A Contagious Smile Podcast
"A Contagious Smile" is a transformative platform embracing special needs families and domestic violence survivors. We illuminate the journeys of extraordinary individuals who've triumphed over adversity and aspire to ignite your own inner light. Through candid stories, we showcase how they conquered challenges and emerged stronger. Our podcast features insightful interviews with experts, offering resources that empower and uplift. Let us guide you in rediscovering your inner light – because every smile narrates a tale of resilience. It's time to share your story and rekindle your spirit.
A Contagious Smile Podcast
From Memory Mastery to Emotional Resilience: John's Battle with Anxiety, Healing Childhood Wounds, and Building a Supportive Community
https://releasepanic.com/free What if you could transform your memory from ordinary to extraordinary? Join us for an inspiring discussion with John Graham, a three-time USA Memory Champion and world record holder. John shares his riveting journey into the competitive world of memory sports, dispelling the myth of innate photographic memory and demonstrating how visualization and creativity can elevate anyone's memory skills. He opens up about the immense pressure, self-doubt, and daily panic attacks he endured and the supportive community that helped him conquer his mental blocks and achieve remarkable feats.
Have you ever wondered about the emotional roots of anxiety and panic attacks? In this eye-opening episode, we delve into the complexities of mental health, emphasizing the importance of processing suppressed emotions. From mild brain fog to severe physical reactions, we explore personal stories and highlight the damaging effects of control and manipulation on anxiety. Listeners will learn about the power of releasing control and fully feeling discomfort as a path to healing, promoting a self-empowering approach to emotional well-being without over-reliance on therapists or medication.
We also tackle the deep and often hidden emotional scars from childhood that can lead to a relentless pursuit of external validation. John Graham reflects on his own experiences with shame and the pressures faced by today's youth in a changing educational landscape. He sheds light on his impactful program designed to address severe mental health issues like anxiety and depression, and emphasizes the significance of unconditional love and support. Join us for a transformative discussion that promises to leave you inspired and empowered to embark on your own journey of emotional healing and fulfillment.
Good afternoon and welcome to another episode of A Contagious Smile, where every smile tells a story. I'm really excited to have this gentleman on, because when you hear about the mind of this person you're going to, he's hard to forget. Let me just say that. Let's just say he's really hard to forget and he is going to be just a lot of fun to talk with. John Graham. Thank you so much for coming on with us today. I truly appreciate you finding the time yeah, thank you.
Speaker 1:I'm excited to share this crazy story and everything you are a three-time usa memory champion and world record holder. I'm just like blown away by that and I have to tell everybody. First one before we went on, I was telling him how beautiful the colors of the seahorses are that are behind him. I think they're absolutely beautiful. Can you describe and tell everybody what these were? And then he told me what people thought they were, and never, ever ever would I have seen this. I don't know how people see it, I don't.
Speaker 2:But yeah, they look like. They look like bongs. Some people think these are bongs. They're not, you know, but these are glass blown seahorse trophies. These are the us championship trophies, because the seahorse is the shape of the hippocampus. So these are very, yeah, very beautiful but very um honorable awards for being the best in the country I just have to know how does somebody get into the mind memory test world champion arena?
Speaker 1:how does that happen?
Speaker 2:yeah, because people assume that you have like a natural photographic memory, that there's people that are savants and geniuses and of course there are some, but it's almost a myth the way it's portrayed.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:I don't have any innate ability. I read a book 10 years ago. 10 years ago I was out of school, graduated, didn't know any of this memory stuff when I was in school, which would have been helpful, but you know, I'm 27 years old at the time, read a book called Moonwalking with Einstein. It was about the art and science of remembering everything and just it was a book that grabbed my soul. It just it was meant to be and I read it and just talked about ordinary people who learned mental techniques, visualization, imagination, just innate creativity, kind of unlocking the right, the right brain, because most people use associate memory with boring and rote and repeating and it's very like, you know, left brain, but we utilize the right brain and make connections to remember massive amounts of information. So I just started practicing these techniques and got efficient pretty quickly. That's when I decided to compete in the very first competition was the world memory championship in China, and just dove in. And the rest is kind of history all right, first time competition.
Speaker 1:You're in China. What'd you place on the very first one?
Speaker 2:yeah, I did, I bombed yeah well, I was self-taught and I didn't really understand a lot of the good techniques. Apparently, review, having a review strategy is very important and I didn't know that one.
Speaker 2:So the crazy thing is, you know, I completely bombed. I almost walked out a couple of times because I was so. It's so intense like internally, and that's part of my story is that internal pressure. I didn't know what to do with it. I almost walked out just completely overwhelmed emotionally, hearts racing. But I met some of the best people in the world, people from US, germany, you know, mongolia just and they kind of took me under their wing and taught me some of the techniques, just sharing openly of how I could get better and correct and what to do about the pressure that I felt. So that excited me because I didn't. I didn't expect to keep competing. I thought I was going to get an award, get a cool certificate, a credential, and just like, oh, this is a cool story for the rest of my life. But I kept going because I did so poorly. So it was a blessing in disguise.
Speaker 1:Tell me about this internal pressure. Was it when you were only doing this kind of competition that you felt that, or was it all the time?
Speaker 2:It's a great question. I think you know this. Trying to be somebody and achieve something brought this, intensified this pressure. You know, for anyone who's becoming an entrepreneur or becoming a father, you know that's another thing, or you know anything that elevates you to another level, the pressure starts to come to the surface and it's not because of these events like the championship didn't cause the pressure right.
Speaker 2:Motherhood doesn't cause the pressure that. The pressure is internal and it comes to the surface to be worked through. Right Buthood doesn't cause the pressure. The pressure is internal and it comes to the surface To be worked through. But it was something I always struggled with. When I was in these high pressure situations of shutting down or mentally freezing up or heart racing, it felt like there's like this block, this visceral wall, that I couldn't overcome, you know, and I would over the years, I would freeze up Like I would be in a competition During COVID we did online, and I would I froze up once like completely like deer in the headlights, like in the middle of a competition, and I was like, hey, what happened, john?
Speaker 2:You know, I was like, and I had to lie. Well, I didn't have to, but I lied. I was like, oh, you know, someone walked in and distracted me. Sorry, I kept moving on, but I was like what's wrong with me? Why is this happening? So I did struggle with it a lot and I had to learn how to move through it and what the real cause was.
Speaker 1:You also suffered from daily panic attacks right.
Speaker 2:When did all that start? It built up, but this was a little over a year ago actually. I was having daily multiple panic attacks. It got to the point where um and another blessing in disguise, believe it or not, to hit that wall, but just having this extreme voltage move through me that I would cause panic. It mimics the feeling of a heart attack. Yes, the left side of my face went numb. I mean, if you've never had a panic attack, it it feels like you're going to die. Like you, you fully believe you're going to die. It's that intense.
Speaker 1:So I was gonna ask you what one was for you, because I know it's basically like the symptoms are of a heart attack, but sometimes people have them a little differently.
Speaker 2:Their experience with them is different well, there's a spectrum right of like anywhere from like oh, mentally freezing up for a minute, locking up and like hot head brain fog, to an intense experience where, like me, the left side of my face went completely numb and I was just thought I was going to drop dead on the way to the er. You know my brother's driving me and you're in your head, you're spiraling so quickly Like what's wrong with me? You're Googling and it's just awful and the thing is people try to treat this mentally, which this is my stance now. It's like after overcoming it completely. The only reason I moved through it was because I realized this is not a mental issue, this is not mental health, this is emotional health, this is an emotional root issue.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, when you learn that yeah, it transforms you, because my whole life I wanted to be this, you know, brain, superhuman, mental hack, like mental master, and I got to that point, but it it was only causing all this stuff to come to the surface really intensely, as you could tell. Yeah, it wasn't working as this mental effort strategy.
Speaker 1:So you know, john, I get the pleasure of meeting so many amazing people and I hate how I've met most of them and it's because they've gone through some kind of an abusive situation. And I tell them all all of the time that my mindset and some people think I'm like way out left field when I say this is that the control is the problem. It is not, it is not the resolution, because people think, well, I've got control of this and it's not control has it's not the problem. Do you think that that's the same way or do you see that like I'm really out left field on that?
Speaker 2:No, you're right, the control is the issue, and so we're trying to use control and force to solve it, which only amplifies this meaning. We have this urge. Why do we have an urge to control everything, like when I was in anxiety and panic? I'm thinking ahead, I'm ruminating ahead, I'm trying to figure out how to manipulate the world and coerce the world or my business or things, to make it fit the way I wanted it to right, to hit my money goals or to hit my, you know, success goals, right. But in that manipulation it's control, and that control conditioning, causes all these issues. It actually suppresses all the emotion that's trying to come up right, because anytime we're uncomfortable, we try to like, feel better and jack ourselves up with motivation or working out or something, and it just completely suppresses the issue. So the only way through this is to release that control, to get out of the way. The mind will get in the way completely, and so you're exactly released.
Speaker 1:How do you release it?
Speaker 2:you have to know. Number one it's an emotional root issue. We have suppressed emotions. All of us do this in some way or another. So everything, every single experience in our life that was uncomfortable, that we didn't process, it's still inside of us, unprocessed, suppressed emotion and this clogs us up. It impacts our nerve, like it restored in our nervous system and our cells it can. It contracts our DNA right. It just completely contracts us and we hold it in. So we're accumulating all this stuff throughout our lives and we're spinning in the conditioning of our mind to the static right. So this builds, and so the only way to release it is to fully feel and process all that suppressed stuff that's inside of us. Well, we don't do that through the mind. You can't release emotion. You can't feel emotion through your mind or do anything. So, in fact, the mind will get in the way. We have to, not through force, push the mind away. We don't want to force it. We let the mind do what it wants to do.
Speaker 2:But when we are feeling any type of discomfort or quote unquote a negative emotion, we want to fully be in that emotion and process it out. And it's very, very hard. If you lived in your head your whole life. Trust me, it takes a transition. That's what I help people with, but that's as simply put as it can be. Is anytime you're feeling something nasty frustration, impatience, anger, fear, whatever. We have to fully be in that, because if we don't, it's just going to stay in. It's going to be like a Pandora's box, right, it's just going to get the pressure, like me with the panic attacks. It gets so intense that it just explodes open one day.
Speaker 1:You were having panic attacks and anxiety. I mean it was really bad it was. It was horrible yeah do you have that anymore? No really you self-healed, right like you yeah, yeah, did you go ahead?
Speaker 2:that's my story is go ahead, that's my story, is I?
Speaker 2:I again, my stance is you don't need a therapist or a doctor to do this, and that's controversial, right and I get, yeah, but I want to empower people on how to do this themselves right, and this isn't easy, as you can imagine. This is a an initiation, in a way to move through this. Some people choose to maintain and manage it right through medications and meditations and things like that. There's nothing wrong with that and no judgment. But for someone to self-heal they have to learn their body's innate ability to do that and by feeling all the stuff that's inside of you and knowing how to navigate that, of course, but everyone has that ability. I fully believe that.
Speaker 1:So take me through. If I am a new client, how you help from the gest. How do you come in here and help me do this?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So three things. If number one, if you have anxiety or panic or overwhelm, your nervous system's dysregulated. It's in your body, intense your muscles. That tension is what's holding in the suppressed emotion. So think of like anytime you're uncomfortable you tense up. What that's doing is holding it in, trapping it, in keeping it in. It's like wait, I want this stuff out. Yeah, it makes perfect. The only way to let that out is to release the tension, to relax, to allow this, all this stuff that's contracted over the years, to release, to let like it won't all come out at once. Our subconscious actually plays an important role of like, allowing us to process it as as needed or as we're ready for it. But number one is to have a fully regulated nervous system, which I would wager 90 of people in this world don't? It's a very intense world out there. Yes, so completely releasing, relaxing the tension in our body and surrendering that control.
Speaker 1:There's the control again there it is, is the.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So a lot of people try like taking baths and you know spa days and stuff, and that's good and there's nothing wrong with that, but it doesn't get to the root of why we're holding in the tension. So I recondition people to not just stay relaxed in a 30 minute session, but all day like that's. The goal is 24 seven, not to stay perfectly relaxed. There's no such thing but to allow this stuff up. So number one is fully regulated. The second thing is the unhooking process. So I teach an unhooking method, which is anytime you are feeling a negative emotion internally, not just in your mind. What do you do to release that steam from you for good, right? How do you fully process that out instead of trapping it in, right?
Speaker 2:And this is where I think therapy falls short is, you know, you have a cathartic release or you dig deep in a 30 minute session Ooh, that's good. But then you go out into the world and you're back in your control, conditioning and avoiding everything that's coming up. It's the same thing If you're feeling horrible or in a bad mood and you go to try to feel better. It's the same thing You're avoiding and you're bypassing all the stuff that's trying to come up. So I teach people to lean in and how to relax and release that as it's happening. So we're releasing all this stuff that's been piling in over the years, and even daily. We have to recondition that response, otherwise we're just going to keep storing stuff. A very intense release.
Speaker 2:My grandfather committed suicide and yeah, it was in. Most people's responses to something like that is extreme sadness. Well, I had sadness, but I had extreme rage come up because of what you know seeing everyone distraught, seeing what he left, seeing that he never said goodbye, things like that just completely upset me, and I also had a judgment at the time against suicide. I didn't understand it. I didn't understand why anyone would do that or get to the point right. I had a judgment towards it and that caused a lot of rage in me how old?
Speaker 1:were you John.
Speaker 2:This was end of 2022.
Speaker 1:Oh, this was recent, very recent.
Speaker 2:This is all very recent. Yeah, oh yeah. And so I had to. There was one experience after like a month or two of rage holding on to it, I went to bed that night and I hit my head on the pillow and I just decided, okay, to say something to him and I said grandpa, I don't agree with what you did, I don't think I ever will, but I love you, and I meant it like a thousand percent, sure, and that's important. But in that moment, victoria, an elephant of rage, flew off of my shoulders like it was the most profound experience of my life, because you know, when you're in in rage, you feel it Like it's a, it's a fire.
Speaker 1:It is absolutely.
Speaker 2:It floated off in the room, got lighter, I wasn't angry anymore and I was like what the F just happened? So I actually tried to get angry again. I tried to like wait, you know, like see, test this out, what just happened is gone. So I tried to get angry again. I tried to like wait, you know, like see, test this out, what just happened, it's gone. So I tried to get angry. I tried to like look back at every single memory. But all the sizzle was gone and since that day I have not been an ounce angry at him or have any rage, to that Like it was completely gone. That's incredible.
Speaker 2:In that experience I said, whoa, like that was life altering for me. So I learned from that experience how to release what I call the boulders inside of us, the resentments, the angers, the people who have betrayed us, all this stuff from our life. That's causing a lot of distress in us, a lot of mental anguish. So how do we release that? And that's the third part of what I teach is catalyst integration how to release those parts of us that are suppressed, to reintegrate them in. And so that's the process I took to do this and to completely overcome panic and anxiety for good.
Speaker 1:How long does it take to go through your course?
Speaker 2:panic and anxiety for good. How long does it take to go through your course? It's an eight-week course with guidance from me, but yeah, it's very. I try to simplify this as much as possible. I don't give a lot of scientific research and knowledge and information. It's more of a guidance for people to do it themselves.
Speaker 1:And I know people are asking but how soon do you start seeing the difference or the results?
Speaker 2:Yes, that's the best question, because people want to know will this work Right? And I give the analogy of going to the gym, like if you, all of a sudden, you go to the gym for the first time today, are you going to notice anything? And the answer is no, you're going to get, have a red face and sweat, right, yeah, but when's that? Is it like three weeks in, where you start noticing, like Ooh, the abs or the muscles or whatever you're trying to notice, and at that moment everything flips for you, cause you're like this is working. It's the same thing, for this process is initially, unless you have a, an elephant release, like I did, right, you don't know that it's fully working, like up here.
Speaker 2:So it takes, you know, know, some people two, three weeks in before they like they're more devoted because they're like, oh my gosh, they start waking up without the dread, they start waking up feeling lighter without the pressure. They start their minds is starting to stay calmer around people in situations that once really inflamed them, and then that's the point where people really hit the gas pedal and are become full believers in the process, right?
Speaker 1:How long did it take you to create this entire process?
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh. Well, I mean since 13, I had my anxiety. Probably you know when I first started noticing anxiety. So you know, this has been since I was 13 years old the process of trying all the things that didn't work into very quickly, like realizing it's an emotional root issue. So you know, you understand what I'm saying is like I had to go through all the stuff that people try to tell you to do the supplements, meditation, therapy, stuff that to realize it didn't work, why? But then to realize it's an emotional root issue. But once I realized it's an emotional root issue, that the solution came much quicker. Um, partly because I'm so. I'm the type of person that wants to go all in, like I don't want any band-aids or coping things or anything, I want to go all the way and I think that mindset is what helped me get the solution. So, yeah, it's years of failure, and not failure, but like pain and struggle transmitted into a very quick, simple process.
Speaker 1:So what got you to go into the memory road of all this, where you started competing and doing all of that? Did it have anything to do with your anxiety and your panic attacks?
Speaker 2:well, here's the and this is maybe not controversial, but yeah, 10 years ago I got into this. You know I was at the time. I wanted to impress people, I wanted to be an achiever, I wanted to be famous. You know things like that that are ego driven and there's nothing wrong with those things, by the way. But the reason I wanted those things is because I wasn't well inside, right, the reason why do we want money and cars and things and achievements? And there's again, there's nothing wrong with those things. But if I'm being honest, the reason I wanted all the knowledge and the fame and success and the stuff is because I was trying to be happy and fulfilled using my external world, which is not. It doesn't work. It's. It does not work. You cannot use your world, the world, money, achievement, fame, for fulfillment, for happiness. It's fleeting and it's incomplete. The path is inward, right I agree with that.
Speaker 2:A million percent, absolutely one percent so at the time, yeah, I wanted. I wanted all the awards and the accolades and the and the knowledge you know, with the memory, like it implies, you're going to retain and remember everything and just accumulate knowledge and I thought, in that accumulation I would, I would reach the top and be somebody and be fulfilled. And, as you can tell there's, it doesn't really last and it's not the full equation.
Speaker 1:So did you also have your panic attacks when it came to your girls? You've got kids and you're a doting husband and father, so when you were dealing with all of that, did that not also kind of add to it the pressure of it?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, all of that. Did that not also kind of add to it the pressure of it? Oh yeah, so building a business, being a memory athlete, having two daughters which will soon be three daughters, by the way real, real soon congratulations thank you.
Speaker 2:Those, those bring out the. Yeah, those bring the things to the surface because the they're poking all the stuff that's inside of me, which is a good thing. At the time I didn't think so, but it's a good thing to transmute that if you know how. But, yeah, the worst part about having panic attacks was having a beautiful day outside. My daughters are so full of joy, they want daddy and I'm in internal agony and I don't want them to see me that way, and so I escape, because that's the one thing that people who feel this internal anxiety, pressure, dread, overwhelm. They escape and they sit in their rooms on their own and they live in their own internal world and they don't reach out. It's not that they don't reach out for help, but they just it's like wrong with me and not knowing how to do it they lost.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so that was the hardest part for me is seeing them want me, need me outside, hearing them giggling outside and just being trapped in my own complete dark spiral so what do you do with this amazing gift that you have now?
Speaker 2:yeah, I mean it's so personally. It's life-altering. I've never felt more fulfilled and at peace in my whole life. I just didn't more. In the moment, I don't worry about things. Um, that's a complete gift. So, giving that gift, that ability, and empowering others to do the same for themselves I'm not anyone's guru, I'm not like any like master healer I just empower people on how to do that themselves.
Speaker 2:And I just had a recent you know, one of my clients. So I think about a lot. Very recently she told me she didn't tell me this at the time when she signed up, but she had gone through six years of depression. She was in it. When she met me she said she had never had three days in a row, that she felt good in those six years. There was never a streak of three days. I'm like, oh my gosh, that's wow.
Speaker 2:And she said she said, john, the first week that I met you and I started this process, it got worse. And she said there was one day like she was getting annoyed by me on the calls, like that. You know, she was feeling it, the pressure. And she said she decided one day to lean in more, to relisten to the, the first thing, the unhooking and to practice it. And that week she finally had her release of a huge attachment that she had, and I didn't coach her through it, I didn't tell her, she just did it herself. Ever since that day she's felt good every single day since then and this was like over six months ago. Wow, such a profound transformation.
Speaker 1:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:When you actually understand the attachments and the emotions that are in there and how to release them and process them.
Speaker 1:This would be amazing for, like the survivors of abuse too, because they suppress so much. But, like I went through it and you just suppress everything and and it just stays there and it's horrific. Um, so I, I can totally and completely see, and I love that we're on the same page about the control thing, because so many times I say it, people are like what I'm like control is the problem, it's not your issue, it's not your resolution, it's not. And people just, you know, like, for instance, the only thing that we, as you know at the point in time, victims of domestic violence, like a lot of us, would go sit down and the only thing we can control is what we ate and a lot of people put weight on. And that's because that was what we could control.
Speaker 1:Or you know, know, like dressing, you know, and big clothes to hide ourself or things of that nature, was what we could control. And it wasn't the resolution, it was the problem because it gave us more problems because of that very same reason, and we felt like we had nothing else going for us. So I mean, wow, this program seems like is just a godsend for so many people on so many levels. You work specifically mainly with, like entrepreneurs and things like that as well. Right, that's kind of where you focus.
Speaker 2:Mostly conscious entrepreneurs and top performers, people who are trying to ascend to their greatness and their highest potential, yeah, that's amazing I was going to say everyone, whether you have abuse or not, like I am actually someone who didn't experience abuse.
Speaker 2:And right, people assume like, oh, we don't have trauma if we didn't experience that. But it couldn't be further from the truth is right and yes, we utilize control to really what we're doing is we're suppressing that and we're avoiding the energy that's arising. It's like you know. Think of that analogy of when we want to cut the edge and have a drink. What's the edge? The edge is the voltage, the energy that's coming up to be seen and experienced, the stress stuff. But we have a drink and push it down and it's the same thing with eating. It's the same thing with workaholic right was me. Product productivity is a cope. Um, high grades and achievement is a cope. It really is, and I and I. That's controversial, but anything we're doing to avoid the full, the full experience of our life, the nastiness that we're avoiding, is a cope and allowing everything in is the only way through it, as highly uncomfortable as it is right, because it's very uncomfortable, that's why we suppress it, but it's safe to experience that.
Speaker 1:So give us a little bit of insight on you. What is your earliest memory? Give us a little bit of your backstory oh, my gosh, earliest memory.
Speaker 2:I have no idea, probably you're the memory champion yeah.
Speaker 1:I love it that's the thing.
Speaker 2:It's a memory is like the light switch that I turn on if I want to remember something. But yeah, I mean, I I was just. I was a kid who always wanted to get good grades and achieve and do well, and I think it was more of a to get validation in the world, because I thought that was the way to move forward. That was my conditioning is, you know, I was a lost kid who didn't really fit in and so the only way to survive and feel good was to please others right that dependency on others, validation.
Speaker 2:And so I got good grades and I held, withheld my talents and my opinions because I didn't want to, I wanted to be vanilla, I didn't want people to like, say anything or embarrass me, and so I was just very shelled up kid. A lot of shame, a lot of, you know, a lot of walls up for sure that I had to move through. But, yeah, just an achiever, someone who always wanted to be somebody, because I think that was my way of resolving all that internal pressure what caused all this internal pressure?
Speaker 2:yeah, I mean just feeling lost. Just feeling because I think I tell people this all the time between the age of zero and seven is where our ego, our mind, our construct gets molded. Our parents, our leaders, parent or teachers, media all gets absorbed like a sponge. We're in a brain sorry, a brainwave of theta, so it means we're like soaking in everything to form a structure of the world, right? So maybe my structure was if I got yelled at or was embarrassed, I avoided that emotion at all costs.
Speaker 2:And the only way to avoid it, the pain of embarrassment, is to always put out a perfect persona or not to poke anyone and have an extreme opinion. So you try to stay vanilla and normal and like avoid anything touchy and you try to be perfect so that you avoid the pain of embarrassment. And so I might have had experiences of embarrassment as a young boy for putting myself out there speaking up that I was shut down and I would shut down to avoid that and that conditioned over time to avoid that pain do you think that caused you more pain?
Speaker 2:oh yeah, because then you internalize everything you, you keep stacking more and more and more so. For example, example, you know, I remember as a kid, in second grade, people would start teasing or making fun of things something that probably wasn't even personal to me but I would start tearing up because I took it personal and it's so embarrassing. And then you try to run away and hide from that because it's so painful. So again and shame is one of those things that not only do we avoid things, we avoid aspects of us that are invaluable or embarrassing, because we all have those aspects. We judge about ourselves that we push away, but we also withhold our gifts away. But we also withhold our gifts Because if I show my uniqueness, that ooh, I'm into space and rocket ships and someone laughs at me, I withhold my gift too. So we're not.
Speaker 2:Shame isn't just about suppressing the dark parts of us or the you know, the embarrassing parts that we don't want to show. It's also about suppressing our gifts. And so that was my story. It was like I would withhold the good and the bad of myself to just be normal, to just fit in to this world around me. That like was so painful either way, like.
Speaker 2:I just didn't want any pain. Right and I didn't think about this as a seven year old, or anyone like I didn't think about this. But that's what you do we. We try to do things to feel good, but we try to avoid things that won't feel good. That's all we do right, right.
Speaker 1:What do you feel about? What is your stance? How old are your two girls now?
Speaker 2:four and two when they like.
Speaker 1:School now is so different than when we were at school. You know, and, like I, I have kids. We have a teen talk show as well, and the kids come on and they have this unconditionally acceptable place where they can talk and be heard. And we try to make change, make things better. But we have one person that is just the sweetest and he comes on, he goes. I'm in school with someone who identifies as a cat and literally that's how we have to address them.
Speaker 1:And during class, all right, and you can't laugh at them or you end up in the principal's office and and I'm like why don't they take all of that time that they are using and focusing on the pronouns and the you're a cat, today you're a desk and tomorrow you're a tree? On educating our kids, because they don't teach them spelling anymore, they don't teach them cursive. Because they don't teach them spelling anymore, they don't teach them cursive anymore. They don't teach them anything. It's all about.
Speaker 1:Well, we don't want to offend anybody, but we're not trying to educate them either. So I mean, my worry, john, deep down inside, is that these kids have to feel so lost. They have to right, because who's helping these kids to come out and say you know, I don't believe I. You know, like when we were growing up, sure, there was, you know, homosexuality and and you had, you know, gays and lesbians, and now I can't even keep up with the whole, like lgbtq plus. You know, I know I'm leaving out some initials. The society is so different and these kids are getting into it younger and younger and younger and it breaks my heart because when I'm talking to these kids, they're like 8, 9, 10, 11 years old and they're telling me that you know, oh, I am non-binary, I don't identify as a male or a girl and I, you know, I'm only attracted to people's minds.
Speaker 1:And I'm like you're like nine, you know, I'm only attracted to people's minds and I'm like you're like nine, you know what could that be doing to them internally?
Speaker 2:The same thing it did to me. You know, if you have an opinion of this or you feel upset by this and you really want to say something, you withhold it and you hold it in right. So again, it stacks in. But we also have to have compassion for the teachers and the adults in this world. And this, again, it stacks in. But we also have to have compassion for the teachers and the adults in this world, and this, again, is controversial.
Speaker 2:These are people who mean well and they have been conditioned, you know. So think of, even higher up, the teacher who's perpetuating this. Right, we might want to judge them as evil or perturbed or anything like that, but we have to understand that this person, is, was probably traumatized or just like all of us, and is was conditioned to not speak up either. So they were conditioned in a judgment of a certain way and they're just perpetuating that pattern. And so for us, as conscious leaders or just people, souls, if we can break the patterns of ourselves because you know, everyone wants to save the world and have world peace but the solution is to do it yourself, right? Because if I break these patterns of anxiety and shame and panic within me.
Speaker 2:They don't perpetuate into my two or three daughters, right? Because that cycle is broken. And then these girls grow up more empowered and healthier, more embodied, to then ripple out their light into the world too. They are unleashed and not tethered in shame and all of these things. And so we can, you know, point fingers and I've done it too, and I still get into that pattern of like, oh, that's, but that's judgment and that will not heal the world. So, yes, those children are being conditioned and they're withholding, and they're holding a lot in.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But what we can do isn't and I again, I don't everyone wants to go to the PTAs and give their speech, but that creates a divide, that creates a right and a wrong, like good and evil, and that that battle has been fought for thousands of years and that's never been the battle that's won is this person's right, this person's wrong, because that creates a divide.
Speaker 2:So the solution is not just internal, but it's having a divine perspective and transcending transcending right and wrong, which is head, and going into unconditional love. Because from a perspective of unconditional love, it doesn't mean we allow evil and just tolerate it and let it be. We transcend it. And that's the age we're in right now is people are consciously releasing the stuff that's inside of them, reaching levels higher and higher of consciousness. Our consciousness is expanding and the world is going to be completely different in three years. It won't even be recognizable because of things like this. So, again, take full ownership of our conditioning, heal ourselves, release ourselves from this so that it can ripple out into the world instead of trying to force others to comply and force others to change. We have to embody that for that ripple to take place.
Speaker 1:Tell everybody where they can go and learn about your program and sign up.
Speaker 2:Releasepaniccom slash free as a free guide to release your anxiety for good, any internal pressure. You have the same process I outlined. It's a free guide to jump in. You can go to releasepaniccom to read about the program, to book a call with me to see if you're a fit and this will work to go over one-on-one options too. But this is a group program and very guided, very safe for you to do it yourself. And yeah, I'm on active on Instagram at memory John G, so happy to have you there and ask any questions too.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm going to make sure we get every one of his links and we're going to make sure we put them in the show notes and I'm going to ask if he'll come back again, because we would love to have him and I can't thank you enough for your time today, john. This is fascinating. I want to talk to you off air because I really am. I'm so excited. I want to learn more about this program. I think it would do wonders for more people that have gone through just really serious traumatic events. I think that they you know these people really need to look into it as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you. It's helped not just anxiety, but suicidal thoughts, depression too. So yeah, thank you.
