You’re listening to the Transform Your Life from the Inside Out podcast. This episode is one in this ongoing series, Conversations with a Sorcerer, and this episode is titled, “Escaping Your Biggest Enemy.” Ponder for a moment the greatest challenges in your life. Your fear is the biggest toxicity in your life because your fear keeps you from everything that you want, and your fear is driven by your biggest enemy.

So your toxicity is your fear, but it’s driven by an even bigger enemy, which I share with you in this episode. So if you’d like to learn what your biggest enemy is—and this applies to pretty much everyone on the planet—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 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. So, your biggest enemy. And I did say that it pertains to everyone on the planet. Normally in this series, I recap a conversation that I’ve had with Don Xavier. As I’ve said before, I have thousands of hours of recorded conversations. This episode’s a little different. It is about a conversation with him, but not in the way that we normally think about conversations. In this episode, I’m going to recapitulate a dream. Yes, literally, I’m going to recapitulate a dream that I had, and in that dream, Don Xavier brought some information to me and communicated it to me. Basically, it’s a conversation in the dream, and I want to share that with you.

So, dream time. Why a dream? The reason why is that shamans work in the dream time. Many of us think, “Oh, dream time is when I go to sleep and then I’m dreaming, but I’m awake, so that’s not a dream.” But you know what? As I’ve said before in other episodes, it’s all consciousness. Everything is dream time. It’s simply a matter of awareness of which dream time you are participating in, in any given moment. As I said earlier, you might think that a conversation is 3D, meaning you and I sitting across from each other and we’re chatting about something. And that is a conversation, but many times my conversations with Don Xavier are in a non-ordinary reality.

Now, I’ve not talked about that relative to this episode or this series on a podcast, but I have mentioned before that shamans communicate in dream time, and they communicate in a non-ordinary way. So, when I need help from him, what I’ll normally do is text him and say, “Hey, Don.” I call him Don. “Don, I’m working on X, Y, Z; can you look into this for me?” And it could be that I’m pondering a business decision, people I want to work with, something I want to do, a direction I want to take in my business, or even somebody that I’ve met or whatever. He’ll say, “Okay, I’ll look, and I’ll satellite the answer back to you.” That’s our running joke, and that’s how we do it—via text

. I tell him what I need, and in dream time, he’ll bring the answer to me. I’ll get it via an epiphany, an awareness, or an actual conversation with him, but in some way, he will converse with me in dream time. This can be through metaphor, an image, a picture, direct wording, or many different things. That’s where I’m going in this episode: something that he brought to me in dream time.

I said that this is everyone’s biggest enemy. And in this dream in dream time, he was talking to me; we were conversing in dream time. And he said to me, very matter of factly, “You need to lose your attachment to everything, including your own life.” I’ve said that before on the podcast, but ponder that. That’s so easy to hear and go, “Hmm, okay, that’s an interesting thought.” But really think about that. Lose your attachment to everything, including your own life.

As I’m going to demonstrate in this episode, your attachments are your biggest enemies. Why? Because they keep you from every single thing that you want to create in your life. You may or may not have heard the Buddha say, “The root of all suffering is attachment.” Ponder that for a moment. I know you’ve probably heard it; many of you have heard it before. But ponder that. The root of suffering is attachment.
And like a lot of us, you might think, “Jim, yeah, yeah, blah, blah, Buddha, blah, blah, yeah, yeah.” But stay with me on this because this is profound when you really look at it and dig into it.

Now, I don’t know if I will complete this entire topic in one episode. Maybe two, we’ll see. I’m trying to keep these around 30 to 35 minutes, but we’ll see how much time this one takes, and we’ll know whether we complete it in this episode or if I need to do a second episode. But my intention in this episode is to get you to start observing your attachments.

Again, my intention is to get you to start observing your attachments, because your attachments are exactly what keeps you trapped in your pain and your fear. The thing about attachments is we have very little to no awareness about even having attachments. We learn these as little kids. I’ll talk about that in a moment to some degree. But we don’t get up in the morning and say, “Hey, hmm, what am I attached to today? I’m going to go through my entire day, but am I attached to anything? What am I going to attach to?” As you’ll see in this episode, you go through your entire day, and you’re attached, tethered, literally affixed to your attachments all day long. As I said just a couple of minutes ago, it’s your attachments that cause you the biggest pain and bring the most fear in your life.

You think about every fear you have, minus the fear of falling or a loud noise, which are biological. You think about pretty much every fear that you have, and there’s an attachment behind that fear. And that attachment is generally that you’re going to lose something as a result of that fear or something happening relative to that fear.
Another way to look at this is that your attachments also keep you away from joy—the things that you actually desire and want to create in your life.

To give you an example, let’s say you see someone and you’re like, “You know, I don’t know who that person is, but I want to meet them.” Maybe in your younger dating years, and especially men, you see a woman in a bar, or out and about, and you’re like, “I want to talk to that person, but no, I can’t because they may reject me.” Notice right there that you might get a lot of joy, and that person might get a lot of joy out of conversing with you. But you know what? Your attachments have stopped you. Your fear, your attachments, have stopped you from walking over to that person and even saying, “Hi, my name’s so-and-so,” and then starting a conversation.

Now, we don’t think about it that way. We just don’t. But our attachments keep us away from what we do want in life. Ponder that. It’s your attachments that keep you away from what you do want in life. Maybe you want a better job, a different job. Maybe you want to move across the country. Maybe you’re not happy, your relationship is dysfunctional, it doesn’t work, it might even be abusive, but you’re attached to the person, the job, the money, the air-quote “illusion of security”—we’re attached to these things and we won’t let go of the attachment so that we can be free to create what we want to create in life.

The definition of attachment is a feeling that binds one person to a thing, cause, ideal, or again, a person, or something like that. An attachment is a feeling that binds one to another person, a thing, a cause, or an ideal. So, the question for you at this point: How many people, things, causes, and ideals do you attach to?

Little easy pop quiz here: we talk about people and attaching to people. So, attaching to people could be, maybe you have a crush on someone, and maybe they don’t have that same kind of crush on you. In your mind, you’re thinking, “I want to date that person, I want to date that person.” They’re not having those same thoughts. We’ve all been there, I think, at some point in our lives. The truth is, we’re attached to wanting to date that person, which, by the way—whole different episode—is a violation of their free will.

We should never want to date anyone if they’re not already in our lives. We should want to date someone who has the characteristics of that person. When you’re holding the energy and intention of “I want to date XYZ person,” you’re encroaching on their free will. But an example of attaching to a person would be having a crush on someone.

Another example might be, “Oh my gosh, I just can’t live without this person,” but that person might not want to be living with you anymore. Or, “This relationship doesn’t work for me anymore, but it’s cozy, it’s comfortable, my bills are paid, I get X, Y, Z in life.” All these things are attachments relative to people.

How about things? We’ve all been there—attaching to homes and cars. Mainly, I’ll talk about it a little later on, attaching to money, or attaching to what money we do have. And the attachment is so great, it won’t even let us invest the money we do have because we’re afraid we’re going to lose the money we do have, which we’re attached to. When we could actually invest that money and make even more money.

I’ve been there. I may mention that in a bit, and when I say I’ve been there, I am not exaggerating in any kind of way. I’ll explain in a moment. An attachment to money, or loss of money, 20 years ago cost me to lose something worth literally $750 million. I’ll explain in just a moment. But that’s what my attachment—one of several times in my life—has cost me, is to lose money.
I want to mention something else here. One of my other brothers-in-law—he’s retired now—was a mutual fund manager at Fidelity, trading billions of dollars per year in money, people’s retirements, and different things. He’s got his pulse on what’s happening in the economy, and he’s often given me financial advice when I’ve asked for it.
About six months ago—this podcast is late October, 2024—and about six months ago, I said, “Hey, Tim, gold—when do you think a good time to buy gold is? Even more gold.” He’s still, even though he’s not at Fidelity anymore, he’s still literally talking to a lot of people there, a lot of friends. And he told me when gold was at 1800, he’s like, “Jim, I think it’s hit the floor. The people I’ve talked to, who’ve watched this for a lot of years, say now is a good time to buy.”

I had quite a bit of money set aside in the bank that I thought about investing in gold. And I didn’t because, in that moment, I was attached to, “I don’t have time for this; I’m attached to my time. I’ll look at it later,” etc., etc. Even though that’s a subtle attachment, it’s still an attachment. Well, I could have bought gold when I believe it was at like 1787 per ounce. As of today, I believe it’s like 2750 or something like that per ounce, meaning I could have made $1000 per ounce. I’ll tell you the big mistake that I made in just a moment—that literally, and I mean literally, I was told to invest in something, and I’ll share in a moment, that would be worth $750 million today, my share alone.

We attach to causes. Remember: people, things, causes, and ideals. We attach to causes, and that could be animals suffering. I know someone like that. I’m an avid animal lover—I love animals—and if I ever quit doing what I do now, I would start a rescue shelter for animals, battered animals that need to be rehabilitated and need to have homes found for them. That is a passion of mine.

I’ve shared this before, but I’ll share it in a different way. I don’t like to see animals suffering, and I’m a dog lover. I have a dog and a cat, and I’ve had dogs for many years. I do not like to see animals suffering; that bothers me. Now, a friend of mine is attached to their suffering about animals being abused, and my friend is always, “woe, woe, woe, animals, animals, animals, suffering, suffering, suffering.” And it’s kind of like she’s a broken record.

For me, I don’t like to see animals suffer at all. But what I know at a core level is that, just like you, animals also have their karma. And because they have their karma, whatever suffering they are doing is part of that animal’s karma. I remember talking to Don Xavier many years ago about the polar bears and how they’re starving because of climate change. And he said to me, “It’s part of the karma. It’s part of the karma of that species.”

We can look at it that way, but again, ego-wise, we get caught in the suffering, and then we suffer because animals suffer. That is attachment. And then, ideals. It is late October 2024 in the US, and you want to talk about people attaching to ideals—oh my gosh! People are attaching to their models of belief about what the world will be like if Kamala Harris wins or if Donald Trump wins. And a lot of people are—I don’t know the right word—maybe even rabid about their attachment to their ideals about what the world should be, or what it will be, if XYZ person wins the election.

But what I want you to notice here: it’s not the attachment to who wins the election; it’s the attachment to what kind of world we think we would live in if XYZ person won the election. Most of us miss this, but it almost doesn’t matter who wins the election, because the world you live in will be the world you create.

I’ve talked about this before. The double-slit experiment shows that our reality organizes around our consciousness. So, whoever’s elected and whatever their ideals are, I can attach to that, or I can not attach to that. But if I have to attach to something—and I’ll talk about positive attachment later on—if I have to attach to something, I’m going to attach to me co-creating the world that I want to live in. And there may be a powerful way for you to do it as well.

So, for right now, think about all of your suffering right now. Think about all of your suffering, all the things that cause you to be angry or fearful. Are these things related to attachments to people, to things, to causes, or to ideals? This is what I want you to notice: most of our attachments are caused by our attachments to what we do not have instead of what we do have.

I’ll say it again. Most of our attachments are caused by our attachments to what we do not have instead of what we do have. Now, obviously, we are attached to what we do have, but we also get attached to what we do not have. And when we attach to what we do not have—and I’ll talk about that some more—that creates even more pain in our lives. It’s simply attaching to what we don’t have.

We often attach to the suffering of not having things. Ponder that. We attach to the suffering of not having things.

A great example, and a very banal one, is you look at a 12-year-old little boy. I don’t know how that happens in this day and age; I mean, I don’t have a 12-year-old little boy. But I think back to when I was a kid, and I think about a lot of little boys and girls, but in a different way. I’m talking about boy attachments because I think about the things I attached to when I was 12. And it might have been a pair of tennis shoes. For later generations, it was Air Jordans. A kid wants Air Jordans. They want Air Jordans. They want Air Jordan tennis shoes. They want Air Jordans, Air Jordans, Air Jordans. “I don’t have, I don’t have, I don’t have.” Attachment, attachment, attachment. “I’m all upset because I don’t have XYZ.”

What about maybe wanting a different place to live? We attach to the suffering of not living in that different place, that different location. So, what I want you to understand is that we can attach to all kinds of people, places, things, and ideals, but these attachments bring us suffering. We have to let go of the attachment.

Later in this episode—or maybe even the next—I’ll discuss how I discovered how to let go of attachments. It’s a process, to be honest, as I’ll talk about in just a moment. But it’s our attachments—just plant that thought for right now. It’s our attachments that bring our suffering, attachments to what we do have and are afraid to lose, or attachments to what we don’t have but are attached to wanting. Either way, positive or negative, it is an attachment.

You know, I guess I want to go in and start sharing now—and when I say I guess I want to, it’s because I just put these together as I go. I might actually create a frame for these and think about how I want to deliver. But think for a moment about people and attaching to people.

Oftentimes, it’s people we love that we attach to, but on the flip side, we can also attach to hating people. Look around the world—people do that. Right now, people are attaching to hating other people. But for most of us, we’re attaching to people we love: friends, family, children.

I’m going to slow down here because it’s vital. It’s so simple that we miss it, but it’s vital to understand that nothing is permanent. You might have been attached to your parents, and they’re no longer on the planet. I wasn’t attached to my parents when they left the planet, but they’re no longer here. You might attach to a different relative, and then they’re no longer on the planet.

What I see people doing a lot of times is lamenting and being in mourning. I’m not exaggerating; I’ve seen this one year, two years, three years, four years, five years, ten years—literally ten years after the person has left the planet. But the person is still attached to the ideal of the person who was on the planet and is no longer here. This is why it’s vital for us to fully embrace the truth that nothing is permanent.

If you’re attaching to things as though they’re permanent, you’re going to have a lot of pain in your life. The way I look at it is this: when it’s time for me to leave the planet, whenever that might be—a day from now, a year, ten years, or thirty years—I don’t know. But I always think back to what the Buddhists do in Nepal and Tibet. I believe it’s both countries, but I don’t recall exactly.

What the monks do there is they take the corpse and leave it on a mountainside for the vultures to eat. What they’re doing is returning to the cycle of life because they understand that nothing is permanent and everything is a cycle. I get a kick out of Americans, and mainly I’ve seen it in movies and TV. There was a movie recently where this person was looking at a casket for their loved one who had passed. The person selling the casket was saying, “Well, this casket is lined with lead, and it will preserve your loved one for eternity.” Hey, everything’s about marketing. Before you know it, they’re going to say, “Well, this casket’s actually lined with nuclear warheads, and if anybody tries to move the casket, it’s going to blow up or something.”

Of course, I’m exaggerating, but we humans love to attach to other human beings. Nothing is permanent. I think anyone who’s lost a child at an early age—and I’ve seen my parents do that—has recognized that we don’t own anything and nothing is permanent. Everything is transient in this experience that we’re having. So one of the ways to loosen our attachments is to fully, fully understand and integrate the idea that nothing is permanent, and everything is transient.

So, in that dream, Don Xavier said to me, “Lose your attachment to your own life.” Let that sink in. Lose your attachment to your own life. Think about that for a moment. If you’re afraid to leave the planet, you’re attached to your life. If you’re afraid to lose things, you’re attached.

Now, of course, none of us want to be reckless. And there are things we have in our lives that we want to hang onto; we all do. I have it, you have it, we all have it. I’ll give you an example. I’m wearing an Apple Watch today, but I have a Rolex and a couple of nice watches. I don’t wear the Rolex that much. I don’t know why; I just don’t. Mainly because it’s a really expensive watch. All it does is tell time, but my Apple Watch will tell me how I slept, temperature, and just about anything I want to know. So I generally wear the Apple Watch.

Many years ago, I bought my first Rolex, and Don Xavier—before working full-time as a shaman—started apprenticing with a shaman when he was a little boy. Then he was told to go on his own around 19 or so, I believe, and he worked in the business world, with a lot of people in New York City trading jewelry and different things. So he’s always had an eye for the finer things in life.

He looked at the watch and said, “Hey, cunhado,”—brother-in-law in Spanish—“let me see your watch” when I first bought it. I went back to New York maybe about a year later, and I wasn’t wearing the watch. He’s like, “What happened?” I forgot what I said. I think somebody stole it or something, and I said, “I’m really frustrated about that. It bothers me. That watch was really expensive, blah, blah, blah.” And he said to me, “You lost that watch a couple of months ago, but you’re still hanging onto it. That is attachment. That’s attachment to things.”

So, your attachment to your own life—we have to accept it. I think this planet’s had something like a hundred billion people on it in this epoch of human history. We’re actually finishing our fifth epoch of humans on the planet, but we’ve had something like 100 billion people on this planet. Not a single one has survived. Every single one left the planet. That is part of the experience.

The way I look at it—because I’ve had a near-death experience when I had a stroke and heart failure—is I don’t know where I was, even though Don Xavier told me that I did cross over briefly, for about a day. I have no consciousness of even being conscious. It was like I was just floating somewhere, in an ether somewhere. I don’t know—a whole different topic. But I’ve learned that, at any given moment, this container can stop functioning, and I would have to leave the planet.

So, we have to understand: the container that we’re in is literally just temporary. But notice what we do in life—we’re so afraid to even play in the container. We’re so afraid to create what we want in life. We’re so afraid to swing for the fences. We’re so afraid to create, to date, to step out there. Why? Because of our attachments.

Note this also: when we attach to things in life, these things define us. When we attach to things in life, these things define us.

Now, something that a lot of people attach to is nationality, and you see that big time going on in the world right now. You’re seeing it in France, you’re seeing it in Australia, you’re seeing it in Italy, you’re seeing it in Canada, and you’re really seeing it in the US. Fundamentalists are attaching to nationality. Well, last time I checked, there was no scanner when you’re born on the planet that literally says, “Okay, here’s your little dog tag. You’re in America, and you’re this or that.” We simply own these labels and attach to them because they’re given to us at birth.

Now, this is not a debate or any kind of conversation on border security or any of that. Notice what we attach to in terms of nationality.
So, what we have to do is let go of and lose our attachment to all people, places, and things. It doesn’t mean we can’t have them in our lives; it simply means that we have to lose the attachment. One of the ways to do that—and I’ll talk more about this later on—is by understanding that everything is temporary.

So, what I’m going to do is wrap up this episode and then create a second episode to continue with this one. In that next episode, I’ll talk about solutions, ways to let go, and what I’ve discovered to literally start taking a crowbar and loosening our attachments, because whatever you’re attached to controls you.

Think about that. Whatever you’re attached to controls you.
To demonstrate that, consider a woman who’s in an abusive relationship. She doesn’t want to leave the relationship—she’s attached, she’s enabled, she’s codependent. She’s attached to the relationship, and notice how the relationship controls her. All her friends and family are saying, “You know, Susan, Bob is not good for you. He’s hit you three times in the last year. Bob is not good for you.” And this is partly self-image and self-identity as well, but Susan is attached, and she won’t let go.

The things you attach to are like you grabbing onto the bumper of a pickup truck, letting that truck drag you, and you’re holding on. You’re being dragged behind the bumper of a pickup truck when you have to let go of the bumper.

So, to wrap up this episode—and we’ll pick up this topic in the next episode—what we have to do, as I’ve said two or three times now, is embody the truism that everything in this container, your container, is temporary. And what you attach to while you’re in the container will control you.

Hold onto that thought, and we’ll dive deeper in the next episode.
Thanks for listening, and I’ll catch you on the next episode. Bye-bye.