SAMIA: Yeah! Okay, okay. Now I will say I actually agree with you. But I'm going to ask you a question just to see like where you're coming from and for the benefit of our audience...So you said that life is not meant to be hard, it's not meant to be a struggle. If it feels that way it's just a misalignment. But there are so many people out there in the world who don't believe that you know. There's that... I don't know, some famous philosopher I'm forgetting what's his name... but this line is stuck in my head from the time I took an intro to philosophy class, where he's like, "Life is nasty, brutish and short". And that is like a perspective you know that so many people hold, that that's the way life is... it's nasty, brutish and short. And so if I'm having a hard time in my life it's not because there's something wrong with me. It's not because I'm self-sabotaging, it's because that's the way life is. It's nasty, brutish and short. So why... what's your basis for believing that it's not meant to be hard, that it's anything other than nasty, brutish and short, like what's your...like what's your foundation for believing that?

SAMIA: Nasty, brutish and short.

ZACK: Okay, so then this will most likely be one's life experience if this is their outlook. And so the reason why I say this is because you make, you brought up an interesting perspective that life is this way, and because I experience problems it's not because there's something... it's not because of something I'm doing or not doing correctly or incorrectly, it's because this is how life is. And the problem with that belief system is it sets one up to be disempowered and irresponsible, or not responsible for the quality of their life. So what we know about perception is that it creates our experience of reality. Our perception is based on our level of consciousness... our level of consciousness, we could think of spiritual consciousness, influences the filter through which we see the world and interact and engage with the world. So because we are projecting, you know it's been said before... I don't know if it was Rumi or Ramana Maharshi, or one of those, that said, the world you see... something to the effect of... doesn't exist", right. And when you hear this quote it sounds interesting, it sounds good. But when you're not really there yet, what does it mean, righ? It's kind of, it's kind of a bit confusing. And it's also how can one come to this level of understanding, right? So what this means is that the way in which we experience the world isn't based on objective reality or truth. It's literally based on our experience of what is perceived. So therefore one is not actually experiencing the world, they're experiencing themselves outwardly... So we're only actually experiencing an outward projection of what is within. We can only perceive that which we are the vibration of. So if one continues to believe that life is a certain way and I play no role in the quality of my life, then that sets up one for a life of... it's a victim, victim mentality. It's also that I have no ability to influence the quality of my life. I don't have to take responsibility. And I see it essentially as a cop-out. I can just throw my hands up and say, "Look, I'll just hope things get better. I don't know why they're good for them and why they're not for me, but I'm just... I'm not going to accept the fact that I have something to do with my life”. And I see it as a kind of intellectual or spiritual laziness. That's how I choose to see it. Because it's just not... it's not a... First of all, it's a perception. So it's not objective truth. And yeah, it's just that when we understand the nature of the ego mind, we understand that if one is viewing from the ego, they can only view illusion. They cannot view objective truth.

SAMIA: Can you explain a little bit more or define what you mean by ego mind for those people who are not familiar with that terminology?

ZACK: Yeah, the ego, well the ego is like, think of it like a computer program. So the ego is here in this like in our consciousness throughout our existence in this 3D physical time-space reality, and it really serves the function or the purpose of keeping us alive. It's designed to see through... to see through the filter of separation. So think of the Newtonian paradigm of reality that everything consists of matter, everything is of matter. And so because everything is matter, this is the world or the perception of duality -- separation, everything is separate. You are separate from me, I am separate from you, we're all separate and we are also separate from God.

SAMIA: Right.

ZACK: In this belief system.

SAMIA: Right.

ZACK: So the Newtonian paradigm of reality was what dominated the collective unconscious for as long as it has. But it's no longer as relevant as it once was. And the Newtonian paradigm is really just based on egoic perception. So the ego, the ego serves the function to keep us alive. For the... for/by in this way... it says because everything is separate and you need to stay alive, we're going to determine what is friend and what is enemy, what is food, what is the ability to reproduce with this person... I'm gonna eat this, I'm gonna not eat that... And so the the idea is to see through separation purely for the purpose of survival. So without your ego you wouldn't be here. It's important to understand that the ego is not the enemy, it's doing the best it can. But it's inherently limited by virtue of what it's designed to do.

SAMIA: Yes! Yes... okay, okay, cool! So if right now I am stuck in my ego consciousness and my ego mind, and I'm self-sabotaging, what is one thing that I can do to begin to shift myself out of that kind of limited mindset? <

ZACK: It's well, okay, good question. The first thing you need to do is become aware. The reason why people sabotage isn't because they want to, they're not consciously choosing or deciding to suffer.

SAMIA: Yeah, that's what I was like. I don't want to suffer. I didn't want to suffer. That's why I didn't want to believe I could be self-sabotaging.

ZACK: No one consciously wants to suffer. This is, this is a matter of the unconscious mind. So the unconscious mind is 95% of the mind, right. And the unconscious mind can be kind of equated with the ego mind. It's there as like the hard drive, it's just there to run the autonomic nervous system, parts of the body that you don't have to. You don't have to consciously decide to remember to breathe, to beat your heart, to take care of all these inner systems going on that's keeping you alive. And the unconscious mind will learn based on its past. So it will decide that this is who you are, this is your identity based on whatever you experience usually within those developmental years from birth to roughly seven or eight. But obviously beyond that as well, but in that period of time you're in a hypnotic state, a waking hypnotic state. Which is why you'll see kids in that age range that seem to be in their... well not seem to be, they're in their own world, right. They're in this imaginative world because they're in a state of hypnosis called “Somnambulism”. And in this state of hypnosis they're highly, highly, suggestible. So they're just absorbing everything good or bad into the unconscious mind. This forms one's identity of self and model of the world. So whatever the content, the quality of the content of what's been absorbed in the unconscious mind, that serves as the operating system for that individual. And so we can, if someone is sabotaging, all they're doing is expressing these conditioned ways of being.

SAMIA: Right.

ZACK: And so it's not again that they're consciously doing this, it's all unconscious. And this is why they'll say, "Look, why can't I stop this behavior?” Or why is... like, “why is life like this for me? I don't want it to be. But I just can't seem to change things... I can't seem to stop feeling this way about this and that…”, and so on and so forth. So it's entirely unconscious, and all that's required is to first become consciously aware or familiar with the self, the version of you, the conditioning and programming that you no longer want to be... that's step one. Until that point of conscious awareness people are in a state of unconscious incompetence, right. They're in ignorance, they don't know what they don't know. And so very often they'll just carry on this unconscious conditioning unaware as to what's going on or the role they play. And this sets up the belief then for, "Ah life is this way! They're successful for some reason, and so are they, and I just got dealt a bad hand".

SAMIA: Yeah, yeah. I agree with you. I agree with you awareness is the very first step of creating change. It has to be. Because if you're not even aware of what the problem is, how can you come up with an effective solution, you know. Then you... well, you might come up with a solution by accident, like you might do something that works. But it's not something that you'll be able to do from a place of empowerment, it's not something that you would be able to do by consciously choosing to do that, you know. So then your life will feel very out of control... it's like sometimes things work out, but a lot of times it doesn't work out, and you don't know why. And so that feeling of being out of control, I think that's a really terrible feeling that I know I struggled with a lot. And that is ultimately what motivated me to say, like, seek a different way, to learn what I could, and like you know, how can I get more control of my life, because it just felt so terrible to be out of control.

ZACK: Yeah! Well, when the feeling that it began to feel so terrible to be out of control, is becoming more uncomfortable with the standard of lack of control, loss of control that you are experiencing... because when people are in their comfort zone no matter how bad life is, people can become comfortable anywhere... anywhere. And no matter how comfortable one is, if they're still comfortable I should say, no matter how bad life is, one can remain comfortable with that level of suffering. When it becomes uncomfortable that's a really good sign because it's an indication that you're starting to move away from what was once comfortable. And so it's also an indication of your standards raising, and saying on an energetic level, "I'm beginning to no longer allow this of myself or for myself!". So it's a really good sign. Oftentimes people will just be kind of wired to evade or avoid any of that pain. But it's important to understand that there's a meaning behind it. And if it's felt in that context through which you described, it's actually quite a good sign.

SAMIA: Yes! Yeah, I think maybe, like for me, that also has to do with the nature of the healing process. Like if you have experienced some kind of trauma, sometimes, you know, you fall into avoidance or denial because you don't as yet have the capacity to deal with that trauma, to deal with that pain. And so your mind, your brain, they just sort of suppress it. But when you are able to deal with them, and you have the capacity to deal with it, then they can begin to surface and you begin to sort of begin to feel that discomfort and that need to do something different and create change. I know in my experience, I know when I was a child, I didn't have the capacity to deal with the trauma of being a victim of child sexual abuse. I just didn't. And so my mind did the best it could and it suppressed a lot of that... but as I grew older, I developed more capacity to deal with it, the memory started to come back... things started to bother me that for years had not bothered me, you know, things like that. So sometimes I think it's also just that it's like part of the healing process and where you are with that.

ZACK: Yeah, most definitely, I agree.

SAMIA: Cool, cool! All right, let's see, I think maybe we can sort of... I'll throw this out as a last question for you for today. This podcast you know, we are all about learning to make things more fun and easy. So I'm a happiness expert. I love to be happy. I want to help other people to be happy. And so to create more fun and ease in our life, that is a huge, huge thing for me. So can you share with us one tip that can help people make it more fun and easy to stop self-sabotaging and become more empowered in their lives?

ZACK: Sure! I think a lot of people are conditioned to resist positive emotions, and resist just being happy for no reason, and resist just the higher levels of energy in higher states. Because very often most people are living unconsciously, and they're in the past or future. And they're not tapped in and tuned into the perfection and timelessness of the present moment. And if you think of a child, when they're in those formative years, those developmental years, very often they're in their own world of happiness. And they can make whatever they imagine come true for them in that moment because of their imagination and their connection to the present moment. So when you choose with your conscious mind to let go of focusing on the past, let letting go of the guilt, the resentment of the past, letting go of the anxiety, and the anticipation, the fear of the future, and you bring your awareness into the present moment, you enable yourself to become free of those attachments which are illusory. So when you bring your awareness back into the present you free up this energetic reservoir that's lying dormant within, waiting for you to tap into it simply through giving your attention to it. And if you become present in the now, and in that moment of awareness, consciousness, and presence, choose to exercise your free will and decide to be how you want to be... well then, what are you doing? Take complete control over your consciousness, your life, and you're freeing yourself from the past, the future... and decide, how do I want to think and feel? Gratitude is a phenomenal, simple level of energy that each and every one of us have the ability and the opportunity to tap into at any moment for any reason. Become grateful, decide to be present, aware, and just decide to feel good now. It may be a little unusual at first because we're not really conditioned to do this. Go easy on yourself, do this with patience, persistence, and just decide to be happy.  

SAMIA: Okay, I will ask you one more follow-up question.

ZACK: Sure!

SAMIA: That is, if I'm really struggling to find something to be grateful for right now or to stay focused in the present... Do you have any tips for how I can tap into that gratitude attitude, or be more present in the moment at a time when I'm feeling really caught by the worries and the stresses of my past or future?

ZACK: Yeah! I think, I think in terms of, you know a lot of people will often trick themselves into thinking that they're in the now... they think, "Okay, I am here, I'm present, I'm in the now. But I still have these problems, so what do I do? How do I reconcile this?... Because, in the now, I'm not supposed to have any problems, right? So why do I still have problems if I'm in the now?". Well, being in the now... see oftentimes you'll be like, okay well look, something just happened to me five seconds ago, and I'm now suffering. But I'm still... this is, this is all happening now. Well, actually, it's the past. The past. Right now, when I say this in two seconds or one second, it'll be the past. So there's a, there's a really fine razor's edge of the present moment that the ego is not capable of recognizing, or acknowledging. And stepping into this is not an egoic process. And this does take practice and readiness. So understand that the now is an instant, it's an instant. And also when one is saying, "I'm in the now, I think I'm in the now, yet I'm still aware of my so-called problems, and so therefore it's hard for me to tap into a higher energy now". The only way one can experience a problem is due to attachment to it, right... the famous Buddha quote, "The root of all suffering is attachment". So if the root of all suffering is attachment, then it doesn't matter what one is attached to. It's the attachment itself that causes the suffering. It's the resistance to... people will resist, I resist this thing, I'm resisting this problem, I'm resisting this person... And it's the resistance to it that charges the attachment, energizes it, and creates the suffering. So the surrendering to the... the surrender of the desire to change is like a cheat code. If you surrender, “I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna look to change this, I'm not going to look to analyze this, I'm not going to look to judge it, to criticize it, to opinionate on it, I'm just going to be…”. Because if the ego mind is going, it's analyzing, it's criticizing, it's wondering, it's wishing, it's waiting, it's wanting, it's hoping... Well, that's keeping me attached to the past and future. So if I just stop the mental chatter and the meaningless gyrations of the ego mind, maybe I'll find peace of mind. And so it's about... so in summary there, it's about recognizing, well, what am I attached to? If my intention is to get into the now, why is it challenging for me right now? Well, let's turn within and ask ourselves, what am I attached to in this moment? Oh, it's what happened to me this morning... It's what that person said on the phone... xyz. Well, let's surrender my desire and need to change it or them, fill in the blank, and just let go completely... do it, do it again, do it again, do it again. It's like meditation. Try and settle the mind... Oh, the mind goes. Okay, bring it back... oh, the mind goes. Okay, that's okay, bring it back", right.

ZACK: Yeah, exactly!

SAMIA: Okay, okay! You know, we/I do want to wrap up for today. But we have to bring you back because just what you are sharing right now made me think of like some more really important questions that I would love to talk about next time... you know particularly the relationship between letting go of what we are attached to, and that, you know, being a critical aspect of how we achieve peace and stay present in the moment. And at the same time you know how that can potentially feel like a conflict with our need to be in control of things, you know. So I would love to have that discussion with you next time. But for now, is there any last last thing that you want to share Zack?

ZACK: Yeah, I would say, ask yourself, for anyone listening, ask yourself if you want more? If you're capable of more? And if the answer is yes, which most likely is for most people, then decide to become aware, decide to become more aware... practice awareness. How do you do this? just through intention. It's not about perfection. It's just about intention. When you have an intention to be, do, or have something, very/most often that's all that's required to allow the pathway forward to unfold. Just start with an intention for what it is that you want to occur, what you want to happen, what/who you want to become, and choose in this moment with conscious intention to become more consciously aware of your thoughts, your state, your mind, your body, in terms of how you feel... just become aware. Practice awareness first.

SAMIA: Yay! Thank you for that Zack. I agree with you, and I loved everything that you shared. Thank you so much for giving of your wisdom and your time so generously. And I will look forward to having you again... join us very, very soon.

ZACK: Nice. Thank you so much. I appreciate it.