agitation when I'm not recognizing it is these things, but now you become aware and when you become aware, now you can better manage this.

So, your whole key is observed. Observe how all things in your life play out. Also observe other people. You know right now there's a lot of chaos in the United States and it's all political bullshit. Number one. I'm not giving you advice, but I'm going to give you advice. Stay out of it. Watch from the sidelines. Now let me give you an example here. I don't mean not to be an activist or any of that, but. Many years ago, Don Xavier taught me. Life is one of the metaphors he used as life is like a cliff above a pool of water, like a big, you know, whatever cliff or whatever. And he goes, do you want to stay dry, or do you want to get wet? If you want to stay dry? Then do not hop off the cliff. If you want to get wet, then hop off the cliff. And I look at life and I want to stay dry, and I want to stay emotionally grounded, and I want to stay at peace. And these are the things that I desire and work towards. So back to where I was going here. If you observe what's going on in the world, it's a comedy show. I, I literally do not read the news very much. And when I do, I generally will check four different news sources to get their take. And I already know their take. When you look at CNN already know what their takes kind of be when you got to Fox, I already know, but I just want to observe what's happening and then I'll go to Reuters and then I'll go to, to, UPI and stuff like that. And I'll, I'll just gather information. I'm observing and observing other people. And I don't think it's a secret to any of us. The world's in a lot of chaos right now.

So, we can observe other people, but we can also observe ourselves about how things play out in society. How we want to play that game. You want to stay dry. Do you want to get wet and observe how things play out in you? I see people quite often that are getting, I mean, immensely bent out of shape. By what's going on in the world right now. Could it be troubling? Maybe yes, maybe no. Is it troubling maybe, maybe, yes. Maybe not, it all depends upon the observations and thoughts of the observer. But what we do, what we want to do is not react. We want to examine and observe. You know, as I read many thousands of years ago, Socrates said the unexamined life is not worth living. I don't know if that's a hundred percent accurate and that's from his model of reality. But again, we tend to stay very blind if we're not observing ourselves. Okay so we've talked about attachment. We've talked about awareness a little bit. And the way to create awareness is to observe. But here's what awareness says. Awareness is an epiphany. And epiphany is when you see something and a new way.

And what we want, what I want, what I desire. And I, you know, I want this for you, if you want it. Seeing in yourself, what you have not seen in yourself. So, as I said, an epiphany is something we have not seen before in seeing it in a brand-new way. I also want to point out that doesn't mean negative or positive. It can be either negative or positive. Because we can do negative things and not be aware of them. We can do negative things and be aware of them. You know, one of my favorite shows. The first six seasons don't judge is The Office. After the first six seasons, I started checking out the riders changed all those kinds of stuff. I think I just, it wasn't the same. But I remember Michael. The, you know, he, if you've never seen The Office personally, I think is pretty damn funny, but Michael had a complete lack of awareness. Steve Carroll. played Michael. A complete lack of awareness. And he was making fun of one of his new employees. He was hiding behind the door because the employee wanted to hang out with him. And in that episode, Michael said something that the employee's name was Andy, you might even know the episode. If you're a fan like I am, and Andy was wanting to hang out with Michael and kept bugging him and bugging him. And Michael was hiding behind the door. And Michael said something along the lines of that guy has a complete lack of awareness when Michael himself has had, and the, you know, the series, a complete lack of awareness, which the entire series is built on his complete lack of awareness.

So, we have to look at ourselves. You know, I'll give you an example that Don Xavier has said to all of us over the years, and I'm not going to abridge anything. Every full moon for decades. He's a shaman, a sorcerer, he's a medium. And he would channel two beings. One being was his benefactor. Don Juan Matuse. The other being was Donya Maria Sabina. And then he would just talk to us kind of in a jovial way afterwards, he would usually channel for two or three hours. And then it took him about an hour to return, to become coherent again and cogent and present. Then would you usually eat some dinner late at night? And about an hour after that he would start revitalizing and becoming his normal jovial, joking fun self. But he was talking about awareness, and this was 20 years ago. And he goes, you know, many of you, I sit here and talk to you. And I will talk about X, Y, Z. And you say, okay, I get it. Or you say, no, that's not me. It smells like roses. I'm a really good person. When in fact you don't smell like roses as a metaphor. You do a lot of crappy things, but we don't know that we do crappy things. That is a lack of awareness. That's having no epiphany about us.

And if you, you observed the world. Many people do many things that annoy other people and trigger them. And one way or another. I'm just being, you know, just laying it all out and his episode. One of the things that I don't find great value in, and I, I can find annoying is when you're maybe in a quiet, more reserved space. And somebody is talking on their cell phone and they're completely oblivious to other people around. You know, when I fly, I generally fly first class and there was this person. We landed this woman; she got on the phone. The second we landed and started talking to her friends really loud. About a date she had last night and how they did this and how they did that. And my thought was, we can hear you all the way to the back of the plane from the front of the plane to the back, because you're talking so loudly. And you know what I don't want to hear about your damn date last night. I really didn't want to hear about her date. Wasn't that interesting to me? But she had no awareness that she was doing it. Now can I judge her? Not really because I have to look at it well. I mean, I am pretty self-aware to some degree. And I look at what things I have done. That I'm not aware of that may in some way be disrespectful or rude or in some way to something else that I normally wouldn't see myself as being that way.

Now when do I say positive or negative. When it comes to positive, I'm still not aware. But one of my mentors was a woman named Virginia Cook and she's in her eighties. Now she has built a multi-billion-dollar real estate company in Texas. We were really, really, and still are very close friends. And many years ago, she said, Jim, I've been in this business 40 years and I've hired tons of people to come in and speak to my company. She and I were just having lunch. They are so late she goes; I don't think you recognize how good you are at what you do. Candidly. No, I don't recognize it. What, however good that is to, to anybody. And the reason why is not, everyone's going to see that. Not everyone's going to think that, and I don't give a crap. And the reason I don't care is because all I want to do is something to make the world a better place and love what I do. And for me, that's the end of it. So, it's not important for me to be aware of how good at something that I am, but I definitely want to know if I'm not measuring up to an expected or intended or desired performance for myself. To deliver very, very, very high-quality content. I pride myself on the Transformational Coaching Program being one of the absolutely most powerful programs in the world and I will stand that program up against anyone and I created it. So, I want awareness’s when it’s not there. But on the flip side, the negative things we don't see when we do things that can be, you know, rude, annoying, offensive to different people. You know an example could be when I used to fly a coach many years ago. This guy sat down next to me. Took his shoes off, crossed his legs and put his feet in front of my space in the seat. And he was like, he had this complete, like oblivious. He was oblivious to, you know what, this isn't my seat. He was oblivious to it. He was in my seat and apparently, he thought it was completely okay.

A lack of awareness. So, we have to be compassionate in life, think, and I'm getting better. And as I speak to you guys, you know, we want to pay attention, but we also want to have compassion for ourselves as well. Now I talked about seeing and looking, but I don't know if I told you the definition. Our what Don Juan taught me years ago. Don Juan said, most people look at the world with their eyes and they think they are seeing. But they're not seeing they are looking and looking at is what's right in front of you right now, looking at what's right in front of you right now is looking. It doesn't mean that you're seeing. So, for example, I could put a very expensive piece of, let's say this, a precious metal at this piece of an ounce of silver on my desk. I could put that in front of you and you could look at it and say, whoa, that's nothing more than a hunk of metal and throw it away. So, what else could look at it? And naked. See it and say, whoa, that's a piece of silver. That's 25 bucks an ounce or whatever it is right now. I don't know. But the point we can look at in life. And we can see what politicians we can see. We can look at them and look at what they do. And then we make all kinds of judgements and values and expectations upon that. And when we're looking at that.

But when we see it, what do we really see? We don't see politics anymore. We see greed and the ego. And the selfishness and the destruction and the things that some of these people do, not all of them. But some of them that my friend is seeing. And we ourselves have to see ourselves, but most of us only look at ourselves. And when we look at ourselves, we have no awareness. Now how do we become this way? We became this way. And that we just actually look at everything and do what we do. I'll tell you the reason real reason we've been trained and conditioned to be that way. What I mean by that, you've heard me say before that you become who you are by the age of eight years old. You have been trained without even knowing you were trained and indoctrinated as a small kid and that trained you and conditioned you and how to see the world. But see, when we see the world, we don't recognize we're not seeing the world. We are looking at the world based upon our conditioning.

So, we might physically visibly see something, but you know what, we're not looking at it. Why? Because we are looking at it through the filter of the rose-colored glasses. So therefore, we don't really see it for what it is. We look at it and think that it is what it is based upon our past conditioning. Okay. I got that out and I explained that. This is something I've become pretty good at over the years, as I understand, and my own observations and awareness is taking a step back. Because your past conditioning by mom and dad in society has trained you to look at the world in a particular way. Now, where am I going with this? What happens is all this conditioning has taught you what you should have, what you should be, how you should be at and how you should do it and be it and have it and everything else in life. And so, we learn this social conditioning. And the social conditioning is you must have X Y Z to be happy. And if you don't have XYZ, then you're not happy.

You look back at the 1950s knee nodded states. Many Americans were wanting the modern home and the modern appliances and all these kinds of things. And this is where subdivision sprouted up. We're wanting these things, the great American dream, which by the way, when it comes to the mortgage companies, all it's all our fricking illusion. One of the biggest rip offs in the world, rip offs in the world is mortgage companies. They might help your secure property. But whatever you pay for that property. You're going to end up paying more than double for it. When you finish paying interest for over 30 years on that property that you don't own till it's paid for it's one of the biggest illusions in the world.

Anyway, we're trained to literally think that we will be happy when we have X, Y, Z. Then, what we do is we attached to those things. Meaning, I've got to have the best of XYZ, the best house, the best car, the best, this the best that. Candidly even looking at myself, as I'm saying this mainly, I wanted this house because I wanted location, and the house was already coming with it from the contractor because his family owned a location. I sit on two and a half acres in Sedona. Out of the fray out of all the tourists that visit town. My house borders, federal land. I walk out my front door and at 50 feet, I'm literally walking in the national forest and all the hiking trails. That to me was something that I wanted for the enjoyment of life. Was I attached to it? No. That I desire it? Yes. So, but I did talk about my, my frustrations with the home and that was hell yeah. Me being attached to things. Okay.

So, what we do is we attach because society tells us to have a better life. We have to have X, Y, Z. So, then we are attached to it, not even aware that we're attached to it, and then we don't get it in the way that we want it. And all these kinds of things. Now, just like I told you about me now, we're frustrated, we're pissed off or bent out of shape. We're not happy about it. Why? Because we're living in the illusion of the attachment, but we don't even know if we're living in the illusion or the attachment. Ponder that. We're living in the illusion of attachment. But we don't see that we just kind of look and because of that, we're living in the illusion of the illusion or the attachment. Not even knowing that we're attached and the attachment itself is an illusion.

And then what happens? And I've been there in the earlier years of my life, not in a lot of years, but I've been there. Then what we do is we chase these things that programming society tells us we should have a better home, a better car, a better job. And you ain't going to be happy till you have X, Y, Z A B, C. When you have those things, you will be happy, but you won't be happy and fulfilled with all these kinds of things until you have that. So then what do we do. Because most of us don't have those things. Then what people do is they chase those things. Thing back to the law of attraction. Literally the law of attraction is where you hold your consciousness right now in this moment is what you attract right now in this moment. So, if you're holding your consciousness at, I hate my job. I don't like my partner. I hate my money. I hate this. I hate that you are attracting more of that into your life. But on the flip side, you're running away from that chasing something else that you've been programmed that you think you have to have to be happy. And you're attached to that. Therefore you're, you're now on the hamster wheel of unhappiness.

Unhappiness one day, unhappiness the next day and unhappiness, the next day. And this goes on and on and on. And then what you do, what we as humans do, as we get into the feelings and the feelings, we feel bad because we don't have the homes and the cars and everything we're attached to. Then what we don't recognize is that's not 3d. The feelings are not brick and mortar. The feelings are in our mind. It's all in the mind, it's all an illusion and the mind. It's not the world that makes us unhappy. It's not even the attachment that makes us unhappy. It's not even a lack of awareness that makes us unhappy. It's an illusion. It's the illusion of those things and that we should attach to them. People, homes, cars, ideas, jobs, and locations. Then we get into the illusion, and we attached to the illusion, and we never see it because we're looking. Hopefully, that makes sense.

So, what I want to share with you, here's a big takeaway for you and we'll dig into this a little bit before we wrap up. Every negative feeling you have. Every negative feeling you have let's flip that let's go the opposite direction. When you do not have peace of mind. Which is what that's one of our highest states of being is a being as peace of mind, because just ponder that peace of mind. That is wellness. Anyway. When you do not have peace of mind, or you have negative feelings. Many of us bathe ourselves in those feelings. We get into misery about it and all these kinds of things, but the reality, these are all feelings. And they're all illusions. And so many times what we do is we define our life and the quality of our life by the feelings and the illusions. That you might've heard me say before is these are all feelings and illusions, but guess what? You're the being, having the feelings and illusions. The feelings and illusions may feel real in the moment. But you are the one creating the feeling and the illusions. And because you created them, you can uncreate them and that's how to be happy. And now you're starting to gain awareness of what you've been doing to make yourself unhappy or having a lack of peace.

The biggest mistake that a lot of us make and I have been there is allowing our feelings to determine who we think we are as a thinking being. But again, we are the being, having the feelings, we're the being, choosing the feelings and because we choose the feelings. We can choose new feelings. Hint, hint. Those new feelings can be about, you know, what. Feeling good and being happy. Okay, a couple more things here. And I know I've gone longer than what I normally do in the podcast, but I'm going to keep on going here okay. So, how do we get there? You might be wondering, okay, Jim, how do we get there? I heard a monk many years ago a Buddhist monk. Not somebody online now on Instagram. And I'm not even, I'm not a Buddhist, but I follow all kinds of wisdom.

And the Buddhist monk was asked, and I think he lived in Tibet. But he was asked. How do you stay happy all the time? And he said something to me that was pretty confounding and I've, I've literally let it just rummage around in my mind for years. And I find it to be true. I think. But he said, yes well, the person said, you know, how, how master, how are you happy all the time? And he said, “I say yes to everything. And I allow everything now. Now let's use our common sense. If somebody wants to whack you up the side of the head with a stick. You can do what you want personally. I don't want to say yes to that. If somebody wants to do it for me. But allowing so look at all of the fricking chaos in the world. All that we can do is be the change we want to, you know, to create in the world. I'm going to tell you right now; one person can change the world. But right now, in this moment, as you're listening right now, if you think you're going to stop what Putin is doing or Trump is doing, or Biden is doing. Or, you know, whatever his name is, the Canadian Prime Minister. I saw something earlier. All these people, you ain't, that's what's happening. And as long as you allow it to happen in this moment, it doesn't mean in the future. But in this moment, as long as you allow it to happen, what's happening. It doesn't mean you have to agree with it. It doesn't mean you have to support it. Just understand just allow that's what it is.

So, to be happy. You have to let go of attachment. To let go of attachment you must have awareness to have awareness. You must have an allowance. Because when you're frustrated about things, you're not even aware of what's making you frustrated and then you're frustrated because you're not allowing guilt as charged with what is, we must allow again, it doesn't mean that we cannot change it. Please listen, it does not mean that we cannot become and do something different tomorrow. But for right now, today, this is what it is. Here's where a lot of people soak, and they collapsed because they got into the soaking and fighting. And, you know, Mother Theresa said many years ago, what you fight will weaken you. So, what's exhausting you in the world. What's exhausting you and your own behavior, these things that are exhausting, you were things that you're attached to, and you don't even have an awareness that's even attachment. And then you don't even have the awareness to know that it's some conditioning that was created many years ago, which is an illusion. And you're attached to the unhappiness through the illusion of conditioning from earlier in your life. Holy crap. Holy crap. Right.

So, I've gone longer than I normally do, but I'm going to share a thought with you here. This thought is partly self-serving, but it also helps me live my Dharma. Meaning helping you even more. I think back to myself, there are many things that I wanted to do in my life that I would have said, you know, 25 years ago, I want to do X, Y, Z. But I can't afford it. What I did notice back then was I was attached to all the reasons. And all the excuses as to why I could not afford to be do or have something. Think about that. And it’s self-serving. Because we're having the following episodes coming up are all from the next date episodes are from students of mine that have been through their Transformational Coaching Program. All walks of life. All you know, all over the world, all kinds of live experiences.

I want you to listen and to hear their experiences. Because they will tell you what happened? Which is what I want to do. My objective is to not make your life better. I can't do that only you can. My objective is to introduce you to yourself so that you can choose to make your life better. And that's what the next eight episodes are about hearing other people's stories. They chose to work with me to create a better experience of life for them. So, when I said self-serving. That's what I meant because my passion for me, there's no greater happiness with what I do for a living/work, et cetera. Then helping people significantly changes their life. You may, you may not like me. That's entirely up to you. I can't influence that. Some of you probably don't like me. But you listen because you want something out of the podcast. I'm totally okay with that because I don't expect everyone to like me. I mean, hell I don't like everyone, so, or I don't want to be around everyone. So why would I expect the same from you? What I'm telling you. Just keep it in mind. Next couple of months, we're going to be opening a door to the Transformational Coaching Program. I guarantee you. I can help you dramatically transform your life when you let go and do the work that I will put in front of you. Now that's not for some time down the road. All that I want you to do for now is listen to the upcoming episodes. See yourself in their stories. Listen to what they did to create change in their life. And that's all I want to say. That was my bigger point, but okay. I'm going to leave that alone, but here's our transformational takeaway for today.

What you don't have in life is a reflection of what you are attached to. When I started this episode, I said, “You want something? And you don't have that something, therefore you're listening to get that something. So, what you really want to look at the transformation will take away. What are you attached to that prevents you from having that something. And what most of you are attached to been there, done that doesn't really apply anymore. To my life. What you're attached to is your fear or your cynicism or your distrust. Or you're even attached to a lack of belief in yourself. Not that you have got to believe in yourself, rah-rah how about this? Here's a better way to say it.

You are attached to your lack of trust in yourself. Yeah, that's how I wanted to say it. You may be attached to your lack of trust, not belief. Your lack of trust in yourself. Because if you did trust in yourself, what would you attempt to do in your life? Ponder that. So, your takeaway is we don't have what we want to create in life for the experience of life that we want, because we're attached to something that keeps us from that, your homework, your mental homework, what are you attached to? What fears. What excuses, what reasons are you attached to that? Keep you away from what you want. Because everything you want is on the other side of your fear and your excuses. Remember. Awareness is observing, allowing, and choosing, and letting go of the illusion. Thanks for listening and I'll catch you over in another episode. Bye-bye.