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Hey, campers, it's Jan from Toyota. This summer we're headed to Camp Toyota and the fun starts now. We're kicking things off by kicking up mud. Jump in, campers. We're going off roading in a 4Runner. Next, we're heading to the hot springs in Arav 4. And finally, park your Tundras and Tacomas around the campfire because we're roasting marshmallows. The summer starts here.

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Dealer inventory may vary so your participating Toyota dealer for details. Event ends June 1st. Toyota let's go Places. I drive my bus in a busy city. That's why road safety is so important to me. I know that I must slow down and be extra careful when I make a wide turn. Buses need more room than cars. Everyone can help keep our roads safe. Next time you're driving, remember to give buses plenty of time and space to finish turning before driving ahead. Let's all plan to share the road safely. Learn how at www.sharetherodesafely.gov. that's right. Today, what we're going to do is we're going to consider the actual opposite of what we've been trained and conditioned to think about. We're going to talk about how to stop taking ourselves and reality too seriously. Now, that is potentially controversial because there's names for people that don't take things seriously. Have you noticed that the world that we live in has been doing most of the thinking for you? That your beliefs, perceptions, reactions, fears, and doubts have been shaped by unsolicited outside noise? How easy it's been for you to slip into that default sleepwalking mode and label it as life and reality? Yeah, that ends here. Welcome to the make sense with Dr. JC podcast. This is your opportunity to start thinking for yourself, reclaim control, and step back into that role as the shot rock caller and dominant force of your own reality. It's when you change the way that you look at things that the things that you look at begin to change. So let's wake up, let's rise up, and let's make sense of why and how shift happens. Makes sense. Great morning, world. Great morning, humans. This is your boy, Dr. J.C. dornick, aka the Dragon. And welcome to another edition of the make sense with Dr. JC podcast. The whole purpose of the Make Sense ecosystem and what we're about to do, as usual, is we're just going to point some things out. This is not a teaching session. This is not me being some sort of a guru, because that's the furthest thing from the truth. I'M just somebody just like you. Maybe I've done a little bit more reading than the average person, a couple books a week. And I'm a doctor of chiropractic, so I've got a little bit of that biology background, background in nutrition. But I've been entrenched for about, about 18 years in neuroscience. When that came on the other side of just going through some tough, like a lot of people and just feverishly learning about the human brain and how we have been programmed and conditioned to look at things a certain way and react in a certain way. And I've created, just wrote the book makes sense how to rewire your mind and transform your life. So the whole premise of my work is the idea of arming and equipping people with the weapon of awareness, giving people back control. Because I think that we've unconsciously lost control of doing the thinking. Because we live in a world that's moving so fast and with algorithms and all of these people vying for our attention without even knowing it, we have let the world start doing the thinking for us. So the whole purpose of these rise ups that we're about to start today is just to point some interesting things out and you know, hopefully make you go. Because when you do that, and that's what it says on my hat, hmm, it means haven't made up my mind. It means I'm gonna think about that. And that's how you reclaim control of your thinking. You just think, you allow yourself to not have to know, to revel and enjoy with comfort, uncertainty, at least for a little while. Because this world's been demanding certainty of you. And that's where we fuck things up, right? So the purpose of this topic and the purpose of all the work in the make sense ecosystem is to just from an open and curious place, point out things and maybe allow ourselves to look at them with a different and alternative perspective. This one is called the burden of seriousness and why your personal growth may be stress in disguise. How could that be? How could personal growth, self development and taking life and yourself seriously, how could that actually be the problem? Have you noticed that the more that you try to fix your life, often the heavier it feels. We start our growth journey. A lot of you are in a growth journey, some sort of transformation. We start our growth journey and our intentions are to feel free. But suddenly our healing feels like something like a choreography. And all of a sudden we notice maybe even more than before, that we're failing at that chore. So if your self improvement has started to feel like a burden. In that sense, you're potentially, maybe you're stuck in a trap and that's this burden of seriousness. So today what we're going to do is we're going to consider, only consider. We're going to entertain and consider how to break that cycle with a simple shift in perspective. And, and we're going to talk about an ancient Hawaiian practice and tradition that will instantly help you restore harmony in your life if you're in the business of doing that today. One thing that's interesting is there's a lot of things about being human that seem logical and rational, but if you're not open and curious, ready, you won't get it. So I say, you know, restore harmony to your life. Some of you are saying that sounds nice, but if your belief system says, but let's get realistic about it, this is an unrealistic conversation that we're about to have. So forewarning, if you're looking to be realistic today and run with the herd and be normal, this is abnormal, not ordinary, extraordinary. Because we're going to step outside not only of the comfort zone, but we're going to step outside the comfort known. These conversations for a lot of people sit in the unknown and that's where the magic happens. And I think a lot of you know that. Stay with me though, until the end because I'm going to share a powerful question at the end, after we've kind of loaded all of this. I'm going to share a powerful question at the end that will most probably immediately reveal whether you're in growth and it's real or it's just stress in disguise. So that's what we're here to figure out today. So let's talk about this trap of taking growth too seriously. How's that possible? Well, I know it's possible because I've taken it too seriously. So wouldn't it be cool if we figured out, and we're going to do that today, how to get comfortable in the unknown? So do you ever find yourself taking yourself too seriously? Not only yourself, but your very existence? I like to acknowledge because I take myself too seriously sometimes and I know this because I let my knee jerk reaction flare up rather than giving myself the chance to think about whether or not I even give a about something or whether or not it matters or that I control it. That's what the interface response system is for. That's what the book is. So ever find yourself taking yourself and maybe your own existence too seriously on this spinning rock that Has a burning sphere rotating around it. Don't forget about the burning sphere rotating around it. Or maybe we're rotating around it. And that that's what keeps it warm. So if you guys enjoy like not freezing, that's kind of cool to have this sun that we can't look at. And if you get too close to, it'll just like vaporize you. But thank God for it. So we're taking ourselves seriously while we're on this. And this spinning rock that we're on is sitting in this thing called space, in this thing called the universe, which as far as we know is infinite. And we'll never be able to determine the edges of the universe because we're all like hurling through space at like speeds that we can't even measure because of this big bang concept. And here we are taking ourselves too seriously while all that is going on. So when I look at why humans take themselves too seriously, I find that the source of us taking ourselves too seriously, it lies within the greatest gift that I think that we've ever been given in our creation and that is our individuality. I think this is where a lot of our problem starts. Think about the fact that you've been blessed and given this identity and individuality and this uniqueness of yourself. And we all have it. I think we're taking it too seriously. We all have this unique perspective. In fact, the whole premise of my work and the interface response system, it actually helps people reclaim control, become the dominant force and the shock caller of what their human experience. So their unique perspective and experience. And we're constantly trying to allow people to come home to themselves and have their own experience. And that's a healthy thing. But what we're going to talk about today is that we're going to acknowledge how humans might be taking that whole thing a little too seriously. And that's what it means to take yourself too seriously. It's to sit in this uniqueness, this individuality that you've been blessed with. You're one of a kind, right? Nobody can compete with you because there's only one of you. Sometimes I think that we take that too seriously. That's right. Today what we're going to do is we're going to consider the actual opposite of what we've been trained and learned and conditioned to think about. We're going to talk about how to stop taking ourselves and reality too seriously. Now that is potentially controversial, right? Because there's names for people that don't take things seriously. Lazy vagabonds, people that just don't take anything too seriously. You know, I wear this shirt and I says, breaking news. I don't care. A lot of people laugh at it, but a lot of people get angry at it. You have to care. There's a whole movement out there about what we have to do. We have to care. I find that interesting who started that movement, because it works, right? Because I find myself feeling like I should care about things even if they don't matter or even if I don't have any control over them. So it starts with this. This is where kind of like my curiosity was first struck on this topic. Because I do a lot of personal growth, a lot of self development, and I find myself coming home to my individuality and my uniqueness and looking at things from my own perspective, choosing the way that I want to look at things, right? So I get lost in that. But one of the things that I've been noticing, and it's been going on my whole life, in so many observations of other people, I noticed that people that are pursuing just like you probably are in many, many ways, everybody, every one of us wants to be happier, healthier and wealthier. We're all seekers of the earth. So whatever it is that you're pursuing, it might be some sort of healing, personal development, spirituality. You know, you might be involved in therapy, you might be a coach, you might be coaching, you might be getting accountability via coaching people or receiving coaching, self improvement, all of that stuff. What I find is how quickly this logical and rational pursuit of becoming better, chasing better, evolving transformation, how quickly it becomes heavy and too serious. This is an interesting observation of it. And this is going to rattle you a little bit. And the message here today is to not stop what you're doing. It's just to become aware, arm you with the weapon of awareness. It's the first step to this idea of living comfortably in the unknown. I like to just recognize that I don't really know everything. That's why I get such a kick out of people that challenge me and come at me and they tell me what they know and that what I said is wrong and stuff like that. They're never going to win that with me because I'm actually open to what they have to say. Because I know, and it's a wise person that recognizes that we don't really know everything, even stuff that we think is certain, right? So we go on all of these breakthrough experiences and you know, it starts with some sort of genuine curiosity, you know, why? Why we go to seminars and why you're listening to this, perhaps, or podcasts or read books and have, you know, masterminds and mentors and all that stuff. But it starts with genuine curiosity, and there's some sort of an insight for a breakthrough that happens, a realization or an awakening. You might have one today, you might have already had one. And I'm looking, hearing about that could be a moment of a situation where something kind of opens up to you. Maybe it came through a book. You know, this conversation could be breath. I'm a big fan of breath work, and I've worked with plant medicine for the past five, six years and meditation, prayer, all of these things. Or maybe even moving through tough times like heartbreak or maybe a hard season. I have these massive breakthroughs and insights when I find myself not quitting and moving through these insights. Maybe some sort of a spiritual experience. So we go through those things and it takes a lot of work, and sometimes we have epiphanies and all of that stuff, and we go, aha. Do you remember the commercial I'm dating myself now for V8 tomato juice, where they used to make that sound, I should have had a V8. That's a fun thing to say every now and then. If you're kind of one of those older people that remember that I always allow myself. It's kind of like a way of doing cognitive distancing and say, oh, I should have had a V8. I love to let myself off the hook. When I catch myself reacting inadvertently, unconsciously to something, rather than beating myself up, I say, oh, I should have had a B8. So we go through all of those experiences, and when we go through those and we have these breakthroughs and insights and these moments of clarity and something opens up and we're leveling up and things for a brief moment during those times, you'll notice that we feel lighter, more open, connected, and also aware. More aware. You might be in that moment right now. It feels really good. And I find that when I'm feeling that way, I feel hopeful, I feel optimistic, I feel confident. So I actually do things to get myself in that state. But then something happens after. And this is the interesting observation that I want to point out. Whether you're aware of it or not, something happens after those moments. We actually tend to grip onto that moment naturally. I mean, if I feel fantastic, I don't want to lose that feeling. So it's kind of like a drug addict getting high. They don't want to lose it. That's why they keep chasing it, right? So the same thing happens with personal growth and insights. We start to grip onto it and maybe chase it a little bit. We turn it into an obsession. That moment of clarity and lightness. We turn it into an obsession and it becomes our mission, which seems like a good idea, but we come to this conclusion. It's kind of like we say, now, we must heal, optimize, grow, and integrate correctly or else. I don't know if you ever take note of that, but sometimes that's the burden of new insight. And this is where we commence in doing the work and embrace the suck and all of that stuff. But what we're entertaining is that another burden of that is we start taking things too seriously. We start being too critical with ourselves and other people. I find that when I go on these, like, extravagant retreats, I've been to the Amazon jungle and done ayahuasca and all of these things, and I just, like, figure the whole thing out. And when I come home, the first thing that I notice is that people don't speak this new language that I have. I almost inadvertently think that I'm better than other people or smarter than people or something like that, right? And I just start taking everything so seriously, and I get critical and I start putting other people down and I start beating myself up because it's not working. I run an integration group with my friend Billy for those people that have those experiences, and they all claim to be struggling to keep this feeling alive in a world that doesn't have that feeling, right? So there's an example of the burden of seriousness. Suddenly, this thing that was supposed to free us becomes another form of pressure. We become critical of how everything and everyone else isn't aligned with this new version of what is right and this new way of thinking. Here's an interesting part of this game, and I have so much fun researching this stuff, watching YouTube videos, and reading books. God, I'm reading so many books right now. I'm at the point where I think I'm reading too much. There's never an end to the books, but I'm reading like two books a week right now. Shout out to my friend Jim Quick taught me how to speed, read and retain. I know it's a healthy thing to read, but I like. I spend quite a bit of time reading. But seriousness is actually often familiar. Now remember, unfamiliar is probably where growth takes place. We're playing with that. But here's a realization that made me kind of go about this what if seriousness, this thing that we're trying to stay in or become. What if seriousness itself is actually the familiar pattern, not the unfamiliar? Because, remember, we're in a world that's teaching us, hey, get serious. Are you ready to get serious? So what I'm saying is, what if seriousness is actually the default mode, familiar pattern? What if the heaviness that we've now obtained from this isn't wisdom, but conditioning? What we're entertaining right now is what if getting serious is a conditioned thing to do? Well, I can tell you one thing. I was taught from a very young age to get serious. I'm very, very much in tune with that. Alex says this. I've so strongly felt that frustration of other people not knowing what I know. Yeah, of course, I. God forbid anybody doesn't know what Alex knows. Right. How frustrating is that? It's kind of like something that happens in relationships, too, when you. When you determine that there isn't a match. You know, it's like we're so critical about, like, chemistry. And if the chemistry is just off just a touch, then the relationship is not made for perfection. For many of us, seriousness has always felt like responsibility. Doesn't it feel like you're being responsible when you take things serious? So if you're not taking life seriously, people consider you to be irresponsible. God forbid you just have a good time and play a little bit. But if you don't take life seriously, especially when somebody else is, you're irresponsible. So seriousness has always felt like responsibility, like maturity, discipline, or being on top of things. But often seriousness is just the unconscious desire for. For control. Is anybody here looking to get out of control? Probably not. You might say yes to be silly, right. Or you might be in a season where you're kind of out of control. But I would assume that it doesn't feel good. Right. Felt good when I was a kid to be out of control. So this idea of trying to be in control, this unconscious desire for control, so that pressure and fear of getting it wrong, that's what's scary about it. That's why we get serious. We have this pressure and fear of getting things wrong, along with the fear of letting go go and being uncertain, all of that stuff. Dressed up in a respectable and reasonably appropriate piece of clothing. It's like we're trying to portray all of that stuff. I think that's why so many people burn out on their journeys and these journeys of transformation. They don't fail because they lack things like desire. They fail because they turn growth into some sort of overwhelming performance. We take the concept of personal growth. And we make it so freaking serious and we put so much pressure on ourselves and we're so critical of everything going so well. And you know, you get your mentorship and you read your books about saying like, you know, it's progress, not perfection. All of the messages are there and they're packaged into the whole thing. Here we are still taking ourselves so seriously. And thank God, because the personal growth industry needs you to be a mess. Right? Isn't that funny? I think the personal growth industry, and I would assume I'm in it, my podcast sits at number four in the world in education and self development. I should probably go into the schools and start teaching 6 year olds this stuff so they don't get up and they don't need all of this work. So they don't fail because they lack desire. They fail because they turn growth into some sort of overwhelming performance. It's almost like a familiar addiction that we have to control. So there's something deeply human about this. As humans, we tend to cling to what's familiar even when it hurts us. What's up with that? We tend to cling to things that seem familiar, even if it's something that is unhealthy or it hurts us. Why? Here's why. The reason is, is that it's familiar. This concept of familiar feel safe. Even if the familiar is something like anxiety. How the hell could we look at something like anxiety, which I struggled with many, many years of my life, and it sucks. I do not recommend anybody experience it, even though we all do, or even when this familiar thing could be something like anxiety or overthinking, stress or pressure, those things that we're constantly trying to eradicate and avoid, what if those are the familiar? What if that's the baseline safe thing to revert back to? And I'll throw that question out to people. Is anybody here perpetually feeling anxious or stressed or maybe overthinking things and you're ready to understand and maybe kind of come to terms with that's being your familiar. That's your safe zone. And what is the value of doing something like that? Well, I know that if I have too much anxiety and I'm overwhelmed and I'm overthinking things, I know that I end up using that as a reason to not do something. That's a safe place. That's a safe place. It's kind of like having an out, like a trap door built into the whole personal growth thing. And when we begin to loosen our grip on Those familiar patterns that we just talked about, like, if, say, I'm not going to be anxious anymore, I'm not going to do this anymore. The unknown appears. Here we are again. Oh, the unknown. And how does the unknown feel? It feels risky and it feels dangerous. If we look at the logical, rational thing to do to move forward, what we're saying is we got to get out of the safe place and move into a risky and dangerous place. So what do you do when you assess that you're at a risky and dangerous and overwhelming place? Right. You go back to the familiar. You go back to the.