500: Two Steps to Transcend Negative Thoughts and Feelings

Hal Elrod: Hello and welcome to the Achieve Your Goals podcast. This is your host, Hal Elrod, and thank you for tuning in to today’s episode. I hope this is really valuable for you and I appreciate you lending your time. And because of that, I want it to be valuable, of course. And we’re going to simplify today into two steps to transcend your negative feelings. And this is actually a very, as many episodes are, it’s organic of like here’s something I’m going through that I got through recently that I want to share with you, and I hope it helps you as well. And I’m going to share with you right upfront what the two steps are. And then, of course, we’re going to unpack it over the next 30 or 40 minutes or so during the episode. The two steps are, number one, you’ve got to be completely honest with yourself about how you’re feeling and do that in writing. So, pull out a piece of paper now. You can start this process. Take notes if you can.

 

And not only what I’m saying but the first step is actually for you to be modeling what I did, which is just being honest, like brutally honest, ugly, not censoring yourself about what’s bothering you, what you hate about life, what you’re feeling anxious about, what your fears are, what your insecurities are. Like, get it all out of your head and on paper. That is the step number one that we’re going to unpack today. And step number two is asking the question, “How can I overcome the challenges that I just described?” Write whatever you write down. How can I overcome the challenges that I just described and help others do the same? So, those are the two steps that we’re going to go over today in depth and I’m going to share with you my process. I’m going to read to you what I wrote literally word for word when I did this exercise and how it helped me and how I hope it can help you.

 

Before we dive in, I want to take just a minute to thank our sponsor, Organifi, of course, making the highest quality organic whole foods supplements. If you make smoothies every day, you need protein powder, right? Vanilla or chocolate. Organifi has some of the highest quality organic superfood protein powder, and it tastes delicious. And here’s a little tip. I use half a scoop of the vanilla, which makes it last twice as long. So, don’t tell Organifi I told you that but I find that half a scoop of protein is not only in a protein but in terms of like the flavor profile, I actually like half a scoop better than a whole scoop. A whole scoop is actually a little too much for me. So, a little tip for you but that makes your Organifi protein lasts twice as long as it would using a full scoop and you still get all the nutrients, well, half the nutrients but enough for what you need. If you want to check out the Protein Powder or their Red Juice, their Green Juice, their Magnesium, you name it, Organifi has a wide variety of products, head over to Organifi.com/Hal and that is spelled O-R-G-A-N-I-F-I so no Y at the end, Organifi with two Is. Organifi.com/Hal and then use the discount code H-A-L, my name, Hal, at checkout for a 20% discount on your entire order.

 

All right. Without further ado, let’s dive in to two steps to transcend your negative feelings. Here we go.

 

[EPISODE]

 

Hal Elrod: Hey, goal achievers and members of the Miracle Morning community. Thank you for joining me today. Today, I am preparing to record the Miracle Morning Masterclass, and that is as a preorder bonus for the new book, The Miracle Morning, Updated and Expanded Edition, which I would love to announce is ready for you to preorder right now. In fact, it is. It kind of is. If you go to MiracleMorningBook.com, you can preorder the paperback but right now there’s all these weird issues with Amazon where if you’re on the paperback page but then you click on like the Kindle option, well, then all of a sudden the paperback version shows the old version and then you can’t get back to the new version, and then the audiobook is not uploaded. There’s all these issues. Anyway, I’m just holding my breath, wanting to make the official announcement. And actually, by the time you’re listening to this, it’ll be almost a week from today or about a week from today. It might all be fixed but if you want to preorder the book before everything is officially working correctly and you want to be like the first to get it, you can go to MiracleMorningBook.com, and that is redirected right now to the paperback version of the new Miracle Morning, Updated and Expanded Edition.

 

But just be warned, if you click on Kindle or you click on audiobook, it won’t get you back to paperback and vice versa, I think. But, yeah, so there you go. And we’re working on a bunch of preorder bonuses. I mentioned I’m about to record the Masterclass today with Brianna Greenspan. I didn’t mention that part but Brianna Greenspan, who is the Director of Education for the Miracle Morning Schools program and she’s one of my first coaching clients that was doing the Miracle Morning way back when. So, she’s going to record the masterclass with me. So, I’m preparing for all of that. Just giving you a little peek behind the curtain, if you will, and just so you know, when you see things like when everything’s announced and the preorder website and the bonuses, everything looks all perfect, just know that behind the scenes it’s a you know what show like it is not as perfect and easy and simple. I think that’s just a good lesson for us. When we see anybody and like whether it’s them as a person, like, “Wow. They’re beautiful. They look perfect.” We don’t see the behind-the-scenes and how like we’re all human and we’re all dealing with challenges and struggles and things aren’t going the way we want to, and we’re overwhelmed. And you know what I mean?

 

So, yeah, I just think it’s important to be present to that so I wanted to give you that peek behind the curtain and let you know that everything here on the Miracle Morning 2.0 mission, if you will, the Updated and Expanded Edition, it’s coming along but it is definitely, you know, what do they show you? Like, the path to success is not a straight line. It is a zig-zag. And I’m experiencing that right now for sure. So, I’m going to start today by, well, I already started today but I’m going to go. The next thing we’re going to talk about, I’m going to read a letter to you that I wrote interesting enough on September 11th. I don’t know if there’s any relevance in that date as to me writing myself this letter late at night but as I was falling asleep, I’ve been sharing with you all, I often have these downloads and I used to type them into my phone and I don’t like looking at my phone. I don’t want to look at blue light right before bed. So, I simply got a journal that has perforated pages so that I can write to myself in the journal and then I can tear the page out if I need to, and that’s what I usually do. If it’s really important, I don’t want it to get lost in the journal so I tear it out. I walk out into the living room or our front room where I do my miracle morning and I slide it into my laptop so that when I open the laptop or before, usually right when I get in there for my miracle morning, I pull this paper out and go, “Oh yeah, what was this letter that I wrote to myself last night as I was like, groggy and falling asleep?” And it’s usually pretty helpful, pretty profound. So, something for you to consider.

 

I debated whether or not to read this to you because it’s pretty vulnerable. It doesn’t paint me in a good light if you will but I was just really honest with myself that night and I was feeling just stressed that night. I had a stressful day. And I am so ridiculously positive all the time that I often bypass the negative and I don’t allow myself to really feel or even fully acknowledge the internal struggles that I’m dealing with. And I want to share this with you for a few reasons but one of them is as an example for you to like, start by being honest with yourself. And I think that’s often even in my work, even in the Miracle Morning book maybe, I tend to skip over like really getting into the ick, the feeling, the painful feelings, acknowledging them, allowing yourself to process them at least in the past. You know, I’ve gotten much better at this over the years but in the past, I just skipped. I’m like immediately go to, “Can’t change it. Move on. Move forward.” And I never really allowed myself to grieve or to process emotions. And my friend, actually team member, Stephanie, who is the customer, she’s the Miracle Morning Customer Experience Optimizer, I believe. Is that Customer Service Optimizer? Customer Experience Optimizer, I believe that’s her official title.

 

But I was talking with her about this yesterday and she recommended a book to me about how – I forget the title of it. I’m trying to find it in my Amazon cart so I could share it with you but it was… In fact, give me just a second. I’ll take one second and see if I can find it in my shopping cart. It is titled, here you go, Feelings Buried Alive Never Die. So, I have not bought it yet but I’m going to buy it. Feelings Buried Alive Never Die. There’s another book called The Body Keeps the Score that I read when I had cancer. And it’s basically the idea that suppressing your feelings, your emotions isn’t healthy for you. Like, when you bury your feelings, they don’t die. They’re stored in the body, they’re stored in the subconscious. And so, it’s really important that we take time and really on an as needed basis, which you can say a daily basis. In fact, that’s part of my journaling prompt, which I didn’t used to have but it used to be what are three things I’m grateful for and what are the three most important things I need to get done today in order of priority. What’s number one? Once I get that done, I can work on number two and then on number three.

 

And I find that those two prompts are really valuable in that focus on what you’re grateful for I feel like really impacts your quality of life and realizing that, “Hey, yeah, there’s a lot of problems and issues and challenges but I’ve actually had a lot of things in my life that I’m grateful for and that I really can hang my hat on, if you will, and feel good about.” And so, starting your day with gratitude is one of the optimal ways to start your day. And then that second question, I got ten things on my to-do list or maybe 20 or 30 but what’s the number one thing that I need to get done today that’ll make the biggest impact in my life, in my work? For example, when I ask myself that question this morning, it was prepare for the masterclass, prepare for the Miracle Morning Masterclass so that’s really excellent for people and I’ve been working on it for weeks. But as today’s the day of recording, I really wanted to go in and fine-tune it and refine it and study it and consider it and get feedback from Brianna on it and all of that. So, that was my number one thing to get done today. And then I’ve got a number two, which was record this podcast. And then number three, I don’t even think I got there. I think today it was like, “All right. These are the two most important…” Oh, the number three was go through the rest of my to-do list, like I got to the point of I got to focus on these two things, and then from there I move on.

 

But anyway, the point being, those two questions, when you’re scribing what are you grateful for and what are the top three things in order of priority you need to get done today are really helpful in, first, setting your mindset and, two, optimizing your productivity for the day. The third question that I ask now and that is the front-end question is, is there anything or is there any inner turmoil that I need to acknowledge, feel, and let go of? Is there any inner turmoil that I’m experiencing that I need to acknowledge? Name it, feel it, and allow it to pass through you. Allow it to be at peace with it, accept it. Allow it to move through you. And that question has been really helpful and really important. And you’ll notice, like I said, it’s the first question, even though I shared it in order of the third because I used to only ask the first two, the first question I asked now is that third question, which is confusing. The first question I asked is the third question. You’re following me, I hope. But that question is what do I need to let go of? What inner turmoil do I need to acknowledge, be at peace with, accept, and let go of? And the other night, I being that I’m so positive and this and that, and I often I think I skipped that first question a lot. I just go straight to what am I grateful for, what do I need to be productive about, or what’s the most important things I need to do to be productive?

 

And the other night I was just going to bed and I was like, “You know what? I think I have a lot on my subconscious that I’m not naming, that I’m not acknowledging, that I’m not bringing to the conscious mind, and therefore it’s weighing on my subconscious and like I feel it.” You were like, you just feel. When you’re laying down to bed at night and you’ve got maybe nothing on your conscious mind, there’s this like I don’t even know it. It’s like this weight or this like grrk. It’s just something that’s like grinding in like, I don’t know, is like the base of my brain, the back of my neck. That’s where I would place it if I had to find a place for it. So, the other night, I was like, okay, I’m going to be completely honest with myself. I’m just going to be like, “I’m going to name the ugly. I’m going to name the darkness. I’m going to acknowledge all of it. I’m going to feel it. I’m going to bring it to the surface.” And so, I’m inviting you to do that. I’m going to read you this note and I’m inviting you to do the same, which is to really acknowledge, process, and do it in writing. There’s something powerful about doing it in writing because it gets it out of your not only from your subconscious to your conscious mind but you go one step further and now you actually put it in writing and now have a record of it.

 

And now it’s like you don’t have to think about it because it’s there. I’m holding this piece of paper in my hand, and I know that if I want to focus on all of these stressful things, it’s on that paper and I can read it. And when I read it, there’s something powerful about the disconnect it creates in an empowering way where it’s like, I’m not these things. Everything on this paper, this isn’t who I am but when it’s stuck in your subconscious, it feels like it’s who you are, like it’s a part of you. And once you get it out of your head and onto paper, now there’s a bit of a healthy separation and you can, I use the word disconnect earlier, so disconnect or separation. Separation is probably a better word because you’re not only disconnected from it, it’s a part of you but you’re separated from it. It’s not who you are. And so, alright, I’m keeping you on the edge of your seat long enough for this letter. All right, here we go. This is what I wrote word for word. I’m not going to edit it for you all, even though I’m tempted to. I’m tempted to be like, “I shouldn’t say that. I probably shouldn’t share that. I’m embarrassed. I shouldn’t.” All right, So I’m just going to read it to you word for word.

 

“I’m going to be completely honest with myself and God right now, I don’t think I’m the same person I used to be. And I feel very sad and angry about that. I feel very sad and angry with whom I have become since chemotherapy. I feel like it changed me significantly. I used to be such a confident, positive, stress-free, optimistic, carefree, and genuinely happy person. Now, I’m often anxious, stressed out, insecure, overwhelmed, depressed, generally unhappy, and I live in constant fear of worst-case scenarios financially, the future of humanity, etcetera. I hate what chemo did to my brain and to my mental and emotional state.” Now, y’all, I’m going to pause there. There’s more but I’m going to pause there. What happened? So, I intended to get that out of my subconscious and just put it on paper and name it and acknowledge it and feel it and express it and allow it to pass through me. But what often happens when you do that especially if you have somewhat of an intention to extract value from what it is that you’re putting out there, what you’re writing down on, is what followed that was a transmutation of those negative, if you call them negative, but those negative statements about myself and how I feel about myself. And here’s what I wrote.

 

“But wait. Could it be that all of this is part of God’s plan for me? Could it be that my above-described mental health issues were given to me by God so that I could relate to what so many people are going through as my next opportunity to learn, grow, and evolve to lead by example and empower others to do the same?” So, I’m going to pause again. I’ve got a little more of the letter but I’m going to pause again. So, you’ve heard me say this before, and I’m sure many of you have this mindset that like when we’re going through adversity, it’s an opportunity for us to learn, grow, and become a better version of ourselves and/or so that we can help other people do the same. And see, that’s the thing. The person I described in this letter, right, that I used to be, what did I say? “I used to be such a confident, positive, stress-free, optimistic, carefree, and genuinely happy person.” I really used to be that. I used to Brianna Greenspan, my good friend, who I’m recording the masterclass with today, Brianna, I think it was her. Maybe I’m making this up.

 

Maybe I said this to myself, I don’t know, but I think it was her that she’s told me many times something along the lines of, “Hal, what separates you from like Tony Robbins and Brendon Burchard and all these other influencers or authors or people in similar colleagues of mine,” she said, “They kind of have it all. They seem like they have it all figured out. They’ve got it all figured out. And they’re coming across as like I’m…” And again, this isn’t word for word. I’m just going off my recollection of what she shared with me but like, “They’re coming off as like they’ve got to figure it out. They’re perfect and they’re going to tell you how to do it.” And she said, “What’s different about you is that you’re still going through it.” In fact, it’s like I used to have it all figured out. And then God put me through this cancer and this chemo and this post-traumatic stress disorder from the chemo and then this chronic sleep deprivation. Like, I’ve just been put through the frickin wringer. And it goes back to 20 years ago or no, 20 years ago? How old am I? 44. So, 24 years ago when I had my car accident. It was kind of the same thing, right? Like, I was a really happy, positive, successful young person, and then life just hit me and it’s like I keep getting slammed.

 

And I don’t mean to be narcissistic here and making this about me for a second but stick with me. But I have been slammed with these things but it’s almost like so that I can endure difficult experiences for the purpose of being able to relate and empathize with what other people are going through. And maybe you’re not going through the exact same thing. Maybe it’s not a car accident or cancer but the fallout, the mental and emotional and physical and logistical fallout from any tragedy or any adversity, those are the things that we as human beings share in common. And so, if you can take some solace in what you’re going through right now is an opportunity for you to not only learn and grow and become a better version of yourself for you but to do so for other people, right, to do so for the people you love and the people that you lead. And if you look at it that way, then that’s very empowering, at least from my perspective and hopefully from yours that you have a responsibility to figure it out. And I’m going to talk in a second about kind of what my conclusion was in this letter but that we have a responsibility to not be victims and not give up because even if not for ourselves, for the people in our life, who count on us or who could count on us if we decided to show up for them.

 

And whether that’s just your family, which to me that’s like number one, is your circle of influence. You’re the people that you love that you’re close to. But then it’s your friends and it’s your community and it’s your colleagues or your employees or your clients or your team or whoever. Like, I believe we have, and I’m inviting you to consider that we all have your responsibility to show up at our best for other people. And as human beings, you’ve also probably heard me say that we’re all part of the human family and as part of my extended family, I love you, I appreciate you, and I want to serve you. I want to help you in any way that I can. So, let me get back to this letter. So, I ended up by saying, “Could it be that my above-described mental health issues and physical issues were given to me by God so that I could relate to what many people are going through and as my next opportunity to learn, grow and evolve, to lead by example and empower others to do the same?” That’s where I left off.

 

And then I finish the letter with this: “So, how can I overcome the challenges described on the previous page and how can I help others do the same?” So, that was the question. It starts with, “I used to be this, I used to be… And as we get older, life hits us with different challenges that we weren’t facing when we were younger.” And often when you’re young, maybe there’s no regrets in your life because you haven’t made any mistakes. And as you get older, life changes, right? When your young life exists as pure possibility. It’s way easier to be optimistic sometimes when you haven’t, you know. And some people started out with a really difficult life, right? If you’re listening to this and you had childhood trauma, then maybe you never had the benefit of being unjaded and life was just existing as pure possibility. It might be that you started very young as a child with negative experiences that created a negative outlook on life. So, that’s possible as well. But I think that in general, when you’re younger, the future exists as pure possibility, right? Anything’s possible. Who knows? Right? Even if you had a tough life, a tough childhood, it’s like, “Well, I can change things. The future can get better.” But as you get older, you can’t undo the past, right? You have more history. You’ve made more mistakes. You might have more regrets, although regret is really a perspective. But I will say that as I’ve gotten older, I used to live my life with no regrets.

 

And if I’m honest with myself, which I’m not always honest with myself, that’s part of this letter, right? It’s like I need to be honest with myself. I need to really express that I do experience these things that I don’t like about myself, and I don’t like how I’ve changed in some ways since I had chemotherapy, right? But being honest with yourself. Where was I going with that? I lost my train of thought. All right. So, starting out with who I was in the past, who you were in the past, how you are now, and maybe things that you don’t like right now about your life or about yourself like be honest with those. Put those on paper. I’m telling you, this is such an important helpful healing exercise to get the negative energy that you are storing, you’re harboring inside of you, in your brain, in your heart, in your body. It is in your body because you feel it. You feel stressed. You get headaches. You have tension in your shoulders, right? You’re harboring that negative energy in the form of thoughts, emotions, and physical sensations. So, to help you and stop harboring and storing and fostering that negative energy within you, put it on paper. Write it down. Write down everything. And just don’t be afraid to be ugly. Now, that’s where I struggle is I don’t like putting things. The way my brain works is I immediately reframe things.

 

So, when anything “negative” happens, you name it, anything, my brain immediately trying to transmit it into the positive. And in in many ways, that’s a superpower and I’m grateful that that’s there but I feel like, again, you’ve got to also get that negative energy out of you and put it on paper and then you can hold it in your hands, like I’m holding this piece of paper right now. And you go, “Okay. Huh. That’s what’s been inside of me. Now, I can see it. Now, I can deal with it. I don’t have to ruminate over it. I can literally look at it.” And you can do what I did, which is you can keep that letter going. I went from saying I hate what chemo did to my brain, into my mental and emotional state and I said, “But wait, could it be that this is all part of God’s plan?” And it went on. So, the last part of the last page, “How can I overcome the challenges described on the previous page and help others do the same?” And I encourage you, once you do this process, once you write down all of the negative things that are swimming around in your head or in your subconscious, be honest with yourself, be ugly. Just don’t try to filter it. Don’t try to censor yourself. And I’m projecting right now because I do that all the time. I censor myself.

 

But after you write down all the ugly and you write down all the things that you – I don’t like using the word hate but in that letter, I was like, “I hate what chemo did to me. I hate it. It makes me angry. It makes me upset. It makes me sad that I feel like I’m not the person I used to be. And I’ve lost a lot of my creativity and some of the things, the gifts that I felt like I was blessed with. I’m trying to get it back but it’s not always easy.” But after you’re honest with yourself, then ask this question, “So, how can I overcome the challenges that I just described and help others do the same?” That’s the question. That’s a crucial question that I want you to ask and I want you to answer. And I’m going to share my answers with you here in just a minute. But I want to make sure you write that question down word for word. And if you didn’t write down like step one, write down every negative energy that’s inside of you right now, your thoughts, your feelings, your emotions. Same thing. Physical sensations, write it all down, things that bother you. And then ask that question, “So, how can I overcome the challenges that I just described and help others do the same?” And here’s what I wrote down. And these answers might not surprise you but I want to be really clear. I did not write this letter with the intention of sharing it with you, although I’m realizing that I end up sharing a lot of these with you now, which I think I’m going to do maybe even more so. But there is no filter where I’m going, “Okay. I’m going to write this to share it.”

 

Like, when I do this, it’s a very flow state process, part of it is because it’s late at night and my brain is like I’m half asleep, half awake, usually in the midst of prayer as this comes to me. So, I did not plan these answers. Number one, so the answer to how can I overcome the challenges that I described and help others do the same, number one, use the Miracle Morning and the SAVERS to reprogram my subconscious mind and condition my optimal, mental, and emotional states, combine affirmations with emotional optimization meditation. And I think next week I’m going to talk more about some of those specific pieces because the new edition of The Miracle Morning, I wrote, I added a lot of content, 70 new pages, and I added a lot of content to the Miracle Morning or I’m sorry to the SAVERS section specifically. In fact, I counted it was literally this morning. I’m like, “How much did I add page-wise?” And I looked at the original Miracle Morning SAVERS. The SAVERS section in the original book is 20 pages long, and it is now 65. Wait. Sorry. It was 40 pages long in the original book and it’s now 65 pages long, so it’s 25 new pages of content just in the SAVERS section. And I went really in-depth on the affirmations piece and step-by-step examples and guidance on creating your affirmations for every area of your life. And then I also added emotional optimization meditation.

 

So, that was the first answer, right? It’s like I already got the tool. It’s the Miracle Morning and the SAVERS. I don’t need something new. I don’t need to go look for something new. It’s simply really getting on point with using my SAVERS with a very clear intention to reprogram my subconscious mind and condition my optimal, mental, and emotional states. And of course, you can model that and do the same. And then number two, the second answer to how can I overcome the challenges that I described and help others do the same is I wrote down, “Live The Miracle Equation and maintain unwavering faith in myself and in God and surrender to life the way Michael Singer has and continue putting forth extraordinary effort to serve as many people as I can.” That’s it. That was my letter. That was my note. And more was kind of coming to me but I thought, I don’t know, I wanted to leave it at that for me. I was going to go, “What’s number three?” And I went, “You know what? I’m going to go to bed.” I think it was because I was tired. I started to notice as my handwriting gets worse and I’m like, “I’m exhausted. I need to go to sleep,” because for whatever reason, these always come to me as I lay down to bed and I’m like laying there praying or meditating or in gratitude. And then my mind starts like not racing but like this come and like, “Oh my God, an important idea is coming and I’ve got to write it down.”

 

But that was it. It’s like, wow, the two tools that I feel like God’s given to me to share with the world the Miracle Morning and the Miracle Equation, right? Those are the two big ones or two of my primary books and the philosophies I’ve lived my life by for the last couple of decades. That’s it. Those were the answers. I don’t need something new. What is that? I love Jon Vroman. I imagine he’s not the first person that said this but he said this a few months back on a call we were on, and it really landed for me. He said and I think he heard it from someone else but he said, “More often than not, it’s not that you need to learn something new. It’s that you need to remember something true.” God, that is so good. I wrote it down, right? More often than not, it’s not that you need to learn something new. You need to remember something true. And I talk about this in the Miracle Morning. I don’t know if it’s in the original edition but in the new edition, I say that we are conditioned by society to value what’s new. Literally, like marketers from every from, you know, “Oh, you have the new iPhone. Oh, there’s a new iPhone? I have the new iPhone.” There’s a new version of this software. You got to update to the new version. You get the new, “Oh, this is the new season on Netflix. I can’t wait for the new season. I can’t wait for the new product, the new T-shirt, the new like, whatever.”

 

We’re conditioned as a society to value what’s new and dismiss whether it’s true or dismiss what’s older, what’s proven, dismiss any previous edition, right? It’s all about the new. And it’s very often, well, I believe I agree with Jon Vroman that it’s about remembering something true. How much time do we have left? You know what? I’ll save this for maybe for next week. I was going to talk about something else I wrote the other day. In fact, where did I write that? Shoot. Hold on. I wrote this somewhere. I don’t know where it is. It was just about replacing fear with faith. Oh, was it in my notes? I have so many notes. I got physical notes, all sorts of notes. I’ll talk about that later but that’s a concept I taught in the Miracle Equation, replacing fear with faith. And I guess I’ll leave you with something there and that is I realized that we create the narrative in our head. Think about that for a second. We create the narrative in our head. And you can either live from a place of fear or you can live from a place of faith, right? Literally, it’s up to you. You can live from fear or you can live from faith. And here’s the thing, you don’t know. Oh. All right. Here. I found the note. I’ll read you the note. This is the note that I wrote for you, actually.

 

“You can’t control a lot of things in life, including your past, other people, accidents, natural disasters, the economy, when you die, etcetera, but you can decide how you are going to experience each moment of your life.” I know that’s new. You’ve heard me say that over and over and over. That’s kind of the essence of the miracle life. “But you can either live in fear of worst-case scenarios or you can live with the faith that life’s going to work out the way it’s supposed to and that you’re capable of handling anything that comes your way.” I’m going to say that again because that is the crux of what I want you to take away from this last part. And then I’ll do a quick review of what we talked about because this is kind of a slight off topic but they’re related. So, I wrote this down. Again, you can either live in fear of worst-case scenarios. Let me ask you, let me pause and ask you, do you do that? Do you often find out that you’re living in fear of the state of the world of what could happen financially, of the economy, of politics, of your kids, and like what might things going wrong in their life? And I’ve dealt with that. My daughter’s at a new school and got bullied a little bit. I’ve just been living in fear of, “Oh, what if she doesn’t find her people?” She’s doing better now but it’s been really hard as a dad, right?

 

I realize I’m living in fear and so I want you to consider, do you find yourself living in fear of worst-case scenarios in various aspects of your life or life as a whole? So, you can either do that. You can either continue doing that, I should say we can continue doing that, or you can live with the faith that life is going to work out the way it’s supposed to, however that is, and that you’re capable, the faith that you’re capable of handling anything that comes your way. You may heard me talk, I don’t even know. Probably six months ago, I did an episode on what our fears are actually caused by. And they’re not actually caused by the things that we think we’re afraid of. Like, the object of our fear is really not the ultimate cause of our fear. The ultimate cause of our fear is our perceived inability to handle what it is that may or may not come our way. Because if you believe you can handle it, if you affirm that you can handle whatever comes your way, then you’re fearless. That’s literally what being fearless is like, yeah, things are going to happen that I don’t want to happen that are painful, that are difficult, but I can handle anything and I’m going to handle it and I’m going to get through it. I’m going to make the other side and I’ll probably be a better version of myself on the other side.

 

That’s a very different way, right? It doesn’t mean that they don’t feel some fear over the things that might happen but faith trumps fear if you allow it to, if you choose for it to. Faith trumps fear but only if you choose that to be your reality. So, the first approach, living in fear causes you to live a stressful, anxious, and relatively unhappy life. Living in fear robs you of your inner peace and it robs you of your joy. But living with faith enables you to be at peace and genuinely happy, regardless of what life throws at you. So, consider that. Just a parting thought for you is if you’ve been experiencing fear in your life, which part of being human we all have, consider choosing faith over fear. Doesn’t mean the fear completely disappears. It doesn’t mean it’s gone but consider choosing faith over fear.

 

All right. So, I want to just recap for you with some action steps if you don’t already have these written down in terms of action steps. Number one, write down everything that all the negativity inside of you, all of your fears, all of the things that cause you stress, all of the insecurities, or just be honest, be ugly. Don’t censor yourself. Just be honest about what you’ve been feeling that maybe you’ve been suppressing or you’ve been hiding because you want to put on a happy face or your identity like mine is I am a positive person that can handle anything so I don’t have to succumb to my fears and insecurities and anxiety and depression. Great. Succumb to them for a minute or five or ten. Like, feel them. Write them down, though. Get them out of your head and get them on paper and it will help you transcend the inner turmoil and make it outer turmoil. Now, it’s outside of you. So, do that first, number one.

 

Number two, ask yourself, how can I overcome the challenges that you’ve just described and help others do the same? How can you overcome it? And maybe your answers, maybe they’re different than mine. Maybe they’re similar. Maybe it’s like, you know what? Actually, yeah, the Miracle Morning when I’m doing my Miracle Morning and I’m consistent and I’m on point with it and I’m intentional and I’m focused, it does help me handle all of the challenges I described above, right? Maybe it is your Miracle Morning or maybe it is the Miracle Equation, living with unwavering faith, surrendering to life and to God’s plan, and putting forth extraordinary effort. Maybe those are tools that you’ve used in the past and they did work for you and maybe you want to get back to them the way that I’m realizing I’ve never gotten away from them but in some ways I have. In some ways I have, especially the Miracle Equation like it was just a few weeks ago, a month ago, that I realized, “Oh man, I am not totally present and intentional about living my life in alignment with the two decisions of the Miracle Equation, unwavering faith, and extraordinary effort.” Like, I’m haphazardly probably living those a little bit but I am not focused on them intentionally. I’m not reading my Miracle Equation affirmations anymore. They’re in my computer and I haven’t even pulled them out in a while. So, I did and it’s made a huge difference for me. So, how can you overcome the challenges that you describe in step one, and how you can help others do the same? And you’ll notice the second part of my answer was continue putting forth extraordinary effort to serve as many people as I can. So, that was my answer to how to help others do the same.

 

And then the third piece is this kind of added step I added, which is really make a conscious decision to trade in your fear for faith, to allow faith to be your driving force, your primary focus. And not that the fear goes away but faith can trump fear. Faith can become the more you focus on faith in yourself and faith in what you’re surrendering to, and faith in your ability to handle whatever comes your way, the more fear fades and it’s minimized. Whatever you focus on expands. And if you focus on faith, then faith expands and fear is minimized. So, I encourage you to do that as well.

 

[CLOSING]

 

Hal Elrod: All right. Goal achievers, I hope today’s been valuable for you and helpful and I don’t even know what I’m going to call today’s episode. Maybe how to create a better reality, right? This is really how to create a better reality. You let go of the things that are causing you a crummy reality that are clouding your judgment, that are clouding your mental and emotional health. You write those down, you let go of them, and then you ask how you can overcome them, and then you answer that question and then you implement it and then you replace fear with faith. I think that creates a better reality for all of us. All right. Goal achievers, I love you so much and I will talk to you next week and stay tuned. Again, remember, if you want to preorder Miracle Morning, if you go to MiracleMorningBook.com, you can preorder the paperback but if you start poking around on Amazon, you might get lost unless we’ve got it fixed by the time this episode goes live. And it’s not up to us. We’re waiting on Amazon, we’re emailing them every day, so fingers crossed that that works out. All right. You’re awesome. I love you so much. I’ll talk to you soon.