If you can give me 20 minutes of your attention, I'll give you hours back.

all right so you clicked on this video because you're a little bit over stimulated right now that's totally fine you've been hit with a lot of content over the last span of time maybe it's been a couple hours maybe it's been just a constant state of over stimulation for months you're not alone here you're living in the most overwhelming period of human history you are just overwhelmed with content all the time and you didn't really choose to be put into this machine so I want to take a few minutes to talk with you just one-on-one

right now and get you back to a state of autonomy where you feel like in control of your life and you're moving towards something that is on some level a little bit meaningful this video is not going to save your entire life you're not going to go from Z to 100 over the course of 20 minutes or so but what would be a win what would be a real Victory is if you could get back into a state of oh I'm going to be okay I'm not fundamentally broken I'm just a little bit overwhelmed think

about when you eat a little bit too much at like Thanksgiving or another holiday and you just kind of stuff yourself it's fine your body processes that excess and then eventually it exits your body and you feel better again it's the same thing with content and any kind of negative emotion that's overwhelming you we just have to go through a process of mental digestion and this video is going to be the redirection that gets you into a state of doing that I've been through this state many times myself I'm 23 years old I've gone through

this you know I got my first iPhone when I was 14 I have been entrenched in the digital economy and all of the great mental health symptoms of our time since I was young as well and over the the course of those years i' I've found out how to escape a dopamine hole which I've talked about um and to create some positive momentum that actually sticks around um and so let's just talk about it a little bit right away here's the game here's the game um I'm just going to talk to you like this it's

going to be a very simple video audio recording there's not going to be a whole lot going on if you can give me your attention for an extended period of time if you can intentionally practice keeping your attention right here I will make it worth your while I will nurture your attention and give you something worthy of it I think it's just important that we put our attention in meaningful places right we say okay this is something worth paying attention to so hopefully this is helpful if you're over stimulated right now please recognize that you

are going to be okay and the very very first step in this process is taking a breath and just coming back to Center just coming back to Center so let's just try that out right now you and me you're ready we're just going to come right back you are in control you are in control of what you're taking into your brain and that control is maybe the most important element of this entire thing when you realize to yourself that you're driving the boat that you're behind the wheel life suddenly becomes a lot better you know

the paralysis in this kind of over stimulation State um comes from when we give up the control and feel like we're just going through the motions we're just scrolling or we're just consuming right um you're okay you're you're all right you just weren't psychologically prepared for this level of stimulation for this level of algorithmic entertainment all right to get yourself back on track right now we're just going to start moving you in the right direction The Next Step from here and I've talked about this in my last video is just start stacking up some positive

momentum with the smallest tasks possible right this is pretty intuitive but you know if you get that good dopamine from just brushing your teeth from stepping outside your room from getting a breath of fresh air from saying hi to someone you love from doing five jumping jacks or even just one you're going to start a snowball of positive momentum that feels good and keeps you oriented on the right path but what I think would be helpful for right now is to zoom out a little further and think about what are some sustainable systems that we

can put in place to ensure that we don't consistently fall into a dopamine hole or a state of over stimulation okay I need you to understand I've been in the state many many times okay I've gotten to the point where uh I have suffered some type of emotional trigger and then turned to some form of chronic consumption whether it's quick hit stimulation through scrolling social media whether it's vaping or weed or alcohol like even if you don't have like a serious substance problem it's very easy to turn to those sources of stimulation of cheap dopamine

to numb the feelings that you're going through totally get it it's easier to do that than to go through these other systems that I'm about to walk you through but I think that there are really just about four things four systems that we can commit ourselves to that will give us the internal infrastructure to protect protect ourselves from chronic consumption to make it feel like there's something more meaningful to be doing with our time and our attention and our precious energy that'd be pretty good right if we found a meaningful outlet for ourselves that would

be a pretty good goal to aim at so I think number one we need to rewire our consumption we need to choose better sources of consumption the internet is not going anywhere social media is not going anywhere we don't need to throw our phones in the ocean I don't think that that would be very helpful it would be pretty impractical it would distance us from people we love we would be out of touch with what's going on because the world right now is online that's where we get our information so I think the question isn't

how do we get rid of the internet how do we get rid of social media how do we get rid of sources of chronic consumption it's more about how do we find a meaningful way of engaging with these things right what's a what's a good system that we can use to make sure we don't get off track we don't get constantly distracted our time is well spent okay so I like to call this conscious consumption because if you can be intentional about the sources of information you're taking in you can effectively curate your media diet

you can curate your information diet so that it's healthy so that it's nourishing right if you live in a constant state of scrolling on Instagram through memes or very short form content without a real plan or reason for watching it that's what I would call like a fast food media diet right it's based around immediate gratification um without any real purpose or intentionality behind it and through this simple shift of intentionality deciding to watch something to read something to listen to something you set yourself up to get you set yourself up to have a meaningful

relationship with the internet now the trick to doing this is you have to temporarily remove the stimulation you have to get back to a state of Silence because in that state of silence your body will naturally connect you with a sense of curiosity and then you'll know what you want to look for because right now when I say these things it's like okay great become interested in something find your passion and then pursue that how do I do that the truth is there's no step-by-step instruction for this that'd be great if there was if there

was a if there was a granular handbook on how to find what you're passionate about and then pursue it that'd be great um but there totally isn't and so we have to let our body do its thing we have to get back in touch with our more subconscious self you can't think your way through this problem you have to remove all of The Chronic stimulation and then let yourself get a little bit bored so that your body and your brain can reconnect to a sense of Natural Curiosity which is something that you had as a

child if you remember what it was like to be a young kid you naturally pursued your curiosity based on intuition when you felt compelled to go check out the sandbox over there and all the kids who were building sand castles in there you just went and did that thing or you at least had the impulse to right that's the kind of feeling we want to get back to when we're in a state of chronic over stimulation chronic consumption whether it's through scrolling or other forms of cheap dopamine we are not in touch with that childlike

sense of intuition because it's it's you know stimulation is being force-fed To Us by an algorithm that is designed to keep us online forever so that the tech companies can make more money right you understand how this works so how do we get back to a sense of curiosity through uh through rest really you know can you sit in silence can you sleep it off I think one helpful thing obviously if you're if you're feeling over stimulated would be to pour your thoughts out onto the page that's mental digestion that's just getting it out of

your skull so you don't feel as overwhelmed by it so you're not drowning I think that's helpful but then can you exist in a state of Silence so that your curiosity bubbles back up to the surface and you're naturally guided to go to the next thing that will happen you just have to give it time and space okay so then when you reconnected with that sense of Natural Curiosity then you start to pursue that spark through the internet and in that one process you start to restructure the way you turn to the internet you change

your own personal culture to social media because then you're going to explore great mythology again you remember that when you were between 8 and 10 years old you were very interested in Greek mythology or Roman mythology or whatever it was you had a niche interest and now you get to follow that again as an older person or even still as a young person but you have a purpose you have a direction to head in and I want you to notice right away how different that consumption is than just the random scrolling through your feed whatever

the next video is I'm going to watch it there's a very big difference there because suddenly you are pursuing something for a reason and you're much more engaged with it you're actually paying attention your attention is being nourished now from here you need some type of outlet for the information that you're taking in we train our minds by writing by sharing by curating and organizing the information that's up here and then doing something with it now this can look like a lot of things but I like to call this creative work because it's using your

creative mind to make something happen that wasn't there before right um this starts off as journaling I talk about this all the time but that's really the lowest barrier to entry creative practice that you can possibly do is taking what you're learning about and just writing it down writing down your personal connection to it okay um you can also speak it into your phone but I'm just giving you very clear steps to do so that you don't feel like oh man we're living in the most overwhelming period of human history and there's nothing I can

do about it no there is you just change the way you use the tools do we need to redesign social media absolutely 100% it's not set up to support humans it is specifically designed to take advantage of us and to convert US into Commodities your attention is a commodity that can be bought and sold it's worth something like $270 to Facebook we're getting off topic here but you can retrain yourself to engage in this environment in a meaningful Way start by pursuing your interests getting back into those interests through silence your curiosity will find you

again you start pursuing that Curiosity start looking into it just following the spark right removing the distractions removing the blockages so that you can follow it naturally and then taking the information you read about and writing it down that's it talking about it starting a conversation with someone in your family or a friend about what you're learning about okay great this is conscious consumption and creative work they play together they engage with one another they are on the same Continuum of activity is this feeling reasonable so far is this feeling like something that's been missing

from your life I was struggling with these things for a long time I still do from time to time but a couple years ago I was in this I was in a in a pretty consistent dopamine hole where I was really turning to Chronic consumption sources to get momentary satisfaction out of my life a constant state of instant gratification this is what I think we're seeing as a whole in our culture and this is really the big shift that we're trying to make um if we're going to save ourselves and prevent an oncoming technological dystopia

we need to practice the skill set of delayed gratification this is a process of uh species maturation it's the growing up of humanity and we're seeing how important it is because we're more surrounded by cheap pleasures and instant gratification than ever it's not your fault that you turn to them but when you're living in absence of a meaningful story when you don't have a meaningful narrative to connect to of course you're going to turn to those substances because you're a biological being and you're surrounded by them okay so we're leaning on systems to get our

ourselves out of that this is something that I did when I was in the dopamine hole as well I realized this was missing from my life I didn't have a creative Outlet I didn't have something more interesting to do and in that moment I made the very pivotal realization that my problem wasn't chronic consumption turning turning to scrolling turning to vaping turning to smoking we these were not the main problems of my life these were symptoms of a deeper problem a lack of meaning a lack of connection to that narrative now like I said I

can't just snap my fingers and have you connect to a meaningful narrative that's why we rely on the systems we rely on reading and writing to connect you to that narrative it's through the action that you find the clarity not the other way around you can't Outsource the clarity you can't think your way through the problem and then stumble upon this Epiphany and then and then figure it out um you have to start with something which is what I did I started pursuing my interest I started learning more about psychology I I thought of myself

as a as a a world to experience and explore rather than a problem to be solved and when I took that view of myself the whole process of self-discovery became really engaging it was like an adventure to go on and it was more stimulating than chronic consumption and that's really the goal here is we're just trying to find something that's more stimulating more interesting more engaging than consumption that's the whole game that we're talking about okay so we have like Reading Writing or essentially learning conscious consumption and then curation and creation okay that's the core

process here outside of that you got to take care of your physical body I'm not going to go too deep into this right now because I want you to have a pretty intuitive approach to it but it starts by finding some type of movement practice that makes you feel good and there's an important shift right there you've probably grown up in a cosmetic Fitness culture where you go to the gym to work out to look a certain way right right and if you don't look a certain way if you uh are unhappy with the the

the physical appearance of your body then that is a problem to be solved now I don't think that wanting to look a certain way is on its own a bad thing but to create a sustainable Fitness practice a sustainable movement practice that actually makes you feel good and gives you all the functionality to live a long and meaningful life you have to find a practice that you enjoy and a practice that is fun for you to complete or at least something that energizes you if you're operating from a place of Shame and guilt if that

is the entry point to any kind of change in your life you can pretty much bet it won't be sustainable it won't be sustainable why would it be who wants to live in a constant state of Shame and guilt who wants to operate from a place of I'm not good enough for their entire life it's a matter of time before you run out of the ability to withstand that level of negative selft talk and then immediately snap back into a state of self- soothing you will escape that state of negative selft talk CU it sucks

it's not fun but if you can lean into something that's energizing that's fulfilling something as simple as going for a walk for 5 or 10 minutes a day stretching out your body when you wake up in the morning arms over your head and then touching your toes and then twisting and then you know I don't know maybe doing a workout with a friend but something small and easy so that you can win because again when you experience that win when you feel what it's like to have Victory you wire your brain towards good dopamine earned

dopamine very different than cheap dopamine and the cool thing is the Snowball Effect Works in that direction as well just as it does with the cheap dopamine the more positive earned dopamine that you stack the more you're going to want to continue in that direction it's very simple you can essentially hack your body and your brain in this way so if you're feeling really overwhelmed you have no idea where to start just start with these things before you really know what you're doing before they feel right before you feel like you're connected to some passion

just go through the motions because your body and your brain will catch up they will follow the action the clarity will come promise but you start by going for a walk right you get outside you feel what it's like to have the breeze on your skin You Stand in the Rain that stimulation right there is stimulation and it's certainly better for you than the cheap dopamine and you might feel that it's more satisfying can we just pause right there for a second and realize that your desire to be satisfied is not a bad thing it's

something we can lean into because ask yourself when was the last time you were genuinely satiated by shortform consumption by quick instant gratification the whole problem with being in a dopamine hole is that you are in a constant state of dissatisfaction you're not chasing real pleasure you're constantly numbing pain and there's a certain relief that comes from that and so it's easy to be in a in a vicious cycle because it's like relieve pain feel pain relieve pain feel pain and you can just repeat that over and over again but what we're actually trying to

do here in creating these sustainable lifestyle systems is Chase real pleasure real fulfilling pleasure here's a question for you when you eat a meal would you rather it be as maximally stimulating as possible or as maximally satiating as possible actually feeling Satisfied by it when you're done with the meal do you want to feel overwhelmed with stimulation or do you want to feel full and ready to like move on to the next thing you got your fill You Feel Complete think about how you want to feel by the end of the consumption and that alone

is a helpful guide to connecting the more meaningful consumption and doing a movement practice that actually feels good for us rather than depleted and shameful and guilty for not being stronger more fit in better shape right these are important questions because let's also recognize that you've grown up in a self-improvement culture that wants you to feel constant shame and guilt so that you you know spend more money on self-improvement products and stay in this negative selft talk cycle constantly trying to solve a problem that isn't even really there if you can operate from a place

of self-love and empowerment and I'm chasing something that is going to make me feel good and I'm not a bad or weak person for wanting to feel good then you're far more likely to stay consistent with it we want to feel good so let's make ourselves feel good with positive systems and then we're going to stick to the plan that way you don't have to feel like all of this progress is a is you know just a matter of time before you lose momentum and slip and fall back into the dopamine hole it's very easy

to feel like that right oh I only have so much consistency and willpower left before the rubber band of my self-control snaps and I fall back into the Vicious Cycle again if you're chasing real pleasure and have set up the systems in your life so that you actually feel good that won't happen you're just going to naturally have an appetite for making yourself feel good with a meaningful movement practice with meaningful consumption of ideas that stimulate you and fill you with with excitement and then a creative practice that allows you to express yourself and potentially

even help other people with your ideas right okay last piece of the puzzle and before we get there let's understand that with all of these systems we're training ourselves we are training ourselves it's a holistic training system for a meaningful life in the digital age we're training our body with a movement practice that feels good we're training our mind with conscious consumption and creative work right meaningful intake meaningful output it's a training system the last piece of the puzzle here is training our Humanity now I know that sounds a little bit crazy but humanity is

a quality that you have and just like any other physical and psychological quality you can practice it it is a skill set and in today's day and age where we are more isolated than ever we are more alone in our little bubbles of instant gratification and personalized algorithmic entertainment we have to talk to each other we have to connect with each other and it's as simple as starting a conversation with someone in your world either in real life or on the internet but it's a skill set that needs to be practiced you might be out

of practice with it I certainly feel that way sometimes because ever since Co and ever since digital technology became really really good we've been more likely to just get sucked into our own worlds um and and we're not conditioned to initiate social interactions anymore those of us who do are seen as outliers and it's a skill set to be admired but it's something that you can practice and you can do it earnestly it's not about getting everyone to like you it's not about having a million friends it's not about popularity it's about having a meaningful

connection with another human being who more likely than not struggles with all the same things that you do and is just waiting for someone to reach out to them say hello see how they're doing I almost don't want to give any more instruction on this point because it's one of those things that you have to just experience as a human being but if we're looking at it from bird's eye view zoomed out macro view of this whole thing training our humanity is going to be one of the most crucial things we do as a species

to make this maturation process to make this this growing up adolescence of humanity process uh smoother and to make it to make it doable because you know we're going to be faced with some serious challenges in our lifetime we're going to see some some climate effects adverse climate changes obviously we're already seeing that um we have tech companies that are not set up to support our psychology or our well-being we're going to have to fundamentally restructure them so that they are otherwise we're going to have a generation of people who are fully dependent on cheap

dopamine but we're going to deploy one crucial skill set here which is pragmatic optimism pragmatic optimism an acceptance of reality accepting that things are the way they are and you know we don't we don't like it it's certainly not good for us but that we have the capability to make a change on both the individual and the collective level we accept that we can look forward to a better future as long as we ourselves are willing to commit to it in our own lives that's a cultural shift we shift the culture of the internet how

we engage online how we engage in our personal lives we learn to delay gratification on the individual and the collective level and we're going to be okay if I were to leave you with one thing here it would be that you are in control of making this change and it's a lot simpler than you realize you start with the small small small steps there is so much so much heroic significance in the Little Steps if you right now in this state of chronic over stimul can just sit up 25% from wherever you're at and then

50% and then feel your feet on the ground and then take a deep breath and then stand up and then sit right back down because maybe that was a little bit too much okay and then try the whole thing again from the beginning 25% 50% and then standing up and then walking outside of your room looking around feeling what it's like to have senses feeling what it's like to be reconnected to the real world and then to go brush your teeth and then go outside and feel the breeze on your skin and then go for

the walk and then just you know pick up a book that's on your nightstand or just lying around the house and read it because there's just some vague small spark of curiosity of like oh what's this about learning to lean into that so that then that voice of curiosity becomes louder more supported and more validated next time around you do that and then you write down your thoughts you just pour out all of the over stimulation onto a piece of paper you you don't have to share it it's just for you to get it out

of your body to practice that skill set of mental digestion and then to start over time consciously curating your feed to feed you sources of inspiration and and meaningful stories and art that makes you want to create art right and to share this entire process with the humans around you so that then the snowball of collective change becomes effortless that would be heroic there is heroic significance in that you are the protagonist of your life and if you aim your protagon IST Mission at Collective goals you will be a pivotal force in saving the world

if we can do these systems if we can apply ourselves consciously to training our mind our body our Humanity we will be free from any government that wants to control us from any corporation that wants to monetize us and any algorithm that intends to paralyze us we are going to be okay we are in this together and I'll see you next time