Let Go of the Past & Drop Emotional Baggage

Chris Albert 00:00:00 (link to this point)

This is Chris Albert, and I'm here to remind you of one thing. Someday, you're going to die. Now that's not some morbid statement or scary idea. It's solid fact. Your time here on this earth is limited.

We need to be reminded of this as much as possible for one simple reason, to live your best life while you can. This is the Warrior Soul podcast.

You know, there's a notion out there that life can either happen to you or for you. You. It can happen to you when you play the victim. Whenever anything bad happens you say, oh why did this happen to me? Or why can't I catch a break?

The whole world is against me. Or it could happen for you. And when something bad happens, well, you can learn from it. You can take a lesson from it. That's going to strengthen you, that's going to help you, and that's going to help keep you from making the same mistake down the line.

That's a big part of understanding how the victim mentality can absolutely kill your dreams and ruin your life. If life is always happening to you, you don't believe you have any control. But if it's happening for you, then you're in complete control. You understand that there's certain things that I shouldn't say you're in complete control, you're not in control of the world, but you're in control of yourself. And being in control of yourself and your thoughts, that's what matters.

You're not sitting there helpless, like somebody waiting to be rescued. You're taking action to fix things. That's what I want to talk about today in today's Warrior Notes. We're going to talk about how to change your mindset and get rid of baggage. This is a really important thing that I think that we need to deal with immediately if we're gonna take action in our lives, and move forward, and accomplish our dreams, our goals, and to live the life we want.

I just got back from the Clever Talks conference and I got to hear some amazing people speak. You know, my friend Ryan Michler from Order of Man, absolutely awesome speech on why the American dream is not dead. I got to hear Rudy Reyes, who was really inspiring talking about his childhood. I also got to hear from Evan Hafer, the CEO of Black Rifle Coffee. And he was absolutely inspiring, but also brutally realistic about what it took to build Black Rifle Coffee.

And if there was a common thread amongst all the speakers I saw there, it was that they all had to get beyond the victim mentality and understand what they could control, and how their views could shape their actions and their ability to move forward. Before we get into this conversation, I just want to give you couple of announcements. First off, my name is Chris Albert, and this is the Warrior Soul podcast. This is our weekly Friday Warrior Notes episode, and this is where I go in-depth about a specific subject relating to mindset that's going to help to move you forward. The purpose of this podcast is to deliver tools, tactics, ideas, and strategies to help you to live your best life.

The reason why I started this podcast is because over the past decade and a half of war, our veteran community faced ridiculously high rates of suicide, depression, and veteran homelessness, and other issues. What I want to accomplish with this podcast is to help all veterans, not just to keep from killing themselves, but to live their best lives. I want to show all veterans how to truly live. And if you're not a veteran, well, this podcast is still for you. The tools, the ideas, the strategies we go over here can help anybody out.

I focus on the veteran community because I'm a veteran myself. I served in the United States Marine Corps, and I am well aware of the issues we have in the community and the things we need to fix. In addition to that, I just want to mention that this podcast runs on your ability to spread the word about us. We don't put any money into advertising or anything like that. Frankly, I don't have the budget for it.

The way this podcast keeps going is by you spreading the word, sharing these episodes out with people who really can use this information and also writing us reviews. If you're on iTunes, please write us a review. Let us know how this podcast helps you out. It really helps to spread the word about the show. If you're on any other platform like Stitcher, Google Play, or any any of those other platforms, please also write us reviews there.

In addition to that, I just want to mention that this podcast is made possible by our sponsors at f bomb nutrition. They make awesome delicious packets of fats, And I'm a huge fan of their macadamia nut butters. Mix them up with chocolate, sea salt, with pecan butter, with coconut butter, and they're absolutely delicious and sugar free. They are also awesome people, and they've been sending boxes of this stuff overseas to the troops on the front lines to help them supplement their MREs. Really, really great people whom I love working with.

If you want to get 20% off of your f bombs, you can head over to www.dropanfbomb.com, and you can use the code Warrior Soul at checkout, and you'll get 20% off of that first order. So back to the subject at hand. How do you change your mindset from that of the world is happening to me to the world is happening for me? And I think it begins with dealing with a lot of the baggage you're carrying around. Right?

We we all have baggage that we're carrying around. Past failures, past obstacles, past things that people did that wronged us some way. You know, past tragedies, things that we dealt with in our lives. And the problem with all these memories, these ideas that we carry around is that we make up stories about them. You know, for example, when I got out of the Marine Corps, you know, my Marine Corps career was highly uneventful.

I did deploy. I did serve in Iraq, but I didn't do much while I was over there. And frankly, when I got back, was kind of fed up with the Marine Corps, and I thought the war was pretty much over. So I got out and I went to school. And while I was at school, well, things started blowing up again.

And I remember the day that I learned my unit was redeploying and they were they were heading out to Fallujah. And I remember the day that I learned that captain Brian Latundra had been killed by a suicide bomber. I remember the day that I heard that corporal Jordan Pearson was killed. And upon learning of their deaths, and upon hearing a lot of the other things my former unit was going through, I started making up a lot of stories in my own head. You know, stories that revolved around the idea that if I were there, if only I were there, I could have done something.

Right? And I really fell in the darkness. You know, I I at this point in my life, I wasn't really sure of what I was doing. I was in school, but I was drinking a whole lot. And I was going through some relationship issues, and my girlfriend at the time left me.

And I felt very much alone. And over the next decade, really, I was in this pit where I was alone. I was abusing alcohol. I was not a very good person. And I would make this story up that my life, my crappy, awful life was punishment.

And it was punishment in my mind because I was supposed to be there. I was supposed to die there. And because I didn't choose to go and choose to die, my life was the punishment for not living out my destiny. Now, I want to take you through a little bit of that, the problem with that line of thinking. You know, in in my mind, being punished meant that all of my problems were caused by external factors.

They were caused by, you know, God. They were caused by some inexplicable force that occurred and that exacted its wrath on me. Because in my mind, I didn't live out my destiny. And in doing so, I gave up complete control over my own decisions. I gave up complete control over my life.

And my life became a series of excuses. And those excuses became that what I thought was a rational decision making process as to why I needed to go to the bar every night, why I needed to get drunk every night, why I needed to numb myself to the misery I was going through. But the reality was that my life was awful because of my own decisions. Because of the fact that I chose to continue to drink. Because of the fact that I chose to cheat on my girlfriend at the time.

Because of the fact that I chose not to have a path in my life, but instead to hide out in school. Now hindsight is twenty twenty. Right? And I can't go back there and shake the younger version of me and slap some sense into myself. You know, and at the time, I don't think I would have ever been able to rationalize anything like this.

But, it's the baggage that stays with me that's the most damaging. You know, when I'm going into a new business, when I'm trying to to meet with somebody of importance, even when I'm trying to interview one of the amazing people that I have on this podcast every week, you know, one of the things I have to deal with is the idea that I somehow don't deserve to be here. That I don't deserve to be doing this podcast. That I don't deserve the life I have now. Even in my relationship with my current girlfriend, who is absolutely amazing and one of the best things that's ever happened to me in my life, I'm constantly trying to deal with the fact that I feel like I don't deserve her, and like I don't deserve happiness.

But the only way to start to overcome this is to own those past failures. I have to own the fact that I wasted a lot of years of my life. I have to own the fact that those were my decisions. I have to own the fact that my life took the turns that it took because of me. And if I don't own that fact, then all I'm gonna do is I'm gonna start self sabotaging myself.

I'm gonna say, you know what? This wasn't just just wasn't meant to be. I'm gonna hang it up right now. I'm gonna quit this podcast. I'm gonna quit this business.

I'm gonna go off on my own, be a mountain man. You know, I've had I've had that thought before. Right? And I'll give up my relationship. Right?

We all have those those thoughts every once in a while. But the reality is that I can control what I'm doing now. I'm in charge right now. And as long as I own my failures, and I understand that those failures were happening for me, to give me lessons as to how to live my life, to not go out and drink every night, to treat my body better, to treat my mind better, to continue learning, to understand that if I don't know something or if something's hard, I can put some effort in, learn how to do it, and eventually that thing is gonna become easier. Right?

And those were things that in order for me to do them, I had to know and understand how I failed in the past, and I had to use those lessons for myself in the future. So that first point, whenever anything bad happens to you, understand the lesson you can learn from it. Own the failure, understand the lesson you can learn from it, and change that pattern of behavior. The second thing is this, you know, and this goes along with the first, you have to admit to those fears that you have. Right?

And a lot of us, we try not to think about our fears. We try not to think about those things that give us anxiety. And when you do, you're really just covering up a lot of the limiting belief that you have. Right? If you're not admitting to what you're afraid of, if you're not admitting to your deepest and darkest fears, then you're just kind of living in ignorance of what, you know, the the subconscious part of your brain is constantly trying to tell you.

Right? And you really need to bring those to the surface. You know, one of my my greatest fears is dying alone and purposeless. You know, and that evolves from a lot of my past failings as a business person, and as a person in general. You know, there was a time where I was living off of $300 a month, and I felt like I had no friends in the world.

I felt like everybody I knew and loved turned their back on me, and I was living out of my car. And I carry that fear around with me. I carry that memory around with me. And the reality is that that fear limits a lot of what I do. Right?

I'm conscious of that. Because as a business person, as somebody who doesn't have a boss, doesn't have a paycheck, you know, everything I do is me dealing with the idea that it might fail. Right? For example, you know, even when I'm recording this podcast, I'm wondering, is anybody out there really listening to me? Is anybody out there really even being impacted by this?

And, you know, there's times when I am so fearful of even hitting the record button. I'll sit here prior to doing that for, you know, hours. Just just going over in my head what I wanna say, really really wanting to get it perfect. And, you know, that's that's an example of how fear can delay you, and also prevent you from doing what you want to do. And now obviously, I've overcome that fear.

Right? I've I've recorded I think well over a 150 episodes at this point. I've also recorded thousands of YouTube videos, and I've written hundreds of blogs and articles for different publications, and I sent those articles out to editors who criticize them, send me back, but I've gotten a lot of those articles published. Right? And and so what allows me to be able to do this despite the immense fear that I have relating to getting these things started?

And that is that I understand what I'm missing out on if I allow that fear to take hold. I understand that I am missing out on my desire to communicate the thoughts in my head out to the masses. I understand that I'm missing out on finding my purpose in the first place. Understand that if I don't overcome that fear, and I don't do this, I'm gonna be completely miserable. And so, you know, you have to understand that if you're allowing fear to rule your life, if you're allowing it to keep you from doing what you really want to do, you're committing yourself to a life of misery.

You're you're committing yourself to a life of unhappiness. So the third point or the the second point, not the third. The second point that I want you to really think about is what are you missing out on because of fear? And I want you to remember what fear really is. Fear is a story that you're telling yourself.

Right? It's a story that you're making up in your own head. Because it's a story, that doesn't necessarily make it true. Right? Doesn't necessarily make it true.

You know, I'm sitting here prior to recording, and I'm waiting to record because I think that everybody's just going to tear apart everything I've said. But having published a few episodes, like I said, all I've gotten back is positive feedback. Right? People generally love the podcast who listen to it. And, you know, I think that if I were to just listen to that voice in my head that said, you know, don't publish, don't do this, don't do that, then this would have never come to be.

So think about what you're missing out on in your life, because that voice in your head that tells you you can't do this, that if you do this, this bad thing will happen. And then try doing that thing. But do it in a way that's gonna minimize your loss in case something goes wrong. Right? So do it in a controlled manner.

Right? So if you're trying to start a business, and you've always wanted to start a business, but you know, you've got a job, you've got a career and you don't want to lose that job, well start it out as a side hustle. You know, set up a landing page, put it out there to the world, see what happens. If you're trying to lose weight and get fit, well, start it out by, you know, I've said this in the past, just go for walks, right? Go for a fifteen minute walk and then, you know, after you do that for a week, add, you know, 10 push ups to, to the walk, 10 push ups every five minutes through the walk, right?

That's a way of building that up. Right? Do something simple, maybe while you're at work, every hour get up and do a set of push ups or a set of squats. Right? That's a that's a way to start.

Right? With your diet, start by just removing one thing remove the sugar. Right? And try try maybe not even removing all sugar, maybe instead of drinking soda, you drink water throughout the day. Right?

But the point is that that you just gotta start. And when you start, when you do something, you realize that you had less to fear than you thought you did. Alright? And always keep that idea in your head. What am I missing out by not doing this?

What what is my life going to be like? What is my level of happiness going to be like if I don't do this? Now, is important because I really want you to think about the next point here. And that is that you have to submit to your own mortality. You have to submit to your own mortality.

You have to remember that you're gonna die. Right? And that's a fact for all of us. I'm not being morbid here. Right?

We all have limited time on this earth. And, one of the things the stoic philosopher Seneca said, you know, he chastised people for thinking that they're gonna live forever. Right? You're not gonna live forever. You got a limited amount of time on this earth.

A limited a time limited amount of time to do the things you want to do. And the question is, how do you want to spend that life? Do you want to spend it happy? Do you want to spend it living out your purpose? Or do you want to spend it, you know, being miserable and not, you know, doing what you want to do?

And the thing about that is this, you know, when we think about all of the things I mentioned earlier, our failures, our fears, in our minds these are really, really big things. They're they're huge things that, you know, they're like brick walls. They're like dragons. But the fact of the matter is because we're all going to die, know, a hundred years from now I'm going to be dead. Everybody listening to this podcast is probably going to be dead.

You know, if they don't invent some medical miracle or something like that. So what is the reason why we think that these fears and these failures we had are so big? You know, over time, we're gonna be nothing but specks of matter in the universe. And so our fears, our failures, all the things we worry about, Well, they're really nothing. They're really nothing in the grand scheme of things.

Our lives, you know, in the grand scheme of things are very short period of time, a miniscule period of time in the history of the universe. So why? Given the fact that we've been blessed to live, to breathe, to be consciousness in this time and place where human beings have had much better than they have ever had before. You know, chances are if you listen to this, you're not scrounging for food, and you're you're not, you know, running from from hordes of of, you know, people with axes and swords, and you're not, you know, you're probably not dealing with a lot of the issues that even a good portion of people who live on this earth right now are dealing with as far as poverty. You know, given the fact that you're blessed to be living in this time and in this place in the Western world, why wouldn't you try to make your life as happy as possible?

Why would you sweat the small stuff? Those little fears, those little things that that are constantly nagging you. Why would you allow that to even interrupt a minute or a second of this precious life, and keep you from doing what you really wanna do. So really think about that. Submit to your mortality.

Understand that death comes to us all, and fear is a liar. And just in doing that alone, you'll be able to really allow yourself, mentally allow yourself, to do things you never thought you could. The next thing is really important as well, and and this comes once you realize that life is precious and and that, you know, it's finite, is that you've got to forgive others who've wronged you. You know, hate is a thing that we carry around with us. And the problem with human beings is that we overweight our importance, to others.

Right? So if you hate somebody, you probably think that that person is constantly scheming against You probably think that that person is constantly thinking about you. You probably think that that person is is constantly trying to throw a wrench in your game. The reality is that they're probably not. They're probably living their lives.

They're probably doing whatever it is they're doing. And if if they're not, they're wasting a lot of time. So in order to get past that, you need to get that person that that idea that that person scheming against you, that idea that, you know, you need to constantly think about that person and what they're doing. You need to get that out of your head. Why?

Well, it's because you're simply wasting time. If you want to live a better life, you got to focus on your life. You can't be focusing on what other people are doing. You can't be focusing on whether or not somebody else is trying to sabotage you. And if they are, just get them out of your life.

But even if you do, forgive them. Forgive them for what they did, because that'll allow you to move forward. You're not forgiving them for them, you're forgiving them for you. You're forgiving them so that you can liberate your mind, liberate your thoughts, and allow yourself to focus on things that are gonna make your life better, rather than focusing on what they're doing. So that's extremely important.

Liberate your mind, and forgive those other people. My fifth point is this, you have to forgive the most important person of all. You have to forgive yourself. Now, this is probably the hardest thing for anybody to do. Right?

Because I just told you to go and own your failures. I told you to think about your fears. And one of the things that we do in our consciousness is we constantly try to denigrate ourselves and limit ourselves because, well, we think we're too weak. We think that we're not good enough. And, you know, if you think about your own relationships and and the people in your life who who you do love, if they make mistakes, you probably forgiven them.

You've probably given a lot of people a break at some point in your life. Right? You've probably given a lot of people a pass. Why can't you give yourself a pass? Right?

You you can't, you know, live without yourself. You gotta live with yourself for the rest of your life. And unless you forgive your past, unless you put that in the rearview mirror, unless you move forward and focus on the windshield in front of you and the road in front of you, then you're gonna be missing out on a whole lot. Right? And it's like I said, you got a limited time on this earth, and you've got to live with yourself for the rest of your life.

So make an effort to understand that you might have made mistakes in the past. You might have failed at something. You might allowed fear to grip you. That has no bearing on your future. You decide what your future is.

You decide how you're going to think about what comes into your path, about your obstacles, about what you're going to be doing. You have that ability. And if you take charge of that ability, and you own it, then you can really decide what type of person you want to become. That only starts by understanding that you're worth the effort. So you need to forgive yourself.

You need to know that you're worth the work that you have to put into yourself in order to get better. And then you need to build that trust with yourself, by taking those small actions. Developing the habits that you need to have in order to do them. And you need to build that trust with yourself by establishing those small successes that are gonna lead to those big successes. So that's what I got for this week, guys. I hope that you got a lot out of it. I'd love to hear your feedback. So please, whether you're getting in touch with me by by putting a review up on iTunes or heading over to the Warrior Soul Fitness Academy private Facebook group, you're welcome to anybody's welcome to join. Just head over there on Facebook.

Then, you know, let me know what you thought. Let me know how this helped you. Let me know how I can improve. How can I can make this better, and how I can better serve you? So thank you guys so much.

Now, go out there, take some action, and live your best life while you can.