The Burden of Seriousness - How to stop feeling overwhelmed by life - E166

We're going to talk about how to stop taking ourselves and reality too seriously.

Now, that is potentially controversial because there's names for people that don't take things seriously.

“Have you noticed that the world that we live in has been doing most of the thinking before you that your beliefs, perceptions, reactions, fears and doubts?”

Have been shaped by unsolicited outside noise? How easy it's been for you to slip into that default sleep walking mode and label it as life and reality. Yeah, that ends here. Welcome to the Makes sense with Dr. JC podcast. This is your opportunity to start thinking for yourself, reclaim control and step back into that role as the shot caller and dominant force of your own reality.

It's when you change the way that you look at things that the things that you look at begin to change.

So, let's wake up. Let's rise up and let's make sense of why and how shift happens. Great morning, world, great morning humans. This is your boy, Dr. JC Dornick, aka the Dragon. And welcome to another edition of the Makes sense with Dr. JC podcast. The whole purpose of the Makes sense ecosystem and what we're about to do as usual is we're just going to point some things out. This is not a teaching session. This is not me being some sort of a guru because that's the furthest thing from the truth.

I'm just somebody just like you. Maybe I've done a little bit more reading than the average person, a couple books a week.

And I'm a doctor of carapratic, so I've got a little bit of that biology background, background and nutrition, but I've been entrenched for about 18 years in neuroscience.

When that came on the other side of just going through some tough shit, like a lot of people. And just feverishly learning about the human brain and how we have been programmed in condition to look at things a certain way and react in a certain way and I've created just wrote the book. Makes sense at a rewire your mind and transform your life. So, the whole premise of my work is the idea of arming and equipping people with the weapon of awareness, giving people back control

because I think that we've unconsciously lost control of doing the thinking because we live in a world that's moving so fast and with algorithms and all of these people vying for our attention without even knowing it. We have let the world start doing the thinking for us. So, the whole purpose of these rise ups that we're about to start today is just to point some interesting things out. And, you know, hopefully make you go because when you do that and

“that's what it says on my hat. It means having made up my mind. I mean, I'm going to think about”

that and that's how you reclaim control of your thinking. You just think you allow yourself to not have to know to revel and enjoy with comfort, uncertainty, at least for a little while because this world's been demanding certainty of you. And that's where we fuck things up, right? So, the purpose of this topic and the purpose of all the work in the makes sense ecosystem is to just from an open and curious place, point out things and maybe allow ourselves to look at them

with a different and alternative perspective. This one is called the burden of seriousness and why your personal growth may be stress in disguise. How could that be? How could personal growth self-development and taking life and yourself seriously? How could that actually be the problem?

“Have you noticed that the more that you try to fix your life, often the heavier it feels?”

We start our growth journey. A lot of you are in a growth journey. Some sort of transformation. We start our growth journey and our intentions are to feel free. But suddenly, our healing feels like something like a chore and all of a sudden we notice maybe even more than before that we're failing at that chore. So, if yourself and improvement has started to feel like a burden in that sense, you're potentially maybe you're stuck in a trap and that's this burden of seriousness.

So, today what we're going to do is we're going to consider only consider we're going to entertain and consider how to break that cycle with a simple shift in perspective and we're going to talk about an ancient Hawaiian practice and tradition that will instantly help you restore harmony in your life. If you're in the business of doing that today, one thing that's interesting is there's a lot of things about being human that seem logical and rational. But if you're not

open and curious, ready, you won't get it. So, I say, you know, restore harmony to your life.

about it." This is an unrealistic conversation that we're about to have. So, for warning, if you're looking to be realistic today and run with a herd and be normal, this is abnormal, not ordinary, extraordinary. Because we're going to step outside, not only of the comfort zone, but we're going to step outside the comfort zone. These conversations for a lot of people sit in the unknown and that's where the magic happens. And I think a lot of you know that. Stay with me, though, until the end,

because I'm going to share a powerful question at the end. After we've kind of loaded all of this,

I'm going to share a powerful question at the end that most probably immediately reveal whether

“you're in growth, and it's real, or it's just stress in disguise. So, that's what we're here to”

figure out today. So, let's talk about this trap of taking growth too seriously. How is that possible? Well, I know it's possible because I've taken it too seriously. So, it wouldn't be cool if we figured out, and we're going to do that today, how to get comfortable in the unknown. So, do you ever find yourself taking yourself too seriously? Not only yourself, but you're very existence, I like to acknowledge, because I take myself too seriously sometimes. And I know this

because I let my knee jerk reaction flare up rather than giving myself the chance to think about whether or not I even give a shit about something, or whether or not it matters, or that I control it. That's what the interface response system is for. That's what the book is. So, I ever find yourself taking yourself and maybe your own existence too seriously on this spinning rock that has a burning sphere rotating around it. Don't forget about the burning sphere rotating around

“it, or maybe we're rotating around it. And that's what keeps it warm. So, if you guys enjoy”

like not freezing, that's kind of cool to have this sun that we can't look at. And if you get too close to it, it'll just like vaporize you, but thank God for it. So, we're taking ourselves seriously while we're on this. And this spinning rock that we're on is sitting in this thing called

space in this thing called the universe, which as far as we know is infinite, and we'll never be

able to determine the edges of the universe, because we're all like harrowing through space at like speeds that we can't even measure. Because of this big bang concept. And here we are taking ourselves too seriously while all that is going on. So, when I look at why humans take themselves too seriously, I find that the source of us taking ourselves too seriously, it lies within the greatest gift that I think that we've ever been given in our creation, and that is our

individuality. I think this is where a lot of our problems starts. Think about the fact that you've been blessed and given this identity and individuality in this uniqueness of yourself, and we all have it. I think we're taking it too seriously. We all have this unique perspective. In fact, the whole premise of my work and the interface response system, it actually helps people reclaim control, become the dominant force and the shock caller of what their human experience.

So, their unique perspective and experience. And we're constantly trying to allow people to come home to themselves and have their own experience. And that's a healthy thing. But what we're going to talk about today is that we're going to acknowledge how humans might be taking that whole

“thing a little too seriously. And that's what it means to take yourself too seriously.”

It's to sit in this uniqueness, this individuality that you've been blessed with. You're one of a kind, right? Nobody can compete with you because there's only one of you. Sometimes I think that we take that too seriously. That's right. Today, what we're going to do is we're going to consider the actual opposite of what we've been trained and learned in condition to think about. We're going to talk about how to stop taking ourselves and reality too seriously. Now, that is potentially controversial,

right? Because there's names for people that don't take things seriously. lazy, vagabonds, people that just don't take anything too seriously. You know, I wear this shirt and I says breaking news, I don't care. A lot of people laugh at it, but a lot of people get angry at it. You have to care. There's a whole movement out there about what we have to do. We have to care. I find that interesting. Who started that movement? Because it works, right? Because I find myself feeling like

I should care about things, even if they don't matter or even if I don't have any control over them.

So it starts with this. This is where kind of like my curiosity was first struck on this topic.

Because I do a lot of personal growth, a lot of self development. And I find myself coming home

way that I want to look at things, right? So I get lost in that. But one of the things that I've

been noticing, and it's been going on my whole life in so many observations of other people, I notice that people that are pursuing, just like you probably are, many, many ways. Everybody, every one of us wants to be happier, healthier, and wealthier. We're all seekers of the earth. So whatever it is that you're pursuing, it might be some sort of healing, personal development, spirituality. You might be involved in therapy. You might be a coach. You might be coaching. You might be

getting accountability. The coaching people are receiving coaching, self improvement, all that stuff. What I find is how quickly this logical and rational pursuit of becoming better, chasing better, evolving transformation, how quickly it becomes heavy and too serious. This is an interesting observation of it, and this is going to rattle you a little bit. And the message here today is to not stop what you're doing. It's just to become aware. Arm you with the weapon of awareness.

It's the first step to this idea of living comfortably and the unknown. I like to just recognize

“that I don't really know everything. That's why I give such a kick out of people that challenge me”

and come at me, and they tell me what they know and that what I said is wrong and stuff like that,

they're never going to win that with me because I'm actually open to what they have to say,

because I know and it's a wise person that recognizes that we don't really know everything. Even stuff that we think is certain. We go on all of these breakthrough experiences and it starts with some sort of genuine curiosity, while we go to seminars and while you're listening to this perhaps or podcasts or read books and have masterminds and mentors and all that stuff. But it starts with genuine curiosity and there's some sort of an insight for a breakthrough that

happens, a realization or an awakening. You might have one today. You might have already had one. And I'm looking very about that. Could be a moment of a situation where something kind of opens

up to you. Maybe it came through a book, this conversation could be breath work. I'm a big fan of

breath work and I've worked with Plant Medicine for the past five, six years and meditation, prayer, all of these things are maybe even moving through tough times like heartbreak or maybe a hard season. I have these massive breakthroughs and insights when I find myself not quitting and moving through these insights. Maybe some sort of a spiritual experience. So we go through those things and it takes a lot of work and sometimes we have epiphanys and all of that stuff and

go, aha. Do you remember the commercial I'm dating myself now for V8 tomato juice where they used to make that sound? I should have had a V8. That's a fun thing to say every now and then if you're kind

“of one of those older people that remember that. I always allow myself. It's kind of like a way”

of doing cognitive distancing and say, oh, I should have had a V8. I love to let myself off the hook when I catch myself reacting inadvertently unconsciously to something rather than beating myself up. I say, oh, I should have had a V8. So we go through all of those experiences and when we go through those and we have these breakthroughs and insights and these moments of clarity and something opens up and we're leveling up and things for a brief moment during those times. You'll

notice that we feel lighter, more open connected and also aware, more aware. You might be in that moment right now. It feels really good and I find that when I'm dealing that way, I feel hopeful. I feel optimistic. I feel confident. So I actually do things to get myself in that state. But then something happens after and this is the interesting observation that I want to point out whether you're aware of it or not. Something happens after those moments. We actually tend to grip on to that

moment. Naturally, I mean, if I feel fantastic, I don't want to lose that feeling. It's kind of like

“a drug addict getting high. They don't want to lose it. That's why they keep chasing it. Right?”

So the same thing happens with personal growth and insights. We start to grip onto it and maybe chase it a little bit. We turn it into an obsession, that moment of clarity and lightness. We turn it into an obsession and it becomes our mission, which seems like a good idea. But we come to this conclusion. It's kind of like we say, now we must heal, optimize, grow and integrate correctly or else. I don't know if you ever take note of that. But sometimes that's the burden of new insight.

And this is where we commence in doing the work and embrace the suck and all of that stuff. But what we're entertaining is that another burden of that is we start taking things to

like extravagant retreats, I've been to the Amazon jungle and done Ayahuasca and all of these things.

“And I just like figure the whole fucking thing out. And when I come home, the first thing that I”

notice is that people don't speak this new language that I have. I almost inadvertently think that I'm better than other people or smarter than people or something like that. Right? And I just start

taking everything to fucking seriously. And I get critical. And I start putting other people down.

And I start beating myself up because it's not working. I run an integration group with my friend Billy for those people that have those experiences. And they all claim to be struggling to keep this feeling alive in a world that doesn't have that feeling. Right? So there's an example of the burden of seriousness. Suddenly this thing that was supposed to freeze becomes another form of pressure. We become critical of how everything and everyone else isn't aligned with this new version

of what is right and this new way of thinking. Here's an interesting part of this game. And I have so much fun researching this stuff watching YouTube videos and reading books.

“I've got I'm reading so many books right now. I'm at the point where I think I'm reading too much.”

There's never an end to the books, but I'm reading like two books a week right now.

Shout out to my friend Jim Quick, taught me how to speed read and retain. I know it's a healthy thing to read, but I like I spend quite a bit of time reading. But seriousness is actually often familiar. Now remember unfamiliar is probably where earth takes place, we're playing with that. But here's a realization that made me kind of go, hmm, about this. What if seriousness? This thing that we're trying to stay in or become. What if seriousness itself is actually

the familiar pattern? Not the unfamiliar, because remember we're in a world that's teaching us, hey, get serious. Are you ready to get serious? So what I'm saying is what if seriousness is actually the default mode the familiar pattern? What if the heaviness that we've now obtained from this isn't wisdom but conditioning? What we're entertaining right now is what if getting serious is a conditioned thing to do? Well, I can tell you one thing I was taught from a very young age

to get serious. I'm very, very much in tune with that. Alex says this, I've so strongly felt that frustration of other people not knowing what I know. Yeah, of course. I mean, God forbid anybody doesn't fucking know what Alex knows, right? How frustrating is that? It's kind of like something that happens in relationships too. When you determine that there isn't a match, you know, it's like

we're so fucking critical about like chemistry. And if the chemistry is just off just a touch,

then the relationship is not made for perfection. For many of us, seriousness has always felt like responsibility. Doesn't it feel like you're being responsible when you take things serious? So if you're not taking life seriously, people consider you to be irresponsible. God forbid you just have a good time and play a little bit. But if you don't take life seriously, especially when somebody else is, you're irresponsible. So seriousness is always felt like responsibility, like maturity, discipline,

or being on top of things. But often, seriousness is just the unconscious desire for control. Is anybody here looking to get out of control? Probably not. You might say yes to be silly, right? Or you might be in a season where you're kind of at a control, but I would assume that it doesn't feel good. Right? Feel good when I was a kid to be at a control. So this idea of trying to be in control, this unconscious desire for control. So that pressure and fear of getting it wrong.

That's what's scary about it. That's why we get serious. We have this pressure and fear of getting things wrong. Along with the fear of letting go and being uncertain. All of that stuff dressed up in a respectable and reasonably appropriate piece of clothing. It's like we're trying to

“portray all of that stuff. I think that's why so many people burn out on their journeys and”

these journeys of transformation. They don't fail because they lack things like desire. They fail because they turn growth into some sort of overwhelming performance. We take the concept of personal growth and we make it so freaking serious and we put so much pressure on ourselves and we're so critical of everything going so well. And you know, you get your mentorship and you read your books about saying like, you know, it's progress, not perfection. All of the messages are there

and they're packaged into the whole thing. Here we are still taking ourselves so seriously and thank God because the personal growth industry needs you to be a mess. Right? Isn't that funny? I

in the world and education and self development. I should probably go into the schools and start

teaching six-year-olds this stuff so they don't get fucked up and they don't need all of this work. So they don't fail because they lack desire. They fail because they turn growth into some sort of overwhelming performance. It's almost like a familiar addiction that we have to control. So there's something deeply human about this. As humans, we tend to cling to what's familiar even when it hurts us. What's up with that? We tend to cling to things that seem familiar,

even if it's something that is unhealthy or it hurts us. Why? Here's why. The reason is that it's familiar. This concept of familiar feels safe. Even if the familiar is something like anxiety

how the hell could we look at something like anxiety, which I struggled with many, many years of

my life. And it sucks. I do not recommend anybody experience it, even though we all do. Or even when this familiar thing could be something like anxiety or overthinking, stress or pressure.

“Those things that we're constantly trying to eradicate and avoid, what if those are the familiar?”

What if that's the baseline safe thing to revert back to? And I'll throw that question out to people. Does anybody here perpetually feeling anxious or stressed or maybe overthinking things? And you're ready to understand and maybe kind of come to terms with that's being your familiar. That's your safe zone. And what is the value of doing something like that? Well, I know that if

I have too much anxiety and I'm overwhelmed and I'm overthinking things, I know that I end up

using that as a reason to not do something. That's a safe place. That's a safe place. It's kind of like having an out, like a trap door built into the whole personal growth thing. And when we begin to loosen our grip on those familiar patterns that we just talked about, like if say I'm not going to be anxious anymore, I'm not going to do this anymore.

“The unknown appears. Here we are again. Uh oh, the unknown. And how does the unknown feel?”

It feels risky and it feels dangerous. If we look at the logical, rational thing to do to move forward, what we're saying is we've got to get out of the safe place and move into a risky and dangerous place. So what do you do when you assess that you're in a risky and dangerous and overwhelming place, right? You go back to the familiar. You go back to the safe. So what do we do about this situation? What we're recognizing now is that we return to what we know. We go back to gripping,

back to overthinking, back to this catastrophizing and taking everything freaking seriously. We go back to that. God, I've spent many, many years of my life doing that. I don't know if anybody is here. Alexis says raw reality feels scary. Of course, which is why we look to escape reality. Take a look around and look at the children because they have an unfair disadvantage, because they're completely being run by the machine. Alex Katselis, it's absolutely been my

“safe zone after being taught as a kid that my inner world was not important. Back, back. So my brain”

has learned to scan the outer world for answers. So as mine, so as everybody watching right now, Alex scan the outer world for answers, but the outer world is unpredictable and it's maybe even a simulation and it's been created by other people. So that right there, well said, Alex. He says, hence the fear and the anxiety. Okay, and that's the safe zone. We're in the safe zone. I'm just going to be anxious and fearful and use things like overwhelm and now it's not a good

time and all that stuff. Because if you start assessing your reality based on the outer world, like Alex is saying, you're fucked because the outer world has nothing to do with your inner world. What we're going to talk about here is going inward. Well said, so that's Alex Katselis from Substack. Everybody's like fucking Nostradamus, right? You know what's going to happen. You don't know what's going to happen. If you're working on yourself and you're leveraging yourself or

you're sucking your thumb right now, you can identify what most probably will happen just from experience, but we don't know what's going to happen. For those of you that are not having a good day or sucking your thumb today, remember, even in a barrel full of nipples, baby still find a way to suck their thumb. If you're sucking your thumb today about life in general, well, you're trying to protect the future. This could actually be the greatest day of your life.

So we've got buck Thursday. I don't know if I recall ever seeing that name. So we're taking a risk by reading this. To reset, we'll take two generations wiped out from the surface of the planet. Okay, here's an insight. Two generations wiped out from the surface of the planet to rebuild a

Thursday is coming out of saying he knows what proper is. This is always so fun. And I understand

I've claimed to know what proper is and what he's saying is that we're improper and that there is a proper. I like to look at the word improper and I am proper. Properly guide us unbrain washed people to succeed and restore the ground for a new sentient human being. Hey, you know what? I like

“it. As you know, because of the hat that I'm wearing, I haven't made up my mind about what I think about”

it, but it's entertaining. And it's something that I heard and I will understand at some point and I'll make a decision on it. But thank you so much for sharing that. Isn't it interesting how that insight right there said, there's nothing we can do about this. We have to wipe out the planet

and start from scratch. And a lot of people believe that some sort of divine force is going to

do that for us for not nice and things like that. So I want to talk to you about something really, really special. And I hope that this lands for you and some of you might know what this is. But I want to introduce a really cool ancient Hawaiian practice called Hoapano Pono. It's spelled H-O-O-P-O-N-O-P-O-N-O. Hoapano Pono. What a Hoapano Pono roughly means is to make things right. I saw a great documentary on YouTube about this and they were talking about becoming like limitless, having zero limits.

And Hoapano Pono is the practice of getting to that place. So it means to make things right or more deeply what it means is to make things doubly right, like, awesomely extraordinarily right

“within. That's what Hoapano Pono means. And that distinction matters here at this phase of this”

conversation because it's not about fixing the outside world or controlling outcomes or forcing life into some sort of order. What it's potentially most probably about is restoring harmony inside ourselves. Remember, we are the observer. The experience requires us. And if you don't believe that, I think it was Marie Antoinette that had her head cut off, reality disappeared for her that day, right? It's remained for anybody else that was here. But it's about restoring harmony

inside ourselves. So traditionally, this is practice through four simple phrases. So this is the practice of Hoapano Pono. Whenever you catch yourself drifting and doing what we normally do, the practice would be these four phrases. I'm sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you. I love you.

“That's what you're going to say to yourself. I'm sorry. The practice of Hoapano Pono is,”

I'm sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you. I love you. So it's very simple yet potentially profound because when you practice this stuff sincerely, it becomes less about ritual and more about release. What we're looking to do is release ourselves from seriousness. That's what we have to do when we catch ourselves being too serious. So the practice of Hoapano Pono is really cool. Because if you catch yourself being too serious about something, yourself or things that you can't change and

you get in caught up and you're not following me through with anything in life, I'm sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you. I love you. That's a practice of letting go, softening, and a sort of surrendering to this like all around sense of internal resist. Letting it go. It's got to like forgiveness. You know, when I forgive somebody, I'm not telling that person that what they did was okay. Go ahead. Keep doing that to other people. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying. I'm releasing it

from myself. I'm not going to take it so seriously anymore because I've got shit to do, like live my life today and things like that. It's about softening the grip. Maybe that's the real lesson here today is when you are right within yourself, there is less to grip and less to take so damn seriously when you're right with yourself. When you know yourself because peace does not come from finally controlling everything in your life. It actually comes if you think about it

from no longer needing to control. So there's a very special human that I know and this is from my work with Plant Medicine. When I've met him years ago and we've become great friends and brothers and we run this integration mastermind for the Plant Medicine world and we call him Billy V. He's actually going to be on my podcast soon. He's like a human but kind of like an alien as well because he's magical guy. He taught me to play the harp and all kinds of stuff. But Billy has this really strong English

accent and I don't know if I'll watch this but he always reminds everyone to simply return to

recognize that you're allowed to do this. Billy always says relax and enjoy your breath. Remember

“what we're talking about is coming back to ourselves and sometimes we have to unwrap the present”

moment so Billy would always say relax and enjoy your breath and people kind of laugh because he always says it but once the last time you just relaxed and enjoyed your breath I meditate every day twice a day so I always give myself time to do that but all the time that I'm outside of that I'm not. I'm spending the majority of my day not relaxing and enjoying my breath. So I want to give you permission right now and an opportunity to just kind of sit back. This will probably be in the podcast as well

because we're running a live session on YouTube and Sub-Sack we do that every Monday to stop for a second. Pull over if you're driving just relax and just enjoy your breath. What does it mean to enjoy your breath? It means hey pretty cool that I can breathe and I can kind of hear it coming in and out of my nose and out of my mouth I can say whoa I've got this diaphragm and these lungs that like fill up like balloons inside of me and take the oxygen and make it so I can live and all

that's it. Once the last time you checked on that stuff it's kind of like take your shoes off and walk in the grass one day. Maybe that'll help you not take things so seriously. So in closing let's entertain this idea that maybe the path forward today now tomorrow whenever you're ready you decide. Maybe the path forward isn't found in tightening your grip on your healing process or maybe it's not found in trying harder or becoming more disciplined. God I've spent so many years

“teaching discipline. Working on discipline and telling people you must become more disciplined.”

Maybe it's not about that. Maybe the path forward maybe one of my favorite words I'm going to have shirts made up that say maybe. Maybe the path forward is found in softening and allowing and permitting yourself to play more. Are you not allowed to play because you'll be considered irresponsible. We love to play. We love to play. That's why I wear funny shirts and glasses with no lenses. I love to play. So maybe it's about softening, relaxing and breathing more.

Trusting more. Carrying less about shit that never earned your care and focus.

You'll catch yourself caring about stuff carelessly and realize if you give yourself an opportunity, realize that you were trained to do that. You were trained to do that. And I'm not saying like don't do anything. Don't have goals. Don't work hard and things like that. No. Maybe entertain this a little bit more. Especially if you're taking yourself and the world too seriously. And asking yourself this one honest question. Here's this question that I was talking about in the

beginning. Is my growth bringing me peace or have I simply turned healing and growth into another thing to be anxious about? Assess your personal growth experience right now. Your self-development. And is it bringing you peace if so? Fantastic. Namaste. That's awesome. But if it's not, can you consider that it might be just another thing to be anxious about? That highlights what you're not doing right? Well that would be a good insight for the day.

Because if yourself improvement is making you miserable and you're setting goals but never getting

goal, it may not be improvement. It may just be stress and anxiety and all that stuff wearing a wise man's mask. That portrays that you're doing things the way that you're supposed to. That's it for today. To support the make sense with Dr. JC podcast, be sure to subscribe, like and share as well as follow the make sense sub-stack for free daily quotes, live streams and blogs. And remember, learning without action is just another form of distraction.

“If something hit home when you learn something today, give it away. That's the only way it's”

going to stay. See you next time. Thanks. If you liked the show, please take a moment to rate, review and subscribe. It really does help the show to grow. Thank you for listening.