# 55 - There Is No Surfing in Your Mind

Episode 55

[00:00:00] : Hey, everybody. It's Rick Lewis with Episode 55 of the follow through Formula Podcast And I have my favorite guest here. Once again, my friend, Dr John Souza. Hi, John. Welcome back, Rick. Aloha. Thank you so much for having me back. Just so missed our conversation last week, so I'm really glad that we have a chance to connect today. I know, because you messed up because you got totally distracted by, like, practical life details, stuff like insurance. You made an insurance company Mawr important than me. That's not right of me. And I'm trying to correct it right now. Thank you. Your tech support call with an insurance company. What? But that was just your favorite way to spend your day. You know, I just, uh, double dipped. I was on hold listening to some music, critiquing and also taking stock of what kind of mixing they were using on the music itself. That creating ah, lunch for my daughter. So it worked out okay. You did well with a good job. Yeah. And you know what we were talking about earlier, just before we started recording Sounds really relevant to me too. So I wonder if we can t up that conversation. Are you talking about the conversation about how many people are laughing at me in my efforts to actually make a living a living from doing what I love, You know, you know, So I'm I'm on Episode 55 of this daily podcast. And every day I'm like on that soapbox going. Do what you love, man. You gotta follow your passion and follow your purpose. And here I am on day 55 with some serious running into a serious doubt wall about God. Um, I am I doing the right thing here? Am I making the right move? Am I putting my attention in the right place? So, um, so I'm in the midst of the what you call it Doldrums. Just where you feel like there's no wind in your sails, you know, just feel like you're stuck in the water. Yeah, totally. And, you know, there's so many great stories about their about people who have produced amazing things and contributed in remarkable ways who go through this phase or it's just like, Oh, my God, am I doing the right thing? Should I stay with this and I don't know what to make of that. Because when you're in it, you always then realize there's the possibility you actually are doing the wrong thing and just spinning your wheels. There's no guarantee that you're on the right course, But, you know, Rick, anything worth doing that's gonna have big payoff is gonna have risk, and it's gonna be there's gonna be the possibility of not succeeding. Um, you know, those are the things that are worthwhile are the things that are actually consequential. Uh huh. I agree. I totally agree. And I'm just telling you, despite the the great talk, which I've been spewing out for 55 great episodes, I find myself in the middle of what I knew was coming. I've been talking about this, that there comes a point where everything in you starts to question and seize up around the old patterns of Give me security. Give me something certain. Get me on solid ground where I can, um, it's like I don't want to give up the old strategies well, and we always tent I should say we tend to preach that which we're trying to learn ourselves. E I hear that all the time when I'm listening to other therapists work, especially if I know them or I know what they're going through in their own lives. When I hear them talking to clients, I know that they're talking to themselves. Everybody should just carry a mirror around, and every time someone starts talking to you, just hold it up and point pointed at the person because I mean, this goes on in families all the time, right? I mean, I get that all the time with my wife and my wife with me, we kind of one person will be talking to the other about you know, what you need to do or what you're not paying attention, Thio and the person who's on the receiving end is going. Are you serious? You really think you're talking to me right now? It's so much easier to see when other people are doing that. It's much more difficult to detect it when we're doing it. Yeah, yeah, So part of the thing that's coming up for me is the cycles. I watch myself go through our this slow creeping kind of doubt and insecurity that puts me in this very muted corner where all my life energy starts getting sort of, I'm repressing it or suppressing it. It gets tamped down. And it's not until I find myself really pushed into that corner. At least the thing that gets me out of that corner is getting mad. And today's an example of that. I'm more in the mood of like, No, I'm not gonna freaking sit here in the corner and lick my wounds and be scared that this might not work out. I'm freaking going to do it 100% but I that cycle is so predictable for me, and I wish I could in here in a middle ground, where I had healthy access to that kind of agency rather than going through cycles where I have that for a few days, and then it will start to slowly trail off until weeks later, I find myself totally in the corner, and then I start that cycle all over again. That makes sense. It does, uh, to wish for anything other than a cycle would wish to be a machine. But even machines have cycles of being able to operate well and then breaking down and eating repair um, cycles or just an inevitable part of existence on That sounds very wise and accurate, but I don't like it. I don't like it, E. I don't know if I'm going to keep you as a therapist. I can. Yeah, Well, this is for educational purposes and entertainment purposes only, Uh, as your friend, I'm just conversing with you. Um, but you know Rick, because, you know, in Hawaii, I think we are. We have access to a lot of nature more often than I think. A lot of people on the mainland who live in cities, for example, I know when I lived in the cities, I didn't really have a lot of opportunities to just be in nature when I went out my front door. Um, you know, we have a lot of that, especially here on Big Island on one of the things we have access to. That's the nature is the ocean. And the ocean is such a wise instructor on the cycles, the ebb and the flow of the tide. Two times a day, high tide and low tide. And it really reminds me every day when I go surfing that this is a low tide. This is a high tide, and it's constantly shifting, and it couldn't be any other way. It could not be any other way. And there are great opportunities for surfing at certain points of that tied, you know when it's mid tide rising. Oh, it's great. The water is pushing in. There's just the right amount of water relative to what's beneath the surface to create the perfect wave and you get the winds just right. And then sometimes you're out there. You're like Is this isn't called surfing? This is called sitting. That's helpful as you say that, and I'm applying it to the cycles that I go through. And if I were more patient and just receptive in alert to what's coming in not only internally but externally to because it's not like every day opportunities show up. There are moments to take advantage of, and other times when you just have to wait for the wave. Yeah, and you don't want to go into the middle of downtown Scottsdale, for example, and wait for a wave. You'll be waiting for a long time. You need to go to where the waves are and, um so we try to look for? For example, as a musician, I'm trying to find where are other people going to connect with musicians? And how are those musicians attracting other people? So I'm watching their surfing. I'm watching how they're surfing and finding waves in that ocean and trying toe model some of that. But I trust that if I could see other people searching, it's entirely possible to serve E. I like your analogy of If you're looking for waves in downtown Scottsdale, you're gonna be waiting a long time. And it just the extension of that metaphor to me is, if you're looking for waves in your own mind, you're gonna be waiting a long time. Meaning if I'm just sitting back here imagining the things I might do that might work rather than actually trying them in real life. Which means putting myself out there, actually communicating with other people and saying, Hey, here's what I have to offer. I have to make that contact with another individual and say, Hey, would you like this? Could I help you with this? Can I? You know, What do you think of this offer? And if I'm just sitting back in my own mind that there are no waves there. There are no actual waves that show up in my head, absolutely. But in my head is where it's safe. So it could be very compelling to stay in there and create your own fantasy world trying to convince yourself you're actually doing something. Yeah, so that sounds like you've got a bit of a formula for your own follow through. Well, I mean, that's what the follow through formula has at its base is action steps that actually put one in relationship with the real world. And even though I'm the author of that system in process, it makes me no less exempt from the pitfalls that the habits that wanna take root when there's fear present. Which is which is just to hold back and get in my head rather than take forward action. A good friend that I go surfing with who is a retired CEO. He was the CEO of the multimillion dollar Mental health group on the mainland for many years, so he's a really wise man. I really trust what he says, and years ago he told me, and he just reminded me of this the other day. So, John, do what you love as often as you possibly can whenever you're asked to, whenever you have a chance, and eventually someone will pay you to do it. And so this is where I would think for you, Rick. You already your your life story just for your listeners who maybe haven't listened to some of your prior podcast. They may not know that you've actually done this already A couple of times. This is not your first time in the doldrums. And And how was it that you got through those? Those experiences just by sheer stubbornness, like reasserting my belief that following what you love is really the only thing that makes any sense? I mean, it's not even just like follow your heart. It just makes sense. Like when I look at my own life and how I feel the kind of person I show up as the kind of energy I've got, the results that come from doing what I love versus doing something that I think is just gonna, you know, get me through or be safer, secure. It's a completely different experience, and the results are completely different as well. There's just so much more life and energy and joy and creativity in doing something that I care about because then I'm fully there. My attention is fully given to that environment to all the people I'm working with to the circumstances and situations. If I love what I'm doing, I'm alert and the possibilities are infinitely greater than if I'm just punching a clock and going through the motions, and I just can't. I just think that is true for every person. That's the way it's going to show up for anybody 100%. I was listening to this other motivational forum for musicians, and the speaker talked about some of the laws of physics that we trust, such as electricity in your house. You trusted electricity is gonna work very reliably. Otherwise, we wouldn't install it in our homes or aerodynamics. We trust airplanes gonna fly, otherwise we wouldn't be able to use them as often. Eso there are these principles of how we make this life leap that are there, and we have to trust that we follow those principles. They will lead us there. Yeah, keep going. What are those basic principles I think what you're just saying One is, if you know that you're really into something, it already makes you naturally inherently better at it than anyone else, right? And that doesn't necessarily mean more skillful. You might have to work on that. That means that you are gonna have a Genesis Acquah, a certain something, something in the way that you do that that is going to ring true, ring authentic and congruent. And that is very attractive to people. Uh, yeah, I mean, it's it's infectious. I noticed that if I'm in a store and I'm at a cash register, if there's someone there who essentially, I can tell if they are essentially glad to be where they are because their whole manner of interacting with me is totally different than someone who's not glad to be there. And the person who's glad to be there has figured out, you know, they know their work station. They know where things are. They're relatively organized. They no answers to my question, to my questions that relate to that environment because they are present within it and they care about what they're actually doing and what's happening in their surroundings. so they become more knowledgeable. Mawr accurate Mawr Responsive Mawr bright and I can feel that when I'm standing in front of the catch register or when I'm checking out my groceries or when I'm getting help on technical support, I think everyone can feel that you can tell the difference between someone who has some affinity for their role and one who doesn't. Absolutely so that's one principle that we know is true and it's immutable. Think some of the harder principles to dial into are getting people to support your work financially. But there are tried and true marketing principles that are emerging in this age of social media, and one of the things that I'm finding that is really helpful is this authenticity. That doesn't mean sharing everything that's going on in my life on social media, and I e mean, I've made that mistake a few times. I think where I've experimented like one day. I think I shared from the time I woke up to the time I went to sleep, including brushing my teeth in the morning, said it might not be the way to G O, but what I found is sharing things that are a little bit more vulnerable and authentic, such as reflections on who I was in my prior life is a musician and some of the steps I've gone through to be who I am today as I'm re entering that part of my life. Um, and that particular post organically got a lot of attention. Any other principles being able to sustain doing what you love? Well, don't do it alone. So I think in having the support of people who care for you and are willing to prop you up when you doubt yourself or who can even just give some practical support. Uh, for example, yesterday my wife and daughter gave me my early Christmas gift, which was, uh, my my music brand. My first music brand merchandise like a snow cap in a face mask with my logo and name on it. Wow, that's awesome, right? What a beautiful show of support for future Enter Enterprise. So no one does this thing well alone. We just can't succeed in isolation. So you gotta find a couple of rock solid people that are in your corner that you could go to to say, Hey, this is what's going on with me. Do you have any suggestions or you can ask a favor of Hey, I really need you to listen to this or read this or go through this process and tell me what you think. Yeah, well, you're you're one of those people for me, and you are for me. I'm really grateful for that back and forth that reciprocity is invaluable. And part of that is because I don't ever feel judged by you. I don't have any worry that you're gonna be a yes man and just say, that's great. Um, if something was off, you would tell me, and I trust that you trust I would do the same for you. Yeah, It's such a fascinating process to submit oneself to the vulnerability of being who you really care to be and let other people see that you're headed in that direction and declare This is who I am and then be able to Bayer what comes back in terms of feedback in relationship to your your declaration. And I think the part of that that's so distressing to navigate is once you say, Hey, here's who I am. It's not like you can go back. You can't change who you are. It's like if people don't like it, you can't go. Okay? What? Wait. Never mind. That's not really who I am. Um, here's who I really am over here. Which is, of course, what most of us have done in our lives is we've made up Ah, false self to present to everyone. So if they don't like it, it doesn't hurt as much because we know Well, that's not the real me anyway. But in being truly authentic, I feel like I'm learning all over again how to be in relationship with other people and with my life and with the world. Because if I'm just going to be me, and I'm really going to express and share and show what I really care about and what I feel I really have to offer, then I have to learn to all over again to actually bear and tolerate the response that I get back. And I've never had to do that before. I've shielded myself from that process by not being who I really am. Does that make sense? Yeah. So for the first time in my life, I'm having to learn how to be okay with who I am, despite what gets reflected back to me, which is always going to be ah, combination of some people aren't gonna like it. And some people really are gonna like it. Absolutely. Yeah, there could be that that fear, whatever one's fear might be whatever flavor of fear you have when you get feedback from others that confirms those fears. It can really take the wind out of one sales, um, doldrums, the doldrums. And then so then there's that choice point. What do I do now that I'm in that doldrums? And that's what we're kind of talking about here today is when you are in the doldrums, you have a choice. You really do have an opportunity to decide. Am I going to perpetuate old patterns of stress response? Whether that be a shame spiral, you know, pass me the Ben and Jerry's Man. I'm going in Or am I going to figure out, um, I going to be able to see this for what it is, which is right. Just another step in that 1000 mile journey that here Oh, this is great. I got another one here. Somebody said they he really hated this piece or they didn't think that I had the right bass tone or, you know, they didn't like this thing. This blogged that I put up for this podcast like, That's the choice point, Andi. That's where I think our own work comes in. We have to get good with the fear responses and stress responses that we carry with us from our families of origin or cultures of origin. And if we're really going to make these life leaps, we have to understand what they feel like, what they look like, how they manifest in our lives. Um, so that we don't get stuck in the Scottsdale Mall waiting for waves. Absolutely, absolutely well, so you are describing the core work that I most care about in my life is helping people with exactly what you're describing. Great. Because I think so many people avoid the potential transformation because they get to this moment that I've been describing and what you're describing of. Okay, I'm I've kind of started to move in this authentic, passionate direction, but suddenly I feel really scared, really exposed, and I don't know what to do with these feelings, that air coming up and most people don't make it past almost square one. They head straight back for the old safety zone and then continue to feel dissatisfied, lack of meaning unfulfilled in their lives. And so making that leap crossing that bridge from the safety zone to the fully alive zone is, ah, bridge. That really needs to be a bridge of education about what to expect when we really reveal ourselves and have some tools to deal with what's going to come up. And so what are some of the offerings that you would have for folks? Because I know you've got your courses and you've got books. Well, there's the two books, confident under pressure and seven rules you were born to break. That's probably one of my favorites. I have to say, I mean, yeah, they're really fantastic books. And in terms of help and practical support, the very basic building block of continuing to move forward toward um, or authentic life is small risk. I just I can't everything I've ever tried everything I've looked at. Everything points back to the necessity of being being willing to stretch just a little bit outside of the habit zone of comfort and safety toward Mawr exposure. MAWR relationship with the actual world that you live in so slightly, withdrawing one's consent to live in the mind and slightly increasing one's engagement capacity for real life. To where mawr of what goes on with your life energy has to do with actual engagement with your real life than it does overthinking, testing and guessing in your mind. And that's the shift that I noticed. It's required for me. Everything that's ever worked to make to improve my life has had to do with withdrawing some of that consent to just hang out in my brain and taking the little bit of risk and courage that's necessary to test in real life with real people in real circumstances, in actual action in my body. That's beautiful, because I just think that's so wise. And this is something that you've been saying for years that I really appreciate it and tried to put into practice. Um, and the way I've done that in my life, Leap has been through the releasing of music rather than just having it sit on my hard drive or the cloud in my office in my home studio trying to push myself just a little bit to say Okay, I've worked on this enough. Are there mawr things I could do to it? Absolutely. Could I watch another 10 podcasts? Or I mean, YouTube videos on how to mix well or master? Well, probably. Or I could learn from the practice of just putting it out there and seeing what that feels like and then moving on to the next thing. Yes, yes, yes, yes, 1000 times. So my latest song that I put out it's less than two minutes, right? And it was literally I had come home. Um, I was feeling really? Oh, gosh, I was feeling despondent. I was feeling like I wasn't a very good guitar player, very good musician. And and then I got this music book that I had ordered and by a famous guitar player. And in the on the inside cover, he says, everything is just fine. Now you're playing the guitar like get out of your head sort of thing. You know, it's OK, just play. Enjoy. And I sat down and I recorded that piece in just a few takes and and I thought, That's it. I'm just gonna This is the energy I wanted to capture. This is all this song has to say did a little mixing and I put it out there and it was a great feeling and, you know, it just adds to the body of work. And now next time I know. Okay, this is how easily it can go or these other things that I could do in the future. But it was such a learning experience. I love that. That's so It's such a simple, portable, clear analogy. I love that. That's that's your wisdom. So thank you. Have I spoken with you before about Andrew Huberman? Dr. Andrew Huberman? Yes, the name is familiar. So he's this neurological researcher and, ah lot most of what he does in his lab. Huberman lab has to do with the link between the brain and the eyes. So he was describing this research that has verified when you are literally moving forward, meaning, if you are moving your body through space either either if you're walking or running or on a bicycle, your brain automatically your eyes start engaging in this lateral movement where you're scanning back and forth, and the movement of your eyes in that circumstance creates a chemical response in your brain that suppresses the limbic system and empowers the prefrontal cortex. So if you're feeling stressed literally, one of the best things you can do is just move through space. Move your body through space because it will naturally create a new effect based on your I've movements moving forward. That comes the sympathetic nervous system and de escalates its fear response. And it's, uh, tendency for the fight or freeze response. Wow. Yeah, I mean, there's so much that I could say about the neuroscience behind the fight flight freeze response, the limbic system and the prefrontal cortex. I'll just sort of echo what you're saying. That that's absolutely the way that I would work with somebody in a clinical setting is being aware of their brain activation at any given moment in time. Um, and if they're in the back of the brain, you know, the limbic system, uh, lizard brain, as some people refer to it, then that is not the time to try to talk and cognitive, Um, unless the talking itself is both rhythmic and sensory based in order to sue that nervous system that that's sympathetic. Nervous system toe. Activate the parasympathetic nervous system. We have to engage in something that's rhythmic and sensory base, which is what you know. Moving through space tends to be moving your eyes back and forth. Eye movement desensitization. Re processing MDR. That's a form of therapy. It's very popular for trauma because of this very thing of moving the eyes back and forth, right? Um, but, yeah, there's a guy Bruce Perry who also talks about this rhythmic, sensory based stuff. So getting out of your head and doing something physically if you're in a fear place, even if it doesn't seem like you're having a fear response because it seems too quiet or, you know you're just kind of in your head worrying, E, I would say that makes so much sense to still engage in some sort of movement through space. Um, yeah, going outside, doing some yoga. Ah, whatever it is, get physical. So that is supported by my clinical opinion as well, which is always valuable Thio here. It's always been so useful to me to have the authority of our body of science wisdom reflected in my own experience and corroborated. And like you said, a good deal, especially of psychological science, just comes from somebody's having paid enough attention to how things actually work in a human being and record those findings. That's exactly it. That's the only difference between a theoretician and a lay person is taking the time to reflect on what's happened, distilling it down to some conclusions and then taking the time toe tested or have other people tested. And I would say you are living proof of the theory that you've developed in your games for confidence and intelligent misbehavior, and you have put those things into practice and anybody who's listening to this, I would invite them to seriously consider signing up with you. They will not be steered in the wrong direction. I have been officially endorsed by Dr John Souza, 100%. I'm living proof of it. I mean, it was you who who said, uh, can you claim your musicianship before your clinical self? And that was about a year ago now. I mean, yeah, about the beginning of the year, and it freaked me out when you invited that it terrified me. And now here I am. I got some merch, man. So thank you, Rick. My pleasure. Thanks, Rick, for the opportunity to hang out and chat. I always appreciate it. I do too. But people are just going to think the only reason I invite you because you say nice things about me every time it might be. I don't think so. I think I e think I'd still really enjoy your company even without the praise that you, uh, you offer. But I so value your friendship and your wisdom as well as your support of what I'm attempting. And I certainly it's certainly mutual. I certainly am Just as in support of you and who you are and what you offer to the world through your music as what you offer as a therapist. Thank you until next time. Until next time, As we say in Hawaii. Ah hui ho, Who we ho Until we meet again. Okay. Who we Ho Episode 55 of the follow through formula Podcast. This has been Rick Lewis and my friend Dr John Souza, who, by the way, did the intro and the Outro music of this very episode along with all the episodes. When you when you tune in that's him on the front and back end of every episode and that's it for today. I'll be back tomorrow. Thanks for listening in.