You’re listening to the transform your life from the inside out podcast. This is another part in the, I don’t know how many parts I’m going to do in this series, but shaman’s tips for an amazing 20, 26. And the subtopic of this particular episode is suffering and why you choose to suffer. Now, when I said, I don’t know how many episodes I’m going to do in this particular air quote series, 
 
I have new music, new format coming. I’m going to start interviewing people candidly, just transparently to give myself a break. These episodes are a lot of work to curate. So if I start doing episodes, every other episode that gives me a break and brings you a different, you know, different content as well that I can expand upon from again, the perspective of shamanism anyway. So suffering and why you choose to suffer. No one consciously 
 
suffers and said I suffer because I want to suffer and Then when I say, know, you may think well Jim, I don’t choose to suffer you kidding me. I don’t want to suffer Yeah, you do and it’s not conscious, but it’s unconscious I get it because for me, you know many years ago when I was much younger If you ask me what my life was like in my 20s financially only other areas I was great, but financially it was insufferable 
 
It was horrible, at least in my mind. I mean, I was being ridiculous. I had food, had shelter. I never went without a meal. you know, I was fine. But in my mind, based upon where I thought life should be, I wasn’t accepting life for what it is. It was insufferable for who I was and who I thought life or what I thought life was supposed to be with me. So I never realized that back then I was the cause of my suffering. So in this episode, we’re going to talk about 
 
the causes of your suffering. And once we put those aside and behind you, you can make the next 12 months some of the best 12 months of your life. 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. 
 
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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. Suffering, suffering, suffering. You know, Buddha. Now I don’t know that he said this, but I read it because I don’t think I was hanging out with the Buddha. Maybe I will. don’t know. But he said the cause of all suffering is, and you’ve heard me say this before, and I’m sure you’ve heard it before. The cause of all suffering is attachment. 
 
And over the decades, I have heard Don Xavier talk about attachment. And candidly, he talks even today, and he has for so many years about attachment. There was one time I was thinking, wow, this dude, and I just say that colloquially. mean, I call him Don Xavier. I’m very respectful. But I said, this dude is attached to talking about attachment. 
 
But what we don’t recognize, and I won’t go into it in this episode, if you worry all the time or frequently, I mean, no one worries all the time you’re sleeping. But if you’re worrying incessantly, that’s attachment because you’re attached to the thing that you’re worrying about. If you’re in constant anxiety, other than it being a chemical imbalance or something neurological, but you’re always, for example, you could have social anxiety. 
 
Now, if I said you’re attached, you might be thinking, what the hell are you talking about? I’m not attached to my anxiety. I hate it. But you have to look at the role that the anxiety plays for you. What does it do for you? Because it gives you something because everything we do gives us something called a secondary game. I want to talk about attachment and how to alleviate it. And this will take a little practice. I find that I went through many decades of evolution and journey on this particular 
 
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topic, subject matter. And I want to share, and it may be too simplistic for you, I don’t know, but I want to share where I work from. And when I learned to work from this place, it created a great deal of peace in my life. So let’s just keep this really simple and cut right to the chase, okay? Suffering is caused by attachment, but suffering is caused 
 
when you will not accept what is now. Think about that. Ponder that. I look at it in the 3D capacity. I hate my job, people will say. I hate my job. Well, they’re suffering. But what are they attached to? And if I ask them, they might say, well, I hate my job. I want to leave. I’m not attached to anything. But what they’re attached to 
 
is the paycheck that the job gives them. So without even recognizing it, yes, they are attached to something. And again, it’s not my place to judge or criticize on that one because that one probably this one concept alone probably beat the shit out of me for like 10 years. I ain’t kidding because I was a major, I would have a PhD and attachment if they gave PhDs. And my attachment was back then, back in the 1990s, 
 
I don’t like my life. mean, come on, I’m a college graduate. I’m a smart guy. What the hell am I doing waiting tables? Why don’t I know what I want to do in life? Adam’s going to wait tables and I’m going to pay my bills. I’m going to go drinking with my friends. And I didn’t recognize I had every option in the world available to me, but I was so attached to the suffering that that was my way of life. Now I never went through my day saying I’m suffering today. I’m suffering today. I’m suffering today. 
 
Transparently, I remember going to work one day waiting tables and a friend at work and I’m not like the Donald downer and I wasn’t back then as well. I mean, I had my friends, we got along extremely well. They never pointed out to me what I’m pointing out to you about me. Maybe they didn’t see it. I don’t know. Maybe they did, but we’re all in the same boat. So don’t think we all saw that we’re all in the same shit of suffering and attachment. 
 
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But as I think back to many years ago, I never would have said I’m suffering because I was, but how I defined it was I don’t like my life as it is now. And I’m sure many of you listening right now can relate to that. However, you’re attached to the way your life is right now, because if you weren’t attached, you’d be doing something different. And the way that manifested for me in terms of external behavior, 
 
was complaining about my life at that point. So the whole frame was, okay, I should be more in life. I don’t have what I want in life. This is where I am. I don’t like it. What’s wrong with me? Complain, complain, complain. The cycle continues. I don’t live from that place anymore, but this is what I know for a fact. Many people listening to this episode, they do live from that place. I see it all. 
 
The amount of people that I see, it’s a mirror for me, it’s me. Me 30 years ago. They don’t like their life, the quality of their life, the condition of their life. But they’re so attached to things I talked about in the last episode. They’re so attached to the convenience or the paycheck or understanding life and the way that it is today or the way we perceive it today that we won’t step outside of that attachment. 
 
And then because we don’t step outside the attachment I talked about in the last episode, therefore we’re not paying the price. But in fairness to you, I want to take this from the intellectual to the subconscious is I grew up poor. We didn’t have any money. And I’ve said that many times on the podcast. So I learned to be attached to struggle. I heard constantly in my household, we don’t have any money. We don’t have any money. We don’t have any money. 
 
Now you think about how you grew up and if you work from and you say, yeah, Jim, I can relate to that. I grew up on a household and let’s say you’re 40, 50, 60 years old now and you grew up in a household where you always heard that. What you don’t even recognize through, for lack of better words, osmosis, you absorb that attachment of those stories about money. So now 20 or 30 or 40 years later, you’re still living from the 
 
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attachment to those stories and then you look at your life now and then you don’t accept your life as it is now which you created and so you’re unhappy about it and you’re suffering about it not even recognizing that your now was created from your past 10 20 30 years ago So you’re living from 10 or 20 30 years ago and you’re attached to that in the now but you don’t like the now then you’re attached to complaining and the ship just repeats over and over 
 
And over again, and I’m speaking to you from experience. This isn’t me sitting here going, let me just teach you something. Let me know. I’ve been there. And then part of it is identity because, and this is neurological. I’ve done this in many places. I’ve talked about it. I won’t talk about it in this episode, but we have an identity, a self image of who we think we are. It’s brain-based. It’s neurological. There are parts of the brain that resist change. So 
 
What we do is we keep recreating our identity over and over and over again, and we’re attached to the identity even though we don’t like the outcomes of that attachment. And on a TCP coaching call yesterday, a student very wisely said, she said, you know, at this point in the program, the biggest thing that I know is this, is that my entire life is identity based. 
 
My entire life is identity based. So mine is, yours is. And all the years that I struggled with money, I was attached to the identity of being the poor person who struggled because that’s what I learned at an identity level growing up at a small Texas farm town and hearing all these years. Maybe you can see a little sliver of light here and that you have conscious free will. You have choice and we don’t recognize that. 
 
You know, I think they call him America’s business philosopher. He’s no longer on the planet. His name is Jim Rohn. I used to listen to a lot of Jim Rohn back in the 1990s. And he’s saying what I’m saying without using the spiritual component of it. But he used to say, if you don’t like your life, change it. You’re not a tree, meaning you’re not planted in the ground. Change it. But brain-based, the reason we don’t change it, 
 
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And I’ve talked about this so I won’t go into it now. There’s a part of the brain of the reptilian, the oldest part of the brain that works from identity verification and predictability. What happens is, is we identify with who and what we are, even if we don’t like who and what we are. So we identify with that. And because that is who we, that’s how we identify ourself with. That’s what we attach to because that is our survival. 
 
So one part of the brain, a small part of the brain doesn’t want us to change. Another part of the brain works from predictability. We want to predict what’s going to happen tomorrow. And if we change and we can’t predict what’s going to happen tomorrow, therefore it’s safer not to change because we can predict what’s going to happen now. And given all this, all this complexity of the neurology and the spirituality and the energy and everything else, there’s a simple truth. 
 
For many years, I thought I was suffering because of things in the world. Jobs, people in my job that I didn’t like and people didn’t like me, all these kinds of things. But it was me. I’m going to come back to them because I opened the story a couple of minutes ago. I’m not sure I finished, but I remember one day when I was talking about going to work and the way that my suffering materialized is I used to complain, but everybody complained about these things. So I didn’t think anything about my complaining because everyone complained. 
 
And I remember one day, on this particular day, we were in the locker room getting changed for the shift. And there was one guy that said there, and we all got along really well, but this guy said, Jim, you’re really quiet today. And I said, yeah, I read a book and day one of that book was, not complain about anything. And I remember my friend jokingly said, but it hit me really hard. My friend said, well, that explains why you’re so quiet today. 
 
So for me, the suffering materialized as complaining about my circumstances. But what I could have done differently is I could have said, okay, this is where I am. I accept where I am now. I created this. I accept 100 % responsibility. I do not yet know how to get out of this, but I own where I am now. 
 
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And when we do that, we are living in the now. And when we live in the now, we can create from the now. So back to that point I was just talking about before I went back to a prior point I was talking about is all suffering does not come from the world. It comes from me. So I want to concretize this for you a bit. And I’m an investor. I follow things like commodity, real estate and different 3D things. 
 
Partly it’s just fun for me to do and partly I do it to build a bigger financial base. And if you look at, for example, the precious metal space, okay. Now, when precious metals go up and the same thing with stocks, you can go long, you can go short. When stocks go up, that can scare people who went short. And when stocks go down, that can scare people who went long. The thing that’s happening is that the markets are moving 
 
but based upon the perspective of the person invested in the market affects their suffering or not suffering. But it’s not the markets that cause the suffering and the not suffering. I don’t care if it’s a precious metal market. I don’t care if it’s real estate. It’s not the market that causes the suffering. It is the perceptions and interpretations of the person in the market and what they are attached 
 
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So for you to suffer, you have to rely on working from the past or the future, but not the now. Because when you accept the now, that’s acceptance. And there’s no more suffering. There’s realization. So to speak, you take a deep breath. This is where I am. And I haven’t gotten to my future yet. My past is behind me. 
 
Is where I am now. This is my now, but let me concretize this some more to show you how people do not live from the now. Think about people who say, I remember now I’ve a degree in the, you know, degrees in political science and psychology. So I’m always learning in both. And I’m always, I’m a learner and I’m always following politics, just watching. And I’ve, I’ve evolved over the years and how I’ve even observed politics. But I remember after. 
 
2008 or so when George Bush was president from 2000 to 2008. When Obama came in the office, some people were like, I saw bumper stickers like, I miss W meaning George W. Bush. Then you see now some people saying, I miss Obama. Neither camp is in the now. They are in the past or they’re living wanting something different for the future. 
 
And what they’re really saying is both sides are saying, okay, this is what life looks like, but I think it should be something different. Now make no mistake, that is an attachment. So we go through our life with these models of reality in our head of how life should be, and we’re attached to those. And then when life doesn’t fit our model of reality, 
 
That’s when we get bent out of shape. That’s when we melt down. That’s when we get angry. And every bit of that equals suffering. You know, I think back to, I’ve traveled to many different places of Don Xavier. And I mentioned this before, but maybe it’ll land differently. You know, everywhere from Peru to Bolivia to Australia to power vortexes all around the world. 
 
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And then all these years, for most of these years, we at least had the flip phone that, you know, there were the razor phone where you could still take pictures. And then all these journeys and all these places we’ve been, even family vacations to Yosemite or Jackson Hole or Glacier National Park or whatever, we tend to go to very restful, peaceful, rejuvenating places when we travel as a family. And all these extraordinary places we’ve been to, not one time, and I do mean 
 
not one time in 30 years, have I seen Don of a year take a picture. And I asked him one time, I’m like, hey, Don, how come you don’t take a picture of anything? And he said, because I live in the now. And he said, I’m present and I’m absorbing where we are, this beautiful, magnificent place in the now. And I realized that what most of us do is we take pictures now to show someone in the future 
 
someplace we were in the past. None of that is in the now. And I look at the somberness of living in the now. I recall talking to Neil Donald Walsh when he’s on the podcast, and he and I were talking about prior to the episode and then a bit during the episode, how before he wrote the first conversation with God, his house burned down and he lost everything. He had nothing. 
 
And he said the greatest lesson that he learned is to attach to nothing. We don’t own anything. And Don Hovier said that for many, many, many, many years, 30 years now. We don’t own anything. Now at a 3D level, sometimes kind of hard to comprehend because we think, well, yes, I own a home. I own 401k. I own a car. You don’t own shit. You’re borrowing it while you’re here. And then what we do is we attach to that which we are borrowing. 
 
And it’s not even us. So we suffer. And I know I’m going a couple of different places here and hopefully some of it’s landing. We suffer because we don’t live in the now. We’re always living for the future. What I’m going to create later or many people live in the past. Many, many, many people. And then do that subconsciously because I was abused or I had a bad father or I had a bad mother or people beat me up in high school or we never had any money. Like I lived in the past for many years being a poor kid. 
 
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We don’t even recognize we’re not living in the now. But let me share a little tool with you. You’ve heard it before, but it might resonate and land a little differently. One phrase that I love and it drives my partner crazy, but I love the phrase is it is what it is. No matter what happens, it is what it is. Whether I like Obama being president or whether I like Trump being president. 
 
Whether I like where I live or I don’t like where I live, whether I like the standard economy or don’t like the standard economy, it doesn’t matter. None of it matters. These are all my personal interpretations. It is what it is in the 3d externally. And then on the flip side, it is what it is that I make it in my mind. So the place that I live from is, are there things that I want to be different in my life? 
 
No, but then yes, because we all want things to be different in our life. But you know what, if you truly wanted something to be different, it would already be different, which means you don’t truly want it to be different because in the last episode you won’t pay the price for it. So let that sink in. But give you an example of something that I wish was different and I truly do wish it was different. Climate change. I’m an avid recycler. mean, I recycle, I do all the things I’m supposed to do. 
 
And by the way, recycling for the most part is a big hoax created by the petroleum companies back in 1970s. But do I like the way that people treat each other on the planet? No, I don’t. Some people, not all, of course. Most of us are pretty good people all around the world. Do I like it when people intentionally hurt other people and animals and the environment? No, I don’t. But it is what it is. And we’re on the planet on our evolutionary journey. 
 
and we’re all part of the web of the experience of humanity. And I know that I can’t change the world. I can only change myself. So that’s what I focus on is how can I be me and now and evolve and grow and continue to be happy today? And the way that I continue to be happy today is I endeavor to be part of the change I want to see in the world because 
 
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The only way I can create change is the first created in myself and I accept who I am. I accept where I am. I accept where the world is now because I can only create from the now. And I mean, come on, I’m just going to be transparent. do the podcast because I’ve gone through stages with it quite transparently where it’s just a pain in the ass to do. I don’t want to do it today. I don’t feel like doing it this week. 
 
But my highest value is to live in spiritual service. So I know that when I do the podcast in some way, somewhere in the world, given the impact we’ve had, I’m impacting someone and helping them live a better life. And I may never know who that person is. You know, there’s a young gentleman. He’s, believe he’s 24 now. His name is Chris Griffin. And I didn’t know this, but he started listening back when he was in high school. 
 
And he’s taken off in the stratosphere now. And he just recently had me on his podcast. He’s ranked number two on Australia. I’m ranked number four in Australia and the, I believe it’s the health category, but Chris started listening when he was in high school and he applied and he really dug into B to have, which I’ve talked about a lot. You got to be before you can do before you can have. And all of this to this episode, you’ve got to be in the now. 
 
I never, I never even heard of Chris many years ago when I started the podcast, but it dramatically changed his life. And I know him now and he’s a friend now because he recently had me on his podcast. He’s blowing up. mean, he’s, he’s making an impact in the world. So I do it. I do the podcast, even though at times in the past, I’ve been tired over it. I’ve been done with it, which is part of the reason I’m reinventing. I’m not tired and done with it now because I’m here, but I’m to create a little bit more of a new format. 
 
for you and for me. But you know what? Everything is as it is. And then somewhere else we’re not going to go in this episode is everything is exactly as it needs to be and should be. Everything is perfect now because it’s serving some purpose in the universe. So be okay. Now there was a monk I heard one time and somebody asked him, very wise monk. 
 
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said, how are you so happy all the time? And he said, I’m okay with everything. And at first sounds, you might think, well, how can you be okay with everything? And then you recognize because there are things like I talked about climate change or abusing animals. I’m not okay with people abusing animals or killing other people. But you know what? It’s part of the human experience. Now, it not even pertain to me. 
 
But these people that it happens to, or these animals that it happened to, they’re working out their karma. And I am totally okay with that. To start to wrap up here, let me give you a thought. When people transition, you may call it die. In the West, the general sentiment is, let’s say your grandma died, or your grandpa, or your parents, or your child. The general sentiment is, I’m so sorry. 
 
I’m so sorry that happened to you. I send you my condolences. And personally, I feel a bit awkward because I don’t tell people I’m sorry that someone transitioned. I’m not sorry that someone transitioned. Why? Because they are on their soul journey and that’s part of their experience. So they’re in their own evolution. Why in the world would I be sorry for them continuing on their evolutionary journey? I am not. 
 
I’m not saying, I’m happy your dad kicked the bucket. I’m not doing that either. Hopefully you get the point. And it’s a bit awkward. I will say I send my condolences or my condolences to you because I have empathy for what they’re going through because it’s a painful thing. If we’re not actually seeing life or we’re looking at it, which most people don’t see death, they look at it. It’s a very painful thing. But you know what? Everything is as it should be and needs to be. 
 
So start recognizing that it’s perfect. You’re living in a perfect world and everything is okay now. And I am in the now. So your transformational takeaway is the cause of all suffering is not accepting what’s in the now. And when you accept what’s in the now and you’re okay with that, because guess what? You can always change it. But are most of it. I mean, I can’t change climate change by myself right now, but 
 
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my finances are my which are pretty good. My social conditioning, my friends, my location, whatever, I can change any of that. So I’m okay with it now because I’m the one who created it. And if I’m not okay with it, then guess what people bitch and they moan and they groan about it. No, it’s okay. It’s okay. I accept that I created this. And guess what, because I created it, I can uncreate it, I can create something else that I 
 
choose and desire at this point in my life. That is living from the now and that will alleviate and eliminate your suffering. And that’s your transformational takeaway. As I said on the last episode, I rarely ask, but if you would please be very grateful. literally, despite what I just said earlier, I do, there’s a big part of me that loves doing these episodes even when I don’t want to do them. I’m traveling, I’m busy, whatever. I do them because it brings me joy when someone says, hey, you helped me with X, Y, like Chris did. 
 
I mentioned earlier are different people. That brings me joy and it tells me that I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing while I’m on the planet. But a little reciprocity back, a little iny. If you would please go to iTunes and leave me a five star review. Anything less will not help me. And tell your friends, tell people that you know that would appreciate the podcast. Thanks for listening. I’ll catch you over on another episode. Bye bye.