Mastering the Past
I hiked up the hill and turned on the camera, and,
recorded the clouds going by.
a bald eagle flies by.
that's always a highlight to me to watch.
you watch that bald eagle, you know,
it only takes 4 or 5 seconds
and it goes all the way out without even
flapping its wings, just soaring with the wind.
And then it works its way back.
Over like five minutes I watched it,
and then the whole time, it never flaps its wings.
It's just controlling, its body angle in the wind.
And every time I'm out here watching the eagle,
I think of so many metaphors for us in this space.
The current is flowing against us.
The wind is flowing against us.
Do you ever feel that way An. Okay, but look at the eagle.
The eagle aligns itself and it uses the breeze.
It it flies directly against it,
you know, zigzag a little bit like a sailboat in the wind.
It knows how to do it.
This is what we want.
We've got headwinds right in our life.
This is the obstacle, is the way.
The wind is not at our backs for a while.
How is the obstacle?
Is the way the eagle is making the obstacle the way?
I'll tell you.
And so this is this is what we want to do in life.
One of the ways that we can do that
today, mastering the past
with insights from my favorite tiny little book.
I brought a few quotes from this.
I think the last one I did, I title,
I don't know, it was a while ago, empower yourself.
That was the quote tiny quotes, big ideas.
I loved that empower yourself.
Can just do a whole nother session on that.
Yeah, just hear it.
And I want to talk more about it.
So many things people put money into.
But do we put money into our health?
You know, do we put the time?
Do we give ourselves the tools, everything to thrive
today?
I won't start talking about it again.
Just go back if you missed it.
Empower yourself was the title of that session today.
Listen to this quote only a little bit longer.
Master your past in the present
or the past will master your future.
Fasting space.
You know what I what I say about it?
A fasting process.
One way to think about it.
Pinnacle health pursuit.
You know.
They're climbing the mountain now, right to to take every.
You think of every dietary process.
Every diet in the world have ideas about what to eat.
I like to say every day to tell you what to eat,
but never when to stop.
You know, as like. And so as we think, though, diet.
Bring it all the way down into the pure form.
Fasting is like the base,
like the pinnacle of the mountain.
Really getting into some, space there.
Now we can describe fasting in only 1
to 1 of three sentences.
You know, you can outline the whole thing because it's
very, very simple, as I called it, simple fasting.
I was talking to a friend
the other day who's new to fasting.
They want to try it out.
They're like, oh no, you're in the fasting, right?
I'm like, yeah, like, well, what do I do?
We talked through it and now they're they're doing it.
And they're like, you know, this is so simple.
That's what they said.
They said it's not really easy, but it is simple.
I was like, this is what I say.
Not necessarily easy, but simple.
And then when I explain to them, I explain to anybody.
It's a practice that you build skill at nothing really.
Can you find the exception?
Nothing that is valuable in life?
Is always easy.
I'm sure that I'm sure there's exceptions.
A breathing isn't breathing easy?
Well, until you really try to sink into it,
you know, to really use it as a therapeutic tool.
Anyway. So the thing about. Health.
And the thing about making changes to health is that
we don't come at it from a blank slate.
You know, we are not tabula rasa or,
you know, the, in a mind of a child.
We have had a vast,
experience of, life
that has brought us to this place and this moment.
Anybody can explain fasting to you, right?
Anybody can say I was very simple.
You don't eat for a period of time.
And I like to explain fasting as a spectrum.
It's like we got the classically understood things,
you know?
16 818 six Omad maybe fasting for a day extended fasting.
Okay.
There's kind of these notches thinking like gears
that you can stick shift your way into, you know?
But really, this is variable transmission, okay.
It's just the whole, The whole spectrum.
Continuous variable transmission.
So I was just tell people
you don't have to start at 16 hours.
I was talking to a patient
the other day is a 16 hours are very intimidating to them.
I say, look, let's just atomic habits
our way there and start with five minutes, you know,
and if we did five minutes this week and ten the next, 15
and 20 by the,
you know, end of a month, even,
you know, we can bring it way back.
No pressure.
So we can go through that cycle. And we've done that.
And anybody who wants me
to dive through detailed questions
about the physiology of fasting and the timing of it,
and how do you do it?
And I've got videos on fasting aids
and all this sort of stuff.
Okay.
But once we get that, that's what I consider the basics.
Okay. Let's do that.
The basic understanding, the real meat of it,
the real deal is actually doing it
is making it a part of life
so that it can give the benefits that it has to offer.
No real benefits necessarily,
to knowing about it without practicing it.
Although I'm thinking to myself, well,
wasn't I saying the other day that fasting is a mindset
as much as anything?
Yeah.
And so maybe knowing about it does have value.
Just to see all this is a type of thing that is possible.
So I a caveat.
Some benefits can come even from knowing about it
and thinking about it.
Even I think.
But the real experience of it is of course, is doing it.
And that's where it goes from something that is simple.
Yes. To something that can be difficult
to actually implement.
And from my perspective,
when I think of this quote, tell me what your, is.
Our past is what makes it difficult more than anything.
Because we have habits and patterns and we have emotions
that are in, grooves and ways of
being that we have developed,
that feel normal and natural.
And the way our mind works, almost everything is set up
to make change feel difficult and to make things
that we're used to feel good and normal,
because we've been doing those things for a period of time
and we're still alive.
We've made it right,
which means what you're doing is pretty safe.
And so as we are moving in a direction, anytime we change,
say we want to, Have a feeling of safety.
Remember, we've gone into this.
And, the safe message from the body
that deep breathing gives us.
Parasympathetic flow.
Shutting down the stress response, telling the body's
okay.
That's how you get into the space
where you hormonally create the environment,
where you can start something like an autophagy
process. Yes.
I have a G.
The very, very precise details of,
timing of autophagy
have been mapped out in animal models.
It apparently is very hard to do it on living,
people to really, you know, you got it.
Get some stuff under the microscope and dissect it.
But the basic understanding is, is present in people.
And, as far as I can tell, it can vary.
There are many factors that can vary the timing, of that,
including how much exercise are we getting
and what type of diet are we following?
High carbohydrate diets that are leading to,
higher insulin levels going to be a barrier to that?
If we are exercising a lot
and we're burning through our reserves,
the barrier to the autophagy space is going to be much
less some people with significant exercise.
You can start even getting into that fairly quickly,
even through exercise.
The path toward it, through fasting,
is the process of getting autophagy
without having to work extremely hard
to do it, other than doing the mental work
of opening up the physical space to do it.
And as you start getting up toward
16 hours, is when that system starts clicking in
maybe 12 on the early end, depending on the variables.
And then 16, yes, it's kind of turning on.
And then it's just like fasting is a dial in a gradient.
The autophagy process is also like that.
It isn't just one thing.
It's not like it turns on and ramps up,
and it even ramps up for 4 or 5 days
as as you head out into an extended fasting period,
you will ramp up
deeper and deeper levels of an autophagy process.
But simple fasting.
What I say a spectrum, of experience, within a day,
maybe a day of fasting is something that,
Is, and, shallow end of the pool
for a fasting kind of dipping your toe in the water,
getting a little bit of on time.
4G at the deepest levels.
But the body can do profound things,
with even little bits of this space.
And, So that's where I have, focused, historically.
So the real barrier to something that I like,
that we are attacking the other day is a autophagy effect.
I like that cellular cleansing.
Get rid of all the junk in the cells
and kind of refresh, revitalize the system.
I want that it's one thing to say, well, I want it.
And then.
But you can't buy it.
You have to do it.
And so we want to look into this space, master the past
so the past doesn't master your future.
So we're running our future to be different.
We're trying to turn the rudder on the sailboat so
that we start going in a little bit different direction.
There's something that can be easier said than done.
How do you master the past?
And do you.
Do you agree with it?
Can you see how that can be the, case?
Can you see how it be the case?
And here's what I encourage people to do.
I have spent definitely some time doing this.
Get in a journal and start writing it out.
You know, do you really think it is the case?
And sometimes it's not completely obvious,
but start writing about the past and the experiences.
That have shaped informed us
and how we have come to have the opinions that we do.
Just to start mapping it out, to look at the landscape
is something, like,
you cannot definitely can't master something
that you don't understand.
So I would encourage you, do you understand even yourself?
We had, that session, in the fall,
the illusion of understanding.
And we said if there's anything we should understand,
it would be ourselves.
Like you were the only person who has lived this,
human life that we have,
and we've actually got the most firsthand experience
that you could possibly have.
Don't we understand ourselves?
Well,
when you start digging into it, it's actually tricky.
Do you feel this way that the the past.
Our memory of it is we got this out of thinking
fast and slow.
Memory gets a little bit like this over time.
Memory can be influenced and shaped parts of our brain.
We've things into convenient stories for us.
That help to make our.
Little mental heuristics, like the mental tricks that help
keep everything organized and coherent,
help everything fit into narratives
that help to make sense of the world for us
so that we don't feel so overwhelmed, like we don't have
17 million data points of every day.
You know, it gets compressed into a story.
That's what starts to form our identity.
Attorney cabinets was giving us that, perspective
that if we really want to change,
we really want to move forward.
Like the most powerful way to do
it is to get to the identity place.
Like, who am I?
Most people who try to make changes
start on the outside of that shell, probably.
I have that picture still in here somewhere,
but it was like, actions are on the outside.
We start to just focus on changing the actions first
without breaking inside.
Who is this person you know?
Who this person is is in many ways shaped by the past.
We are now who we have come to be through a process
and an experience.
So a process of mastering the past is right
in the same space
of answering the idea from atomic Habits.
How do you get in there and change?
This identity and who am I
and why do I do the things that I do?
And what are the actions that actually.
Are in alignment with who I am, really,
and who I want to be?
And those are that is a fluid space.
So we're getting into the
I think the really the root of these things.
How do you change.
And then we're taking these threads
from the mountain as you.
Don't let our emotions guide our actions.
Said actions first. Emotions follow.
So like there's this interesting intersection there.
We're trying to master the past.
The past is here with us in the present.
We can reflect on it
and see how we are interacting with it.
Are things that have happened to us in the past,
are shaping our decisions now?
Do you see examples of that?
So here we are in an interesting loop, stuck in the past.
And then we're trying to look at this loop going forward.
Because who we are
now is shaping who we are in the future.
And so you just
you can see this flow where who we've been,
like what we did it atomic habits the other day
when I was sitting by the lake.
How did they phrase it?
What, what we our next action
is, is heavily influenced by what we just did.
You know,
like we do something creates a queue for the next process.
We have a past has formed a present.
Present is shaping the future.
We say we want to get in that whole cycle.
Do you see that?
When I get in that loop?
Well, let's bring it all the way back
to where they started in the past.
We don't have to be defined by the past.
When we start telling ourselves different stories
about the past, or we start reinterpreting,
or we say what this has meant has led to these actions,
but I'm going to think differently about that.
I'm going to stop that flow
and we're going to replace it with something different.
Can especially get into this place with any sort of trauma
that has happened,
any sort of thing that has been difficult,
that we have developed
pathological coping processes for.
You can see that
we can bring grace to ourselves in that space and realize,
oh, I see what has happened here
at a different point in my life.
Something happened.
Influences came in and shaped my thinking.
And when we recognize it and name it,
and especially write it out
so that we can get it out and separate it and see it.
Then we can start to become more objective about it.
We can start to see reality more clearly, mastering
the past is about seeing
the present reality more clearly and gaining deeper
understanding of why things are the way they are.
So that we can move forward in the healthiest way.
This is what to do if you feel barriers to it.
Across any domain, whether it's fasting,
is a pinnacle health process, whether it's every,
basic thing that a human being needs, moving the body
in the healthiest ways, eating the healthiest foods,
keeping the toxic foods,
it probably shouldn't even really be called foods
out of the body.
Opening up a beautiful space
to take a deep breath and clear the mind.
I was listening to someone, talk the, yesterday.
About a meditation space.
And, about the first time they heard it.
Suggested that.
Oh, learn to do a meditation.
And they just laughed and they said, there's just no
there's no way I could do that.
And then why would you want to do it?
And I remember that really, really resonated with me
because that's how I felt about it.
Like a couple years ago.
And it was like just the whole idea
because a meditation to me
is so far away from where our, society is.
You know, our society is,
like always on attention economy.
I don't think it's a really.
Super healthy, you know, I don't think it's super healthy.
I think there's great benefit
that can come from using digital tools
to connect people across space and time.
And that's why I do really love this format.
You know, that we can connect across distances,
share ideas of health.
I love it, but then one of those ideas
that we should transmit is like,
where's the off button too?
And as we click off, you say, what replaces that space?
To me in meditation space,
one of the most powerful spaces of health in the body.
And then, of course, there's a big interface
between the fasting space, meditation space.
It's like mind and body mirrored together.
One of the one of the first quotes in this little book,
I did this, To how did they phrase it?
Thought creates reality. That's there.
That's that many quote, many quote from a mini book.
I just love it.
Like it's sometimes like the biggest ideas
come in the smallest things, fasting, so much like that.
It's like we've gotten so small that it's down to nothing.
Thought creates reality as we get into a meditation space,
then we're going, definitely into there.
And you want to connect a fasting space
to a meditation space.
That's especially a space to get into if you find it
difficult, if you struggle to actually do it.
I think.
I've, I've watched, you know,
I want to understand, you know,
how do people in popular society,
other people communicate about fasting?
I've watched I watch tons of videos from other people,
you know, on YouTube.
Ever so many people.
Maybe not everybody. Many people.
I mean, you know, trying to sell things.
There is hype out there.
Like, I definitely run into people,
you know, a barrier that I face
when I'm talking to people about fast
and they say, oh, isn't that a fad?
And I'm like, well, kind of, yeah.
You know, from a certain perspective
because like, people came to understand in society
that there is efficacy in this process
and people kind of run with it.
And I was like, but I often try to help people understand.
It's like also, okay, it's true.
This went out into popular society.
There are influencer people talking about it.
And they can sell the idea
that it is both simple and easy.
And when something is, Is not always easy
and it's sold that way, then we can have, discouragement.
I like to say the secret to happiness
in life is low expectations, because most conflict
and most discouragement comes from discrepancy
between our expectations and reality.
And when we are disappointed, it starts to create negative
thinking and a negative cycle.
Okay.
Variety expectations keeps things in line with reality.
Most things of value in life are more difficult.
Then we wish that they were a take more time and effort.
It's just the reality, right?
Like the house project, you know, whatever it is.
Queen of Heaven is here.
I hope you're having a beautiful day.
Thank you so much for being here.
Because I was just reading.
A man thinks so. Is he?
So he is. So is he. Yeah.
So this is where I want to go into that space
that creates reality.
Not in some magical sense, you know,
but in a real, tangible physical sense.
So get into that space.
I was saying the connection of meditation, space
of fasting, space, especially if you're struggling
with fasting and say,
here is a space where you can really dial into it.
Merge these two thoughts together, mastering
the past in the present
so that it does not control our future.
Thought creates reality.
What is the experience that we want to try to shape
and create for ourselves in the future?
What are the thoughts
to think that would help that to be a reality?
When you open up a fasting space,
okay, when you open up a meditation
space, space in the body, space in the mind,
one can flow into the other.
Especially the mental space that we're saying use
that space, that openness to reflect on the process.
See the parallels. The connection between mind and body.
Use the strength of a meditation space
to build the emotional fortitude
to help you guide the body through a fasting space.
One type of strength serves the other.
Fasting is strength in the body. Out there went there.
When our background. Fasting is strength in the body.
There is energy in the body.
But how trained is the body to use it?
Okay, is has
the body had a practice and a pattern of doing it
or has it that just like a muscle,
if we never use a muscle atrophy, right.
Body does not invest resources into things
that aren't used?
Okay.
We practice fasting, right?
It's like, oh, this is something important.
We're going to have to get this access.
Better
keep the highways to that location wide open and clear.
You know.
Same thing in the mind. Meditation.
There's something so simple but not easy.
Okay. I don't know about your experience.
I have found it more difficult in my life to,
practice meditation than to practice fasting.
Maybe.
Maybe I have just really put more effort
into one than the other.
But here is mental strength.
Do you want mental strength?
No. If you can really see that. Well.
If you want a mental. Oops, there we go.
If you want a mental strength, meditation is building
mental strength.
Have you experienced it?
You tried to practice meditation.
You say, what is it?
I'm going to sit in a calm, quiet space.
I'm going to clear my thoughts.
I'm going to try to breathe and find peace and contentment
in a space.
I don't know about you.
I was so intimidated.
Right?
Like, even still, you know, even when I have done it for,
been working on it for a couple of years
is still a barrier to entry to do it.
Like, am I really going to do this now?
Is this really important? Should I really be?
Is this really the best use of my time to sit
and do nothing?
Because don't you don't you start to do it.
It's like you feel judgment from society.
Like it's like you had a line in your room,
nobody knows, like what you are doing and who cares
what anyone else would think anyway.
But I would just even feel it like, oh, am I wasting
my time
here is like somebody say,
who is this guy who sits and does nothing, is lazy.
You know, you could bring in like all this judgment
and is that just stuff that comes out of my mind of like,
but you see that when you open that space, it's like,
these are the thoughts that come out.
You realize, oh, there is judgment
here, there is pressure.
There are all these things that are coming around.
How do you get thoughts like that out of your mind?
Do you have to give space for it to happen the same?
Do you see that it's the same pattern?
How do you get an autophagy in the body?
You just have to order open the space so that the energy
can flow out so the processes can happen.
Same thing in the mind.
Do you experience mental clutter?
Do you have just so many thoughts when it's like what?
How do you get all these thoughts to stop?
You know?
Open up. The meditation space takes ten 15 minutes.
That's been my experience
to get through the anxiety of the experience,
to breathe through it, to just to sit with the
the desire to have to move and do something.
I was doing the talk, you know, when I was up north
and I went and I was sitting out on this frozen
lake in this beautiful place
with an eagle flying around and all this stuff,
and it was so hard just to sit there,
and it was so beautiful.
There's a gentle snow is falling and it's like,
could you imagine a more peaceful
and idyllic place than sitting in this beautiful, lake?
Right.
And totally in nature, away
from every sort of distraction?
Still took me 10 or 15 minutes for all that to calm down.
And so you get into a space like that is releasing
all of the thoughts,
all of the negative thoughts, even the positive thoughts,
like I was saying, it's so easy.
Like you're trying to do a meditation,
so I want to get up and just take a walk.
Isn't taking a walk good? Of course it is. Good.
So good.
A process of.
Health. In many ways.
We have to learn to say no to things.
Look at what we're saying no to. In the mirror
between these two things.
Meditation, space, fasting space is food good? Yes.
But we say no to it.
To open up space for a period of time
for something better, right?
Autophagy, space healing and cleansing space in the body.
Look at a meditation space.
Isn't taking a walk good?
You see, I'm feeling anxious. Like I have to move.
Are you telling me, sitting here in this space
and do nothing that seems pointless?
Like, shouldn't I just take a walk?
Can't I clear my mind?
Taking a walk, isn't a walk good for the body?
Yes yes, yes. Okay, so.
But sometimes we have to say no to good things
in order to make room for things that are better.
And these would be like the pinnacle sort of place.
Fasting space, meditation space.
We build, that space.
In that space, you say there is where you can really get
in, like we said, find the things in the past.
That's building mental strength.
Like I was explaining,
okay, physical strength, fasting in the body.
How trained is the body to use that energy?
Okay. Now how trained is the mind?
As Sarah,
we want to find a space of peace and contentment mentally.
Very hard to do in distraction society. Right.
And so this is what the practice looks like to the best
that I know. It to schedule it in.
Remember atomic habits intention.
Implementation intention.
Schedule it on the calendar, give your meditation practice
a time and a place to live in the world.
You know, to like, make it a priority and open it up.
And then in that space I say what comes up, right?
Maybe just what comes up is, I hate this.
This is this feels anxious, it feels awkward.
And I say, okay, that's where the journal is.
And write that out.
You say, what do I write in a journal?
I say, write what comes up in the meditation, which is.
And maybe the first thing is like, I hate this.
I don't see how this is helping my life, you know,
how can I just sit here in a space?
Right?
But even that, that would be like,
you know, as bad as it could be, right?
So I'm like, really bored here.
I feel like I got to be doing something. Okay.
But even that think of the insight
that you can gain from it.
What is the way of being that I want in the world?
Isn't it the case that a human being can find peace
and contentment right here inside of myself?
And shouldn't I be able to do that?
You know, is it
something that you really want to be able to do?
And can you see
then that if you are building that strength,
the type of mental strength
that can sit in a space peacefully and content.
That that would help you to practice fasting.
And you see the flow back around that.
If you are training the body that we are not so dependent
on every external thing,
that that would flow back around and help you to be able
to practice meditation and sit in a space better.
Because really, isn't it the same thing
the body and the mind?
The past and the present, the present and the future.
All flowing together.
And that sort of space, meditation
space is especially when you can get in those loops.
And start to reinterpret them and shape them in the way
that is really serving you going forward.
To me, I feel like this sort of idea
getting in that loop between past and present is,
is one of the most powerful steps
that we can take to move forward.
In health, if you are feeling a barrier in any fashion,
to taking steps, if you've identified steps,
But are feeling a barrier to do it.
These are the types of thinking, all the thinking
that we're going through, the books and the quotes
and the thought process,
is trying to get into these root levels.
One of my big, frustrations in medicine,
has been the lack.
Of a focus on root level, interventions in this society.
That is very focused on, superficial and appearances.
I was saying someone, if you are having barriers.
Okay. What if you are not having barriers? Okay.
We don't want to create any self-fulfilling prophecy.
Like if someone is in a space, someone is just in a flow.
They say everything is going so well.
I'm not experiencing barriers.
Look, I'm taking powerful steps every day.
Maybe that's a space.
Maybe, say, see, at some point you say, look,
I've been working at something for a very long time,
and, look,
I am on my road, and I have my process and path.
And every day I'm taking powerful steps and, like.
And we have momentum and things are rolling like,
you don't have to in up to that.
And, A lot of things we try to do,
I try to share two, you know, perspectives on it.
We can talk about the benefits of long term planning
and setting a point on the distant horizon
and looking toward it.
Okay.
And then we can also have quotes like I shared
back in the fall from Jenson Wong, who's running
a multitrillion dollar company who says he has no long
term plans and he just lives in the present.
And I say we're going to solve today's problems today.
Like like a very different perspective.
Each have value.
And we have certainly had, The discussion
and the perspective,
like and living in the present is not living in the past.
Okay. So here's like some balance.
We don't want to be living in the past.
We don't want to wait.
We did our sessions letting go of regret
all these sort of things.
Okay. It's when there are the barriers.
This idea mastering the past is about when we are stuck.
It is about when we have barriers.
Many times
if we are stuck, we can find answers to that somehow
in the past of what has led us to this obstacle.
And so mastering the past.
Listen, if you have already done it to a satisfactory
level where you you do not feel a blockage
to any sort of flow toward better health,
you don't have to keep going back.
So that's what I would say.
Should we keep looking back?
Not if you are running forward.
You know, if you are like, man,
I have left the past behind.
I see the negative cycles have broken out of them
and we are running in such a positive direction.
Don't look back.
But as a powerful health process,
that's the balance between the things.
Look back when we mean to, to gain the insight.
There is the huge, huge struggle,
and it's an ongoing, process, I would say.
And it's the type of thing
that you can throw in and out of, I've found
I've definitely experienced, like, seasons
where I really felt
grounded and present and, times where I have,
kind of lost the plot again, you know, and so
maybe that's the thing, you know, a lot of things in life,
we we have a lot of linear thinking in our society.
And, Really,
a lot of life is more like a flow in a cycle.
Right. And so.
Having a process, this is where
the journal can really help have a process of realizing
when you've kind of reached an extreme,
it's like, oh, we were in a good space.
You can flip back where we kind of in a better space,
try to course
correct help, to kind of keep the even keel on things.
Very, very easy to be stuck in the past.
That's what this is about.
Mastering
the past is about trying to live in the present moment.
You know, if you're already there, say don't leave.
But if you're finding yourself stuck in a space, yes,
mastering the past and then mastering the future
to the extent that we can do it is the other side of it,
which is we have anxiety about the future
and so depression, regret,
things like this are stuck in the past.
We bring that into the present,
find peace and content, contentment,
anxiety and worry that's living in the future.
And so we want to bring all these things into the present.
Much easier said than done, but so important.
Meditation, breathing, journaling, like the core practices
I've found to help center ourselves and do it.
And to me, these are the practices.
More than just knowing, some fact about fasting
to bring a mind into a place of peace and contentment
to me, is the process
that can help mind flow out into the body,
bring health to the body.
In many ways.
And then just the fasting process, just one of them.
