In which we discuss the self coaching work of Byron Katie, Brooke Castillo, and others like them.
Recorded February 28, 2025.
Please continue the conversation with us!
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@doyouhaveaminutepodcast/videos
Email: doyouhaveaminuteconversations@gmail.com
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Show notes and links:
Using Your Mind to Control Your Physical Health & Longevity | Dr. Ellen Langer
The Power Of Now – Eckhart Tolle
Self Coaching Model (CTFAR Model) — The Official Guide | Brooke Castillo
The Four Agreements | don Miguel Ruiz
Transcript:
Jump to end
[clip] Both people agree that you’re wearing glasses.
Now, what are they thinking about the glasses
and what are their thoughts producing? What kind
of feelings are their thoughts producing in them
about you, about the glasses on your face? The
person that doesn’t like your glasses, maybe
they think that you make bad decisions because
you picked the wrong glasses. Then they’re feeling
uncomfortable around you because of that. And
maybe the person that likes your glasses, they’re
like, that guy’s… pretty smart for wearing
glasses. That fits his face pretty well. And
then they think they’re more likely to trust
you with other decisions because of that. [introduction and conversation] Hello,
everyone. Hi. This is our podcast, Do You Have
a Minute? And I’m talking with my dad about a
topic that we’ve been thinking about for 100
years. I don’t know. No. I don’t know. When did
you come across the life coach school? Not even
together. 20 years. 20 years. You’ve been thinking
about for 20 years. I’ve been probably 10 and
you probably 5. So let’s say 15. Okay. Together.
Cumulatively. Yeah. The cumulative knowledge
that we’re speaking from is 15 years. All of
15 years. We’re just teenagers. We’re just teenagers.
And in this topic. So the topic is kind of around
the victim mentality, I think. I think the problem
that these things, these theories, I don’t know.
This philosophy? This philosophy. I think the
problem this philosophy is trying to solve is
victimization, like a victim mentality of people.
So we may end up talking about something totally
different by the time we’re done. So that would
be cool. I think so, too. Yeah. One problem.
I see a lot of people have is they have an issue
with something or someone and they want to blame
someone for that. They’re like, who can I blame
for this issue that I have, this circumstance
that I’m in, and how can I make them pay for
this, for doing this to me? They did this to
me somehow. Like, I, you know, if you get into
a fender bender with a cement wall. Okay. you
can say, hey, that was my own fault because the
wall was there and I did something that I shouldn’t
have done and then I ran into it. I’m speaking
from experience here. Do you remember that day
that I ran into a cement wall? You had a sister
there, too. She earned a teddy bear because of
it. She earned a teddy bear. Yeah. And lifelong
hip pain. Yeah, probably. Or maybe… In that
situation, I could have said, why did they build
that wall there? I am really upset at this homeowner
for putting the cement wall right there next
to the sidewalk. Or I could say, I’m really upset
at my parents for making me work all night long
for two weeks straight. And I shouldn’t have
been put in that situation. And so that’s why
I was so tired and distracted, you know. Or I
could have said. The manufacturer of the car,
the steering wheel went out and I couldn’t control
it. And so this is absolutely not my fault. I
was pushing on the brake and it went on the gas.
Right, right. It was the boots I was wearing.
Problem with the car. Or it was the moon was
in the wrong place. Right. And I could sit there.
I could hold on to that situation for the rest
of my life and be like, all of my problems today
come from that. That thing. And it’s not my fault.
It’s somebody else’s fault. And I’m mad at everyone
else for that. It’s a good thing to start on
that base. So that’s our example for this discussion.
Okay. I think it’s a good example. You think
so? Yeah. It was my fault. I should have been
on that road instead of you. It was your… I
was on another road instead of that one. Yeah.
You took that road. So is that not really what
you feel, right? Do you think… No, I thought
that. Yeah. Because you went on that. You were
there. I was somewhere else. I was close enough.
I got to you before the police did. Yeah. You
were close enough. We were close enough that
we could have been in a different situation and
it never would have happened. Yeah. What really
happened was I was just looking at the list as
I was making the turn. You were texting. Exactly.
Yeah. Basically. It happened to be a paper. It
was a paper text, but you were texting before
phones came active. Yeah. I think that, so if
we think about the circumstance itself without
any emotion tied to it and not blaming anyone,
what happened was I was turning and then I looked
down at the list and then I didn’t unturn. I
didn’t straighten out in time. That was really
the issue. Okay. Maybe any of the aches and pains
that I have today could be a result of that accident,
though. I mean, it wasn’t a… It totaled the
car, but it wasn’t a major accident that sent
anyone to the hospital. What you’re pointing
to is anytime anyone diagnoses your current life,
your current adult life, they say, what happened
in your childhood? They always go back to that.
And your philosophy, psychology especially, they
say, what happened to your childhood? How are
your parents? Oh, it’s their fault. You’re always
looking back to your childhood and how your childhood
was. And naturally, that’s what you’re experiencing.
Generational trauma. That’s a problem that…
I think is keeping a lot of people in a negative
state of… Of being. Yeah, negative state of
being. They’re always rejecting healing because
there’s always someone else that needs to apologize
for what they did before you can feel better
about anything. Okay. Okay. Can I take it for
a minute? Yeah. Because what you’re identifying
is blame. You’ve gotta place the blame. Yeah.
So I was listening to, and I had to get her name.
So Ellen Langer was interviewed by Alex Huberman
on Huberman Labs. It was within the last two
months. Ellen Langer is a psychologist out of
Harvard, I think, a PhD. And, you know, she’s
written a lot of books, a few books. I haven’t
read her books, but I believe she knows what
she’s talking about. They were talking about
judgment. And you’re describing how this judgment
thing comes in. We’ve talked about judgment before
and talked about victimization, talked about
blaming, being a moocher. i guess i however she
said that if you look at judgment now how she
presented her story then this is kind of cool
i guess she’s jewish she said i was i was going
to teach a lesson in church so i was i had a
lesson to preach i preach a sermon that’s how
she put it so she had a sermon to preach she’s
preaching on judgment but she said i went completely
i forgot the word she used sacrilegious on it.
It wasn’t a religious statement on judgment.
I had to look at it psychologically because that’s
my training. That’s my understanding. She said,
if you judge someone, forgiveness, it was not
our judgment, it was on forgiveness. But if you’re
forgiven, you have to forgive. And in the general
sense of the word, forgiveness is a good thing.
Most people think it’s good to forgive, right?
Do you agree? Yeah. Forgiveness is a good thing.
And the only thing you can forgive is if there
was something to blame. So in order to forgive,
you had to first blame something. There had to
be something wrong to forgive. Somebody had to
have done something to you. Yeah. In common mentality,
blaming is a bad thing, right? So if you forgive,
you have to blame first. And she said, we just
need to get rid of that blame because nothing
really happened in either of those cases. And
that’s what we’re talking about all together
here is, did something really happen? Is there
anything to blame? She says the answer to forgiveness,
you never need to forgive. It’s antithetical.
I think maybe the word she used, I forgot what
word she used. She used the appropriate psychological
term to say it’s moot. It doesn’t exist. Forgiveness
does not exist if blame does not. And blame should
not exist. So get rid of blame. She had one other
connection to that as to why blame should not
exist. But that’s kind of what you’re saying.
If you can identify, you can identify all kinds
of things to blame if you want to blame someone
and be the victim. But if you’re going to go
into the, what’s the other role besides victim?
Creator? Yes. If you’re creating your own life,
you’re not going to blame anyone. It’s you. I
mean, you’re there. This, the other book, Eckhart
Tolle on the power of now. So his psychology,
and I wanted to give this, and he’s talking about
being in the now, being, if you are who you are,
then you can’t blame anyone for anything. Maybe
you tell me what you think about what I just
said about Langer, and I’ll find the quote out
of this that I wanted to share. Yeah, well. What
I was thinking while you were telling that story
of this lady was that, what about the religious
idea of forgiveness of your sins? If God needs
to forgive your sins, does that mean he needed
to blame you for something first? That’s the
mercy and the judgment. There had to be a judgment.
So there’s supposedly, in the vernacular of religion,
there’s a judgment. And you always miss the mark.
I was talking to a friend recently. And he indicated,
you know, if Christ paid for all sins, if mercy
is all encompassing, the atonement covers everything,
then why do I have to worry about what I do?
I’m not worried about it at all. There’s no reason
for me to judge myself. I can’t earn it anyway.
So if I can’t earn it and it’s a gift of God,
I believe in God. Now I’m clear. That mercy justice
thing is. So we’re trying to bring that concept
from the religions talk about it and it just
becomes magic. It’s out there. You don’t understand
it. We’re trying to understand it. Right. Hopefully
we can come to some understanding. And Eckhart
Tolle tried to understand it. Ellen Langer tried
to understand it. And she’s giving her understanding
of it. You’d have to listen to the whole podcast
of hers or read her book. What does Eckhart say?
Here’s the question, Eckhart Tolle. The question
is, so what? So that means nobody is responsible
for what they do. I don’t like that idea. That
question comes from his statement, almost everyone
is suffering from this illness, which is you
can’t choose what you do. I have to start with
the paragraph before. If one or many people who
have an issue with their parents, if you are
one of many people who have an issue with their
parents, if you are still harboring resentment
about something they did or did not do, as in
have someone to blame about anything, if you
have someone to blame about anything, then you
still believe that they had a choice. So that
wall had a choice to be there or that car had
a choice to not turn or you had a choice to have
turned it the right way. And they could have
acted differently. Had you acted differently,
you’re still trying to solve that wall problem
that you could have acted differently and it
never would have been an issue. What Eckhart
Tolle, I think, is saying that you had no choice.
You could not have acted differently. What happened
is appropriate. And that’s part of Ellen Langer’s
statement is that the fact that it happened.
It was supposed to happen, and there’s nothing
to blame. Yeah, that’s actually what Byron Katie
says, too. If it is, if it’s reality, if that
was the reality of it, then it was meant to be.
Right, that’s just the reality, so you don’t
have to worry about the blame, and that’s what
Byron’s trying to teach there, too. Okay, so
they could have acted differently. He said, it
always looks as if people had a choice, but that
is an illusion. As long as your mind, with its
conditioned patterns, runs your life, as long
as you are your mind. What choice do you have?
So your condition patterns are in your life.
You’re not making a choice. You have no choice.
You are not even there. The mind -identified
state is severely dysfunctional. It’s a form
of insanity. Almost everyone is suffering from
this illness in varying degrees. The moment you
realize this, there can be no more… Well, yeah,
that tends to our psychotic… What was that?
Psychopathy. that everyone has some degree of
that psychopathy and we operate with it. And
you operate with it to the point that we also
talked about your reaction or your response.
If you react to something, that’s this unmindful,
unthinking reaction that you want to try to get
rid of. And that’s why we’re talking about these
models, Byron Katie and the model with Brooke
Castile. The moment you realize this, there can
be no more resentment. So this is the point that
he’s making. How can you resent someone’s illness?
So you realize it’s an illness that caused you
to react. If you term it as an illness, the only
thing you can do, the only appropriate response
is compassion. So if you’re not responsible for
what you do, that means no one’s responsible.
She said, I don’t like that idea, the questioner.
And then he answers, if you are run by your mind,
although you have no choice, you will still suffer
the consequences of your unconsciousness. Okay,
so you were simply unconscious, and that’s why
the car is broken. And your sister is in pain
the rest of her life. Not really bad, is it?
No, I don’t think she suffers from it. You know,
it’s one of those things that, you know, it could
have, maybe her pain is from falling off a swing
set. You know, every kid falls in some way or
another. Right. And so, who knows? And maybe
it’s what caused her collarbone to break a few
years later. Right. Who knows? Yeah. Okay. You
can create further suffering. Okay. With that,
consequences. You will bear the burden of fear,
conflict, problems, and pain. The suffering this
creates will eventually force you. Out of your
unconscious state. So that was my question with
this is, are you forced out of forgiving, out
of blaming people? Can you be forced out of blame?
So that’s still a problem. I don’t know we’ll
answer that right now. That’s a question for
later. Right. Now, everything that you just said
there brought up a YouTube short that I watched
talking about this very thing, blaming your parents
for being bad parents or whatever, treating you
poorly. And now you can’t. You can’t be around them
or anything like that, you know? The question
this lady, maybe it was, no, maybe it was a guy.
I don’t know. I don’t remember. Maybe I’ll find
it. This individual said, everybody says your
parents did the best they knew how, raising you,
right? Yeah, that’s common. But the thing is,
yeah, that’s the thing. It’s forgive your parents
because they… They did the best they knew how.
The way they treated you was the way they knew
how to treat you. They didn’t know better. If
they had known better, they would have treated
you differently, better. They would have treated
you, I don’t know, whatever, right? So that’s
what they say. And then this person says, but
the thing is, did they treat other people better?
Did they go to church and treat the church people
better? Did they treat the people at the grocery
store better? Did they treat other kids outside
of your house better? Then they had no excuse.
If they knew how to treat other people better,
then they could have treated you better. Okay,
but that’s still your conscience saying, I believe
they treated other people better. When I saw
it, I interpreted it from my perspective that
they treated them better. That’s still the same
juxtaposition of not thinking, not being present
in the now or the moment, but letting your brain
take over, being unconscious. That’s still blaming
the other people. Right. But it did make me wonder
a few things, I guess. Two -faced people, right?
You’ve got a personality that you are with your
spouse, and then you’re a completely different
person with the people you work with. Two -faced
personality is kind of a negative way to say
it. But, you know, it’s all of the different
people that you are. That’s psychotic. Exactly.
Yeah. You’re schizophrenic. Everyone is schizophrenic
and psychotic. Yeah. And you realize that. And
they say everyone has that to some degree. That’s
the way Eckhart said it. Everyone has it to some
degree, which is true. It’s accurate. And so
the goal, there’s got to be a goal. Can we get
into the actual learning of it? what these models
represent and where the goal, where our action
steps might be in this process. Yeah. I was introduced
to Brooke Castillo’s self -coaching model first,
but then I found out that she took a lot of inspiration
from Byron Katie’s work. Right. Let’s start with
Katie’s work then. What do you understand about
that? I think the four questions are kind of…
What? Inconsequential. They don’t do it all.
It’s the other two processes, I think. Okay.
So there’s the four questions. And what’s the
second process? I only know the second process.
The four questions. I find myself nonplussed
by those four questions. Okay. So if you’ve got…
Okay. So if you’re… What? If you’re… And
really, maybe it’s because the questions only
come into effect if you have a problem. If you
can identify there’s a problem. Yeah, you have
a problem with someone. And the example that
she gives on all of her website and downloads
and stuff is, Paul lied to me. And you’re upset
about that. I’m upset that Paul lied to me. Because
Paul is a freaking apostle. He never lies, does
he? Right. So I’m upset about that. Yeah, I’m
upset. He lied. You’re upset with Paul because
he lied to me. So the belief is that… He lied
to me. Okay. That’s, that’s the belief is he,
Paul lied to me. I believe that he did that.
So now the first question is, is it true? Did
he actually lie to me? You say yes or no to that.
And is it that simple? So that’s. We had our
discussion about truth and what did we come up
with? Yeah, this, well, we, we came up with,
it’s all subjective. I don’t actually remember.
And we’re still thinking about that, but. Byron
Katie indicates, is it true? That’s the first
question. That seems like a question that cannot
be answered. But go ahead with what you think.
But you have to answer this question from your
point of view, your belief. My belief is that
it is true that he lied to me. Yes, he lied to
me. All right. So let’s not use Paul. You have
to use… What? Did anyone ever lie to you? Yes.
My kid is always lying to me. I don’t know. Can
we find an example? Let’s find an example in
current life of someone lying to us. You know,
you said you have a friend that always lies.
Yes. Yeah. Okay. This friend told me that they
were a columnist in a newspaper. A columnist.
Okay. And you’ve got to be a specific writing
ability to do that. Yeah. And I didn’t believe
it at first. And so I called up the newspaper.
It’s a small town newspaper. And I said, can
you find me? Can you send me? I can’t find on
your website archives. Can you send me any columns
done by this person? And they did a search and
they couldn’t find any of that. That person at
all. They couldn’t find that person in their
newspaper. So you say, this person lied to me.
And so. Is it true? You had to go through something
to. either confirm or deny that as a truth. Whether
it was true or not. Yeah. So I determined that
it is true that they did lie to me. Okay. They
told you they’re a columnist. You said, is
it true? No. Okay. They lied to me. Yes, it’s
true. They lied to me. All right. So you go to
the second step. Yeah. It’s true that they lied
to me. The second step is, can you absolutely
know that it’s true? And I think you answered
that too, by the call to confirm it by your search.
Well, I did my due diligence, but… maybe there
was another newspaper in that area by mostly
the same name like maybe she got the name wrong
and there was I called the wrong newspaper like
maybe she did write a column for a newspaper
but but I I just didn’t I mean I misunderstood
when she said which newspaper it was Maybe she’s
actually a little bit older than I think she
is and also does have a bachelor’s degree in
English. And I don’t know. All of the grandiosity
is actually true. Maybe it is. So, I mean, can
I absolutely know? The key word here is absolutely.
Yeah. Can you absolutely anything? That’s what
I think the key is here. Yeah. So I don’t think
I can without being her. I can’t absolutely know.
Even if you were being her, then we have this
question that Eckhart Tolle just brought up. Are
you conscious or unconscious in that action,
in that statement? Is it you doing it out of
presence of mind, or is it your unconscious reaction
just saying, I’ve got to one -up this story because
I’ve always one -up stories? You can’t absolutely
know that it’s true, that she lied to you. Because
from her perspective, she certainly didn’t lie.
Yeah, maybe. Yeah. Maybe she wasn’t lying. As
far as she understands lying to be. And maybe
she lives her life in satire and knows that everyone
knows her whole life is satirical. It’s not lying.
It’s satire. Yeah, right. I just read a line
in this Seven Habits book about lies. He defines
what a lie is. And a lie is any communication
with intent to deceive. Maybe it’s not a lie
because she’s not intending to deceive me. She
believes this about herself. Just trying to be
funny. Or, yeah, maybe she’s intending to entertain.
Yeah, intending to entertain or that you, yeah,
believe it, that you know it’s true. Dreams can
be true. I can’t absolutely know it’s true, though,
I think. I mean, it feels like we’re making this
really complicated, but no. That’s really the
point of number two is to say, is it true? Maybe,
maybe not. You say that, can you absolutely know,
which is just double saying, there’s no way you
can know. Yeah. So don’t worry about the truth.
It’s saying don’t worry about the truth. Yeah.
The third question in the work is how do you
react? What happens when you believe that thought
that they lied to you? What am I feeling? What
am I doing because I’m believing that thought?
And I think that’s just to help you see that
it’s not serving you. This belief that they lied
to you is not. making you feel good. It’s not
helping you. And hopefully what it does, because
it’s a problem. So she’s identifying a blame.
Can we use that word? So if you have a blame,
you can say, how do I feel? So you’re trying,
her work is trying to get you to realize that
that blame isn’t serving you positively, it’s
serving you negatively. So that’s what that question
is for, is how do you react? How do you feel?
How do you react? How do you feel when you believe
that they actually… that blame is accurate.
In your car, in the wall, do you feel bad about
the car or about the cement wall? If you believe
the cement wall shouldn’t have been put there?
I mean, you would have just driven on their front
yard and gotten out. It would have been fine.
But they put a stinking cement wall there. Yeah.
Yeah. I don’t know how to answer that because
I’m past that, I think. It was a long time ago.
You could have said, yeah, I feel bad. It’s a
stink. Well, you use the word stinking. You have
to find some. adjectives to add to the wall.
You label it. You label it negatively. Yeah.
And that’s how you react to it. You react to
it by negative label. And so you don’t call it
a beautiful wall, a fantastic wall. So that’s
her training. Don’t think of it. I mean, does
it cause you to feel bad? Okay. Yeah. What does
it do? What happens to you when you believe this
thought? And then the fourth question is, who
would you be without the thought? If you weren’t
thinking this thought, what would be different?
So if you’re having a hard time thinking about
who you’d be without that thought, there’s the
thought turnaround process bundled into that
number four question. Okay. And those are the
other two things that I think are effective.
I guess this is the action point is what I’m
looking at. All of that just gets you to a position.
It doesn’t really do anything. It’s not meant
to do anything. It’s meant to get you to the
action. And this is the action. I imagine there
are a lot of people that have a really hard time
realizing that they can think differently about
something. Like, that’s possible. Who would I
be without thinking this? And then you’re like,
oh my gosh, I didn’t ever consider not thinking
that. I think it’s useful because I can’t imagine
that I am the most immature person in the world.
There’s got to be more emotionally immature people
than me. Like me. Okay. I’m more immature. Turning
it around. So this friend of mine lied to me,
is a liar. Maybe I could say, I could change
it. I could say, I am a liar. Or they are not
a liar. Or I told a lie to myself about them.
Or I told a lie to them about them. I told a
lie to them about me. I mean, there’s like a
whole bunch of different ways that you can change
the situation. Identify the truth. We did talk
about that too. They told the truth. Yeah. They
told the truth. It was the truth that they said
instead of – They told their dream truth. They
told their grandiose truth. They told their satirical
truth. So you turn around the belief that you
have. You change it up a bit. Martha Beck. who
we talked about before, used this kind of turning
around thing in her story of how she got to where
she is. She says she felt victimized by the LDS
church. She felt like it had a hold on her. She
couldn’t be free. It lied to her? Yeah. I mean,
that’s something else. But it’s the church when
she, I think it’s when she wrote her book, she
was afraid of what the church would do to her
or something like that. And so the belief that
she had was the church, what will happen to me
because the church does something about this.
And she turned it around and now she believes
what will happen to the church because I’m doing
this. Something like that. That’s right. Yeah,
I remember that part of her story. It’s not what
the church is going to do to me. What am I doing
to the church because I’m writing this book?
That’s what I want to do. And that’s a positive
side. Not what someone’s going to hurt me with,
but what can I hurt them with? And I don’t know
that she was necessarily happy she wanted to
hurt the church, but she’s saying, no, it’s likely
to hurt them worse than it’s going to hurt me.
Well, yeah, and we’re definitely paraphrasing
whatever she said. It’s not exact. But we’re
trying to figure out. How to use this turnaround.
Yeah. What is a turnaround? Puts you in the other
position. Yeah. It puts it so that you’re not
a victim anymore. Can you turn it around so that
you’re not, you don’t have to blame you. When
you open it and you’re a victim and that may
be the only time that you blame. Do you blame
from a creator standpoint? No, I don’t. So that’s
the question. That’s why you want to say this
kind of rolls to victimization. You can’t even
use Byron’s work if you’re a creator. Her work
has no value. And that may be why I don’t really
see any value here. It’s because you’re a creator.
You’re not a victim, right? Yeah. If you’re not
taking the victim’s stance in anything, if no
one is to blame, you can’t even ask these questions
because you already have the turnaround. You’re
all living in the turnaround. She’s trying to
get you to recognize the turnaround if you’re
blaming everybody. So if you live in the turnaround,
that’s the way to live. That’s the action. So
this work process is something that Brooke Castillo
with the Life Coach School had learned about.
I guess maybe she’s a colleague of Byron Katie.
They have hung out together. They’re friends.
They’re whatever. And she created her own version
of it or like an evolution of it maybe called
the self -coaching model. That’s the title of
it. The self -coaching model. It’s not just the
model, but I mean, that’s what we say, the model.
Yeah, that’s all I have ever known. So I see
that it’s called self -coaching model. Yeah,
I searched on Google for the model and it came
up with a movie. And I’m like, well, that’s not
it. So I have to add on life coach school, you
know. Self -coaching model. That’s clearly the
title of this. And I’ve never. You never. So
it’s good. Now I’m not immature anymore. I’m
mature. Yeah. On her website, one of her pages
is titled The Model. And so you go there and
it gives the basic rundown of what it is. The
basic premise of the self -coaching model is
that your thoughts produce your feelings. Your
feelings fuel your actions and your actions create
your results. So I think maybe you have to know.
the work of Byron Katie a little bit already
before you can realize that you have thoughts
about something. Because let’s say a victim perhaps
doesn’t realize that they’re having a thought
about somebody that they blame for something.
They think that that’s just a fact. That person
did something to me and I blame them for it.
And that’s a fact. I’m not thinking anything
about it. That’s just how it is. Right? Right.
So you have to identify that you actually have
a thought about it, and then you can use a self
-coaching model. That’s the biggest work of the
coach in her life coach school training. The
first and biggest responsibility of a coach is
to help people realize that circumstances are
not the truth. Your thoughts are the truth. It’s
your perception, your thoughts. Circumstances
have no value whatsoever. You add the value by
your thoughts. So a circumstance is something
that actually happens. You know, he didn’t do
that to me. What happened? The door shut. The
door closed and it did hit against the thing.
It hit too loud. So your thought is it hit too
loud. It was thrown too fast. It caused, it scared
the dog. You know, all those things that happened
to it are what you’re thinking happened. That’s
your thought about it. But the door slamming,
it didn’t probably even slam. The door closed.
The actual circumstance, the door is closed now.
Yeah. I just had deja vu. Did you say all of
that in another conversation? I’m sure. I don’t
know. The door closing is, no, I don’t know that
I have ever. I didn’t deja vu that thing. Okay.
I have a theory about deja vu. That means that
the universe is giving me a sign that this actually
was supposed to happen. Like this is a, I’m on
the right path. All right. Excellent. We’re going
in the right direction. We’ll have to discuss
deja vu as a statement somewhere down the road.
See what it actually is. See what it actually
means. See if God put it in place or not. All
right. So the self -coaching model, I see it
sometimes abbreviated to the CTFAR model, which
is just the first letter of all of these pieces,
right? And that doesn’t say anything. It’s not
even fun. It’s not even fun. You can’t say that.
I love it. Okay. I mean, well, I mean, she could
have taken the first three letters, C -I -R,
and then T, and then F -A -R. Certfar. Certfar.
She could have done that. But, you know, we’re
not going, we’re not, our purpose is not to critique
Castillo’s whole thing here. How the marketing
could have been done better. It’s marketing.
It’s there. Yeah. It is here, and so it was meant
to be this way. Correct. This is the reality
of it. CTFAR, though, the circumstances trigger
your thoughts, which produce your feelings, which
generate your actions, which cause the results.
Every one of those things have different words
you’d use. Feelings is emotions. So you’d have
an E there instead of feelings. It’s just your
emotions. Yeah. And your actions could be your
response. What is your response to your emotions?
Your response or your reaction. It’s the two
R’s that you battle against. We’re going to react
out of our feelings automatically or we’re going
to think about it first. Your thoughts automatically
bring up feelings or your emotion, which then
unconsciously you’re going to react or you’re
going to actually think that thought. Think that
emotion. I don’t want that emotion. I want this
one through Byron Katie’s work and my mind act
differently. The choice between feelings and
action, and we talked about that, that there’s
a lot of space there. You need to put space there.
That’s where you put the space between stimulus
and response is at your emotion level. Yeah.
One of my favorite examples of, well, maybe I’m
getting a little ahead of myself. Circumstances,
though, the circumstance is what happened, right?
That’s what is. Right. And it’s even more, I
said the space between stimulus and response.
That’s the way Stephen Covey put it that he got
from Viktor Frankl. As a stimulus, circumstances
before stimulus. The stimulus is kind of your
thought. It’s what it stimulated in you. So it’s
the stimulus is your thought and emotions together.
The circumstance is what caused that stimulus,
what stimulated. So the circumstances way back
there, it’s the thing that actually occurred.
It’s the cold hard fact, the event itself. And is that an absolute
fact? I think so. Yeah. Further down on this
page, one example of a circumstance is, well,
she says circumstances are facts that can be
proven in a court of law, which I don’t think
that’s a black and white fact kind of thing because
judges and juries are all, they all have their
own paradigms that they work around anyway. So
you can’t. exactly say that something is a fact
because it’s proven in a court of law, right?
Right. And the juries are just 12 people and
the prosecutors and the judge. The judge doesn’t
always get it right either. That’s why you have
appellate courts and you can take it all the
way up. And the Supreme Courts are nine people
and they might even get it wrong because then
they have to redo Roe v. Wade and exchange it.
Right. This might be a false statement then,
circumstances or facts that can be proven in
a court of law. I think circumstances are facts
that you can know true or false after you die
and you have a perfect knowledge of everything.
How about that? Use the word absolute. Are circumstances
absolute? That may be another way to say it.
And you can do it without being proven to be
true. I mean, absolutely, the door did hit the,
what do you call those? The jam. The door hit
the jam. Yeah. The door closed. You know, absolutely.
It hit the jam. I made a noise. I mean, I heard
the response from it and it looks like it’s closed.
So it must be closed. That happened. It was open
and now it’s closed. So it did close. In actuality,
it’s closed. It’s in the jam. It’s not out of
the jam when it was open. Yeah. Yeah. So something
that everyone can agree on that happened. How
about that? Like it’s nobody disagrees that this
like. The eruption of Mount St. Helens. No one
thinks that didn’t happen. Maybe there’s some
really crazy people that think it didn’t happen,
but we’re not talking about those people. Okay,
yeah, Mount St. Helens, but I’ve never seen Mount
St. Helens. I’ve seen pictures. There are people
who know for sure that it blew because they were
there in the 80s when it blew. I wasn’t there,
but I do know what happened. 1980, I think it
was 1980, right? I think that’s when it happened.
Grandma had vials of ash from it. So I know that
it existed because we have the ash. I don’t know
that we have it. It’d be cool if I had one of
those. You could talk about the ash from Mount
St. Helens because it was everywhere. You could
get it. It’s like people talk about the Holocaust.
Is it a fact or is it just someone’s imagination?
Or the moon landing. Did we ever walk on the
moon? Right. So let’s not worry about the outliers.
don’t believe something happened. So what actually
occurred? Is there anything that everyone agrees
to with besides the crazy people? There are crazy
people who don’t agree with anything, but like
is Donald Trump the president of the United States?
Some people don’t believe that. Not my president.
Right. Is that a fact or is it not a fact? Yeah.
No, he did get… He did go through an inauguration
ceremony. I think most people can agree that
happened. Oh, except the fact that he didn’t
do it right. He didn’t do it right? I didn’t
know that. Judge Roberts had him start the thing
before Melania got to his side, so he didn’t
put his hand on the Bible or whatever she was
holding. His hand was not on that, so the inauguration
did not happen. Oh. Technicalities. It wasn’t
effective. It’s a technicality. Yeah. Well, it’s
the dotting the I’s or the T’s that get court
cases thrown out. You know, that technicality.
So court cases thrown out. He’s not the president.
He’s acting like he is. And everyone, unfortunately,
is agreeing that he is. But I know because I
know the truth. The truth is he’s not inaugurated.
All kinds of crazy things. I noticed that his
hand didn’t get on the Bible that she was holding.
But it’s not that important of a thing to me.
I think he’s inaugurated still. There are people
who could think that’s the most important thing,
their allegiance to God directly. And then there
are the people who was just, the Bhagavad Gita
is what Kash Patel put his hand on. Put your
hand on the Gita. So he did. And that’s what
he used. Use your book, use whatever it is. But
we are a Christian nation though. Right, right.
So since we’re a Christian nation, we can’t accept
this Bhagavad Gita Hindu person. Right. Right.
No. Okay. Bringing it back. There’s something
that’s always true. Are egg price is high. High.
That’s a judgment. We can’t get in the weeds
again. Stop it. Okay. Okay. You’re wearing glasses.
I can see you’re wearing glasses. You agree you’re
wearing glasses. And everyone who sees me would
agree he’s wearing glasses. Okay. Yes. Right.
Yes. See, that’s a good one. Okay. That is a
fact that everyone agrees on. And wait, now you’re
not wearing glasses. I’m not wearing glasses.
You took them off. All right, put them back on
so we can finish this. Because I can’t hear you
if I don’t have my glasses on. I get it. Right.
Okay, so the circumstance, though, is neutral.
Whether you’re wearing glasses or not, it doesn’t
mean anything until someone thinks something
about it. So there’s no value. You’re saying
it’s neutral. It doesn’t have the value. Yeah.
And that’s the word I used earlier. So, yeah,
you’re saying it’s neutral until you have a thought.
Until you have a thought about it. So maybe your
glasses don’t fit well. Maybe you don’t like
how they fit and they give you a headache. And
so you don’t like that you’re wearing glasses.
And maybe… someone else thinks that they make
your eyebrows look funny and so they don’t like
that you’re wearing glasses so you wearing glasses
to them they think that you shouldn’t be wearing
glasses but wearing glasses is a neutral thing
it’s their thoughts that create the value yeah
Stephen Covey kind of said something about that
in his habit one chapter he said it’s not what
happens to us but our response to what happens
to us that hurts us so That it’s your thoughts.
That hurts us, meaning that we can blame it.
Blame it on somebody. It’s also not what happens
to us that helps us either. And does he say that
later? I think it’s Eckhart Tolle that talks
about that. You have, no, it was someone else.
If you blame someone, you can’t credit anybody
either. Or if you accept that you’re a victim
of your blame, you have to blame the credit on
everybody else too. Yeah, no, I think that’s
a four agreements thing, actually. I think the…
Third or fourth agreement is that is to not take
anything personally, whether good or bad. Right.
If you’re not taking bad things personally, you’ve
also got to not take the good things personally
either. I mean, it’s all related. Everything.
Everything is connected. It’s a spider web. It
is. And we’re just trying to. And the more we
wiggle, the more we’ll get tangled in it. And
the spider is going to eat us anyway. Anyway,
we’re all going to die anyway. Just doesn’t matter.
Just doesn’t matter. Yeah. Circumstances are
neutral, but they trigger us to think something
that they trigger our thoughts. And we can we
can think some people might think negative things
about the circumstance and some people might
think positive things about the circumstance.
Like you’ve got two people in front of you. One
person likes your glasses. The other person doesn’t
like your glasses. That doesn’t change whether
you’re wearing glasses or not. That doesn’t change
whether you have the glasses on your face. Somebody
doesn’t like it. Somebody else likes it. Right.
It doesn’t make your. Well, it doesn’t. It’s
not that it changes whether you have the glasses
on or not. It doesn’t change whether the glasses
are good on your face or not. Right. Right. And
it’s the it’s I’m thinking the awareness of it.
So one person may not even see the glasses. And
they ask in a court of law, was he wearing glasses
or not? One says definitely was. And one says,
no, he wasn’t. No way. I didn’t recognize glasses.
I don’t know that. No, I can’t testify he was
wearing glasses. It’s not that I don’t know.
I know for sure he wasn’t wearing glasses because
I would have noticed, of course. Well, that’s
going back to whether the circumstances agreed
upon or not. We’ve already passed that. Okay,
good. We’re on to whether both people agree that
you’re wearing glasses. Now, what are they thinking
about the glasses and what are their thoughts
producing? What kind of feelings are their thoughts
producing in them about you, about the glasses
on your face? The person that doesn’t like your
glasses, maybe they think that you make bad decisions
because you picked the wrong glasses. Then they’re
feeling uncomfortable around you because of that.
And maybe the person that likes your glasses,
they’re like, that guy’s pretty smart for wearing
glasses. That fits his face pretty well. And
then they think they’re more likely to trust
you with other decisions because of that. Or
he cares about his health and about his vision
and not running to people. And the other person
that says he’s using that crutch, the crutch
of glasses. If you just exercise your eyes, you
wouldn’t have to use those crutches on your face.
Right. Still, these feelings that these two hypothetical
people have about your glasses doesn’t change
whether your glasses are good or bad in relation
to them. The feelings that people are feeling
because as a result of their thoughts, what do
you think about that? What do you think about?
causes you to feel something. Is that where our
feelings come from? That’s my biggest problem
is I never paid any attention to feelings. And
that’s the biggest issue I personally have is
I don’t know that I have feelings. I never had
known that. People called me a robot from my
kid, from my childhood. Okay. And that’s just
part of that illness. So if you have the illness
of not having feelings, not having emotions,
but you know, you can talk me into having emotions.
I do have emotions. get fear and love and care
and concern, all kinds of things. And animation,
I can feel excited. So I do have feelings. It’s
just I never paid attention to them. But everyone
has feelings. Your dogs have feelings. Animals
have feelings. Ants have feelings. Ants have
feelings? Oh. I think so. Yeah, I watched it
on TV. I watched them. You know. You know they
have feelings because they said so on TV. Yeah.
And if you burn them. They feel hot and they
run away with the magnifying glass. That’s the
response. That’s the response up there. So what
happens to them? How horrible is it that you
pour a pot of boiling water down an anthill to
kill them all? Isn’t that awful? Right. Right.
The boiling water. I often wonder that when they’re
doing those, the lead. Is it lead? Yeah. That
they pour in anthills to make the tree, the upside
down tree thing? Yeah. Are there dead ants all
over that? Yeah. Is that what it is? Probably.
Well, they get incinerated. Yeah. Yeah. That’s
awful. And it just tortures all those poor little
ants. But every time I do it, I don’t use boiling
water. I use gasoline. And a match or just? No,
just gasoline by itself. Actually, I lit one.
It burned for two days. It was really cool or
weird. I put a thing around it. I put a metal
bucket. around it, you know, that was open. And
I watched it burn for two days out that ant hole
that I filled with gas. Wow. Because apparently
it went down there long enough and it just, it
was like a candle or an oil lamp, a lantern.
It just had that little spout that it kept the
fumes coming out of. It kept that fire on for
a long time. So yeah. That’s amazing. So everything
has, everything has emotions. Everything, everything
can feel. That’s what you’re saying is. Even
those who don’t recognize that they’re having
emotions do have emotions. Yeah? Yes. Because
that’s, if it’s animated, if it’s animated, if
it’s alive. And maybe even trees and walls and
desks have emotions, but we don’t see the animation
of that emotion. Hmm. Maybe. Atoms. Certainly
atoms have emotion. They have memory. That’s
what they say. Electrons and protons spinning
around there. Yeah. Thinking beings, though,
what do you feel about our thoughts causing,
producing our emotions? I’m feeling happy because
I’m thinking that this is a good thing, whatever’s
happening. If you break it down. So you’re asking
if it can be broken down to that level, no matter
what the feeling. Can someone have a feeling
without a thought generating it, without a thought
backing it up? So it can feelings. And what the
model says and what I think, I think even what
Byron Katie says in that, you know, think this
through. You blame someone. Is that a blame that’s
effectively issued? Like here, is the circumstance
effectively caused that action? Is that action
automatically justified? Because I had no thought
between it. The action caused the action. Their
circumstance caused my action. I had no thought
or feeling between that. Or even if I had a feeling,
the feeling was not based on any thought of mine.
It was their thought. They did it. They thought
my feeling into me. Is that possible? Can they
think your feeling into you? Yeah, and that’s
suggesting that they have control over you. They
can control your feelings, right? And you blame
that. He made me mad. Yeah, that’s something
we use colloquially. We use it all the time.
He made me mad. They caused me to yell. The whole
point of this coaching, self -coaching model
is to say, no, they didn’t. They never do. Because
it’s not physically possible for them to change
your emotion. You’re the one with the emotion.
The dog, you can’t change the dog’s emotion.
The dog’s going to have its emotion. You can
kick at it or you can smile at it and it’ll realize
both of those things. And based on its thinking
process, it will either smile or wag its tail
or bark or something. It’ll do what it does,
not based on what you did to it, but based on
its thought and emotion. that caused it to do
it. Yeah. Yeah. So let’s say a lightning storm,
a thunderstorm. They’re always together, right?
You can’t have thunder without lightning. So
let’s say a storm like that. I think they are
so cool. I think they’re awesome. Every time
I have a chance, I go outside and I enjoy a thunderstorm.
Yeah, as long as it’s not like right above me,
you know, I’d have never been. Actually, I have
been within probably 100 feet of a lightning
strike, which was really so cool. I was in a
car and we were driving up the freeway and it
struck just in the field right next to us and
our whole car shook and it was so loud, but it
was so cool. Like I still loved it. I wasn’t
scared. I was like, that was so amazing. But
my dogs hate it. They will hide in the farthest
corner of the house. It’s not the lightning that
is making them feel scared because it would make
me feel scared too. That’s if the lightning caused
the emotion, then it would cause the same emotion
in everyone. It would be objectively the same,
right? It looks like you disagree. I can see
that. No, I can see that that’s scientifically
speaking. If it were able to cause emotion, it
would cause emotion in everyone. The same. But
you can have a group that sees a lightning strike
100 feet away. 10 of them can be very major upset
and scared to death and shivering, shaking. That
was so close. I almost died. And the other ones
say, that was so cool. Do it again. I can’t wait
for the next one. Let’s walk closer to it. I’d
like to be five feet away next. I want to feel
my arm. I didn’t really feel it in my arms. My
arm hairs didn’t stand up. Yeah, I hear that
that happens. You start getting electric feelings
before it flashes. So I want to be that close
to it that my hair stands up. And, you know,
I might enjoy that. The dogs, you mentioned the
dogs getting, like lightning, that’s a big noise.
But you have fire alarms when they start chirping
because the battery is dying. You know, in my
house, the fire alarms chirp. As soon as one
chirps, all the dogs go crazy because they don’t
like that chirping. The chirping is somewhat
annoying, but it’s more than annoying to dogs.
They, I don’t know if it’s something they can,
they can hear more than I can hear, but whatever
it is, it’s just a little chirp, but they go
crazy. Even if it’s down in the basement, you
know, far away from them, they hear it, they
understand it. And they say, you got to change
a battery, dude. Yeah. Yeah. It’s not, it’s not
the sound. It’s not the thing. That happened.
It’s not the circumstance that caused the feeling.
It’s what I think about the circumstance that
causes my feeling about it. I think that’s pretty
clear. Like, I think it’s cool. If I had ever
been struck by lightning, I would probably not
think it was cool anymore. I would probably be
like, I’m staying inside until this storm has
passed. You know, there’s a thunderstorm going
on. There’s no way I’m driving through it. You
know. Your learned experience will cause you
to stay inside when the storm comes through and
not to drive through a storm even. You’re going
to identify the weather patterns and not take
your trip today. I’ve got to be in here two more
days before I can leave because the clouds have
to move through first. I’m not driving under
clouds. So those thoughts that I’m having about
it are what is producing my feeling of happiness
or fear or… Yeah. And it’s just like snow on
the roads. You know, we drive in the snow. For
me, I don’t care. I don’t care what kind of snow
is on the road or mud or anything. I’ll drive
over it. I’ll just pay more attention or go slower
and appropriately drive through the snow because
it’s going to work. But you have other people
that will not go out if there’s snow on the roads
and it’s got to be cleaned. And I’m going to
check the road reports and we’re watching the
road reports all the time. And if it’s purple
at all, we’re not going today. We’ll wait tomorrow.
It’ll clear. Because they had a bad experience
driving through a blizzard. So because of that
experience, it’s a learned experience. I’m never
going to do that again. Right. And even not having
an experience yourself, even watching someone
else have an experience. We have so many car
crash videos you can see online now because of
the traffic cams and dash cams and everything
is, there’s so many that you can see and you
can get scared. You can watch those and you can
be like, I’m never getting in a car again. Because
you never know when that tire is going to come
and bounce right into your windshield. I mean,
there’s those ones, too, of flying objects, flying
objects that hit cars, hit dash cams. And you
see exactly what happened. Here’s the thing,
though. Here’s the thing about the self -coaching
model is she’s trying to help us see that we
can actually choose what we think about something.
We don’t have to feel afraid of a lightning storm.
I don’t know if dogs can choose whether they’re
afraid or not. They don’t have the self -awareness
to figure this kind of thing out. Stephen Covey
says that self -awareness is a human endowment,
and so it’s not something that animals can do.
Benefit from, okay, yeah. Yeah, but humans, we
can see that we’re scared and we can change.
how we think about something so that we’re not
afraid anymore. I think that’s the big, I think
that’s the big point. And that’s the, that’s
the point of the model. That’s why the model
works is because it can tell you, here’s something
you can actually operate inside of this and experiment
with it. Self -coaching, you can experiment with
it and see that in every case, if you can ever
prove that you had a feeling because of a circumstance
without a thought between there. And so it’s,
it’s giving you a model to look at. a process
to follow. And if you scientifically prove that
process in every case, then it gives you an action
to do with it. I mean, do you have to operate
this model for the rest of your life? Are you
stuck with it? Are you stuck with Byron Katie’s
questions for the rest of your life? If you’re
not, okay. So another one of the human endowments
that Stephen Covey says you have is imagination.
And then also you have independent will. So if
you’re using your imagination and you’re in an
independent will, then you learn from using these
and maybe you’re using them subconsciously after
that. Like it’s just happening automatically.
Almost. Almost? Okay, tell me what you think.
Take it to the next step. To the next step. Why
would you ever use this model? What’s the only
reason that you would use it? It’s the same only
reason that you would ever forgive. Yeah, when
you move into a creator. the creator triangle
and out of the drama triangle, then you don’t
need to use it anymore. If there’s no drama,
this only works in the drama triangle. The model
only works there. In the creator triangle, it
doesn’t have any effect. Well, it doesn’t have
any use. You don’t need it. It’s like a crutch
for a person that has perfectly healthy legs,
right? Byron Katie’s questions cannot even be
asked from a creator standpoint. You can’t even
ask those questions. Is it true? Of course it’s
true. He said, can you absolutely know it? No,
I can’t absolutely know anything’s true. So,
you know, it just doesn’t have, and what would
be the alternative? Or how do you feel if you
think that? I’m feeling great because it’s a
good thing. Let’s keep going forward. You know,
it’s all positive answers. There’s no… Well,
if you have nothing to complain about, then there’s
no work to be done. And then it seems like I
said at the front, those questions really are…
moot points there’s there’s no reason to ask
those there’s no reason to ask this model thing
if you can live outside the model if you can
live live the principle that it’s your thoughts
you can choose them you’re self -aware you’re
conscious conscientious in yourself your conscience
is working there’s no need to blame and you don’t
have forgive anymore it’s the forgiveness and
and blame issue if you don’t blame anybody there’s
no need to forgive there’s no need to work through
this process of forgiveness which may both of
these things may be How do you forgive that person
or that circumstance? So I think these are models
for forgiveness, models to forgiveness. Byron
Katie’s work is the work of forgiveness, turning
it around. And the work of the model is how can
you forgive a circumstance you thought caused
this action and these poor results? You turn
that around by saying, he didn’t cause it. That
didn’t cause it. That issue is just, that’s just
what happened. I’m thinking this. So I’m going
to start changing my thinking about it. And as
soon as you get it changed, you don’t have to.
You don’t have to use that forgiveness process
anymore because you’re not blaming that issue
and you don’t have an issue. I think moving it
to forgiveness makes a lot of sense. Both of
these. Categorizing it under forgiveness. That’s
kind of Eckhart Tolle’s work too. You know, the
power of now and the new earth waking to your
life’s purpose. If you’re actually conscious
in your life and operating in the now as opposed
to operating from all your past thoughts and
actions, you know, unconscious. If you can get
to a conscious working life, you don’t need these
processes are just to get you, point you to that
way of living consciously. Yeah. Yeah. So they
are useful. Would you say that they’re useful
in getting someone out of the drama triangle?
If someone put in, if they used the work and
if they use the self -coaching model, it’s a
tool to get. Out of victim mentality and into
creator mentality? To stop collusion, because
the victim mentality is a collusive model. You
circle around in the collusion part of it, just
pushing each other’s buttons, having buttons
to push. In the creator and coach and challenger
model, you’re not pushing anyone’s buttons. You’re
offering opportunities. You’re offering information.
You’re building. You’re adding to. There’s no
collusion. You’re not pushing buttons. You’re
adding buttons, maybe. So it’s a way that then
you have the problem is who are you really talking
to with this? Someone in a victim mentality wants
to stay in the victim mentality. That’s why they’re
there. Right. Maybe. I mean, there’s a transition
point between liking being a victim and not being
a victim anymore. Like people, I feel like in
the last five to 10 years, I’ve moved out of
a victim mentality and into. wherever I am now.
I don’t know if I’m fully in the creator side
of it, but I’m, you know, I’m getting there,
I think, because at some point I decided I didn’t
want to feel bad about what other people are
doing anymore. You know, and we talked about
judgment and the thing that came up in your discussion
of that was you feel you judge people too much
or you’re trying to judge people less. When you
judge them, it’s like you’re blaming them for
this or that, right? Blaming them for whatever.
whatever wrong thing is happening. So see, obviously
I’m not fully creator yet because I’m still having
judgments. You blame someone for creating the
circumstance you see that’s caused a bad result.
I’m judging that someone else did that. And how
else do you look at it? If you got in a car crash
and it wasn’t your fault that someone T -boned
you on the side and, you know, ruined your car,
clearly it was their fault. But had you… delayed
three seconds, you wouldn’t have been there at
that time. That’s still finding someone to blame.
I’m blaming myself then. It’s like, man, I should
have just waited. I should have buckled my seatbelt
before I started driving instead of after I pulled
out of the parking spot. That three -second idea
would have put you out of it or if you had just
not stopped for that cat that was in the road.
You would have been way past that the car never
would have T -boned you at that point. So you’re
still blaming that. So you’re shifting the blame
from them to something else. Potential things
you could have done that would have caused it.
So it’s not judging them. Then you’re judging
you. To eliminate judgment is just to say, my
car got T -boned. This is cool. I’m going to
enjoy that lightning strike right here on the
side of my car. And you just move on. You move
forward with what’s happening. And I think that
was… part of what they’re saying yeah you get
you you realize that you don’t have to think
negative thoughts about this you can you can
change your thinking and you can see like you
can start thinking better things about it someone
actually did run into my car once remember right
before i had the truck the reason i have the
truck now is because someone totaled the durango
really i didn’t know that i don’t have no idea
of that Tell me the story. How did that happen?
Okay. So I was exiting a parking lot of a grocery
store at an intersection that has, it’s just
a stop sign, but it’s a very busy road, a through
road, right? There’s no traffic light there.
I stopped there at the stop sign and I’m like,
okay, this is going to be a while. I’m just going
to put on my brake and wait until it clears,
right? So I put on my brake. It’s kind of late
afternoon. You know, rush hour. Afternoon traffic.
Yeah. Yeah. I’m sitting there facing north. Eastbound
traffic has stopped because there’s a light further
down the road. There’s a car westbound that wants
to turn into the parking lot. So they’re in the
turning lane. And there’s two lanes going eastbound.
So the lane closest to the turning lane has filled
up. But the lane closest to me is clear. And
so somebody in the lane closest to the turning
lane, the westbound turning lane, stopped and
let the turning car go through. And when they
went through, a car in the lane closest to me
ran into them and then ran into the front of
my car because I was just there. I was in the
way. So three cars. Does this make sense in the
way I’m explaining it? Yeah. Yeah. So I see what
the car heading eastbound hit you. because it
was hit by the other one? It hit the turning,
the left turn, the westbound left turning lane,
the car. Yeah. Hit them. They ran into me. Both
of you ran into, both of them ran into you. Yeah.
Pushed everything in under my hood towards me,
but not so much that I got hurt. I didn’t get
hurt at all. It just made it so the car. Totaled
your engine. Yeah, the car was totaled. So that
circumstance, it happened. And I really liked
that car. I mean, I had always gotten it fixed
whenever something broke on it. Yeah. You guys
spent a lot of time buying that car because it
was done perfectly. You bought it in a perfectly
good strategy. Right, right. Yes, it was a good,
we chose that car. It worked out. Right. And
there it was gone in an instant. Like I thought
maybe I could. drive it away but then when I
tried it made some weird clanking noises and
the wheel was rubbing on the chassis and you
know so they towed it away. Where did we start?
I could have blamed someone for that circumstance
because I had like the car is gone. I could have
blamed someone. I could legitimately blame the
person. that let that left turn person, that
left turn car through. That was the person that
should not have let them through. Don’t let,
that’s a good rule to have when you’re driving.
Don’t let other people do illegal things. Or
inappropriate things. Maybe not illegal. It wasn’t
illegal to turn left. Yeah, but they didn’t know
it was clear. They didn’t know it wasn’t clear.
The person turning left didn’t know it wasn’t
clear. They didn’t know there was a car coming.
Someone stopped and let them through without
indicating there’s another car in the other lane,
you know? Right. And that car in the other lane
was speeding along normal speed, not knowing
that someone was going to let someone through.
So it was a surprise. They weren’t even doing
anything bad. Yeah. And the car that would turn,
yeah, all kinds of things you could train to
do that thing better. And that’s why, you know,
you have all the dash cams, all this stuff happening.
If I were in that dash cam situation, what would
I have done? And what do I need to pay attention
to? You can either learn from it or you can say,
the roads are way too crazy. I’m never going
to drive again. I’m never going to drive again.
But who do you blame? That’s the thing is you
stay a victim because you’re blaming someone
for this thing that happened. Because you’re
blaming. Okay, so how do you treat that now?
Do you blame anybody? Are you blaming anyone
with your current mind? I don’t. I don’t think
that I am. I think I accept that it is what it
is. It happened. Yeah, you feel bad for the loss
of the car. Right. My best friend is gone now.
But I don’t blame myself for being there at that
intersection at that time. I don’t blame any,
like all of the other people. Whether they intentionally
did something or not, it happened. And so what
am I going to think about that? Is my thoughts…
If I was thinking, if I was trying to blame someone
for that, would my negative thoughts about it
be serving me? Would it make me feel good? I
want to feel good about that circumstance. So
what I can do to feel good about it is to think
that happened and I moved on and I do drive a
little bit differently. because of it and I think
I drive safer because of that because that and
my kids were both there and they both saw it
so now they’re gonna drive differently too when
they drive they they know how that accident happened
and they have first -hand experience what happens
when this kind of thing happens right I’m actually
glad I’m glad that it happened I’m glad that
we could experience that I don’t blame anyone.
You found the positive things to it. And that’s
the turn it around part of Byron Katie’s work.
You’ve turned it around. And maybe you did feel
bad at the minute. But whether you use the work
or not, and that’s what I said earlier, that
maybe I’m just living in a turnaround spot. I
don’t have to blame someone. Automatically, if
you agree that what happens, happens. And I guess
from my point of view, I’ve described it this
way two or three times this week even. This is
God’s world. And if it happens, it’s because
it’s supposed to happen. That’s just the way
it is. And so it’s already turned around. If
I’m crediting God, I guess I’m blaming God, too.
You could say that blame, but if you credit something
else, you’re crediting some omniscient being
for being responsible. You blame them for having
it happen, and it’s good. Yeah, you’re blaming
them. You’re crediting. I use the word meekness.
Maybe we have to discuss that at some point.
But if you’re meek and lowly, it’s not that you’re
designing your own life. You’re the creator.
I’m creating my life. But it was said by one
of your siblings just yesterday, I’m the executioner,
which is usually in a bad sense. But he said,
that’s the way I view it, is I’m just the executioner.
I hear or I understand what needs to be done
and I go do it. I’m doing it. It’s not that I
know necessarily what I’m doing to start, but
I get an idea. And that idea comes to me, and
so then I execute on it. So I’m the executioner.
So that’s how I view myself. Not the executor,
the executioner. Executioner, yeah. So you’re
the guy with the axe, the sharp axe in your hand.
Makes it happen. But it’s the same thing. It’s
saying I’m going to be a creator in the situation.
I’m a creator. I’m listening to intuition, to
information coming in as it comes in. It makes
something new in my head. And as I hear it and
see it, I execute on it. And you’re not blaming
people. You’re not blaming the situation or any
circumstance. The circumstance shows up and all
you’re going to do is execute. You’re going to
react. You’re going to act to make things better
or to make things continue to progress. That’s
the way I look at everything. And I don’t try
to blame. I don’t know if I can. Maybe I do blame
people. I don’t think I do. That’d be something
to observe. in yourself like now that now that
we’ve talked about it like you can yeah i can
question that and say is there a circumstance
in my life or is there a challenge that needs
to that i’ve thought something was true have
i issued a blame do i feel like i need to forgive
anything you know here was here’s an interesting
thing i i was teaching a gospel doctrine class
a church class a while ago two years ago probably
might have been two or three but in it it said
Find someone, because it was talking about forgiveness.
Find someone that you need to forgive, that you
should forgive and go and forgive them. And I
was, my life back then, before talking about
any of this stuff or trying to figure all this
out, I couldn’t think of anyone that I thought
I should forgive. I can’t, there’s no one that
I felt poorly about that I said I should go forgive
them for doing what they did to me. No one did
anything to me. No one’s ever done anything to
me. that needs my forgiveness. And so what I
had to think about, I thought about, well, where
could I have offended someone? And someone feels
like I need to. So I went, two people I found,
and one of them we talked about already in these
conversations. I went to her and I said, you
know, if I offended you in that, she says, I
don’t really think so. And then I went to another
family right when we moved to town, to this area.
I said something kind of, I don’t know, inappropriate
maybe. I called one of their children incorrigible.
That was the wrong word. I had no idea who they
were. I only said it because of the sound of
music. You know, Peter’s encourageable. I used
that word because it was going to be funny. But,
you know, I said, maybe that’s a problem. So
I went and talked to them and I said, do you
remember that I said that? They said, we have
no idea. I know. I have no feeling of that. It
says, well, I feel bad about it. I want to. apologize.
So it’s kind of the other side of forgiveness.
I had to think of things that possibly I offended
somebody else because I couldn’t think of anyone
that’s offended me. Okay. That was interesting.
You’re so vain. Look at how good I am. How good
I am? No, I offended people. You offended people,
but you’re unoffendable. I’m unoffendable. I’m
so perfect that you can’t offend me. Go ahead,
try. You can’t even offend me. I tell people
that sometimes. Try to offend me. See if it works.
See if you can do it. You know, that makes a
lot of people really mad when you do that. Really?
Yeah. They hate it. Have you heard that they
hate it? No. I haven’t actually. But you know,
that’s in my experience. People don’t like when
you tell them that they can’t offend you. It’s
like saying, I’m rubber and you’re glue. And
whatever you say bounces off me and sticks to
you. Sticks to you. Or sticks and stones may
break my bones. It’s just like a you don’t matter
kind of thing. But even that won’t hurt me. Sticks
and stones may break my bones, but even that
won’t hurt me. Even that won’t hurt me, even
if you broke my bones. Yeah, it’d be cool. I
have a cast and you can sign it. I’ll let you
sign it. You can be the first one because you
broke my arm. As I was preparing for this conversation,
I went back and listened to some of Brooke Castillo’s
first episodes in her Life Coach School podcast,
which I recommend to everyone. I think it’s full
of gold. I love… I love everything that she
talks about, you know. I started listening to
her from the start too. I remember those. Yeah.
And we’re going to talk about one of those early
episodes too. That’s one of the things we’ve
scheduled for. Okay, great. So episode number
10, she talks about everything that she learned
from Byron Katie. And this was recorded in, she
recorded this episode, well, she published it
in June of 2014. But I remember you had suggested
I listen, you shared with me one of these. one
of Brooke’s episodes, and then I started listening
to them all before we built this house. I remember
listening to them in the apartment that we were
living in before. I’ve got firm memories because
I loved what she was saying so much that I just
created core memories, just like in Inside Out,
the Disney Pixar movie. I created some core memories
around listening to these episodes, right? Episode
10, all about Byron Katie. She talks about Byron
Katie’s book, Loving What Is, and how Katie is
so accepting of circumstances. She’s got a philosophy
of if something did happen, then it was meant
to happen. And not necessarily in a predestination
kind of way. It’s just it happened, and so that
was the way it was supposed to happen. It just
happened that way. You can’t go back and change.
Whether things are, whether it’s going to be
different or not, like you can’t make the past
different. And so accept that what is, is supposed
to be. Does that make sense? Right. What, accept
the circumstance is kind of another way to say
that, right? Yeah. Yeah. I haven’t read Byron
Katie’s book, Loving What Is, but in this episode,
Brooke Castillo says that Katie taught her to
love everything. And a light bulb clicked on
in my head. I’m like, wait a minute. Is this
where I got the idea? Where did I see that before?
Where did I see that before? Wait, I saw it somewhere.
I was reading Gallifreyan the other day. Yeah.
Right? So that’s what my tattoo translates to,
is love everything. And I think it must have
been because of this episode. That you heard
that years ago, and it just got internalized
in you. Yeah. I’m certain of it. I mean, there’s
no other explanation. So this just closes a loop.
It closes a loop of how something happened. You’re
realizing perhaps that’s why you came up with
the idea to love everything. Yeah. Yeah. In combination
to several other books. I remember reading other
books about that too. Now you know that Byron
Katie’s book wrote that, so now you need to read
Byron Katie’s work, book, so that you can, how
to love everything. So I can, right, right. That’s
the thing. I don’t know. Yeah, I’m going to buy
the book. I’m going to buy the Loving What Is
book and then read that and see what else I can
learn from it. Because, I mean, sure, the work
itself might be too elementary for where I’m
at in my maturity progression, right? But I think
there definitely is more to learn about loving.
That book talks about the answer to the work.
So it’s not saying use this work for the rest
of your life. It’s saying once you get past the
work, then you can love what is. It’s automatic.
Surely. Yeah. Yeah. So that’s her conclusion.
That book is what you do after you’ve mastered
the work. Do you have any other thoughts? This
is cool. No. No, I think we’re good. It’s all
how you forgive your life, forgive everything
else, and love what is. Because what is, is what
is. And that’s the idea of the circumstance,
the challenges that you think might be there.
There’s just a circumstance behind it. There’s
a fact that occurs. There’s a reality. What is,
is what is. And if you can love it instead of
be anxious about it, you’re going to be better
off. You really are. going to be better off?
I mean, why would you choose to remain in a worse
off position if you had the choice? And there’s
more, there’s more that Brooke Castillo talks
about. Like there’s a process of deciding what
to do, whether you want to actually change your
thoughts about something, or if, if there’s other
things that you can do, if you, if that’s just
not what you want to do, you’ve got other choices,
you know, definitely. If you like that thought,
I just, yeah, because you choose your, your act,
your personality. I like my personality. I’m
going to keep it. And if it rubs you the wrong
way, we can’t be friends. That’s fine. We don’t
have to be friends. So you’ve got other options
besides choosing how you think about something.
But there’s a lot more in there in her podcast.
And she’s probably got a book, too. You could
pay her to coach you, I’m sure. Yeah. I think
she’s, I don’t know what she’s doing. I believe
she’s moving more towards getting out of. everything
she was doing before. Oh, really? So Brooke Castillo
is, yeah, but her school is going to continue.
There’s plenty of people that she’s trained.
She’s just stepping more out of it. Is that good?
That’s loving what is. Love everything. Let’s
just go forward and love everything. Yeah, that’s
it. Yeah. It’s a good maxim to live by, right?
Yes. And it’s supported by both of these models
we’ve been discussing, both of these work models
and also the other. psychologists that we referenced.
Right. Stephen Covey and Viktor Frankl and…
And Eckhart Tolle and Ellen Langer. Yeah. Right.
And all those wonderful people. [outro] That’s it for
today. That’s it for this week. We really love
to thank everybody for listening all the time.
Anybody that listens, we thank you for even giving
us a portion of your time. Even if you just listened
to five minutes of it, that would be… I hope
that that’s useful. That’s the thing is we hope
it’s even useful. You can get a hold of us if
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call and leave us a message. We have an email
address or a website where we plan on leaving
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things that we talk about. Because we’re always
thinking. And you can’t just leave those things
unsaid, I suppose. You’re welcome. Go to the
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Our website is doyouhaveaminutepodcast.com.
Super simple, I hope. I had thought about shortening
that down to D -Y -H -A -M. But it doesn’t say
anything either. It doesn’t say anything either.
So doyouhaveaminutepodcast.com is where you’ll
want to go for that. And check our show notes
for any other details that you may want to find.
I try to be as comprehensive as I can there.
That’s it. So I hope you have a good day. Right.
Right. Good night. Okay, bye. A good night. Who
knows? Maybe it is night.
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