Speaker 1: 1:25

Welcome to the show everybody. My name is Dr Jay Tita. This is the Next Level Human Podcast and I have a good friend of mine and past guest of the show, matthew Pate, on with us and my brother. It's been a while since I have seen you. You know we were going back and forth on Instagram. It's hard. It's been hard. I think we've been going back and forth about a year. Be like yo, let's do another podcast. Let's get together. We finally made it happen. We're going to podcast. Let's get together. We finally made it happen. I'm glad we've got like. Both of us have an hour of time that we can get this conversation in.

Speaker 1: 1:54

And here's the thing, man. I mean I always love your content, I always love your perspective, and one of the things that you just told me that you're heavily into and I know you've been dealing with a lot is this idea of self-sabotage. And I actually love the idea of this as just a straight up, you know title for a podcast, because it's one of those things that everybody is struggling with. I don't know a person, entrepreneur, successful person, people who have not been able to make it. Everywhere we look, individuals are struggling with this idea of self-sabotage, and I want to get into this with you. Where does this come from? Why are we humans so haunted by this and what do we do about that? And I guess, just for those who don't remember your first show, why don't we just start with a little bit of an introduction and then let's get into this, because I know you have some unique sort of ways of talking about self-sabotage.

Speaker 2: 2:52

Jake man, I appreciate you and from here on out I want you to introduce me anywhere we go. Yeah, you got it, brother. Now this is a big one for me. But before I launch into it, a little bit about my background. So I've been in the personal development, psychology, healing, call it what you wish space for a little over a decade. My background is in trauma therapy.

Speaker 2: 3:15

I think it's more true today than ever you don't get into psychology because you have your shit together. Me, you know, I I discovered it as I started to face and lean into the things that I was really struggling with. A lot of my early childhood traumas that you know had reared its head and started to impact my life in ways that were unacceptable for me specifically and the people around me. You know, and I won't, this show isn't about all that, but you know, the early childhood sexual abuse stuff, struggles with drug addiction was an escort for a while, you know, you name it. I'm really fun at parties, yeah, yeah, or I used to be, and I share that.

Speaker 2: 3:58

Before we get into self-sabotage, because you know it's important to understand kind of the origin stories, the narratives, the identities that we operate from, because that's going to really run the show and even as you start to heal through things, you're going to be introduced to stuff you've never experienced, which is going to trigger all the old ways Right.

Speaker 2: 4:15

And another reason why I like to share that too is because you know I struggled a lot with imposter syndrome in this space, I think, as many people do, in whatever career they've chosen, and you know fears of not having the you know, the specific degree or the certifications or whatever it may have been, for you know, when I was coming up, what I do believe gives me the unique ability in some cases unique advantage to support people in the way that I do is my personal story and it's you know. I know how trauma works behind closed doors and it's not just regurgitating some fancy book I once read, and you know my life has really given a lot of insight into how I believe other people are experiencing their struggles as well, which again leads me to the self-sabotage piece. So I'll pause on that for a second, because I could riff on this for hours.

Speaker 1: 5:04

Yeah, and you know this. That's really where I wanted to start with you, man, is that you know there's this idea. You have been through what people would call you know that capital T traumas, Right. So, and this is this is where I want to unpack with you, to sort of start, because I think you are given someone who has gone through a quote, capital T trauma, whereas most people have not trauma, whereas most people have not, and what I want to try to unpack with you as someone who has the credibility from that perspective, which is a kind of a horrible way to say it right, it's like no one would wish this on anyone, but these experiences do inform in a way that nothing else can.

Speaker 1: 5:44

One of the things I've been struck by is that I see so many people who are struggling is struck by is that I see so many people who are struggling with self-sabotage, with trauma-related issues that would never define themselves as having trauma, and so one of the things that I feel like is important to begin to understand is that just because it may not be a capital T trauma does not mean that this is not impacting you, and I'll just set this up for you and see where you want to go with this. I carry this mud, misguided, unconscious decisions. You know I always got an acronym right, I love it.

Speaker 1: 6:23

Yeah, it's like. So this mud right. When we are young teenage years, usually childhood years it comes when ever we're exposed to a situation that we don't have the knowledge, experience, wisdom, maturity to deal with. That's why it's misguided, because we don't have the tools yet to make sense of it. It's unconscious because it follows us around like a shadow, and this is the controversial part.

Speaker 1: 6:44

I think it's a decision because, like it or not, and whether we're aware of it or not. Decision because, like it or not, and whether we're aware of it or not, we did choose to see the world and ourselves a particular way as a result of it. And this can happen in my mind and this is a question, but this can happen in my mind, whether it's a capital T trauma, sexual abuse, war, physical abuse, this kind of stuff, or whether it's just being bullied at school or, in my case, being left at a playground, a bad park, when I was about five or six years old, through no fact of my parents at all, just miscommunication. I was left there for probably about an hour in the dark. It actually had a traumatic impact on me.

Speaker 1: 7:23

Now no one would say that's a trauma, nor is it anyone's quote fault, but it certainly had an impact on my trusting the world and trusting people, and so I'm wondering how you unpack this for people, because I know not everyone you work with or I work with is going to be people who have dealt with capital T traumas. Yet they are dealing with the shadow or the ghost of what we might call trauma work and they don't necessarily know it. I guess I'm wondering do you agree with that? How do you see that and how would you explain some of this?

Speaker 2: 8:02

Absolutely yeah, for the sake of this conversation. What I would be interested to doing is what if we? What if we change the word trauma to conditioning right? Because much of what we're dealing with and a lot of the you know quote, unquote a lot of the behaviors that we would identify, I'll say it this way, a lot of the behaviors that we identify or would identify as self-sabotage really stems from, you know, chronic conditioning Right. And so if someone looks at their life and they're like, okay, I don't have any traumas, fair, I'm not here to prove that theory wrong. I'm not interested in, you know, taking shovels to people's past and you know, pointing at the things and be like, no, that's trauma. See, like absolutely not.

Speaker 2: 8:42

What I'm most interested in is what is the story, what is the narrative, what are the moments in your life that that still stick out or still hold a charge? And then, from that experience, what is the message you adopted or what is the identity you may have assumed a belief about yourself, if you will because of those experiences. And it's interesting because you brought up the age of five, right, and this was one of the biggest aha moments when I was going through my development and understanding, like you know, why do I have the beliefs I do about myself, why do I have the patterns that I have, et cetera. It's when I really began to understand that during our formative years, specifically zero to six, you know, before we have the cognitive ability to identify self from other right, I am separate from mother, I'm separate from father, I'm separate from the household that I'm being raised in. During those zero to six years, as you well know, we are constantly absorbing information without any ability to challenge it or any. We don't have the experience to see multiple perspectives or any of these kinds of things. So you know whatever is happening to us at perspectives or any of these kind of things, so you know whatever is happening to us, at that time we are absorbing as fact, whether that's a belief about ourselves, a belief about the world, et cetera. And it's also interesting because you know we, as human beings, we're tribal creatures, you know, which just simply means we require the acceptance and the approval of a tribe in order to survive, which just simply means we require the acceptance and the approval of a tribe in order to survive. So, if you think about this, during zero to six, during the years that we are developing a significant piece of our identity or sense of self.

Speaker 2: 10:24

We are also 100 percent dependent creatures, meaning the strategies that we must adopt in order to survive, to seek approval and acceptance, is a performance based. If I act, I receive. If I act a certain way, my father will tell me he loves me. If I act a certain way, my mother will hold me. If I act a certain way, you know, so, on and so forth. You get fed, you get held, you get all the things.

Speaker 2: 13:22

So many of us develop this identity or this belief that we must perform in order to be enough to be accepted, to be safe, to be anything, and at that stage of life, that's 100% evolve. But what is left behind without if on default it gets left behind, right, it requires intention is our identities, our sense of self. So a lot of the chronic conditioning stems from the messaging we received when we were young. If you were told constantly that you're too small, right, you're not old enough, you're not smart enough, you're not whatever enough, if you look at that and you say, okay, that must be true, because I've heard that messaging so much, you know, you don't have the ability to say, of course, I'm too young, I'm five. You just adopt this belief that you're too young, right, so you can be 55, holding all the degrees and the gray hairs and the wisdom, and in your mind, you're still too young to be respected, too young to be whatever Right, because it has nothing to do with your age, has everything to do with that belief.

Speaker 1: 14:38

You know, this is really interesting. The very last word you said belief, right, like I think, like ultimately, that's what it is right. So from my perspective, I go, let me just unpack a little bit and I always love the way you put things, but let me just repeat it in a slightly different way and then let's expand on it. To me, I see it as like okay, so this conditioning, what's being conditioned? I would say those are stories, narratives about what the world is like and who I am. So I love the idea of conditioning and I love these stories. Now, take this conditioning and a bunch of these kinds of stories and put them together. You start to formulate beliefs. Put these beliefs together, you start to formulate an identity. Put these identities together and this is the part where I think is really interesting. Notice, I said identities because we are not one identity in my mind, but we are many and we play different roles. Those become our habits and behaviors and, from my perspective, what we do not you and I and people who do our work, but what most of the self-development world does is it's a habit and behavior oriented approach. Change your habits, change your behaviors, change your life. What you're essentially pointing to here is like, actually, no, it's about changing your identity. But you also went one step deeper and you said, no, it's about changing your beliefs. And there was even one step different. It's about changing your conditioning and your stories. And you know, it doesn't surprise me, matthew, because you and I, I think, are from the first time we met. It's like we, we to us. Obviously, we probably read the same things and listen to the same individuals, but the one thing that I want to add to this is I want you to unpack this in any other direction you want, but from my perspective, what I'm most interested in is okay, like I know a lot of people now. We talk to a lot of people. A lot of people go okay, well, I've done therapy people. A lot of people go okay, well, I've done therapy, I processed this stuff. I'm aware of some of these stories, these beliefs, these narratives. I've done some coaching, so I've tried changing my habits and behaviors and working on motivation. Maybe even I've done some energy work. I've taken some ayahuasca and I've done some chakra clearings and some Reiki work or whatever it is.

Speaker 1: 17:00

My thing is, none of this seems to necessarily work that well and I'm wondering if you're, if you see that too, and why, and what is the approach? Because I do think there's a lot of people out there like, yes, I get this, I've heard this and, by the way, I think there's a lot of people who've never heard this, so this will be their first time but still, one of the things that I think happens in this trauma space is we do talk an awful lot around why it's occurring and why we're behaving the particular way, but there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of talk about how to address the change. Now, you've been someone who's been through this, so I am interested in that. Now, of course, I want you to unpack and add any other layers you want onto the story we just told. But I do want to eventually get to this question of why is this not working? Some of these tools, these traditional approaches, for most people.

Speaker 2: 17:56

Yeah. So a couple of things. What I'll say first is well, there's a couple of little quotes here that I'll start with. So the first thing is I believe to my core that we all have two lives. This quote's pretty well known, but I do. Or another way to say it is like we have the life that we're capable of living and most people never get out of the conditioned, and that's the unfortunate piece of the conditioned and that's the unfortunate piece. Another thing that I see true in myself, first and foremost, and I certainly see it true in those who I've worked with and I'm close to, which is a human being, quite literally, will never outperform the opinion they have of themselves Hard stuff. So if you you know, you hear it all the time If you believe you can, you believe you can't, you're right. So you know, I think that's a really difficult thing for us to face, even when we are aware of it. Right, we'll never outperform the opinion of ourselves.

Speaker 2: 18:57

Now the unpacking why do I think the majority of people never get out of this? Very first thing that comes up for me is the majority of people will never leave the environments that they were raised in, period, if we're just talking about majority numbers. The mass majority of human beings are born in an area, born in the household, born in a family dynamic and a community that they never leave. And I don't just mean physically, I mean you could move a couple hours away, right, but if you're still deeply entwined to whatever tribe you were kind of raised in and around, you are going to operate in perfect alignment with what's acceptable to those people, to those communities. And oftentimes, as we grow up and become adults, I think, especially in a modern world where we have so much exposure to so many different ways of living now, right, I think so many of us are, you know, suffering, quite frankly, from possibility. It wasn't that long ago. You remove the internet and you know we're just hanging out in our schools, our churches, our jobs and, hey, this is just who we are, this is what we do. And as much as you might be, you know, battling, with some struggles here and there, but like, hey, we're all in this together. It's kind of the same right Status quo.

Speaker 2: 20:11

Well, you know, insert internet and social media and everyone's, you know highlight reels and travels and things, and whether it's real or not, I couldn't care less for this conversation, but we're exposed to options, to possibilities, and I think there's a lot of people that are suffering from knowing and wanting something more, something different, however they might describe it, than what they're currently living. But they are absolutely, and for very justifiable reasons from a biological perspective, they're absolutely terrified to break from the pack right, to disrupt their norm, whatever it is. And if you look at this in extremes, right, because here's the thing I believe most of us are living something that I identify as functional suffering, right, if you look at this like an addiction community, right, this functional alcoholics. What does that mean to anyone that's unaware? It's, you know, essentially your alcoholism or your addiction of choice. It's, it's not disruptive enough to really ruin the things around you. Yet, right, you still got the job, you still got the family, you still got the thing, and all the things aren't good. They're okay, right? So this functional suffering and, um, excuse me, if you look at, look at this through the lens of addiction, you know if someone's breaking free.

Speaker 2: 21:27

In my case, I was addicted to cocaine for a few years when I started to, when I made the decision that something had to change, which, by the way, came at a rock bottom. Right, it wasn't just like seems to always be the case, right, I wasn't in the middle of the best high I ever had and I'm, like you know what, I'm kind of over this. No, it happens, you know, in the trenches, in the gutters, which I'll get to in a second, because that's a very important point when I think it comes to change. But the thing about the addiction, you know, breaking free of any addiction, you absolutely must break the environment. Right, I can't go hang out in the same places with the same people that are still doing the same things. Right, it's not going to happen, because it's only a matter of time before you know I'm tired enough, hungry enough, upset enough, right, whatever, enough where I don't have the resources, the mental, cognitive resources, to withstand a temptation to withstand a moment, before you know, you're back in a random bathroom with a key to your nose, right, or you're picking up the bottle again, or you're whatever it is. And I think what's important to understand is that the change requires pain, period. That's a hard truth, man. It requires pain, and that's what brought me to the whole awareness around self-sabotage. Again, I'll share that in a second. But, yeah, it requires pain and I don't think, you know, I think rock bottom means something different for everyone.

Speaker 2: 22:49

You know, in my case, you know, I I nearly committed suicide on a drug crash and I completely unraveled. You know, a I'll never forget that moment and it happened by way of, you know, my fiancee, soon to be wife now. At that time we were a very toxic place, you know. We were broken up, we were both with different people, so it was a very messy, messy, messy time. And I hit this moment, knowing that she was with somebody where I just completely unraveled because it was nothing that she was doing that did it. It was all of the ways in which I was living that I just could no longer. I just felt like it was. I was too exposed, the pain had become too much right, I could no longer keep up the facade. That life was good, you know, and my family all knew about the sexual abuse now, the drugs, the escorting, the whole world knew my stuff right. So there was no place to hide and in that moment I believed that the only way out was to end it right, officially.

Speaker 2: 23:47

But in that moment I realized two very specific things that I think are important to acknowledge.

Speaker 2: 23:51

So the first thing was I didn't pull the trigger, specifically in my case, because I realized in that moment that I was on the verge of it, was I didn't want my life to end, I wanted my life as I knew it to end, and in that time I feared there was no other way.

Speaker 2: 24:08

And the second thing came much later, after getting the proper support and through some reflection, and it kind of makes the first thing a little bit bullshit, which is the no other way piece, because what I also realized was, if I was willing to go that far and I clearly was because I did it my mother, my sister and my girlfriend at the time now fiance was on a three-way call, not knowing where I was, knowing I was in complete breakdown, holding a loaded weapon, the hopelessness I put those three women in the fear, all the things. So if I was willing to go that far which I clearly was because I did it then I no longer had the luxury of fear. What I mean by this is not that I could no longer experience fear. I would no longer, you know, avoid things out of fear happens all the time but this truth hit me, that I can no longer be more afraid of my truth than I was my own death. I can no longer be more afraid of my insecurities and my doubts and all the things than I was.

Speaker 2: 25:05

You know, putting other people's, specifically the three most important people in my life, through a traumatic morning such as that, right, so it was the pain that changed everything for me. So the two things out of this that I think I want to make sure people understand is it's environment and pain. If your pain hasn't. Human beings are designed to be comfortable. If you're comfortable enough, then you'll never make a change. Why would you?

Speaker 1: 25:29

It doesn't matter if you know it doesn't matter. Like who signs up for pain, right? Like, like that's the thing, like who really wants to sign up for that? I mean, I do agree with you, like if I sometimes I think to myself, if I was, you know, a supreme being and I was going to create a world that I wanted people to learn and do their work Well suffering, I would have to create cause. That's the, that's, those are the best lesson, which is what you're speaking to pain, and I'd probably create death, because it's the best procrastination killer.

Speaker 1: 26:04

You don't have the time to finish it, but that does make it hard, and, just like you said, it's it's no judgment we're all terrified. I mean, I think part of a human condition is fear, and you know it is wanting to avoid pain, and yet we have to find a way to step into it, cause that's when we see our sort of best selves. I'm wondering if you have any, and what I mean by this is where we see our best selves. What I mean by that is that we see what we're capable of handling. We also see what we're capable of being in our worst and in our best, and so, from my perspective though, how do you get people to take this step without hitting rock bottom, you know, is there even a way to do that?

Speaker 2: 26:50

Yeah, I think, first, what's important is and this takes time and that's what I'm learning. I'm 40 now and you know I'm more clear on who I believe myself to be today than I think I was ever before. And I find that who I truly desire to be in the life that I truly desire to have, is much simpler than it ever was. And I say that first because I think it's extremely important, especially in a modern world where we are exposed to so many things. We're not only conditioned as children to operate in certain ways, but I think, through the ever present influence of other people's lives and things and whatever, we can also become conditioned to believe we're supposed to be something specific. And both of them are conditioned, meaning you know it's influenced from outside.

Speaker 2: 27:43

And I think it takes a lot of courage, first and foremost, to really lean in and start to, you know, unpack. What is it that you truly want? And the irony is it's probably behind the thing. You think you're incapable of ever being right. You know what would truly like, what lights you up from the center, right, what, what gets your soul? You know moving a little bit versus. You know your mind.

Speaker 2: 28:11

So you asked how I think, first and foremost if I'm speaking very candidly on kind of the process that I go through with people first and foremost it's creating a safe place for them to explore their truth, honesty, right, and I mean and not honesty to me being comfortable enough to become honest with yourself. Right, because until we to become honest with yourself, right, because until we can become honest with ourselves, nothing's going to change, right, and that was certainly the truth for me. So I think, first and foremost, it's becoming honest with yourself, right, and I do something called an honesty audit, right, a life audit, and then you know. From there, I think it's really getting clear, not on what you want to achieve, but who you want to become, a values-based perspective versus an achievement based, and whatever the goal or the achievement someone has is is important information, because that's going to be, it's going to kind of point our, our sails, right, that tells me you have something that you desire, enough that it's going to bring you in contact to the parts of yourself that don't feel qualified or don't feel enough.

Speaker 2: 29:19

Right, because if there's nothing that, if there's nothing more in life that you desire a relationship, a career, freedom, independence, whatever it, health, whatever it is for you, right? If there's nothing that you desire, enough is for you, right? If there's nothing that you desire enough, then you're there's. No, you're never going to come in contact to the things that are keeping you from it, right? You're never going to touch your edges, yeah 100.

Speaker 1: 29:38

This sounds a lot. So now, now I'm getting it, now I now I want to pull in self-sabotage because, if I'm hearing you correctly, as we tell this story, it's like like, okay, so where do we begin? When I hear honesty, I hear authenticity, I hear this idea of let me be true to myself, and I also hear at least in my way of working with people it's like there's different ways to be authentic to yourself. You certainly can be authentic to Matthew the addict, jade the addict, or you can be authentic to Jade currently and Matthew currently. But, most importantly, what you're talking about is the next level, human Matthew, or the next level, human Jade. This is the future better self, and when you tie yourself to you know, let's just call it what it is purpose, when you tie yourself to an authentic purpose that is tied to your authentic story of struggle, something does seem to begin to illuminate for people that I think does not require and I'm seeing the same thing that does not always require a rock bottom moment, because it becomes this tractor beam force that starts moving people towards it.

Speaker 1: 30:48

However and this is the part that I think the self-sabotage question comes in it's like as we begin to get focused on that. Okay, here it is. Here is my authentic sort of story of struggle, integrated into my next level human self, of where I want to go. And now I'm walking through that, but I still got all my old conditioning right. So it's like I'm stepping into this new Jade, this new Matthew, this new person, you the listener, your new self, and yet there is still this conditioning. It's almost like that little scared kid or that bullied teenager or that betrayed 20 yearold or whatever it is, is still psychologically present and pulling you back constantly. And I'm wondering is this where you see some of the self-sabotage coming from?

Speaker 2: 31:42

100%. And the way that I like to look at self-sabotage, right? So I don't know if you're familiar with Gay Hendrick's work, the Big Leap. He lays out something well, basically he describes the comfort zone right, with upper limit, lower limit, and this is the way that I like to kind of introduce what self-sabotage is really right, because it has this negative connotation.

Speaker 2: 32:04

A lot of people assume, you know, it's rooted in weakness or failure or these kinds of things, and it couldn't be further from the truth, right? So if you, if you look at self-sabotage, let's start with understanding what a comfort zone is. So we have different comfort zones for different areas of life finances, health relation, yada, yada. So if you take any one of these, finances is an easy one to kind of explain, right. So for every single one of us, I don't care who you are, explain, right. So for every single one of us, I don't care who you are, there is an upper limit, a number in your bank account to which, once you reach that or get above, your behavior starts to change, right, spend more, do more, whatever it is right. And it doesn't mean that you're acting a fool, it just means the behavior has changed.

Speaker 2: 32:44

And then there's this, this lower limit, which all of us are more familiar with, right, and can probably identify a more specific number at first, which is that number in your bank that, if it gets to this or starts to go like if it's when it starts to get to it or go below it, heaven forbid. Behavior changes, right. All of a sudden you're like you're you know you're cutting off spending, you're changing habits, you're eating ramen noodles, whatever it is for you like. Behavior changes, right, because it's a you know you've gotten a little too broke right. Now. Everyone's number is different, right? So this isn't about a literal like you have no money or you only have a million.

Speaker 2: 33:23

Right, it's whatever it is for you. So with that in mind, right. So lower limit is that moment where things have gotten a little too bad. My health is too bad, right, I just got diagnosed with something. I hit rock bottom, right, I almost committed suicide. Well, I can't do that. So shit's going to have to change, right? Or if I don't change, I'm losing my family. We're getting divorced, the kids are going to be gone.

Speaker 2: 33:45

You know there's all these rock bottoms, so everyone can identify what is a little too bad. But the one that struggle or self-sabotage comes in is the upper limit. And this is that kind of invisible line that, once we get here, things are almost a little too good and, believe it or not, too much of a good thing can be really uncomfortable because it's unfamiliar. Money is an easy one.

Speaker 2: 34:06

If you look at people that have lived, if you look at the lottery you ever seen the studies on this? Yeah, it's crazy, it's insane, right, and it doesn't make sense logically, right. And the same is true with a lot of entertainers and professional athletes, right. That struggle that come from you know what we might identify as nothing? Yada, yada, they, they get drafted, they make all this money and within like three to five years after they retire, they're bankrupt, literally Right Worse off than they were even before they got drafted. Why? Why is this the case Right, familiar beyond how we identify truly, we start to recalibrate. So self-sabotage is nothing more than recalibrating back into what is most familiar, not what is best Right.

Speaker 1: 35:00

So if all you've Go ahead, yeah, well, what I was going to say is what's really interesting about this and I love the way you define this and that's, by the way, for those of you who are interested like, the Big Leap is a great book. I think it's been around a while, but it's definitely gets into some of this. The one thing that's really interesting is a lot of this is unconscious, right, and so people do not realize that they're doing these things, and I guess I'll set it up just as a metaphor and see if you like this or you don't like this and you want to shoot holes in it. But the way I might conceptualize this is that you're standing at a crossroads, right, and you have two roads, and one is, let's call it, familiar and frustrating. Right, you start down this road and you go, this is familiar, I'm comfortable here, but then it starts to get frustrating. Same old thing, repeated patterns, recurring obstacles, stuck emotions. You're like, oh shit, I'm back kind of where I was. This sucks.

Speaker 1: 35:51

The other road is sort of fearful and foreign. Right, it starts out fearful. You don't even want to go down that road, right? So you know, fearful versus familiar, we're definitely going to go down the familiar and then we start heading down that direction and everything seems a little different, and so then we want to jump back over, maybe to the other road. So this is this whole quote. That you hear people saying is that we will take the familiar devil that we know versus the unfamiliar angel that we don't know, and this, to me, is unconscious. It is To me, though and this is the part that I want you to shoot holes in, or not To me, I do think life has a way of making us conscious to it.

Speaker 1: 36:33

That familiar and frustrating road has feedback, recurrent obstacles stuck emotions, repeated patterns, struggles are repeat, same old people, same old environment. It starts to look and feel not very good, but very much the same. The other roads has synchronicities and serendipities, and signs and opportunities that always feel foreign but are always going to move us up, and, to me, I have just been struck by this idea that you can see it so clearly when you're working with clients. You could just see it constantly. You're pointing these signs out to them, and still people will walk away from those synchronicities, not recognize those serendipities, not take those positive signs, and I am wondering A, how do you see this metaphor? And B, and I am wondering A how do you see this metaphor and, b how do you walk people through this? If you agree with it or you have another model for this, I'm curious.

Speaker 2: 37:37

No, I love this and I think it's. You know we're kind of glossing over some of the deeper stuff here, right, All of this is biological, not logical, and that's where I like to start with people straight off. It's like you don't have to become a neuroscientist to understand just enough to make the change. The way I like to describe it is I'm not interested in teaching people how to become an electrician, I just want to teach you how to turn on the lights, how do you operate the switch, that's it. And once you know how to do that, you can start to make some significant changes if you desire, if they're important enough, and you know. I think it's important to understand that the human mind, just as any animal, anything with life force, right, it's number one and its sole priority is self-preservation and procreation. Those are the two things, right. How do we keep the species going, Starting with ourselves first and foremost? Right? So if you look at all of our behaviors through the lens of safety, through preservation, it begins to make more sense why we do what we do, when you understand that, again, what is safe is to be accepted and approved of by a familiar tribe. So I always like to look at this.

Speaker 2: 41:53

It's like the person that gets a diagnosis. Let's say they heaven forbid, they have a heart attack. Now they have to start making some dietary changes. And if you're familiar with the, you know what is it? The standard American diet, the SAD, right. You can think about it or you can understand this. So imagine, Thanksgiving rolls around, right, they're going to hang out with all the family, and this person walks in and says to their loved ones you know, no, thank you, I'm a vegan. You're already giggling. Why? Yeah, Right, Because you know you're about to catch shit. At the very least, they're just going to give you hell. Are you one of those people now, or whatever the judgments might be?

Speaker 2: 42:27

Well, on the surface, you might just be saying that you're giving people a hard time, but unconsciously, to that person that just said, or knows, that they need to be changing their diet for their betterment, for their health, for their heart, what they're experiencing is, I have one of two choices. I can choose the long-term threat or the short-term threat, and the threat that we're going to often respond to is the one that is the most immediate, the shortest term. So if you look at this through the lens of, of, you know us being primitive tribal creatures. You know what is more likely? What's more likely to kill me first, a heart attack in 10 years if I keep eating like this again, or being rejected from the tribe. And now I'm out in the wild on my own Right. So we're going to say the heart attack, the second heart attack. That's tomorrow's problem. Right now I got to make sure that I'm still accepted and approved of, so I'm going to, you know, forego what I know I should be doing and I'm going to do what the group is doing.

Speaker 2: 43:23

So I think it's important to understand that. You know our behaviors, no matter. You know, if you look at this on a spectrum, every single human behavior that exists, everything from extreme isolation to extreme violence and everything in between. Right At its core, it shares the same biological need safety, right and really quick. The safety piece when it comes to what's most familiar. The brain is also hardwired to identify patterns and predictability is key because if I can predict it, I can survive it right when the unpredictable is uncertain. If it's uncertain, I cannot guarantee I'll survive it right.

Speaker 2: 44:06

So if you think about this in a tribal sense, you know if you and I left the cave many, many moons ago we went hunting and we venture off into the wilderness much further than we've ever been before. Perhaps we heard that the herd is down that way now and we're going to go check it out. But we venture much further than we've ever been and, by all definition, we're lost. And if you and I are lost, you know our chances of physical survival has just gone down significantly. Even worse if we go out by ourselves, right so, we're out there alone and lost, right so if you? So, if we don't know the threats, we don't know if there's other tribes, we don't know shelter, we don't know any of these things Right so, biologically speaking, when you start to break free from your family of origin my family's always been employees, but I want to start my own business, Right?

Speaker 2: 44:49

My family's out of shape, overweight, you know. I want to get healthy. Right, Abuse, you know my family always just screams at each other. I want to be in a healthy relationship. Whatever the opposite is that you're most familiar with, your nervous system is going to identify as uncertain. If it's uncertain, it's unpredictable. If it's unpredictable, I cannot guarantee you'll survive it. Right, Cause it's much safer for us to understand the threat that's present than to be blindsided by one we've never seen.

Speaker 1: 45:18

Yeah, not only that, I think one of the things that I'll add to this conversation, and I know you'll agree with this. But not only are we contending with this sort of outside thing, but the conditioning makes it. We have an internal family as well, defined as emotions, and onto that, sensations, stories, memories all of this stuff as well is also chattering, perhaps more so. So even if you do break free from your environmental family, you're not necessarily breaking free from the internal sensations, emotions, memories. Free from the internal sensations, emotions, memories, stories that are there. And so then it's like to me, the next piece is that is all subconscious.

Speaker 1: 46:09

When we hear conditioning, I think of programming, I think of subconscious. So now I go, and maybe we can begin wrapping this up with this, because I want to see where you are with this. I have my thoughts, I want to see what your thoughts are. How do we then get in and start unwinding that conditioning? You frame this up so well where it's like okay, part of the process is we have got to get ourselves to feel safe, perhaps choose another type of tribe that will accept us and grab us and make us feel safe. But, more importantly, we have to cultivate a tribe within chatter, within thoughts, within beliefs, within that are not a logical place. They come from a very subconscious place that we need to begin to unwind and I'm wondering what are your tools, if any, for that? I certainly have some, but I want to see what yours are.

Speaker 2: 47:01

You know we could spend weeks talking about this, but what I would love to do so. So there's four questions I literally have sitting right in front of me here that I'm working on that.

Speaker 2: 47:10

I genuinely believe this and I want to ask you to punch holes in it from your perspective as well, or add to it. But I believe there's four questions that can absolutely change your life, and I don't say that as like hyper. You know clickable headlines, right like. I genuinely mean this and these questions are rooted to. You know the, the chemicals in the brain that are responsible for how we're, we're motivated and experiencing lives, right? Dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, endorphins. So obviously we haven't gotten into those. For anyone, that's like what the fuck is that?

Speaker 1: 47:40

And they're really confused now they will find you and figure it out.

Speaker 2: 47:45

Yeah, yeah, just know that they matter, right, and, more importantly, just know that most of all of us are living in conflict in a modern world, right, we're, we evolve to live in nature. We're living in these modern societies that are in complete contradiction and our system is hijackedacked, first and foremost. So how do we regain control? How do we start making positive changes? How do you start developing that different sense of identity and all the kind of things from within, right? So these four questions, I believe, will set the tone if you're willing to lean into them, right? So the first question I have here comes down to diet, into to them, right? So the first question I have here is comes down to diet, right, our mood serotonin 90 of it or so is produced in your gut. You know.

Speaker 2: 48:28

So what you, you are, what you eat. All right, they say that for a reason. So if you're eating like shit, you're gonna be shit, you're gonna feel like and I say be not as a judgment, as a way you feel about yourself, right? So the the question to ask yourself and this is confronting for all of us, especially me, who still eats like a 12 year old way too often, but if you look at the food you're eating. Ask yourself could the food that I'm eating have existed on Earth before humans got here? If the answer is no, there's a good chance that it's not full of the things the body actually needs. So ask yourself could the food that I'm eating exist on earth before humans got here? Frosted flakes aren't going to make the cut.

Speaker 1: 49:05

Yeah, definitely not, unfortunately for me.

Speaker 2: 49:08

Unfortunately, right, look, I'm angry about it too. Pizza Fuck, not the pizza that I've been eating, at least. So that's the first thing. If all you do is change that, you are going to significantly change the way that you feel about yourself, your energy levels, your mood, your confidence. So much of that's going to evolve, right. So that's question number one. The second question is directly related to dopamine, which we could spend hours on, but the thing that and this really gets into the self-sabotage right, because that's really a dopamine conversation. So ask yourself right, is the behavior that you're doing? Right? Is the pleasure immediate or delayed? All right, when I take a bump of cocaine, that shit is immediate. Right, when I go work out, that is delayed. But here's the thing. So when you look at this through the lens of and I'll put it more cleanly, this is how I often ask people to look at their behaviors If you begin making decisions based on how you feel after versus how you felt before, you can completely change your life.

Speaker 2: 50:09

Right Before, I didn't want to go to the gym. How do I feel after I've gone A hundred percent Out? I'm excited, I'm motivated, I'm confident. Right? You know, pornography is a big one in our lives and in my life. So I plant that seed to say this like how do I feel before versus how do I feel after. Before I'm stressed, I'm anxious, I have all these problems, right, I engage with the pornography after, right, yeah, I get a temporary relief, but then I'm immediately hit with shame and guilt and, like you, know all the things. So if I start making decisions this is what I've done in my life based on how I feel after, and I become more attached to that. By the way, it's how I got off cocaine when I was in the throes of temptation, all I could think about is the high. But when I ran that full cycle to the crash, all of a sudden I was like, absolutely not, I want nothing to do with it. So how do you feel after?

Speaker 1: 51:01

Does that make sense?

Speaker 2: 51:02

Yep, a hundred percent Perfect. And then the third one really just stems into the oxytocin, right. So connection, love, bonding, everything. And it's what can I do to make someone else happy today? Love that one. You just open a door, right. You don't have to pay off someone's college tuition. Or you don't have to change the world in a day, right. You could just simply, you know, if you see a shoes they're wearing and they catch your eye, give them a compliment right. To a complete stranger, it doesn't matter what it is, the littlest things matter. We all say it. So what can I do to make someone else's day better? If you just do a little more of that, you're going to feel better. And the fourth one really isn't a question, it's more of a statement and it kind of wraps up everything we've been talking about. And it's if you feel stuck, if you feel afraid, if you feel lost. Understand that the hard thing and the right thing are often the same thing.

Speaker 1: 51:56

If we just stop avoiding.

Speaker 2: 51:57

Everything changes. It has to right Cause and effect. So again, just a quick recap Could the food on your plate have existed before humans got here? If it's yes, you're moving in a good direction. How quickly does the behavior create pleasure or feelings of pride? If I start making decisions based on how you feel after right and the goal is to feel proud of yourself and what can I do to make someone else's day happy or day better, however you wish to look at it, and then the hard thing and the right thing are often the same thing.

Speaker 1: 52:31

Yeah, I think that's so well said. It doesn't surprise me. You and I are always thinking along the same lines. This is very similar to some of the work I do with my purpose statements with individuals. I think it's huge and I think part of what it does is it's really setting people up to be looking at that next level, human, authentic self, not the base level. You know, past self and not the current self. You don't want to be authentic to the current you because you want to change. So that would be, you know, in opposition to that. And the final thing I would say to wrap us up is there's got to be a way to get us out of the conscious programming of the current situation, and these four things, certainly with practice, do that, and that's how I would be looking at that. I think it's absolutely genius. So, my brother, I really appreciate the time today. I really love this conversation. Let's see if we can make it sooner next time before we talk again instead of two years later.

Speaker 1: 53:33

But, matthew, you better hang on the line. But for all of you who want to check out Matthew, what's your handles on Instagram and where can they get you?

Speaker 2: 53:43

It's just literally at Matthew Pates. I start there, I keep it simple.

Speaker 1: 53:47

Yeah, and Pates is P-A-E-T-Z. Everyone so catch him on Instagram. Really, pay close attention to him. He's incredibly generous with his work. Good friend of mine, brother, stay on the line just real quick. I want to make sure we upload. But for all of you, thanks for hanging out on the show and we will see.