part0014

The human brain is the most amazing processing machine on the planet. At this moment in time, it’s by far the most powerful computing machine. There are 2,500,000 gigabytes of storage space in your brain. There are roughly 100 billion neurons in the brain (roughly the same number of stars in the Milky Way) with another 1 quadrillion (1 million billion) connections known as synapses that fire up to speeds of 280 MPH. At the time of this writing, the fastest supercomputer in the world doesn’t come close to the processing speed of the human brain. In 2014, researchers in Japan tried to match the processing power in one second from one percent of the brain. That doesn’t sound like much, and yet it took the fourth fastest supercomputer on the planet (the K Computer) 40 minutes to crunch the calculations for a single second of brain activity. Perhaps the most impressive feature of this three-pound supercomputing machine is its restorative capacities. This neuroplasticity allows the brain to form new neural circuits and fully heal damage that alcohol may have caused. The brain’s capability of rewiring itself allows us to write a new narrative and completely depart from the past.

The thinking brain is a powerful tool. But just like any tool, there are many ways to use it. Let’s take a hammer for example. You can build your dream home with it or you can go into a museum and destroy everything in sight. For some, the thinking brain can be used to create a wonderful and happy life. For others it can fabricate an internal prison. As the grips of my addiction tightened, I experienced the latter of these two.

The human brain has 60,000-70,000 thoughts per day and most of them are wrong. In fact, we are probably one of the only species to have thoughts about our thoughts, and most of those thoughts are wrong. A single thought, which is comprised of energy at the atomic level, has the capacity to change our lives. What happens if we hitch our wagon to an incorrect thought? What happens when we start to connect a series of thoughts that aren’t necessarily true? Dr. Joe Dispenza explains this in his book, You Are the Placebo .

If you think a certain way, you begin to create an attitude. An attitude is a cycle of short-term thoughts experienced over and over again. Attitudes are shortened states of being. If you string a series of attitudes together, you create a belief. Beliefs are more elongated states of being and tend to become subconscious. When you add beliefs together, you create a perception. Your perceptions have everything to do with the choices you make, the behaviors you exhibit, the relationships you chose, and the realities you create.

A single thought, regardless of whether it’s right or wrong, can determine the outcome of our lives. These thoughts, which turn into attitudes, which turn into states of being, which create beliefs, which eventually settle at the unconscious part of the brain and this becomes who we are—our personality. According to Dispenza, 95% of who you are by age 35 is a set of memorized behaviors, skills, emotional reactions, beliefs, perceptions and attitudes that functions like a computer program at the unconscious level. Our reactions to present moment events are 95% preconditioned.

How we think and how we feel create our entire states of being and nearly all of these thoughts and beliefs are based on past experiences. Therefore, a couple of things happen. We continue to recreate the past. Familiar past experiences will sooner or later become predictable future experiences. This is why it can be so difficult to exit abusive relationships, stick with a new diet, or move forward in life without alcohol. In addition, when we are creating a future based on past experiences, we start each day not in a state of presence but in a whirlwind of past thoughts, and most of them were incorrect from the start.

It’s incredibly difficult to get messages to the unconscious part of the brain, especially when we’re blind to the hundreds of unconscious programs on autopilot. The conscious 5% is constantly bumping up against the unconscious 95% and this bump turns into a major clash if we are trying to make any significant change in life. It can be nearly impossible to see past the thinking analytical part of the brain if you’re not aware of what’s happening. Telling the unconscious mind that I’m positively, 100%, without a doubt, never again in my entire life drinking again sounds promising, but only a fraction of that declaration makes it to the unconscious mind. Hundreds of times, I made this a non-negotiable internal announcement and felt confident that a new chapter in life had commenced. Things felt different, then after the passing of a few short hours, the sails began to lose wind and within a matter of time, usually within the same day, I was drinking again. If we are not privy to the power of the unconscious mind, we find ourselves not in the driver’s seat of life but being pulled by twine on a wobbly skateboard. The unconscious is clever, and it allows us the belief that we’re in control, but we’re not. Not even close.

So, what is this thinking/unconscious mind? Who is the unconscious mind? Is it me? Is this who I am? I’ve got wonderful news for you. No, it’s not who you are. Not at all. You are the one that experiences the thinking mind. You are not the voice inside your head, but the one who hears it. Figuring this out on your own is like starting off with a level 10 Sudoku puzzle. The Buddha had to relinquish his life of riches, wander about northern India as a beggar for seven years, then meditate for seven straight days under a bodhi tree before he realized this truth. The ancient Egyptians, on hieroglyphs, display the power of the unconscious mind and how unchecked collective thinking can cause extreme pain and suffering. Another dude named Jesus also recognized this and it became a core of his teachings .

Yep, I confirmed, that’s what the book says. You mean I’m not the one constantly calling myself a “fucking idiot” for not being able to quit drinking, but I’m the one who hears it, and not the one who says it? Since my mind was completely blown at that moment, I didn’t fully comprehend the idea, but it set the ball rolling. I know this may be confusing, but overall, this is fantastic news when we’re looking at addiction and quitting drinking.

There is nothing more important to true growth than realizing that you are not the voice of the mind, but the awareness listening to it. So, if I’m not the voice inside my head, then who is it…? This is the most important action item of this book, and perhaps you’re about to make the most important introduction of your life. Are you ready for this? Perhaps put this book down and take some deep breaths first.

Are you ready to start creating space in the mind? To distance yourself from the incessant chatter that was never you in the first place? Are you ready to start being, and stop thinking? Are you ready? I’m pumped for what’s about to happen next. You’re about to meet a part of you that you initially believed was the full you. Don’t worry, no need to put on a blazer or makeup, we are going internal for this one. Are you ready? I think you are .

Here’s how you meet this voice. You should be able to get a full view of this person in only a matter of moments. Find a comfortable place to sit and then do this: ask yourself what your next thought is going to be and then wait…. There should be a couple-second pause and then… “why, hello,” there it is. That voice isn’t you, but your internal roommate. You are not the emotion, the anger, the jealousy, the depression, the anxiety, the addiction, but the one who experiences it.

I don’t use the words “game changer” lightly but recognizing this is just that, a total game changer. Since recognizing I wasn’t the one calling myself a loser for drinking so much, I was able to start distancing myself from those thoughts. When the voice would say, “Paul, you fucking idiot,” (that seemed to be the go-to narrative for a good 15 years), I began to take it less personally. It softened and no longer carried the destructive power it had before. In fact—and this is proof that monumental progress has taken place—around year 3 AF, this internal voice called me a “goofball” for the first time. Simply being aware that this inner voice isn’t me has allowed its impact to lighten. I’m now a goofball and not a fucking idiot. Great news! In fact, I’ve always been a goofball and I’ve never been a fucking idiot. (Okay, maybe one time when in a drunken state I found myself on the rooftop of my dormitory at Chapman University and thought a pile of bushes would adequately catch me as I jumped off the roof from the second story…fuck, that hurt so bad.)

So why is this voice so hard to recognize? It’s because it doesn’t want to be discovered. It’s a protective personality of sorts, or more commonly referred to as the ego, which is the unconscious mind. I’ve found we get more work done when we call it the protective personality, but they are both the same thing. Spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle refers to the ego as a dysfunctional relationship with the present moment. Albert Einstein referred to the ego as an optical illusion of consciousness. Buddhism argues that your idea of who “you” are is an arbitrary mental construction (beliefs based on past experiences) and that you should let go of the idea that “you” or your definition of “who you are” exist at all. It can be argued that the focal point of the 12 Steps of A.A. is to expose this protective personality. The ego creates an internal prison when we are fully identified with the thinking mind. Most of us (and I know I was) are unaware of a reality without thinking because we have landed upon a sense of self, an identity, based on these thoughts. The ego feels—and this is for the most part true—that part of you would no longer exist if you no longer identified with these thoughts of who you think you are. The less we identify with the protective personality, the easier it becomes to deal with tsunami waves of life when they come. It’s possible, to still be comfortable, in extremely uncomfortable life situations. This is because our identity, or “who we are,” becomes less contingent on the materialistic or external world. Once our sense of self is no longer derived from stories the mind creates, then even though the waves of life on the surface may be 60-foot swells caused by gale force winds, the sea underneath remains calm.

The protective personality loves routine. No matter how much I wanted to quit drinking, and despite the acute emotional pain, there was comfort living in the hamster wheel of addiction because it was predictable. It was the known. If I were to move forward in life without alcohol, who would I be? What would life be like? Would I be the same person? The protective personality doesn’t like exploring this question. It likes a predictable future based off past experiences.

As we grow up, we form a mental construct of who we are based on personal experiences and environmental conditioning. If we choose to no longer identify with this narrative, this sense of self, things can get uncomfortable fast, regardless of how happy or sad we are in life. As the 17th century French Philosopher Descartes said, “I think, therefore I am,” and the ego tells us that the only way to survive, to be, is to constantly think. To the protective personality, where you’re at right now—this very moment—holds little importance because the ego’s survival is based on dwelling in the past or trying to predict the future. The protective personality is constantly concerned with reliving the past because these experiences define who you are and why you act the way you do. The ego relentlessly casts itself into the future to ensure its survival isn’t challenged. It does this by incessantly working towards new goals, accumulating external possessions, more things and new experiences. It’s the voice inside the head, that says, one day, when I have this job, have a bigger house, significantly more money in the bank and season tickets to the Broncos, I’ll be happy. It’s responsible for the narrative of “when this happens” or “when the problem goes away,” then everything will be okay. If we were able to magically remove all our problems in life, it’s only a matter of time before new ones start showing up, and ironically, the ego needs these life dramas to survive.

The trap the ego sets is that all these events occur in the past and future, which pulls attention and focus away from the present moment. We are always seeking a future state of happiness or dwelling on an experience in the past where we were “right” and someone else was “wrong.” Even if the protective personality does concern us with the present, it’s an incorrect perception, because it says we got here from these past experiences and circumstances, not because we are simply here.

Now that the initial introduction has been made to this protective personality, I want you to start observing the mind as the watcher and not as the one who is thinking. This takes practice. Shit tons of practice. The ego has been at the joystick for decades and it’s not going to hand over the reins overnight. The point is to start creating gaps in thinking. At first, these gaps may be a few brief seconds, a couple times a day, but it’s important we aim towards forging more space in the mind and body without thought. Observing beauty in nature, such as a sunset or sunrise, is a great way to insert gaps in thinking. Nature has a system built in to naturally create these gaps in thinking for you. Next time you’re outside and you see lightning, nature has pulled you into the present moment as you wait to hear thunder. The same occurs directly after you hear thunder overhead as your body awaits the first drops of rain. These true states of “no mind” are nudges from nature to create more gaps in thinking. At first, one to two seconds is all the mind can take without thinking. That’s a great start, and we’ll continue to build on this.

It’s not my point to give the impression that we need to completely annihilate the ego. This isn’t possible. There is no thing as permanent ego disillusionment. For many, the goal of doing plant medicine is complete ego annihilation. In fact, when a group of us went to an Ayahuasca retreat in Costa Rica called Rythmia, we had shirts made up that said, “Ego Annihilation Tour, 2019.” Complete removal of the ego isn’t possible. We need the protective personality; it serves a purpose. The brain is a powerful tool and we need to access the past to make informed decisions for a better future. A paramount goal in this book is to reprioritize the ego. To take it down a couple notches. To question the validity of thoughts that surface from the unconscious mind. To allow thoughts, feelings and emotions to surface without labeling them as bueno or no bueno, and then allowing them to leave on their own. To keep in mind that whatever is coming, is going. No matter how uncomfortable a thought or emotion is, it will pass if we allow it to. You have the ability, and we will deepen into this practice later, to let go of ALL thoughts.

As I mentioned, we do need the protective personality or the ego. It does serve a purpose; however, this part of the human brain is completely under-developed, and a reprioritization of this protective personality is the next phase of human evolution. Our species of humans, “homo sapiens,” have been around for less than 300,000 years. If you were to spread your arms out and your wingspan represents the longevity of the human race, our stay would represent the tip of a fingernail. We are a new species that has some serious kinks to work out. To confirm this, all a person has to do is turn on the news or open a history book. The unchecked ego was responsible for over 100 million deaths of our own kind in the 20th century alone. Our species becomes materialist when fully identified with the ego, which never results in long term happiness. For some, this pursuit of materialism can be so strong that it can create a hell on earth, as was the case during the rules of Hitler, Mao Zedong and the Cameroon Regime, to name a few. These are exciting, yet scary times to be a human. 350 years ago, humans were armed with axes and swords while today the human ego has devised ways to end life on the planet with the push of a button. Detaching from the thinking brain is the next stage of human evolution. It has to be. It is this thinking mind that has already compromised the future of humanity.

Because of its phantom nature and elaborate defense mechanisms, the ego is very vulnerable and insecure. The ego sees itself as constantly under threat. Fear seems to have many causes. Fear of loss, fear of failure, fear of being hurt, fear of being alone and so on. But ultimately all fear is the ego’s fear of death. To the ego, death is always just around the corner. Fear of death in the ego may present itself in a trivial argument with the need to be right and make the other person wrong. Defending a position in which you have identified is due to the fear of death. If you identify with a mental position, then if you are wrong, your mind-based sense of self is seriously threatened with annihilation. So, you as the ego cannot afford to be wrong. To be wrong is to die.

As previously stated, the protective ego serves a purpose and is a valuable tool. It’s possible to have a healthy or an unhealthy ego.

In subsequent chapters, we will cover more in depth of how to address the incessant thinking patterns and the reprioritization of the ego. A great way to start is with the breath, and we’ve already had some “breath breaks” in this book. The ego resides in the past and future, therefore liberation from the thinking mind is in the present and we tap into this with the breath. The grounding power of the breath can be utilized at all hours of the day and not just on the meditation cushion .

Here’s an important action item. Insert conscious breathing into different parts of your day, where you place as much attention as possible simply into your own breath. Go ahead and try it now. You may need to place a sticky note on your work desk or set reminders on your smart phone. I have implemented a practice, which I have come to enjoy, taking two to three conscious breaths before exiting the car. While focusing on the breath, I look up and wait till I’m aware of the clouds moving before exiting the vehicle. Nowadays, just like the weather, my body can allow emotions to pass while taking these deep belly breaths. Sounds basic, but it’s had a profound effect on my life.

After attending hundreds of 12 Step meetings, interviewing over two hundred and fifty people for the Recovery Elevator podcast, and tracking my own personal experiences, I feel it’s safe to say that those who struggle with addiction have overwhelmingly identified with thought. We are living in our heads and gaps of ‘no thought’ are rare or don’t happen at all. After becoming aware of this voice inside my head that was never me in the first place, I quickly realized it never shut up. That it was a nonstop ruminating machine that, at first, I had little control over. I had become so attached with the thoughts of the mind, I was constantly living in the past and future, and there was little to no room for the joy which resides in the present moment.

At most 12 Step meetings this tendency can be observed within a handful of shares. Often the chair of a meeting will start off with a topic. Then the next person will say “great topic,” and then proceed to quickly deviate from the subject and talk about their own inner struggles which have nothing to do with the prompt. At some meetings this can continue for a full sixty minutes.

What happens when we cease to incessantly think? When we begin to depart from the thinking mind, we tap into a vast realm of intelligence beyond thought and that cannot be sourced within the thinking mind. Einstein said that the majority of his scientific breakthroughs occurred at a moment when there was no thought, no mind. Most thought leaders, scientists, artists, authors, musicians, inventors, engineers, and more admit that their most profound lightbulb moments or periods of creation came when they weren’t thinking. When we are in a state of no-mind, or no-thought, creativity arises. The most creative individuals on the planet—Shakespeare, Mozart, Van Gogh—demonstrate the power of this creative intelligence that we can all tap into once we quiet the mind. Looking back, I recognize that I can’t take credit for any of the seemingly good ideas I’ve had. The idea for the Recovery Elevator podcast, a project to keep me sober, came to me in a state of no-mind. I was standing, or let’s go with hiding, behind a tree before entering an A.A. meeting in the fall of 2014. My mind was busy thinking of excuses of why I couldn’t attend the meeting. I didn’t want anyone to see me, I had work to do, I was too busy, I had 50+ days of sobriety under my belt so, “I got this,” (the three most dangerous words someone with a drinking problem can say). My addiction had successfully convinced me that a 5:30 p.m. meeting wasn’t necessary, that I was cured for life. Before heading back to my vehicle, something came to me which wasn’t in thought format. It came at the gut level. At that moment, I knew I was going drink again if I didn’t do something differently. A couple of seconds later, the idea of a podcast, as a tool to hold myself accountable showed up in the solar plexus region of my body. A podcast? Fuck? Really? Me coming out to the world about my goal of quitting drinking in audio format for anyone to hear? No way, not a chance. The idea terrified me, but I knew it had to happen. Without that sliver of no-thought, the podcast doesn’t happen. This book doesn’t happen. My sobriety probably wouldn’t have lasted much longer than 50 days. The inner peace I experience today, that continues to grow within, wouldn’t be part of my life without that brief gap in thinking. That’s how powerful a single gap in thinking can be.

There’s a reason this chapter is placed well before the “how to” segment of this book. Unchecked thinking, full identification with the protective personality, is perhaps the biggest driver in our addiction. We are unable to think ourselves out of addiction because thinking is a primary driver of an addiction. Take a moment and analyze whether you have been able to successfully think yourself into sobriety or moderate drinking. If this were the case, you wouldn’t be reading this book. I’ve asked over 250 interviewees if they have been able to successfully think themselves out of this pickle and I’m still waiting on the first “yes” response. I ask interviewees if they have ever put rules into place with their drinking—no drinks before 5 p.m., never drink alone, switching from spirits to beer, etc. The second part of the question is whether any of these self-invented rules worked. Some clear trends have emerged. All 250 podcast guests have used the thinking mind to create and implement new rules in hopes of controlling their drinking and not one guest has reported a success story over the long run. I’m a firm believer that we can’t think ourselves into a better relationship with alcohol. When we do have those breakthrough moments during this journey—saying to ourselves, “I need to tell someone about my drinking,” or “Fuck—I can’t do this alone, I need to start to start a podcast to create accountability,”—these bits of genuine truth arrive when there are gaps in thinking. This wisdom that arrives in a state of no mind is so powerful that only a fraction of no-thought is sufficient .