Using the Body to Access the Mind

[00:00:00] Hello, my name's Brandon Stover and I'm the founder of Plato university and the host of this podcast.

[00:00:20] For our returning listeners. Thank you for coming back. And if you're new to the show, the way it works is I'm going to narrate one of the essays that I've written about on a topic on life.

[00:00:30] After giving one full length, read through, I'll start to dissect the essay, weaving in details about my life what's going on broader in society and other issues regarding the topic I wrote about.

[00:00:42] All of the essays, including this one can be found@brandonstover.com.

[00:00:46] You can also find all the show notes and the resources that I mentioned during this episode@brandonstover.com.

[00:00:53] And if you enjoy the show and wanna get the essays in your inbox, you can subscribe to the newsletter at Brandon Stover dot. Or follow the links inside the description.

[00:01:02] Let's dive into the essay.

[00:01:04] Beginning of Essay

[00:01:16] On the body. If you want access to the mind, go through the body. If you want to observe your decisions and actions creating change, start with exercising and giving nutrition to the body. If you want to build grit and resilience to pain or suffering, put the body under stress and heavy loads.

[00:01:35] If you want to build willpower and increase levels of dopamine, the neurochemical responsible for the pursuit of. Put the body through ice, cold water if you want stillness, peace and serenity. Focus on the breath of the body.

[00:01:49] If you want to express individuality, decorate the body. If you want energy and motivation, rest and repair the body with sleep. If you want to stop intrusive, obsessive thoughts, focus on the present and incoming senses of the body.

[00:02:04] If you want to feel love, hold another body close to yours. If you want to experience life, bring two bodies together in union.

[00:02:12] Any emotion you wish to feel can be accomplished by pulling the right combination of lovers in the body. The body is the only connection the mind has with reality with the outside world. Otherwise, it's just trapped in a box, trapped in a reality of its own making. Some may have you believe that the body is just a meat sack of flesh and bone to be decomposed and eaten by bugs one day.

[00:02:35] That is true, but I also believe the body is a vessel for your will, your action for physically bringing to reality what you dream in your. The body should be treated with respect in the same way you treat your home. For the body is a home to the mind and soul.

[00:02:50] Just as you are responsible for your own home, you are responsible for your body. Learn the ins and out of your body, how it works, how to repair it, and how to keep it in optimal conditions. Each body has a unique fingerprint and needs different things for its maintenance. Learn what's best for your body.

[00:03:08] Don't just listen to others, doctors, nutritionists, gurus, or charlatans that tell you what is right for your body. only you know your body best. Your body is not community property. If you don't take responsibility for it, someone else will and they will become your landlord.

[00:03:24] As long as we do not harm another, are we not allowed to do it with our body as we please? If our actions potentially harm another person's body, then that person must give us informed consent to do so with understanding of the consequences. No one has control of your body besides you, nor should they tell you what to do with your body forcing you to adhere.

[00:03:45] They should advise truthfully outlining the consequences of actions taken towards your body. However, the decision of what to do with your body is still yours in the event someone else controls your body. Don't confuse the body for the mind. A tyrant can imprison your body, shackled to remain under their control for your fear of harm to the body keeps you there. However, the tyrant cannot imprison the mind. Only you have the power to do that. So be wise in the thoughts you let enter your home.

[00:04:15] Essay Breakdown

[00:04:15] All right, so that is the essay on the body.

[00:04:18] I think in today's day and age, we spend so much time in our head That we don't ever tap into our body. We forget it's even there. We're running through all these thoughts and forget that our connection re with reality is through the body. We use our five senses to bring in information about what's going on in the world and then process that in our mind.

[00:04:37] One of the first steps that I ever took in learning self-development was actually through the body.

[00:04:43] Growing up, I didn't have that great of a diet. We were poor and We ate a lot of fast food, and so when I finally got into college, I started to look at the way I was eating and wanted to change that. I also started working out going to the gym and lifting weights. Largely, this was driven by wanting to look good for girls but it started to help me develop a connection with my body and understanding that if I wanted to change something about my.

[00:05:07] That I could take action towards that. And doing that with the body first is one of the great ways to do it, because every time you go to the gym or every time you change the way you eat, you're gonna see direct reflection of your actions on your body.

[00:05:22] And that's what inspired this essay was if you want to access the mind, if you want to understand that the thoughts that you're having, if you will, that into action, into real. that, you can make real change and the body is one of the best places to start with that.

[00:05:37] but the rest of the essay starts to dive into what else the connection with the body holds for us in our day to day life, and even the implications of how you should treat your body and how others should treat your.

[00:05:49] So let's start breaking this essay down from the very beginning. If you want access to the mind, go through the body. This is largely what I was just talking about. If you want to observe your decisions and actions creating change, start with exercising and giving nutrition to the body. There's a direct reflection between the actions that you take and what you put in your mouth and how you're moving your body and the way that it looks.

[00:06:12] It's an easy one to one

[00:06:13] if you want to build grit and resilience to pain or suffering. Put the body under stress and heavy loads.

[00:06:19] Here we're developing a pain tolerance, a suffering tolerance, if you will. By actively putting ourselves into stressful situations where we're gonna stress out the body, we could also do this in the sauna or do a cold punch. Other things that we're taking direct actions that is gonna give us some pain or suffering.

[00:06:37] And because we're taking that choice, we can build resilience. So when we go out in our day to day lives and stress is thrown at us and we didn't necessarily want it, we've already built our body to be ready.

[00:06:48] If you want to build willpower and increased levels of dopamine, the neurochemical responsible for the pursuit of goals, put the body under ice cold water.

[00:06:57] I'll put a link in the description to one of Andrew Huber man's episodes about doing cold showers and taking cold plunges. And there's been quite a bit of research done around this where levels of dopamine are highly increased and last for a very long. Often, several hours after you've done that cold punch throughout the day.

[00:07:14] Now dopamine is what's responsible for you pursuing goals. It's giving you that willpower to keep going in the pursuit of a goal. So a great way to increase willpower if you have a ton of things that you need to get done and also be happy about doing them, is to do something like a cold shower, putting your body through that type of stress.

[00:07:32] If you want stillness, peace and serenity, focus on the breath of the body. This is exactly what mindfulness and meditation is all about. Bringing your awareness back to the present moment and feeling what's going on inside of your body. The breath is something that's always there repeatedly happening.

[00:07:50] It's a feeling that you intuitively know. So if you're caught up in thoughts and all these different things going on in your mind, you can bring that attention back to your breath and find a sense of peace and stillness. Of course, this has been taught by many Eastern traditions for a very long time.

[00:08:05] If you want to express individuality, decorate the body. So here you can see that I have quite a bit of tattoos and they're usually symbols for me to remember different parts of my life and ways of thinking. They're kind of a roadmap of transformation.

[00:08:20] Others often get tattoos or dress in a certain way to express their identity, the way they see themselves in their mind, and expressing that to the world. So here you're decorating the body to give a little bit of hint of what's going on in the bind to others.

[00:08:34] If you want energy and motivation, rest and repair the body with sleep. I probably don't need to tell you this, but sleep is like one of the most important things that you can do for your body. It's going to give you all the energy and motivation that you need to tackle all the different things that you have going on throughout the day.

[00:08:50] If you want to stop intrusive, obsessive thoughts, focus on the present and the incoming senses of the body.

[00:08:56] I was mentioning this before, Sometimes we get too caught up in our mind. And we're running thought loops over and over again. But if we can stop and bring our awareness to our breath or the incoming data that's coming through our senses, our touch, our smell, our sight, our hearing, and so on,

[00:09:12] our brain has to stop thinking about whatever obsessive thoughts it's looping on, and begin taking in that data and processing.

[00:09:19] So again, using our body to access and control our mind.

[00:09:24] If you want to feel love, hold another body close to yours. So here we're using our body in touch with another person's body in order to release oxytocin and other feel good hormones, to bring a sense of closeness, of togetherness, and of love. If you want to experience life, bring two bodies together in union.

[00:09:43] What is the ultimate symbol of life? Then bringing another life into existence, and we do this through our bodies.

[00:09:49] Any emotion you wish to feel can be accomplished by pulling the right combination of levers in the body. The body is the only connection the mind has with reality with the outside world. Otherwise, it's just trapped in a box, trapped in a reality of its own making the. Look, the brain actually doesn't see any of this other stuff that's going on in the world that doesn't feel anything, doesn't smell or hear anything.

[00:10:12] We have to use our body in order to understand what's going on out here. In reality, that's the only touch we actually have with it. Then all our senses come in and we start to create forms, ideas of what's out there in reality, and sometimes we can trick ourselves if we're not fully understanding the data that's coming.

[00:10:31] So really your brain exists in a black box and doesn't know what's going on in the outside world without the body. And because of this, your brain is guessing all of the time. It makes up its own reality in your mind, and sometimes the reality that's made up in your mind isn't the exact reality that's happening in the real world.

[00:10:49] Let's continue. Some people may have you believe that the body is just a meat sec of flesh and bone to be decomposed and eaten by bugs one day. That is true. So this is a little throwback to meditations by Marco Sore, where he's using stoic philosophy to kind of disconnect himself from his body, seeing that his body isn't Im permanent in one day, it's gonna go away, so we shouldn't get too attached to it.

[00:11:13] I definitely agree with that idea, but let's continue with the essay. But I also believe the body is a vessel for your will, your action for physically bringing to reality what you dream in your mind. The body should be treated with respect in the same way you treat your home.

[00:11:27] For the body is a home to the mind and soul. So yes, the body is I permanent, and one day it'll go away. However, it's also the only tool that you have for your brain to actually bring into reality anything that it thinks up in there. I originally went to school for architecture, and in architecture we make up all these designs and cool buildings, and we do that from our mind, and then we try and make models Or drawings to bring what we had in our mind into reality. Now I had to use my body in order to make those drawings or those models, and then eventually if everybody likes, the design gets built into a real building one day. So the forms I created in my mind become a reality.

[00:12:07] So you can th kind of think about the body like a tool that brings your ideas and thoughts into reality.

[00:12:13] And for this reason, we should respect our body.

[00:12:17] Look, if you're trying to cut something with a saw blade, is it easier to use one that's rusty and dull, or one that's been taken care of that's shiny and sharp?

[00:12:25] The more you've taken care of your body, the more ready it is to bring your will into the world.

[00:12:30] Let's continue with the rest of the essay just as you are responsible for your own home. You are responsible for your body. Learn the ins and outs of your body, how it works, how to repair it, and how to keep it in optimal conditions. So here I'm starting to allude to that. Okay. The body is important.

[00:12:48] It's a tool we can use to bring our thoughts and ideas into the world. It's our responsibility to keeping that body in optimal conditions. We wanna make sure that that tool is sharp.

[00:12:58] And to do this, we have to understand how our body works and specifically our body, not just every body, but how our body works in particular. What diets are the correct diets for us? How should we be moving so that we stay healthy, mobile, and get strong? There's gonna be some things that apply to everyone, but there's gonna be a lot of nuance in the individuality of your own body, and you need to understand that for yourself.

[00:13:23] Let's continue. Each body has a unique fingerprint and needs different things for its maintenance. Learn what's best for your body. I just spoke about. Don't just listen to what others doctors, nutritionists, gurus, or charlatans tell you is right for your body. Only you know your body best. Now, look, every expert out there is going to tell you a certain way that you should be taking care of your body, and it would be smart of you to listen to those people.

[00:13:50] But as you take in that data about what they're telling you you should do with your. You also need to combine that with your understanding what you've learned about your own body and see if those two things fit. How many different diets are out there? How many different people are gonna tell you this Diet is the best.

[00:14:06] If you actually understand how your body works, you're gonna see which one of those diets is gonna work best for you, and you can follow that protocol.

[00:14:14] But if you were just listening to the experts, well then you're gonna have five different. Telling you five different diets and you may jump between each one of 'em cuz you're not sure which expert is right and do a lot of harm to your body. That's why I'm telling you, it's your job to understand what's best for your body.

[00:14:30] Then use the rest of these people as sort of like a board of directors or a board of advisors rather, where you carefully listen to their information, but ultimately you still hold the decision at the end of the.

[00:14:41] Now what I see happen a lot in society now is that people just outsource this thinking, their understanding of their own body to these experts. They say they're the doctor, they know what's best,

[00:14:52] and I don't think that's true. The doctors have a deep expertise, the. And they can help you to have a better understanding of your body, but they don't know what's best for you. Only you know what's best for you.

[00:15:04] You need to be the expert on your own body, not unhealth in general, but what's going to work best for you.

[00:15:11] Let's continue. Your body is not community property. If you don't take responsibility for it, someone else will and they will become your landlord. Look, if you start outsourcing your decisions to somebody else, then they're going to take that power and they're going to make decisions for you,

[00:15:26] and oftentimes they're going to do what's best for them or what they're incentivized to. So, for example, in the healthcare industry, if you outsource your thinking just to the doctors, well, the doctors need to see a ton of patients. So they're only gonna spend about eight minutes with you. And they're also incentivized to sell a bunch of different type of drugs or treatments in order to fix things.

[00:15:47] So they're gonna come in in their eight minutes and they're gonna start listening to you and hear, Oh, you have this problem here. Here's this drug. I need to see my next patient.

[00:15:55] And that's not always the best route for you.

[00:15:58] So if you are not taking responsibility for your body, somebody else will. And again, they'll become your landlord. Let's continue. As long as we do not harm another, are we not allowed to do with our body as we please? If our actions potentially harm another person's body, then that person must give, give us informed consent to do so with understanding of the consequences.

[00:16:19] So here I'm saying basically, as long as we're not hurting anybody else, can't we do with our body as we.

[00:16:26] Obviously there's laws and whatnot that we can't go kill another person or cause them harm and do violence. Okay? So let's not do that with our bodies.

[00:16:34] But this is getting to something deeper of do we have decisions over our own body?

[00:16:39] and then the last few years, this has come into question.

[00:16:42] Recently we've had decisions about abortions and whether women have the right to make a decision about their own body.

[00:16:48] and during the pandemic we had some people trying to make a decision whether they wanted to inject something into their body.

[00:16:55] My thought process is, is if we are to take responsibility for our body, then ultimately the decision will still lie with us.

[00:17:03] And then, so in those instances, We should still have the decision of what we're putting into our body,

[00:17:09] the type of treatments that we want to get undergo with our body.

[00:17:12] And if we're gonna use our body to bring life into the.

[00:17:15] Let's continue with the rest of the essay. No one has control of your body besides you, nor should they tell you what to do with your body forcing you to adhere. They should advise truthfully outlining the consequences of actions taken towards your body. Look, when we had the pandemic and we had vaccines coming out,

[00:17:33] I don't think it was right of people that tell others that you have to go take this vaccine rather, What I would've liked to seen

[00:17:40] is that. They outline the consequences for taking it and the consequences for not taking it truthfully, showing what's going to happen on both sides, and then ultimately leaving the decision in your hand what is going to be best for your body.

[00:17:54] This means doing a real. In depth analysis of what those consequences are, not just immediately, but long term down the road. Now, obviously this was hard during the pandemic.

[00:18:03] They didn't know what the consequences were gonna be long term,

[00:18:07] and so when divulging that information, they should truthfully state that.

[00:18:11] And they should not only outline the consequences for your body, but what's going to happen to other people's body as well. And then after you have all that information, then you are still allowed to make the decision of what to do with your own body. And that decision should be respected.

[00:18:26] Somebody should not be forced to do something with their body that they don't want to do.

[00:18:30] Let's continue with the rest of the essay. however, the decision of what to do with your body is still yours. In the event someone else controls your body, don't confuse the body for the mind. So here I reiterated the fact that you still have the ultimate decision of your body, but in some many instances, that's enslavement or somebody forcing you to do something that you don't want to do with your body, you can come back to this separation piece, realizing that your body is not your.

[00:18:57] Your body is only one piece of you. It's not the whole you. And so maybe your body is about to go through something that you don't want it to go through. You actually have the ability to separate yourself from your, your body and still keep that ego intact.

[00:19:11] Now, obviously long term this is gonna be psychologically harmful, but if you're going through something like enslavement, this may help keep you alive. Let's continue. A tyrant can imprison your body, shackled to remain under their control for your fear of harm to the body.

[00:19:26] Keeps you there. Like the real reason that the tyrant has control over you and your body is because you have a fear of dying. You don't want them to harm the body in any way because it's going to harm you. So they still continue to have control over you. If you weren't afraid of dying, well then you could tell the tyrant screw you try and leave and they might kill you.

[00:19:45] Yes, but still, you ultimately hold your freedom.

[00:19:48] But because we can do the separation between the mind and body understanding that they can be two separate things. they talk to one another. You can connect one another, but they're not the same thing. And so in this instance, this person can enslave your body, but they cannot enslave your mind.

[00:20:06] We'll finish the rest of the. However, the tyrant cannot imprison the mind. Only you have the power to do that. So be wise in the thoughts you let enter your home.

[00:20:17] Throughout this essay, we've shown that you can access the mind through the body, and ultimately the tyrant is not trying to just take control of your body. They're trying to take control of your mind. They want you to do things for them that is in their best interest.

[00:20:31] But if you realize that you can separate the body from the mind and you can still ultimately have control of the mind, then they cannot enslave you.

[00:20:39] It's only your belief that you are under the control of this person. That enslaves the mind,

[00:20:45] and this is why it's wise. To look at the different thoughts that are going through your mind. Sometimes you're enslaving yourself.

[00:20:52] So this essay is just a reminder. Treat your body with respect. Understand how it works, understand its connection with the mind, and watch how you use your body to connect with that mind.

[00:21:03] As always, thank you for taking the time to reflect on life, and we'll see you next time.

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