Coach Ted discusses the chemical responses that link to our thoughts to create our emotions, and how they influence our performance.
The Chemistry of Our Emotional States
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The Chemistry of Our Emotional States
Season 4/Episode 17
March 22, 2022
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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
This is the Ted O'Neill program where we explore the science and philosophies for performance optimization, and the elevation of the human experience from the mind of Ted O'Neill with Jon Leon Guerrero.
0:23 Jon
Welcome to the Ted O'Neill program. We left you with a cliffhanger yesterday.
0:27 Ted
As we're prone to doing that.
0:29 Jon
That’s right on The Chemistry of Consciousness and we were talking about consciousness and the definitions of consciousness. Now, for the sake of problem solving, or as we address these things, we're addressing distinct factors. You know, you bring up the mind, the brain, the body, and then the conscious awareness, where we can think about those things separately, knowing that there is some overlap. You know, for instance, the brain being the collection of memories, and then the body being the thing that grounds us to the physical; the body also has its own store of memory. And its own issues to overcome in its store of memory, in some cases. So, knowing that that exists, though, when we address these things separately. We can sort of get to the heart of each one of these.
1:29 Ted
Yes. Well, there's many very different opinions on how to even define consciousness, and we talked about that a bit yesterday. But all that aside, I think we can all agree that our chemistry, whether it's internally or externally influenced, heavily influences whatever we define, is our consciousness. So, what does that mean? Well, an example. Your consciousness is clearly altered if you're intoxicated. If you're drunk. That's something we could all imminently agree on. That's a totally different state of being. If you're angry, for example, or having some kind of a struggle that's a totally different state than a state of calm. So, our consciousness and our conscious awareness is different. If we're in the throes of completing a really challenging physical endeavor, like training, we're really pushing ourselves into that access point in the Paraphysical training called the 90/10. When we're walking across those hot coals, metaphorically going into a totally new reality. If you're in a state of joy, for instance, it feels very different. It's polar opposite from being angry and now we completely affect how you see the world during those moments. So, your consciousness is completely different and all these different states. So, we can say then that chemistry is the basis for our emotional state. Chemistry of Consciousness and if chemistry is the basis for our emotional state, then there's a number of things I believe, that all of a sudden, really push that statement to the forefront of importance and having our human experience. So then how would we manage chemistry? And that's something that I want to get into a little bit. You know, there's all manner of ways that we can augment chemistry. Training, for example, is something that has, I mean, who even knows that we don't have instrumentation to track this but an innumerable number of biochemical responses per second, probably millions and millions of biochemical responses per second here, they're going to lead us ultimately to some kind of an elevated state, right? Nutrition is a way to balance your hormone levels. And you had mentioned yesterday that if you're consuming sugar, you get up into sugar laden cereal and coffee. Well, what's really going on? If that chemical state that's created by that particular lifestyle, that chemical state might be synonymous with the same way we experience anxiety, for example, if someone's eating a ton of empty calories, and then they're drinking coffee, something that creates some kind of stimulus in your adrenal glands are working a little extra. Is that not the same kind of chemistry that you would have in a moment of anxiety? So then we're actually exogenously cultivating anxiety.
4:33 Jon
Well, it's worth saying that, you know, we also talk about borrowing against the future. And the simple answer to that, or the example of that, is that when you first eat a sugar cereal, if you've never had a sugar cereal before, and then you consume a sugary cereal, you have this emotional response and that wow, that was delicious. I really liked that. Let's have more of that. And then you have the sugar response, which you can call a sugar high. But after repeated instances of that every morning for who knows how long you know; it doesn't feel the same anymore.
5:07 Ted
Well, we begin to create really the same effects that someone who was labeled as maybe a chemical addict and would have now the interesting thing about this if we can do it exogenously by eating certain foods or having a certain lifestyle, then we find and we also begin to create or at least mirror those same chemical experiences endogenously
5:36 Jon
Now there's a way to control this, and I'm not proposing that I have all the answers but what we're doing when we consume sugar, and then feel that sugar high is that the sugar activates our internal organs. And so, in the case specifically of caffeine, for instance, we get a jolt from caffeine because it activates our adrenal gland. So, what we're doing, or what we're feeling is the effect of our adrenal gland. Not that the chemical did something, or fueled something. It activates our adrenal gland and then after a while, the adrenal gland stops responding to that the same way and produces. That loan comes due.
6:17 Ted
Yeah. And so, then you either need more or we then go into a really deep contracted state. So, this is how I would say the overwhelming majority of our population that lives their lives is in this state that might seem volitional. But at some point, I think one of the definitions of addiction is losing the power of choice. So, see if you can relate to this for a second because we see this all the time. In fact, you could say when you're in a state of negative emotions, the next day someone's been struggling with something. Generally speaking, people forget who they previously decided they were going to be. And someone might say I'm done messing around with XYZ. And yet, then, within 24 hours of repeating the exact same behavior, you're back at it. This time I'm going to get on this exercise program. They're there for two or three days or two or three weeks and then disappear again.
7:14 Jon
Yeah. Or I'm never calling him or her again. I'm not talking to that person. I want space. Two hours later, you spoke to that person again.
7:23 Ted
Well, that mirrors bit by bit the foundations of addiction. So, I think addiction is something that is really, really misunderstood. Because we look at it only through the lens of someone who's destitute, and is consuming chemicals exogenous and that's one way to label addiction. But any pre-programmed pattern behavior you repeat after saying specifically, I'm no longer going to be this person. And yet in those moments, you lose the power of choice. I would call that an addiction. And really, that's the entire premise behind the emotional sobriety movement, Dr. Vitz’s movement. Her book The You You've Never Met Chronicles this and breaks this down in a way that is massively compelling. And I think it's, I say it all the time, in fact, I say it on the cover of the book. I believe it's the most important movement of our time, because this is so prevalent that we don't even stop to recognize things like this are either unhealthy or perhaps maybe abnormal behavior, because everyone does it.
8:32 Jon
Well, I'll take it a step beyond that. I would say having been through the curriculum that there's not only the recognition of all of these things, that is absolutely eye opening, but the practicality of the exercises and the ability for a person to not just recognize these traits in yourself and these activities that you do without regard for freewill, but the ability to take control one thing at a time. And the steps that are really exercisable.
9:07 Ted
There are steps and we've broken this down step by step. So, in Dr. Vitz’s book, it's really a curriculum, it's a textbook. Make no mistake about it. It's not an easy read, per se. It's not something knowing where you going to learn some new words to make some new memes with. It's really a lifestyle. And it's exactly what you're mentioning. It's the step by step set of precise and clear-cut directions.
9:31 Jon
And it’s literally equivalent to caloric density.
9:36 Ted
That's it, it's massive. I mean, it's something where if anyone who's taken on that work, and really apply themselves, they're going to become a completely different person, because they're then going to be able to control their emotional state and if you control your emotional state, circumstances and situations outside of you are no longer going to own you. So, this is the next part I want to talk about in terms of this concept of addiction. And whether it's strictly biochemical based on our thoughts, or if it's something that's habitual, like eating low quality foods, if it feeds the same chemistry and we also lose the willpower around any of those things. We are being completely puppeted by circumstances and situations, we don't have any personal agency, we're not governing our own life. We are waiting for outside events to direct us and tell us who to be and how to do it and when to do it and what to do moment by moment by moment, and we don't see it that way.
10:38 Jon
Yeah, but if we do see it that way, that is by definition, the complete loss of your free will.
10:46 Ted
Yeah, right. That would be an addiction. That's how that goes. But that's how profound that is. So, this is a huge concept and we're spending time on this particular podcast because if you think about it you tuned in and you thought you heard something about powerlifting for example or training or body composition is the basis for it. So, we talked a few weeks ago about a repetition that is what I call the fallacy of a repetition-based system and I would affirm in my 30 years of training and 25 years of coaching that the repetition isn't the movement in the physical plane of the barbells. That's not the repetition, what precipitates the physical movement, the thought, there's a thought that goes through your mind prior to actually moving anything when we see this all the time because the same way we talked about people losing the power of choice, around any number of pre-programmed pattern behaviors. I'm not going to do this anymore. I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to talk to the person yet I still do it. Whatever the thing is, it's the exact same thing that happens in training. When you get to those last couple reps. You can, in your mind, be totally dialed in, and then all of a sudden go completely blank. You lose the power of choice to stay grounded in the moment and sit in a fire and grind through it. That's where people panic. So, to me, this is the repetition. Learning how to manage these states and step out of what we would call biochemical addiction or stop feeding things into your body through a consumption that takes us off the mark is the very nature it's part and parcel of what we do at every step. If you can't transcend this, if you don't learn to have some kind of handle on this, nothing else in your life isn't coming to you easily. Period.
0:23 Jon
Welcome to the Ted O'Neill program. We left you with a cliffhanger yesterday.
0:27 Ted
As we're prone to doing that.
0:29 Jon
That’s right on The Chemistry of Consciousness and we were talking about consciousness and the definitions of consciousness. Now, for the sake of problem solving, or as we address these things, we're addressing distinct factors. You know, you bring up the mind, the brain, the body, and then the conscious awareness, where we can think about those things separately, knowing that there is some overlap. You know, for instance, the brain being the collection of memories, and then the body being the thing that grounds us to the physical; the body also has its own store of memory. And its own issues to overcome in its store of memory, in some cases. So, knowing that that exists, though, when we address these things separately. We can sort of get to the heart of each one of these.
1:29 Ted
Yes. Well, there's many very different opinions on how to even define consciousness, and we talked about that a bit yesterday. But all that aside, I think we can all agree that our chemistry, whether it's internally or externally influenced, heavily influences whatever we define, is our consciousness. So, what does that mean? Well, an example. Your consciousness is clearly altered if you're intoxicated. If you're drunk. That's something we could all imminently agree on. That's a totally different state of being. If you're angry, for example, or having some kind of a struggle that's a totally different state than a state of calm. So, our consciousness and our conscious awareness is different. If we're in the throes of completing a really challenging physical endeavor, like training, we're really pushing ourselves into that access point in the Paraphysical training called the 90/10. When we're walking across those hot coals, metaphorically going into a totally new reality. If you're in a state of joy, for instance, it feels very different. It's polar opposite from being angry and now we completely affect how you see the world during those moments. So, your consciousness is completely different and all these different states. So, we can say then that chemistry is the basis for our emotional state. Chemistry of Consciousness and if chemistry is the basis for our emotional state, then there's a number of things I believe, that all of a sudden, really push that statement to the forefront of importance and having our human experience. So then how would we manage chemistry? And that's something that I want to get into a little bit. You know, there's all manner of ways that we can augment chemistry. Training, for example, is something that has, I mean, who even knows that we don't have instrumentation to track this but an innumerable number of biochemical responses per second, probably millions and millions of biochemical responses per second here, they're going to lead us ultimately to some kind of an elevated state, right? Nutrition is a way to balance your hormone levels. And you had mentioned yesterday that if you're consuming sugar, you get up into sugar laden cereal and coffee. Well, what's really going on? If that chemical state that's created by that particular lifestyle, that chemical state might be synonymous with the same way we experience anxiety, for example, if someone's eating a ton of empty calories, and then they're drinking coffee, something that creates some kind of stimulus in your adrenal glands are working a little extra. Is that not the same kind of chemistry that you would have in a moment of anxiety? So then we're actually exogenously cultivating anxiety.
4:33 Jon
Well, it's worth saying that, you know, we also talk about borrowing against the future. And the simple answer to that, or the example of that, is that when you first eat a sugar cereal, if you've never had a sugar cereal before, and then you consume a sugary cereal, you have this emotional response and that wow, that was delicious. I really liked that. Let's have more of that. And then you have the sugar response, which you can call a sugar high. But after repeated instances of that every morning for who knows how long you know; it doesn't feel the same anymore.
5:07 Ted
Well, we begin to create really the same effects that someone who was labeled as maybe a chemical addict and would have now the interesting thing about this if we can do it exogenously by eating certain foods or having a certain lifestyle, then we find and we also begin to create or at least mirror those same chemical experiences endogenously
5:36 Jon
Now there's a way to control this, and I'm not proposing that I have all the answers but what we're doing when we consume sugar, and then feel that sugar high is that the sugar activates our internal organs. And so, in the case specifically of caffeine, for instance, we get a jolt from caffeine because it activates our adrenal gland. So, what we're doing, or what we're feeling is the effect of our adrenal gland. Not that the chemical did something, or fueled something. It activates our adrenal gland and then after a while, the adrenal gland stops responding to that the same way and produces. That loan comes due.
6:17 Ted
Yeah. And so, then you either need more or we then go into a really deep contracted state. So, this is how I would say the overwhelming majority of our population that lives their lives is in this state that might seem volitional. But at some point, I think one of the definitions of addiction is losing the power of choice. So, see if you can relate to this for a second because we see this all the time. In fact, you could say when you're in a state of negative emotions, the next day someone's been struggling with something. Generally speaking, people forget who they previously decided they were going to be. And someone might say I'm done messing around with XYZ. And yet, then, within 24 hours of repeating the exact same behavior, you're back at it. This time I'm going to get on this exercise program. They're there for two or three days or two or three weeks and then disappear again.
7:14 Jon
Yeah. Or I'm never calling him or her again. I'm not talking to that person. I want space. Two hours later, you spoke to that person again.
7:23 Ted
Well, that mirrors bit by bit the foundations of addiction. So, I think addiction is something that is really, really misunderstood. Because we look at it only through the lens of someone who's destitute, and is consuming chemicals exogenous and that's one way to label addiction. But any pre-programmed pattern behavior you repeat after saying specifically, I'm no longer going to be this person. And yet in those moments, you lose the power of choice. I would call that an addiction. And really, that's the entire premise behind the emotional sobriety movement, Dr. Vitz’s movement. Her book The You You've Never Met Chronicles this and breaks this down in a way that is massively compelling. And I think it's, I say it all the time, in fact, I say it on the cover of the book. I believe it's the most important movement of our time, because this is so prevalent that we don't even stop to recognize things like this are either unhealthy or perhaps maybe abnormal behavior, because everyone does it.
8:32 Jon
Well, I'll take it a step beyond that. I would say having been through the curriculum that there's not only the recognition of all of these things, that is absolutely eye opening, but the practicality of the exercises and the ability for a person to not just recognize these traits in yourself and these activities that you do without regard for freewill, but the ability to take control one thing at a time. And the steps that are really exercisable.
9:07 Ted
There are steps and we've broken this down step by step. So, in Dr. Vitz’s book, it's really a curriculum, it's a textbook. Make no mistake about it. It's not an easy read, per se. It's not something knowing where you going to learn some new words to make some new memes with. It's really a lifestyle. And it's exactly what you're mentioning. It's the step by step set of precise and clear-cut directions.
9:31 Jon
And it’s literally equivalent to caloric density.
9:36 Ted
That's it, it's massive. I mean, it's something where if anyone who's taken on that work, and really apply themselves, they're going to become a completely different person, because they're then going to be able to control their emotional state and if you control your emotional state, circumstances and situations outside of you are no longer going to own you. So, this is the next part I want to talk about in terms of this concept of addiction. And whether it's strictly biochemical based on our thoughts, or if it's something that's habitual, like eating low quality foods, if it feeds the same chemistry and we also lose the willpower around any of those things. We are being completely puppeted by circumstances and situations, we don't have any personal agency, we're not governing our own life. We are waiting for outside events to direct us and tell us who to be and how to do it and when to do it and what to do moment by moment by moment, and we don't see it that way.
10:38 Jon
Yeah, but if we do see it that way, that is by definition, the complete loss of your free will.
10:46 Ted
Yeah, right. That would be an addiction. That's how that goes. But that's how profound that is. So, this is a huge concept and we're spending time on this particular podcast because if you think about it you tuned in and you thought you heard something about powerlifting for example or training or body composition is the basis for it. So, we talked a few weeks ago about a repetition that is what I call the fallacy of a repetition-based system and I would affirm in my 30 years of training and 25 years of coaching that the repetition isn't the movement in the physical plane of the barbells. That's not the repetition, what precipitates the physical movement, the thought, there's a thought that goes through your mind prior to actually moving anything when we see this all the time because the same way we talked about people losing the power of choice, around any number of pre-programmed pattern behaviors. I'm not going to do this anymore. I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to talk to the person yet I still do it. Whatever the thing is, it's the exact same thing that happens in training. When you get to those last couple reps. You can, in your mind, be totally dialed in, and then all of a sudden go completely blank. You lose the power of choice to stay grounded in the moment and sit in a fire and grind through it. That's where people panic. So, to me, this is the repetition. Learning how to manage these states and step out of what we would call biochemical addiction or stop feeding things into your body through a consumption that takes us off the mark is the very nature it's part and parcel of what we do at every step. If you can't transcend this, if you don't learn to have some kind of handle on this, nothing else in your life isn't coming to you easily. Period.
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