Speaker 1: 1:25

Welcome to the show everyone. My name is Dr Jay Tita and I am your host of the Next Level Human podcast, and today I am excited to begin to talk to you about something that I think is one of the most exciting things that I've done in my career, and this is something I've been working on over the past 10 years or so, and this is the idea of transformation. How do we humans actually change? Now, if you're a regular listener to this podcast, you have probably heard me talk about the idea of identity restructuring. I've done some podcasts on this topic before, but I'm going to break it down for you in a slightly different way today and tie in how our nervous system gets involved with this, how the brain gets involved with this and how the conscious and unconscious get involved with this. So let's get into it really quickly.

Speaker 1: 2:23

The idea behind change usually starts with a conversation around habits and behaviors. What we think is we need to change our habits and our behaviors. We think we just make different choices and take different actions, and the belief is, if we do that enough, by mustering willpower and motivation, we can through just rote actions, repeated actions, consistent actions and behaviors, habits we can change who it is. We are studied habit architecture, read all the habit books, studied all the research on habit change and setting goals and what goes into motivation and what goes into making change. And what I have come to in my practice, in clinical practice, is that while a lot of this stuff is incredibly interesting, it does not seem to work in clinical practice, and some of you may have experienced this in your own life. What I mean by that is that you may have read books like Tiny Habits or tried out Smart Goals or bought into this idea that all you have to do is consistent choices and actions in the direction of what you want for 21 days and you will make this a habit and you'll be ready to go and change will be yours the dream that if we change our habits and set the right goals and do the right things, we're automatically going to change.

Speaker 1: 4:06

And you probably confronted the same reality I have. It does not work for the vast majority of people. As a clinical practitioner who has spent his whole career working with people in physical transformation and psychological transformation, personal transformation, I can tell you that the habit stuff has never worked. Now I'm not going to sit here and tell you that it doesn't have utility. Certainly, we live in a 3D world.

Speaker 1: 4:39

Actions are critical and perhaps one of the most critical things that we can do, but not for the reasons that we typically think. Actions, when they are in alignment with thoughts and feelings and choices, definitely have power, and perhaps the most power. But there is something that has to happen before we can change our thinking, our feeling, our choices and our actions and therefore impact our habitual behaviors or our habits, and that is seeing the world differently. So let's start here. In order to be different, you have to think, feel, choose and act in alignment. But before you can think, choose and act in alignment, but before you can think, feel, choose and act in alignment which, from my perspective, is the definition of being you have to see the world and yourself accurately. Let me give you an example of this.

Speaker 1: 5:43

Let's say I want to become a world-class singer and pop star and I go. Well, I'm just going to start taking the action. I'm going to go out and I am going to sing. I'm going to go out on the promenade in Santa Monica. I'm going to sing every single day. I'm going to take the actions. Not only that, I am going to act like I'm a method actor and I am going to live the part of a singer. I'm going to get myself a guitar. I'm going to play for hours every day. I'm going to sing all the time. In my off time, I'm going to visualize myself standing on the stage playing my guitar and singing. I'm going to think like I'm a famous musician. I'm going to feel like I'm a famous musician and I'm going to take all the choices and actions that a thinking or that a musician famous musician would take. This is the idea. Okay, so I'm being this, right, I'm being this now, so it should now become a reality.

Speaker 1: 6:51

But there is one problem with this, and that is what if I simply can't sing? What if I don't have the skill set to sing? What if I sound like a broken record? What if I sound like a dying dog? What if I just sound horrible? And what if it does not matter what I do, that my singing is just not good enough to become a famous singer that other people actually want to listen to?

Speaker 1: 7:25

This is the big issue with transformation and change, because before we can think, feel, choose and act in alignment, we have to be authentic to our experience, our history, our skill sets, our talents. We have to know that we're good at this and, yes, some of us can sing well enough and then, through practice, become an expert singer, but some of us can't. Some of us, no matter how much we try, we are never going to become an NFL football player or an NBA superstar. We're never going to be able to become a singer that people actually want to listen to, and to me, this is the part that is hard about being human. But each of us indeed do have something that we are expert at, and this is where perception and the accuracy of perception the first power of the six powers in the Next Level Human framework comes in. Six powers in the next level human framework comes in. We can't just decide that we're going to be a championship mixed martial artist or a famous musician or a Hollywood actor. For some of us, that indeed fits and is in alignment with the number of possibilities that we could have in our lives, and for others it is not.

Speaker 1: 8:51

And to me, this is the first conversation that you have to have, and this is a conversation around authenticity, around who is it that we are? We each are unique. We say this a lot in the next level human philosophy. There has never been another human like you on the face of the earth, nor will there ever be again. There is never going to be another Jade. There never has been another Jade. There is something I can do and you can do, that is uniquely suited to you, that no one else can do in the way that you can do it. Same goes for me and same goes for every other human we meet. But in order to do this work that we are uniquely suited for, we must be in touch with and in alignment with our authentic selves. And this has to do with understanding our history, understanding our experiences, understanding our passions, understanding our superpowers, understanding the gifts that we have been giving, understanding what we can accomplish, what is in the zone of possibility for us, the lane, so to speak, that suits us as individuals.

Speaker 1: 10:07

And so, as we start this particular conversation, the first thing we need to understand is the difference between this fake it until you make it concept and this be it until you see it concept. Now, faking it until you make it is certainly acting the part. Certainly, you can think the part, you can choose the part, you can feel the part, but because it's not authentic. You can't sustain that. In other words, it will not be sustainable or consistent action. And that's why it feels like faking. Because you can certainly sustain it when people are watching you and pretend, but as soon as you go back home when no one's watching at all, you either can't sustain it or it is not in alignment with your authentic self. Right, you are a human being, not a human faking, and in order to change, you have to be a human being. And being means authentic alignment in thinking, feeling, choosing and acting, not inauthentic pretending in thinking, feeling, choosing and acting.

Speaker 1: 11:16

So to begin this process, to get inauthentic alignment, we need to see ourselves accurately. We need to master the power of perception. Now, how do we do this? Because certainly some of us can become famous musicians and famous actors and amazing PhD researchers and amazing parents and whatever it is that we want to do, but it has to be in that alignment. Now let's assume that this is within your skill set, that you actually can sing, you actually can act, you actually are good enough to become the PhD or be the great romantic partner or get in healthy, fit, shape or master your finances and become wealthy.

Speaker 1: 12:13

Let's say this is in the zone of those possibilities, and I will argue right now that there is four jobs that every human has to do that we talk about a lot. You hear it every single time. We start the Next Level Human podcast, we start the Next Level Human podcast and those are the jobs of health and fitness, wealth and finance, slash, career, personal relationships and romance and purpose and meaning. And in these domains, each of us can master these domains, and I would argue that these are the domains that we should be spending our time with. And, of course, one of those domains, the purpose and meaning domain, speaks to what we can become and the work that we're meant to do on this planet, making a distinction, by the way, between our work and our job. Our job is the way we make money. Our work is the way we make a difference and do on the planet what it is uniquely ours to do.

Speaker 1: 13:12

And so, when we look at this discussion, one of the first things you want to begin to do is say let me put aside the fantasy, fairytale aspects of things about being on TV or being a famous actress or musician or any of this kind of stuff, and let me instead focus on these four jobs. How healthy and fit can I get? How great of a partner and friend and parent and sibling and child can I be? How far can I get in my finances? And what is the work that I am uniquely meant to do here? That has nothing to do with culture level accolades, like being famous says is valuable, and by doing that we abandon ourselves. We move out of the perceptual power. Instead, culture hijacks our perception and we never become or we never actually achieve human being. Instead, we remain human faking. This is what I want to draw your attention to Now. If you understand all of that, let's assume now that you've decided I'm going to escape the culture level bullshit and I'm going to escape this culture level need to be seen as famous or to be seen as successful or to be seen a particular way, and instead I'm going to play my game. I'm going to be a next level human. Remember, next level human is not about being better than someone else and competing in a culture level or base level game. It's simply about being the best that I can be, continually striving for the next best self that I can become in these four jobs.

Speaker 1: 17:58

If we understand that now, we can get into the discussion of identity restructuring. Now, why would we want to undo, dismantle and restructure our identity? In the first place, because, for many of us, we are stuck in the matrix of base level and culture level beliefs and ideas. And because we're stuck in the base level and culture level idea space, this matrix, this illusion, we play a game that's not suited for us. We play a game of competition and tearing others down and constantly seeking power and control because we don't feel safe and secure. This would be the base level orientation. Or we play a game of culture level status and popularity so that we can fulfill our acceptance and belonging needs. And these base level games and pursuits and these culture level games and pursuits keep us from our human being, our purpose potential, the thing that we uniquely can do in only the way that we can do it. And this is where we'll start this discussion.

Speaker 1: 19:10

Yes, we want to dismantle these false identities that come from base level beliefs and culture level beliefs, because these stories keep us stuck. They are misguided, unconscious decisions, mud notice the acronym there. We talk about this a lot. They're misguided because we formed these beliefs and definitions about the world at a time where we didn't have the maturity, the know-how or the wisdom or the understanding that this culture level game or this base level pursuit was not for us, that we were meant to be chasing our unique selves all along. They're unconscious because they follow us around like a shadow, causing us to run into the same repeated patterns, stuck emotions and recurrent obstacles again and again. And they are decisions because, whether we were aware of them or not, we bought into these base level and culture level ideas, hook, line and sinker and now we are stuck.

Speaker 1: 20:16

So how do we dismantle these base level and culture level narratives, stories, definitions, beliefs that inform our identity and determine our habits and behaviors, that inform our identity and determine our habits and behaviors? Well, it's a three-step process and the first step is rewrite. We must rewrite the narratives, definitions and beliefs that are stuck in our unconscious mind. We must get out of the mud and then we must clean ourselves up. Get out of the mud and then we must clean ourselves up. And this mud if we stay long enough in these false narratives, definitions and beliefs, that mud becomes like cement. Our identity becomes cemented and we become something that we were never meant to be, and then we run into midlife crises and certain things like that that finally wake us up to who we are really meant to be and what we are really meant to do on this planet. We talk about this a lot, also in the next level human mindset and philosophy that perhaps suffering and some of these deep things illness, financial ruin, betrayal by the people we love are the very things we need to shake us out of this cemented, misguided, unconscious way of orienting towards the world. If we think for a moment that we are here to do a particular thing and we have gotten in the wrong lane, on the wrong highway because of this misguided, unconscious decisions, then how would our higher selves, tribulations, things that make us question who we are and the reality we're living in? And I would argue that this is what is going on in many people's lives, as we have a mass awakening to who it is we are really meant to be, to who it is we are really meant to be. So we must rewrite these old stories and definitions. What do I mean by this? Well, stories about safety and security, acceptance and belonging and freedom and autonomy and purpose and meaning.

Speaker 1: 22:42

For example, I had a mother wound when I was young. I had a brother wound when I was young, in my child development and in my adult life. My physical appearance even of this big, muscular guy who lifted weights his whole life and was a bouncer and got involved with karate early on and mixed martial arts early on in his life and played contact sports, was an outcropping of the decisions I made around being teased and bullied by my brother. My difficulty in relationships with women and my eventual affair and divorce was an outcropping of the misguided and unconscious decisions that I formed around my mother wound. We don't realize that we are doing this, but it is happening in all of us all the time and these do not have to be capital T traumas. My mother was an incredibly loving mom. She was also emotionally volatile and made me distrust female emotions, but she never beat me. I was never traumatized at all by my mother. I was never sexually abused or beaten or anything like that. In fact, my mother loved me and was generally an amazing mom and is one of my best friends now. But I did pick up some of those behaviors and stories as a result of what she was struggling from my brother. My brother is also one of my best friends. He was teasing me and working through his own childhood development, metabolism, an expert in mindset and an expert in strength and conditioning. Perhaps those things were always there to be used so that I could be sitting here teaching you the things and discussing the things that we're discussing right now.

Speaker 1: 28:51

So how do we rewrite these stories? Well, we do it through several different processes. We can do this through many different ways, but my favorites are things that alter the unconscious and conscious connections, put us in altered states of consciousness psychedelics, breath work, journaling techniques, certain musical frequencies, somatic therapies that work with the body. What ends up happening with us humans is that we are a mental, emotional, physical construct. Beneath all of that, we are an energy body. This energy body we now know through our nervous system and its connection to our physicality and our nervous system's connection to our biofield. Our energetic bodies the scaffolding by which our biochemistry and physical body live on top of physical body, live on top of these stories get stored, in a sense, in our mental, emotional bodies, that energetic body that acts as a scaffolding to the physical body. And, of course, the nervous system is the go-between here, and this keeps us stuck in particular ways of being. Let me give you an example of this.

Speaker 1: 30:20

When I was a child, I was left at the baseball park for a few hours while it was getting dark. Now, at this time, my mother and father had four kids. They were running us all over the place back and forth and, as an adult now, logically, we can all know what happened and why I got left. My mom got home, my dad was there, probably making dinner. My mom said where's Jade? My father says I thought you were getting the him. And then they realize oh my God, he's probably still at the baseball field and they rush off frantic to get me.

Speaker 1: 30:53

Logically, we know what happens. Logically, we know that no one did that to me on purpose. However, mentally, emotionally, as a small little child, a six-year-old who is in his formative development years around safety and security, I'm there scared, not knowing what's happening because I don't have the knowledge, the know-how, the wisdom or maturity to realize what is going on. I just know I was left. Of course, this is at a time where there were no cell phones, no internet, none of this kind of stuff. I was too young to even know how to really use a pay phone. So here I was.

Speaker 1: 31:28

Now my parents come back get me and what happens is they love me, explain to me. Oh my gosh, jade, I'm so sorry, but during that time I have an emotional memory and energetic that is stored in me and in my body, and so it becomes misguided, unconscious decision. It becomes mud, it becomes cement, it becomes an issue later on where I don't necessarily trust, I don't feel fully safe and secure with people. Perhaps Now this is a minor event. This was not child abuse. This was an accident, something that has probably happened to many of you. But for whatever reason and, by the way, this didn't necessarily get stored in me. But for some of us we have these things get stored. For others of us, we don't. Now, who knows why this happens? Maybe I had a very resilient sort of way of being because of other things that happened to me where it didn't make a difference, but maybe you didn't.

Speaker 1: 32:37

Now you have this memory stored and you are not aware of it. So we have to go in and rewrite this memory, find this memory. And the way we find this memory is by looking at your repeated patterns, your stuck emotions, your recurrent obstacles, the things that come up again and again, the way that you behave with your spouse or your significant other, the ways that you behave with your romantic partners, the way that you behave with your spouse or your significant other, the ways that you behave with your romantic partners, the way that you repeatedly behave across your lifespan, where you act in particular ways and many of us aren't aware of this. It's kind of like someone with bad breath. If someone has bad breath, they oftentimes don't know, they can't smell it, they're too close to themselves. Only other people smell it. The only way you know you have bad breath is if someone keeps offering you gum. You haven't been kissed in years, people keep their distance from you, or you've been told hey, your breath is horrible over and over again. This is how we know, and so we all have these repeated dysfunctions, these recurrent obstacles and these stuck emotions, and so when we begin to do this coaching work, we look at what are the memories, what are the emotions, what are the feelings in your body?

Speaker 1: 33:46

For example, for me, I oftentimes have, historically since I was young, have digestive related issues irritable bowel type, bubbly gut type issues that were there my whole life and came along with a feeling of I don't trust people, I have to take care of myself, I'm alone in this world, even though I had three siblings and two loving parents. Something happened along the way that I did not trust, and so I developed these patterns and I stored some of these symptoms in my body. And so I had these patterns and I stored some of these symptoms in my body and so I had these repeated emotions. They recurred again and again in my romantic lives, keeping my romantic connections at a distance, having a bit of avoidant personality disorder, feeling this constant sort of turmoil in my gut, having a belief and definitions about the world that people aren't trustworthy. And it wasn't until I began doing work on this, through breath work, through journaling, through psychedelics, through other things and, of course, in the next level, human work.

Speaker 1: 34:50

We work with breath work, meditation and journaling, primarily at this stage to rewrite and spot these old narratives. And we do that by finding stuck patterns in the body, recurrent symptoms, achy joints, headaches, all of these kinds of things. Sometimes, not always, these are mental, emotional stuck points. The body is storing them there. Or we look at repeated patterns and sometimes there are actually memories there, but because of the way we form memories, we don't form complete memories from the ages of zero to four.

Speaker 1: 35:26

So many of the things that we're dealing with, much of the misguided, unconscious decisions we're dealing with, those memories are fragments at best and, of course, as we become adults and we run into adult type of wounds, betrayals, rejections, things like that we oftentimes are schooled not to express in a particular way. If you're a woman, you've probably been told you can't be angry. If you're a man, you've probably gotten cultural ways of looking at it that you can't be sad, and these emotions need to be expressed and move, otherwise they get stuck in your body. So now we have these ideas that we can spot, and we do this through putting you in altered states of consciousness, through breath work, through journaling, through certain types of meditation that the next level, human coaching, deals with.

Speaker 1: 36:12

Now the next step is the rewiring of the nervous system. Now the nervous system is tethered to these energetics memory energetics, emotional energetics, story energetics, the unconscious, belief energetics and the nervous system can then get stuck in threat mode or striving mode, or struggle mode or shock mode. Let me explain this. I've explained this in many different ways, but my favorite one is the idea that if we're on the savannah of Africa and a lion is coming towards us, we will react with fight or flight. Now, if that lion attacks us and we survive, we may store that angst, that anxiety, that difficulty, that trauma in our body. We may have physical scars from the lion biting us and scratching us. We also will likely have a mental, emotional scar and these things can have utility because they help us remember don't mess around with lions, don't go in the savanna where there's lions.

Speaker 1: 37:18

This is the idea of trauma or shock. If we have a stress that is too severe, acutely severe or long lasting, it can create trauma or shock. And most people think, well, I didn't have trauma or shock, and they don't realize you do not have to have trauma or shock for the nervous system to be in a dysfunctional holding pattern. Now, if it's not shock, let's say the lion doesn't attack you, but you see it and it scares you and then it goes away. Well, if you're still out on the plains of Africa, the savanna, and you're not in a safe place, or don't perceive yourself to be in a safe place, you will be stuck in striving mode. You will constantly be looking around to try to make sure that that lion doesn't show up again. So, if you had a father who was angry and loud and boisterous, never attacked you, never abused you, but had an emotionally volatile anger when you were young. You might be stuck in striving mode and, rather than fighting and fleeing, maybe your reaction was to fawn, to try to be the nice, sweet guy or girl to make everyone okay. And now that follows you around as a people pleaser. And because you're a people pleaser, you don't have boundaries. And because you don't have boundaries, you carry a lot of baggage and you see repeated patterns and recurrent obstacles again and again. Now imagine that it is slightly worse than that the lion doesn't attack you, but the lion does threaten you. Right Now you might get in struggle mode. Or maybe the lion doesn't attack you and doesn't threaten you, but it constantly appears. It's there all the time. So maybe now you are stuck in struggle mode and so you can be stuck in striving mode, struggle mode or shock mode.

Speaker 1: 39:04

The truth is, the real, healthy way that we deal with stress should be a short-lived, acute stress that dissipates, that we can respond to, and in that case we become resilient or strong. So what I want you to think about is stress can go down two paths. It can go down the short-lived path that we are able to respond to, and then stress leads to strength or resilience, or it could go down the chronic path, which is it is chronically reappearing, and this is where we get stuck in striving and struggle mode. We all know what this is like, by the way, that person who is addicted to exercise, who's addicted to working, who can't slow down, who's constantly go, go, go, go go, this is a person who is showing the repeated patterns, recurrent obstacles of constantly striving mode. Of course, we can get stuck in struggle mode or shock mode. Shock mode would be analogous to PTSD type symptoms.

Speaker 1: 40:01

Now, why is this important? Because in order for you to reset and recalibrate and go into rest and relaxation and recovery and restore mode for your body, you cannot be stuck in striving, struggle or shock mode. You must be able to go back into rest and digest mode, and many of these stories that we need to rewrite are the very stories, definitions and beliefs that are keeping the nervous system in striving, struggle or shock mode, and so the second part of this is to rewire the nervous system. However, that will not work by itself if we can't rewrite the old, misguided, unconscious decisions. Once we begin to rewrite this unconscious, misguided decision network of beliefs and struggles and definitions about the world. Then we can rewire the feeling in the nervous system. And we do this by putting ourselves in blissful, pleasure-based emotions rather than striving, struggle-based, shock emotions. So, rather than living from the emotions of afraid, anger, frustration, resistance, anxiety, insecurity, depression, we start living from the emotions that are more elevated emotions. These would be emotions like gratitude and love and joy and bliss and acceptance and belonging and community and feeling in love with life and present with life. So we teach our body through certain meditation techniques to jettison the old emotions of afraid, anger, frustration, resistance, anxiety, insecurity, depression and go into these elevated emotions of gratitude and joy and love and belonging.

Speaker 1: 42:02

This is the second piece and this is very similar to lots of what you've heard about. It's similar to Happy Gilmore, if you've ever seen that movie where Happy Gilmore is played by Adam Sandler. He's a golfer who is someone who has a lot of anxiety and angst in him from his childhood upbringing and becomes really, really good at golf and as his golf instructor is trying to teach him to play golf, he keeps telling him to go to a happy place. So what we're doing here is exactly what Happy Gilmer was doing in that movie we were basically saying get out of these emotions of afraid and get into these emotions of bliss. And this starts to restore and rewire the nervous system and switch us from fight, flight, fawn mode into rest, digest, recover, woosah mode.

Speaker 1: 42:55

Now, once we rewrite and rewire, now we can go to the third and final step. Now we can begin to take actions. Now we can begin to be it until we see it. Now that we see things correctly, we perceive the stories and definitions and beliefs correctly and our nervous system no longer is responding incorrectly, now we can go hey, brain, let's retrain you. So it's rewrite the unconscious narratives, rewire the stuck nervous system. And now it's retrain the brain. We retrain the brain by getting it, not faking it until we make it, but being it until we see it. We go out and show it and take the actions and act as if we are the new thing. Now, in the present moment, and when these three things are tied together, the body, the mind, the emotion, the spiritual, energetic aspects of us all began to get in line and all of a sudden we began to restore ourselves, we began to become different humans.

Speaker 1: 44:12

This is the next level, human coaching, and it takes time, but it is much shorter than doing the. Let's change our habits and behaviors. It's not habits and behaviors, it's identity and beliefs, and if you want to change, you need to change these identity and beliefs through the three-step process of rewriting, rewiring and retraining the brain through identity restructuring. If you are interested in getting next level human coaching and going through this process, you can now go to the website wwwnextlevelhumancom. Click on the coaching link there, get next level human coaching and we will be happy to begin to help you finally make transformation in those four jobs of health and fitness, personal relationships, finance, health, career and purpose and meaning. Thank you so much for hanging out on the podcast today, everyone, and I will see you at the next episode.