Transcript for this weeks message

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to The Horsemanship Journey podcast. My name is Shane Jacob, your host, and I appreciate you for taking your time to be with us today, to be with me today. And I hope that I can give you something of value, especially if you're a parent today. And I think that you will go away with some value. Today I want to talk about two truths, okay? And I think that you might agree with me that these are two truths.

One is, as men are, that they might have joy. That's truth one. So that means we exist that we might have joy as human beings. Okay? So, it surely seems that way because we all are kind of seeking happiness, it seems like, and to feel good all the time.

The second truth is, is these kind of interact or opposites, but the second truth is that there must needs be opposition in all things. It actually is scripture. So, what that means is there must be an equal and opposite reaction. There's an equal and opposite reaction to everything. And I think we know this, right? I think that we know that we must, at some level we know that we must experience pain to know what to know what feeling good feels like. We have to experience the opposite to appreciate or just to be able to know. So, there must needs to be an opposition in all things.

Well, great, Shane. What does all this mean? How does that apply to me today or my kids and whatnot? So, let's just take a look at how our brain works. Let's just review how our brain works, okay. So, the intent, when I talk about our brain, I'm talking about our brain as, I'm kind of separating it from our conscious thought or ourselves. Okay. I'm calling our brain something that is, it's part of us, but it's not part of our conscious decision-making. It's something that we can kind of, that we can have some amount of control over. That's part of us that helps us and protects us.

The intent of our brain, okay, most of the time is to protect us, to keep us comfortable, to keep us safe. And our brains attempt to keep us safe by giving us thoughts that create fear. And those thoughts can lead to feelings and can lead to actions. Our brains are amazing super computer. I always say that they put AI to shame. I mean, they created AI, but they're so fast. And they hold so much information and they can process, whatever kind of processors that we have. They're absolutely miracles.

But our brains give us thoughts that create fear, and they give us thoughts that say fear is bad, it's danger. Okay, so they steer us towards things that are familiar. They give us thoughts that feel unsettled or afraid of change. Okay, we're preferring no change. If we're in a safe and easy and comfortable place, that's where our brain wants us to be. The comfort zone is a real place. Our brains work to keep us in the comfort zone, in our own comfort zones. And our brains direct us to seek pleasure and avoid pain.

Our brains don't differentiate between rational and irrational fear. So, what that means is, is whether it's a car racing at us or someone throwing a punch at us or protecting us from physical harm, our brains don't differentiate that kind of feeling and that kind of message and that kind of thought, feeling, reaction between physical danger and the fear that you might have of, for example, public speaking or starting a new business or going out on a limb or asking someone out on a date or so on and so forth. Okay, it's exact same. Our brains don't differentiate what kind of fear that it is. In other words, fear that will protect us from harm or fear that will keep us from progress, that's what I just described.

Our brains also don't differentiate between pleasure or joy, or between pleasure and false pleasure. So what I mean by that, some examples of false pleasure would be our social media, sugar, pornography, drugs, alcohol, video games. So just let me be clear, not all false pleasure is bad. I'm not saying that. In certain amounts, you know, sugar and media and videogames or whatever. I'm not saying that everything is bad. I'm saying that our brains are designed, their default is to direct us towards pleasure. And some of these kinds of pleasures, what I consider false pleasure, and I'll tell you exactly what I mean by that.

So as parents, we also are, I believe our default is to protect our kids from danger and discomfort, all of it, all the time, naturally. It's kind of instinctual. And you know, parents can even, to the extent that sometimes parents can push doctors, and of course sometimes doctors push parents, but to prescribe drugs to help keep kids from discomfort. So, the question I have for you is, is how much do you want to protect you, or how much do you want to protect your kids from discomfort?

One of my mentors, Brooke Castillo from the owner of Life Coach School, says, “Life is 50-50. And that if you agree to that, and if you can accept that life is 50-50, that you'll be better off.” In other words, 50%pleasure-50% discomfort, or 50% joy-50% pain. Half the time it's good, half the time it's bad. And a lot of times I hear a lot of response to this. And I'll tell you my first response to that was the same as I hear a lot of people, is that I kind of prefer 80-20. How about 80% good and 20% bad? I might be able to deal with that. The way I understand it is Brooke's position on this is that if you accept that life is 50-50, one of the reasons not to accept it, the thinking is that your expectation is that you're not gonna be able to achieve pleasure and joy only half the time.

The thing of it is, I think the main point, whether it's exactly 50-50 or not, I think is unimportant. I think Brooke's main message is to accept one of the truths that I mentioned, and that is there's opposition in all things. Which means that there's going to be a percentage of the time, probably close to half, where things are not going to be ideal. They're going to be negative. Things are going to be bad times. So by default, our brains locate the negative.

I think this is awfully interesting. If you ask people, and I tried this, somebody asked me a question and said, “You know, to look back on a memory or a certain this and that.” And the other night, they asked me to recall like a bad memory from the past, and boom! I mean, I had one now, right? could think, actually I could see quite a few, right? And then they said, well, what's your best memory from, you know, this decade? Or, what's your best memory from your childhood? And I really had to think about it, which kind of to me proves that our brains do default to the negative. We see what's in the way. We see what's wrong. And what this is, is it's a danger mechanism. Okay, so our brains aren't our enemy. Our brains are a good thing, but they're trying to protect us. And sometimes that protection and sometimes our default the way that our brain is guiding us doesn't serve us, it doesn't help our end result.

So, a false pleasure, I'm going to define a false pleasure .A false pleasure is something that your brain has an excessive reaction to and that it's not evolved enough to accommodate, and so therefore it has a negative consequence. So, what I mean by that is we take substances, for example we would take a grape. We'd take grapes and would concentrate grapes into wine and ferment them. Then basically we'd drink the wine and would basically get this burst of dopamine. Your brain isn't used to it. So, your brain thinks that wine is a very important thing for your survival. It thinks it is amazing, it is great. It thinks that you need it. So, you begin to drink wine all the time at the expense of other things. It's the same with sugar. It's the same with flour. It's the same with heroin, and it's the same with cocaine.

Okay, we take all these naturally occurring things in the world, in nature, and we make them so that they are affect our brain in a way that's artificial. And that's a false pleasure. That's part of a false pleasure. So, your brain is like, wow, this is super pleasure, and this experience is much more amazing than the experience is in our actual life. And so, we've kind of escaped our life into this pleasure place. And what it does is it creates this buffer zone. That's why I call it buffering. This place between, you know, super pleasure and reality. Okay, it buffers us from reality. It creates this barrier kind of an escape.

So, we're having, we have an experience that's unpleasant ,and we try to make the experience pleasant by, for example, eating something. Okay so, we're feeling anxious or maybe we're feeling stressed or frustrated, and we eat, and we get that pleasure, which helps us escape from that emotion. Now, when that happens, here's my question, does that mean that we're actually happier? When we get that pleasure, or what I'm calling a false pleasure, does that mean that we're actually happier? Does it mean that we're actually having less negative emotion? Or, have we just put ourselves into a place that make sus less aware of this negative emotion because we've given ourselves this artificial dopamine hit, or we've given ourselves this artificial pleasure.

So, buffering just means that when we use external things to change how we feel emotionally. So as soon as you recognize that, as soon as you can recognize and accept that you can be unhappy and that you'll be fine. That it's okay to be unhappy, when you're willing to be unhappy, then what you can find is that you can have the wherewithal to find the thoughts that are causing your unhappiness. And, you can get some awareness around it and some power over the thoughts that are creating these unhappy emotions, these negative emotions. Because if you're constantly rejecting unhappiness, and you're trying to solve it by seeking these false pleasures, you're never going to get yourself out of the loop. And there's all kinds of loops, I could list all kinds of things. But basically, it's things that has a long-term negative consequence, of being just short-term gain but brings you a long-term negative consequence.

When I was drinking daily, when I was addicted to alcohol, I would wake up in the morning hazy, three quarters in an alcoholic haze. And I would, my thoughts were of all the negative things that I did and how much that I needed to quit, and I felt terrible. And the way that I escaped this is I drank again. And I got that false pleasure, and I stayed in that loop. I stayed in that loop. I solved my problems. I solved my initial problem and my ongoing problems with alcohol. Okay, it's not really a solution, but I mask those feelings. I buffered out my life and escaped reality for more than two decades, on a daily basis.

And it was, in my experience of that kind of buffering I can tell you this, I created so much pain and loss for so many people, and plus me. I'm here to tell you buffering in any ways, and it doesn't matter what it is, it can be alcohol or all the other things. Because what happens to you, here's like an overeating example. What happens is you feel unhappy, you overeat, you watch Netflix, and then you feel even more unhappy. So then you overeat, you watch Netflix, and you feel even more unhappy.

So, buffers, they only provide a temporary relief from this negative emotion, and that always comes back harder and stronger than when it started. So, like you go out and you buy yourself a car, okay, a brand-new car and you can't afford it. But, you get a rush of pleasure about it. I mean, you're driving this brand-new car. It smells good. It looks good. Everybody thinks you're cool. You think you're cool. You are cool. And then you have the payment. Okay. And then you have the lack of money, and then you stress about it. And then, it turns into be all the negative starts to come.

The thing of it is, is you can choose to trade all of the false pleasures in your life for wellbeing. You can actually trade all of the false pleasures in your life for well-being, if you choose to. And when you do that, you gain confidence. Okay. And that confidence begets more confidence, and it begets more confidence, and it goes on from there. And the more confidence that you have, the more empowered you feel. And the more well-being you have, the more you have to give and offer others and the world, okay.

And I think that's when we're at our ultimate happiness, is when we're able to be the best version of ourselves and make our best contribution to the world. When we're in a place, when we're in a pleasure-seeking mode, we can't give. You know, you're pleasure seeking. So when you're in that mode, you don't have the capacity to give to other people.

So, here's a question. Okay. Can you imagine your life without a thing that you buffer with? Okay. Now when I was drinking, I thought, “Man, I don't know what it would be like. Life's going to be boring.” Because I would take that first drink and boy, I mean… Nothing had changed, I was still right at the same spot. There's really no circumstances, but I felt better. Okay. I felt more relaxed. I thought this temporary pleasure is going on. I was just at a better place, and nothing happened. And when I looked at I'm like, “Man, I don't know what life's gonna be like without it. I don't know how all you people do that, and you know get by without all this, you know, false pleasure I'm having.” You know, as I was destroying lives and mine and many others. And even right now, to this day, I'm contemplating, I haven't done it but I'm thinking about, you know taking out some things because I'm on the verge I think of like quitting sugar, drinking coke.

Okay, right now I replace my alcohol with coke, and sometimes I'm to the point with coke where I'm thinking about quitting coke because I don't just drink coke when I'm thirsty. Sometimes I find myself drinking my Coke Zero to feel better. So, it's not about needing a drink, it's about something unresolved that I have going on.

So, when I think about this, and I'm asking you to think about this, whatever it is that you have… Now not everything's buffering. If you can do it and you feel good about it and you don't have a negative consequence, that's not buffering. But if you look at whatever, if you can imagine whatever thing it is that you buffer with, if you could imagine life without it… Immediately, what you're going to feel is fear and deprivation, okay? If it's something that you're really used to, all right?

If you really use it to buffer and survive, you're going to feel like you're deprived in life. Like, could you imagine a life without sugar? I mean, no sugar, like no refined sugar. And if that's something that you use to feel better, it's hard to even imagine that you could get by without it. And it's because that you believe that you can't survive without it. And the thing of it is, I promise you that you can. I've done it with a few things now, besides alcohol. I've done it to lose I think almost 50, well, 45 plus pounds, we'll say that. And I promise you that your life without it, it isn't just tolerable, it's actually way better without it, whatever it is, okay.

So, just imagine never having that thing again. Whether, whatever it is, sugar, M&M’s, or your Starbucks coffee, or your wine, or your whatever, okay.  Just imagine whatever that thing is that's causing you to have a negative consequence in your life, imagine your life without it, okay.

Now that's the easy part. The hard part is the feelings that you'll be left with, if you don't have it. And what will you feel? Because you might feel a little bit of withdrawal at the first. You might feel a little bit of deprivation at the first because it's always been your go-to. You're used to going there, going there and getting this pleasure. But ultimately, what you will feel is whatever that emotion that you're trying so desperately to escape or cover up, that's what you'll feel. And that emotion right there ,it has some important information for you. It's telling you what you're thinking, and it's telling you what you're believing, and it's telling you how you're going to act and show up in the world. And if you're constantly trying to avoid yourself, you're missing out, you're missing out on your own authentic life. And when you can live an authentic way, you get to offer the world your full authentic self. And your own self is a pretty bad, I mean that in a good way, you're an incredible, incredible human being as you are.

So, one option is to believe that you should always be happy, and then you can use buffers and pleasure to try to keep you on the side of the line where you're happy all the time. Option two, the next option is to recognize that half or so of your life is just going to be and should be negative emotion. And not negative emotion that be should be escaped from, but negative emotion that should be paid attention to and used to manage yourself and your emotions and to manage your thinking to be able to manage your results in what life so you they can show up that the way that you want to, in a way that you're proud of.

Your emotions, right, the way that you've feel is an indicator of what's going on, what's going on for you. To be authentic, and authentic is a word that I'll talk another time about that, because sometimes I'll say being authentic is being, in today's discussion what I mean is, being the way that you are and that you want to be, okay. Without a negative consequence, and to have a true relationship with your life.

And to be able to do that, part of that is to be willing to experience negative emotion about half the time. And if you're willing to do that without trying to escape, you'll remove all the buffers in your life. And at the same time, you can remove all the negative consequences that come with it.

And so, here's what that means if you overeat. You'll get to your ideal weight, and you'll never buffer with food. And you'll be able to have the pleasure of being able to put on whatever clothes you want, and it'll fit. And you'll be at your ideal weight, period. If you quit drinking, you'll be able to give up all the hangovers, all the embarrassing moments, all the hiding, all the shame, and all the bad things, and all the embarrassment and all the, all the things that you've caused that you in all the negative things that go along with that in any way. When you give it up, you get to say goodbye to that. If you give up the clutter, the over buying, you'll be left with only the best thing in your life. Only the things that you genuinely, you only buy the things that you genuinely love. You'll be surrounded by all the very best things instead of having, you know, nine of everything because you're overbuying it and feeling bad about it. You won't get to feel that. You won't need to feel it right now. You won't need to feel it anymore in your life, and it will bring quality and authenticity to your life. It will feel different.

So, I invite you to consider giving up false pleasures so that you can enjoy the full pleasure and the joy of well-being. And the full pleasure of well-being doesn't mean that you don't get experience negative emotion. It does not mean that at all, it just means that you have no problem when it's there. It means that you can handle it. It means that you're not constantly being a victim of your own emotional life. It means that you're willing and able to walk into any negative emotion. And when you're willing to do that, buffering will just become unnecessary and all the negative consequences that go with it, all of them. Any activity that you're using to avoid negative emotion, that gives you a negative consequence in the end, that is what buffering is. And like I said, not everything's buffering. You'll know if it's buffering or not because it'll end up having a negative impact on you.

So, when we talk to our kids, it is our brain, part of our brain, it is our instinct to protect and to harm. And I mean, we don't want our kids even unhappy, not for a moment. I mean, not my kid, right? We wanna protect them from everything, from getting hurt feelings, from unfairness and from everything. A lot of times we think our job is also not only to protect our kids from negative emotion, from ourselves, excuse me, to also protect our kids. It's almost like our brain is guiding us to protect ourselves from negative emotion, to protect our kids from negative emotion. And I am asking you to consider that the idea that accepting negative emotion as a part of life is a positive thing that in the end will result in will result in joy.

So rather than, “Hey kid, come here, let's do this. You'll feel better.” How about embracing that negative with our kids, as hard as it can be. You know, which I mean, it rips at my heart when I think about it, and when I see kids that suffer, you know. But that's part of life, and I think it's our obligation to have those conversations, to take our kids and sit with them and be with them and love them unconditionally, and just be there with them in it. And let them know that, “Hey, this is the way that life's gonna be.” And if you fully embrace it, and if you're not afraid of these negative emotions, and you can go through them. And you can be there unconditionally with your kids, just be there with them. Let them know that it's okay. Let them know that they don't have to buffer. Let them know that they don't need to seek this false pleasure. You know, kids don't even have a fully developed brain they say until they're 25, but just tell them everything that they're okay. Most of the time, kids just need to know that they're okay and that it's going to be okay, to the extent that they'll accept it from their parents.

If we can set the example for the people that we lead and for our children, in accepting negative emotion and having it be okay without going and having to need this stuff, we can become more aware of ourselves. We can live a better version of ourselves. I think we're, like I said, we're more proud of ourselves, and so we have more confidence, and we show up in the world in a better place.

If we teach that to our kids… If we teach that to our kids, okay, where our kids aren't running away. You know, when they can accept the idea that man, life's not fair. And it's not fair today, and it's not gonna be tomorrow, it's not gonna be when I grow up. And that sometimes people do things that we don't agree with, and sometimes things hurt. We experience feelings of loss. We experience, you know, hurt feelings and all kinds of, all kinds of things that are painful. And if we can just be there with them in that and help let them know that it's okay to feel it. And feeling it, okay, feeling it rather than using these negative, these false pleasures to buffer with, in the end is going to have such a tremendous positive impact in our life. That if we're willing, coming back to the first two truths, that we are designed to have joy.

And the true way to have as much joy as we can to fully experience it here on this earth, is to fully also fully experience the opposition because there must need to be opposition. And if we can experience those negative things and unconditionally love our kids through it and encourage them to accept it, then their results, they'll be more proud of themselves and have more confidence. And then they'll be able to make a bigger contribution to the world themselves.

Hey, I appreciate you taking your time to be here with us today. Remember, you cannot fail as long as you Don't Ever Stop Chasing It.

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