You’re listening to the Transform Your Life from the Inside Out podcast. This episode is titled, Why You Have Free Will, But You’re Not a Free Thinker. That sounds crazy, right? I mean, you know that you have free will, and that leads us to automatically believe and think that we are a free thinker. But, as I just said, you’re not. Keep listening to discover why this is true and how to start busting out of that cultural brainwashing that holds you back and holds you down.
Hi, I’m Jim Fortin, and you’re about to start transforming your life from the inside out with this podcast. I’m widely considered the leader in subconscious transformation and I’ve coached super achievers all around the world for over 25 years. Here, you’re going to find no rah-rah motivation and no hype because this podcast is a combination of brain science, transformational psychology, and ancient wisdom all rolled into one to take your life to levels you’ve never thought possible. If you’re wanting a lot more in life, to feel better, to heal, to have peace of mind, to feel powerful and alive, and to bring more abundance and prosperity into your life, then this podcast is for you because you’re going to start learning how to master your mind and evolve your consciousness. And when you do that, anything you want then becomes possible for you. I’m glad you’re here.

That word free thinker, I’ve always loved that word. And for many years, I used to definitely consider myself to be a free thinker. And many people think they are free thinkers. But the truth is, your entire identity, including every goal that you have, even your fears, your limitations, all of these things that you think were handed to you before you were old enough to speak. Ponder what I said. All of your goals, your fears, all of your limitations, all of these ways that you may think, and these paradigms from which you live, they were all handed to you. When you really consider that, it becomes obvious. Every single limitation that you think you have, it really isn’t yours. It’s only yours because you’ve been indoctrinated into having that limitation. But the reality, that’s not the truth of you.
When you think about your limitations, I know they frustrate you, and right now, think about maybe one of your biggest challenges, one of your stuck points in life. And people will say, I am blank. I am this limitation. In that moment, what they’re doing, and if you do that, you’re identifying with the limitation. But you’re not the limitations, and the limitations are not you. As I just mentioned. Think about maybe something, a place that you’re stuck in life. Maybe it’s your money. Maybe it’s your health. You’ve got a health issue that’s just persistent and won’t go away. Maybe it’s a challenged relationship or maybe not even being able to find a relationship if you’re looking for one. No matter what you do, and for me it was money for many years trying to make money, no matter what you do, you just can’t seem to get things moving. You just can’t seem to make things happen. And then what we do is we personalize it and we make it about us. As I said, we identify with that and we think that is us.
Got a bigger question for you, though. Ask yourself this question: Every challenge, every stuck spot, every limitation that I have, who gave me? Who gave me that limitation of thought? Who gave me that limitation of being? Who gave me that limitation of consciousness? As I said, they were all given to you. And here’s a word that I’m going to be using a lot: You were brainwashed to live and to have these limitations.
Now, that word brainwashing, I know that can be a rather challenging word for a lot of people. It’s just a rough word. But what is brainwashing? And there are many different definitions of brainwashing. But we will use one in particular from the Merriam-Webster Dictionary. And the definition is persuasion by propaganda or salesmanship. Now, that word salesmanship, what is salesmanship? The definition of that word is the art and skill of persuading prospective customers or people to purchase a product, a service, or idea. For most of us, that idea that we were sold, we were given, that becomes our identity for us.
And if you’ve listened for any amount of time at this point, do not work from the past and assume that when I speak of identity, I’m talking about your 3D ego identity, which would be your name, your age, your geographical location, maybe even your thoughts. In these episodes, we’re going to start going beyond your 3D human identity. And where I want to start working from is, and helping you discover, is your cosmic and your soul identity. Because that right there is where all of your power is.
You know that word salesmanship. And speaking of salesmanship, organized religion is salesmanship. But so are products or services that you buy, but so is religion. You know, that word brainwashing, we often associate that word with coercion. And we think maybe of like North Korea today. Maybe we think back in the history and we think about Hitler or Mussolini or maybe even Stalin. But that’s not always what brainwashing is, even though that is brainwashing. It’s not that. It’s different than that.
And let me give you a metaphor, okay? As I give you this metaphor, I think you will start to see your own life in the context of the metaphor and start to understand how every limitation you have, you’ve been brainwashed to have. Think of your mind and your brain, but your mind like a brand new smartphone. And when you unbox that phone, I’ve always used Apple, so I can’t speak for other models and other companies, but Apple, it already comes with a pre-installed default app. And there are many things on my phone that I didn’t even ask for. Now, did you notice that? I didn’t even ask for, you know, these apps. Maybe like Safari, which I deleted. Stocks, which I deleted. Calendar, an app that I’ve never used is GarageBand, and I deleted that. But I didn’t ask for these apps to be installed. They just came with the phone.
But for you, what apps were installed, so to speak, what programs got downloaded into you when you were a child? These programs, they come from your parents, your culture, your early environment, and were downloaded with a massive amount of default apps. And this all happens by about the age of seven years old. And here’s where it gets interesting. You’ve spent your entire life trying to organize and manage and polish and upgrade and maybe even escape those pre-installed apps, never realizing you have the power to wipe the entire operating system clean.
I’ll put it simply, and this may help you clarify where this is all going. You were brainwashed to think you were first a 3D mechanical, mechanistic, human being. And the truth is, you, that operative word you, you are not that. You are the awareness of that 3D ego, that 3D being.
Now, about your brainwashing, ponder what I call the sleepwalker’s pride. And what I mean by that, we talk about free will. We take immense pride in our choices. We will often say things like, I choose this. I choose this career. I choose this partner. I choose this house. But the question is, did you really? Think about that. Did you really? It looks like you chose, and you might have, but what chose? Or the silent pre-installed software running in your unconscious make those choices for you to ensure that you stayed safe and predictable and compliant and that you actually stayed within the herd and you maintained your early programming?
I invest in real estate and I watch a lot of real estate virtual TV. People looking at homes and buying homes and all those kind of things. Prevalently, you will see people saying, oh, I like this kind of home because it’s the kind of home that I grew up in. It reminds me of my childhood. So in that moment, they think, oh, okay, I have free will and choice to choose this home. But that proclivity, that inclination, was literally installed many years ago by virtue of living in that kind of home. So, of course, obviously, we do have choice to buy the home or not to buy the home. But the attraction to it is not a choice because that was brainwashed as a result of your environment, your learning as a small kid.
And a couple of minutes ago, I talked about organizing the apps and polishing the apps and trying to delete the apps and fighting the apps. What we do, all of this brainwashing, this programming, we learned as a kid. What I want to point out, I’ve already alluded to. This is not about what I’m starting to talk about now is not what I’ve talked about for many, many decades now. And that’s reprogramming the subconscious mind. It is, but it’s really not. It’s about going beyond. Because when you’re trying to reprogram the subconscious mind, let’s say that you’re broke. And I tried this for years. Let’s say that you’re broke and you want to program your mind to have money. Well, basically, you’re still working within the container, meaning the ego identity of the human being, and where I’m going to take you is beyond the ego identity.
For many years, I taught transformational work and processes. Not anymore. I’m now working from transcendence. Transformation, many times, as I just said earlier, that’s like actually being on the Titanic and trying to move the chairs around. We’re transforming how the cabin looks. What I am going to do with people now is transcend, meaning to get entirely off the Titanic. So I’ve moved all of my work, and I’m quite passionate about it, from the ego to consciousness.
So as I just alluded to, these days, my work is not about just helping you transform things in your life. My work is not about helping you get more, better, and different. My work is about helping you transcend that aspect of you that you call human, which is also your predominant and primary identity. And I also want to point out, that doesn’t mean that you will not have an ego. But where I want to take people is you will start recognizing your ego as subservient and secondary to your consciousness.
When I say that word consciousness, we all recognize, and this is what people say, and I did for many years. We recognize that we have consciousness. That’s only part of the picture. Where we want to start going is not recognizing that we have consciousness. We want to start recognizing that we are consciousness. And I used that word brainwashing just a bit ago, and I’m using that word because every limit, every place you’re stuck, as I’ve said third time now, is because you identify with something and you’ve been brainwashed to identify with that very thing. And transcendence is not about third time rearranging the furniture. It’s about transcending and escaping the identity of the human being. Because when you escape the identity of the human being, you then escape the limitations of the human being.
The human identity and ego, I don’t know about you, but I do know about you because I know about me, and this has applied to me. The human identity and the ego, they create a constant and exhausting feeling of struggle and trying to find your way and find yourself and trying to create. Now, as I said, I can identify, and I would assume you’re listening to this podcast because you’ve been there as well. And the frustration. I’ve been here as well. The frustration of doing everything right. And I’ve done this. I’ve read thousands of books many years ago. And doing everything right. And no matter what you do, the frustration, the limitation, the roadblocks, the stuckness, it just keeps happening.
And you know, this reminds me, as I was thinking about what I wanted to put in this episode, it reminds me of something that I saw a lot of as a kid. Growing up on a farm, we had tons of critters and bugs and beetles and all these kind of things. And for some reason, this stuck in my mind, at least relative to this episode. I remember seeing a beetle fall over on its back, and no matter how much it tried, because one day I saw it fall on its back when I was outside, obviously, and I didn’t help it over. I figured, okay, you know, it’ll flip back over and it’ll be fine. So this was earlier in the day, and I saw the beetle on its back, and it couldn’t get any leverage to flip over to get out of the hole that it was in. And again, I thought, well, no big deal. It’ll flip over, and I don’t have to touch it or pick it up, and it will take care of itself. Later that day, when I was in that same spot, I looked down, and that poor little beetle was still trying to work to flip over to make its world right so it could get out of the trap.
Not sure about you, but I have felt like that with my circumstances in life. I learned many years ago that it’s the brainwashing. We try to do things, but we can’t get any traction because brainwashing keeps sabotaging us like the beetle, and it keeps flipping our life upside down. And that right there is the illusion of living in the human brainwashing.
You know, 20 years ago, and I used this metaphor a bit earlier and I’ve used it before, the reason I can relate to this so well is 20 years ago, one of my coaches said to me, Jim, you’re trying to rearrange the chairs on the Titanic. That’s what most of us do. It’s exhausting. I used to try and try and try and try to rearrange the chairs. But no matter what I was doing, the Titanic was still going down. And as I alluded to, that’s exactly what happens when we live in the brainwashing of the human ego and of the human identification.
And what many of us do, I did and I’m sure you have as well, we go to therapy. We read the books. We watch the videos. We listen to podcasts. Download the PDFs. We do everything. And we may be making some traction. But the moment we stop actively trying to hold it all together, guess what? The anxiety comes back. The fear comes back. The financial limitations come back. The boundaries come back. Boom. Just like that. Like a rubber band, we snap right back into our old place and old circumstance.
That’s kind of like the beetle trying to get out of the hole, and it keeps falling back because the dirt, even when it tries to climb out, when it’s right side up, the dirt keeps moving under its feet. I guess beetles have feet, I don’t know. They’ve got whatever those little hooks are. But the dirt keeps moving, and they keep falling backwards. I’ve been there, I’ve done that, and I’m sure you’ve been there, and you’ve done that, and you’re stuck. You’re stuck because you’re trying to decorate the lie that you are a human instead of simply exiting the lie.
Have you realized the illusion of what you think you are, a human, that actually holds you hostage? Think about that. I’ll say it again. Have you realized the illusion of what you think you are, a human, that actually holds you hostage? What that illusion emotionally cost you? Well, it cost you years of fear, years of anxiety, years of worry, years of sickness, years of resignation. And as I alluded to a bit ago, you know, in the metaphor of the beetle, it’s exhausting. It is exhausting. I was so sick and tired. I remember one time thinking, as many years ago, and it was about trying to make money. And I was trying to make a lot of money. It just wasn’t ever happening. And I remember thinking, I am sick and tired of being sick and tired.
And when we live in that brainwashing, many times we have these underlying, these gnawing feelings. People will often say things like, I wonder when the other shoe was going to drop. Or we think about, is our relationship going to fall apart? Will the market crash? Or what if I get a bad medical diagnosis? And we live in the complete shitstorm of that, and many people have seen it live in that shitstorm for their entire life.
So think about this: You are not a hostage to your external circumstances, but you are a hostage to the belief that you are the container you walk around in. So you’re the hostage of the identity of the body, the prison guard, metaphorically speaking, is the container, and the parole board, meaning letting you out and setting you free, is the divine, original, universal consciousness that lives in the container and keeps the container alive.
Let me give you something to think about here. Let me show you how you’re living the human ego illusion and in the container without even knowing it. Before your parents gave you a name, before you were told how much money your family had or didn’t have, before you were told you were good or bad, the question is, did you exist? Think about that. Did you exist? Well, yes, you did exist. Who is the you? What is the you? Think about that. Who was that you? And what is that you that existed, even though you weren’t aware of all the money and the limitations and everything else? Well, that who and what is universal consciousness. It’s untouched, it’s unlimited, and that is the truth of you before you incarnated and you became brainwashed in the human experience. You became brainwashed to believe that you are only, I’m only a human, is what we think.
So with this awareness, what do you do with it? Well, the short answer for right now is that you exit the lie. But the problem is for most of us is that you can’t exit the lie because you’re so brainwashed about the lie. You can’t get out of the lie. You simply just can’t do it alone. Why? Because you cannot use the brainwashed mind to unbrainwash itself. I’ll say it again. It’s hard to get out of the lie because you cannot use a brainwashed mind to unbrainwash itself.
I’ll give you an example here that will make perfect sense. Let’s say that you’ve got some software. If that software has a bug in the code, that original program cannot write a patch to fix itself. It simply just loops the error. Engineers outside of the bug have to write new code. Notice what I said. Engineers outside the bug have to write the code to patch the bug. You can’t patch the bug being within the bug. So the same applies to you. Your analytical thinking mind is your brainwash program. You cannot think, affirm, or manifest your way out of the hypnosis using the very mind that is hypnotized. When I say hypnotized, I mean cultural hypnosis, and I also mean brainwashed.
Okay, so enough for now. All I want to simply do right now is I want to get you to start thinking. This is one of several episodes where we will be talking about brainwashing, and where that’s leading to is we’re going to talk about unbrainwashing you. And to the title of this episode, Why You Have Free Will, but you’re not a free thinker. As long as you stay brainwashed, you are not a free thinker. Ponder this, kick it around, let it marinate. I’m going to keep building on this episode as we go. And again, we’re going to start unbrainwashing you.
If you enjoyed the episode, please share if you would. As well, I mentioned before, please go on over to Apple and leave me a five-star review if you find these episodes helpful. Anything less than a five-star review is not going to help me, and it’s not going to help me help more people. All right. Thank you for listening, and I’ll catch you over on another episode. Bye-bye.